Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About La Grande evening observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1904-1959 | View Entire Issue (May 14, 1945)
Side Glances Washington Merry-Go-Round EDITORIAL PAGE By DREW PEARSON La Grande Evening Observer Frank Schiro, Publisher MONDAY EVENING, MAY 11, 194.1 Page four Up Llmder .' Eg!? BRITISH ' :'S:S0 jSSfe- . ?2Kgg wS i ' j fillll !, y'' - EVENING OBSERVER'S PROGRESS PROGRAM IRRIGATION Complete the Grande Ronde Valley irrigation project. LA GRANDE A city of 10,0011 Extend the city limltH. TODAY'S TEXT The .sacrifice of the wicked is an abo mination to the Lord: but the prayer of the upright is his delight. Proverbs 1.1:8. THOUGHT FOR TODAY lie who did well in war just earns the rijrht To begin doinjf well in peace. Robert lirowninu' Who Cares? The seventh war loan drive conies at a time when evidently (lie war is half over, perhaps more I ban half. Hut. this will not mean a relaxation of the ad mirable effort of the thousands of men and women who have volunteered to sell these blinds, or nil indifferent frame of mind in the millions who are asked to purchase them. Some think of us as a money-loving people; at least they used to. Our pur chasing bonds, time md nv.ain, in drive after drive, has proved that it is not so. I'.onds are a good investment in a tragic, unsound, revolutionary, inflationary era there is none better but this is not what the individual pur chaser thinks of. His inspiration is human, not economic; the sublime ex ample and the bitter plijvlil of some son or brother or sweetheart or friend who is investing flesh and blood, life and death. We do not count the cost.- The way we wage war is exceedingly ex pensive, maintaining the lines of battle . at a safe distance. from homo, with in finite supplies and prodigious armor, :. and a high stannai-J of living for the. armed man, and painstaking medical and surgical science if and when he comes to grief. Occasionally an anxi-' oils statesman or vigilant newspaper man complains a little of our extrava gance in this way; of needless experi ment, waste of metal, change of plan.. Who cares? Right around the world our servicemen stand ready to give their lives; the more of them we can buy back, the belter. If there is the remotest, possibility that by the ex penditure of a small fortune a young man's life can be saved, all right; wc regard it as well spent. In selling this latest issue of win; bonds there can lie only one kind of sales-resistance, one form of indiffer ence, that is, thoughtlessness. The American civilian is a somewhat, care-' less, forgetful, over-optimistic charac-' ler. If we stop to think; if wc consider the contribution of the fighting man the empty trouser-leg of the infantry man, the burned and patchworked face of the aviator, the emaciation of the sailor drifting in the lost boat, the top-' iral fever in the blod of the marine, the sickened mind of the prisoner of war" we will not begrudge the surplus of our' war-time prosperity, ready cash and nealurc comfort. '0 will not put our selves to shame. Funny business ".KTSSi '"fcV--"46 f lull 11 Questions & Answers Q What Is a Monroe Iximb? A A li-afl.-t bomb. This type holds K0.0IH1 leaflets of 5-by-B-inch size. Q- What is a Hub? A A Red army canteen, coun terpart of ma- USO mid Rod Cross canteens. Q-What is a T.ltsho in Japan? A- An adiiiM.il. C0--Vhal three types of rocket charges does the navy use? A Incendiary, smoke. Inch ex plosive, tj - Where lis Hie w orld's larg rst rot'rim-ridor? A At I'lu-aWani iini-4y of the N rflk navy depot. It can hold :W.lll.il.niii pounds of meat. Tem ()pcraturc is maintained at 4 de grees. (O) WASHINGTON Buck in 1037-38, Admir al William Leahy, now chief of staff to the White House, devised a strategy against Ja pan, which, if put into effect, might have prevented Pearl Harbor and even World War II. Today, the old Leahy strategy is being dusted off, especially on Capitol Hill, as the best means of. finishing the war with Japan. It would save thousands of American lives, its proponents claim, and would serve as an example of how wars can be won or pre vented by naval blockade. The proposals made by Admiral Leahy constitute one of the most important and unwritten chapters in the history of what happened shortly before the war began. Leahy, then chief of naval operations and one of the best strategists the navy has seen in years, saw all too clearly what was com ing both in Europe and Asia. At