Hot Talk

Many a Congressman last week got batches of red-hot mail asking him why in the blankety-blank he had been so blankety-blank stupid to vote against fortifying Guam when the Navy asked for it, back in 1939 and 1940. Meantime Congressmen began sounding off with a little hot talk of their own:

Veteran isolationist Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, 65: "[In any peace treaty] we should take care of America first. Every other country is looking out for itself and we should look out for ourselves. Old German States should be separated and kept separated."

Illinois' Senator Scott Lucas, 49: "Japan should be reduced to the point where for 1,000 years she will have no control or force in the family of nations. That goes for Germany and Italy, too."

Nebraska's Senator George W. Norris, 80: "Their [Japanese] cities are open to attack . . . that will burn them off the face of the earth, and that is what they are coming to."

Isolationist Chief Burton K. Wheeler, 59, Senator from Montana, and veteran appeaser: "I'm sorry the United States does not now have the bombs and bombers to bomb hell out of Tokyo, Kobe, and other Japanese cities. The time will come when we can bomb them and we will retaliate by making a shambles out of their cities. I would certainly show them no mercy."