The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-04-26

have completely cleared av the Supreme Court fight ar
 What changed the picture was Roosevelt's championship of the right of asylum following the per- secution of Jews in Austria, also his international proposal to aid Jewish refugees.
 Governor Lehman, who has spent many years and much of his personal fortune aiding refugees, immediately changed his attitude toward Roosevelt, and the two men have been exchang- ing the warmest and most fulsome letters.
 This has an extremely import ant effect upon the New York gubernatorial situation, for at one time Lehman was ready to run for reelection in order to head off 8 Roosevelt candidate (Bob Jackson). Now, however, he has made it clear to his friends that he does not want to run, though the U. s. senatorship-when there is vacancy-is another thing.
 With Wagner not at all anxious to be governor of New York, Solicitor General Jackson again looms as a definite possibility. Diplomacy
 Wise-crack going the rounds of diplomatic circles following Roose- velt's blessing of the Chamberlain Mussolini agreement: "If Secre- tary Hull goes away on another vacation, the career boys will per- suade the President to OK Jap ans conquest of China"
 Franked Republican
 An impromptu Republican cock tail party was being held the other day in the apartment of Rich- ard Sanger, wealthy young volun- teer worker for the Republican National Committee. The gather ing was jubilant. It toasted the fact that Horace Russell, general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, had been found franking $500 letters which should have carried postage.
 Frank Waltman, newly ap- pointed publicity mogul for the Republican National Committee, exulted that this was one of the best smears against the New Deal for some time and a step toward Republican congress sional victory next November.
 But Republican glee has now turned to sickening disillusion- ment. For Horace Russell, it has been discovered, was a Republi- can holdover from the Hoover ad- minlstration.
 An Atlanta lawyer, Russell was appointed to the legal staff of the Home Loan Board by it's first chairman, the late Franklin Fort, an ex-Congressman from New Jersey and Secretary of tho Re- publican National Committee. La ter Russell was promoted to gen. eral counsel
 Come the Roosevelt adminis- tration, and when the system
 was expended to include the Home Owners Loan Corpora ton, Russell was continued as general counsel of both agencies.
 NOTE-Russell rated high among HOLC executives, both D Democrats and Republicans, and was being mentioned for appoint ment to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia.
 Reformed Spender
 Friends of Vice President Gar ner are twitting him about the fact that he was not always the super-charged crusader against government spending that he now professes to be.
 There was time-within the memory of almost everyone in CongreSs-when Cactus Jack authored three bills to dig into the public till to the tune of $2,-
 5OO,OOO,0OO, one of the biggest pork raids in the annals of Con- gresS.
 Jacks spending spree occurred in 1881, when he was speaker of the House of Representatives and Herbert Hoover sat in the White House.
 The latter was adamantly
 against big-scale government
 spending to combat the depres-
 sion. But Garner, top-rung Democratic leader on Capitol Hill and strong presidential candidate, was red hot for it. As speaker he couldn't intro
 duce the legislation himself, so
 the late Henry Rainey of Illinois l. offered the bills for him.
 They promptly became known as Gamers pork barrel trio", and provided for the construc- ton of hundreds of post offices, court houses, highway, river, f1ar- bor and flood control projects,