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About The Oregon statesman. (Salem, Or.) 1916-1980 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 3, 1944)
7 tejjon( "No . The Associated Press Is exclusively entitled to the use for publication of a3 ' news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this -newspaper. Ludwig on "Wilson" V V The. new motion picture yfis6nM. h attract ing much attention, not only from film review ers but from politicians as well.. The - former judge the picture for its art,-the latter try to measure iU 'immediate political effect since the 1944 election sees .a revival of some of the Is sues of the period of 1918-20. Of all the comments on the film 'which have ' come to our attention the most original is that of Emil Ludwig, the famous German biographer . who no lives in California as a political exile. " In a letter to the screen editor of the Neva York Times Ludwig takes the film sharply to task as a ' dispenser of false '-propaganda. .Ludwig de nounces the idea prevalent in the between-wars period that Clemenceau was a sort of devil incarnate against whom Wilson fought as an angel of light. He says bluntly that at Versailles Wilson was wrong and Clemenceau right This will not settle the-argument by any means, but Ludwig's contention is of such im portance that we quote his letter in full: The Hollywood show now being presented under the great name "Wilson" has nothing to do with history. Onlin its last hell hour it - " develops two political problems: the League of Nations and . Versailles. The first1 is given as it ' should be, but the second is handled in a way that represents a danger in these months of -. great political decisions. When I wrote the play "Versailles," which was staged in Germany, Holland and London 1 ".in 1932, at a time when Wilson was extremely ' T unpopular in this country, I had three hours for ; that drama. The new picture, "Wilson," comes to Paris after two hours, and remains there for six minutes. It shows this most important event' . " of Wilson's life in an entirely unfinished, even . comic scene 'where the President, as Ihe de 'fender of Justice, demands the ethnical fron- ' tiers of defeated Germany from Clemenceau, 'v who wanted to take the Rhineland for France. . This scene, as does the whole picture and the ' totally uiuhtellectual actor, shows your great President ' as a -rathe stupid1, stubborn St. -; George fighting against Evil, represented here ' l J by an ugly, diabolic monkey . with Clemen- . ' ceau's. name and face, who, in the end, makes v a cynical bow to the noble President The; pub- lie applauded Wilson. The whole picture except for one .scene would be " greatly ap- ' plauded in Berlin too. This legend of Versailles with the devil Clemenceau, who in fact was the only man who ' ' saw the Germans rightly, became the chief weapon in the hands of the German propa gandists, andas It was believed by most Ameri cans, it created sympathy for the "m-treated" .Germans and led io an American loan of '. $8,000,000,000 to the Germans, who used most' ,.of it for I rearmament and the financial and r. moral preparation of this war. " f. Today ;the same German propaganda, made by certain professors, industrialists and emi ' grants, is going on in this country with exactly the same lies and aims. It can easily , lead to the same effects, creating sympathy with the "poor, misled German people," and making America lose a second peace. : The very contrary should be told and shown to the millions of -Americans crowding . to the movies namely, that at Versailles Wilson was wrong and Clemenceau right Wilson remains -a great man, because he founded -the League a( Nations. But if the Treaty of Versailles had really been made against his proposals we would not have a war on today. , Not All Dreams ' . , A disciple of Dr. Freud could no doubt ex plain those dreams which involve a sleeper in embarrassing situations, as when one dreams he has gone to work without a necktie or per haps is out on the street without his pants on. What a feeling of relief it is to waken and real ize it was only a dream! : 'a Well, the embarrassing situations are some-' times real.1 There was the man in Milwaukee Friday, who chased a thief running of f with his ' pants and his -$688. This time, when he woke up he realized he was out in the, hotel hall sans ' ; trousers, and to escape embarrassment let the , thief go and went back to his room. Later he recovered his trousers, but not the money. Then there were pictures of men in dishabille In Washington who were caught with their pants off at a press-your-pants-while-you-wait place, when it caught fire. That indeed was no place for a self-respecting fire to start. The sight of pants-less patrons running out pf the pressery finKst have been "ridiculous. : . .. : .