WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS _
Red Army Launches ‘Bloodiest Drive’
To Break Strong Nazi Defense Lines;
Indian Tribes Aid in Arawe Offensive;
Government Relinquishes Rail Control
(EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinion* arc «*pr«(*od In th**e tolomn*. Ih«y ar*
Western Newspaper rnlsn's news analysts and nst necessarily of inis newspaper.)
_ Released by Western Newspaper Union. .
-- - V W fV/.v.:V *»/' MIBH1T .?»
RUSSIA:
Baltic Drive
Massing 250,000 men along a 250
mile stretch, the Russians launched
a new offensive below Leningrad in
the north, 70 miles from the Latvian
border. In the initial fighting, the
Reds cut across a railroad supply
line, and also pushed toward the
big Nazi base of Novgorod.
To the south, Gen. Nicholas Va
tutin’s First Ukrainian army drove
40 miles within prewar Poland, while
in the province of White Russia,
the Reds gained in heavy fighting
over the frozen wastes of the vast
Pripet marshes. On the southern
front, stiff German defenses pre
vented a break-through to the Black
sea Rumanian region.
Polish Boundary
Following Russia’s suggestion that
discussions for settlement of the
Polish boundary dispute be based
upon the so-called "Curzon line”
awarding the provinces of White
Russia and the western Ukraine to
the Soviet Union, the Polish govern
ment-in-exilo answered by asking
that the U. S. and Britain mediate
the question.
Russia took none too kindly to the
idea, claiming that by asking the
U. S. and Britain to intervene the
Poles rejected the "Curzon line" as
a basis for negotiation. Violently
opposed to the present Polish gov
ernment-in-exile the Russians de
clared discussions with the present
Polish government-in-exile were vir
tually impossible unless it was re
vised, with Communists included in
a new setup.
Peace Talks
Russia's unofficial report that two
prominent British statesmen had
met with German Foreign Minister
von Ribbentrop in Spain to discuss
a separate peace were vigorously
denied in London.
In London, it was pointed out that
the Von Ribbentrop story apparent
ly was an amplification of a rumor
that has been widely spread since
the Churchill-Eden conferences in
Egypt, but was not taken seriously
by other sources.
SOUTHWEST PACIFIC:
Surprise Promised
Made up of Indians from 20 tribes
trained in jungle warfare in Pana
ma, units of Lieut. Gen. Walter
Krueger's Sixth army plowed for
e/ard at Arawe in southwestern New
Britain, as U. S. bombers continued
hammering the big Jap supply base
of Rabaul, to the northeast.
Although U. S. advances on New
Britain were slow, they were defi
nitely containing Jap forces that
might be employed in the more vital
area to the east. Speaking from
Southwest Pacific headquarters,
Rear Adm. Robert B. Carney said:
“Rabaul and Kavieng are next on
our list, but our method of taking
them won’t be in accordance with
any familiar pattern . . . Just how
we will do it will be something the
enemy least expects . . ."
Indicative of the scale of U. S. air
attacks on the big base of Rabaul
which acts as a feeder point for Jap
barges supplying the New Britain,
New Guinea and Solomons area, the
Tokyo radio admitted the sinking of
several ships in the harbor after a
raid of 200 American planes.
RAILROADS:
Hark to Owners
Following the termination of strike
threats with the settlement of the
unions' wage disputes, the war de
partment returned the railroads to
private ownership.
The action was taken after 1,150,
000 members of the non-operating
unions were granted wage boosts
of from 9 to 11 cents an hour, with
extra payments for time over 40
hours making up part of the in
crease. Employees receiving 'less
than 47 cents an hour will get the
11-cent raise, with those over 57
cents granted 9 cents.
Previously, 350,000 members of the
operating unions had been awarded
a 9-cents-an-hour boost.
EUROPE:
Road to Rome
From their positions on the moun
tain slopes, U. S. and French troops
looked down on the defenses of the
Nazi stronghold of Cassino, guard
ing the long road to Rome. From
Cassino, the broad plain running
northward lends itself to armored
warfare instead of the tedious, up
hill mountain fighting of recent
months.
As U. S. and French forces bore
down on the tangled barbed wire,
concrete emplacements and deep
gun pits making up the Nazi defense
system around Cassino, swirling rain
and snow held up the British Eighth
army’s advance on the other end
of the front.
Across the Adriatic in Jugoslavia,
guerrillas of Josif ("Tito") Broz
continued to harass German troop
movements throughout the country,
considered as a possible invasion
site.
POLITICS:
Strange Letter
Grumpy old Secretary of the In
terior Harold L. Ickes was brought
into the case of the mysterious let
ter, produced by C. Nelson Sparks
and allegedly written by Harry Hop
kins, and purporting to show that the
latter as the President’s No. 1 ad
viser is in close contact with Re
publican Wendell Willkie.
