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About The Oregon statesman. (Salem, Or.) 1916-1980 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 4, 1944)
.Bwai mi I iwmwwwMWWMWIIIIIIWIIIiI ( I1 ! I V HIT'V ,lSgSSBaaESflHaa i ' iniriiiiiiffliMMhiimiraa page roun inm UiuAjvii piaiMMuuii Muem. mvcjan, rriacry roanuzig Angnn '... "..:p: r i V r- Soldier Near Dearth fsf " Talks With Nurse , . ' ' In Middle of Night AT THE FRONT! , , f "Wo Favor Sways Us; No Fear Shall. Awt" ) From First Statesman, March 23, 1851 j ; 1 ; i THE STATESMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY CHART PS A. SPRAGUi; Editor and Publisher i . tl t . f .. . .'. j . j . - ... - : ' ' : t : 1 v; -I-..-1 J ' Member of the Associated Press ; - The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use tor publication of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this newspaper. Steel on the Coast . i One of the handicaps to industrial develop ment on the Pacific coast has been the lack of cheap steeL This , vital essential in jnSst manu facturing enterprises has had to be shipped from Chicago or Pittsburgh or the Mahoning valley or Birmingham. As a result only such manufac turing using steel market or which margin through pa Death by. Accident 1 .With all the necessary, sacrifice in war due to enemy action, it is most unfortunate that ac cident takes a heavy toll as well. The costliest accident to date is that in the loss of our LieUt. Gen.' McNair by a bomb dropped from our own airplanes. -This is admitted by Gen. Brereton, commander of the air force operating in Nor- mandy, who says that our planes operating in the short run of helping ground troops, mistook their targets and dropped their bombs too soon. McNair was one of the casualties. ! . -A transport plane operated by Pan-American for the navy crashed soon after its takeoff from a Pacific base and Rear Admiral Cecil and 18 other officers and men lost their lives. Recently a transport plane carrying wounded across the Atlantic failed to make. the crossing and pre sumably is lost in the ocean. Then of course we read every few days of deaths' by accident in the crashing of planes or from other causes at army posts and naval bases.:! - , 13 When men at war die they like to die facing the enemy, exchanging blow for blow. But those - who die by accident, preventable though it be, are in truth war casualties, if or they are using the lethal gear of war, taking unusual risks in training or in transport, and devoting their energies to the welding of victory. Nevertheless losses by accidental causes are most regrettable because of what seems ..like , an unnecessary waste of talent. . , 1 . J I ,3 ' I . I -:v Government Waste - i , ! Gen. Somervell promises an investigation of the reports first published in a Vancouver, BC, newspaper of burning and destruction of usable goods on the Alcan highway. Included in the list were such items in demand as sugar and mattresses. While under the agreement I with Canada American goods needed for the i con struction job could be imported duty-free,! pro-, vided they were not offered for sale, it would seem the goods would be worth transport back to the states, or could be turned over, f or J con sideration, to the Canadian government instead of being destroyed. jj ; j f: .if;: as was catering to a local had a considerable profit ent control was able to sur vive on this coast. Some motor companies had assembly plants in California but the parts were shipped from eastern factories. Some shipbuild ing was carried on, but often some government allowance for extra cost was sought. Now the west has two steel plants, in conse quence of the war. The greatest is the Geneva plant in Utah, costing the government $192, 000,000, built and operated Jor the government by Columbia Steel,: subsidiary to US Steel. An other is the Fontana plant near Los Angeles, operated by Henry j Kaiser. The serious question which is giving concern to western industrialists is whether the end of the war will see the end of operation of these steel plants. Geneva is operating only at one-third of its annual capa city of 1,000,000 tons a year. At a senate committee hearing in San Fran cisco a WPB official testified that the future operation of Geneva would be uneconomical on the basis of present consumption of steel. That has been the rub. Steelmakers of the east would say there was no room on the coast for a steel mill because j Consumption was too light; but consumers were hobbled from expansion here for lack of cheaper steel. However the sit uation is