Pan-Americana

The Sixth Pan-American Conference at Havana (TIME, Jan. 16 et seq.) transferred most of its business, last week, from open and public committees to closed and secret subcommittees. With the consequent choking off of oratory, there ensued a modest modicum of progress: P: The text of a Pan-American Aviation Treaty was drafted. A vital clause confirms to the U. S. a right to make treaties with the Republic of Panama in such fashion as to exclude foreign air snoopers from the vicinity of the Canal. The treaty as a whole sponsors the "establishment and operation of practicable inter-American aerial lines and terminals."

In order to jam through the Canal protecting clause, U. S. Delegate Henry Prather Fletcher (also U. S. Ambassador to Italy) was obliged to declare roundly:

"We make no secret of our desire to control the Panama Canal in inter-American relations. The United States does not want a provision that might jeopardize our communications, east, west, north, south, in any attack from the air." P: The ambitious project of founding a "Pan-American League of Nations" by endowing the Pan-American Union- with political powers was sacked in subcommittee and finally in committee by an adverse vote in the ratio of two to one. P: The Conference solemnly and gallantly assembled to hear speeches in behalf of Pan-American womanhood.

Spoke "Miss" Doris Stevens, wedded wife of international divorce lawyer Dudley Field Malone. Keynoting for many a woman-group, she said:

"Men cannot feel as we do. . . . Since the beginning of time men with the best intentions have been writing laws for our good. Since the beginning of time brave and valiant women have been abolishing these same laws. . . ." P: Throughout the week Chief U. S. Delegate Charles Evans Hughes labored manfully in subcommittee to prevent the drafting into a code of Pan-American International Law of any clause which would tend to prevent the U. S. from intervening in Latin American countries.

*The permanent bureau or secretariat in Washington of the Pan-American Conference.