The Omaha guide. (Omaha, Neb.) 1927-19??, October 06, 1945, Page 7, Image 7

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    EDITORIAL - COMMENT
1$ COM®®®
w Lf ERIC HASS
WEEKLY PEOPLE
Released by Calvin’s News Service
Speaking of “full employment” and “sixty mill
ion jobs”, down in Memphis, Tennessee, the Inter
national Harvester Company is rushing to complet
ion a big new plant for the production of mechanic
al cotton pickers. Within a year or two, the plant
will be in mass production. I do not yet know
what the size of the labor force will be, but the plant
will probably employ many thousands. And it
will use up raw materials that represent the prod
uct of an additional few thousands.
I can almost hear the economic myth-peddler
saying: (‘See! Technology doesn’t cause unemploy
ment. Technology MAKES jobs V”
There is no gainsaying that the mechanical pick
er WILL make jobs for a few thousands. But
what it is going to do to the jobs in the cotton fields
is what the atom bomb did to the population of
Hiroshima. By a conservative estimate, 1,500,000
workers whose main source of livelihood is hoeing
and picking cotton will be displaced by this single
invention alone. And some have put the figure as
high as 5,000,000. The Department of Agriculture
warns that this is not something coming in the re- ,
mote future. It will probably start on a large
scale next year and not later than 1947. Within
five to ten years cotton picking will be as mechaniz
ed as the U. S. Cavalry.
The mechanical picker will conquer the last great
stand of hand labor for the reason that it can pick a
bale of cotton for a fraction of the cost of hand
picking. Economists of the Clayton-Anderson
Company say the mechanical picker will do the job
for $5.26 a bale, including $2.04 in depreciation on
the machine. At prewar wage rates, it cost $14 to
pick a bale by hand, and at current wage rates, $35.
In these figures any one can read the doom of the
field hand.
Do people who casually assure us of “full employ
ment” under capitalism consider developments like
this? They do not! Even men like Henry Wallace
repeat the nonsense that increased productivity
per worker is the way to more jobs and higher wag
es. Yet, any one who thinks two minutes knows
that the only reason new machines are installed is
to displace labor, and that, when workers are dis
placed and glut the labor market, the price of labor
power (wages) goes down.
Virtually all the workers to be blitzed by the
mechanical picker are Negroes, and' the remainder
(in the Southwest) are mostly Americans of Mexi
can descent. Precious few of these will get .jobs
running the new machines. Miraculously, cotton
picking will become a “white” job, and white work
ers will get the few jobs it provides. This is al
ways the case when dirty and toilsome jobs are
mechanized. Instead of a blessing, the mechanical
picker will bring a blight to the South (or to that
part of the South that performs useful labor) that
will make even the boll weevil seem beneficent by
comparison.
The tendency is marked even among the advo
cates of “full employment” to put these dire events
to-come out of mind. Indeed, in the speeches and
articles and books of those who claim unemploy
ment can be solved within the present system, there
is scarcely a word on the future effects of technol
ogy on employment. The result is that they are
preparing a plan as inadesuate in holding back the
flood of peacetime unemployment as a sand dyke
would be in holding back the overflowing Missis
sippi.
In his great work, “Capital", Karl Marx quotes
John Stuart Mill as saying: “It is questionable if
all the mechanical inventions yet made have light
ened the day’s toil of any human being.” In his
comment on this, Marx adds: “Mills should have
said, ‘of any human being not fed by other people’s
labor’, for without doubt, machinery has greatly
increased the number of well-to-do idlers.” And
so it has. For the workers, instead of being a bless
ing, it has been a curse. Privately owned, it has
been used by its owners as r highwayman uses his
gun-to extract a tribute from their victims.
Surely, it is plain that society cannot go on forev
er with this kind of “progress”. It is “progressive
ness” which, like that implicit in the atom bomb,
“progresses” from catastrophe to catastrophe.
Surely, it is plain that the great mechanical devices,
so big with the promise of abundance for all, must
become the collective property of the workers who
run them.
If this is not plain now, I think it safe to say that
for millions of workers the mechanical picker will
make it so.
VICTORY FUND AND COMMUNITY CHEST
■ iij.jiiMii iniimi -iuiji_,1
Nation Can Head Off
Postwar Crime Wave
Quick Reconversion Can Prevent Era of
Lawlessness, FBI Chief Says; Expects
Vets to Demand Order.
By BAUKHAGE
News Analyst and Commentator.
