Newspaper Page Text
Wilmington Wonting £tar North Carolina’s Oldest Daily Newspaper Published Daily Except Sunday By The Wilmington Star-News At The Murchison Building R. B. Page, Owner and Publisher Telephone All Departments DIAL 2-3311 Entered as Second Class Matter at Wilming* ton, N. C., Postoffice Under Act of Congress of March 8, 1879. SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY CARRIER Payable Weekly Or In Advance Combina Time Star News tion 1 Week .$ .28 | .20 8 .40 1 Month . 1.10 .90 1.75 8 Months . S-25 2.60 5.20 6 Months . 6.50 5.20 10.40 1 Year . 13.00 10.40 20.80 New rates entitle subscriber to Sunday Issue of Star-News BY MAIL Payable Strictly In Advance - Combina Tima Star News tion 1 Month .$ .75 $ .50 $ .80 3 Months . 2.00 1.50 2.75 8 Months . 4.00 3.00 5.50 1 Year . 8.00 6.00 10.00 New rates entitle subscriber to Sunday issue of Star-News Card of Thanks charged for at the rate of 25 cents per line. Count five words to line. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Is entitled to the exclusive use of all news stories appearing in The Wilmington Star MONDAY, AUGUST 28, 1943 With confidence in our armed forces — with the unbounding de termination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God. —Roosevelt’s War Message Our Chief Aim To aid in every way the prosecu tion of the war to complete Vic tory. THOUGHT FOR TODAY Of weakness and of strength, How little we can tell I thought the wildflower’s bell Beside the great oak’s hardihood The frailest thing in all the wood; Yet in the storm the wildflowers stood. Ii was the oak that fell. Archibald Rutledge -V Strange Happenings Strange and portentious things are happen ingin Germany. Half a million Berliners have fled the city. Most of them have sought refuge in Poland, the land Hitler desolated in his first ruthless blow and where his bar barians of the gestapo are still slaughtering Poles in droves. The Reich government is fleeing German soil, reestablishing depart ments in occupied lands. How long the Army can survive alone, with the people in terror for their lives and the government itself dissolving, cannot be fore told, of course, but it is reasonable to think that the military leadership is already won dering what is left to fight for. When the German collapse came in 1918, the Kaiser fled, but the government stayed on in Berlin, as did the people. Now people and government, harassed by air attack, are running for cover and the Army is decidedly out on a limb with its war production at low tide and manpower shrinking. The war in Europe may be far from over, as careful observers declare. But it is still possible to hear, if faintly, the German high command asking itself, “Where do we go from here?” and to envision its perturbation when it fails to find an answer to its question. -V Grave Threat To Liberty We all like to believe that we are doing •ur part to achieve victory—even when we remain aloof from the home defense program, or take more time off from work than is necessary. No one willingly admits complacency to ward the war. But there is no such reaction when complacency is charged toward domes tic issues. The trouble is that many persons really be lieve that domestic affairs are something for politicians and theorists of doubtful ideals to settle among themselves. Unless they change their view and assume personal responsibili ties for the sound direction of domestic is sues, there is reason to fear that the republic and the liberties it guarantees will eventually be destroyed as completely as if the country had been overrun by the hordes of the dic tators. This is not idle talk. The stage is being set for government-controlled industry on a tre mendous scale as a substitute for privately owned and operated industry. There is a group at Washington determined to project government by edict far beyond the end of the war. It is this group that gravely threat ens the perpetuation of democratic principles when peace has returned. No government can govern and employ the people it governs, and still remain dem ocratic. So far the people do not seem to realize this. If they did they would be alarm ed- over the fact that a large segment ^oi the nation’s industry is already owned t right by the government as result of the war emergency. They would be indignant that agencies of government, supported by the tax es they pay, are planning the deliberate de struction of the American system of free en terprise. The depth of the danger can be measured in the words of Fulton Lewis, Jr., radio com mentator: “To me it is shocking and fright ening in the extreme that those in Washing ton who conceived the Four Freedoms didn’t have sufficient acquaintanceship with real Americanism to have included in their list the most important and the most vital free dom of all. . Freedom of Individual En terprise.’’ -V Mountbatten To Burma The monsoon season has a month or six weeks left to run. When it is past an Allied offensive will be launched with the object of reopening the Burma road, an undertaking which must necessarily include overpowering and driving out Japanese occupational forces. Lord Mountbatten, chief of the Commandos, has been chosen to direct the campaign. There is time to accumulate great stores of equipment and supplies, as well as men, while the monsoon continues. In fact, this work has been going on with vigor and is well advanced. With a big army in India, with shipping at hand, an air force growing steadily, it remains for the Allies to detail sufficient naval craft to support the invasion, arrangements for which, we may be sure, have been made. The invasions in north Afri ca and Sicily prove the Allied high command has mastered the intricate pattern of am phibious attack. It is not to be assumed, however, that the Burma campaign is to be a pushover. The contrary is true. It will be bitterly contested and may require up to or even more than a year to terminate successfully. The Japanese will contest every foot of Burma with the fanatical zeal that characterized their early conquests in the Pacific war zone. For they know only too well that the reopening of the Burma road will mean not only a trickle but a great flow of war tool into southern China, their ultimate defeat- there and the establish ment of bases in eastern China from which their own island homeland may be assaulted. There is but one unknown quantity in the campaign equation: Mountbatten himself. Sol dier to the core, though he be, his capability for leadership in a major operation has still to be demonstrated. It may be said, however, that if he has talent for organization and administration to equal his talent for offen sive warfare, the issue will not long remain in doubt. With better than ordinary operation al skill he will win the battle of Burma. -V Limited Recognition Recognition by the United States and Great Britain of the French Committee of National Liberation, and the terms on which it was accorded, make plain the fact that so far as operational policies are concerned General Eisenhower is still top man in France's colo nial possessions not occupied by the Axis. The chief concern in these areas, while the war continues, is military. Consequently there can be no interference from any agency es tablished for administration of civil affairs, the notes recognizing tne committee indicate. Another point is to be noted: The commit tee, in its broadest functions, is not to be mistaken for a governmental regime of France. France’s government, its form and personnel, is to be put up to the French people when hostilities cease. This can mean only that General deGaulle’s powers during the conflict are to be hedged about with strict limitations and are necessarily temporary, just as General Giraud’s present role is to com mand French military forces arrayed against the Axis under orders from the Mediterranean military chief, who is General Eisenhower. Under existing conditions it is hard to see how either Washington or London could go farther. But for Allied aid and the successful invasion of north Africa, the French colonies would have been occupied by Axis forces by now, and the best the Free French could hope for would be domination by Vichy. The Committee of Liberation can do much for post-war France by doing a thorough job within its limited sphere. -V— Increase Production William R. Boyd, chairman, Petroleum In dustry War Council, warns that: “The huge and increasing military demand, the failure of the government to provide crude oil price incentive to increase desperately needed re serves, our manpower and materials diffi culties, and the necessity to make fuel oil in preference to gasoline, have all combined to create what properly may be called a critical oil situation. r “So far,” says Mr. Boyd, “no plane, no tank, no jeep, no truck has failed to move; no ship used for war purposes has had to remain in port for want of oil.” And that is the message which the families of men in the service wish most to hear. Though automobiles may rot in garages and homes may be chilly, these inconveniences will be taken in stride so long as oil reaches our fighting men. All of which emphasizes a little-appreciated fact. Individuals holding the highest positions in industry have sons in this war, just the same as the hardest work ing welder.' They have a common stake in quick victory, and in an uninterrupted flow of supplies. Rubber And The Future The problem now is to get synthetic rubber into production. The diversion of manpower from tire factories has created a bottleneck, and it will take the best efforts William Jef fers, who got the synthetic rubber industry into operation, to start tire manufacture on a great scale. The