that time, 1937, Japan had just begun her full-scale invasion of China, and it was Leahy's idea to make an example of Nippon which would show Hitler and Mussolini then feeling their oats that the United States meant business and would stand four-square be hind the peace machinery of the world. Therefore, he proposed to Roosevelt a na val blockade of Japan in cooperation with the British fltcl, using the peace machinery of the league of nations and the nine-power pact which guarantees the sovereignty of China. British Start Blockade President Roosevelt agreed. So did the British. And in the late summer of 1937, the British actually detailed six battleships, twelve cruisers and twtnty destroyers to leave British home waters for Singapore. Just at that moment, however, the axis capi tals apparently got wind of what was hap pening, and Mussolini started his unofficial submarine campaign off the coast of Spain which detained the British fleet at Gibral tar. A couple of months later, however, Roose velt revived the idea and sent Norman Da-. Vis, late head of the Red Cross, to Brussels to a meeting of the nine-power pact signa tories called to protect China from Japan. In the interim, Roosevelt had delivered his famous Chicago quarantine speech, warning that the United States might have to help put a quarantine around an agrcssor nation. This was part of the build-up for Admiral Leahy's plan to quarantine Japan. However, the Brussels conference in Octo ber, 1937, fizzled largely because of sabo tage by the state department in Washing ton, and the plan to blockade Japan was dropped. But Admiral Leahy revived it again a year later, when, in December 1938, the Japs sank the U. S. gunboat Panay and the British gunboat Ladybird. Leahy recognized this for what it was, a deliberate attempt by the Jap war lords to test how how much insult the United States would take, and to make Britain and the USA lose face with the Chinese. The British wvre also willing to cooperate. And, Leahy pointed out, in another year, war, inevitably breaking out in Europe, woud tie up the British feet and they couti not possibly help us in the Pacific. Russia, he also pointed out, had sixty submarines at Vladivostok, ready to help us cut off all scrap iron, all oil, all cotton ,nd copper from Japan. Without these, he argued, the Jap anese war machine woud be paralyzed. Less than one year later. Hitler had in vaded Poland, the British fleet was desper ately needed to defend British home waters, and the fat was in the fire. From that point on there was no possible way the United States could blockade Japan though many people have never understood why wc went to the opposite extreme and increased our shipments of oil and scrap iron to Japan so that she laid in tremendous reserves be fore Pearl Harbor. (Ambassador Joseph C. Grew, the man chiefly responsible for the policy of selling oil and scrap iron, has now been made under secretary of state.) Japan Can Be Starved But beginning willi V-E day last week, the possibility of blockading Japan for the first time since 1939 was completely reversed. Since V-E day, the British fleet is entirely fiec to operate in the Pacific. So are Rus sian submarines. So is the whole might of the U. S. navy, now no longer needed to watch for submarines in the Caribbean or the Atlantic. Therefore, blockade proponents argue. Why not intensify the B-29 raids over Ja pan's industrial cities, clamp down the iron clad blockade originally proposed by Admir al Leahy, and then wait. The end of Japan would come in only a few months without the sacrifice of American Jives. Naval brass bats don't favor this idea, but nevertheless you are going to hear a lot more about Admiral Leahy's strategy in the future. WE, THE WOMEN By RUTH MILLETT She received word a few months ago thai her husband had been killed in action."" She look the news with her chin up, de termined to go about the business of living as normally as she could. Now "they are saying" that she took the news of her husband's death loo well. That, after all, she seems so little changed, so she couldn't have loved him very much. Why do people praise the courage of men in battle and then turn around and condemn the young widows who are trying to fact life with the same kind of courage? Why do people want to sec these young widows of servicemen make a show of their broken hearts? Why expect a girl who has, perhaps, known only a few months of married life, followed by a year or two of separation, to