The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-08-18

4llc COuIlIl , CIlIlIG GAlSCC
 It is significant, therefore, that while in early summer the Dutch felt the European situation to be extremely grave, but that war could be averted, today they have revised their estimates. War, they feel, may not be averted.
 Inside the State Department, betting is about even on Europe scraping through the next three months. If Europe can get by those months, however, war be- comes less and less likely. Reason is that after three months, France and Britain Till have increased their strength to a point where war for Hitler will be suicide.
 Reports from U. s. Ambassadors are uniformly pessimistic. Com menting upon their reports recent ly, Roosevelt paid an unusual com- pliment to newspaperman. Ex- pressing his own fear that war was imminent, the President said:
 Never before have all my ambassadors agreed that war was so certain, and Constantine Brown agrees with them."
 NOTE-The column of Constan- Brown, writer on foreign affairs, is clipped regularly and placed on the President's desk.
 ANTI-THIRD TERM
 Mrs Roosevelt has said noth- ing publicly 50 far on the third term, nor is she likely to until the President has spoken. But pri- vately she is against his running again. Also, she believes he has no desire to do so.
 Voicing these views to intimate friends, Mrs. Roosevelt admitted that she has never discussed the question with her husband, but she is convinced that he does not want to run.
 There are others who can and should carry the crushing load" she declared. "The Presi- dent has done his share"
 AS to her choice of a successor. Mrs. Roosevelt was mum. If she has candidate, she has giv- en no one any inkling of his identity.
 GLASS HOUSES
 Minor sensation in the Capital last spring was senate investi- gation of the Civil Service Com- mission disclosing favoritism in certain government offices. Wit nesses related brow-lifting stories of beauteous clerks being promot- ed solely because of sex appeal.
 Loudest outcry against these practices came from dynamic, curly-haired Senator Allen J. El- lender of Louisiana. Repeatedly he waxed wrothy and righteous at doting chiefs promoting pretty misses to choice jobs over worthier, but alas, less comedy candidates. What stirred Ellender to hottest centsure was reports of nepotsm. Government officials quailed be- sfore him as he stormed against the nepotists.
 But now The Washington Merry Co., Round has uncovered the interesting fact that Sena- tor Ellender himself has been dipping into the nepotism gravy bowl. His nephew, Billy Sul- iivan, is on the senate payroll at $2,400 a year as clerk in his office.
 Also Senator M. M. Logan of Kentucky, another member of the Senate committee which probed favoritism, has a nephew in his office at $2.800.
 PACIFIC ISLANDS
 How important the islands of the Pacific have become for avia- ton purposes is indicated by a secret State Department investiga- tion of the logs of old whaling captains, to ascertain what islands they discovered.
 Working with the WPA, the State Department has sent men to Nantucket and ther New England seaport cities to ferret out the diaries of the early clipper and whaling captains.
 There was a time when the State Department ignored claims to various small islands dotting the Pacific, but with the growth of aviation 1t has entered Into Q race with Great Britain and Japan to establish definite sovereignty over them.
 RAYBURN's BOLT