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About La Grande evening observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1904-1959 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 9, 1945)
I EDITORIAL PAGE La Grande Evening Observer Frank Schiro, Publisher THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 9, 1945 Page Four R30PPEP IN.' , $ There's a tew pfN i waawa - I Nj EVENING OBSERVER'S PROGRESS PROGRAM . IRRIGATION Complete the Grande Ronde Valley Irrigation project. LA GRANDE A city of 10,000 Extend the city limits. . Goods News From Potsdam It is entirely too early for anyone to pretend to be able to evaluate with as surance or finality the results of the recent big three conference in Potsdam. But most people likely will agree that the information made available con cerning the meeting encourages some thing stronger than mere hope that the parley has mnrked genuine progress to ward the sort of world in which all of us want to live a world of peace and security. No one attempts to pretend that all the problems now besetting the world have been solved as result of the con ference. Participants in the conference made no such claims as that in their first voluminous reports concerning their meeting. lint there is good reason for hope and confidence that the conference repre sents nothing less than an all-important good start toward the settlement of (piestions which must bo settled if peace is to endure. There is reason for hope that the conference has laid a foundation and started a framework upon which mankind can build secure ly for the future. Meanwhile, at least two reported con clusions of the conference are sure to meet with virtually unanimous approval among democratic nations. ' . The lesser of these was the declara tion that Franoo Spairr will not be con sidered for admission into the family of united nations. Words are superfluous on this proposition because it is incon ceivable among democratic peoples that either Franco, or anything he typifies, could be received in fellowship among democracies. Of more importance of utmost im portance was the announced decision affecting Germany. This was the deci sion to deny to Germans, indefintely, the pursuits, the industries and the op portunities which might be utilized for wars of conquest. The Germans have proved they cannot be trusted with any thing that might be utilized to the det riment of their fellow men. So the con ference decided they are not to be trusted with opportunities they almost certainly would abuse. Something of a sidelight of the con ference was the conduct of our new president, Harry S. Truman. Many observers have wondered how he would fare in his dealings with the heads of other governments whether the Unitod States and the cause of world democracy would suffer because of the absence of Franklin D. Roosevelt. No one can say positively whether Mr. Truman did as good a job at the conference as Mr. Roosevelt would have done. Hut first reports indicate that the interests of the American people were well served by our new president. Kvents of the future even may prove that Russians and liritons preferred the technique of Harry S. Truman, typical American. Funny Business : . V .1 fl U&V.-'W? R-l '"' r-V-f CttH q Ss, :rft iiuv imiw. n)fT, w, mCMA WT. iff "Bui we did II in the army when 5 o'clock camel" o SO THEY SAY To mi'f the challenge of a world struggling with unrest, be wilderment and heathenism is the task set the Christian Church to day. Montreal Daily Star. It is an interesting comparison and significant that a year ago nt Kohima (Burma) the proportion of Japanese prijfirV'rs to dead was one to 40. Today it is one to nine. Lt.-Gen. Sir Montagu Stopford, commander, British 12th Army. The (American) women who have not been true are driving their men into the arms of Euro pean women. draco Moore, opera singer. We intend to use our influence to erase plague spots (in F.uropc), above all, the plague spot rep resented by the Franco (Span ish) regime. Prof. Harold Laski, adviser to Attlcc British government. Washington Merry-Go-Round Side Glances Br DREW PEARSON Maybe He Picked a Bad Time to Go Visiting WASHINGTON Those who sat in on the drafting of JCS 1087, the blueprint for gov- ( erning Germany, say it was one of the most carefully conceived plans ever prepared by government agencies. The army, navy, state department, treasury and foreign economic administration all participated. Their aim was to draft a set of rules which would stamp out nazism and make sure never again could Germany plunge the world into war. What now concerns some of these officials is that several carlinal points in the blue print for occupied Germany are being ig nored. This may be due to military expe diency, or to the soft-peace crowd in the war department, or to plain ignorance. That is one reason why publication of the rules has been urged, so every American soldier in Germany shall know them. For instance, the order for occupied Ger many specifies that the foreign assets of German cartels shall be seized by the U. S. army. But when Gen. Lucius Clay wired the war department proposing the seizure of I. G. Farben assets in Argentina and Switz erland, the war department, ignoring the blueprint, said no. Again the blueprint for occupied Germany provides no munitions plants shall operate. But the U. S. army has given permission for a German hydrogen peroxide plant to make fluid for U. S. buzz-bombs, while the Ford plant at Cologne is making trucks for the U. S. army. While these are for the United States, officials here point out that the army has a tremendous surplus of trucks, and if we didn't need the hydrogen peroxide for a two-front war, we don't need it now for one front. It was the building up of German industry after the last war, they emphasize, partly to pay reparations, partly through the con nivance of American-British industrialists, which paved the way for Hitler's amazing war capacity. San Francisco Munitions Menace Three members of the house military af fairs