Side Glances
EDITORIAL PAGE
La Grande Evening Observer
Frank Schlro, Publisher
MONDAY EVENING, JUNE 11, 194.')
Page Two
Just Like Any Other Cornered Rat
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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 God snw every thing he hud
made, and, behold, it was very good.
And the evening and the morning were
the sixth day. Genesis 1:31.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
Look forward with hope for tomor
row. John Collins.
'Coddling' Vindicated
Our so-called "coddling" of German
war prisoners has saved the lives of
many American prisoners in Germany,
He international Ited Cross reveals.
A Swiss Red Cross officials has
stated that when Hitler ordered the
execution of American and llrilish
aviators last March, his officers dis
obeyed him because they knew Hint
both allied countries had lived up to the
Geneva convention covering treatment
of prisoners of war. Thus !M per cent
of American prisoners survived Hitler's
intended vengeance.
This docs not condone the Germans'
unspeakable treatment of political, as
distinct from military, prisoners. There
was no Geneva convention for Dachau
and Ituchcnwnld and Maidanek. Hut ii
does vindicate the humane treatment of
prisoners, in accordance with an honor
able pledge, which apparently appealed
to the remaining vestige of decency in
the German army.
Suicidal Stupidity
The Jap war machine leaches a young
student the rudiments of flying, seals
him in a plane and sends him on a sui
cide mission against American ships. It
hops up a young soldier with crackpot
patriotism, straps his body with explo
sives, and sends him hurtling into the
American lines. This country, on the
other hand, is constantly improving
equipment with a view toward saving
more lives and planes and ships.
The Jap suicide pilots cause serious
damage when they hit. The suicide
infantrymen do likewise when they
reach our lines. Hut whether they suc
ceed or fail at life is expended in both
instances and, in the first, a plane is
lost as well.
American pilots sink ships, too.
American infantrymen have wiped out
half-do.ens and dozens of Japs single
handed. And in the majority of such
cases they have lived to fly and fight
another day.
The Jap is not only inhuman, he is
also inefficient.
The Hill for War
None of us can appreciate the actual
ity of a trillion dollars, which American
university researcher estimate is the
cost of the war to date. But the least
imaginative of us can take that incon
ceivable figure, add the destruction of
public and private property which the
estimate does not include, and add to
that the yet-uncounted millions of lives
lost since Sept. 1, 10M9.
The result will not give us an accur
ate total, but it will give us an inescap
able conclusion: Civilization cannot
again indulge in such staggering, insane
extravagance and survive.
Funny Ilusiness
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rMF1' III I I II 1 I . V. kJ . -Ml; . I
p SO THEY SAY
When a woman gives a butcher
n liiK tip, She poor can't match
it, ruiisctiiictrly the well-to-do
Ki'l what meal there is.
Henry M. BniiidaRe, New York
City markets commissioner.
We need bureaucrats, but they
niuj.1 lie intelligent.
liabbi Rudolph M. Rosenthal,
Cleveland.
Our best jit. lament is that we
can defeat Japan quickly and
completely with an army which,
a year from new, will be 6,!fl8,-
000.
Adjt.-Gon. James A. Ulio. army
personnel director.
Our flat: -v ill be planted in the
In-art of t'uc cmpiri of our last
remaining -nemy.
---Pivsident Truman.
,"J Kci the burglan guouing they won't know which lock to
-) pick I"
Depressions, like wars, are not
acts of Hod. Man makes them.
If we make them, we can unmake
them.
Vied M Vinson, director of. war
mobilization and reconversion.
Washington Merry-Gb-Round
By BREW PEARSON
WASHINGTON It came as something of
a shock to Washington dowagers and socially-minded
young naval officers when attrac
tive, dynamic Margaret Truman suddenly
was whisked out of Washington at the very
height of the gay June season and went back
to Independence, Mo.
After all, June in Washington is full of
weddings and romance, and with the war
over in Europe, a lot of cave-dwellers were
just beginning to hit their stride.
