The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-07-16

Puerto Rico was flying from his post to the British island of Ja- maica short time ago, and just before he stepped into the plane, the young naval pilot said:
 q don't suppose we'll see anything. But we might as well be ready just m case."
 So they loaded the plane with half a dozen depth char ges. It was a small transport plane, had no regular bomb bay, so the dept charges were merely placed on the seats.
 Out over the Caribbean, sud- denly the pilot looked down, said, ''There she is." Below them with its coming tower above water, was a Nazi submarine.
 Both the pilot and Governor Tugwell reached for the depth charges, opened the window. But before they could drop even one, the submarine had submerged. The ex-braintruster came home with no submarine scalp in his professorial belt.
 FARM BILL JUGGLING
 Sen. Richard Russell of Geor- "a delivered a bristling speech the other day charging that House conferees on the deadlocked Agri- culture Department appropriation bill had broken faith with the Senate in railroading a "cOmprO- mise" bill through the House which retained the ban on sales of government grain at below parity prices.
 But good as his speech was, the senator failed to tell the whole story. He omitted saying that the House action was taken af- ter one of the slickest pieces of parliamentary finagling in the memory of veteran members.
 Inside fact is that the "com- promise" measure was cooked up in a star-chamber meeting, called by Rep. Clarence Cannon of Mis- souri, Appropriations chairman and leader of the House farm bloc, to which three of the House con- ferees were not invited.
 The three uninvited were
 Representatives Charles Leavy
 of Washington, David Terry of Arkansas and Ross Collins of Mississippi. In meetings with Senate cOnferees on the dead locked farm bill, this trio had supported the Presidents posi- ton that the sale of govern ment-Owned grain, for livestock feeding, is necessary to insure adequate supplies of meat for our armed forces.
 Speaker Sam Rayburn also was present at the secret meeting, as were one other Democrat, Rep rsntative Malcolm Tarver of Georgia, and all three House Republican conferees, Represen- atives Dirksen of Illinois, Lam berton of Kansas and Plumley of Vermont.
 INITIATION DANGER
 However, the Speaker took no part in drafting the new bill, tried to dissuade Cannon from retain ing the grain sales ban, pointing out that there was small hope of getting Senate agreement to this. Rayburn also reminded Cannon that the President was greatly concerned about inflationary dangers in such legislation.
 But the bull-headed Missourian refused to budge, and other mem bers supported him. Later Rep resentative Leavy of Washington hotly protested to Cannon about being excluded from the meeting. 'T am one of the House con- ferees and had a right to be there," said Leavy. 'I didn't know about the bill until just before it was brought up on the floor. Aren't we observing democratic processes in the House any more?"
 "I'm very sorry you were left out, Charlie" purred Cam
 non. "I thought you had gone
 back to Washington to take over
 that judgeship to which you
 were appOlnted.'
 NOTE: Cannon and Dirksen are