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About La Grande evening observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1904-1959 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 1945)
EDITORIAL PAGE La Grande Evening Observer Frank Schlro, Publisher THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 6, 1945 Page Four We Aim to Please DF PAYN6 WITH 77ie Case or Our Japanese Policy . There ure still muny Americana who resent the fact that Enipevor Hirohito still sits in his palace. and gives orders, even though the orders are passed along to him from General MacArthur.' : They would like to see the mikado suffer Hitler's fate, and worse. They regret that his palace wasn't bombed. They now want to see him tried and executed, or at least imprisoned. And looking back at the last decade's his tory of the people whom Hirohito leads, it is difficult to be unsympathetic with those who would give him the works. ;Yet there are matters of expediency , which apparently have dictated the American policy and which can't be ignored. First of all, the Japanese language and the Japanese character are strange to most Americans. Our army includes many men of German ancestry, or who . have visited Germany. We could send in an adequate force of German-speaking officers and soldiers to set up a military government upon the chaotic ruin of the na.i regime. This couldn't have been done in Jap an. If the whole government had been overthrown, the difficulties of estab . lishing civil rule would have been tre . mendous, and perhaps insurmountable. Secondly, Hirohito isn't Hitler. After the na.is' fall most Germans, with Weaselly hypocrisy, fell over them selves of any connection with his parly. Hut the allies won't find many Japs denouncing the emperor: ' In defeat he is still the son of heaven, commanding the people's reverence and obedience.1. In the third place, the German army,1 was thoroughly ' defeated, , while,1 the main Jap army wasn't., : An order from .' General MacArthur to disarm and .(let : mobilize would probably havebeerf met '' with heavy and costly fighting, even though the Jap cause was doomed. But even intact, Jap armies obeyed the em peror. His word was the one thing that would take the sting out of fanaticism. Obviously, Hirohito or any Japanese emperor is a powerful figure and, when imbued with military ambition or con trolled by militarists, a dangerous oile. As such, he is an enduring threat, and. it may be hoped that eventually he will be put away. But first he has a purpose to serve. And what of the emperor-worshiping: Japanese people? Can their thought be modernized so that they may take their place in a civilized world? Perhaps an answer to that can be found in the record of the Nisei troops who fought so gallantly for America. Many of these young soldiers were second or third generation Americans. Their parents and grandparents came from the same culture and environment that spawned the fanatical enemy. Yet the Nisei soldiers' loyalty to democratic principles was unquestioned.' Perhaps the mental and moral rehab ilitation of the native Japs is a two or llnee generation job. Put there is hope. &3 Funny Business o SO THEY SAY Anions things which must be guarded against is the develop ment of new rackets which have service ni e n or service men's families on "sucker lists." Fond du Lac, Wis., Common wealth Reporter. As long as Japan has accepted the provisions of the Potsdnm Declaration, making complaints or being fretful is certainly an at titude unbecoming to the people of a great nation. Cen. Sadashi Shiniomura, Jap anese Minister of War. The matter of (military) con scription strikes too close to the individual rights of mnn as a free being to become a part of our national policy. Dlootnington, 111., Piintagraph. "He's worked off nearly all our odd-tise third on former soldiers they forget Jbey'ro no longer In he army did are afraid to x . . r. argue with himl" We know from our experience in this country that demorcacy is achieved only to the extent that the majority believes in it, vigilantly protects it, and vigor ously strives to make it work. -; 7olumby.V-0ii, Citizen. Washington Merry-Go-Round Side Glances Br DREW PEAHSCN WASHINGTON Admiral Ernie King, commander of the fleet, who put up such a fuss for the graysummer uniform for na val officers, now has another secret sartorinl ambition. He is designing a gray-green win ter uniform for officers which would re place time-honored navy blues. A lot of other admirals don't enthuse over King's