Sen. William Langer <N. D.) dis
played photostatic copies of letters
allegedly written by one of Ickes'
Left to right: Ickes and Hopkins
deputies to Sparks, claiming that
the secretary of the interior wns in
possession of Hopkins’ original let
ter to a prospective Democratic sen
atorial candidate in Texas, promis
ing him support from Willkie forces
in the primary election.
Ickes’ alleged involvement in the
case came as a government attorney
branded the Hopkins letter a forgery.
Following Senator Langer's action,
Ickes suspended his deputy and said:
"I don’t know who will ultimately
turn out to be the villain . . . but it
will not be I.”
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS . . .
Good Reader
Somewhere in the South Pacific,
a native kept one ear cocked while
marines argued over the height of
the Empire State building.
Finally, the native piped up: “No
one right,’’ he said. “Empire State
building 1,250 feet high.”
“How do you know?” the marines
asked.
"Just good reader," the native an
swered.
X-Ray Tells Secret
When 3 playmates brought 10
year-old Johnny Wilm of Springfield,
111., home with a wound in his ab
domen. they said he had fallen on
a pile of cinders.
But when little Johnny’s fever had
failed to subside X-^ays showed a
bullet lodged near his spine. Then,
he confessed having been shot by
one of his playmates during a "Com
mando" raid.
CONGRESS:
Shun Labor Draft
Legislation for a labor draft, re
quested by President Roosevelt in
his annual message to congress, was
given the cold shoulder by the house
military committee, which pigeon
holed the bill despite the senate’s
consideration of the measure.
Had the request for a labor draft
been made after Pearl Harbor or
in the midst of walkouts which
prompted enactment of the Smith
Connally antistrike law, congression
al circles say it might have
passed. With war production at a
record high, however, only serious
strike threats could force enactment
of the legislation, it was added.
Discharge Pay
Declaring that with the possible
enrollment of 15 to 20 million men
and women in the services discharge
pay amounting to $1,000 per person
would cost the government from 15
to 20 billion dollars, Representative
Dewey Short (Mo.) argued for house
acceptance of its military affairs
committee’s bill providing muster
ing-out payments of $300.
In one effort to boost payments to
discharged vets, Representative Wil
liam Lemke (N. D.) proposed in
creasing the maximum disburse
ment to $700. Previously, the senate
had passed a bill providing muster
ing-out payments ranging from $500
for vets with 18 months’ or more
service overseas, to $200 for less
than a year’s service at home.
WHEAT MOVEMENT:
Cars for Canada
War Food Administrator Marvin
Jones’ order to the Office of Defense
m_a _ a i
A * OHOJ7U1 IUUU1I VV
| furnish 200 freight
cars daily to bring
in Canadian wheat
was sharply criti
cized by Sen. Clyde
Reed (Kan.), who
contended the roll
ing stock was need
ed to move domes
tic grain from
clogged elevators.
Sen. Reed countering sena
tor Reeds criti
cism, Jones said he was merely act
ing to relieve the tight feed situation
in the U. S„ what with grain inven
tories as of January 1 about 500,
000,000 bushels be
low last year. By
diverting 200 cars
daily to Canadian
shipments, the WFA :
expects to import i
40,000,000 bushels of
wheat by May 1,
and a total of 95,
000,000 bushels in
the first 6 months of
lim. ——
Although Senator Marvin Jones
Reed said the diver
sion of 200 cars would actually rep
resent 25,000 cars, Jones disputed
the figure, placing it at 6,000 cars.
EARTHQUAKE:
City Ruined
Famous for its fruits and wines,
the picturesque city of San Juan,
situated high up in the Andes mour\*
tains of Argentina, lay in ruins fol
lowing 4 earthquakes inside of 12
hours.
Panicked as the earth rumbled
and shook, thousands of people
rushed screaming from swaying
buildings, only to be struck by
chunks of falling masonry. Esti
mates of the dead were placed as
high as 5,000, and of the injured at
about 13.000.
Although the quakes were felt
across the whole continent from
Chile on the Pacific to Argentina on
the Atlantic, San Juan with its 30,000
population was the most important
city hit. Bravely, its survivors tele
graphed Argentine President Gen.
Pedro Ramirez for a $37,500,000 loan
for reconstruction, and conscription
of 50,000 workers to help harvest the
district's fruit crop.
SOLDIERS’ FARE:
Stocks Needed
If cold-storage warehouses
throughout the U. S. are bulging
with food, it’s because the army
must have record supplies on hand
for troops, Brig. Gen. J. E. Bar
zynski of the quartermaster depart
ment said.
