THE PRESIDENCY: Beautiful Slogans

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Out from Puerto Rico, fanwise over eastern Caribbean waters, the U. S. Navy's patrol squadron 51 has kept an aerial peace watch since Sept. 9. Last week in San Juan, the squadron's Lieut.-Commander Stephen B. Cooke reported on his vigil. Nary a submarine, said he, had been sighted by his fliers; of frequent reports, not one had proved true.

A persistent reporter of foreign submarines in U. S. waters had been Lieut.-Commander Cooke's Commander in Chief, Franklin Roosevelt (who was seeing submersibles as late as Oct. 7 off Miami). Last week the President cited no visiting submarines, but he made submarine news of the first importance. By denying belligerent undersea boats right of entry to U. S. ports, save in dire emergency, he drew a significant distinction between prospective German raiders and the surface warships and armed merchantmen of Great Britain and France.

Mr. Roosevelt has said that the duty of the U. S. neutrality patrol is to keep tabs on far-roving warcraft in American waters. His obvious, implicit premise last week was that submarines, since the sneaky creatures cannot be watched, had best be kept clear away. When a reporter asked whether armed merchant ships also might be barred from U. S. ports, the President said that comparing such ships and submarines was like trying to add pears and apples. Orally amplifying his proclamation, he explained that belligerent submarines may not come within the traditional three-mile limit of U. S. coasts. But, he noted once again, for other purposes U. S. territorial limits may extend as far out to sea as U. S. interests require.

> Chile announced that submarines as well as surface warcraft could find haven in her ports. Off Brazil, well within the unbuckled "safety belt" projected by the U. S. and her sister republics three weeks ago (TIME, Oct. 9), British and French cruisers last week continued to look out for German or contraband shipping.

> Upon receipt of a reply from Joseph Stalin's stooge, old President Kalinin of the U. S. S. R., Mr. Roosevelt made public his admonition to Russia to go easy on Finland (TIME, Oct. 23). The President of the U. S. in a "personal message"—in the diplomatic scale, one short of formal representation—had simply reminded Russia of 1) U. S. friendship for little Finland; 2) the fact that Franklin Roosevelt got the U. S. to recognize the friendless Soviets in 1933. The President of the U. S. S. R. diplomatically told the President of the U. S. to mind his own business.

> A correspondent asked Mr. Roosevelt whether the Administration's known intent to ask Congress for still more money for a bigger Big Navy means that he favors a "two-ocean navy." That phrase, said the President, is a beautiful slogan, meaningless in practice. Then he turned to a press-conference guest, Publisher Joe Patterson of the New York Daily News, said the same thing applies to that gentleman's favorite epigram ("Two Ships For One"). What the U. S. must have, the President went on, is a Navy big enough for its maximum, varying defense needs in any ocean.