Side Glances
Washington Merry-Go-Round
EDITORIAL PAGE
o
By DREW PEARSON
JO
i nn 777. ' i i33i i I'm wse? I
O
La Grande Evening Observer
Frank Schiro, Publisher
THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 2!), 19-17,
O"
Pajte Four-
o
"What're Y' Tryin' T'Do, Wgrk Yourself Out of a Job?"
EVENING OBSERVER'S
PROGRESS PROGRAM
IRRIGATION Complete the Grande
Ronde Valley irrigation project.
LA GRANDE A city of 10,000
Extend the city limits.
TODAY'S TEXT
' And they were offended in him, Hut
Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not
without honor, save in his own house.
Matthew 13:57.
Employment, Full and
Secure
A! g-unniiiteerl annual wane for indus
trial workers is one of the most valu
able and desirable forms of social secur
ity. Without it fear of periodic unem
ployment remains constantly with the
worker, lie finds it difficult, if not im
possible, to budget his earnings, main
tain a stable standard of living, or plan
for the future.
Yet millions of workers anil their
families are without this security, as
their-fathers and n'randfathers . were.
Their demands for a giuu'iinlccd wane
have been growing-, however, and have
now reached the point of government
action. At the president's suKKestion,
the advisory committee of the office of
war mobilization and reconversion has
apH)inted a suln'ommil tee from indus
try, labor, agriculture and government
to investigate the subject.
It is a difficult and complicated sub
ject, and nobody should expect the sub
committee to turn up shortly with the
blueprint of a national program that
Will satisfy everybody. I'.ut at least its
members can acquaint the government
and the public with the history of guar
anteed wage plans to date, and can
straighten out some misconceptions.
The war labor board estimates that
there are i0 or GO such plans now in
successful operation, mostly in the con
sumers' goods field. Many other indus
tries have tried similar plans, and fail
ed. It will bo valuable to have a de
tailed evaluation of these successes and
failures, and learn the extent to which
they were affected by the nature of an
industry's product and market, the
operation by both management and
labor.
It is improbable that an assured an
nual income for workers is possible in
every industry. Hut such a guarantee
should be made wherever possible. And
the idea shouldn't be hard to sell, since
the resulting increase in prosperity and
purchasing power is as important to in
dustry as it is to the worker.
Hut the technique of putting the idea
to work promises to be a harder nut to
crack. For, as has already been point
ed out, compulsory legislation which in
cluded subsidies to cover any losses
might put government in partnership
wilh industry on a large scale. This
could seriously hamper freedom of col
lective bargaining: and other labor
rights, as well as free enterprise.
However, the difficulty of avoiding
such a pitfall should not be insurmount
able. And the possibility of encounter
ing it should not discourage the first
step toward an important objective of
our ultimate postwar goal an econ
omy not only of full employment, but.
of steady and secure employment, with
wages adequate to support what we like
to call "the American way of life."
Funny liusiness
Tl 1 iVv. i i i V -, i r I lit !
CAMB
tcuJMi ,f HIaiTiTOIb i. A Cm. v. I w. en ; .', '!
"PrivaJo Smllh. you will tcporl lo the met Icnll"
0 SO THEY SAY
Mothers of infants up lo aye 3
should ho burred from factory
work. Mothers of the pre-school
child .shuuUt tic allowed employ
ment only (luring the period in
which a nursery school properly
inspected, takes over. O
O .Dr. David M. Levy, American
01 thopsvehialry association of
fieial. Q
I'nlcss lhci-is sonic unforc
Mill change m the war ncctls,,
the men-hunt shipbuilding pro
gram will be about complete by
the end of this year.
Vice Adml. Howard I.. VWV-
crv. ehairmau maritime foul-
mission,
; --
We came so last they didn I
have a chance to destroy their
(Qpuhlic utilities. Even their pa
pels of the dav before our ar
rival said we had bgen pushed
back across the Uoer. What
fools.
Lieut. Robert G. Packer of
Brooklyn, N. Y., In the Kcma
ten sector, i
WASHINGTON President Roosevelt's
meeting with Arab ruler Ibn Saud was the
topic of vigorous discussion at a meeting of
1,000 Jewish leaders at the Hotel Astor in
New York recently. It may have interesting
repercussions. Considerable criticism was
directed at Roosevelt for his remark that he
had learned more about the Moslems and
the Jews in five minutes with Ibn Saud
than he could have learned In (i dozen let
ters. Congressman Emanuel Culler, New York
denfiicrat and staunch Roosevelt supporter,
vfbs one of the most vehement critics of the
president at the New York meeting.