not hopeless. Present steel consump tion on the coast, largely in shipyards, is at the rate, of 6,600,000 tons a year. Pre-war consump tion was 2,400,000 tons, and postwar consump tion ought to be around 3,000,000 tons. While much of this may be in special steels like al loys, etc., it would seem that both Geneva and Fontana would have adequate outlets here, and that export trade in the Pacific would supple ment local demand. The problem becomes one then of manufacturing cost, ueneva is a line Destruction is not confined to Canada. A Sa plant, located close; to adequate supplies of iron - jem business man who visited Walla Walla re- ore, coal and limestone.The freight rate to the cently reported seeing; a tanker-truckload of coast is a handicap, however, because it is all- rail,, while Birmingham steel moves on a wa ter route. I , Benjamin B. Falrless, president of US JJteel, is not at all optimistic in comments regarding the Geneva plant, but he does say that it might find a big market for tinplate. That is true, be cause the west uses enormous quantities of tin plate in the canning of fruits, vegetables and fish.. The west's concern over steel is also felt over aluminum. We have a partial aluminum in dustry here, but lack plants at both ends of the process: at the front end for producing alumina and at the rear end for fabricating aluminum. Likewise we have magnesium plants which stop with the magnesium billets or pigs. The west does not want to depend on govern ment subsidy for operating these plants; but since its future depends so much on provision of an ample supply of metals,' western Indus trialists should make every effort to provide for their continued operation. The big eastern companies are. well entrenched on the coast, and they may interfere with such a consoli dated effort, if it is their desire to destroy these industries. Insome way leadership of business men should be assembled representing the west ern states who will work cooperatively for the sane development of our industry and particu larly for saving these: great metal plants for production. I . gasoline for the army air base dumped on the ground because the tanks at the base were; full. We have heard similar reports frorn the Boise airbase. Rather than sell the gas to private in dividuals or companies the war department wastes the gas while the public struggles along patriotically on A cards J i I ; Enforcement in Santa Ana j Down in Santa Ana, Calif., a Free Methodist pastor who had a badge as special deputy sher iff, staged a one-man raid on the county's hot spots and confiscated 16 slot machines. When the raid was completed, what did the sheriff do? Why, he took his badge away , from; him! The instance reminds one of the Ashland police who arrested a man for breaking into the Elks' club there and stealing the slot machine Which had licked up his money the night before. In too many communities the enforcement authorities seem to be on the side of the slot machines in stead of the law and the bilked public. Hitler may not admit it, but German soldiers as well as generals are learning that the jig is up, that they have lost the war. When a thou sands soldiers constituting the German garrison at Rennes surrender to advancing Americans without firing a shot, It shows that the German army is becoming porous with defeatism. Hit ler will have to blow up another firecracker to get a fresh dramatic effect in the homeland. Editorial Comment - From Other Papers I NORMAN NAMES St. Louis' is a good place this year for a polit ical pow-wow. With the Cards and Browns leading their leagues, the politicians cant take lessons from the baseball coaches, i ? Interpreting The War! News j By KIRKE L. SIMPSON I . I - ASSOCIATED PRESS WAR "ANALYST 1 Names of French towns once familiar to j Per shing's AEF are racing through the war news now as American armored power storms through Brit tany toward the broad open valley of the Loire. Brest, St Nazaire, Rennes, Nantes, Angers,: they all stir memories of another 'war. The fighting men from this side of the Atlantic passed that way to victory over another generation 1 of Germans In 1917-18. Their sons and their sons sons are wheel ing their ponderous war chariots -over the same road now against all -but negligible enemy resis tance. - r - "- It was up the Loire valley from Brest and St Nazaire that Pershing's men moved to reach the (FUIHR5R CAM j J g .4; Eclipse - 'hi 1 : " :rV - -'j:";'?'' ; ;': ' ' 'S' - '-X. ' - ,. . . ' ' . ' The Literary Mews Behind the News GUItlOPOSt -J By PAULMALLON f ! WITH THE