Evening star. [volume], September 13, 1942, Image 31

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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Editorial Page Civics
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TWELVE PAGES. WASHINGTON, I). C., SEPTEMBER 13, 1042.
Tenth Month of War Finds U. S.
Still Lacking Uniform Strategy
Dispersed Forces of Allied Nations Fight in Every
Quarter of Globe, but Foe Selects
the Time and Place
By Constantine Brown.
™ e have now entered the tenth month
©f the war and are still without a strat
egy. Although the United Nations are
fighting everywhere, it is the enemy who
selects the time and place.
Wherever Americans have concen
trated enough force to meet the enemy
on an equal footing they have come out
on top. It can be said without, false
modesty that so far even' timp a full
scale American force has met the enemy
It. has been victorious.
It should be understood, of course, that
the American-Filipino troops which de
fended the Philippines werp on little
JiA’re than a peace basis and were unable
to obtain reinforcements in men and
supplies. When the defenders were ex
hausted their resistance necessarily came
to an end. Pearl Harbor showed no de
ficiency so far as the courage of men
and quality of war material was con
cerned. Tlte cause for that disaster
•must be sought in other quarters.
After nine full months of w'ar we
have an improved Navy, Air Force and
Army. None of them is large enough,
however, to fulfill the role assigned to
it by the high command. W'e do not have
enough ships, planes or trained troops
to light the enemy in all parts of the
globe. Yet, from the disposition of our
forces, it would appear that the high
command would like to embrace the
w iiwic ww m.
A Divided Strategy.
No one blamed our war leaders for
the confusion in which they found them
selves immediately after Pearl Harbor.
We were trying to apply a two-fold
strategy. One, established before De
cember 7. provided for an all-out effort
to help the fighting democracies with
everything in our power "short of war.”
This required our sending Britain and
Russia planes, tanks and guns as quickly
8S they left our factories and as soon as
they could be taken aboard freighters. '
After the Axis forced us into the war
8s an active partner of the democracies,
■we had to think of our own safety and
our own ways of meeting the Axis’ chal
lenge, for the accomplishment of which
we had another entirely different strat
egy. It was obvious that under the cir
cumstances, with our industry still on a
peacetime basks, we could have only an
Improvised strategy to protect the shores
of the United States while we applied
ourselves to building an Army and
Air Force.
The Navy was the only fighting arm
which was on a full war footing Decem
ber 7. and the Navy had suffered losses
which had to be replaced. But what was
more important, it was called on to as
sume duties for which it was not fully
prepared, such as policing the seven seas.
We had naval units in the North
Pacific and the South Pacific, the Indian
Ocean and the Mediterranean, the North
Atlantic and the South Atlantic, the
Arctic Circle and the Caribbean. The
American Navy had to fight the Japs,
protect convoys going to Russia, guard
American waters against submarines and
had to accomplish many other chores
which cannot be enumerated because
they are military secrets.
A Striking Force Now.
Today the fully-trained portion of the
United States Army numbers well over
half a million men. According to the
statement of Assistant Secretary John J.
McCloy, there are some 500.000 men at
the various stations abroad. The train
ing centers in the United States are
working hard producing soldiers with
greater speed than in the last war. Navy
yards are working at top speed and
launching ships far ahead of schedule.
From various official statements it ap
pears that aviation is faring at least as
well as the Army and Navy in regard to
both the training of personnel and the
production of machines.
Although we now have a real striking
force, we still lack a strategy. The
reason is not that we have no military
men able enough to conceive the right
strategy for the United Slates and. by
Implication, for the United Nations. The
reason is that military necessities are
still subordinated to "commitments.”
What these "commitments" actually
are, to what extent they engage us and
where we are supposed to fight is known
to less than a handful of men. It is
questionable if more* than three men
besides President Roosevelt. Prime Min
ister Churchill and Premier Stalin, know
what they are. But they definitely in
fluence our military leaders.