However, a very wise presidential papa
wasn't happy about the featured newspaper
pictures of his daughter shagging at this
party, cocktailing at that, and flitting mer
rily throuh Washington society with the wa.r
still bitterly contested in the Pacific. It was
only natural exuberance on the part of a
young college girl who suddenly found her
self the first daughter of the land.
But all this didn't jibo with the president's
own ideas or his pleas to the nation to get
the war over in the Pacific.
So came the back-to-the-earth-movement-and
Missouri immediately after Margaret's
college term was over.
As Margaret herself explains: "Father says
I have to finish college. I have one more
year at George Washington, and father con
siders college important."
Washington's Sacred Cow
. Meanwhile Washington has been getting n
real kick out of the way Margaret has been
putting Washington dowagers in their places
and running rough-shod over that most sac
red of all capital sacred cows protocol the
ritual of where who should sit where at din
ner. The other day Margaret telephoned Mrs.
Evalyn Walsh McLean, owner of the Hope
diamond and the only Washington hostess
brave enough to entertain much during the
war. Mrs.. McLean, who goes in for John L.
Lewis, the Brjtish ambassador, the Senator
Burt Wheelers and a various assortment of
bigwigs, has been making a special play for
the Trumans; so Margaret asked if she could
bring Realhel Odum to dinner. Mrs. McLean
said, "Delighted."
Then an hour or two before dinner, Mar
garet called a second time to ask if she could
bring Edward D. McKim, her father's new
secretary. Again Mrs. McLean said, "De
lighted;" and the social secretaries began re
arranging the place-cards, which at a dinner
of 200, featuring senators, cabinet members
and supreme court justices, plus Washington
formality which is some job.
Finally the Truman contingent arrived.
McKim had a marvelous time. In fact he
had started having a marvelous time well
before he arrived.
But several ladies of rank and distinction
did not have such a marvelous time among
them was Mrs. Walter George, wife of the
senator from Georgia, Mrs. Millard Tydings,
wife of the senator from Maryland and Mrs.
Joseph E. Davies, wife of the former Ameri
can ambassador to Russia.
' For Rethel Odum, the extra guest brought
at the last minute by Margaret Truman sat
at the honored table. Perhaps Mrs. McLean
didn't know who she was, perhaps she did.
At any rate one distinguished lady re
marked: "Does Mrs. McLean take dope? Then why
does she seat that little Odum stenographer
at the head table with Senator George and
Justice Murphy?"
Reathcl Odum happens to be Mrs. Tru
man's secretary. According to capitol proto
col she does not rank. So the ladies glow
ered while she sat at the head table, and
even Joe Davies sat at the second table. "In
the old days of the Dolly Ganri-Alice Long
worth social war," whispered on guest, "peo
ple have been known to walk out of dinner
patties for less than that."
Anyway Margaret Truman, dressed in
black chiffon and orchids looked lovely and
had a lovely time. And when someone
asked, "Where are your father and mother
tonight?" she replied a little pityingly: "Oh,
they're just sitting at home alone." That is
one penalty of being president. You can't go
out to dinner; other people must come to
dine with you.
Army Shake-up
During the Roosevelt administration one
sure way of top promotion in the army was
through general "Pa" Watson, the late presi
dent's genial military aide and secretary.
Pa, whom everybody loved, but who had a
hard time getting through West Point, had a
host of army friends and he did not forget
them.
One of those friends is Virgil L. Peterson.
It was Peterson who coached Pa in West
Point and finally got him through with the
graduating class of 1908, Peterson graduated
the same year.
So more than 30 years later, Pa Watson,
then in the White House, didn't forget his
friend. Virgil Peterson became inspector
general of the army with the rank of major
general a most important post.
But now some of Watson's classmates of
1908 were finding themselves out in the cold,
and General Peterson is going to be one of
thm. Not a brilliant success, he is being
dropped as inspector-general.