AEF IN ITALY, July. 24 -(Delayed)-C)-The boy " who was going to die woke up in the middle; of the night and called the nurse. He always did and she always came.' His spinal cord was so Injured that life for him was a matter of days or weeks at thej very most We wondered if he knew. - ' . " !Excepttwhen the" 1 pain ;- was worst he never complained, nev-. er talked much In the daytime. But at night i when the - others were asleep .he and the pretty nurse would carry on a whis pered conversation, their voices sounding like the soft words Hit lovers in the silence of the ward. She knew, and said she often wondered If hie did. That night there was a pause in the conversation as 'she sat beside his cot Most of it had been too faint to be' heard but his slow question came clearly through the stillness: " ' "How old are you?" If she Was startled 'she never showed It' i : "Thirty; two" she replied, and she certainly didn't look it, even in . the daylight "How i old are you?" - ''Nineteen," he said, and then " after a moment he added: "That's, funny; I thought I was older than you." - , "It Is funny," she answered slowly, "I 'thought you 'were, tOO." 1 . . A few minutes later he drop ped off Into the drugged, sleep again and she! left the ward. A few days later he died. only chance. It's the hail, you fools. Snipers cant , shoot straight with hail' hitting them In the. face. Come on. ""Well me and two other guys went with him and blamed If he wasn't right' j They shot at us but couldn't bit us. We made it through but the other three guys who stayed there got killed that night Ifs funny how things work out" Washington B JOHN SELBY ! ! ' -LAKE SUPERIOR" by Grace . Lee Nate (Bobbs-Merrill; Up to the present the Ameri can Lakes Series is holding up as well as any similar; historical 'series now in I progress. Grace Lee Nutefs "Lake Superior is a really fine Job! of research and organization, bout! a district which has strangely been neglec ted, and bow may be overdone. . It may be overdone because Miss Nute has opened up a hundred or morej channels that may prove attractive to writers,! once the auctQrial Renter Of gravity moves westward across the Hud son riveij. j I j j Anyway, Miss Nute has ex plained Lake Superior) from the days of the Indian to this spring. Superior! is a misnomer, of course, tithe French called t "le , lac superieur," which only means "upper lake." 3y chance, j Miss Nute points out Superior was truly a superior lake in the Eng lish sense as well. It is not on ly the largest of the Great Lakes; it is the inost dangerous, the' most remote, the least well explored and the' mostf like an ocean. There iijno space here even to outline the complicated histori cal background through which the Lake was j tossed back and forth among the French the British and later the Americans. Miss Nute has hot accepted! any thing lazily, but has gone! to sources for the! entire Story And she has been very clever at dig ging uphold records, particular ly diaries j perhaps because she is curator of manuscripts for the Minesota State Historical so ciety and professor pf history at Hamline: university. j j She has beei very fair, and frank about the exploration and similar adventures of the various missionaries, and her refusal to accept as. hero any old buzzard in a dirty shirt and a pediculous beard is: rather refreshing. For me, the Inost interesting part of her story was jthe modern i part beginning with thej exploitation ' of Superior's 'ore resources, and containing the Story of jthe astpn- . ishing development of lake trans portation down to I date. There. . was even some newa irj this! diirf sion not many readers know how the newt MacArthurj lock or in part strictly prohibited.) WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 imposjtion, was wholly.fictitious. Treasury Secretary .Morgenthau Some weights - of hogs have has sent flocks of i revenue , been sold at sacrifice prices, and, agents into the farm regions to in many cases, farmers today are taxes, fw mak check without ing any public mention of the fact an un seemly thing around election time. - I have never been able to understand Mr. . . A 1 t jorgenm u P,UI Mallon philosophy on tax collections or the timing of the calls of his agents. . Several excellent objective po litical reporters, off duty, made a farm to farm tour of several farming sections lately for per sonal reasons, and came back with the report that it is more republican today than four years ago. 1 Even the dropping of Vice President Wallace is supposed to have cut two ways out there. While