"There were one million Jews in and
around my district in New York who voted
for Roosevelt unanimously," Congressman
Celler said. "Their vote made the difference
between his victory or defeat.
"The Jews," he continued, "do not propose
to stand for this sort of thing. Roosevelt is
going to have to learn that he can't fool all
of the Jews all of the time."
Senator Ed Johnson, Colorado democrat,
but usually a Roosevelt hater, was also a
speaker at the meeting and gleefully joined
in the criticism. Referring to the statement
that Roosevelt had learned so much about
the Palestinian question from the king of
Saudi Arabia in five minutes, Senator John
son said: I
"It is very strange how the president could
have learned anything about the Jewish
question from Ibn Saud. Ibn Saud had
never beforo been outside his own kingdom,
and there is not a single Jew inside his king
dom." Arms for Arabs?
Senator Brewster, Maine republican, an
other speaker, criticized the present Churchill-Roosevelt
policy which prevents fur
ther migration of Jews to Palestine.
"It is extraordinary," he said, "that you
have a Jewish national home to which the
Jews cannot go."
Then Brewster dropped a bombshell. He
reported a Washington rumor that Ibn Saud
had asked for an American military mission
to train an Arab army and that the president
had agreed to send fifty to sixty American
officers to Arabia as a military mission.
Note Not all Jews favor the policy of a
Jewish homeland in Palestine. The presi
dent's chief motive in conferring with Ibn
Saud is understood to have been Arabian oil,
for which American firms have important
concessions. Also the president may have
wanted to counterbalance Russian influence
in the Moslem world.
Germany .Crumbles
Authentic reports from inside Germany
tell a terrible story of German disintegra
tion as a result of mbined allied air and
ground blows.
Travelers in Germany during the last
month say that huge crowds mill around
railroad stations night and day waiting for
trains which appear infrequently. Police who
try to disperse mobs are becoming more and
more ineffectual. Many local police have
joined the horde of refugees, until it is al
most impossible for Hitler to control the
country without using troops.
Even Gestapo men are deserting They arc
trying desperately to mtKc deals with the
allies through neutral border towns. Army
desertions have increased by leaps and
bounds.
One new and perhaps most significant de
velopment is that most German farmers now
flatly refuse to ship food to the cities. Thi3
is particularly reminiscent of what happened
in the fall of 1918. Farmers have no faith in
the German money, give up what goods they '
arc forced to only at the point of a gun.
Neutral travelers do not believe Hitler
will surrender. They still look. for a last
ditch nazi stand in the Bavarian mountains.
Inside Germany
Hitler's own newspaper, Voelkischcr Bco
bachter, last week carried a significant ar
ticle by Dr. Michael Baumel telling how the
allied offensive is affecting the German
people. It says: "Who would deny that this
war is tormenting us more and more? Who
would be so audacious as to assert that he
is not tortured by hours of grave anxiety?
Who has not felt himself near death and, in
the face of the destruction of his own pos
sessions, has not thanked fate for the gift of
bare existence beneath the smoking ruins?
The look on the faces of men and women
who surge up from the cellars says more
than any words. Their eyes are the eyes of
tormented people."
Despite all this, Hitler is still urging the
German people to carry on.
Furloughs for Soldiers
Chief of Staff General Marshall told the
senate military affairs committee during a
closed-door session last week that he has re
sisted heavy pressure from his own staff and
other administration leaders to expand the
size of the army beyond the 7,700,000 now
authorized by law. The pressure was espec
ially strong, he said, during the German
See WASHINGTON . . . Page 5
WE, THE WOMEN
By RUTH MILLETT
A Washington dispatch says American ci
vilians may be asked lo cat less.
- No'w that will be a real break for house
wives. Rationing hasn't given them any breaks
at all. It just made the job of feeding their
families and friends tougher. For they were
expected to put as much food on the table
as ever and manage it by juggling points,
devising all sort of tricks to make a casserole
dish taste almost as good as a roast of beef,
and performing all kind of culinary magic to
give tile impression that food was just as
plentiful as ever.