committee are hopping mad at the army for "utter disregard of civilian rights" and common safety precautions in connec tion with the construction of an ammuni tion loading pier at California points in San Francisco bay. Hard-headed Gen. Br eh on Somervell's army service forces began in June 1944 to plan for an additional ammunition pier in the bay area, since facilities for shipping explosves were inadequate. Finally in April of this year the army announced that it planned to build in the California point area , residential district of fine homes. In mid June it gave notice to residents in a 235 acre area they should vacate in some cases giving only two or three days notice. The ormy-navy explosive safety board, as well as residents of the San Francisco bay area, urged that the pier be built far ther along the coast in a less congested area. California point is only about three miles across water from Richmond point, where Standard Oil has one of its largest gasoline storage plants, and where there is a giant high-octane gasoline refinery. In the event of explosion at the army am munition pier, experts say, these installa tions might easily be touched off. In addi tion, the army site is close enough to the huge Golden Gate bridge, pride of the west, and to San Quentin prison, with 4,000 crim inals of all types, so that the possible loss from explosion would be terrific with a pos sibility that desperate criminals might be loosed near San Francisco. If the pier should ever blow, experts say, there will not be a pune of glass left whole in the entire city of San Francisco. But the army has gone ahead just the same and the pier is now about one-quarter fin ished. Representatives Sparkman of Alabama and Holifield and LeRoy Johnson of Cali fornia cannot demand that construction stop, because of the importance of getting muni tions to the Pacific war front. But they will insist thst the installation he temporary only, that it not be finished if the war ends soon, and that if a permanent loading dock for munitions is desired, the army build it in a safer, less congested spot along the coast. WE, THE WOMEN By RUTH MILLETT There has always been a certain amount qf infidelity among husbands. But time was when "the other woman" stood to lose all, since a husband even an unfaithful one felt that he had to protect his wife's position. But apparently the idea of chivalry is changing. Today the married man who gets in a scrape is anxious only to protect the name of "the other woman" and let the wife look out for herself as best she can. The American soldier who had quadrup lets by an English girl at the time the story came out in the papers was concerned only with marrying the girl and giving the kids a name. He didn't even speak of the humil iation he had brought upon his young wife back home. And several times stories have come out about married service men who wrote their wives to please give them a divorce, so that they could protect the name of some girl they had been living with overseas. One "gentleman" even wrote his wife and the mother of his child that he didn't love the girl he had been living with, and loved only his wife. But he felt he was honor bound to marry the other woman, and would the wife please give him a divorce. And now comes the story of the army captain who, with a wife and two children in this country married a WAC sergeant in Germany and now says: "I want more than anything else in the world to clear the name of the most wonderful person I have ever" had the pleasure to meet Kay." Kay is the WAC sergeant. If this new idea of chivalry takes hold generally, parents will have to back down on one of the beliefs they have always instilled in their daughters. That is, that the wife's position is unassailable, and that the girl who becomes "the other woman" in a tri angle can't expect any protection from the man in the case. That when it comes to a showdown, he will stand by his wife. The only protection a wife will have is in the courts, if it becomes generally accept ed that it is more important for a husband to protect "the other woman" than the wife. Strange idea of chivalry, isn't it? Behind Scenes in Washington By PETER EPSON. La Grande Evening Observer Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 (UP) Prospects for a change in the government's wage pol icies within the next month or so lead to some fancy speculation. That the little steel formula will be open ly broken seems doubtful, even though V-E day has some and gone, though 70 congress men signed a petition to President Truman asking that it be done, though labor leaders have been clamoring for it over two years. Instead of being frank about it, however, ways will be found to bend, not break the little steel formula. The new adjustments are being planned to permit the office of economic stabilization, office of price ad ministration and war labor board to save their faces and maintain the fiction that the good old line is being held. Artful economic dodging of this kind ha-, been going on for some time, though how it kids onyone is hard to see. For instance, the top men tell you the coal wage agree ments approved this spring by WLB and OES did not break the little steel formula. True, there was no increase in basic wage rates, but the miners got increased travel time for all work after 35 hours a week, more money for second and third shifts and vacations with pay. What usually isn't mentioned in the same breath is, that as a result of these fringe adjustments, OPA had to allow an increase in the price of coal. So is this holding the line or isn't it? The popular theory around Washington now is that certain wage increases can be granted without increasing prices and tha. some price ceilings can be raised without necessarily increaseing wages. They're both good tricks if they can be done, but how? One proposal is to remove from WLB au thority any wage agreements made between employers and employes, providing the new contracts do not call for higher prices of the product. That would ease the problem off the WLB doorstep and out from under the little steel formula ceiling. But where do such situations exist? Labor leaders have recently become quite alarmed over OPA's new price policies for the reconversion period. The original idea was to have manufacturers start producing " .MJt ' mba .u. BV US. IIHIIM HA M BB U t VAT. Off. fl-IO "Maybe I was wrong about the movie, Juniorl Here's a dollar run along, and you can have a soda, tool" O McKENNEY ON BRIDGE By WILLIAM E. McKENNEY America's Card Authority PASS OF 8 -CARD SUIT FOOLS FOES I always admire a player who has sufficient nerve to pass a seven- or eight-card suit. Today's hand came up in a recent rubber Q42 VK1098 S K to AKJ10S VQJ64 9854J None W E 8 Dealer A V 72 83 Q1087 6532 875 V A3 AQJ7 AK4 Rubber E.