For Finland

WAR & PEACE

By last week, a U. S. Citizen who had neither danced, knitted, orated, played bridge, bingo, banqueted or just shelled out for Finland was simply nowhere socially. The U. S. mood had changed: Isolationism had been thrown away with last year's calendar. On its March engagement pad, the U. S. had marked, "Save Finland."

The "new" Herbert Hoover, now the newsreeling chum & consort of sports columnists, stage stars, debutantes, had amassed $2,500,000 in hard U. S. cash for Finnish relief. With unselfish enthusiasm he reported that twelve other groups were in the field, collecting with equal avidity. Mr. Hoover made a dramatically sudden appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee (his first before a Congressional Committee since he was Secretary of Commerce), said 7,000,000 Poles need aid--about $50,000,000 worth.

But the formal, old-style fund-drive was too cumbersome for U. S. restlessness. Americans last week formed committees, threw binges, sponsored concerts, balls, dinners, benefits, theatricals; debutantes carried jingling boxes through night clubs, collected from workmen; bankers put coin-boxes by their wickets. For their Fatherland and for fun, old Finn Record-Miler Paavo Nurmi and young Finn Record-Two-Miler Taisto Maki finished tuning their leg-muscles to watchspring fineness, began junketing over the U. S., through subways, a strange language, strange food, one-night stands. Their goal: benefit funds for Finland. Finland was the fashion.

> In New York City, Transcontinental & Western Air's genial Eastern manager, Stick Randall, went to an auction sale (proceeds to Finland), bought: a Dorothy Lamour sarong (used), $25; Paulette Goddard nightgown (used), $30; three of Jimmy Cagney's neckties (brand-new), $22.* Other Finland fans bought Greta Garbo's evening gloves, Josef Lhevinne's autographed concert handkerchief.

> A Miss Isabella Comeron gave the Finnish Legation in Washington a $2,000 diamond bracelet. Finnish Minister Hjalmar Procope issued an immediate appeal for bicycles. New York's fiery, hen-shaped Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia told 1,200 lunchers thatcivilization was on the side of Finland and Finland was on the side of God.

> People who last fall were denouncing "that madman in the White House who is trying to get us into war" were now impatient with merely feeding & clothing the Finns. "Bullets, not butter," was their cry.

> Major General John O'Ryan, onetime New York police commissioner, started a drive for "Fighting-Funds for Finland"; his goal: $10,000,000. In less than three weeks General O'Ryan totted up $300,000, sent it along.

> U. S. industry had raised $600,000 of an allotted $1,000,000 quota; U. S. labor had given $200,000.

> And finally, after eight weeks of stalling, the Congress shoved through a bill authorizing a $100,000,000 increase in the depleted capital of the Export-Import Bank--on the clear understanding that Federal Lender Jesse Jones would immediately "lend" Finland $20,000,000.

The scene in the House was an odd mixture of cowardice, confusion, misunderstanding. To beat around the bush of last autumn's Neutrality Act, the loan was restricted to non-military supplies. Michigan's nervous Representative John Dingell shouted: "To hell with Stalin and to hell with Hitler! . . . We restrict the loan for powder puffs, silken scanty panties and cream puffs, when we know the Finns need shrapnel,* buckshot, barbed wire and all the fiercest implements of hell because they are fighting to stop anti-Christ and the hosts of hell led by Beelzebub. ... Let every man stand up and be counted, let him vote as he talks, let us dispense with hypocrisy. . . ."

But moments later, when a single objection would have insured a roll-call, neither anti-Beelzebub Mr. Dingell nor any other House member spoke up, and the bill went through on an anonymous no-record vote, 168-51.

From Franklin Roosevelt in the Caribbean flashed a go-ahead wire to Jesse Jones. Finnish Industrialist W'illiam Wahlforss sailed for home well satisfied. Connecticut's Representative William Miller said the bill was a "safe step, short of war."

Mum or numb were 1939's Isolationists. As Franklin Roosevelt, home from his 15-day cruise, penned his signature to the measure, only Columnist David Lawrence spoke the longer, less-fashionable view: "Nobody is deceived. . . . The Russian Government knows what the American Congress has done. So do the people of Finland. The U. S. Government has backed up its expressions of moral support with material aid to Finland. . . . Whether America likes it or not, she has become involved in the worldwide struggle for the preservation of democracy. . .. The Finnish loan makes a precedent that cannot possibly be erased and marks a milestone in America's course of alleged isolation."

* All Goodman Randall took home to his wife was the neckties.

* Mr. Dingell should have known better. Last wide military use of shrapnel against troops was in the Boer war, 1899--1902; World War I's first year taught the unready British that Germany's high-powered explosive shells were more effective.

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