Evening star., 1937-12-08
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

(April, 1882; his "only thing we have to
fear is fear itself" first inaugural.
March, 1889, and II would dedicate this
Nation to the policy of the good neigh
bor' (also in first inauguraD. Ed. RS
economic royalists," this generation of
Americans has rendezvous with des-
tiny" "the change in the moral climate
of America" and "if they can take it I
can" (the reply to the suggestion that
his second Inauguration ceremony be
held indoors on account of bad weather.
also fill part of the two columns which
the classic reference tome devotes to
him. Gen. johnson Is quoted to the ex-
tent of dozen lines from a 1885 radio
broadcast, calling commercial greed the
mother OF all wars. Bartlett's doesn't
anoint the former N. r. A. boss for
having contributed "ants in hts pants"
to the American language.
Rejection of Japan's higher bid for
the Leviathan, just sold to Great Britain
to provide scrap iron for her rearma-
ment program, constitutes in effect the
first American sanction" against war
Waging Nippon. 1t was, of course, a
wholly voluntary act on the part of the
United States Lines, but, because of the
companys alliance with the Federal
Maritime Commission, there's little
doubt the embargo against Toxic has
full Official approval. The Japanese for
three years or more have been buying
huge quantities of scrap iron in this
country, her imports outstripping those
OF all others combined
~
That watchdog of the Bill of Rights,
the American Civil Liberties Union, has
just protested a recent order for finger
printing men enrolled in the Civilian
Conservation Corps. The unions presi-
dent, Roger N. Baldwin, in a letter to
Robert Fechner, c. c. c. director, as
serts that fingerprinting is IAN indie
fensible and possibly dangerous practice,
which may be the first move toward
regimentation." Mr.. Fechner replied
that as far as he knows, none of the
100000 men in 1904 camps had objected
to the process. The A. c. l.. U. holds
that mo useful purpose would be served
by providing for universal fngerprint-
ing" while in time, it claims, the proce-
dure might develop into a blacklist
weapon to be used against agitators.
X
Few Americans realize the extent to
which the world has been made unsafe
for democracy by the rise of Commun-
is, Fascism, Naziism or other forms of
political tyranny. There has just been
compiled in particularly well-informed
Washington quarter list of countries
from which representative government
has either entirely disappeared or been
effectually shackled. Arabia, China and
Morocco have never had universal suf-
frage. The following have it constitu-
tionally, but are at present in fact under
more or less dictatorial regimes: AL
bania, Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Re-
public, Ecuador, Germany, Greece, Haiti,
Iran, Italy, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal,
Turkey and the Soviet Union. Austria
had universal suffrage from 1918 to 1884,
but the 1894 constitution does not pro-
vide for it. In Afghanistan, Hungary,
India, Liberia, Siam and Yugoslavia
modified, partial or indirect forms of
universal suffrage exist.
X
Washingtonians who have just been
acquainted with the inquisition to which
a Pennsylvania country editor was re-
Gently subjected before the National
Labor Relations Board find an amaz-
ingly strange parallel between him and
"Doremus Jessup," hero of Sinclair
Lewis "It Can't Happen Here" Jessup
was small town Vermont journalist,
of ancient New England lineage, who
believed in American democracy, but
also felt that no country in history was
SO ripe for dictatorship as the United
States He lived to see his worst fears
confirmed, as the League Of Forgotten