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Human. The political cemetery is full of headstones carved with the names of those who have crossed the will of the feuding, cussing Tennessean who heads the State Department. But if Cordell Hull found any pleasure in having sacked Sumner Welles, whom the New York Post called "a symbol of international cooperation in our foreign affairs," last week he gave no sign of it.
The aged (71) statesman was in a fighting mood. He began his press conferences without waiting for questions, steamed ahead on. his own. Said he: "It is unfortunate that a few writers and commentators . . . have dealt carelessly with the facts. . . . Too often a false statement is immediately seized by Berlin and Tokyo. . . . [This] has the effect of lending aid and comfort to the enemy."
Chief target of Hull's sizzling attack was Columnist Drew Pearson, who printed the charge that Hull and other Department of State officials were blindly hostile to Russia. Crackled the Secretary: "Monstrous and diabolical falsehoods."
But Cordell Hull's anger cleared nothing up, said none of the things that needed urgently to be said. In dropping Sumner Welles he had dropped the chief architect of the U.S.'s Good Neighbor Policy in South America, an opponent of those who would do business with Fascists on the basis of expediency, a known and respected advocate of U.S. cooperation in international affairs. The U.S. still awaits a clarification of its foreign policy and the forced resignation of Sumner Welles made an already murky issue even more obscure. Until that issue is plain, angry Cordell Hull can expect no peace.