New York Times has this to say about it: Now that synthetic rubber is being pro duced in ever-increasing quantities, the problem confronting the rubber manufac turing industry is to get enough manpower to make the tires for civilian purposes. With the virtual stoppage of making tires for passenger cars at the outbreak of the war, many skilled workers drifted to other fields. In addition, the processing of the synthetic rubber is more difficult than that of the natural product. In the tire manufacturing industry it is estimated that a plant producing tires from synthetic rubber loses about 25 per cent of its ef ficiency. However, William Jeffers, Rub ber Director, has recommended to the War Production Board that a $95,000,000 plant-expansion program be adopted for the manufacture of synthetic rubber tires. He considers such an expansion necessary in his goal for the production of 30,000.000 all-synthetic tires for essential motorists for 1944. If he is as successful in his ef forts to produce synthetic tires as he has been in developing a synthetic rubber in dustry here, his tire-production goal will be reached. Mr. Jeffers has done a magnificent job against tremendous odds. He has proved that synthetic rubber can be produced in volume from domestic material. But not even he can say what is to become of the industry after the war. And its future ranks among the nation’s major post-war problems. When Japan is driven .out of the southwest Pacific and rubber plantations of Java and way stations are again in possession of their original developers, are we to abandon our sythetic industry and go back to buying raw rubber from the Dutch at such prices as they set for it? Or are we to take advantage of the Firestone-Edison Latin-American de velopments, encourage other similar projects, and be independent of producers who in the past maintained a monopoly? Surely it will be possible to produce enough raw rubber in less grasping areas, to com bine with our domestic synthetic product for strength and endurance, and never again be caught so unprepared to meet an emergency as we were when Pacific sources of supply were cut off. Fair Enough (Editor's Note.—The Star and the News accepts no responsibility for the personal views of Mr. Pegler, and often disagree with them as much as many of his readers. His articles serve the good purpose of making people think. By WESTBROOK PEGLER NEW YORK.—Some people tell me that they get tired of reading about unions, unions, unions in these dispatches and ask why I don’t throw that change of pace more often? Well, you go ahead and get tired and turn to the funnies, but I am telling you that you had better pay attention to vhat goes on or you will wake up some morning to learn that it has happened here. They work while you sleep and while you listen to the soap-operas and read the comics. Here is something that has happened in the last week in New York: Sidney Hillman, president of the Amalga mated Clothing Workers of the CIO. has pro posed that every trade union in the state of New York. CIO, AFL, the Railroad Brother hoods and all others, shall affiliate with the so-called American Labor party and pay into thg party’s treasury a per capita tax based on their membership. He further proposes that all state and county committees be composed primarily of representatives of the affiliating unions, pledged to carry party policies as de termined by these representatives. Now this so-called party is not American but European. That must be emphasized. It is almost one-half communist and the so-call ed right wing is no further to the right than socialism. Much of its membership is Euro pean by birth and subject to the European huddling or herd political instinct, and many of its bosses are Europeans who bring to their unions and their political careers in this country the philosophies and methods of the Old World, the insistence on “security" for the docile, the weak and the unventure some at the expense of freedom, individuality and opportunity for all. They bring to American union affairs and politics also a cunning deviousness which has never been more shockingly expressed than in this proposal by Hillman, a man who nev ertheless has enjoyed the favor of the new deal and. in the early stages of our war effort was given outright political recognition by President Roosevelt through appointment to an important position of authority over Amer ican workmen everywhere. Now let us see what this proposal conies to -•t means that first you have to belong to a union or you can’t work tor your living. You simply have to join and pay and submit to the authority and discipline of the union. It means that, under this authority and dis cipline you must not buy certain prescribed goods and can be fired from membership if you do or in some unions, even if some mem ber of your family should