Show aa ir gUn ton D C WILLKIE AND seldom in political history has a president of the united states received such wholesome support on major foreign policy from a defeated candidate as franklin roosevelt has received from wendell willkie few people know how active willkie has been behind the scenes for instance willkie has e even en done some missionary work on joe martin chairman of the republican national committee and opposition leader of the house willkie remains on very friendly terms with his old campaign manager even though they differed on foreign policy shortly after the congressional vote to repeal the neutrality a act ct i in n which the republicans nearly defeated roosevelt willkie phoned joe martin joe he said those republicans who voted against repeal ot of neutrality are going to have a tough time being reelected elected re going to find the country is behind roosevelt on this the republican national chairman replied that he would not only reelect re elect all the republicans wh who voted against roosevelt but h he would also elect a lot of new republicans to fill the seats of odthe the democrats cra ts who had voted biti with roosevelt listen said Wi willkie lIkie if you reelect 80 per pek cent of those who voted against the president be the greatest political genius of all time and said willkie Will kle in telling the story to a friend afterward a few days later there was joe himself voting with roosevelt for a declaration of war buy defense bonds SHIP BUILDING PRO PROGRAM GRAdI the action of the house naval affairs committee in slashing the proposed expansion of our two ocean navy was due chiefly to shortages of materials and construction equipment however rear admiral samuel robinson chief of the bureau of 0 ships ran into a blunt barrage of questions about the worth of the battleship under modern combat conditions committee members sharply suggested that in view of the battleships record in this war the navy might be wise to build no more robinson contended that this would be impractical since the united states needed battleships if our enemies continue to use them for combat purposes what is your honest private opinion on of the battleship he was asked do you think this type of ship is worth all the money it costs and the time and labor required to build them im sorry gentlemen but its not my function to answer that question sidestepped robinson with a smile im not a policy man my job is to build ships after it is decided they are needed however I 1 have my own ideas about the battleship tle ship this drew laughter and the admiral was pressed no further robinson also was quizzed closely about the high cost of certain vessels which the navy proposed in the expansion program I 1 chiefly an aircraft carrier at an estimated higher labor and material costs are the biggest factors robinson explained for instance we have a new type of armor plate for our ships which is far stronger than that used by any other nation it costs 60 a ton three times as much as the armor plate we formerly used how about the labor supply we have plenty of labor to carry out our shipbuilding program robinson hison said said also plenty of facilities getting materials and machine tools is our big problem right now however the shortage it amount to a bottleneck in fact production is running a little ahead of schedule and will be greatly expedited by next spring buy defense bonds CAPITAL CHAFF tile the outbreak of the war obscured the incident but the house ate crow in a big way on its action last summer barring david lasser former head of the workers alliance from government employment after a careful investigation the appropriations committee completely exonerated lasser of any communist affiliations representatives john taher taber N Y J W ditter pa and everett dirksen ill who made the original accusation ducked the committee session when lasser was cleared puerto ricans wryly recall that U S navys radio towers at cayey 25 miles from san juan were dismantled three years ago and sold as scrap iron to the japanese office of civilian defense is preparing a handbook on what you can do for civilian defense author of the handbook is eleanor pierson wife of export import bank president warren lee pierson alias able minister richard G casey drives about washington in a british car with a transparent top and right hand drive apparently not having enough to do with the war representatives ot of the pure food and drug administration now ask drug firms the question how much business did you do last year |