Most people don't realize it, but General
George Marshall largely owes his appoint
ment as chief of staff to Pa Watson and Sen
ator Carter Glass of Virginia, who gave the
push necessary to put Marshall over the
heads of General Hugh Drum, backed by
Jim Farley and General John L. Dewitt.
WE, THE WOMEN
By RUTH MILLETT
The USES domestic headquarters in New
York recently turned out a group of certi
field housemaids who had completed a
course in scientific methods of housework.
One member of the group summed up
their attitude toward employers with: "Now
that I know how to walk in and take over
I won't go back to the lady who forgot the
time, didn't have the money for an extra
hour, and got it as charity."
It looks as though they are needlessly as
serting their new independence. The "ladies"
they are talking about haven't had maids
or cleaning Women for so long they are by
now used to doing their own work.
The only women who have maids now
vie with each other in making the lives of
their "help" as pleasant and as soft as pos
sible. '
They put-ads in the papers asking for
maids who won't have to do the washing,
needn't wait at night to do the dinner dishes,
have a day and a half or two full days off
each week, etc.
And once they lure a maid to their door
and get her promise to take a job on trial,
they whip their families into line so that
Susie or Mary isn't imposed on in any way.
If Mary scowls at the mention of dinnor
guests they get taken to a restaurant. If
Mary doesn't like fish, she can cook some
thing special for herself. If the children
bother Mary when she is cleaning they are
whisked out of doors.
For Mary is the family's star boarder to
day instead of the disregarded drudge
she so often was in the past.
Household workers don't need to assert
their rights and take a stand today. Mas.
America is eager to please.
Behind Scenes in Washington
By PETER EDSON, La Grand Evening Observer Washington Correspondent
SAN FRANCISCO The future of any
established, privately owned electric power
company in any part of the United States
marked for possible development as a river
valley "authority" is something on which
there could well be a national policy deter
mination before this government dam build
ing business goes much further.
John S. Black, president of the Pacific Gas
and Electric company, says the people of
California do not want public power. To
prove it he points to the record of the last
15 years in which the public power issue has
been defeated in over 25 special elections,
eight of them in San Francisco.
Active boosters of public power will differ
with the conclusion to that flat statement,
saying it merely proves how much influence
P. G. & E. still has in California affairs. For
P. G. & E. is an $800,000,000 corporation with
an income of $150,000,000 a year, a combina
tion of some 450 companies doing 90 per cent
of the electric power business in the north
ern part of the state.
It Is tough competition to beat. Competi
tion from private business hasn't a chance
and even publicly-owned competition finds
the going difficult.
Kural electrification administration power
cooperatives haven't been able to make t
beginning in this area. There are less than
30 miimciply owned distribution systems,
all small. The city of San Francisco owns
the power production facilities at its Hetch
Hi lchy wattft supply system in the Yosem
ite national park and the bureau of recla
mation owns the power produced at Shasta
dam. Hoth of these producers of big power
n.iw have to aril to P. C. & K.. yet both are
ambitious to get into tile power distribution
business on their own account and in what
they conccjv to be the public interest, be.
lieving they can sell cheaper and force the
private utility to lower rates.
Furthermore, from Washington, Secretary
of the Interior Harold Ickes is making noises
like wanting to get complete control of all
the valley authorities Tennessee, Missouri,
Columbia and California's Central valley
project. Ickes being a great advocate of
public power, private power operators in all
these areas have reason for stopping and
thinking about what may hit them next.
In the Tennessee valley, private power
companies had to knuckle under and sell out
to the government.
A Columbia river authority, using power
developed at the government Bonneville and
Coulee dams could probably force the same
thing.
In northern California the situation is dif
ferent because here P. G. & E. is bigger than
the government power interests, a well-managed
private businss that admittedly gives
good service.
In all the hullabaloo about saving private
business and letting private business do the
job of providing full employment, is there
more to be gained by setting the government
up as a competitor? Or should public works
projects, which the taxpayer must eventu
ally finance anyway, be planned to fit into
the private business pattern?
