Imperial Valley Press

WASHINGTON.—F.D.R. and his administration are trying to pick their way carefully through an assortment of situations which, there is good reason to believe, finds the President almost as confused about the future as the next fellow.

The future seems a bit muggier than usual, even to the most experienced soothsayers, and one observes a tendency here toward resort to contemplation and prayer rather than glittering generalities and invective.

As to the international situation: Having abandoned isolation and stuck the national neck out into the Pacific the administration shares the general wonderment over the question where we go from there.

As to the business situation: The acceleration of recovery has temporarily stopped and no one knows just when it will be resumed.

As to the political situation: It is far from certain whether the forthcoming session of Congress will see some snappy action on the administration program or develop into a general dilatory row over foreign policy, the Klan and other issues.

Insiders know now that Roosevelt's Chicago "quarantine speech" was definitely timed not only for the League of Nations' deliberations on the Japanese-Chinese warfare, but also for the period when England and France were bringing heavy pressure on Italy to get her troops out of Spain. But what the early effect and the long-run consequences will be is as obscure as ever.

In the back of the President's mind, he has told intimates, is the fear that if the "warlike nations" are permitted to sweep on the time will come when the other nations of the world will have magnificent armies, navies and air fleets and the United States will have nearly all the world's gold. That prospect, as well as the threat of rampant fascism, bothers him.

Among confusing factors on the political front, especially important if the international situation is going to overshadow domestic considerations, is the fact that many of Roosevelt's most persistent critics have been cheering loudly over his new stand.

There is a possibility of a rescrambling of battle lines in Washington, since such anti-administration stalwarts of the last session as Borah of Idaho, Johnson of California, Wheeler of Montana and other far-western senators are likely to go along in any administration gestures against Japan.

In the east conservative forces are largely pro-English. And Jews everywhere, although many may have been disturbed by the Black-Klan incident, presumably will support any attitude which carries a frown at Hitler's Germany.

All these new factors are of uncertain weight—as uncertain today as the strength of the die-hard isolationist "neutrality" element which will start shooting at the President when Congress convenes.

This really is a very good time to watch what's going on.