Actions & Reactions

WAR & PEACE

". . " If we don't have a war" was the world's keynote last week, struck by the President of the U. S. (TIME, April 17). Actions & reactions in the U. S. followed one another in rapid succession.

> President Roosevelt, by adopting a newspaper editorial as his own expression, explained and emphasized that his "we" meant Western civilization (see p. 13).

> A few Senators flayed the President for creating hysteria, inflaming the war spirit.

> The President called his Cabinet together to discuss the war menace.

> Secretary of State Hull came out in favor of Government-subsidized barter trade by the U. S., to whip the Dictators at their own economic game. Joseph P. Kennedy, Ambassador to Britain, received mention for barterer-in-chief.

> Secretary of Agriculture Wallace found a new scapegoat for his agricultural troubles. He blamed the Dictators' barter methods for the failure of Secretary Hull's reciprocal trade treaties to win markets for U. S. farm products.

> Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau foregathered with other fiscal officers to study ways & means of cushioning war's shock to U. S. security markets (see p. 77)'

> War-risk insurance rates for marine commerce rose as high as $2 per $100 to China, $5 to Germany. Then war-risk insurance was discontinued entirely on shipments to Germany, Italy.

> Driving through fierce storms, German ships raced to U. S. ports to land their cargoes before the 25% penalty tariff on German goods should become effective (April 22). Captain C. W. Hagemann brought in the Bremen with a 1,300-ton cargo, her record.

> Foreign capital seeking safe deposit in the U. S. kept vice presidents of Manhattan banks busy opening new accounts for Europeans.

> The Army and Navy went ahead with plans for a mock "attack" on the Atlantic seaboard by a large "raiding fleet," to be repelled by planes and submarines.

> Colonel Charles Augustus Lindbergh arrived in Manhattan on the Aquitania, refused to tell the press why he had come home, promised to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week. Grim in public, Col. Lindbergh was smiling among friends when a newscameraman pushed into his cabin to snap him (see cut, p. 16).

> The President told the Pan American Union and the world that the U. S. would defend all the Americas against foreign attack, urged the Dictators' peoples to throw over the Dictators (see p. 13).

> To the Dictators, the President addressed notes at what he thought was the eleventh hour, asking for peace pledges, offering to mediate (see p. 13). U. S. Battle Fleet was ordered out of the Atlantic, back to the Pacific Ocean (see p. 77).

> Ambassador to Britain Joe Kennedy went with Prime Minister Chamberlain to Windsor Castle to discuss with King George VI the advisability of the latter's visiting Canada and the U. S. in June.

> James Roosevelt spent $320 to hire a plane to fly him from Brussels, where he had attended a ball given by Ambassador Joe Davies, to Windsor to dine with King George.

>Britain's No. 1 Elder Statesman, Stanley Earl Baldwin, arrived in Ottawa, praised Franklin Roosevelt's message to the Dictators as "very courageous and very statesmanlike."

. . .

> Senator Connally of Texas introduced a war tax bill scaling up to 80% of private incomes, 77% on undistributed corporate profits.

> Representative Osmers of New Jersey introduced a bill requiring the President to take command of the Army in the field, should war come, and drafting for active service (without commissions) the Vice President, Cabinet members, war-voting members of Congress, directors of munitions companies, war-loan bankers. Any one pleading physical disability must spend the duration of the war in bed.

> The United Student Peace Committee called a "strike against war" for April 20. .

> Appalled by the thought of having to fight, a schoolboy in Los Angeles and a World War cavalry veteran in Waterbury, Conn., committed suicide.

> Livers & lights were scared out of people in North Arlington, N. J. when a 3-in. "dud" shell, buried in a vacant lot since it landed there in 1917 after the explosion of a shipment destined for Russia from the Canadian Car & Foundry works, blew up when overheated by a Sunday bonfire.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.