new am bition ... It was King, who during the height of the war, went over Secretary Knox's head to FDR and ok'd the new gray summer uniform. Knox had vetoed it on the ground that textiles were scarce and civilian clothes were already difficult to buy . . . The 13th nazi criminal on the allied list of Germans to be prosecuted is a cousin of the state department official w hy translated for Byrnes and Truman at Potsdam. He is Gus tav Krupp von Bohlen, head of the Krupp munitions works. His cousin, "Chuck" Boh len, is an able U. S. career, diplomat who speaks Russian fluently and has translated for both Roosevelt and Truman in talks with Stalin. The Russians, who know all about his family background, consider Bohlen very anti-soviet. Most newspapermen who know Gen. George Marshall have the highest regard for him. However, when they read the army board's charge he was partly responsible for Pearl Harbor they couldn't help but re member two cases where Marshall was als" woefully wrong with them . . . One was l'ie day after Germany invaded Russia, when the' chief of staff held a press conference and predicted the fall of Moscow in a few weeks ... Again, just a few days before Japan surrendered, Marshall held another press conference in which he told how he needed a tremendous army to invade Japan. This was even after the atomic bomb had been dropped . . . General Marshall's resig nation undated has been on Truman's desk for some time. He has long been want ing to retire to a colonial home he purchas ed in Leesburg, Va., and if it did not look as if he were retiring under Pearl Harbor investigation fire, he would leave right now . . . Both Marshall's and Admiral King's resignations will be accepted before Jan. 1. . . . MaeArthur's resignation also may come at about the same time, depending on how. things go in Japan. All three are over-jige. Capital Chaff Margaret Truman, the president's daugh ter, will return to Washington later this month for her last year at George Washing ton university and will go to dinner with Mrs. Evalyn "Hope Diamond" McLean . ; . Gen. Charles de Gaulle got a touch of the way American politicians talk during his visit in Chicago. Leaving his plane at the Chcago arport, de Gaulle started to walk in the wrong direction. Mayor Ed Kelly was with him, turned to the tall Frenchman, put his hands on his hips, said, "where in hell do you tink you're going" . . i John Roy Carlson, author of the best seller "Under Cover," is writing a new book on native fascists . . . Every time the department of state gets a new boss it also gets repainted. Ed Stettinius had the whole place done over in a pale bedroom green. Jimmy Byrnes is now having his private suite of offices done over according to his own tastes . . . DDT will be on sale all over the country by the end of the month, according to the WPB . . . About 40,000 war workers will be drop ped from government .lobs within the next 30 days in Washington alone, Despite this, living quarters are as hard to find as ever. Suggestion to the navy department with the war over, wouldn't this be a good time for the navy to change the stodgy, 18th cen tury uniform and give America's fighting seamen something better to wear than bell bottomed trousers? . . . Admiral Ernie "Clothes-Horse" King has changed uniforms for officers several times .'. . The democratic national committee is doing little to prepare for the 1046 elections. Republican headquar ters is a veritable beehive of activity . . . Jim Farley won't admit it, but he is running like a jackrabbit for governor of New York in 1946. Farley thinks he can lick Tom Dew ey .. . Congratulations to Attorney General Tom Clark for selecting John Connett, for mer aid to Jimmy Forrestal, as the head of the department's claims section. Sonnett was one of the outstanding lawyers of the U. S. attorney's office in New York. WE, THE WOMEN By RUTH MILLETT We've waited a long time for this but it looks as though the customer is somebody once again. There is a new air of courtesy in the air that feels as delightful as a fresh ocean breeze. It is as though every employer had called in his men and women and said, "Look, that customer we haven't paid much attention to in almost four years is an im portant guy. He has money in his pocket. He wants to spend it but he isn't in any rush about it. He has heard that in a few months there are going to be plenty of things to spend his money on, and so he is getting choosy. ! ' . "You can't scare him any more with 'You'd metter buy this while you