Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1940-05-09
WHO'S
NEWS
THIS
WEEK
By LEMUEI. F. PARTON

BY LEMUEl. F. PARTON
| consolidated Features-WNU Service.)
|NEW YORK. = We heard that
~ Wendell L. Willkie had 300 invi-
tations to make public addresses.
Across his big desk, which in
Wendell willkie e GUS m diaarray
Has Pep 'Aplenty m kes a
And Plenty to Do mems feai -
home, we asked Mr.. Willkie about
it. The report was all wrong. The
number is something over 1000.
Also in the ruck were enough pleas
for magazine and syndicate articles
to give Mr.. Willkie writer's cramp
for the rest of his life, if he took on
even one-tenth of them.
Mr.. Willkie, built like guard,
works like an end or a halfback.
The range and agility of his mind
is such that he might be a swing
man, either in the line or the back
field. On his desk was a new
book, the life of the Elder Pitt, about
which he is writing review; also
a litter of papers having to do with
pretty nearly everything from kant
to kilowatts.
An hours conversation covered
similar range. He talked rapidly
and vehemently, saving and ham,
mering with his extended palm,
when he told how the Common
wealth & Southern forced down
rates, or challenged what he terms
the unfair IVA bookkeeping max
ing hesitant or cropping gestures
when he touched on the intangibles
of social origins and inducements.
He is like that-assured and vehe-
ment on what he knows and thought
full and explorative on what he
merely thinks.
He doesn't want to kill the Sc
curities and Exchange commission.
He would merely put it under sound
democratic controls.
Mr.. Willkie has tremendous gusto
and live, intellectual curiosity. He
says all this talk of nominating him
for President is incidental to the fact
that he made rock-and-sock battle
on something he knew about some
thing which happened to be impor-
tant and which perhaps helped to
clarity certain basic issues. He says
he never spent a dime on a personal
build-up and never will. Almost his
strongest emphasis was reserved for
his observation that the run-of-the-
mill citizen is a lot brighter than
he's supposed to be, and that therein
lies the hope for our continuing de-
mocracy. Out of it's context, that
might sound like the old homespun
Indiana political hokum, but that's
the last thing you could tag Mr..
Willkie with.
IN 1914, Franklin D. Roosevelt, as
sistant secretary of the navy, was
riding the venerable destroyer Pat
terson up the coast of Maine. He
:, said to young
Navy Commander Lieut.. Stark
Has Talked Back at the helm,
Eeve, you for
a while? I am an experienced navi-
gator and know this coast. The
young lieutenant replied, II am in
command here and responsible for
the ship. I doubt your authority to
supersede me. If you can offer any
helpful suggestions I should be glad
to hear them"
1t was said that Mr.. Roosevelt
liked that kind of sea talk. At any
rate, last August, he jumped Adm.
Harold R. Stark over 81 others who
outranked him, to make him chief
of naval operations, No. l post in the
navy. White-haired and professori-
al, Admiral Stark continues before
the senate committee on naval af-
fairs his advocacy of an adequate
navy, this time pointing up his argu-
ment with a reference to Japan's
eight new dreadnaughts, supposedly
under way.
Admiral Stark commands a force
of ITO, 900 men, 1000 officers, $4,000
marines, $50 ships and 1000 f1iers.
Two of his outstanding policies are
belief that the navy should control
and operate its own air fleet, and
disbelief in "attrition" warfare. In
other words he thinks the navy
should be always in instant readi-
ness for quick, hard hitting. His
technical attainments advanced him
in his earlier years and in later
years his frank and outspoken
Foundations of broad navy policy.
He is regarded by close observers
of naval affairs as a fortunate COM
bination of the "activitist" tradition
and studious and informed knowl-
edge in the overlapping zone of ma
val and foreign policy. This be-
comes important in the latter-day
urgency and delicacy of internation-
al affairs.
He is an inlander, born and reared
in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. When the
World war started he was herding
five destroyers in the Philippines,
so old they weren't supposed to 60
out after dark. However, he got
them half way around the world and
entered them in the main event. He
is primarily big-gun expert. In
spite of all modern improvements