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About La Grande evening observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1904-1959 | View Entire Issue (April 26, 1945)
& t Side Glances EDITORIAL PAGE La Grande Evening Observer Frank Schiro, Publisher THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 26, 1915 Page Four They Send a Hoy to Do a Man's Work 'p c EVENING OBSERVER'S PROGRESS PROGRAM IRRIGATION Complete the Grande Ronde Valley irrigation project. I.A GRANDE A city of 10.000 -Extend the city limita THOUGHT TOR TODAY Thunder on! Stride on! Democracy. Strike with vengeful strokes. Wall Whitman. Unreasonably Regional This country is so full of regional pride nnd prejudice that inevitably a lot of political journalists hastened to explain the first president from Mis souri with Missourian symbols. There was a marked tendency, espe cially among the Washington and New Yol k writers, to appraise Mr. Truman's qualities and predict his course of ac tion in tonus of the healthy skepticism and mulish resolution with which tradi tion has endowed the natives of his state. Less specific writers sought to in terpret the new president against the more general background of his mid western origin. Hut a quick look around might convince the most casual seeker lifter typical midwestern political char acteristics that there ain't no such' ani mals. It might be noted first that All' M. Ijindon comes from Kansas, and Henry A. Wallace from Iowa. Senator C. Wayland llrooks is from Illinois. So is the poet and assistant secretary of state, Archibald MaeLeish. Wendell Willkie was a native lloosier, as is Sen ator I!ay Wills. Senator Joe Hall hails from Minnesota, and former Senator Gerald Nye from North Dakota. Now scramble them all together and try to find a common political denom inator. You find instead that the theory of typical midwestern political temper ament has been nipped right in its grass loots. ' ' The same divergence can lie found among prominent politicians from any, other section of the coufitry." 'No. fur-' ther examples are necessary to prove that you can no more explain Harry .S. Truman politicaly in terms of prairie farmland than you can explain Frank lin I). Roosevelt in terms of Groton and 1 larvard. ProbaUv our regional thinking is a holdover from a century ago when the gulfs between industrial New England, the argicultural south and the frontier west were very real and very wide. Some of the basic economic differences remain today and probably always will. Hut the expansion and development of our country, and particularly the abun dance and speed of transportation, make any barriers of thought inexcusable today. And yet regionalism still exists as a result of habit, thoughtlessness and, to some extent, a political expediency that fosters it. It is a mild form of bigotry and not too serious, perhaps. Hut it is not good, either. Today especially we need to be Amer icans first of all in our political think ing. President Truman has appealed to "every American, regardless of party, race, color or creed," for support in the effort to gain lasting world peace. He will need that support in all his new and difficult duties. That does not mean we must lc un critical, unthinking robots. Unity, not uniformity, is what we need. And it will bo easier of attainment if we can get over the habit of viewing our fel low citizens in other sections of the country with contempt, suspicion or condescension, and crediting them with mass thinking based on some cock-eved geographical concept. Funny Business WwbiJ Jml$2:. rwiL o SO THEY SAY The war cannot last much Unifier in my opinion. We have sunk very low. Goebbels. We cannot have prospedity In the United Stales it the lest of the world is sunk in depression and poverty, Sectvtary of Stale Edward R. Slettinius, jr. "What I would.VI givo for company ot all maglciani!" Hidden or not. Japanese indus try will not survive the bombard ment in store for it. MaJ.