can get it.' There is a gleam in his eye that looks as though he expects to hear those almost forgotten words, 'Please' and 'Thank you' and 'I'm sorry.' . ; "Whoever treats him nice now is going to get him for a future customer. So handle ' him' gently. Get hiirr what he asks for if you can, and if you can't let him down easily. "Give him immediate attention. He's tired of waiting in line. In fact, these days he is often refusing to wait. "Give him a smile occasionally. He is fed up with indifference. ' "So far as we are concerned, he is the most important person in the world, that customer who is considering doing business with us. "And don't for a minute forget it or else we'll be out of business and you'Hbe'out of a job." Behind Scenes in Washington - By PETER EDSON, La Grande E ren tag Observer Washington Correepondeai WASHINGTON Transfer to the state de partment of the Latin-American information services formerly under the banner of Nel son Rockefeller, office of inter American affairs marks the beginning of the end of one of the most far reaching experiments ever conceived in U. S. foreign relations. In the next few months all the hundreds of operations of what was popularly known as "the Rockefeller office" will be under re view by congress. What's wool will be kept by transfer to some other government agency or private business organization. What's considered no longer necessary will be liq uidated. Economists, historians and research ers will be digging into its records for years to come, arguing about its successes and failures, praising or blaming Nelson Rocke feller who now makes his exit from gov ernment through acceptance of his resigna tion from the office of assistant secretary of state in charge of Latin-American affairs. Office of inter-American affairs was young Nelson Rockefeller's idea right from the be ginning. He m a d e a trip through South America just before tile war and came back all excited about German inroads and U. S. unpopularity. W i t h Beardsley Ruml and Wallace K. Harrison, he wrote a long memo random on the subject. Ruml took it to Har ry Hopkins. Next thing Rockefeller knew, he was called to Washington by President Roosevelt and given the job of co-ordination of inter-American affairs, to strengthen the good neighbor policy, ties with the other American republics. First thing the state department knew about this was when they read it in the papers. With presidential emergency funds, Rocke feller began to eperate high wide and hand some. Some of the things he did irked the state department no end. It finally got so bad that Sumner Welles had to prepare a memorandum which the president initialled, requiring the coordinator to have his pro grams approved by the department of state. Instead of feeling insulted, picking up his apples and going h o m e, Rockefeller went to Welles and asked what he wanted done, things got better after that. But it was a long time before the Rockefeller of fice lived down its bad name for the South American tours of the American ballet, the Yale Glee club, an exhibition of modern art, antJ.Poustas Fairbanks. This last, by the way, was the president's own idea. Rock efeller just sent a guide along to keep him put of trouble. To give anything like a complete list of Rockefeller projects is impossible here, or any place else for that matter. It started the blacklist of axis firms and the buying out of axis airlines. It set up an organiza tion to run Mexico's bogged down railroads. It started new business, including the build ing of wooden sailing vessels to beat the German submarines. It went itno health and sanitation projects in a big way. It ran clinics boats on the Amazon. It started cultural centers. It pumped in information by every conceivable medium radio, movies, news services, business letters and a slick paper picture magazine which attained a circula tion of half a million. In most of the projects, the idea was to furnish U. S. technicians and money to start the thing, then gradually cut down'on U. S. backing and turn the works over to the lo cal governments to keep going. Some com mitments have been made to run into 1948, however, so the sawing off process can't be done immediately. Total appropriations and authorizations by congress for this jjood neighbor work, through June 30, 1946, amount to $156,000, 000, of which about $59,000,000 is as yet un spent. At its peak the Rockefeller office had about 1,300 employes in Washington and abroad. As long as he was a mere coordinator and the advocate of the