-" . . . ' . Embarrassing moments are not all dreams. ! Editorial Cothmont CARELESS EEFOXTING This being the season et the year when every resident of this forested areas should be unusually careful .about fire, we, naturally, have had our attention drawn to stories of forest fires of other days. -v.-. v- " '..''K-T- '-7 ;.- One of these appeared in Western Outdoor Quar terly, official publication of the Federation of West ern Outdoor clubs, and we were, we admit some- what surprised to read that "the Tillamook-Wolf Creek burn in Oregon in 1933 was the biggest for est fire ever to take place in the United States and comprised some 14 billion feet of timber." We "were surprised because we member that we had read that probably the biggest proven by events. It is n jthe west, not the east, . . . . . .!" .' ..... iL.i I - : ' 4. . . 1. 1 fire ever reported in North America was in the ' Miramichi area, which swept through more than. ' 3,000,000 acres of forests in Maine and New Bruns wick in October, 1825. ; When we first came to Oregon, one of our first trips took us into the southern section of what is referred to as the Yacolt burn, better known as the Columbia river burn of 1902, which covered more than 600,000 acres, much of it valuable tim ber. Other notable fires of history include: Idaha, 1910, 2,000,000 acres; Peshtigo. Wisconsin,' 1871, 1 .280.000 acres; Michigan, 1881. 1,000,000 acres; Big Horn, Wyoming, 1878, 500,000 acres; Yaquina, Oregon, 1843,- 450.CC3 . acres; Nestucea, 7 Oregon, 1352, 320,000 acres; Coos Bay, Oregon, 1868, 300,000 acres and Eaudett Minnesota, 1910, all much larger in extant than the ' Creek fire. : - v r - . . r .'.;..; ,:;:r. For the benefit of the editors of Western Outdoor Quarterly; it may be stated that what it refers to as the Tillamook-Wolf Creek fire,. was in-reality two disinct Cres which, however, were burning at one and the same time. At the closest point the two fires were at least 13 miles apart, and one was not ! far as is known, associated with the other. -Hood T.ivcr News. ' . . . favor Sways lt; No Fear Shall Awe" From First Statesman, March 28, 1851 TOE STATESMAN PUBLISHING COJIPANY , M . CHARLES A. SPRAGUX, Editor and Publisher ! Member of the Associated Press r i Bradley and Montgomery - While General Eisenhower has emphasized that the raising of General Bradley to a com mand equal to that heldj by General, now Field t Marshal Montgomery hublied no discredit to the latter, the fact remains that the colorful Montgomery has not repeated his performance in North Africa. For that matter he didn't do it with his eighth army in Italy. Somehow in Italy and Normandy ments still seem , and won one of the most brilliant campaigns in j modern warfare. 1 I , Reichsmarshal Goering house arrest at his home, this 'done because it will gets to study a jail window, Interpreting The iWarj Nevs By KIRKE L. SIMPSON ASSOCIATED PKESsjTAR ANALYST chanced to re- that Germany's 300,000 acres, ' It seems Incredible that such a .total military ; TUlamook-Wolf misconception of i i A 1. 1 Montgomery. did not show the same flash he displayed jin the battle of F4 Alamein and the race across Africa. - - 7 . . ........... . j (. . . . . . In Normandy zhe breaks didn't seem to be with him. His British and Canadian troops were facing" the stronger section! of the German line, apparently. The German j idea teems vto have been to head off a leftwird swing around to LeHavre or a direct thrust toward Paris, and massed their troops acrgssj the northern end of the peninsula to block j such moves. Bradley, commanding 7 the .allied right ; wing, ? broke through at St Lo, ' Patton's fresh third army poured through the gap and its later achieve almost Jinjnredible. At any rate i the Bradley-Patton team became the free strut- j ing arm, and .-the British, failing in their at tempts to crack the German line, served as a shoreward 'anchor. uy7"'jr-j77;7fS ' t , t The result was thai Blradleyad Patton im mediately became popular heroes. The award was on the basis of perfarrtiance, Which in battle is the final test Montgomery though is well entitled to promotion to the rank of field mar shal. In the long annals pf British military his tory few who have worn that title did so from greater merit than General Sir Bernard Mont gomery, who outfoxed the! desert fox, Rommel, is said to be under; KarinhalL That wiUi give him time to enjoy the art -treasures he has: stolen from all over Europe. He had better get nature from behind the grid of j i -j. i s - - - - - -i s i : - ! .i Namur, Namur . . . Yank tank spearheads are said to be nearing Namur. It was the Namur radio in 1918 which reported that the Germans! were ready to sue for an armistice.. But the Yanks and their allies will not stop at the Ger man border this time. I 1 : - Senator Truman acknowledges his formal notifv;ation with a 22-miriute address. Appro-, priate length for a J22 calibre man. When fire destroyed Actor Wallace Beery V trailer he chirruped "Hve burned my breeches behind me" i - Hitler's dream of world conquest was fast sbrivelmg