WNU Service, 1616 Eye Street NW,
Washington, D. C.
Will there be a postwar crime
wave in the United States?
That question was put to the man
who will have to deal with it if there
is one—FBI Director J. Edgar Hoo
ver. He threw the answer back on
me—and on a lot of other people in
these United States. Here it is:
Whether we have a postwar crime
wave in the United States depends
on how well we as a nation can re
convert. If we do have a period of
lawlessness, it will in all probabil
ity be led by teen-agers. The re
turning veteran has it in his power
to make or break Such a crime
wave.
That’s not beating around the
bush. Let’s look at the facts, dis
turbing though they may be, as the
FBI director laid them before me.
After the last war, he said, there
grew up a lawlessness from which
the United States has never been
entirely free since. When the gang-,
ster era of the 20s and 30s was final
ly broken up there was some de
cline in criminal tendencies. Never
theless, just before World War II
began in Europe crime was still
very much with us—in fact, the
United States had 11 times more
cases of murder and manslaughter
than England and Wales.
With our entry into the war,
crimes increased, the emphasis on
type changing from crimes against
property to crimes against the per
son—murder, assault, rape and the
like. On V-J Day a major crime
was being committed every 23 sec
onds in the United States. One per
son in every 22 in this country had
been arrested at some time or other.
in taking life and appropriating
property that does not belong to
them?
Vet a Deair e
Orderly Community
On this subject, Director Hoover
issued an emphatic “No!” Here is
his reasoning:
“Of course, soldiers are trained to
kill—but so are we of the FBI and
so are police officers. Blit no man of
the FBI has ever been arrested for
a crime ot violence. There will be
criminals among the returning vet
erans, it is true—criminals who will
operate more efficiently than they
would have if they hadn’t had army
training. But these are the men
who probably would have been crim
inals anyway if they had remained
civilians. After all, the army is only
a cross-section of the American peo
ple. Of course, the real criminals
never got into the army—their rec
ords were too bad.
“I expect the returning veteran to
be a big help to us in combatting
crime,” Hoover went on. “The boys
who are returning from the battle
fields have seen so much of destruc
tion, horror, disease, the dangers of
dictatorship that they are anxious
to see their communities get back
to normal, peaceful ways. They are
more interested in their homes and
civil affair*. They want law and or
der over here.”
The FBI expects the veterans to
be a major influence on the crim
inal tendencies of the teen-agers.
“If the big brothers and fathers
coming back settle down into jobs or
go back to school, they can show
the younger boys and girls how to be
good citizens. The youngsters look
up to these men as heroes—they can
be a strong influence on them.”
But the responsibility for leading
the teen-agers aright does not rest
solely on the veterans—nor alone
on the agencies of law enforcement.
“The question of crime among our
youth cannot be pawned off on a few
juvenile courts, overburdened juve
nile bureaus, and the local police,”
Director Hoover declared. "These
agencies can help materially, but the
big job is getting every parent, busi
ness man, school teacher, salesman,
farmei, mechanic, housewife, and
every other forward-looking citizen
to knuckle down to the two-fisted
realization that this is their job and
it is up to them to do something
about it.”
But no matter what is done to try
to meet a crime situation that now
has a potentiality for great evil in
this country, there is one thing
which Hoover believes will deter
mine in the long run whether it will
be law or lawlessness from here on.
“Whether or not we have a post
war crime wave will depend in the
last analysis on how we as a nation
convert to a peacetime basis,” Di
rector Hoover announced emphati
cally. “You can’t divorce econom
ics from crime. Although it is true
that having money does not neces-,
sarily prevent a person from com- !
mitting a crime, not having money
is a definite cause of it. When peo
ple are out of work, there is a great- 1
er chance for them to get into trou
ble than when they are employed.”
• • •
“If the Republicans don’t look out,
this guy Truman is going to pick up
some votes right out from under
their noses, he’s so darned human,"
a political wiseacre whispered to me
at the Press Club party for Byron
Price.
We were watching the President
mingle with the guests, obviously
enjoying himself.
Just then a colleague of mine on
the weekly press came up. His face
was wreathed in smiles.
“Guess what,” he exclaimed. “I
just said to the President ‘I’m from
Kansas City’ and what do you think
he said? ‘That’s a suburb of a cer
tain city, isn’t it?’ ” <
And my friend, who has been a
Republican since he can remember
and especially so in the last 12
years, is beginning to think that
“this guy Truman” is all right.
