The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-19


 Most people don't real Brooklyn has got away vii
 Real fact is that Tammany's Manhattan is saintly compared with the larger borough across the East river.
 Amen, Democrat, is now ex- posing this, and his prosecutions promise to be more sensational than Dewey's. He has discovered that juTymen had to see their district bosses and precinctmen before they served on a jury and before they voted. Both Democrats and Republicans have been cor- rupt, and the corruption goes right up to the judges. Amen plans to indict some of them.
 Amen is handling his prosecu- ton more carefully than Dewey. He is not jailing or paying witt nesses, or suppressing individual liberties. He may come out of the Brooklyn graft crusade with political prestige sufficient to make him the next mayor of New York.
 WAR BY SPRING??
 All confidential reports from Europe give a blacker and blacker picture regarding prospects of peace. They come not merely from State Department experts, but from foreign diplomats and newspaper observers. It looks as if Ambassadors Bullitt and Ken nedy, in predicting the probability of war by spring, did not over- state the grim outlook.
 They report Mussolini actual ly determined to get Tunis, North African colony now in the hands of France. Mussolini feels that the Rome Berlin axis has benefited him not at all, in fact has been a definite loss. He now has Hitler at the Bren- ner Pass instead of the buffer state of Austria. He also has lost his sphere of influence in Southeast Europe.
 Therefore he has told Hitler, in no uncertain terms that Italy must get something out of the bargain if the axis is to continue. Heading the list is Tunis. Il Duce has given Hitler the same argument as Der Fuehrer used in the Sudentenland-the rights of Italians in Tunis.
 Reports vary as to Hitler's willingness to support Mussolini. During Benito's conference with Chamberlain in Rome, Hitler was said to be counseling patience. However, in a showdown, best diplomatic. information. is that Hitler will go along with his Roman partner.
 RACE FOR TIME
 Vital in the situation are the factors CD of air strength and (2) time. At present Italy and Germany between them have an overwhelming superiority in the air. If war begins next spring, they could almost wipe out Lon- don and Paris. But year from now the American air program will be well on it's way, also France and Britain will have con- siderably improved their positions.
 U. s. military experts seriously believe that a war between the democracies and Relationships this year would mean a German-Italian victory. Their air forces could rain gas on troops and civilian populations to horifying extent. Gas, it is important to note, has not been used in Spain.
 It is this Nazi-Fascist air superiority today plus the un- certainty of its superiority a year hence, which they think has determined MussOIini to force a showdown this spring. Simultaneously, best diplomatic consensus is that large Amer ican air force may be the only cooling influence on Muss0- lini.
 NOTE-This may be carriyng the reasoning to exteremes, but some U. S. observers point out that should the Nazi-Fascist coun- tries be victorious in a war, they. would write a peace treaty by which the British fleet would be turned over to Germany and the French fleet to Italy. thus putting the United States in an extreme ly difficult position regarding