Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 10, Number 47, DeMotte, Jasper County, 10 October 1940 — General HUGH S. JOHNSON Says: [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

General HUGH S. JOHNSON Says:

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WAR DEPARTMENT ‘HARRYS’ WASHINGTON.—There is something smelly in the war department. Part of it is too many Harrys. Because Harry Woodring wouldn’t agree with Harry Morgenthau Dn a restrictive tax policy that paralyzed airplane and other production for about eight months, he iiad to walk the plank. In tils place came another Harry— Wrong-Horse Harry Stimson. He :ame apparently because he had lust made an all-out interventionist speech proposing something perilously close to a war alliance with England. At least, he proposed the joint use of naval and air bases which would, for all practical purposes, make us a belligerent in this war.

Certainly he didn’t come to speed defense on the real front of the Battle of America—which is, at the moment, the industrial front. Nobody can argue that because that would require a dynamic figure—a man who knows something about that job. Wrong-Horse Harry not only doesn’t know anything about it, but he is about as dynamic as= a -shelled oyster. When he came, the assistant secretary of war was, by law, charged, under the secretary’s direction, with making plans and preparations for our present two great tasks—industrial and man power mobilization. A system for this had been under study and discussion for many years. The assistant secretary, Mr. Louis Johnson, after many false starts and a good deal of galloping in place had at last got his stride. He had learned his job. He had finally captured the confidence not only of the army, but also of industry and the public. Things were beginning to hum. The appointment of Mr. Stimson was a direct Violation of a promise to him of that portfolio. The promise was not kept and the default proved to be even more than that for Louis Johnson. • * * Mr. Stimson’s first official act was to demand Mr. Johnson’s official head on a silver salver. He wanted his own man. That fratricidal request was granted and, regardless of disconcerting—not to*; say paralyzing—effect on the Battle of America. Mr. Stimson brought in his own man, Judge Patterson. Bad as this helter-skelter playing of ducks and drakes with national defense might have been in 99 out of 100 cases, it turned out that Judge Patterson was just the kind of guy who could overcome the handicap of such reckless monkeybusiness. He was a soldier himself and a common sense administrator. In

record time, he corralled the confidence of everybody involved, army, industry, public. Then something happened. The President wisely decided to appoint Judge Advocate General Gullion—a natural—to conduct the selective service draft. Wrong-Horse Harry boiled over. Gullion would be appointed “over his dead body.” He wanted Colonel Hershey, whom Gullion intended to use as his deputy. There is nothing the matter with Hershey. Together, he and Gullion would have been the most perfect team in America. Alone, and next to Gullion, Hershey would be the best selection. That isn’t the point. The point is the testy, crochetty petulance of one, stubborn, feeble old man and his selection of secretary of war in this crisis. In the meantime, the selection ol a draft administrator is deferred, “pending agreements,” when such direction is needed—tragically. Also, all these matters are to be taken away from Mr. Stimsop's own handpicked Assistant Secretary Patterson—who was going to town.

DRAFT TROUBLE This column recently criticized the appointment of Elliott Roosevelt, aged 30, as captain in the air corps and his assignment to some desk job in procurement. Elliott is within the selective draft age limits. Although gazetted as a “specialist,’' there is no information that he has any special training or experience either as a soldier or as a purchasing agent. Now, according to a press dispatch, Elliott says I am a “disgusting old man,” who went through the last war as a soldier, but served only at a desk. I don’t know what that has to do with the merits of this case. In 1917 I had been a soldier in the regular army for 18 years. I served in the places I was ordered to serve. Among those places, I was in command of combat troops—an infantry brigade of the Eighth division. It and I were aboard a convoy destined for France when the Armistice was signed. Elliott is reported as protesting that he didn’t ask for any special assignment and that he wouldn’t have been drafted anyway, because he has a wife and two children. Maybe the boy didn’t ask for any special assignment, but men can be commissioned in the officers Reserve corps only on their own application and request. Such is the law. The actual draft regulations are not yet published. I don’t know what they will say about married men with children, but this I know from the law itself—there is no such absolute exemption.