Imperial Valley press., 1941-06-26

WASHl lNGlON, juno 20 All
too many people have looked on
Nelson A. Rockefeller's Office for
Coordination of Commercial and
Cultural Relations Between the
American Republics as a form OF
high hat boondoggling concerned
principally with sending Doug
Fairbanks smile and Dorothy La
mour's sarone on junkets below the
Rio Grande, seeing that polite
Spanish was taught in the public
schools, introducing the rhumba in
Utah and taking all South Ameri-
Lan bad man characters out OF
Hollywood movies intended for ex-
port.
There has been a good bit of
that, it's true, but far more i'm
portant, though less spectacular,
has been the real emphasis put by
the Rockefeller office on the COM
mercial end of its program. The
cultural stuff is nice, and it has
done lot of good in making ev-
erybody simpatico and Americas
conscious, but that is only the Ia
basco sauce on the commercial ac-
tivities, which are the real ia
males.
The Rockefeller office won't be a
year old until August. During its
first year, the Coordination has
been done at the expense of the
Presidents emergency funds, which
set aside something over three
million dollars to get going in a
hurry, before the Nazi fire burned
down the good neighbors' houses.
Currently, the Rockefeller office is
before Congress with budget of
more than $40 million to carry on
its work during the next year. From
any angle, it looks like cheap in
Surance.
MAGIC GETS THE GATE
The financial and trade spheres
o; the Rockefeller act have no
been juggled to produce anything
spectacular, and perhaps that:
why the commercial program ha'
not attracted the attention it shoulc
Instead of producing nlfties ant
rabbits, the dollar-a-year men fur
nishing the brains have reached
under their hats and gone afte
their problem as longtime job
One of the older hands anC
heads who have been shaping pol
icy for Rockefeller activity has beer
Joseph C. Rovensky, director o
the Chase National Bank of New
York. Rovensky first discovered
South America 20 years ago. He ha
been all over it, the last time il
1887. He has been plugging Soutl
> America continually to such an ex
tent that a lot of his associate
have thought him little hipped o.
the subject. But now, at a dollar
: year, in silk shirt and an un
fancy office in Washington, h
labors like any other governmen
clerk, only harder and longer, pro
noting his pet hobby, the further
ing of inter American financif
> and trade relations.
MAY EVEN NEED
THEIR IRON ORE
C 1t is Rovensky's belief now that
the war lasts long enough, tn
:. United States may even be nect
ing South American iron orc. II
Y may be damned roundly for TIL
prediction by American minir
e men, but the limited supply of til
Messabi range ore is we'll know
and since the big demand is fc
a steel and more steel for armament
# and shells, the nation can we
t consider the question of it's iron OF
supply
, The copper and iron ore example
are perhaps extreme cases, bl
they emphasize the Importance {
e the Rockefeller program, the OF
( jective of building up a permanel
c inter continental commercial rela
tionship, with greater Inter Amer
C can trade consciousness.
n Rovensky's favorite story is tf
old one from the last war about Il
colored soldier who slashed at
n German soldier with a razor.
Never touched mel" grinned IL
g German. "Waiti" said the darke
"tll you shakes yo' head!" Rover