-Cien. Laurence S. Kuter, acting AAK chief of staff. Washington Merry-Gp-Round By DREW PEARSON SAN FRANCISCO Last fall it leaked out that there was a drastic difference of opinion between the state department and the treasury over a soft peace for Germany, und after several weeks of discussion, Presi dent Roosevelt definitely threw his weight with the treasury in favor of a hard peace. Top war department officials, influenced by the atrocities committed against Ameri can and allied prisoners, finally agreed with the president, and even the state department reluctantly swung into line. For -a long time it has been no secret that a group inside the state department favored a. soft peace for Germany with a view to making her a bulwark against Russia after the war. But as long as Roosevelt wus in the White House, the state department ap pcascrs kept quiet. However, on the day after his body was buried, a meeting of the German repara tions committee was held in the office of assistant secretary Will Clayton at which both the state and war departments sudden ly reversed Roosevelt's policy of a hard peace. Specifically, they argued against the re moval of nazi factories, machine tools, plant equipment or goods out of Germany. The Russians have proposed the removal of Ger man war plants to help build up the hun dreds of Russian factories destroyed by Ger many. But the state and war departments maintained that no such German equip ment could be removed from Germany with out the unanimous consent of the repara tions commission. Naturally this means that cither the United States or Great Brit ain could block such removal since both sit on the commission. This meeting, Assistant Secretary Clayton argued that American policy should favor leaving factory equipment and machinery In Germany so she can get back on a sound economic basis. He even mentioned that fact that Germany would need to import cotton to manufacture clothes and should be permitted to have enough exports to pay for the imported cotton. (Clayton is the biggest cotton exporter in the world and did a heavy business wih the nazis before the war.) ' Russians Remember Unfortunately the Russians are all too familiar with the attitude of the state and war departments toward them; Unfortunate ly, also, some observers believe this distrust of the U. S. state department is one reason why the Russians demand a strong, all-communist Poland. However, no matter how efficient the peace machinery devised at San Francisco, it will not work if the two strongest powers supposed to keep the peace already have begun jockeying against each other. The Russians cannot forget among other things the strategy of the Cliveden set in England (with which Churchill was once sympathetic) to stir up war between Ger many and Russia while England sat on the sidelines. The Russians also know all too well the type of anti-Russian conversation that goes on at the home of Mrs. Evalyn Walsh (Hope diamond) McLean, when she entertains the elite of Washington society at her famous dinners at what is sometimes called the headquarters of the American Cliveden set. The Russians knew in advance, for in stance, that the Douglas Aircraft company had sold the plans for its DC-4 to Japan for SI, 000,000 before Pearl Harbor. And they have been especially interested in the war department's survey of the dam age done to German war plants by U. S. planes, a survey to be undertaken by a group of bankers and top insurance executives, in cluding: Henry C. Alexander, vice-president of J. P. Morgan; Fred Searles, Jr., president of several J. P. Morgan mine com panies; Franklin O'Olier, president of the Prudential Life Insurance Co.-, and Robert P. Russell, president of Standard Oil De velopment Co. Considering the manner in which Stand ard Oil of New Jersey collaborated with Hitler's cartels even after the war broke in Europe,, and considering how the J. P. Mor gan branch bank in Paris collaborated with the nazis even after Pearl Harbor, you can't blame the Russians for wondering whether this survey actually isn't for the purpose of getting a line on German indus try and building it up after the war. American Industry Wants In Already, the state department is being bombarded by American industrialists who owned factories in Germany before the war and want to get back to start operating them. Among the leading pressure boys is Graeme Howard, vice-president of General Motors in charge of operations in Europe (and Germany.) Howard helped organize Franco's Pee WASHINGTON . . . Page 6 WE, THE WOMEN By RUTH MILLETT The women around the bridge table were comparing notes on what they should have ..Keen. doing at home, in8,tedd."et-playing cards, for a whole afternoon. ' But they all agreed that they still belong ed to their bridge club even when they couldn't afford the time because they sim ply had to get out and talk to people once in a while. There are a lot of women in the same boar. They don't like to give up'the social clubs they used to have time for because they still like to get out and see their friends and yet they aren't really comfortable spending whole afternoons in which they accomplish nothing, when they have so much to do at home. Why wouldn't it be a good idea for women like that to start having some over-all par ties, instead of