For every soldier overseas, the
army must hold 272 days of food in
reserve, General Barzynski de
clared. There must be 15 days’ sup
ply in transit to depots; 65 days’
supply in ports and depots; 30 days’
supply afloat; 92 days' minimum
overseas supply; 45 days’ overseas
operating stocks, and 25 days’ ex
tra supply to cover losses from en
emy action.
In addition, General Barzynski
said, the arm) must have 90 days’
food supply on hand for U. S. camps.
Because a whole year's supply of
such non-perishable foods as canned
corn, etc., must be bought during
the short period of production, stocks
on hand will be large at completion
of the harvest.
AIR LINE RECORDS
With the completion of the 50,000th
coust-to-coast flight. United Air lines
planes have established what is
believed to be a new record for long
distance air transport operation. The
company pioneered in transconti
nental flying, the first trip being
made in a two-passenger Boeing
40-A mail plane July 2. 1927. The
passengers rode in a box-like com
partment in those days. Crossing
the country took 34 hours, at about
105 miles per hour, compared with
present 200-mile-per-hour speed.
—- ■ - ■■ .. ■'
National Service Act Is
Answer to War Disputes'
‘Too Many Cooks’ Root of Labor Disputes; '
Pressure Groups, Individuals Unwilling
To Lay Aside Financial Desires.
By BAUKHAGE
Neii* Analyst and Commentator.
WNU Service, Union Trust Building,
Washington, I). C.
Why did the President order the
army to take over the railroads?
You can get seven reasons from
seven different presidential advisors.
I won't repeat them. I will name
three.
First, the epitome of those the po
litically minded probably gave; it
will be a good thing for 1944. That
is the sum total of a number of con
clusions of the master minds who
are advising concerning the political
campaign which is ahead of us.
There are two other reasons which
some of the time-hardened officials
in Washington offer (aside from the
threat, real or fancied, to the war ef
fort). These officials let the political
stream flow over them. They are
more interested in getting the par
ticular job assigned to them done
than figuring out its political effects.
Needless to say, they belong to that
large, conscientious army which
most people outside of Washington
forget exists, an army of people
wise or unwise in their judgments
but beholden to no political party
for their positions.
These are the two probable rea
sons they offered; first:
The roads were seized as a threat
against other industrialists who
might make trouble in accepting
terms of future labor wage deci
sions, such demands for increases
which can't be easily dodged (per
haps just demands, perhaps not,
depending on who holds the scales).
The second reason offered is this:
Simply because many of the Pres
ident’s present labor advisors have
had little or no experience in labor
relations, in the methods of labor
leaders.
Misunderstanding
There are a number of signs which
might point to reason one as the one
which turned the scales, but, like
most of the other motivating forces
in many of the recent labor deci
sions, they spring from the same
soil as does reason two: misunder
standing of the methods of labor
leaders.
You will recall that William
Green, A. F. of L. chieftain, when
he made what since seems to have
been an ill-starred attack on the
Marshall statement that threats of
strikes might prolong the war, stat
ed flatly that the railroad unions had
never intended to strike.
That statement isn’t questioned in
spite of the angry denials of the
railroad union leaders. It is what
you heard in every railroad office
from every old time councilor and
advisor in Washington before the
roads were taken over.
Unfortunately, the whole situation
is reminiscent of the conversation
concerning the dog. The dog
growled. The owner said, ‘‘Don’t
be frightened, I know he won’t bite
you.” "But,” replied his friend,
"does the dog know it?"
You see the friend had no under
standing of dogs.
If you had slipped into the White
House on a certain day not long
before the deadline for the strike
call of the so-called recalcitrant un
ions (enginemen and firemen, and
conductors) had been reached, you
too might have been alarmed. The
union representatives <1 am told)
were making a noise very much like
a dog that is going to bite.
Now the old timers were used to
the noise. But the two gentlemen
upon whom the President leans for
advice in matters of stabilization
involving wage and price boosts,
Messrs. Byrnes and Vinson, were
not accustomed to the sound. They
j did not know that a labor leader’s
bark is often worse than his bite.
("There never was the faintest
possibility of an actual walkout on
the nation’s railroads.” — William
Green.)
Messrs. Byrnes and Vinson be
ieved what they heard and it was
Plenty.
That experience, I think I can
I '.ay. ts authentic The labor lead- j
ers emphatically and enthusiastical- j
'y threatened. Messrs Vinson and J
Byrnes took the warning growl for
« real threat. Others of the Presi- !
: 'ent's council were convinced that :
•here was excuse enough to do
I something which they thought would |
! ",e advantageous for political rea- |
| tons.
I_
And so finally, the man with the
long cigarette holder, just back from
the world battlefronts where “so
much-per-hour-per-day” wasn’t the
argument, but “so-many-lives-per
hour’’ was, where world maps were
being re-drawn, where America's at
titude and action was about to re
write history, became a little im
patient.
