AMERICA PREPARES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 142, 16 May 1940, Page 10

AMERICA PREPARES

EMERGENCY CONFERENCES. FURTHER DEFENCE. MEASURES. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) WASHINGTON, May 14. President Roosevelt has called emergency meetings of Government officials in order to draft big preparedness measures against what Mr S. Early (Mr Roosevelt’s secretary) described as a “Four-alarm” fire, sweeping toward the New World. Mr Roosevelt conferred firstly with the army and navy leaders and later with the chairman of the Military and Naval Committees of both Houses. The conferences are the fifth and sixth, respectively, on national defence since May 10. Mr Roosevelt’s secretary said : The feeling here is that if there is a fouralarm’ fire up the street, with the wind sweeping it in the direction of your home, the issue immediately becomes the protection of your home. Rear-Admiral Robinson, co-ordina-tor of shin construction, urged that 3,000,000 dollars as an additional appropriation be made to enable the shipyards to operate on a 24-hour construction basis. Ho said warship construction was proceeding entirely too Mr C. Vinson, chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee, in a statement to the Press, said: “I am 111 favour of anything the President asks. I want to see ’planes as thick as starlings in the skies over Washington. It is indicated here that the United States’ reaction to the “blitzkrieg will be to vote huge expenditures lor aircraft, anti-aircraft guns and mechanised units. , The United States has informed the Pan-American States that she will be Had to join with them in a protest to Germany against the invasion of Jieigium -and the Netherlands.