buy goods black listed for any reason,good or bad, legitimate or crooked. It means that you must renounce your right to appeal to the public courts for redress of wrongs inflicted by the boss union eers until you have first fought your way through all the dragging processes of the union’s courts and then may be thrown out, anyway, for appealing to the public courts. All right, to work you have to join and then, in order to remain a member in good standing and retain your right to work, you must pay a per capita contribution to a po litical organization which is not a party but a conspiracy against Americanism, to finance the attack on your American liberties. No matter how strongly you may oppose the pur poses of this European organization you must give your money to promote its program or States0Wn °Ut °£ work in yoUr own United ,tlds Americanism or Fascism? , 1S _pure fascism, right' out of Mussolini’s dook, lor Mussolini’s labor front, composed “mons caded syndicates, had precisely the th 6 ®ysten?- The Fascist party controlled lahn °nS jUSt as the so-called American the staL yf TUW C°ntr01 a11 the unions in t at '?f„New York and- presently, jn y and Connecticut and Pennsylvania and, THE SQUEEZE PLAY IS Raymond Clapper Says: Administration Fumbles On U. S. Foreign Policy By RAYMOND CLAPPER WASHINGTON—It is depressing to witness the frightening fumbling of the Administration on foreign policy lately, and its backward looking obsession with trying to prove that it has been infallible in the past, and to see President Roosevelt, in a streak of unac customed political timidity, throw ing ino the wastebasket skillful and much needed men like Sumner Welles. It begins to seem as if the initia ative, the courage, the imagina tion. the readiness to look ahead instead of backward, may come from the Republicans. From some of them, anyway. Certainly there is hope if there is anything typical in the construc tive thinking that is voiced now by Clarence Budgington Kellana. Republican National Committee man for Arizona, in a specific blueprint laid before the National Republican Club at New York this week. He will offer it to the Re publican Party conference at Mac kinac island two weeks hence. Somehow I had Bud Kelland down in my books as a rather hard-bitten isolationist. Whether that was fair or not, he says he has been thinking, searching his soul, cleaning his mind of past prejudices, past errors and “of the rubbish of inherited ideas.” You don’t have to agree with ev ery line of his blueprint to applaud the spirit that is ready to make a fresh start now and to think through. How much better than the butterly personal spirit and narow - minded, rear - vision driving that we are getting out of the State Department now with Mr. Roosevel's personal support! There isn’t space enough here to cover the plan, but you, could well read it all to stimulate your thinking. Certainly it contains re freshing vitamins for Republicans to feed on right now, and it would n’t make a, bad diet for some of the people in the Administration. Mr. Kelland suggests that Amer ica’s program be shaped around the following main points: 1. A trusteeship consisting of Russia, Great Britain, the United States and China to administer territories of our enemies and oh er nations bankrupted by the war, to preserve order and assist each nation in establishing a form of government of its own choice. With this would go a fact-finding inter national commission, with the fi nal peace settlement delayed until terms could be deliberately ar ranged after stable conditions had been restored. 2. Great Britain, China, Russia and America to combine for of fensive or defensive joint action against any nation threatening to breach the peace. Such a com bination would be so powerful that no nation would dare challenge its jointly stated will. 3. A permanent defensive alli ance between the United States - and Great Britain. They should act as one in case of attack upon either. This alliance should be permanent and openly declared, eventually, it hopes in the whole nation. And the Fascist party maintained itself in large part by dipping into the union treasuries. That is exactly what Sidney Hill man is proposing here and that course, if adopted, would be put over on the rank and file by those union politicians whom Hillman calls the “representatives” of the unions. Does this bore you? All right, go on back to sleep. as a policy of insurance for both nations. 4. Complete solidarity of the Western Hemisphere against any threat to any American nation. 