Evening Star Newspaper, December 8, 1931, Page 12

THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGION., D. C. behalf of the Council on Foreign Re-|specific allegation in the letter of |running concurrently or collaterally to lations, of which latter the Hon. Elihu | transmittal signed by Mr, Hoover's|it. This is an implication of the ad- | Root is honorary president and the | Committee seems to seek to convey the | ministration’s that is in no way War- Hon. John W. Davis is president, said [ impression that we said ‘that the ratios A-12 GARDINER lNSISTs ranted by the text of our pamphlet that | the first of this month .that “such a | establ by the London Naval| Mr. Hoover's committee sopght to dis- N Demonstration Is Canceled | s Change of ventie o the Gooli Gusy | Was compelled to grant the petition. Court ‘was granted here yesterday by Davis was arrested in Wilmington two scheme would be opposed by the strong- | Treaty are effective prior to December | credit.” lR | st powers in Europe because it ‘would | 31, 1936. | Turning its_attention next to the lestroy the offensive value of sea Hoover committee's exception e e At e Imputation Is Denied. | e at Foreign Minister’s |—————————— Gardiner statement that the President Mr. Gardiner continues: “The Navy Insistent Request. VENUE CHANGE @RANTED Davis, o':lozed. 2§:mx7:mwgu:do::r:: g;;:‘;:"e:rum "‘Ei?,i’m‘?,fl' vaxc':! attempted sssault upon Mrs. Edgar ers and Wil detectives. IN TRIAL FOR ASSAULT Lushy st her home near Kenbedyvill i 5 s o - two weeks ago. Ju eating was sit- N < Kent Judge Transfers | !ng in the place of Judge L. W. Wickes, ‘ Viscount Seeks Divorce. | who s 11l | LONDON, December 8 (#) —The Lon-~ In a petition, filed by. R. H. Rogers don Daily Mall said yes:erday that Vis- . H. Legg, his at- | and former Senator J. H count Ratendone, heir of Lord Willing- ‘tomeys, Davis claimed that he could | Gon' tne viceroy of India- had. Ales e not get a fair and impartial trial here. | peyjtion for divorce from his wife, the former Maxine Forb>s Robertson, daugh. ter of the actor, Sir Johnston For Robertson. Associate Case to Cecil County Court on Defense Plea. Special Dispatch to The Star. CHESTERTOWN, Md., December 8. | Under the State constitution the court “Here again Mr. Hoover's Committee | haq held up the building of cruisers, League takes thig occasion to express | imputes to us that we said something | today's 1me? asserts '~ma5 construction throughout our country its great grati- | we did not say and then criticized us|on all five of the first group of cruisers tude for this wholly unsxpected cmr for its own misstatement. was delayed until after the close of cism of Mr. Hoover's proposal and col- | “What the London Naval Treaty does | the first fiscal year stipulated by Con- lateral support of our point of view, in |is to set up, category by category and |gress, namely, 1929; that work was held this particular respect, by these very |sub-category by sub-category, certain|up on three of them immediately after distinguished gentlemen.” aggregate tonnage quotas of underage | jts being merely nominally started in A ships that are the maximum limits not | yu1y ittedly as a Hits Presidents’ Inguiry. to be exceeded on December 31, 1936.‘f§:e’ndl°,,‘ e ‘&“E;Sfl’nd.‘ that real League Head Holds Hoover’s Policies Call for Probe by Congress. Declining to run up the flag of logy for accusing Presidept Hoover being “abysmally jgnorant’ of naval affairs, Wililam Howard Gardiner resident of the Navy League of the nited States, strips his craft for action, asserting that the Chief Ex- ecutive's “entire conduct of our naval affairs” demands congressional investi- tion In a letter to the League's members released Jor publication today, Mr Gardiner insists that President Hoover's special committee, named as an after- math of his famous statement, “i putes to us that we said something we did not say and then criticized us for s own miststatement.” The statement points to refutatio from official sources, of the Hon. Mr. Stimson’s alle gations of false statements on our part.” Cites Navy Day Message. Mr. Gardiner deals with the Chief Executive in this language: “In con- clusion it seems appropriate to recall that Mr. Hoover, after showing such a lack of personal understanding as to naval matters, has alleged in the state- ment that he issued on our last Navy day, in effect that, as he believes our Navy and Army now to be strong enough to repel invasion, they shou not be increased lest so doing increase 1ll-will in other countries—and this al- though our Navy is, in