Every time our strategists attempt to
plan major, operations they run up
ugaiast these mysterious “commitments,’
which do not allow American fighting
forces to go into battle on certain fronts
with the positive assurance that they wil!
receive the backing they need. And
rather than leave our men high and dry
the high command prefers to engage
them in secondary operations or, as in
the case of the Solomon Islands victory
after achievine a success bv takine the
offensive, to return to the defensive be
cause it lacks the means to exploit a
brilliant operation immediately. It is
firmly believed in many military quar
ters that if reserve warships and planes
had been available after we completed
the conquest of the Solomons, the Amer
ican forces might have been able to con
tinue their advance instead of stopping
and waiting for the next Japanese move
“Commitments” Require Troops.
Our "commitments” do not permii
such a strategy, however. From what ths
outsider can gather these "commitments'
provide for assistance with Americar
military forces in addition to the output
of the American war industry. Anc
from the moment that we had a nuclein
of trained forces our "commitments” re
quired their use in foreign stations where
as far as the layman can see, they coulc
cot do much good.
For instance, we sent our first contin
gent of troops to Northern Ireland last
May and more men are being sent tc
England and Ireland now. Many mort
I
V
are being sent to Egypt, the Near and
Middle East and India. These men are
drawn from a relatively small army, our
fundamental strategy is. of course, to de
feat the Axis, but it appears that the
choice of the front where we shall begin
our victories does not depend on the
opinions of military men, but on the
civilians .who control the armed forces.
Unquestionably there are strong and
valid reasons why we are sending Amer
ican troops to Great Britain, in spite of
the shortage of warships and merchant
i men. We have been told repeatedly that
Britain has an army of at least 3.500,000
men, with at least 1.250,000 fully-trained
and hardened troops. The balance is
half trained and forms either reserves or
home guards.
We are told in daily communiques
about the colossal losses the Nazis have
suffered in the Russian campaign. If
we were to accept the Russian figures
the Axis forces already have been deci
mated. According to the various Mos
cow communiques, more than 10,000.000
have been put out of action—killed,
maimed or taken prisoner—since June
21, 1941.
Invasion of Britain Impossible.
Even if we accept half of the Russian
figure as accurate, the Germans must
be so weakened that a large-scale in
vasion of the British Isles would be im
possible. The force undertaking such
an invasion would have superiority of
three to one. One million Brittons should
be more than sufficient to repel an at
tack by 3.000.000 Nazis, and where could
Hitler muster such a force if he has lost
as many men and as much war material
on the Eastern Front as is reported?
Hence, the question arises as to the neces
sity for stationing a large American force
in England.
There is no harm, of course, in having
our men continue their training there,
but they have to be supplied with every
thing from bandages and cigarettes to
ammunition and planes from the United
States, and that requires transports and
convoys, whcih are our principal de
ficiency in this war.
According to official reports. American
soldiers are fighting now' in Egypt and
the Near East. There are also American
soldiers in India. When Senators ask,
for their own information, w;hy these
American forces are so dispersed, the
answer from official quarters is “com
mitments,” an enigmatic w'ord which an
swers nothing.
A dispatch from Moscow' a couple of
weeks ago said the Soviet government
hurt riprlinA/’i TxrifV* thanlrc iHo
American troops on the southern front.
The whole matter was treated lightly, of
course, since no person in his right senses
believes that W. Averell Harriman,
who represented Mr. Roosevelt at the
Churchill-Stalin meeting, could have
suggested that we send troops to Russia.
It would be sending coals to Newcastle,
■the Russians may lack war material,
clothing and food, but they certainly do
not lack manpower. Yet the dispatch
from Moscow' was revealing in the light
of that mysterious word “commitments.”
Too Many Strategists.”
To say that the United Nations lack a !
strategy is not quite correct, for the
truth is that there are plenty of strate
gists, too many strategists, each with his
own strategy for winning the w'ar. As is
natural, each member of the United
Nations is convinced that its own terri
tory is of vital importance in defeating
the enemy.