When the party was breaking up
the President was heard to observe
with a broad Missouri grin that he
was having as good a time as he
did when he was at the Press Club
last. That time he was still vice
president and his picture was taken
playing the piano with movie star
Lauren Bacall perched atop it.
New Crop of
Criminals Teen-Agers
Perhaps the most ominous single
factor about the picture with which
we start the postwar years is that
the most frequent criminals in the
United States today are boys and
girls 17 years of age.
Director Hoover explained why
this has come about, These teen
agers have been maturing in a pe
j riod of great political, economic and
social upheaval. As they were en
tering the critically formative years
for them in the beginning teens, fa
thers and big brothers, to whom
they might have looked for guid
ance, left home to enter the armed
services. Mothers frequently had to
take jobs which kept them away
from home, leaving boys and girls
to their own social and recreational
devices.
Frequently, families pullid up
roots and moved to teeming indus
trial centers in other parts of the
country where jobs could be had in
war plants. Normal living was im
possible under such overcrowded
conditions. There was a general
spirit of wartime abandon which im
pressionable youth was not long in
catching—lack of discipline, lack of
personal responsibility, became the
accepted thing. A “war hero” at
titude developed in many of those
too young to “join up.”
Then teen-age boys and girls found
that because of the manpower short
age they could stop school and take
jobs where they would make more
money than some of their elders did
before the war. Coming suddenly
onto what seemed sudden wealth,
and of their own making, found
them unprepared to use it wisely.
“We have been developing a gen
eration of money-rich and charac
ter-poor Americans.”
While we had our attention on the
far-flung battlefronts the foundation
was being laid for one of our major
postwar problems on the home
front.
There is another condition that
has been a breeding ground for law
lessness during the war, according
to Hoover, and which may spread
if crime detection and law enforce
ment do not keep ahead of it.
“Gangsterism has been showing
signs of revival during the war,” he
said. “There have been gang wars
in places where they used to thrive.
Hijacking, shakedown rackets, black
markets and bootleg have been on
the increase.”
Therefore, the groundwork has
been laid for a new era of Dillingers.
Then there are the burning vet
erans. Because of their peculiar
training, will they present a new
band of criminals efficiently trained
BARBS ... 6y Baukhage |
Christmas is coming—yes it is. It
will be here before your package to
your soldier is there unless you mail
now. Wrap securely—address prop
erly.
* • *
In 1940 this country had less than
13% million men in what is con
sidered the productive age group of
45 to 64. It is estimated that in 1970
there will be over 18% million.
When the German armies left Hol
land each soldier was permitted to
carry 75 pounds only. Any more was
confiscated by the Hollanders. But
they wouldn t have had much chance
to loot anyhow because the German
civilians left the Netherlands ahead
of them and left very little behind
that wasn't nailed down.
• • •
The latest is canned sandwiches.
Industry Takes Kindlier View of Oldsters
Because of their generally fine
performance while "pinch-hitting”
during the wartime labor shortage,
older workers will find employment
i opportunities much broader in the
l postwar era than in prewar years,
i Northwestern National Life Insur
ance company found in a survey.
Hard-and-fast age limitations ex
uding in the prewar era were pretty
■Vroughly broken down during the
war and will stay broken in many
fields, although most large concerns
will conduct their most intensive re
cruiting in the 20 to 30 age group.
Many employers who have had un
satisfactory experiences with irre
sponsible young employees during
the wartime labor shortage express
a definite preference for older work
ers, who are loyal and very depend
able.
VtecM&me
^(yum
R&pxvUe/i
in WASHINGTON
By Wolter Sheod
WNU Correspondent
WNU Washington Bureau,
1616 Eye St., N. W.
Doctors’ Lobby Fights
Socialized Medicine
happens, or what does not
.■«FFen here in Washington
ofttimes gives cause for wonderment
if congress, if leaders in the fields
of economics, of agriculture, indus
try, labor, social relations, etc.,
actually know what the people are
thinking, what the people of the na
tion want or need. It is easy for
persons down here in the nation’s
capital where events happen so fast
and with such farreaching effect, to
lose the "common touch.”
And the cause for most of the
blindness and the out-of-focus per
spective is self-interest and the self
ish activities of various pressure
groups.
At the present time, there is a
tremendous lobby functioning
against the extension of the social
security act to include medical care
and hospital insurance and other
protective features for low income
groups. This lobby is spearheaded
by an organization known as the
National Physicians committee,
with headquarters in Chicago.