essential re- spects, much weaker than are those of other Naval Treaty Powers when judged by treaty quotas “For him to take such a position is to go back on the platform on which he was elected and to turn his back on such parity principles as are claimed for the London Naval Treaty. And furthermore, it is, in effect, to express complacence at the existing naval superiority of other powers and to deny our naval protection to our distant out- lying possessions and to our vitally im- portant world-wide trade. “Such a misconception of the duties of our Navy and the consequent finan- cial policy of Mr. Hoover toward our Navy are the present naval problems that cry for a congressional investiga- tion into his entire conduct of our naval affairs. And it is to such sub- Jects that we hope to be allowed to de- vote our attention rather than to re- butting Mr. Hoover's organized efforts to discredit the Navy League seemingly because it states truths unpalatable to | him.” Says Stand Was Backed. At the outset of the letter, the Jeague's president cites the fact that letters of support and encouragement received from members of the Navy League and others in his differences with President Hoover, outnumbered by more than four to one those of criti- cism, “a large portion of the latter be- ing anonymous” The statement that initiated the controversy was the pam- phlet entitled “The President and the Navy” and was published on_ October 28, In it, Mr. Gardiner used the words “sbysmally ignorant” in referring to President Hoover and his dealings with naval affairs, particularly his proposal to immunize food supplies in time of ‘War. Taking up the food immunization program in his letter of today, Mr. Gardiner. says that the “Survey of American Forelgn Relations, 1931." is- sued from the Yale University Press on President Hoover's Committee of In- quiry into Mr. Gardiner’s prior state- ment, today’s letter said, in its entir report, failed “to prove that any ton- nage figure we have given or ratio figure we have deduced therefrom is not correct.” The letter takes the Hoover Committee to task for finding i in the unfortunate posftion of gned a report it alleges that rited States has under construc- tion at the present time a larger total tonnage than any other power’ (95100 tons) whereas, in its same report, it says that ‘Prance is building at the present time 137,424 tons’; and of hav- ing signed a report wherein it alleges we had said that ‘the actual auxiliary ship ratio of Japan is 13.1’ to that of | 10.0 for the United States, whereas we had said no such thing, but, on the contrary, had said that the American- Japanese ratio in this respect was 10.0- 10.0—a misquotation in the report that Mr. Hoover's Committee signed upon which glaring inaccurary on its own part it repeatedly relies to attack the accuracy of the assertions we made al- though, in its entire report, it failed to | prove that any tonnage figure we have given or ratio figure we have deduced therefrom is not correct. * * * “The first specific allegation in the letter wherewith Mr. Hoover's Com- mittee transmits to him the report it signed is that we said ‘that the Wash- ington Naval Treaty established a ratio of 10-6 as between the American and Japanese fleets as & whole,’ st today’s letter. Denies Making Statement. Where one or more of the signatory work was not started on two of these powers may have a present excess in|three until several months after the ne or more categories or sub-cate- |close of the last fiscal year Congress gories, they are to scrap down ‘gradu- ally’ during the life of the treaty to the stipulated quotas. And where they may be below such quotas, they are permitted to build up to them, under certain provisions, but not to exceed them during the life of the treaty— although there is a provision that the United States is not permitted to lay down its maximum quota of large-gun cruisers otherwise than on a schedule that would preclude its completion until a year or more after the expiration of the treaty. “It is pertinent to present program problems, however, to note that whereas the overall American-British-Japanese treaty quotas for underage auxiliaries | are respectively 661,200 tons, 676,700 tons and 448,050 tons, the total tonnage of auxiliary underage vessels built and building as of October 1, 1931, were merely ' 456,050 tons for the United States, but 597,281 tons for the British and 455,985 tons for the Japanese. Tonnage Ratios Differ. “Thus while the treaty quotas are in the ratio of about tonnage ratios for such ships actually built