The Old Master

Franklin Roosevelt was feeling no pain this week. He had laid his plans, and his plans seemed to be working out. He had seized a country--Dutch Guiana (Surinam). He had temporarily stalemated the Japanese, at a time when every day's delay before the Japs went to war constituted a real victory for the U.S. American tanks and planes were helping the British shag the life out of the Axis troops in North Africa. The first U.S. ships bound direct-to-England, direct-to-Russia were loading cargo and guns to win the Battle of the Atlantic. Traffic on the Burma Road was up 400%. The Russians were still retreating, stubbornly, and seemed to have some 5,000 miles of retreat left.

Blitz on Bauxite. In eight years, the President had taught Adolf Hitler nothing; but he had learned plenty from the Fuehrer. The U.S. occupation of Dutch Guiana was as quick, cool, and as foresighted a step of getting to a vulnerable spot before the enemy seized it as Hitler himself could have planned. But unlike Hitler's aggressions it was made with the full consent of the other parties concerned: Brazil, the British, The Netherlands Government. The White House is sued a brief statement: The bauxite mines in Surinam furnish about 60% of the metal vital to U.S. aluminum manufacture, and aluminum is vital to all nations fighting the Axis. To protect the safety of this bauxite source, the U.S., by agreement with interested nations, and after advising all other Latin American nations, will put in a small force to protect the source of bauxite, will withdraw its troops as soon as "the present danger" is removed. For the Dutch to protect the mines would mean withdrawal of troops from The Netherlands East Indies, which is at present "inadvisable." Brazil will patrol its Surinam border and send a mission to Paramaribo to consult.

Surinam was once thought to be worth more than Manhattan. The Dutch traded the colony of New Amsterdam to the British in 1667, got Surinam in return, and thought that they had the best of the bargain.

The little country (54,300 sq. mi., about the size of Wisconsin) is divided in three belts, paralleling the coast--a low, marshy, unnavigable shore line, where only the shallowest boats can go; a strip of savanna, sparsely wooded and creek-ribbed; a little-known, hill-&-mountain interior.

The citizenry (178,000) is an anthropologist's dream. Below the 1,000 Dutch is a weird blend of Javanese, British Indian, Chinese, aboriginal Indian and Bush Negro. The Negroes are descendants of 17th-Century imported African slaves, who live and dress much like their savage forefathers, but still speak a kind of stubborn English.* Surinam produced 615,434 tons of bauxite in 1940, exported all of it to the U.S. The chief bauxite mine is at Moengo, up the narrow Cottica River close to the boundary of Dutch and French Guiana.

Unstated was the danger to the bauxite, but it could be guessed. Next door lies Vichy-ruled French Guiana, near by run Axis airlines. A small force of Axis fili busters might be organized who in a quick raid might wreck the bauxite mines. It is also possible that the Dutch officials on the spot wanted U.S. intervention. Most of them have relatives in occupied Holland against whom Nazi pressure could be brought to have bauxite production sabotaged. With the U.S. in charge, nothing can be gained by Nazi persecution of the officials' kin.

South With a Smile. The President had more to smile about at home, too, than in many a long week. He had not been forced to send soldiers to guard the coal mines. He might not have scalped John L. Lewis, but the miners were back at work, and that was the important thing. And John Lewis could hardly again threaten the defense program on such a scale. For one thing, he had succeeded in mining up anti-strike legislation in Congress. The President had given the clearest of green lights to strike-repressive legislation, of whatever kind the Congress saw fit to pass. The probability was that organized labor would have to win its 1942 victories at the council table, instead of on the picket line.

The President had also signed the repealer to Sections II, III and VI of the Neutrality Act. Congressional isolationists had been temporarily reduced to beefing about naval secrecy--which was a beef any man could make. Two outstanding isolationists, Senators Robert A. Taft of Ohio and Guy Gillette of Iowa, announced formally that they would support the President's foreign policy--with only one reservation--as long as that course was covered by Congressional enactments. Henceforth Patriots Taft and Gillette will not be obstructionists, although they reserved their principles.

The President still had headaches ahead --particularly Vichyfrance, Japan and inflation. But the way was clearing. He could head south for the smell of Southern pines, the annual turkey-slashing for the Warm Springs children, the annual pool-splashing for himself, with a higher heart than at any time in 1941.

*Zon (sun), moen (moon), forko (fork), spoen (spoon), pleti (plate), sidom (sit down), fadom (fall down), babei (by-&-by), closibei (close by), farawei (far away). Koersoe means fever, since fevers were the curse of the land; haiwatra means tears (eye-water); dediskin is a corpse.

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