Glacier County chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1931-1940, 1940-05-10

sTASSEN GETS LIBERAL ADVICE
Observation-Disclosures Harold
Stassen took away with him three
pieces of advice from G. o. P. con-
gressional leaders on his keynote
speech:
/. Make it liberal in tone.
2. Bear down strong on the New
Deals failure to solve the unem-
ployment problem.
3. GO the limit in talking iso-
lationism.
The young Minnesotan was strong
ly advised to take his cue from
the moderate Glenn Frank program
committee report. He was warned
to avoid any Old Guard structures
and to tread lightly on agriculture
and relief.
On these he was counseled to fol-
low the Glenn Frank strategy of a
left-handed AAA endorsement, with
administration of unemployment re-
lief by the states instead of the
WPA.
The jobless problem, Stassen was
told, should be tied up with the
$45 ,000, 900, 900 national debt and
failure to balance the budget by
pointing out that although the DEM
ocrats had spent billions, the coun-
try still was faced with unemploy-
ment of eight to ten million persons.
On the war issue, Stassen was
urged to stress two points: ~ that
a Democratic regime got the U. S.
into the first World war; (2) that
while this administration processes
devotion to the principles of neu-
trality, its conduct is characterized
by strong undercurrent of lingo
ISM.
As illustrations of this the G. o. P.
leaders cited the warlike pro-ally
remarks of James Cromwell, u. S.
minister to Canada, and the sensa-
tional statement of Rear Admiral
Joseph X. Taussig that war with
Japan is inevitable"
Stassen was told to picture the
G. o. P. as the great peace party"
of the country, pledged to oppose
any step that might lead to involve
ment in a foreign conflict.
NORWAY TROUBLES
Most spectacular British naval vic
tory since the Graf Spec was the
sinking of seven German destroyers
in the northern Norwegian port of
Narvik. What most people do not
know, however, is that despite that
victory, the town of Narvik re-
manned in German hands.
What happened was that the Nazis
were able to remove several three
inch and five-inch guns from their
destroyers, beached in shallow wa
ter, and placed them in the Narvik
fortress.
These have been able to hold off
British troop transports. Meanwhile
the railroad to Sweden has been
kept open, and the Swedes have
been sending in food labeled Med
ical Supplies"
All of this illustrates the odds
against which the British are operat-
ing in Norway. In the first place,
the fiords are narrow, easy for the
Germans to defend, and difficult for
large vessels to maneuver. Second,
tanks and artillery are even harder
to land than troops, so the British
have no tanks to oppose the heavily
armored forces of the Germans.
Some of these difficulties partially
are being overcome. But for a
time, British general staff officers
were so concerned over the prob
lem of landing troops in Norway
and doing battle on a large scale,
that they argued vigorously against
sending a Norwegian expedition.
1t was only the table-pounding of
Winston Churchill, who demanded
that an army be sent to Norway
Immediately, that overruled the
British high command. You are 60
ing to hear a lot of internal polit-
ical rumbling in Great Britain over
this.