Show MAI a washington D 0 P F D R VIEWS AID TO YO YOUTH during the week before his caribbean cruise the president held a series of private conferences vhf which ch were of prime importance to in connection 0 with his plans for the new c congress on gress in them he disclosed that he Is doing a lot of thinking a bout about domestic problems along two lines 1 youth 2 old age pensions democracy can resist subversive ve ideologies the president held only by convincing youth that it does have a stake and a future in the existing system the president indicated that he be had bad no particular program in mind in tact fact he asked aske d for suggestions arid and ideas on old age pensions roosevelt disclosed that he has made up his mind as to what he wants his idea to is to change the existing system of widely divergent state contributions to one of uniform federal pensions fen beginning at a lower age than the present 65 roosevelt also voiced sharp cipiti c of the moguls of 0 the social security board who have so vigorously ous ly opposed liberalization of the law he declared that they have been a big obstruction to reform and that the time had come to overrule them it was significant that the president had not discussed his plans with them and was proceeding independently note since january 1 when the mended amended low law became operative applications tor for old age pensions haye have been approved by the social security board for a total outlay of a month with the paid out in lump sum claims to survivors the total old 89 age e pension outlay so far is around 28 the average pension Is 22 a month in his conferences roosevelt talked of placing oldsters on federal pensions within a year NO MASS production one of the big complaints of defense chiefs is lack of machine tool facilities yet there are many small plants of this type around the country that have been literally begging for orders and not getting them one company with lathes has been advertising for or business in trade journals for months also there is strong evidence of a lack of vision or initiative or both in making the best use of mass mas pro production facilities the blame for this goes right back to high defense quarters thi the gigantic resources of the auto industry for or example have been practically untouched for or defense output new nev plants have been ordered that will take months to build ahen by a co ordination coordination of 0 the gr great eat ento 11 to factories parts of planes tanks guns etc could be turned 01 out t in carload lots daily and assem wed lied at central points william reuther young official of the united auto workers long ago proposed such a plan for a daily 0 output ut of all metal pursuit planes of the most pow powerful erful type in the world and at one third their present cost but the matter Is still being discussed other industries could be used in the same way vay for or similar shortcuts on other armament needs but they are not meanwhile defense output drags along and krecl precious ou S w weeks and months flit by BRITISH DAMAGE confidential military estimates of N nazi az I 1 bombing damage to great britain are that british industrial pr production has fallen off about 30 per cent while this is a very serious crimp in the output of british planes antiaircraft guns and shells it Is not as bad as the pictures of shattered brist bristol 1 coventry and southampton wa would uld indicate reason damage to british indus bilal production has not been greater is 1 that the british more than a year ago began scattering their plants in small units throughout scotland atland and northern engla england d which are hard to locate and hard to hit after they are located 2 that those big plants which do remain are protected with a virtual forest of antiaircraft anti aircraft guns far more serious Is the dam damage a ge to british navy yards these cannot be broken up into small units unite and they have been so heavily dam ag aged ed that the reps repair ir of british shi shipping P Is very ma materially serially teri ally retard retarded ed in many cases british I 1 warships warship have been repaired at sea this plus the tremendous increase in the sinking of merchant vessels is what makes the british shipping hipping plight so desperate at pr present a CAPITAL CHAFF irony of diplomatic fate ate Is that when mussolini tri marched arched into albania the U S state department be actually dually condoned it instead cf of registering eg a protest as in the case of other occupied countries the state department dropped the albanian minister from its diplomatic list meanwhile the diplomatic representatives senta tives of czechoslovakia poland holland belgium norway den denmark ark still are listed but if the greeks kiep keep on going thy they will win mn back albania for or the albanians |