Evening star., 1937-11-19
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

audience, the weekly luncheon forum of
the National Press Club. on Thursday.
While his remarks were off the record, it
isn't violating any state secret to report
that the tall, clean-cut, well-groomed
New York advertising executive is one
OF the wittiest and most refreshing SPELL
binders to breeze into this speech-s,1r-
feited community for long time. The
author of The Man Nobody Knows
doesn't look unlike G. O. P. Chairman
John Hamilton, even as to his russet
top-knot. Prediction here is ventured
that the Congressional Record is due for
some OF the most stimulating COPY"
edited into that compendium of con-
Versatlon in many session.
~
President Roosevelt's stock in House
and Senate. like certain other gilt
edged American securities, may be in a
slump. But there have just been placed
N the Congressional Record, for histori-
cal and permanent reference purposes,
all of the important speeches he de-
livered during his recent swing across
the country, beginning with the Consti-
tuition Day address in Washington. The
executive outgivings include F. D. RS
now-famous international speech at
Chicago, his address of dedication of
the new Federal Reserve Building and
various remarks rear platform and
otherwise, delivered at Cleveland, Tole-
do, Boise, st. Paul, Fargo, Grand Forks,
Bonneville Dam, Grand Coulee Dam,
Timberline Lodge, Havre, Fort Peck,
Spokane, Marshalltown and Cheyenne
The Federal Reserve speech, inserted by
Senator Wagner. calls attention to the
splendid and fitting tribute" paid to
Senator Glass by the President for the
Virginians courageous leadership" in
plotting the Federal Reserve Act through
Congress in Wilson days.
Jim Farley has an amazing double II
Washington-and near economic royal
ist, at that. The twin is Henry NJ
O,Bleness of New York, who represents
a West Virginia coal mining corporation
About as statuesque as the New Deal
field marshal, and with an unupholstered
dome as lustrous as Sunny Jim's gilt
tering pate MIR. O'Bleness, who happens
to live in the same hotel, is regularly
mistaken for Farley, now and then by
some deserving Democrat in quest of
job.
There's lively curiosity in Congress as
to whether impending negotiations with
Great Britain for reciprocal trade pact
will include the delicate question of the
round 5000000,000 John Bull owes
Uncle Sam, and which has been in
arrears for three years. War debt re-
adjustment does not normally figure in
Secretary Hulls tariff dickers, but many
authorities in Congress believe it should
Our British cousins do not yearn to
stabilize their status as defaulter and
repudiatOr at Washington, but the busi-
ness-minded Chamberlain government
takes hard-headed, realistic view Of
the problem. Its attitude is that token"
payments, even though they ran to the
tidy annual total Of $3.50 ,00O, 900 or $780,
900. would only be pouring the money
down drain" It would take years,
even at that fabulous rate, to make a
real dent in the gigantic principal and
accruing interest. The London ex-
chequer might be able to raise the wind
for two or three years, but to assume
such burden for any substantial term
Is held to be utterly impracticable and
therefore unbeatable.
\
Some folks think the Roosevelt re-
cession" and New Dealers perplexity in
stemming it resemble the immortal
plight OF Humpty Dumpty. Humpty, it
will be remembered, also once sat very
pretty but had "a great fall" and "all
the kings horses and all the kings men
couldn't put Humpty together again"
(oopyright, 1879