-W. vuL 8oalh West North East IN.T. 2ts Double Pass 2N.T. Pass Pass 3 Double Pass Pass Pass Opening A. , U bridge game. South was using a strong no trump, and West, was vulnerable, was rather optimistic in his oyercall; of ,-two hearts. I o BARBS A beer wash for women's hair is the latest. And they say it leaves the tresses well groom ed not plastered. The trim figures style experts are planning indicate that we'll not only have women of the hour, but of the hour glass. There is a call for thousands of railroad workers. Here's your chance to get on a train without crowding and pushing! was kibitzing and nearly gasped when East, with his eight-card club suit, passed but it worked! South, afraid he might be done out of something, bid t w o no trump. When the bidding came round to East after two passes, he nonchalantly bid three elubs. South quickly doubled. If South had allowed the two-heart double to stand, he would have defeated the contract, but he did not have a chance to defeat three clubs. He opened the ace of hearts and continued with a heart, but declarer won in dummy with king and led a club. At this point, South made a desperate play to beat the contract. He led the seven of diamonds. East, remem bering South's strong no trump, went right up with the king and led the club. All South could win was two clubs, a diamond and a heart. O IN FORMER YEARS Thirty Years Ago, Aug. 9 Because Frank Bay and L. L. Snodgrass captured a live stork on the N. K. West ranch by many miles of running they are to be properly immortalized. Window Decorator Haskell ar ranged a window display with the stork as the central figure. It was to be trained to hold a baby in its beak. Fred A. Holmes was elected president of the new band organ ization and Aaron Omsted was selected secretary. R. M. Wright was to be the leader. It isn't so bad for the Mr. to spend his vacation at home if the Mrs. doesn't plan all the things he's to do. consumer goods for sale at 1942 prices. But the way it works out, most manufacturers will be allowed to odd allowances for in creases in the cost of production which have occurred since 1941. Aluminum utensils markers, for instance, may charge up to six per cent more. Clock and watch makers, five percent more. And so on. What all these authorized price increases will add up to, no one can tell. But they are bound to make some increase in the cost of living that gives the labor leaders more ammunition in their fight for higher wages. And that puts it up to the war labor board to find other ways to approve wage increases and still say it is not breaking the little steel formula. At the end of May employers were told they could raise minimum wage rates up to 55 cents an hour without WLB approval. This might be extended by raising the au thorized minimum to 65 cents. Davis is known to favor this step for certain low paid industries. Removing regional wage differentials might be another means of increasing pay. That would bring southern wage levels up to northern averages, though it wouldn't help the high bracket men in the northern industrial centers Where living costs are ighest. Taking a look at an indusftrys profits might offer another escape. If it were found that any industry could pay higher wages and still make more money than it did in pie-war times, pay increases could be wrung out of the earnings. Along this same line, some employers won't have overtime to pay when they get back into civilian goods pro duction. It is argued they might therefore pay higher base rates and still sell their goods for less than the wartime price. Finally, there might be an admisison that the bureau of labor statistics cost of living index on which the original little steel for mula was based does not accurately measure the war time rise in living costs. Whereas BLS now admits to a wartime increase of lew than 30 percent, labor groups contend the actual Increase is closer to 45 percent. If the government stabilization experts ever admit to that variance, the way will be ' cleared for a lot of pay raising. Ten bathing suits were found in the bottom of a park swimming pool in Topeka, Kan. and that'3 the naked truth. We're all waiting for Uncle Sam to turn back to the doctor the job of telling us what we can and what we can't eat. Fifteen Years Ago, Aug. 9 One thousand persons attend ed the band concert the night before at Riverside park, featur in a piccolo solo by Dolph Sie grist. Boy scout camp, with W. C. Perkins in charge, was to close that day at Lake Anthony. A camp court of honor was presided over by F. L. Meyers, H. E. Coo lidge and Dr. W. T. Phy. O. L. Bodenhammer of Ark ansas, commander of the Ameri can Legion, visited here Mon day night. Over 30,000 are on the tele phone waiting list in Cleveland and that doesn't "include those waiting till the other party gets through talking. Ten Years Ago, Aug. 9 A big forest fire was reported on Catherine creek. It was the first of major importance for the year. This Curious World IS so LARGE THAT BOTH ITS EASTERN AND WESTERN LIMIT CANNOT BE SHOWN ON A SIN6LE HEMISPHERICAL MAP T. M. RU. L . MT. F. ZZaZznc- A L0N6 DISTANCE CALL If , USUALLY SHOBT,"&f AUORV LEVY, WORO COM! PMOAV THE IRISH MBANINS 8-k NEXTi What tree has the largest trunk diameter?
