Monday, October 30, 1939

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: It is not clear at all that Cash wrote the piece, "Over She Goes!", or similar pieces we occasionally include here which attack the Roosevelt Administration's spending policies. More likely, they were written by J.E. Dowd, who was not a fan of Roosevelt generally. But we include them for balance and to show that large national debt, though not in the trillions, has been with us long and that the best of Presidents have been heavily criticized for running them up--though the better argument, as with any family's accumulation of debt, might be to critique the purpose for the increased debt accumulation, not just the use of the credit card itself.

As to Cash's pronouncement in "House Shift" that isolationist leader Ham Fish was one of the shabbiest men ever to serve in either house of Congress for his relentless partisanship and omnipresent urge to injure the President, well, Cash never got to see the 105^th Congress, that one serving between 1997 and 1999, and which possessed many hams and many fishes (of the predaceous finned and jawed species, especially) all swimming, hyding, and bobbing by the bar, to be sure. Well, as Virginia Woolf warned in Between the Acts, never pun on a person's name.

But Elinor Troy Manville? No wonder it didn't work. At least they finally got round to replacing all that asbestos with spun glass eventually.

Federal Debt Hits New High, Discouraging Any War Notions

Tell it not in Berlin or Moscow, but strictly among ourselves observe that the Federal debt has cracked 41 billions. At sometime between the issuance of Treasury statements for the 24th and 25th of October it happened. And when the debt cleared that for one-billion bar, it cleared it with millions to spare.

The deficit so far this year, the tenth successive year of deficits, approaches $1,400,000,000. But the country, thank goodness, is at peace. Its expenditures for army and navy are high, to be sure, but only a drop in the bucket to what they would become overnight if the nation had to go on a war footing.

And perhaps that is a silver lining to the cloud of profligate spending which has been hovering over the Roosevelt Administration almost from the day that it came into office preaching economy. Once upon a wartime they said of us that we were "too proud to fight." Now we owe too much.

We Can At Least Give Russia Our View Of Her

It won't do any good now, but for purposes of the record the United States certainly ought to protest in no gentle terms to Russia about its action in the case of the City of Flint.

For it is increasingly clear that the whole business was a brazen frame-up. The original story that the ship had to be taken to Murmansk because she had no charts for navigating the North Sea proved too thin for even such cynical practitioners of the lie as the Nazis and the Reds. Of course, she had no such charts, since she was bound to England. But her captor undoubtedly had them.

So now the story is that the ship's engines had to be repaired because she was [un]seaworthy. But that is as thin as the other tale. The radio man who escaped in Norway knew nothing about any engine trouble, and radio men are a pretty knowing sort. For this excuse to hold at all, it is plain that the engine trouble would have had to develop before the start of the journey to Russia, not afterward.

The real reason that the ship was taken to Russia is quite plain. She was taken there to give the Germans time to form an escort to bring her back through the North Sea. And she stayed in Murmansk far longer than any interpretation of international law would justify. In handing her over to the Germans, the Russians executed the most unneutral act of the war so far.

Mr. Thomas Manville Throws Light On His Problems

Consider the sad case of Mr. Tommy Manville. Tommy, whose papa, the old asbestos king, left him much too much money, has, as the world has heard by this time, had his marital troubles. Today he has married and rapidly unmarried five wives.

But this time it was to be different, according to Mr. Manville. From Hollywood he summoned the luscious Elinor Troy, herself no neophyte in marriage, having already married and unmarried two husbands--chartered an airplane at the cost of $3,000 to bring her more quickly to his arms, loaded the plane with orchids and champagne to lighten the weary road across the continent for the lovely one, bought her $10,000 worth of new finery when she arrived, and departed to the country--there, he assured the world as he went, to settle down to rural bliss and bethink himself of acquiring an heir to spend whatever might be left of the Manville fortune when he passed on to his heavenly reward.

But alas, for the plans of men and mice, La Elinor stayed only five days, flounced out and went back to Hollywood. The trouble? Well, explained Mr. Manville, he lost his temper. It was bad enough when she complained that the house of 28 rooms was a mere cottage and not big enough. It was worse when she didn't care for the fact that Mr. Manville wanted to keep Miss Yvonne Arden, radio singer, around during the honeymoon--to soothe his melancholy by music. But when it turned out that she couldn't cook--that was too much.

Which perhaps throws some light on Mr. Manville's difficulties. If he wants to stay married and favor the world with that heir, he should go down to an employment agency and pick out a good strong servant girl, say a Norwegian or a Czech. They can cook, and in addition, they have good stout arms precisely fitted for wielding a hairbrush with great effect for domestic bliss.

Rumored Russian Move Is Open To Two Interpretations

That Russia is out to aid Mr. Hitler to some extent at least is plain, not only from the way in which she has flouted the United States in the City of Flint case but also from her announcement to Britain that she will refuse to accept the contraband list drawn up by that country and her long lecture in that connection to the effect that it violates international law and adds up to the same thing as bombing civilian populations since it involves starvation for the helpless (fancy that from Mr. Stalin, the man who coolly starved 3,000,000 peasants to death in a single year in order to keep up his exports and get machines in return!).

It may be, indeed, that she is planning ultimately to aid her by attacking England directly by sea, especially with submarines. Out of London come stories to the effect a Russian ultimatum has been drawn up for Sweden, under which Russia will demand the use of the ports, Goeteborg and Karlskrona. The former is located in the Kattegat, opposite the tip of Denmark, and will make a splendid base for submarine operations both against the British fleet and British merchant shipping.

On the other hand, it is just as possible that, if the story is true, it indicates a purpose ultimately to doublecross Mr. Hitler to the hilt. If Goeteborg can be used against England, it can be used against Germany. If you look at the map and find Karlskrona on the Baltic coast of Sweden, you'll see that it lies in almost direct line with Stalin's new bases in Esthonia and the Gulf of Riga, and that the Baltic Sea is narrow at this point. To draw a submarine line across it would be easy. And with that done and with the Kattegat barred to Germany, it would be impossible for her to get iron from Sweden--which she must have to wage a war against anybody long.

Leader Of Opposition Ought To Insure Embargo Repeal

It is curious to find the House the doubtful quantity about repeal of the arms embargo. For last Summer it passed a bill which, while it did not repeal the embargo, pulled its teeth by allowing the sale of airplanes--the form of arms which Britain and France now most need and desire to buy from us.

This is the same House, and if it has changed its mind to the point of its ultimate action being in question, it may be suspected that it is mainly due to the sinister activities of Coughlin-Kuhn-Browder & Co.

In the end, however, we believe that the embargo will be repealed. For the leader of the opposition to repealing it is Ham Fish. And, while by ordinary we do not subscribe to the notion that the fact that any given man is for or against something ought to determine general opinion, we almost do it in the case of Ham. On the whole he is one of the shabbiest men who ever sat in either house of Congress. Partisanship is his primary god, and to injure the President he is up to almost anything. Yet it is to be remembered, as he whoops for the embargo on the ground that it will help to keep us out of the affairs of Europe--a nonsensical ground--, that it was only the other day when he himself was doing his best to nose into the affairs of Europe by attempting to set off a "peace" move to trip up England and France--after he had just come from hobnobbing with Ribbentrop.

We do not believe the American people or the Congress is likely to follow the leadership of such a spiteful lightweight.