bridge parties? Instead of meeting at Mrs. Jones' for a fancy luncheon and;br)dge, why not meet for a picnic meal and planting Mrs. Jones' garden? When it's Mrs. Smith's turn to entertain she may want help with the family mending, with painting the kitchen, or with refinish ing an old piece of furniture. But whatever the job it would not seem like real work if it were done to the tunc of laughter and gossip and the swapping of ideas. And the women could enjoy getting to gether without being bothered by the nag ging thought that they were wasting hours they had no business wasting. Just think how much could be accom plished in the time it takes eight or twelve women to play three rubbers cf bridge. Behind Scenes in Washington By PETER EDSON, La Grande Evening Observer Washington Correspondent People here think well of Har ry Truman. They think he will do quite well. Arthur Aull, I.amur, Mo., pub lisher. President Roosevelt v r.s one of the great men of all times a builder of human values. Hep., John W. McCormack of Massachusetts. Where the department of state gels on and off in the present misunderstanding with the senate foreign relations committee over post war international aviation treaties and exec utive agreements is a little involved. An effort has been made to hang the blame for the whole business on Adolf Belie, former assistant secretary of state and chairman of the 54-nation conference on civ il aviation held at Chicago last fall. But an equally strong case can be made to show that the senate is at fault: first through a law that can be interpreted two ways; second becai:se the two senate dele gates ta the Chicago conference weren't on the job; third because several senators in key positions gave loose permission to the department of state to go ahead with the executive agreements and now wish they hadn't. The whole thing has been kicked around. Berle's part goes back to January, 1!44. when he was put in charge of the Interna tional communication and transportation di visions of the department of state. The pres ident and Secretary Hull were too busy with the war, so Berle had clear tracks and lines, and he went ahead to shape a postwar avia tion policy for the United States. Berle formed an inter-departmental com mittee with representatives of CAB, com merce, war, navy and other interested agen cies in Washington. , In Marcn he went to' London to talk things over with Lord Beav erbrook. his opposite number in the British government. In July Beaverbrook came to Washington. There were other conferences with representatives of nearly a doen coun tries. What -was said, is a closed book, but out of these conferences came the slate de partment policy and the plan for the inter , national confcrVnW) which finally opened mi Chivflgo Nov., 1. O A special senate committciOtiuter ot-Sn'n. Bennett Clark tried to slop any commit nier.ts, pending senate approval, but couhln t make it stick. People who don't like Berle or what came out of U' Chicago coiiffivncr say he swallowed iWl had been British policy for the last 20 vears and even gave the British more than they asked for, after which they put up a show of reluctant ac ceptance. But there are just as many people who say Berle did a grand job, traded ind maneu vered the British out of their scheme to con trol world aviation, and won a lot of new rights for U. S. postwar aviation. Take your pick. Only time and actual ex perience will prove which is right. But with Berle eased out of his job and packed oft to Brazil as ambassador, the job of carrying out the Berle policies has fallen on others, principally Assistant Secretaries Will Clayton and Dean Acheson, and Stoke ley W. Morgan, head of the aviation section in the department of state under Clayton. Morgan was the only one of the three at Chi cago. Morgan admits there is room for a mis understanding on what passed between Sen ators Bailey and Brewster and Assistant Sec retary Berle. But Morgan as a technical ex pvrl was on the drafting committee that drew up the interim agreement and the two am! five-freedoms agreements and it is his contention that these documents were drawn up within the scope of the present law. This opinion is supported by state department counsel. The supporting argument is: Under the civil areonautics act of 1938, the civil aero nautics board has the power to enter into bi-lateral agreements with any government for foreign air rights. There were 12 such bilateral agreement.! in force at the time of the Chicago confer ence. The only difference between those agree ments and the agreements drafted at Chi e.iK.i is that this government proposed to do by