Wallace had identified himself almost! entirely during his vice presidential term with coddling the left wing elements and running international er rands for Mr.s Roosevelt and his old , AAA policies were distinct ly unpopular, ; he had many friends . remaining apparently . ppare without compiete book out inrougu uiai rcgiuu, per-- - cutting down on their hog pro duction, solely because of their experiences with the government management If meat demand, keeps up, the supply may be scarce next spring. And another thing: the far mer sees the new deal still maintaining its AAA personnel throughout the country. In many county seats, these 'government employes, who formerly wrote checks for the farmers, have lit tle or nothing to do However, the man on the trtictor has not noticed that anything has been done about transferring these government employes to places where they might be useful. One wise old farm senator has looked back into the records and says no president has ever been . elected in this country without the farm vote. - Yet here is Mr. Morgenthau chasing the farmers on their income taxes. The taxpayer In the city finds his simple sala- 'ified return so involved as to be practically beyond average comprehension. The farmer's returns are more complex to "It was a hail storm that saved my life said; the sergeant who had been: brought in with a mi nor mortar wound. "Oh, I got this later, but the time I'm talking about was 'way back at Cassino. Six of us were up on patrol and we got cut off. by a bunch of snipers and ma chine gun pistol boys." "So we dived into this old beaten up building and there sat this soldier. He'd come up. on solitary patrol. We'd never seen him before. Every time we stuck our heads out to try to get back to our -lines they'd really cut loose and we knew if we waited until night they'd send a patrol over to clean us out It looked bad. j "All of a sudden it started hailing, been raining a little all afternoon. We just sat there but this soldier jumped up and said Let's go.' We just looked at him like he was crazy. He got to the door , and turned around Look he says, This is probably our sonal friends, presumably, of his farm journaling days. The rest of the farmers ob jection to the administration is red tape. They; also think their prices have been held down while labor was permitted to gain. - j As an example, the glut of hogs became such that the stockyards made the farmers get permits before sales. But the day the permit restriction was lifted, prices went up 35 cents a hundred. This made them think the claim of an overloaded sup ply, as an excuse for the permit was rushed through at Sault Ste. Marie. I . . -Perhaps "Lake Superior" should be a must in American history classes for a while. Marne, the Meuse and ultimately the Rhine. The . . , , graves of thousands who fell then lie ahead, still - MrpiX!? VrifTlVi0 Somewhere in Normandy. General Sir Bernard .i.,i1mi,ijI1Uui1i xilJC XVJUlll leans on. And Iher are anwrin the rail, .hoiil. ' s that gave his family its name. Among the Norman nobles whom William the Congueror bribed or browbeat into going with him on his raid on Eng- land "was one Roger who, to distinguish him from other Rogers, was called Roger of Montgomery, from the village of which he was lord. Out of the loot in England, William rewarded Roger with rthe- earldom of Shrewsbury. The English Montgomery later acquired lands in Scotland and distinguished themselves in the Scottish wars. -against the de scendants of William... It -was -one of them, John Montgomery, who personally captured Sir Henry Percy (Harry Hotspur), Earl of ITorm'umberland, at the battle of Otterbum, when, as. the ballad tells: ' ' . The dead Douglas won the field, - And,the dead Percy was carried jcaptive away. The Percys of KoTthinnberland likewise 'derive from the Norman village of Percy, Just -southwest of St Lo. William of Percy nidmamed Algernon, ' was one of the stoutest of the Conqueror's follow-. ers. It seems mosr illogical that Percy and Alger non are now regarded 'as sissy names. Algernon means in the told Norman Krench "With the Whis kers," and tbi hairy Percy wasr a tough homhre indeed. It (was because he was a. most formidable fighter that William gave him lands in the rough-and-tumble north, where for centuries - hia de scendants were conspicuous in the wars ond brawls of the Scottish border. Ever since the- conquest to this day, someercy of Shis redoubtable family has borne 'the name -Algernon.. . ; z , ,f. - 3' Then there .are hereditary antagonists of the Percys in the