Every effort is being made by this
opposition to defeat the provisions
of the new social security amend
ments, all in the face of the wants,
needs and desires of those for whom
the benefits are intended. Labor is
solidly behind the new social securi
ty proposals and a survey just com
pleted by the department of agricul
ture indicates that this same con
cern is voiced by farmers the coun
try over.
Hospital Insurance
The survey shows that more
than four-fifths of the nation’s
farmers favor more public med
ical clinics in rural areas, and
more than three-fourths want to
subscribe to some flat-rate pre
payment plan to cover possible
hospital bills and the cost of
doctors and nurses for them
selves and their families. This
is the hospitalization insurance
feature of the new proposals.
The answers to the department
survey indicate that farmers gen
erally are conscious and concerned
about the need for better rural med
ical and health facilities. They are
aware that farm youth, 18 and 19
years old, showed the highest re
jection rate in the selective service
for physical, mental and education
al defects of any occupational group
... 41 per cent, compared with an
average of 25 per cent for other
groups.
Many factors, the survey shows,
contribute to bad rural health . . .
the shortage of medical and sanita
tion facilities and the lack of physi
cians, dentists and hospital serv
ices. Many of these rural folks
are in the low income groups which
would be reached by the new
amendments, since in 1939, approxi
mately 3,000,000 out of the 6,000,000
farms in the country produced less
than $600 worth of farm products.
The records show that out of the
3,070 counties in the country, in 1940
there were 1,200 counties contain
ing a total of more than 15,000,000
people, which had no hospitals at
all. And there were only about 1.800
counties with any organized pub
lic health service, and most of
these inadequate. According to the
estimates of the surgeon general of
the United States, there is need
now for some $2,000,000 in hospital
construction which would provide
for 1,000,000 jobs including doc
tors, nurses, technicians and as
sistants to keep them going.
Medical Care Wanted
Animal husbandry, consolidated
schools, roads and bridges, soil
conservation and crop insurance,
agricultural experiment stations,
vast agricultural laboratories and
many other material objectives
are fostered through governmental
help for the benefit of the rural
areas. Many, many farmers, how
ever, believe that assurance of
medical and hospital care for them
selves and their families are more
important than building roads, con
structing dams or saving soil, and
that no price is too high for a
healthy, vigorous and productive
people.
The statistics show that although
the death rate from all causes for
the last several decades has been
lower among rural people than ur
ban folks, deaths from some pre
ventable diseases such as typhoid,
diphtheria, malaria and pellagra
tend to be more numerous among
rural people.
Moreover, the death rate has been
going down rapidly in the cities, but
relatively slowly in the rural areas. '•
The records show that folks in the
rural areas are ill oftener and for
longer periods than city people.
Under the social security law
there are now 36,000,000 insured
workers against unemployment.
There is no insurance for farmers
either for unemployment, old age or
survivors’ insurance. The new act
would extend these latter two pro
visions to include farmers, pro
fessional people, domestics and
others not now covered by the law.
U. S. INCOME:
1944 Peak
Figures compiled by the depart
ment of commerce show that total
income payments to individuals in
the United States in 1944 rose to a
new high record of $148,090,000,000
The largest percentage of this total,
or $19,345,000,000 went to individu
als in New York state while the
smallest percentage, or $196,000,000
went to people in Nevada. The
amounts differed among the various
states because of the size of the pop
ulation oer caDita income
! The Omaha Guide
! __ A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ^
Published Every Saturday at 2)20 Grant Street
' OMAHA, NEBRASKA—PHONE HA. 0800
(Entered as Second Class Matter March 15. 1927
at the Post Office at Omaha, Nebraska, under
lAct of Congress of March 3, 1879.
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^ All News Copy of Churches and all organiz
ations must be in our office not later than 1:00
p- m. Monday for current issue. All Advertising
,Copy on Paid Articles, not later than Wednesday
noon, proceeding date of issue, to insure public
ation.
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--WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS__'
CIO Strives to Maintain High
Pay Level in Postwar Industry;
Act to Spur Building Activity
— .- Released by Western Newspaper Union._
(EDITOR’S NOTE: When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those ol
Western Newspaper Union’s news analysts and not necessarily of this new’spaper.)
.
Facing tough winter in war-torn Austria, Viennese scratch for future
provisions. At left, woman is showrn picking up stray grain in harvested
field, while at right another woman is pictured carrying home wood found
in shelled forest.