Until a few W'eeks ago the Russians
believed Hitler would meet his Waterloo
in the Soviet Union. The British and
European members of the United Na
tions—with the possibl^Vexception of the
Dutch—believe that invasion of Western
Europe would provide the answer to the
question of how to defeat Hitler soon.
Finally, the Yugoslavs and Greeks be
lieve that the Egyptian battle field is
where the defeat of the Axis is bound to
begin.
Except for experienced naval and army
officers, whose opinion is purely consul
tative, no one in Washington, London or
Moscow thinks that the Pacific area is
the place to concentrate our principal
effort.
The. Good Earth.
Ml
Peacemaker Portugal
Nation Clings to Neutrality, Hopes for Better Days
By Louis Lupi
11
(Upper) American sailors on one of Lisbon’s seven hills and (lower) Portuguese troops embarking to re
inforce the Azores. — A. P. Photos.
LISBON—Worried and shaken, but
holding strongly to the "juridical prin
ciples” laid down at the outbreak of war,
Portugal still is a chin-up neutral after
three years of world-enveloping conflict—
ind still is hoping for better days for all.
Europe's westernmost nation has taken
advantage of both her geographical
strength and her military weakness to
become Europe's peace-making champion
and, at Lisbon, the world's most impor
tant sea, air and road junction.
Just as in pre-war ‘days, English,
French, Netherlands, Italian, Spanish ,
and German airliners land and take off j
every day on Portuguese airports. This
may be one good reason why Portugal
remains untorn by war.
Portugal is distressed to see her oldest
ally, England, arm-in-arm with Russia,
the only country in the world with which
Portugal has no diplomatic or commer
cial relations; to see the United States,
her "Atlantic front” neighbor, in it; and
above all, to see her beloved sister na
tion, Brazil, involved, thus bringing the
conflict to that part of the Atlantic
■which hitherto had been a route of
peace between the Old and the New
Worlds.
Plays Fair With All.
But, despite these pulls at her national
heart strings, Portugal definitely hopes
to maintain her present position, trust
ing she may be able to grant help when
the world decides to sit down and begin
reconstructing what it now is destroying.
Portugal's neutral policy doesn’t mean
selfishness as often has been contended.
In the official view, Portugal has safe
guarded a "peace corner” of Europe, and
has played a fair game with all sides.
At the same time, Portugal has not
neglected military preparations—Just In
case. Fully realizing the importance of
her Atlantic outposts, Portugal has* re
inforced the Madeira, Azores and Cape
Verde Islands, building them up to pow
erful strongholds which would not be
easy prey for any one. “Whoever at
tempts to take our Atlantic outposts will
have to fight hard and long.” in the
opinion of Portuguese military leaders.
Receives Economic Blows.
Economically. Portugal has received
many serious blows because of the war
and these have shaken her plans of eco
nomic reconstruction. Even though the
value of rave materials rose with ex
panded demand, it availed the national
economy little since the majority of Por
tuguese colonial production is rotting in
the warehouses of colonial ports—some
lacking transportation, others lacking
navicerts.
Home products such as cork, canned
fish and tungsten ore have been more a
Jiiuvuvi VX non J ninu Vi pil'iiV, UVU“
All Crops Saved
“Goodhue Plan” Sends
City Polk to Fields
By Adolph Johnson,
Wide World.
ST. PAUL.—Last spring while harried
farmers saw the armed forces and de
fense industries gobbling the manpower
they were counting on to help harvest
crops, Leonard B Ryan. Minnesota
director of the United States Employ
ment Service, made a promise:
“No Minnesota crops will go to waste
for want of help to harvest them.’’
He has kept that promise.
The answer is the “Goodhue plan”—
and hundreds of Minnesota shopkeepers,
bankers, mechanics, packing house work
ers, city employes and high school boys.