into a hopeless fight to hold the Reich itself, this" first week-end of a fateful September in Europe. . : ' -.jj ,S'.' - ! Utter chaos marked the German; rout in France. There were credible infiojations of . Nazi retreat also from Italy, the Balkan peninsula, Denmark and Norway which could jmean that everywhere but in the east front the Carpathians to East Prus sia, German and Austrian! armies were being called back to defend their own; hpme frontiers. ' And by every sign the retreat order : again had come too late as it did at Stalingrad, in Africa, in Sicily and in northern Russia and the lost Baltic states. The inner walls iiofj Nazidom's citadel, all that is left of the boasted; fortress Europe, were quaking if not already breached in .the west and rumbling with symptona jof impeding I internal explosions as well as actual revolt in Slovakia. , The portents for Germany everywhere were so sinister that Nazi radio spokesmen hardly sought to conceal them from home front hearers. They pointed in only one direction, due east to claim a negative victory. Between East Prussia and the Carpathians, they said, j the vast Russian steam roller had been stemmed.! j , r"- '-. rj Whether that was true or not events in Poland seemed apt to disclose within the next week. The mere fact that the claim,' was made by the Nazis at the very moment, that allied forces in France were rolling practically ! unopposed into Belgium and to th gates of Germany itself is significant It might furnish a clue to the desperate expedients . to which German leadership, with or without Hitler approval, is preparing to resort to evade paying the fuU. price for the nation's; war crimes, - ; J It will be recalled that in the wake of the army j ; effort in Germany that narrowly failed to eliminate Hitler and his own top-flight military advisers, the! new Nazi regime he set; up scraped the German home-front manpower barrel to reinforce the east- em front against the Russians. It was done in the ' face of a warning by General. Dittmari spokesman of the German miUtary j hjgh command, that the ; crisis for Germany lay in- the west not in the east i - That military judgment has -now been well ' own frontiers are most closely ! threatened if not already! crossed by American forces. It is there, near the jSaarbnicken Gap lead-; ing into the industrial heartland of Germany that massive Allied striking power is mustered for aj knock-out blow. ',"'!' The German flight frciml France has gone at a; pace leaving no doubt that lit lacks -any semblance of plan or purpose. j ' ' , . - ! - Through it all in the west there has been little or any intimation of German reinforcement of that! front by withdrawals from; the east or elsewhere, i Isolated divisions may hive been brought up; but if so, they, have not beenjbailt up into an effective force for counter action.1sl7. 7 A V - ' y . .it. the realitiias of the war in the west or even the ruthless fanaticism ol Hitler and his! Nazi leaders could account tor the German debacle in France; Historians willsiek soc.s other explana- i tion. They may- iind It a( a deliberate -policy jot limiting the strength -on he ground or in sir to be committed to the French, Italian or any ther tiiea-1 tre under pressure of this western Allies while; straining every nerve to beep the Russians in the east at bay from Reich frira tiers prcyer. t 1 . .. " t - T ' rt I vWJsJ til -i' "Blind Date' i - - HP u u fTOfrnrirs (Continued from Page 1) state board of health. That is as far as his reporting goes. The treasurer whose official concern is financial and not social merely reports the aggregate receipts In divorce cases, $49,005 for the last biennium. The state! board of health includes jthe marriage li cense figures In! Its report on vi tal sUtistics. ! j , It seems to me there should be a comprehensive system of re- I porting particularly of marriage, divorce,' and j criminal cases for the -state jas a whole. Just.who " should assemble these statistics is ' 1 less important j than " that they should be assembled. I The jre- -ports on marriage and divorce might be collected by the state board of health! or the secretary of state. ' Reports of criminal cases miht got to the superin tendent of state police or to the secretary of state.' These statis- , tics should cover the number and the nature of criminal cases, and their final disposition, j A comprehensive reporting system in criminal matters is highly important for proper law enforcement At present the re porting is only partial. Iflinger . prints are takeh the report goes in to the state bureau of identi fication; but j unless there is a conviction and a commitment to the penitenttaryj the fingerprints " may not be taken. ; '.j-;'; The superintendent of state police ought to: have a! steady flow of essential inf ormtaion re specting crimes! and arrests, at least on felonies. The statistical ' Information May be revealing as to trends in crime, and