New Line-Up

Mayor LaGuardia, upset by Manhattan's unseasonably chilly weather, was lying abed with a cold one afternoon last week, when a call from Washington got him to the phone. It was President Roosevelt, telling the mayor that he was to head the U. S. delegation on the new Canadian-U. S. Joint Defense Board. The stubby, broad-jawed little mayor was up in no time, making no bones about his vast satisfaction with the news: ". . . Something I've been thinking of and dreaming of, at least for the last two years." Cold forgotten, he ducked a question about the political importance of his appointment, with all the grace and dexterity of a descending ton of bricks. "Forget it!" roared the mayor.

Off to Washington, the mayor spent two hours with the President and his Defense Board colleagues, missed his plane going home. No news of what was said at that meeting reached the press, save the spare revelation that President Roosevelt had spoken at length, telling members what he hoped to accomplish in tying together the defenses of the two North American powers. There was no chance for rumors to bubble: before press speculations could get under way, Mayor LaGuardia and associates had caught the train for Ottawa, and Canadian-U. S. joint defense talks were a reality.

Bermuda. There was no question but that the U. S. faced a new line-up in its defenses. The questions were 1) what it involved, and 2) how far it reached. In Washington Senator Barkley spoke of the need for "a whole string" of air and naval bases in the British islands in the Caribbean, to protect the Panama Canal. Last week more voices were raised to urge that U. S. World War I destroyers be released to Britain,* but President Roosevelt dodged on whether the destroyers were to be traded for the U. S. right to use British bases in the Western Hemisphere. It was known only that he talked long with Attorney General Robert Jackson and Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles (reportedly on the legality of the transfer).

Walter Lippmann dug up an apt quotation from James Madison to show the inevitability of the U. S. -British negotiations: "With the British power and navy combined with our own, we have nothing to fear from the rest of the world." He found another from Jefferson. An aggressive Napoleon with designs on the New World, said Jefferson, "seals the union of the two nations who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation."

Whether negotiations were in line with Madison's proposal, whether they were to result in humdrum transfers, like those which last week gained the U. S. two small South Sea islands from Britain for air bases, the President had given no indication.

First clarification came from Bermuda. In Hamilton, in the second oldest Parliament of the British Empire, two secret meetings of the House of Assembly were followed by a public one. "The Governor . . . has the honor to state . . . [that] provision for an air base [has been negotiated] and for this purpose the waters of Great Sound will be made available. . . . It is of course possible that a request for naval facilities may be made by the Government of the United States. . . ."

The Great Sound, 700 miles southeast of New York, 580 miles east of Cape Hatteras, five miles wide, almost landlocked, warm, blue and beautiful, was a naval base long before it became a U. S. tourist haven. Last week Bermudians were pleased at the U. S. negotiations but memorialized their disturbance "lest some new conception of American hemispheric defense may affect the status of this ancient colony. . . . We reaffirm our unswerving loyalty to His Majesty the King. . . . We pledge our support to any agreement reached, but pray that such agreement may take heed of our deep-rooted and fervent attachment to the crown."

Last week the President also:

>Declared that conscription should be enacted within two weeks, and warned that delay dragging into fall or winter might set back the U. S. defense program by a year. His unprepared statement, delivered at a press conference, surprised correspondents, who had previously got from him only a general approval of the principle of the Burke-Wadsworth Bill, now heard some Presidential scoffing at critics who had said that shortages of essential training equipment blocked immediate conscription. The President's main points: 400,000 new men are needed to bring existing units of the Regular Army and National Guard to full strength. Beyond these, 400,000 more are needed as supporting troops.*

>Received the National Guard Mobilization Bill, which empowers him to call out 396,000 guardsmen and Army reservists for a year's service in the Western Hemisphere or in U. S. possessions.

>Arrived at Washington from Hyde Park, remained two days, set out on a two-day fishing cruise on the Potomac, returned to Washington for two days, left for Hyde Park again. Presidential travels made it plain that citizens faced a delicate problem in discriminating between the actions of President Roosevelt and Candidate Roosevelt. It was announced that he would speak at the dedication of TVA's Chickamauga Dam near Chattanooga on Labor Day, speak again in the Great Smoky Mountains. Then the President will inspect a naval armor and gun plant at South Charleston, W. Va. Recalling that President Roosevelt had declared during the Chicago convention that he thought it unwise to leave Washington during the crisis, statisticians checking back over his record since then found that he has spent six days cruising on the Potomac, eleven at Hyde Park, seven on defense inspection trips, 15 at the White House.

*One Washington rumor had the destroyers in Canadian waters, also had the U. S. selling them to Canada, to release British destroyers, now on convoy duty, for Channel fighting.

*Last week the Senate unanimously amended the Burke-Wadsworth Bill, limiting to 900,000 the number of men being trained in time of peace.

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