sit back and mourn her husband's death for years? ... After all, these women are young. And if some of them can adjust easily to the trag edy of being widowed, that is a great bless ing. A girl of twenty or twenty-five has her life before her. No one would be benefitted by her going to pieces and cracking up emotionally. She would just become a problem to her own family and friends. So tile person who says a war widow is "taking it too well" is lacking in both sym pathy and understanding. The young widow who waited faithfully for her husband's re turn while there was hope of his coming back to her some day has done all that she can do. When she knows he isn't coming back, then she must get about the business of liv ing her own life to make it as worthwhile as possible. ' " Behind Scenes in Washington By PETER EDSON. La Grande Evoning Observer Washington Correspondent "And a couple of can opeicri in case I change my mind about gardening!" I What is Germany's west einiiiost port? A Eindcn, prewar population oa.uiiu. j One by-product of this United Nation-; conference' not on the official agenda is Ihc way cultural relations program is paying off an extra dividend. Kor in addition to jus writing a United Nations charter filled with high-sounding prnciplcs on insuring the fu ture peace and security of the world, some of Ihc delegates are interested in doing some thing more practical and material about it right now. Consequently they are taking time off from their conference labors nit only to see IhcNights of America, hut also 'o pick up information on what goes on in lire part of the world in such diverse subjects as orange growing, public health, rural school liinclu-s.'hislorical research, labor legislation, student exchange and stuff like that. For instance: Jules Busdevaut, assistant delegate for Fiance, professor at the Faculty of Law of Paris, has been putting in some time at the Hoover War Memorial library. Stanford uni versity. Formerly there were two other Ta nious collections of documents on wars, revolutions and peace, one in Paris and the other in Berlin. The German collection in Berlin is believed to h ive been completely destroyed and the French collection was badly damaged. Dr. Hasclevant is making pivliminary arrangements to have the Hoov er library documents microfilmed so as to bung the Paris collection up to date. French technical advisor Jean Chati-net is visiting Stanford to do research for future reorganization of the French ministry of labor. IVoe Ilofheir, another French ad visor, met V. S. economists on the Stanford faculty and will return tljcte to lectin e. ,Vi Akhar Siassi, minister' of state for Iran ilnd also n rhancellor of the fWersiay of Teheran is interested in V- S. higher educa tion. Presidents Donald B. Trcssidcr of Stanford and Herman Wells of Indiana have invited him to visit their campuses. Mrs. Isabel P. de Vidal. Uruguayan sena tor and educator, is visiting San Francisco schools and will go to the University of California extension center in BcQ-cley. K.gyplinn delegates, interested in improv ing the citrus fruit crops of their country, arc visiting California orange groves. All these and other similar examples fit into the big pattern of improving interna tional working relationships for peace times and several representatives of the U. S. de partment of slate division of cultural co operation have been assigned to the San Francisco conference to help the delegates meet the people who can do thin some good. Once established, these contacts are contin ued through the years and lead to interna tional understanding through personal rela tionships. If this sounds a bit thin, it doesn't add up that way at all. Fact is that dozens of for eign delegates and their advisors were edu caled in the United States. Galo Plaza Las so of Ecuador was a football star at Stan ford. Jerge Fidel Duron of Honduras stu died law at Loyola. Many of the Middle Eastern delegates attended the American universities in Alliens, and Beirut. Syria, and Roberts college, Istanbul. Five of the ten delegates from China went to U. S. col leges and univciwities. Oiv of the principal amendments to the Dumbarton Oaks proposals made by China and accepted by the other big powers calls for specific provision "lo promote education al and other forrrts of cultural cooperation." What you have just been reading about is ibis same brand of cultural cooperation in a great big way. Many of the U. S. experts at San FrancitjOi held degrees