border wars, the ScottishDouglases, who came .with the Conqueror -from the Norman village of Douglas and one could so right on , through a Ions list of famous Xriiish names, and the Norman villages from which 'they came. San Francisco Chronicle. . leans on. And they are answering the call, shoul der to shoulder again with British and Canadian comrades as Americans stood in France in , that other war; but in greater' numbers, with Immeas urably greater striking power and at greater speed. With American capture of Rennes, the crucial communications hub in , Brittany; the fate of the great ieninsula that thrusts westward into the At lantic is sealed. , '. .4 I An obvious first major objective of the allied in cursion into France, once the bloody beaches of Normandy had been left behind, has been gained. . Juliennes, or now probably beyond it enroute to its next goal, the fast-moving column which; took . -the-city in its stride is already churning the dust-i of the northern slopes of the Loire valley. The streams it crosses now all flow Into j the Loire. . .And. .up 'the Loire lies the great interior military highway across France from west to east, the long er hut more open road to Berlin. There is no definite hint yet of just how the foe hopes to meet the crisis fin France, nor of allied preparations to exploit successes in Brittany that have-obviously brought the whole Invasion opera- . tion up to schedule. High allied staff spokesmen visualized a change even before the fall of Rennes 'tit bringing the enemy to decisive action and com lilete defeat in the Vire-Orne sector, j .; , It may be to keep such important channel ports .as Le Havre out of allied hands that the foe has so concentrated his defense in the Ome sector. Or it jmay be under Berlin orders to hold them to the bit . ter -end to protect robot bomb launching centers farther east behind the channel coast that Brittany was risked and lost ? 'Whatever the reason,' the result has been allied - .. success in expanding the front sufficiently to bring the whole weight of General Montgomery's ever -increasing 21st army .group into action simultan-; eously for the first time. f IDEA" By Mossier J . 9ffia .r. I AS : - ' - 7 I i - i . " -ii ., !: . . "Tat yourself in the ether feUow's shoes, Pep ... Hew weald YOU . like to be cenVersIag with the woman yea intend to . - " i audi have TOUR father yell, Teeamy, . ceme right home and mow the lawnT T keeping and considerable esti mating. I suppose a revenuer who knows' how it should have been done t properly could collect something more from practically all farmers. But what I cannot understand is. why Mr. Morgenthau chose this time to stir up more hor nets in a political area where he well knows they are buzzing around just -waiting for some place to alight Watch for the administration to lift ' from deep within a pigeon-hole in the file room the old guaranteed annual wage theory as a new boon to labor. It probably will be sprung In a speech by New York Senator Wagner or someone of his left labor views.' Unless it contains some fresh Hrimmings to make it more, desirable and practical to all labor, it is not apt to be of much value. , ' These two items of news which have come to me today show precisely what Is wrong with this administration and apt to be wrong with its campaign. Mr. Morgenthau Is bearing , a stick into the hornets nest and his cohorts are carrying honey to leftwing labor. If I were running the demo cratic campaign, I - would turn ft around and send the tax agents into the labor unions and some honey to the farmers. Sunburn Gives Postal Clerk Day Off; Nylon Thieves Miss Nothing DALLAS, . Tex., Aug. S-(flV A postoffice clerk had the answer- when he - was handed ' a card demanding an explanation f or . his .absence of a day from work.. . . V '. "Sunburned so badly I could n't wear my pants," he wrote on a card. - - ' LOS ANGELES, Aug. MV Movie Actor Pat O'Brien told the police today burglars broke into his home and rifled six cases of scotch, t clothing and jewelry. But worst of all, he said the thieves took -seven pairs of Mrs. O'Brien's nylon hose. (Continued tmm Page 1 this coast The house has a com mittee oh postwar planning, headed by Rep. William B. Col mer of Mississippi, which is working particularly on a meas- - ure covering disposal of surplus property. This bill would put up a legal framework for the guid ance of SWPA (surplus war property administration, which is now headed by William A. Clay ton of Houston, Tex., working under presidential appointment When the congress really re sumes