The Action Date
“We have come to the action
date,” said the President, “we have
been talking here since Sunday. If
you can’t take action by agreement,
I will have to take action by my
self.”
He took it and he took the rail
roads. To say that Washington was
not surprised would be to misjudge
Washington.
The root of the whole trouble in
this and all the labor disputes has i
been that there were too many I
cooks. The trouble with the confus- 1
ing statements which come out of
Washington is that there are too
many cooks. And yet, we have that
paradox that when there are too j
many people handling war prob
lems, the only cure so far has been J
to substitute too few—to pass the
buck to one man—the President. The
answer to that is that one man
simply cannot do it all.
The war is too far away from us.
We cannot lay aside our personal
and natural desire to make as much
money out of it as the next fellow.
This has gone on from the begin
ning—employer, making his profits,
essential labor demanding and get
ting his high wages, the farmer, his
incentive, and then those who fol
low after, shouting, “you did it for
them, do it for me!”
Not one group is blameless, only
those who have been unable to bring
pressure, hesitated to do so. And,
for the most part, each group sin
cerely believing that it was getting
no more than its just due, the rest
were the profiteers, the chiselers.
The solution?
At this writing, a National Service
Act that will order who does what
and for how much—just as it is in
the army.
An Abiding Peace—
Common Sense Treatment
Books on the postwar world can
almost be described as the only |
commodity of which there is now
surplus production, but this is one 1
—“Towards an Abiding Peace”—that |
can be taken seriously. R. M. Mac- j
Iver, professor in Columbia univer- I
sity, for one thing writes a clear, j
simple unprofessorial language, say
ing what he means directly and with
out qualifications.
He is for a world order but is too
practical to believe you can have
it by just writing a world constitu
tion. He wants a temporary peace
which in a way carries on from the
war alliance, and then a second
stage in which we move to real in
ternational control. Furthermore,
he thinks that sooner or later our
present enemies must be taken in
unless we are going to let the third
World war slowly fester.
An international order is an inter
national order to Mr. Maclver.
There are no weasel words.
Mr. Maclver has worked out his !
plans in some detail. There is a lot
of common sense in “Towards an
Abiding Peace"—on a subject on j
which a good deal of pretentious
philosophizing is being done.
Bond-Selling Plan
Rep. Richard P. Gale of Minne
sota has a plan for increasing bond
sales to individual citizens—the sales
which it is most important to make.
He thinks it is a cheap and easy
way for the government to increase
sales and interest in sales on the
Dart of the average man. Senator
Guffey offered a similar plan.
Periodically, at intervals not
greater than three months, he would
have the treasury make a drawing.
And the person holding the winning
number—he would be a bondholder,
of course, would get a prize of from
a hundred to 25 thousand dollars. j
It wouldn’t be a lottery because
nobody could lose—you would have
your bond for the money you invest
ed and your bond would be your
ticket.
BRIEFS • . . bv Baukhage
I __
Nicaragua and Costa Rica are
rapidly expanding their balsa crops
to keep up with current war de
mands and in anticipation of wood's
important role in postwar aviation.
• • •
TN« of tin to preserve food
saic.y in metal containers was first
exploited by Napoleon’s engineers
preparatory to his invasion of Rus- ;
I
Stamp out turnover—stay on the
job—and finish the Job! That should
be every American's creed.
• • •
All honorably discharged mem
bers of the armed forces—both men
and women—will be assisted in ev
ery way possible to find a job to
their liking, according to Paul V.
McNutt, chairman of the War Man
power commission.
Navy Armed Guard Battles
Gangsters of the Sea I
German U-boat warfare, once dreaded by Allied sea
men. is now being crushed. But in those critical davs
when our merchant ships
were sunk daily by the under
water menace, the navy
armed guard crews were our
major defense. Today escort
ships, planes and dirigibles
help. But when the wolf pack
strikes at night or in foggy
weather, the armed guard is
our first defense.
A huge gun sends its projectile sailing through the air as an
armed guard crew practices to make our sea lanes safe.
——■———
Front view of the same drill.
Weeks of this training result in
instant accurate fire when a U~
boat is spotted. j
IMKSS9KM
Neatness and efficiency are g
apparent in this crew as they 1
report for duty aboard a mer- l
chant ship. Right: Men are 1
quickly assigned to their posts 1
and this lookout is soon scan- fj
ning the sea for signs of an ene- i
my periscope. 8
Above: Every round of am‘
munition must be accounted for
by the crew's commander. Left:
He charts his position.
A gunner pours a stream of lead from his antiaircraft gun.
Steps around the gun enable him to elevate and depress it easily.
Tubes on outside of steel guard are spare gun barrels.
‘ :■i: .'.r'; ’„'«. "'
Constant drill and gun train
ing precede an assignment to a
merchant ship. t