The story began early this year in the
village of Goodhue in Southeastern
Minnesota, in the mind of L. E. Cook,
publisher of the weekly Goodhue County
Tribune.
Recalling the days of the First World
War when townspeople in his area came
to the aid of hard-pressed farmers, he
suggested that the current emergency
was likely to prove too serious for any
hit-or-miss solution and proposed a
system under which persons whiling to
help on farms would register and be
available on a moment's notice.
Mr. Ryan sent men to help. Goodhue
citizens signed up virtually in a body.
irloo cr>vr>s»H Hthpr pnmmunit.ips
started similar plans and other names
were suggested—but the “Goodhue plan"
stuck.
Thanks largely to the impetus gen
erated in the Goodhue registration meet
ing. and the resultant publicity, the
employment office was able to add 342
volunteer labor registration offices in as
many communities to the 38 full-time
and 88 part-time offices in operation at
the beginning of the year.
Merchants, newspapermen, bankers,
clerks, pool hall operators, railroad sta
tion agents and others offered to set up
clearing houses—to take the names of
those prepared to do emergency farm
work and to' send them to farms when
the need arose.
Bv the end of July, the employment
service had placed 12,356 farm workers
in Jobs—as many as 3,269 In one peak
week.
larly because the demand for these prod
ucts by the belligerents has upset Portu
gal’s neutral equilibrium. Portugal has
to trade her products with warring na-.
tions, trying to be pleasant to all of
them, and, at the same time, obtain
the things she needs most for herself:
Coal, oil, medicines and fertilizers, as
well as permits from the belligerents to
import her own colonial materials. All
this has been put under tight control by
the state, so far without provoking se
rious reaction from the warring govern
ments.
The shortage of coal, gas and oils is
the most serious problem for Portuguese
industry, threatening to paralyze light,
power and transportation unless reme
died soon.
Some Popular Indignation.
Portugal’s strict neutrality policy has
been unable to keep down entirely a pop
ular indignation against events such as
mass executions, sinking or neutral ship
ping and the disrespect for rights and
honor of neutrals.
Nevertheless, there are few if any
differences between man-in-the-street
public opinion and the government. It
can be said that even the understanding
has improved. All seem to be together
in one desire—safeguarding Portugal's
neutrality and support of the govern
ment's clear and firmly established
“juridical principles of neutrality which
means no breach of old-established
bonds.”
Now that Brazilian entry has brought
the war closer to Portuguese hearts, the
moral and economic interests of Portu
gal become still more in favor of t
quick ending of the conflict “without
destruction of Portugal’s oldest, best anc
j closests friends.”
Gandhi’s Idea of Non-Violence
Stems From Thoreau Treatise
»
India's Enigmatic Leader Made American Author s
Article on ‘Civil Disobedience’ the Basis
of His Powerful Doctrine
By Clarke H. A awakami.
It is a far cry from Bombay, India, to
the quiet little Massachusetts town of
Concord. Yet Ripley of ‘ believe it or
not” notoriety might find it interesting
to record that the civil disobedience
campaign now centering in the teeming
Indian city stems, in part, from the ideas
of a pencilmaker's son who grew up in
the peaceful surroundings of that old
New England towm a century ago.
For Concord was the birthplace of
Henry David Thoreau, the eccentric
naturalist-philosopher, who left to pos
terity not only his charming tales of
W’oodland life but also a lesser-known
treatise entitled "Civil Disobedience.”
Years later a young Indian nationalist
named M. K, Gandhi chanced to read
it and made Thoreau's ideas the basis
of his own doctrine of ahimsa. or non
violence—the major weapon with which,
for the last two decades, he has led
India's battle for independence.
Today one of the world's great popular
leaders, Gandhi is perhaps the most
colorful, amazing and enigmatic per
sonality of modern times. Over two
hundred million Hindus revere him as
a oamt', vcl ilr oiou au n^iuic jAiimwan.