But this "eat less" campaign if it gets
under way is going to simplify life consid
erably, for it can be used as an airtight alibi.
Mom can say airily to the bridge club.
"I'm not serving anything because of the
'cat less' campaign, you know."
When she comes home five minutes ahead
of her family and hasn't time to cook a real
meal she can stare down Dad's and Junior's
antagonistic air toward sandwiches with:
"But we're supposed to cat less, you know."
The woman who wants to reduce needn't
let anybody in on the secret that she is put
ting on pounds and has decided to go on a
strict diet. She can just look smug and say
when her friends are enjoying dessert, "I've
given up desserts since we were asked to eat
less."
If tile government asks us lo eat less there
is one group who should be right behind the
policy, and that is the housewives of Amer
ica. For them it offers all sorts of possibili
ties for spending less time in the kitchen.
Behind Scenes in Washington
By PETER EDSON. La Grande Evening Observer Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON, D. C. Liberation of
Guam and capture of Saipan and the oilier
Marianas islands has givrn U. S. Pacific for
ces not only good B-2II bases for bombing
Japan, but also good bases for bombarding
the Japanese people with Japanese language
radio broadcasts and plane-dropped leaflets
and newspapers telling them the real facts
of life denied them by their war lords.
Radio Saipan. known to the Japs as "Voice
of America," is now making direct broad
casts to the Jap people eight hours a day,
but the schedule will be around the clock in
the near future. Operated jointly by office
of war information, army and navy psycho
logical warfare divisions, this Japanese-language
voice of America is one of the really
unique sidelines of the w ar.
There have been short wave broadcasts lo
Japan from San Francisco lineo the early
days of the war. Later a relay station was
established at Honolulu for re-broadcast, but
the audience of these two stations has been
restricted since short wave receivers are
closely licensed by the Jap government. '
At best the short wave programs probably
. got no further than a few desks in the Jap
anese war, navy and foieign offices, but they
were known to be-monitored, as Jap propa
gandists sometimes replied to them.
Establishment (of fntdio Sjipan. however,
gives the psychological warfare units a
chance to go on the air with medium wave
broadcasts capable of reaching the five mil
lion sets known to be,. in existence on the
Japanese islands, and( tat-;s an audience
worth cultivating. That broadcasts' tfet
tlrrvugli is demonstrated bv Jap efforts to
York, Washington, San Francisco or Hono
lulu, translated into Jepenese, then put on
platters for shiptnen to Saipan. Nisei voices
are used for many recordings, but their sec
ond generation accents aren't too well
thought of in Japan, so native-bom Japan
ese who have become Americanized arc pre
ferred. The first big objective has been lo build
up the credibility of Voice of America.
Straight news and a little commentary has
proved to be the best vehicle. Giving the
Japanese people the news .which they have
good reason to know about or siwpoct, but
which has been withheld from them or dis
torted by the Jap government has proved
pretty effective. That helps build up the
reputation of radio Saipan, and when the
Japs hear it on the Voice of America pro
grams, they can know it's so.
There is no direct attack on the Japanese
emperor as an individual. All the blame for
what is happening to the Japanese people
is heaped on the Jap -war lords i who have
si grossly deceived and misled the Jap peo
ple into a losing war. The thought is put
over that the Jap people shouldn't continue
to he suckers for this hctraWi) hy their) own
rulers. T'.ie, contrast bctwccnSvhat '.he, war
lords said they were going to do Urol what
they have failed to do 'js emphasized wher
ever possible. O
(Jap propagandists nave tried tcfjiivke
something ouf of) the unconditional surren
der demand .,y "playing up the idea that all
Americans are beasts, and thaL-uncondition-
al surrender means only that (aD1 Jap males
Jaw the wave. Whenever that hajipoij, S3 will be mutilated while all .'(4$) women will
ri;,. Kuhv.n im,e.i:iteR. cliiftu t ;,,Wtl,.,,. 1 1 1 ,. .-
dio Saipan immediately shifts to aitr-thi-
frequency and keeps going. It's a great
game. Put atmosph -i ic conditions are such
that the radio Suipu&'signal is stronger than
the Japanese home stations, and therefore
hard toSSiSW.