from foreign universiitcs. tf.eir first hand knowledge of loreign countries and languages helps them wage peace now. Conversely, when students from foreign countries attend U. S. schools and then go back home to assume positions of leader ship in their governments, they are among the first to be considered as delegates to con ferences like this one being held now in San Francisco. That's how all this cultural rela tions business pays off its contribution to peace. i H J TV , "lllll con. mi y nca sCAViie. inc. t. m. mo. u. a. pat. off. 1 f'ff "I'm going into some job in essential industry that's about the only chance a girl has nowadays to find an eligible man!" o McKENNEY ON BRIDGE By WM. E. McKENNEY, America's Card Authority SHREWD HOLD-BACK BEATS 3 NO TRUMP One of our outstanding life masters, TSgt. Phil Abramsohn, AKJI05 QJ32 J62 42 A 9 83 84 A 8 5 KQ 1083 Abramsohn 74 N W E 8 Dealer V 10 9 6 10 0 73 A J 7 5 A A.Q 6 2 AK7S KQ4 96 Duplicate Both vul. South West North East 1 4t Pass 2 A Pass 3 N. T Pass Pass Pass Opening 2. 15 was in New York on a furlough the other day. He is stationed at Grenier field, Manchester, N. H., O SO THEY SAT Not only do they (the Japan ese) fall shqgyof. matching -the . quantity of weapons arrayed against them, they also fall far short of matching the bravery, skill and indomitable spirit with which the Americans are using these weapons. Fleet Adml. Chester W. Nimilz. where he is an instructor in blind flying by instrument. I saw the sergeant put up a nice defense on this hand in the Mayfair dupli cate game. .'. - , South won the opening lead with the king of hearts and im mediately led the nine of clubs. Most of the East players took this trick with the jack and returned the ten of hearts. The declarer held off but when East continued with the six, the declarer won, then led another club,.; .: Now, regardless of Mi-hat East docs, the declarer has-tnrce cltrt tricks, three diamonds, two healts and a spade.- But hv refusing to wiri the nine of clubs and waiting to win the second --club trick, - Abramsohn gained the - timing on the hand and thus defeated tho cantract. . o IN FORMER l' YEARS 30 Years Ago - ' ' The Eastern Oregon Producers .association held its quarterly "business meeting in- La -Grande. Mrs. Lucy Miller left for Pitts burg, Kansas, for a visit. , i Dr. H. S. Brownton was named to the Carnegie library board. Education- is simply an invest ment in good health, good sense and good economic production. It is the instrument of our prog ress and the main structure of freedom. George D. Stoddard, New York state educational commissioner. Wc do not want wildcat fi nancing, shoddy building, and misplaced subdivisions after this war as we had after World War I. Wc have an unparalleled op portunity for long-range planning such as we will never sec acain in our time. Clair W. Dilchy of Dv roil, 15 Years Ago Mrs. Sherwood Williams, Mrs. E. W. Ely and Mrs. P. S. Robinson returned from Eugene . wliyfe they spent the weekend attend ing festivities on the university campus. Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Ains worth returned after a week spent in Portland on business arid pleasure. , Vernal Shoemaker was a mem ber of the rifb team at the Uni versity of Oregon which qualified for . the National Intercollegiate rifle matches. The better the war I s ;one for, us the tougher has he.-omc the lot of American i. i 1 allied prisoners, whom the '' mans moved repeatedly, oft : o i foot, to avoid their liberali .i by ad vancing allied forces. Maurice Pate, diroi ' ir Red Cross supplies for U. i. prison ers in Europe. 10 Years Ago Tlu-e La Grande girls, Lois Kathleen Hnnsell,' Edris Clare Maguirc and Georgia LaVcllc Ilk-hcy completed nursing courses nl Emanuel hospital in Portland and were graduated. Jack Lloyd, 66-year old soldier of fortune, adventurer, veteran of several wars and revolutions, and known throughout the world as the "Original Globetrotting Re porter," spent the day in ,La Grande. This Curious World COFK. 1S IVtt,i,.M -B3 ' , rn t. m. ate u s tat, o.r. m-Tf f El l ) TWO iiil ( BROTHERS, 11 "'i lifli GARBARK ( 'xIfHTX . ,5Siag5jk f AMERICAN ' 3 II BASE ' 1 1 B 35 .ctvJI 3 ej " . . . Ck1 dinOi5 IT IS EST! ViATED THAT .WORE THAN HALF A AI1.1OAJ POPZ WERE PUT TO DEATH AS tvnrws BETWEEN THE 15 TM AND I8TH CENTURIES. ANSWER: California. This state has been found very suitable for the growing of cork oaks. NEXT; In the ashes of Vesuvius. " ' 7 "' .V rfa vAHe?e'.s etAAgRP V 1 1 ii 3