work in September, as ex pected, it will have a 'heavy grist of work to doJ These questions are of vital human importance, to labor, to capital, to agriculture, to the men in the service who. have done the fighting, to the consuming public. While legis lation can do little more than provide channels for the work and activity of private citizens, the right kind of legislation can help out tremendously by pro viding smooth instead of rough channels, f The government has dominated industry and trade and pricing and employment so long that it dare not just let mat ters drop when the armistice is signed. The job of transfer from war to peace will tax our brains and our pocketbooks, both for governments and for individuals. ';":' Prime Minister Churchill voic ed optimism respecting an early victory, and while we dare not let down In our efforts, at the : same time we should be looking . ahead with our law-making and with our private planning to help cushion the shocks that come as ue war roachine grinds to a halt, Special to Central Press WASHINGTON The smash ing victories of the Russian army are causing military authorities In Washington to revise their i ideas as to the probable end of the war In Europe. Some ex perts think the German army may collapse as early as Septem ber. - It is no secret among Allied military men that German Is in .very bad shape, and that she is virtually defeated sq far as any hope of waging a successful mili tary campaign Is concerned. However, the German army is expected to fight until the will to resist is knocked out. of it and some i conservative authorities therefore are wary about Pre-' dieting the end. But an increase ; in "peace feelers" may be ex ' pec ted from now on. General Ho jlfingChin,; chief of the Chinese general staff, and minister of war in the .' Chiang Kai-shek cabinet, believes the current Jap offensive in central China is part of the enemy's long-range strategy to assure an escape corridor for its forces in the southwest Pacific. According to the general, the Japanese are attempting to cut an' escape corridor from north China, which they occupy, to Canton," along the Canton-Peip-lng railroad, which they can use in the event their sea commuhi- cations are cut , He points out that this strategy Is the result of spectacular Amer ican 'successes at sea and in the air. Once American forces reach the Philippines, Jap garrisons in the Indies will be in an almost hopeless position. The. flying bomb has made it 1 highly essential, in the opinion of many . informed persons, that really effective machinery be set up and maintained to prevent another world war. s ' " ' Although the robots that are being dropped over England are discounted as of no real military value, the plain truth is that this new weapon Is something which the future will have to reckon .with. It may not even dent British morale, coming at a time when Germany: is already virtually beaten. But the future can scarcely take a chance, informed observers believe, on such an all weather air force being unloosed, suddenl yon helpless civilians. The flying bomb, these observ ers say, should be of particular interest to the. United States, be cause it has not merely narrowed but has erased the oceans. A barrage of 10-ton or larger ro bots directed against Manhattan b ydistant radio control is be lieved to be a definite possibility if there should be a World War IIL The belief is growing in mili tary circles In Washington that American and Allied forces will be back in the Philippines much sooner than previously expected. Gen. Douglas Mc Arthur's forces now are less than 900 miles from Mindanao in the southwest Pacific and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and his pow erful fleet are only 1,400 miles away in the Marianas. " ' Thus development indicate that .American and Filipino forces may be fighting side by side again in the Philippines, probably weeks before the third anniversary of the Jap sneak at tack. - . - '.-. I: : . OREGON CITY, Ore.-(-A hen owned by Mr. and Mrs. R. R. Maxwell took the wartime; pro duction program seriously. ! For months the bird laid stand ard sized .eggs. - Then it started laying super eggs, 94 .inches around lengthwise, and eight inch es across. ::;' ': TwV-' ..''.-.j After seven days of such pro duction, possibly egged on by the fact : her ' owners worked swing shifts in a Kaiser' shipyard, the hen died. Stevens j BIRTH STONES Beautiful Birth Stones Set in exquisite mountings. Some ' with small aide diamonds. ; DUmends Reset While : Yea , Walt Credit If Desired