and building, as of last October, were about 10.0-13.1-10.0. And it is also of timely interest to note in con- nection with present program problems that the above tonnage figures show that whereas in October the United States had less than 70 per cent of its | treaty quota in underage auxiliaries | built” and building, the British had 10.0-10.2-6.8, the | “We did not say that. The fact that | over 88 per cent of their quota and the the Washington Naval Treaty limited | Japanese over 100 per cent of their the aggregate tonnages of only the | quota built and building. capital ship and aircraft carrier cate- | “To state such figures and their re- gories is 50 well known as mot to call | lationships is not to allege that the for specific reiteration. Indeed, its|quotas should be attained before the end limitation of the capital ship category |Of the treaty at the close of 1936—even saved other powers the expense of at- | though Senator David A. Reed stated | tempting to build up relatively to the | publicly after an interview with Mr. capital ships we then had approaching | Hoover on May 2, 1931, that ‘unless we completion and which we scrapped. | bulld the Navy to treaty limits by 1935, And having been saved such expense|We Wwill have no standing at the next they were in all the better position to | naval conference.’” avall themselves of the opportunity left | ~Mr. Gardiner’s letter then proceeds to open by the Washington Treaty to deal with Secretary Stimson, who at- build unlimited aggregate tonnages of | tacked the statement relating to the all categories other than capital ships | Hoover-MacDonald confggence on the and aircraft carriers provisions of the Washington Naval [ League's original pamphlet. Mr. Gardi- Treaty and outside of its limitations, | ner turns his guns on Mr. Stimson's between its date of signature in 1922 | quoted statement that the Senate Com- and the opening of the London Naval | Mittee on Foreign Relations “never sat Conference of 1930, the British Empire | in executive session” and relies on the laid down nearly 270,000 tons of sea- | committee’s own report of hearings on going combatant naval vessels, the | the London Treaty to show that it sat Japanese Empire about 235,000 tons, | France nearly 220,000 tons and Italy | sions. Mr. Gardiner cites the resolu- over 130,000 tons, while the United |tlon introduced by Senator McKellar States had laid down merely about|and later passed, designed to secure 90,000 tons of such vessels. In short, from the President papers relating to even Italy lald down more new sea. the London Treaty. going naval tonnage than the United States, while the other three treaty etle ntav st R o powers averaged among them each to build about three times as much new |to say: “Nevertheless, on the day fol- tonnage as we did.” | lowing the passage of the McKellar res- Quoting the Republican party plat- | olution, President Hoover, in a mes- Thus under the | Rapidan, which had appeared in the | in executive session on several occa- | Then Mr. Gardiner's letter has this | form of 1928, the letter of Mr. Gardiner says: “We pledge ourselves to round out and maintain the Navy in all types of combatant ships to the full ratio provided for the United States by the sage to the Senate, refused to transmit to_it the matters requested, alleging | that to do so would be a breach of con- fidence, but at the same time asserting Washington Treaty for the Limitation of | etc.” Naval Armaments and any amendment | The letter adds: “It seems that when thereto” and adds “a pledge that Mr.|pre-conference agreements are men- Hoover has taken no step of material |tioned by others, the administration is moment to carry out since he has been |likely to imply that reference is being that therein were no secret agreements, | in office.” | The letter continues: “The second sters want, SHOP AT SEARS AND SAVE BLADENSBURG ROAD AT ISTH & H STS. N.E. SEARS, ROEB Peerless Junior Bicycle, $20.45 The Peerless has the dashing color and speedy streamlines that young- Has 1932 improved model cosster brake. mond roller chain, mudguards, rubber tread pedals. A big value. Bike stand, dia- made to secret agreements outside the text of the London naval treaty, but }had stipulated for their construction, (namely, 1930, and that normal prose- | cution of work on the other cruisers of | this group seems to have been some- what delayed.” The letter commented {that “as 'the Japanese, French and | Italians did not then suspend any con- struction reciprocally to the American and British suspensions, there is no | question