The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-05-17

 of these two dictators that the French chose to devalue the franc, sending it to the lowest low in history. The move came with lightning suddenness, and al- though the United States and Great Britain are members with France of the tri-partite agree ment for the stabilization of their currencies, the United States, at least, got only 24 hours advance notice.
 Morgenthau, however, dropped everything, plunged into the work of supporting the franc. He rout- ed the commercial counselor of the British, H. o. Chalkley. away from his dinner table. He did the same to Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, financial attache of the French embassy.
 What worried M0rgenthau was not the dollar, but the fear that the money markets would not rally behind the French franc. Behind this, in turn, was the fear of a financial or cabinet crisis in Paris. Such crisis, with with Hitler and Muss0lini put
 ting their heads together at that very moment, might have meant the end of Czechoslova- kia. It was during the last French crisis, Morgenthau re- membered, that Hitler marched into Austria.
 So Secretary Morgenthau spent most of the night on the job. AL together he held 28 transatlantic telephone conversations during the brief hours before the final an- nouncement. Thanks largely to his support, private capital is Hooking to the aid of France.
 Helium
 After Secretary Ickes had ve- toed single-handed the proposal to sell helium to Germany, visitor came into the office of Admiral William D. Leahy, chief of naval operations. The navy had taken the position that the sale of helium was not of military im- portance, wanted Germainy to get helium for its new airship.
 The visitor, pointing toward the new Interior Department building just across the way, said, "Ad- miral, you have pleasant view of the Interior building here. You could put your hand out the window and wave to the Secretary of the Interior"
 "Yes," said Leahy drily, Out I'm not sure what form that wave might take."
 John HaneS
 It is not often that two gov- ernment executives argue over the privilege of hiring man, but this was the fact in the case of SECommissioner John Hanes and his appointment to be as- sistant secretary of the treasury.
 For some time Secretary Mor- genthau had been searching for a lieutenant who knew his way about in the money market, was reasonably liberal, and willing to give up his private business to work for comparatively nothing. Finally he met Hanes, became enthusiastic about him, and went to SEChairman Bill Douglas, with whom Hanes serves.
 "He is just the man I have been looking for, Bill," he plead ed, land you've got to let me have him. We need him much more than you do."
 Douglas shook his head. "Nothing doing, Henry" he said. Its finders keepers. We saw Johnny first"
 But Morgenthau persisted. He kept after Douglas, got the Presi- dent to plead his cause, and fin- ally Douglas capitulated on these terms: Hanes is being named to the treasury post but will remain in the SEC until the pending util- ity negotiations and certain other matters have been concluded.
 IVA Investigation
 The first open hearing of the IVA Investigating committee shed some revealing light on the se- cret tactics of certain probers.
 Unwittingly they let out of the bag the fact that they want to stall the inquiry until next fall. when the congressional elections are under way and whein they can use it for campaign purposes against the Administration.
 Vice Chairman James Mead tipped their hand regarding this when he moved that Dr. Arthur E. Morgan and the two IVA di- rectors be summoned immediately before the committee for a com plete airing of their vendetta. Senator "Puddler Jim" Davis of Pennsylvania promptly objected.