The drawback to the latter is that it per
mits private business to make profits off the
public taxpayer's investments though the
public can get its money back through taxes
livicd on private business.
This . is an endless argument with many
fine points of balance which make snap
judgment impossible. But it all shows how '
even the biggifS of these projects are finally
reduced to an issue affecting the daily af
fair.) of every citizen who pays a tax or buys
a kilowatt.
' J
"What's the use of the world having a peace meeting in San Fran.
Cisco with umpires like you around?" ,M
O McKENNEY ON BRIDGE
Br WM. E. McKENNEY, America'! Card Authority
HEART FINESSE WINS
OR LOSES CONTRACT
Leave it to Harry Fishbein to
dig up these hands over which
the argument goes on far into the
night. Harry is associated with
one of the country's finest bridge
clubs, the Mayfair,. and you
should have heard the discussion
on this hnd the other night.
The opening lead was won by
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Duplicate Both vul.
South West North East
1 V Pass 2 Pass
3 Pass 8 A Pass
Opening 8. It
. the, declarer with the. .king s of ,
clubs: ' His first play was the ace
of spades trying to drope a sin
gleton king. When the king did
not fall, he cashed his ace of dia
monds and led the queen of
spades. East won and returned
a club, which was won with the
ace.
You can see that the declarer
will have to take the heart fi
nesse in order to have any chance
to make his contract. However,
the point now is should he lead
the queen of diamonds from
dummy and, if it is not covered,
Questions & Answers
Q What is the normal range
of vision at an elevation of 1000
feet?
A Thirty - eight and eight
tenths miles.
discard one of his losing clubs?
Fishbein's contention is. no. Tho :
small diamond should be played,
because now you may; drop the '.
diamond king as a dbubjetori, and
if the king does not fa.ll, there is
still the possibility of, a squeeze.
Bear in mind that yeni .must al
ways assume that thai heart fi
nesse is going to be successful, .
You will find if yburuff that
small diamond and now lead out
all of the trump, East cannot pro
tect the king of hearts, and the
king of diamonds and you will
make the contract.
O IN FORMER
YEARS
30 Years Ago
Dora Lindsey left for Salt Lake
to spend a few days with friends.
Miss Ruth Newton went to
Portland to spend the . summer
with relatives.
Mrs. R. M. Allen went to San
Francisco.
Lee Reynolds, retiring, captain
, bif- the OAC track team and a
graduate of that school, returned
home, having finished his college
course. -.'
IS Years Ago , '
The thirteenth birthday of
Truman Irwin was the incentive
ftr'a birthday party at his home
on the Cove highway;.' Eighteen
guests were in attendance, and
games and music were enjoyed.
A two course luncheon, with a
color scheme of pink and white,
was served by Mrs. Irwin assisted
by her daughter, Mrs. Marion
Stoddard.'
Miss Stella Bloch left for Port
land to participate in the Eastern
Star grand lodge session and to
visit friends and relatives.
Q How many lives are lost
monthly through drownings in
the United States?
A National safety council re
ports 1000, beginning in May.
QWhat was the rate of U.S.
ships lost in taking supplies to
Russia in 1943?
A Twelve out of every 100. In
1944, the rate fell to one in 100.
10 Years Ago
Four forest fires, all if a minor
nature with the largest, one cov
ering only half an acre, took
place in Union county during the
weekend, L. C. Morehead, district
fire warden said. The fires were
caused mostly by campers and
fishermen.
Miss Eileen Waldroff, who had
been attending Marylh,urst . col
lege and normal school in Port
land the past year returned home
for a visit with her parents.
This Curious World
o
, y-i
V0O CANJ SWIM SASCK.
IN SALT WATES, BUF
FASTSK. IN FRESH.
ft-it
I
(.WHERE'S (.AAR ? J
ANSWER: In Athens, Greece.
NEXT: Mosquitoes afen't so dumb.
c.
111 1