Beautiful Slogans

Out from Puerto Rico, fanwise over eastern Caribbean waters, the U. S. Navy's patrol squadron 51 has kept an aerial peace watch since Sept. 9. Last week in San Juan, the squadron's Lieut.-Commander Stephen B. Cooke reported on his vigil. Nary a submarine, said he, had been sighted by his fliers; of frequent reports, not one had proved true.

A persistent reporter of foreign submarines in U. S. waters had been Lieut.-Commander Cooke's Commander in Chief, Franklin Roosevelt (who was seeing submersibles as late as Oct. 7 off Miami). Last week the President cited no visiting submarines, but he made submarine news of the first importance. By denying belligerent undersea boats right of entry to U. S. ports, save in dire emergency, he drew a significant distinction between prospective German raiders and the surface warships and armed merchantmen of Great Britain and France.

Mr. Roosevelt has said that the duty of the U. S. neutrality patrol is to keep tabs on far-roving warcraft in American waters. His obvious, implicit premise last week was that submarines, since the sneaky creatures cannot be watched, had best be kept clear away. When a reporter asked whether armed merchant ships also might be barred from U. S. ports, the President said that comparing such ships and submarines was like trying to add pears and apples. Orally amplifying his proclamation, he explained that belligerent submarines may not come within the traditional three-mile limit of U. S. coasts. But, he noted once again, for other purposes U. S. territorial limits may extend as far out to sea as U. S. interests require.

> Chile announced that submarines as well as surface warcraft could find haven in her ports. Off Brazil, well within the unbuckled "safety belt" projected by the U. S. and her sister republics three weeks ago (TIME, Oct. 9), British and French cruisers last week continued to look out for German or contraband shipping.

> Upon receipt of a reply from Joseph Stalin's stooge, old President Kalinin of the U. S. S. R., Mr. Roosevelt made public his admonition to Russia to go easy on Finland (TIME, Oct. 23). The President of the U. S. in a "personal message"--in the diplomatic scale, one short of formal representation--had simply reminded Russia of 1) U. S. friendship for little Finland; 2) the fact that Franklin Roosevelt got the U. S. to recognize the friendless Soviets in 1933. The President of the U. S. S. R. diplomatically told the President of the U. S. to mind his own business.

> A correspondent asked Mr. Roosevelt whether the Administration's known intent to ask Congress for still more money for a bigger Big Navy means that he favors a "two-ocean navy." That phrase, said the President, is a beautiful slogan, meaningless in practice. Then he turned to a press-conference guest, Publisher Joe Patterson of the New York Daily News, said the same thing applies to that gentleman's favorite epigram ("Two Ships For One"). What the U. S. must have, the President went on, is a Navy big enough for its maximum, varying defense needs in any ocean.

> For all the signs that President Roosevelt gave last week, he might not have known that the Senate was still engrossed in its Great Debate. Neither oblivious nor negligent, Mr. Roosevelt was simply complying with the admonition laid down by his Senate strategists, Key Pittman and Jimmy Byrnes: "Stay out of the Neutrality fight." By staying out, he exhibited a restraint remarkable for him, regrettable for Senate Isolationists, who would welcome nothing more than a rousing White House scare to scare off Administration votes.

> At Hyde Park for the week end, Vestryman Roosevelt attended a special service at St. James' Episcopal Church. The President had brought with him from Washington a Bible (King James version), a gift to the church from the King and Queen of England in remembrance of the Sunday last June when they worshipped there with Mr. Roosevelt. Lacking an appropriate passage in the prayer book of the U. S. Episcopal Church, the Reverend Frank R. Wilson read from an English Book of Common Prayer: "O Lord, most heartily we beseech Thee, with Thy favor to behold Thy most gracious sovereign, Lord, King George. . . . Strengthen him that he may vanquish and overcome all his enemies, and finally after this life he may attain everlasting joy and felicity, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen." Later in the service the President's rector read a resolution of thanks to the King, signed by Senior Warden Roosevelt and the other vestrymen.

Afterward, the Rev. Mr. Wilson confessed that he had wondered as he recited the prayer, whether its reference to "enemies" would be taken to mean the King's enemies in war. He hoped not, said Dr. Wilson; he had read a peacetime prayer denoting spiritual, moral and material obstacles to Christian faith. The English Church has more militant prayers for victory.

> Following a visit by Eleanor Roosevelt to the Pacific Coast, the San Francisco Chronicle last week reported: "Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt stayed away from politics. . . . Even when she lunched, somewhat surprisingly, with A. P. and Mario Giannini (who are being investigated by her husband's SEC) she kept the conversation on the weather and the [San Francisco] Fair. Her only lapse came when she picked up a newspaper and read that the President had issued a plea to the A. F. of L. for labor unity. 'Dear Franklin,' smiled Mrs. Roosevelt in the manner of an adult discussing a child, 'he's trying again!' "

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