Voice of America as broadcast from Sai
pan is entirely a transcription program from
records whose scripts are written in New
be raped. Jaiwniliun ists hsvc hammered
this idea into v& heads of their troops, too,
and this fear of mutilation is the real rea
son Jap soldiers won't surrender. It is be
ing countered with broadcasts and leaflets
building up the idea that surrender isn't dis
graceful and proving it by accounts of good
treatment of Jap soldiers and civilians who
have surrendcied on the liberated islands.
"The boss has been very dignified for two days, calling everybody
Miss or Mister, and for the life of us we can't find out what mis
take he made he's trying to cover up!"
McKENNEY ON BRIDGE
By WM. E. McKENNEY, Amorica's Card Authority
TRUMP-PROTECTING
LEAD SCORES GAME
I had the pleasure the other
night of being the guest of the
12th regiment, New York state
guard. After the review and
drill I played bridge with some
of the boys. Lt. Harry Jacobs
was not afraid to bid today's
A872
KS2
R653
K3
KI6 N 04 3
AQ10 8vV E
7 c J 10 2
KQJS
V4
74
A 109752
Rubber E.-W. vul.
South West North
1 2 V 2 A
3 3 4 A
Opening K.
East
Pass
Pass
30
hand but his play warranted his
optimism.
He ruffed the third diamond
with the five of spades and even
though West had bid hearts, he
did not make the mistake of lead
ing the four of hearts.
Questions & Answers
Q What is the non-stop glid
er tow record?
A 1320 miles, Karachi to Cal
cutta, India, last Christmas eve
a Santa Clous hop.
If he had, West would have
won and returned another dia
mond and now he could not make
the contract. So instead, Lieu
tenant Jacobs led toward the
king of clubs, came back to his
hand with the ace of clubs, and
now led the third club. He de
cided that if West showed up
with the queen of clubs, he
would then ruff high in dummy
and hope for a three-two break
in spades. But when West show
ed out, lie trumped low, .picked
up the trump and, of course,, his
club suit was established.
o TN FORMER
YEARS
. 30 Years Ago ...
Edmund Holmes, Eugene Fyke,
Randall Savage and Grant Gcd
des were elected to captain four
divisions of the junior "A" at the
YMCA.
La Grande's baseball club in
the Eastern Oregon league beat
the Elgin club 12 to 4. "
Miss Florence Happersctt, as
sistant librarian at the city li
brary, went to Portland and Eu
gene to visit friends and relatives.
Q Have the Polish oil fields
been put to work for our side?
A They're at GO per cent of
prewar production.
Q What is the AAF's API?
A Air position indicator:
gives continuous latitude and
longitude readings, air miles
flown; an instrument about the
size of a quart milk bottle.
IS Years Ago
Virgil Choate, senior' in the
Smith-Hughes department of the
Imbler high school, was awarded
the U. P. scholarship of $100 by
the county committee. Union and
Imbler schools conitested. Roy
Conklin, sophomore of the Union
high school, was awarded second
place, Exford Smith of Imbler,
third, and Dale Baxter of Union,
fourth place. The scholarship
was for the freshman year at
Oregon state college.
It was announced that $847,000
would be spent in improving the
La Grande-Kantela section of the
Old Oregon Trail highway.
Q How much has Gei
vision strength fallen rl
war? A From the origin:
of Hi, 000 men lo a rep'
lllll 10.
n di-
the
idard
allOO-
Cl In what sport d" a loam-of-four
play?
A Contract bridge. : ut there
are actuJly five playc since
tournaments often run i:ito sev
eral sessions and an extra play
er is allowed to make up for absentees.
10 Yean Ago
Merlin Batlcy was . elected
; .esident of the La Grande Rot
ary club for the coming year. J.
Donald Meyers was elected vlcc
jiresideni and Clarence Kopp the
secretary. treasurer.
Ruth Murchison and Margaret
Cunliff, who have been away al-
tending school, . were in La
Grande for a short visit with
their parents.
Mr. and Mrs. C. P. Cramer
started on tile first lap or their
trip to Australia.
This Curious World
o SJwksiA ( exhibited an r
Qr&ll 1 -) ALON& WITH THEI?. i;
vwi.it'i.i,v,,.w-
YOU POR SOWf. THlNS
WiEN YOU'RE SMCVC'SZys
VR. HENRY WOLPC,
TL
-v I
- a
AH MEWBESS OP TM6
op birds.
-jo
NEXT: If you lired on the ploncl Jupiter.