5. Underlying all this a strong American Navy and Air Force plus a standing Army, ready for war, with heavy offshore defenses in the islands of both oceans. The Pacific must be an American lake, and in the Atlantic we must have defenses at Dakar and Casablanca, in Iceland, Greenland and Bermu da. We have them now and they must be kept. it Jtepubhcans can advance a program that will take some such I positive direction as this, they will have served the best interests of the country immeasurably. Our failure to follow through on a con structive foreign policy after the last war has, as part of the cause, led to our men having now to fight in Africa and everywhere around the world. But why should anybody gag at such ideas? They are not really new. Mr. Kelland has only out lined what we are actually doing now and have been doing since the war began. In reality his proposition is to take the arrangement that is win ning the war and continue it after the war. You're Telling Me A front porch political campaign is hardly feasible these days what with gas rationing confining the electorate to their own front porches. The Japanese are said to be building boats made of raw rub ber. When we sink them they can save face by blaming it on an unavoidable blow-out. Zadok Dumkopf, fresh out of gas coupons, thinks now would be a gcfcd time to get all those' highway detours taken care of. OPA PROMISES SERVICEMEN’S CAS ALLOWANCE PLEASURE BOATING OK September 1 Set As Day For Lifting On Ban On Small Craft Fuel WASHINGTON. Aug. 27.—(A>)— Tlie Office of Price Administra tion tonight promised servicemen gasoline for their furloughs in the East and ordered the ban lifted from East Coast pleasure boating, effective September 1, bolstering indications that he no-pleasure driving clgmp may be taken off Eastern motorists soon. An OPA spokesman said, how ever, the liberalizing order could not be taken as official assurance that the Eastern pleasure driving ban would be lifted or that gaso line rations for the area would be increased, but the agency was working to get the pleasure lid off before Labor Day. There were authoritative indica tions that the Petroleum Adminis tration for War might increase the East’s daily gasoline allowance about 50,000 barrels next month, far more than the amount saved by the pleasure driving ban. Under today’s order servicemen on leave in the East wll be grant ed five gallons of gasoline for travel, as they are in other parts of the country. Since the Eastern restrictions went cn June 1 they have had to rely on family gasoline for driv ing done while on furlough. A man or woman in the armed services may get the special ra tion by presenting furlough papers to a local rationing board. OPA liberalized the East’s gas oline use despite reports from PAW that gasoline consumption in the region exceeds the amount al located. ■-V MUSSO’S EXIT The latest rumor about Musso lini’s exit is that he was drowned when a submarine in which he was fleeing from Italy was sunk by an Allied plane. The idea seems to be that Mare Nostrum got II Duce instead of vice versa. —Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. The Literary Guidepost By JOHN SELBY Anna Mary Wells’ second mys tery. “Murderer’s Choice,” is as good as her first, perhaps better. This means it is very good indeed, particularly because she has taken pains to make her people live rather than to use them as chess men in the usual way of mystery writers. The first scene is typical of her method—in it two cousins are having dinner together. One is rich; the other poor. And the rich man announces that he has executed a will which leaves all nis property to his poor relative, but also that he has decided to commit suicide, and has arranged matters so that his beneficiary will appear to have murdered him. (Knopf; $2). “The Arms Are Fair” is a title out ot Shakespeare, but the nov els action is m the Orient. Spe cifically, Bradford Smith has writ en about the dilemma in which an educated and sensitive Japa ef,e f°™d himself when he was called up for military service. He did not believe his emperor was divine, and he did not hate the ?™ese- But he had to do his e in the “Cnina Incident,” and Mr. Smith has well worked out the way in which his dilemma is resolved. (Bobbs-Merrill; $2.50). The churning, tempestuous pic ture of life in a Southern capital city that Robert Penn Warren cre ates in “At Heaven’s Gate” is of a piece with his “Night Rider,” published several years ago. Its theme is the unending struggle of men against fate, and in spite of the fact that much of the writing is cool and many of the scenes are understated rather than the opposite, the book generates heat This is a dramatic novel and a crowded one. (Harcourt, Brace; $2.50). As in the case of Dorothy Bak er s ‘ Trio,” Allen Seager’s new novel, “Equinox.” will disappoint the prurient, even though it pre sents an abnormal situation. It is the story of a man who returns from a correspondent’s job to find that his daughter is in love with him that, and also the story of dozens more, the most important being one of the season’s most obnoxious villains, the psychia trist Verplanck. For students of the Oedipus complex. (Simon & Schuster; $2.75). Interpreting The War By KIRKE L. SIMPSO\ Expected September rab,s southern Russia offer Naz- *;0..!” some hope of escape behind" Dnieper river from the trap multiple Russian columns arg tempting to force southwest Kharkov. 