LABOR:
Seek Peace
Armed with emergency powers,
Secretary of Labor Lewis Schwellen
bach moved into the troubled indus
trial front, where CIO demands for
appreciable wage boosts threatened
to retard the reconversion program
and jeopardize stabilization policy.
Schwellenbach faced no easy
task, what with the strategic oil, au
tomobile, farm equipment and steel
unions striving for wage readjust
ments to bring 40-hour-a-week pay
up to wartime overtime levels, and
major producers bucking the de
mands in the face of rigid price con
trol.
In all instances, CIO demands for
substantial wage boosts were predi
cated on the claim that the big com
panies had made sizable wartime
profits and could use the money to
defray part of the increases until
peacetime production could be re
established on a volume basis.
While oil workers already had
walked out of midwest refineries in
DEMOBILIZATION:
Point Cut
Asserting that no man would be
kept just to maintain a big army,
Gen. George C. Marshall revealed a
stepped-up demobilization program
providing for a further decrease
of discharge points to 60 on Novem
ber 1 following the October 1 slash
to 70. At the same time, the total
necessary for officers was to be
cut to 75.
Marshall reviewed demobilization
plans at a meeting with 300 con
gressmen at which he also affirmed
receipt of General MacArthur’s es
timate of an occupation force of only
200,000 for Japan by next summer.
Though MacArthur had reduced his
estimate, Marshall said, General
Eisenhower’s figure of 400,000 for
Germany remains the same.
• Declaring that the present rate of
releases has been determined solely
by the availability of discharge fa
cilities, Marshall said that all G.I.s
without useful army work would be
freed within three to four weeks.
With the exhaustion of high point
men by late winter, the arrrty may
further alter its demobilization pro
gram by releasing all men with two
years of service.
a striKe mat tnreai
ened to spread and
imperil the national
fuel supply, princi
pal interest con
tinued to center in
the troubled auto
mobile situation,
where the United
Automobile Work
ers headed by R. J.
Thomas laid plans
POSTWAR BUILDING:
Lid Off
With removal of all building con
trols, government agencies bent
themselves to the task of speeding
up construction and at the same
time keeping costs within bounds to
head off an inflationary boom dur
ing the reconversion period.
As experts looked for the erection
of 500,000 private dwellings next
year and a peak of 800,000 in 1948,
officials sought to increase the sup
ply of scarce building materials, per
mitting wage and price boosts and
priorities to break bottlenecks, if
necessary. Inventory controls also
were to be strengthened to prevent
hoarding and creation of artificial
shortages.
At the same time, OPA announced
that it would tighten price control
over building materials to counter
act heavy demand, while federal
credit agencies prepared to discour
age loose financing in a market
booming with home needs and pros
pects for high postwar employ
ment.
R. J. Thomas for enforcing their
demands for a 30
per cent wage increase by walking
out on individual companies and
leaving their competitors free to in
vade their markets.
In assuming command of a labor
department strengthened by the in
clusion of the War Labor board, war
manpower commission and United
States employment service, Secre
tary Schwellenbach planned to pro
ceed slowly before exerting emer
gency powers, first exhausting ordi
nary procedure.
PACIFIC:
MacArthur Disputed
Taking sharp difference with Gen.
Douglas MacArthur’s declaration in
Tokyo that only 200,000 American
troops may be needed for the Japa
nese occupation. Pres. Harry S. Tru
man feared for its effect on army
demobilization plans and Acting
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
said that at this time it was difficult
to forecast the eventual size of the
force.
Basing his estimate upon the Japs’
wholehearted effort at co-operation
with his command, MacArthur’s
latest figure of 200,000 was a sharp
reduction from the 400,000 recently
projected and the 900,000 at first
thought necessary. In making his
statement, MacArthur said that the
Japs’ execution of his dictates
through their governmental frame
work relieved the U. S. of establish
ing an elaborate military authority
to perform the same tasks.
RETAIL PRICING:
Absorb Increases
Declaring that up to now retailers
have. not been squeezed by price
control, OPAdministrator Chester
Bowles reiterated government pol
icy that dealers would have to ab
sorb any increases in manufacturing
costs in the reconversion period.
