A-Simmer

Patient, white-haired Cordell Hull is like a cook trying to watch too many pots. Last week, while he was anxiously brooding over his simmering reciprocal trade treaties, another pot boiled over and blew the lid off. From the Associated Press came a new version of the first seizure of U. S. mails on transatlantic Clippers landing at Bermuda. According to the story, when Captain Charles A. Lorber refused to let the British censor board his plane, the censor whistled up a boatload of marines armed with rifles with fixed bayonets. There are times for heroes, times for diplomats. Forty-two-year-old Captain Lorber was a hero to more than his Baltimore family. He had behind him a record of a million miles of overwater flying, aerial explorations of the Yucatan's Mayan ruins, of Brazil's Mato Grosso jungles. But this was no time for heroes. Captain Lorber gave in.

Snapped Lord Lothian, British Ambassador: "Complete eyewash." Said an authoritative source in London: "You can be certain it won't happen again." At first denied by Lieut. Colonel R. Swire, chief censor in Hamilton, who declared, "utter nonsense . . . no armed men were in the vicinity," the story was later admitted in part. An official statement pointed out that a force majeure had to be created to enable Captain Lorber to yield his mail without any question of having failed in his duty as a U. S. mail carrier. This "show of force" was a boatload of armed special constables.

Marines or constables, it seemed clear that the U. S. mail had been hijacked by Britishers. Congressmen were hopping mad.

Barked Missouri's Senator Bennett Clark:

"The British are using high-handed procedure in taking American mails at the point of a bayonet and rifling them."

"I know what Andrew Jackson would have said in this case," declared Senator Ernest Lundeen of Minnesota. "He would have said, 'Let's seize Bermuda.'"

Growled Missouri's Senator Harry Truman: "I think it's a hell of a note."

"Why not pass up Bermuda in our transportation?" demanded North Dakota's Senator Nye. "It would not be a week before arrogant Britain would come to terms."*

Pan American Airways took Senator Nye's tip, at week's end announced that their transatlantic Clippers would not stop at Bermuda on eastbound trips after March 15. "With the improved weather service," the airline carefully explained, "the intermediate stop at Bermuda . . .will no longer be required." Clippers will fly to the Portuguese-owned Azores in one hop. Pan American's shuttle service between New York and Bermuda by smaller seaplanes will go on as usual.

Busy, patient Cordell Hull, who thinks his job at times is a little discouragin', went on trying to keep an eye on all his bubbling pots.

* Mrs. Nye said this week she would file divorce proceedings against Senator Nye, declined to amplify her announcement.

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