localities where the1 incidence of crime is ; greatest Sociologists could have ! access to accural information on ' which to base jtheh studies in hu-. man behavior! ' The material Is all in the I : offices of the) county I clerks,' . but there . is 1 no provision in .law for collecting the informa- tion from the 38 counties i and making it available by publica ' tion. The cost would be very small, and I hope the legislature "THE YOUNG IDEA" Frankly, Mr; Xfartoa, de eensider roar dairrhter a gesd -' catrimonUl rLIT ' ! News Behind the News! By PAUL (Distribution by King Features Syndicate, Inc. Reproduction in whole or in part strictly . WASHINGTON, Sept 3 The Gallup .. poll claims Roosevelt leading by a small margin. The commercial polls gener ally, in., the past, have not ed presidential races about even until two or three weeks before the real vote counting. - A magazine 'poll of the po litical experts .in the Wash ington press Paul MalloQ corps Indicates a rather stronger " expectation 'of t Roosevelt -victory. This i-eflects, I think, the popular disbelief that anyone could ever j beat Mr. Roosevelt -the natural sports notion that nearly always makes the cham pion the lavorite. Generally, the public Cannot conceive of a champ losing, as he has never lost before. - Yet the huide unquotable re ports of j the congressmen from back hozne actually give Dewey an even or better chance to win, as matters Stand today. Discard air republican reports, as these might be partisan. Con sider only fthose of democratic legislators. jThey have been so discouraging as to alarm and , even embitter the democratic po- litical leaders, who are urging ' the president to drop his Non partisan" campaign and start a . partisan one and he will Sep-' tember 23. j i . - -'',"","'.- The spearhead of the fourth term movement was the Hill-man-CIO poliitical action com mittee, and; all the politicos can see its effectiveness has been dulled. If not splintered. The other unlonl, and" some CIO un ions, would not stand for . it Wagering; odds have dropped ..- If - - i- : gives early authorization for the making of such reports by county clerks to proper state offices, and. for the information assembled to : be included in official reports. I shall endeavor to find out what the practice of other states is in . this respect. : Perhaps we can find a -good pattern to follow. r I 15y MOSSler ' i MALLON ! prohibited.) from IVi to 1 on Roosevelt to 9 to 5 in the best racing circles.! Take Maryland, which always has been listed as a sure-Roosevelt state. Today, - there is a democratic cloakroom . saying, possibly overdrawn but never theless significant that "only Senator Tydings and his secre tary think Maryland is going democratic These two claim ' the Roosevelt majority would be 25,000 today, but Roosevelt car ried Maryland four4 years ago by 115,000. , - X-:;; I know a southern democratic leader who thinks Dewey; will win and Is making preparations accordingly.. Other! southerners insistently list Texas, Mississippi and .Virginia as doubtful. : There are reports that the .Roosevelt Bremerton speech in the news-reels received little or no applause generally, while the campaign pictures of the Dewey family were well received. (Democratic leaders are now taking care of this deficiency and,' within the .past week, Roo sevelt applause again has ap peared In the movie theatres around Washington, at least) S All reports agree the farm vote is lost beyond' redemption and the business vote for Roose velt was damaged by the de parture . of little- businessman Nelson and big41 businessman Wilson from WPB in favor of a TVA engineer. ? - . Earlier, a considerable portion of the business vote, and possi bly all the top financial vote, would have gone to Roosevelt, on the spending-recovery prom ise plus internationalism. j On the other hand, New Eng- land is still classed as largely doubtful (by republicans) al though Dewey has. gone a long way toward satisfying the Will kie elements there. . Probably Wulkie expects to come out for Dewey just before election as lie did on the eve of election of 1M2 in New York. ; j . These developments as a whole . may explain Mr. Roosevelt's de cision to make a labor speech in Philadelphia and follow with . others. " : v h ' After all, 2204,755 votes were . (uuik nun xuur years ago 3743,48 for him) and all nrnntftMla . Li .A. . cast against him four years ago this opposition has beenTgreatly enlarged. These 2204,755 are nearly as many as elected him president In 1933 (23,811,837.), , . Many a campaign has been won on Labor day-only to be lost ; two months later on elec tion day. I think Willkle, for in stance, was stronger i at this stage of the race four years ago, than when the 22,304,755 votes were cast for Mm, . . Also, I have seen Mr. Roose velt incompletely 1 turn1 over a campaign situation - stacked mountain-high against him. He has been more clever as a cam paigner than in1 any