multi-lateral agreement what is had al ready been doing in bilateral agreements with Canada. Great Britain, Italy, Norway. Qhe Netherlands, Nejv, Zealand, France,' rortiij.al.Qind ftlurs. In othp; words, it is claimed that V.n agreemontjittjdc with all the 54 nations aGchie'sgo would be-a tre mendous thing for U. S. aviation, opening unlimited prospects for di(Wj(opment of U. S. air routes all over the world. C0HL1WVMAMHHCI.IHC. T. M. WO. U. MT. Off. 4'27 "But It helps. Mom. to put on my shirt before I wash in the morn i.ig then I know just how far I have to gol" e McKENNEY ON BRIDGE By WM. E, McKENNEY, America's Card Authority ' THE OLD CHALLENGE RULE CONTROVERSY Another of the famous names of a few years back is George Reith, who for years was associ ated with the Knickerbocker whist club. George wrote sev eral books on bridge, but he is probably most famous for his ef fort to get into the rules the "challenge." As a matter of fact, the Knickerbocker whist club adopted the "challenge." The "challenge" was an at tempt to end the confusion as to whether a player making ' it wanted his partner to bid or wanted to play the hand for pen- A7653 V 85 764 9 7 5 3 Reith N AAJ2 UV F Q'04 VA 9 7 2 e V63 AK3 ni, J AQ6 I Dealr j. ., mH4 AK98 VKQJ 104 10 5 2 K2 Rubber N.-S. vul. South ' West, North 1 V Double Pass Opening K. east ; Pass ' 27 ' alties. Under this rule, if you doubled you meant that you thought you could beat the con tract and wanted to play the hand for a penalty. However, if you challenged, it meant that your partner had to bid. There was quite a feud over the "challenge." Ely Culbertson resigned from the Knickerbock er whist club in protest. Here is an example of how the "challenge" was used: South has made a fairly weak opening bid. Now if West dou bles, under our present conven tions that would be demanding Last to make a bid. But under Reith's plan, if West wanted his partner to bid, he could pa" "I challenge," in which c."'; East would respond with a b: 1- if he felt his hand was trong enough to, he could cr n e the challenge into a double. Questions & A rivers Q Who is Sir Jarm ? Crigg? A British war mini. r. But in today's hand West would double because his side is not vulnerable and he feels he jr f ,ui ....J....... can ueieui ouum a uuuutiui, Therefore, although East had a fairly weak hand, he knows that he is safe in passing as his part ner has told him he thinks he can defeat the contract'.- You can see that after cashing three diamonds and shifting to a club, the best declarer Can do is take four tricks, thereby going down three for a loss of eight hundred. ' ' O IN FORME" YEARS : 30 Years Ago Mr. and Mrs. Robert Rudd re turned from Eugene. Rudd was employed in the La Grande ga rage. They were making their home temporarily with Mr. and Mrs. Frank Chatas. .' '' Robert Mays, former ipostmas ter of Elgin was in the city on his way to visit his brother Charles Mays of the North Powder dis trict. ,.. i . .M-U , .' . ... Mr. and Mrs. J. D. McKerinon left for Arkansas and other east ern points to remain for several weeks visiting old friends and in vestigating business conditions. Mrs. W. H. James and daugh ter, Mrs. Garey, arrved from Winnipeg, Canada, to make their home in La Grande. Q How many rivets go into a B-24 Liberator? A About 400,000. 15 Years Ago ' The heaviest rain in several weeks fell in La Grande. The majority of the crops had been planted in the valley and the rain was welcomed by most farmers. The Rev. W. H. Hertzog ar rived from Salem to occupy the pulpit in the First Methodist church. 10 Years Ago Peggy Bohnenkamp has gone to Portland where she will visit friends and relatives. She took a carload of girls to Forest Grove to take part in the state glee club contesi. , Bart Robbs and John War- etqfr lrllln 4k.nn .n..U.n-lnD near Union. They were, hunting coyote dens when they found the reptiles, the largest one 'measur ing four feet in length with 11 rattles and a button. -;. The Imbler P-TA gave a sur prise party in honor of Mr. and Mrs. James King, in Wade hall. This Curious World IT NEVER SETS TOO COLO TO SNOW... Bur IT does &Er TOO COLD TO SMOW IN K m W-ii SMOW INI WS ill i i m m it . n. i J 1 - Pfyt TEMPERATURES, I tt---cc t SMOW FALLS IN k; A w V ) DIAMOND-LIKE ( . ,Jx V. ) DUST, OR IN ( l M W 0 ( ICE SPICULES I Vo--J ( OR NEEDLES. ) cop, mi it nea scai. inc. 1 fl "fcHEN DSILLIN&, YOLTRE ON THE RI&MT FOOT IFTOU START Orp ON THE LEFT FOOT, " Ssys pranklin T. bone. eveay child IS COICB BLIND AT BIRTH ..1 AND NCT UNTIL TWft'AHO- A'HAlf years is the ca.CZ vision fully oevelopecX;; T. M Rf c. U. t. MT. Off. NEXT: Nature's flying instructors.
