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North Dakota's long-nosed Nye, whose defunct Munitions Investigating Committee fostered the Neutrality Act, talked of a new committee to investigate Jersey City's Cuse. "Such an inquiry," added this Senator, "should cover more than this Vimalert affair. We ought to find out how much material other Americans have been sending to the Fascists as well as to the Loyalists in Spain."— Most armorers agree that in spite of the Arms & Munitions Control Office, small shipments of war material have constantly seeped illegally out of the U. S.
Most positive of all official reactions to the Vimalert licensing came from the executive offices of the White House (see p. 13). Pending passage of a Neutrality Act amendment, the State Department broadcast its sincere regrets that the original act had not quite worked. Among those Washington diplomats who received these regrets most graciously were Spain's de los Rios and Russia's Troyanovsky, whose underlings were vigorously denying that Vimalert nowadays has any further dealings with Amtorg. Meantime, nobody had actually set eyes on mysterious Mr. Cuse, the cause of all the commotion. At his Jersey City apartment, where he has a reputation for shyness and big tips, no reporter was permitted to talk to Mr. Cuse, his wife, ten-year-old son or maid. Photographers had to be content with his physical description given by apartment attendants: medium height, stocky, mustached. Out of sight though he kept himself, the "Jersey Zaharoff" was nevertheless well represented in print by statements handed out during the week at his office. To Roosevelt's threat of new legislation, Mr. Cuse had these firm and practical last words: "Whatever new laws may be passed in the future, the fact remains that my company has purchased commercial airplanes for shipment to a country with which we are not at war, on the strength of and in compliance with the existing laws of our country, and the license for their export was granted accordingly."
*0ne way to bootleg arms to a belligerent is to ship them through a partisan or unscrupulous middleman nation. Last week President Cardenas of Mexico proudly announced that, so far, from Mexico to Spain's Reds had gone $1,465,658 worth of war material.