Rejecting a plea of a retailer
group that such absorption would
be uneconomic and unfair, Bowles
said that dealers’ markups were not
reduced during the war, and records
show that profits soared under in
creased volume and lower operat
ing costs. Whereas the profit mar
gin of department stores stood at 1%
during the 1936-’39 period, it reached
12 per cent in 1944, he said. '
Under OPA’s pricing policy for
manufacturers for the reconversion
period, some increases will be per
mitted to allow for higher labor and
material costs. Profit margins will
be held to half the industry-wide
average for larger businesses or
prewar levels for smaller firms,
however.
In seeking to offset expectations
that Mac Arthur’s announcement
might lead to speedier demobiliza
tion, President Truman declared
the program was not dependent upon
occupation needs.
Speaking for the state depart
ment, Acting Secretary Acheson as
serted that the ultimate size of the
occupation force will depend upon
the scope of the job of eradicating
the whole Jap war-making econ
omy.
NAVY:
Tivo-Ocean Dimension
A two-ocean fleet almost five times
the size of the pre-Pearl Harbor force
was proposed by naval chiefs at a
hearing of the house naval commit
tee.
Under the proposal advanced by
Secretary of the Navy Forrestal and
Fleet Admiral King, 300 ships would
remain in active duty and another
100 would be kept in ready reserve.
The remaining 680 vessels would be
laid up but maintained in sea-going
condition. A total of 500,000 enlisted
men and 58,000 officers would be
needed for the 300 active ships and
planes and 815,000 to man the en
tire fleet.
For implementation of U. S. de
fenses, the navy recommended es
tablishment or retention of major
naval bases for the Pacific in the
Aleutians, Hawaii, Canal Zone,
Guam, Saipan, Tinian, the Bonin
Volcano island group, the Admiral
ties and Philippines. Atlantic posts
would include Argentina in New
foundland, Bermuda and Trinidad.
ATOMIC TEST:
On Battleship
Even while plans were being
mapped in Washington, D. C., for
the postwar fleet, naval officials pre
pared to carry out a test of the
atomic bomb’s effect on surface ves
sels 500 miles off conquered Japa
nese shores.
Target for the experiment, which
might eventually lead to a redesign
of surface vessels as followed Billy
Mitchell’s test bombardment of the
Virginia in 1923, will be the Jap
battleship Nagato, with its 14-inch
steel armor plate.
Although the restyling of warships
after Mitchell’s successful experi
ments led to their strengthening
against air attack, they have re
mained vulnerable to underwater at
tack. So far, reports on atomic
bombings have indicated the main
force of the explosion is up and out,
but naval chieftains also would like
to determine any underwater effect
16th Child Her Biggest
_
The mother of 15 children, Mrs.
Francis Strohl’s 16th child was an 18
lb. baby girl. The infant was one of the
heaviest delivered, with a 25 pounder
born in 1916 topping the record. 38
years old, Mrs. Strohl is a resident of
Lawton, Pa.
LONG FLIGHT:
Across Great Circle
Approximately 25 hours and 43
minutes after taking off from north
ern Japan, the first of three giant
B-29 bombers glided onto the
sprawling Chicago airport, to be
shortly followed by the remaining
two after a 5,995 mile experimental
run.
With three top U. S. air force com
manders in the planes, the original
plans called for a non-stop run to
Washington, D. C., to test the great
circle route and attendant weather
in the far north. Because of strong
headwinds during the early stages of
the flight necessitating increased use
of gas, however, the B-29s decided to
land in the Windy City for refueling.
Though traveling 5,995 miles in a
long journey which took them over
Kamchatka, Alaska and Canada be
fore reaching the U. S., the Ameri
can airmen led by Maj. Gen. Curtis
E. Le May fell 1,100 miles short of
the record non-stop flight set by
two Britons flying from Egypt11 to
Australia in 1938.
WAR CRIMES:
Try Nazis
Charged with systematic starva
tion and neglect of internees at the
notorious Belsen concentration
camp, 45 Nazi men and women tried
to fight back at their war crimes
trial conducted at a British military
court in Lueneburg, Germany.
In seeking to defend themselves,
the accused followed the line that
most of the 40,000 prisoners in the
camp were all habitual criminals,
felons and homo-sexuals. Britons
taking over the camp upon the Nazi
collapse claimed that their experi
ence showed it was not necessary
to use force to govern the internees.
In first seizing the camp, *fae Brit
ish counted 13,000 dead, an i another
13,000 died later because 1heir con
dition was beyond treatment, med
ical officers charged. Though sup
plies were obtainable in the imme
diate vicinity of the camp, no ef
[ fort was made to procure provisions.