He is a mystic given to silent commun
ion with the Ultimate, but he can also
be a hard-boiled realist. He preaches
self-effacement but has a greater sense
of showmanship than the Ringling
Brothers. He is a physical weakling but
has made a life career of bearding the
British lion.
Over the three-ood million members
of the Congress party and the many
more millions of Hindus who support
it but cannot afford to pay its mem
bership dues, Gandhi wields the power
of a dictator. But he is a dictator with
out a Gestapo or an OGPU. When his
followers disobey him, he disciplines
them by punishing himself. Nor does he
shout command and defiance like s
Hitler or Mussolini. Instead he quietly
counsels his followers to obey their con
sciences rather than him. but no rival
has ever successfully challenged his
leadership of the Congress party.
Was Married at 13.
Though his countrymen now hail hirr
as the greatest Indian since Buddha
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi sprans
1 from quite unextraordinary beginnings,
He was bom 72 years ago in Porbander,
one of the smaller Indian states, where
his father was a fairly well-to-do anc
respected official. At 13 he did the usua
thing by marrying. His bride was ar
uneducated girl of 10 who two years
later gave birth to her first child, which
did not live.
After graduating from the University
of Ahmedabad, young Gandhi at 19 went
to England and studied law at the
University of London. He was far from
saintly in those days. Emulating the
English gentleman, he took lessons in
music, dancing and elocution. The
result, as he himself confessed, was e
“ludicrous failure.”
Poturnincr Vy/vno V\o nraoHoar? 1 a rrr ir
j Bombay for a short while and then, ir
1893, went to South Africa on business.
While there he was deeply moved by the
maltreatment of Hindu immigrants and.
instead of going back when his business
was finished, he stayed on to champion
the cause of his unhappy compatriots
In both the Boer and Zulu Wars he wai
decorated by the British for front-line
service with the Volunteer Indian Medi
cal Corps which he helped to organize
Soon after the outbreak of World
War I, Gandhi returned to Bombay to
resume his law practice, but in 1915 he
again went to London, this time to or
ganize an Indian volunteer ambulance
corps for service in France. He was
stilt far from anti-British, and Londor
was promising India dominion status
after the war. Disillusionment and con
version, however, were not long in
coming.
Launches First Campaign.
Versailles came and went without .ful
fillment of Britain's promise, and the
consequent political ferment in Indie
led the London Parliament, in March
1919. to confer on the British authorities
there discretionary power to invoke mar
tial law in order to suppress disturbances
Gandhi was embittered and resentful
He launched his first campaign of non
violent non-co-operation aj?am$ Bntisn
rule, and this was soon followed by the
Armitsar “massacre" in which British
troops killed 400 and wounded 1,200
Indian nationalists. Gandhi promptly
returned to the Viceroy all the British
decorations he had received. His con
version was now complete.
Gandhi proclaimed the first full civil
disobedience campaign in 1921. He
urged his countrymen not to hold any
public offices or resort to the British
courts, to withdraw their children from
public schools, to boycott British goods,
particularly cotton goods, and to re
store the old-fashioned spinning wheel
j and loom in every home to make cloth
for domestic use. The movement Imme
diately caught the popular imagination.
Gandhi was acclaimed “Mahatma” or
“Great Soul.” Then, in March. 1922, he
was arrested and sentenced to six years
in prison.
Since then. Gandhi has proclaimed
civil disobedience four times, the last of
which was coincident with his recent
airesi. He nas served four terms in
prison, though all were brief, and he has
subjected himself to six fasts, the longest
lasting 21 days. At first he fasted only
to ''punish" his followers when they re
sorted to violence in contravention of his
teachings—a peculiar Gandhi method of
discipline. Later, however, he used it as
a political weapon and has, indeed, fasted
himself out of jail on more than one oc
casion because the authorities were
fearful of what might happen should he
die in prison.