0| Holding open an escape rn», „ doubtedly is the purpose 0 ,T furious Nazi counter-attaek* „ flanks of the Red armv thrud!”* westward north of Poltava and* the Russian forces driving ward from the Kharkov area * ward Lozovaya. If either n „; . falls before the rains begin German escape route from’ . Donets basin would be shut “’‘e The crisis is that close f0’r ,k Nazis in that theater, where „ ' premature spring thaws preve, the Russians from reaching Dnieper crossings at the peak their last winter offensive So in, as they can hold intact the i vaya - Dnepropetrovsk rail t-' which is the new Russian tar® they have a means of wet-weath' escape. in contrast the Russian attar both westward above Poltava anH southward toward Lozovaya , moving over open steppes are certain to be slowed or coJ pletely halted when the rains cot.' at least for a week or two. whi'e the enemy might use the rail line! to mass forces for a counter o' fensive, or employ the rainy pey^ to draw back behind the bnr-f To avert that, Russian strs'e-’j seems to have shifted the rrr! attack, in the fighting south ati west of Kharkov, toward Lozov.r. —key junction to all German iv! movements east of the Dnieper bend. The Red drive is ^ 60 miles or less of the junctir,-"" The Pied column which ssirej Zenkov. 40 miles nortli ot », va. is astride one minor rajf> nection between Poltava arcKv■ It has also driven deep feeea Poltava and Sumy, thp nmt;j,lv ' strongpoint northward. Gevm-n failure to hold the Vorskla river, naturally strong position Mir.; Poltava and Sumy, suggests a dan gerous lack of reserves at t h a ■ point of which the Russians too; quick advantage. Zenkov is some 20 miles east of the Voskla and Moscow ad vices describe the Russian spear head at that point as pointed di rectly at Kiev. 180 west on the north-south line of the Dnieper. I does not seem likely, however, that Kiev is the real objective o! the Zenkov push. It is more logical to expect i Russian southward wheeling move ment to encircle Poltava from the north and west by pushing down the high ground between the Vor skla and the Goltva rivers. That well-drained ridge some 30 miles wide could be used to push south ward even in rainy weather. Poltava, the northern coverin’ bastion for the Dnieper crossings at Dnepropetrovsk, is described b; the Russians as heavily fortified. The Red thrust to Zenkov looks Ike the beginning of oil encircle ment movement to outflank it frem the east and west, or to bypass . in a drive to the Dnieper. With the drive toward Polta coupled with the thrust at L ■ vaya, the menace o the Dniepu crossings this time is far gre ■ than it has been in any pre Russian attempt to reach ' Once Red forces seize c : ' both points on the prime tali' tation artery of the Nazi • flank. A retreat from the ! Dnieper plateau must be forct’ on the German high command Nor will a delay due to ni® greatly matter unless there ant sufficient German reserves " mount a strong counter offensive in south Russia promptly. Winter is not far away, even southern Russia. And Russian san ity to out-maneuver and out-f.ga the Germans in winter i.- ton w established for doubt as <o mrjst happen. The German answer probably will be a retreat bent® the Dnieper before it is too 1 —if the necessary railroad can -•* held until the September - ’ slow the pace of Russian attacks -v_ Daily Pray& FOR WOMEN WORKERS Out of the quiet life of the itoi* Thou hast called a great tude of women to do varied sf-' ice in our sacred Cause. C . mend them to Thee, 0 Goc. ■; Thy special protection and up>_ ing. In these new tasks may ■;* display the old qualities 1)1 5;j cerning devotion and loyal’! efficiency. May naught ot • womanly qualities be tarnisi f they enter these unwonted of ministry. Grant the.', strength of body and clears;, pose of mind, and a sat:.; .7, sense of partnership with a--;( people everywhere who 7, heard Thy call to struggle t ; y great goals that are of Thy ing. Behind the monotonous may they discern the vision. Be Thou ever at ’M y of ministering nurses and Cross workers, and all ■ . ; and sew and do other ‘Ta; May the companionship penter Christ De real to tfl® ., en who toil at machines '••• factories. In all these service may there einc.= ^ ?,y conceptions of life’s purpo-'1-':.. £; of the immanence of the ,’e..rej God. Our prayers, and the which outrun all speecn. a- j fore Thee, in the name « • toiling Son. Amen-VV.T.h -V--— )f£ w Amber necklaces, ai'l"1!*unj 1 Factographs. have been " )ft. the cavern homes of tlte •"■; ((i |Vy Imagine a cave man h;ivin* a luxury tax, just like u