Latin-American repub lics before the United States he was pop ular with them all. It was then he wu per suaded to become an awistant seerettry of state and had te make decitions the south ern republics might not like that he courted disaster. The peak of the career came at Mexico City and San Francisco conferences. It is not generally known, but Rockefeller really picked and backed Spruills Braden for the tough assignment of U. S. ambas sador to the Argentine. The irony of the sit uation is that Braden was picked by Secre tary Byrnes to succeed Rockefeller. Further irory in that the axe fell day after Rocke feller made his speech in criticism of the Argentine which he had tried so desperate ly to bring back into the family of Amer ican nations, ' ' .; ' cow. m it w mkvici. ma T. M. in u. t, pat, off. -7 v "Waiter, have you any portable bathtubs and towels hiirldy for these ladies?" , ' ' O McKENNEY ON BRIDGE By WILLIAM E. McKENNEY BID 'EM WHEN YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES :At the summer session of the national chambionships tourna ment, the women's pair event tied the record for attendance. The event was won by Mrs. Benjamin M. Golder and Mrs. Olive Peter son of Philadelphia, two Life Masters. By making six clubs on today's hand, Mrs. Peterson won top sdore for her partner and herself. 'The opening diamond lead was won with dummy's ace, Mrs. Pet erson discarding a spade. Dum my's spade was led,: and, when West went up with the jack, Mrs. Peterson played low. A trump came back and the eight-spot held the trick. A small spade knocked out East's ace and dum- O BARBS Synthetic butter made from coal was one of Germany's war secrets. Might come under the. ljead of black,-jrajketA,j .There's nothing unusual about admiring an elderly woman's gray hair. It's perfectly natural. America's Card Authority my ruffed. The ace nnd'king of hearts were then 'cashed and another trump finesie taken. Dummy's eight of hearW 'was dis- Mrs. Peterson AK987 V J654 ' None AJ1098 A Q J 10 6 S3 VQ92 J K75 N W E S Dealer Mrs. Golder' M V AKft A2 Q10 ' Of 8 7 5 ft,. Jc.T v 4 A 643 2 I Q632 Duplicate Both" vul. South West . North East 1 1 ' 2 Pass 3 Pass 3 N. T. Pass 4 . Pass 5 Pass Opening K, ' carded on the king diodesThe losing heart was ruffed, estab lishing the jack for a trick. Thus Mri. Peterson was. able to make o IN FORMER YEARS Jap plants are turning to mak ing peacetime goods. The . best thing "Made in Japan," however, is certain to be made on the mighty battleship Missouri. Labor day will have an extra added significance this year when "labor can throw out its chest over the swell war job now completed. Because cranes and road scrap ers were not available, Japan asked General MacArthur to bring his own wrecking crew. Wouldn't the GIs love to take that literal ly' ;'' .. tu :.. V R Entries may now -be Bnade to the second annual- puShmobile races, which are beii)g Bromoted by the local YMCA i. Considerable d i s u slsion has arisen over Governof , Withy combe's proclamation banishing hunting during the dryeason. Fifteen Years Ago mj- ,V Bob Ward and MrdjSgyVheeler returned from a bicyojfc trip to Wallowa lake. Eleven forest fires have occur red in Union county utjijthe past week. . vSL" "y Nylon is coming back and may mean that make-up won't have a leg to stand on. Now that cigarets are plentiful lots of smokers are again going to be given the bummers' rush. Report i from Tokyo says the Japanese don't care much, for Gen. War-Starting Tojo. Now, if they '11-just catch on to other American ideas as quickly. Following a wave of hats for victory comes a wave of hard work for peace. Ten Years Ago W Sometime during thtfi li o o n hour some person or persons took $61 in cash and nearly $140 in checks from the Wagner . Hard ware store. The thefti;Jook place while the clerks in thfr store were momentarily occupied with other customers. ''jS5V Announcement wassASde here today by the La Grande Aboard of education that an application for a 45 percent grant and a 55 per cent loan of $72,727 had been made to the PWA for thgipurpose of constructing an additfoh to the La Grande High school building. This Curious World 2k weioHT FLvea. BIPLANE MORE THAN FULFILLED SPECIFICATIONS FOR ITS ACCEPTANCE Br THE U.S. ARMY AIR FORCES IN 1900, By STAYING ALOFT FOR AM HOUR AM) TWELVE MAures, WITH AN AVERAGE SPEED OVER, 0 MAM V ' "WHEN TOO HAMMER ON ONE NAIL rOU MAY HIT TWO,"Ayx ERNST LADEWI&, IS MADE UP ENTIRELY OF A QUEEN AND SEVERAL. THOUSAND OF HER. NEXT: Can African elepharvis be trained?
