Plum or Lemon?

Styled by Republicans as "...an insult to the Australians..." the nomination of Edward J. Flynn as United States Minister to Australia has implications far more serious than mere inter-party knife-throwing. Lacking both the background and the training necessary for delicate diplomacy, Flynn owes his appointment to peculiar political circumstances. These circumstances make him much less than satisfactory to the Democratic Party of which he is chairman. But they do little to make him the ideal successor of the current minister, Nelson Johnson, and they may well serve to disrupt long-sought unity at home and abroad.

Flynn has little to recommend him for his post. His personal success as a New York City political boss led him to the chairmanship of the Democratic Party but it didn't make him any part of an authority on Australia in particular or the Far East in general. Nor did it introduce him to the wiles and subtleties of international diplomacy. In fact, it hasn't been of sufficient substances to withstand the ill effects of the "Belgian Paving Block Scandal" in which it was charged, though never proved, that New York City workers had used paving blocks belonging to the city to build up Flynn's private home. The scandal has been instrumental in making Flynn a definite liability to the Democratic party.

But this man who lacks the confidence of his party is supposed to capture and hold that of the Australian people. As personal ambassador of President Roosevelt to all our Pacific Allies, he is called on to represent the American people at conferences of war and peace. It may not phase the United States to be once more represented by a political refugee, but it can't fail to gripe Australia to be represented to by one. More than one Anzae will be ruffled by this apparent slight, which quite evidently relegates the Pacific area to second-rate importance in our calculations. American party politics may have gained from the nomination; American world politics most assuredly lost.