but what Mr. Hoover's gesture | was not commensurately copied by any | of the other naval treaty powers.” | Approves Howe Pamphlet. | Mr. Gardiner believes that Walter Bruce | Howe, chairman of the league’s board | of directors, in his pamphlet of Novem- |ber 25 has “adequately refuted” the Hoover committee claim, attributing to ‘lhe league’s chairman “that the Presi- dent intended under the one-year ‘holi- day’ to forego our treaty rights to carry |on the construction of 87,600 tons of naval vessels, including the seven cruis- | ers now building.” The Gardiner letter of today thus | disposes of the Hoover group: “As the committee appointed by Mr. Hoover avowedly with the purpose of showing up what he mistakenly alleged to be ‘untruths and distortions of fact’ on our part has not only failed to do so, but apparently has felt constrained to sign a report and letter of transmittal | themselves evidently distorted, there would not now seem to be any further occasion to consider this miscarriage of |a highly organized effort to discredit the Navy League seemingly because we told unpalatable truths. “On the other hand, it is of primary and pressing importance to determine whether the general and budgetary pol- |icy of Mr. Hoover toward the United States Navy is based on adequate ap- preciation of the reasons why we main- | tain a navy and of the characteristics requisite in a navy to satisfy such re- | quirements. “In his appointment of his commit- | tee he specifically excluded such sub- jects from its considerations, although almost a half of the text of our pomph- Jet. that his committee was appointed to refute dealt with a phase of his naval polic; Association Elects Officers. ATLANTIC CITY, N. J,, December 8 (#).—George L. Brunner of Dertolt, yes- terday was named president of the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers’ Association at its first annual vention. Other officers were announced as David Beecroft of New York, vice presi- |dent; C. H. Burr of New York, | treasurer, and C. C. Secrist of Chicago, | secretary. 2 BB Ship your Christmas packages by the | safe, sure way—Railway Express Agency. Advertiseme | L4100 Georgia Ave. AD-0145 CK AND ¢O. SAVE °*15 to *25 A Merry Christmas With an 2 -~ ELGIN BICYCLE 267 | Chromium - plated handle- bars, rims and sprocket. Fully guaranteed. A beauti- Beautiful Elgin Oriole ful bike, in flas trimmed with white. A SMALL D MENT, BALANCE EASY MONTHLY OR OUR WILL-CALL PLAN with a will reserve your selection until Christmas. Elgin “‘Silver Eagle” Bicyele, The world's most beautiful bicycle. everything—electric tail light—loud taxi horn, tenk for tools, Alls tires, 1932 imp;oved coaster brake, motoreycle type. SEARS, RoEBUCK ano Co. ISR WE GUARANTEE SATISFACTION OR YOUR MONEY BACK hing red color OWN PAY- PAYMENTS, small deposit $38.45 A chromium-plated beauty. Hi Elgin Bicycles are sold at “3” Sears Stores: Bladensburg 3140 M St. N.w. 1825 14th N.W. con- | { By the Associated Press. NAPLES, December 8.—Foreign Min- ister Dino Grandi, with Signora Grandi | and other members of his party, ar- | rived in Italy at 8:30 this morning | after their trip to Washington. | The young foreign minister had al- ready a long report of 100 pages to present to Premier Mussolini at Rome | on his “most satisfactory mission” and his talks with President Hoover and Secretary Stimson. | Il Duce already had told Grandi over | the transatlantic telephone, before he | left Washington, how pleased he was, | so the foreign minister knew, as he Stepped off the boat, that a hearty | welcome was in store for him. A b demonstration was plmned‘ here, blit it was canceled at Grandi's insistent request. He wished, he sald, to have the first sign of approval come from Mussolini himself. The Grandis were away 31 days, 11 of which they spent in the United | States. Besides the report to Il Duce, | Grandl also has prepared another in the form of an address to the Italian Senate, which he will probably deliver | tomorrow. It will contain no new reve- lations, but will be & commentary on the joint communique issued on No- vember 19. Signora Grandi’s report isn't written yet, but she has a world of stories to tell little Pranco and Simonetta, her two children, about the cheers their father received and all about the tall buildings and the subways and the big stores with escalators in New York. Most important for Franco and his sister, however, will be the huge cases| of toys, sent by American friends, which will be given them in three instalments. 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