The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1941-08-07
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Washington, d. C.
BIG DAY FOR NEWS MEN

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Twenty newspaper men leaned
forward around the long blue baize
table in the ante-room of the secre-
tary of state. At the extreme end
stood tall, austere acting secretary,
Sumner Welles. On his face was an
expression of grim-lipped intensity.
In his hand was a typewriter state
ment. He read it aloud. 1t was a
scathing, carefully worded blast
against Japan.
At the opposite end Of the table
stood three Japanese news men,
short, affable, eager. For months
and years they had been attending
press conferences, given the same
privileges as any American news
men. For months also they had
waited for some such bombshell.
Now it came.
One split second after Welles fin
ished reading his statement, the
Japanese were out the door, pat
tering down the marble corridor to
the press room telephones. 1t was
a big day for japanese news men.
Finally Ickes Wins.
1t was also a big day for certain
members of the Roosevelt cabinet.
For months and years they also had
been waiting. For months and years
also they had been urging Roosevelt
to embargo oil shipments to Japan.
At cabinet meeting just before
Japan moved, Secretary Ickes, as
new oil administrator, raised the en-
barge question again. He proposed
to stop oil shipments to Japan. But
the acting secretary of state said
no. Japan, he said, was going to
make a move toward Indo-China
and it would be wiser to wait.
Once before, Ickes had stopped a
shipment of oil to Japan and aroused
the wrath of the state department.
Last June Philadelphia manufac-
turer complained to him that a jap
anese ship was loading 100000 gall
Ions of lubricating oil.
81 can't get oil myself to speed
up my own defense ORDERS" wrote
the manufacturer, land yet / see in
front of my nose this shipment of
oil going to japan. To hell with
defense, if the government is as
screwy as that"
So Ickes called the coast guard
and asked them to act before the
oil was loaded. They did.
Then things began to boil. It did
not leak out at the time, but the
state department complained to the
White House that Ickes' action had
interfered with the policy of appeas-
ing Japan so she would not go south
to the Dutch East Indies.
However, Ickes held his ground.
He insisted that he was not med
ding in foreign policy, but that it
was nonsense to ration oil and gas
on the Atlantic seaboard and at the
same time let Japan ship oil away
from the Atlantic seaboard.
In the end Ickes won.
Bombard Tokyo.
Naval strategists make no secret
as to what they would do to curb
Japan. They consider it fooIhardy
and suicide to send a lot of u. S.
warships across the vast expanse of
ocean to Singapore or the Dutch
East Indies.
They figure we are going to get
into the war anyway, and it is good
strategy to deal knockout blows in
the very first round. They favor
sending waves of U. S. bombers
from the Philippines to rae the
paper and bamboo cities of Tokyo,
Yokohama, Kobe and Osaka. They
also favor sending the fleet, plus
airplane carriers to the coast of ia
pan. .
They favor doing this immediate
ly. There is no use, say the navy
men, of punching at a mans legs
when you can strike for his heart.