His Loincloth a Symbol.
Gandhi's fasts are also an evidence of
his keen sense of showmanship. When
he fasted, he was world news, and no one
knew better than Gandhi the value of
headlines in attracting world attention
to the Indian problem. Another evidence
is his clever use of symbols. The spin
ning wheel and the inevitable loincloth
which he wears are excellent examples.
The spinning wheel Gandhi meant to
symbolize India’s protest against British
economic exploitation. Without a cot
ton-manufacturing industry of their
l own. the poverty-stricken Indian masses
had long been forced to buy the high
; priced goods of Lancashire and Man
chester, which waxed rich on the Indian
trade. Few Indians would have under
stood arguments about empire preference
and high cost of production, but they
understood when Gandhi told them that
the spinning wheel was their salvation.
It brought home the point to the world
as well.
Gandhi’s loincloth is no less Interest
ing. He himself has explained its mean
ing in these words:
“Millions of Indians own nothing in
the world but that little strip of cloth
which preserves them from disgrace. I
am not leading a back-to-the-loincloth
IWAUStMawt TT 7. L « .1
-—-- *»v. utxu in liicao
straits ever since the British ruled India.
In London, if I am invited to visit His
Majesty the King-Emperor, I will wear
nothing more than that which is the
symbol of India's distress—the loincloth."
Stole Spotlight in London.
Gandhi did call at Buckingham Palace
when he visited London in 1931 to attend
the round-table conference on India,
but he compromised to the extent of
wrapping himself up in a large shawl
specially made for him by Mrs, Sarojinl
Naidu, the Indian poetess. Even then he
created a sensation not only in London
but all along the route of his travels. In
the British capital he stole the spotlight
from Charlie Chaplin, another visiting
fireman, and was lionized by Lady Astor.
Gandhi was careful to bring his sym
bols along with him on that journey.
His loincloth he wore as usual, though
he covered it with his shawl when pro
priety demanded. He also brought three
spinning wheels and three looms, in ad
dition to a well-thumbed volume of his
favorite author, Thoreau. and an ample
supply of canned goat's milk, dried
raisins and nuts, which form his cus
tomary' diet.
With all this, Gandhi gave London,
hitherto accustomed only to blazer
wearing Hindu students and bejeweled
maharajahs, its first glimpse of the real
India—the India of poverty-stricken mil
lions. His eccentricities were doubtless
shocking to most British aristocrats, but
j they won him the sympathy and friend
| j ship of London's common people. He put
j on a good show, and it went over.
“ Lead's Saintly Life.
This is not to say that Gandhi is not
genuine. He leads a saintly life. He de
vised his simple, one-meal-a-day diet of
nuts, dates, raisins and goat's milk
largely to overcome the lusts of the flesh
which beset him in his youth. His soli
tary meal is always taken at sundown, in
the interval before nightfall. If dark
ness falls before he has eaten, he goes
without food for another 24 hours.
Though tremendously busy with publio
affairs, he devotes 24 hours each week to
silent meditation, listening to the “inner
voice" from which he claims to receive
guidance even in political matters, and
holding communion with “the Absolute
| and Ultimate. He starts meditating at
! 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon and con
tinues until 4 in the afternoon of Mon
day. If any one has urgent business with
him during this day of silence he re
ceives the caller and listens to him but
himself does not speak, writing brief
answers on slips of paper. Many of his
momentous decisions were taken during
these periods of meditation.
Reading few books and newspapers
and shunning the radio, Gandhi is woe
fully ill-informed on world affairs.
Such is the personal background of
this amazing, enigmatic little man who
today holds in his thin hands such
power to influence world destiny. Call
! him saint, politician, demagogue, traitor
; or what you will, he is the one Indian
who. with his ’'soul force" and shrewd
ness. has won the trust, affection and
loyalty of the overwhelming mass of hi*
fellow countrymen.