other phase of his duties. Yet nothing which has l developed jo 'far in .this campaign yet points to that out come' again, i v. i?z ,7 The unpopular Hillman spear head I n f , the Nelson-Wilson switch, the ineffective, "non partisan - attitude have not seemed to I bring f the - results, compared with Dewey's organ izing of the 28 governors in the only states he needs to win, his - use of Dulles in the peace con ference to km the isolation tag on him and get the Willkie sup port, his killing of the radical campaign which had built up an cliborats czss, accuse tin cf - By Eoger Greene i ; (SuSstituting tor Kenneth L. Dixon) FRANCE -(ff)- American hu , mor often .sparkles against a strange background like a star shell above the grim pano ramaof .war. - . - ' " . I shall never forget Pvt Bill Rosenberg of Des 'Moines, Iowa, . as I saw him this afternoon in a battle-gutted French town. BOl : was bored stiff. With a ? bunch r of other' GIs he was sprawled in the back of a big, open US army truck which was Jammed in the middle of a miles long convoy that moved about .20 teeV stood j 20 minutes, then ' moved again. -H' - Bill and his outfit had been : down the line all afternoon bury ing. Germans. He slapped flies, yawned arid. Intermittently, doz ed. Suddenly. I saw, him' jerk awake;, and inspiration seized : him. ' .;! j Heyv V soldier!! ; he roared. "Down the road!" . r i i . ; Disconcertedly, on the stone doorstep of a cottage which had The Literary Guidcpost ftr Jehn SeTby "OF MEN AND BATTLE, by David Fredentaal and Kiehard . Wilcox (Howell. 8eskin: SI). "Of Men and Battle" is an out- sized book that might be passed over by a careless buyer because it looks a lot more like a juvenile ' than it does a serious war book. It is a very serious war book in deed, bojth text and fUustratians. . The artist Is David Fredenthal, who has painted under any num ber of fellowships, Guggenheim to Cranbrook Academy, since he was born 30 years ago in Detroit ' His luck has held in war time; he was first chosen to draw (and paint) what he saw in the de- . fense industries, and in 1943 the army appointed him a war artist and fired him off to the South west Pacific. He was in Australia when that project was discontin- ued, but again he was lucky-his contract was taken over by Life ' magazine, for which he continues to do assignments. , And the accompanying f text (which is spoken of as a "sound ". track" by the way)1 has been written by Richard S. .Wilcox, one : of : life's associate editors who has seen action in both the -Atlantic and Pacific. The book is formally a story of the attack on Arawa, New Britain, in Decem ber, 1943, when the, United Na- . tions were going over to the i offensive in the Pacific and when ' much depended the initial moves. Yet MessrsWilcox and Fredenthal have noT tried to write, history; but to describe moods and emotions. Many f of the drawings ! were done under fire, all of them on the scene, and necessarily some of them are a bit on the scrappy, side to be quite honest Mr. Fredenthal is . on artist of the school which of -Jen eschews accuracy of state ment in the service of some other attribute. I defy anybody to guess what the picture of landing craft on page 83 is, without Mr. Wil cox's "sound track" to help him. But the effect of the drawings and the text is remarkable, and cumulative. The reader honestly ing at the jungle's edge, fierceness of battle, the sick hor ror of the aftermath, and even something of the use of it aJD. This is not a soft book for soft readers, but neither is it a chil ler. It appears- to be the . truth about one battle as one artist and one writer, remarkably con genial with each other, saw it at one time. 7. ' .' ,; opposing soldier votes (he dem onstrated that one-fifth of all soldiers so far registered to vote throughout the country, have registered under his New York absentee state law). ; To date, the Dewey- campaign has been by far the smarter. : Anyone who thinks this brief citation is not objective report ing is merely deluding himself. " un - iu : uu nnuui. silent, strong opposition to Mr. VnMMnalt ..n,itf. .1 mw.U(am mere exists in this country, a which is not indulging much, in political debate, which may not show itself at political meetings, or In press reports. . I think the fourth term will be gravely in doubt until these votes are counted. - 7 X f g jr ;;. Credit If Desired ' : - Arnericoa Humor Sparkle's Against Strange. SeSng been crazily tipped and shattered i by bombs, stood another GL .For this area, the cottage was in fair shape with its vacant-eyed win- dow looking out from a part of the wall which still stood. Com pared with the rest of the town, upon which some 2000 allied bombers had dropped about 8000 -tons ox pomos, it was practically a' modern home. - i So, there was Bill Rosenburg, calling in a bassoon bellow to the other soldier on the doorstep; "Hey, whyn'tcha try the FHA? "Maybe theyTl give you a loan on jt'" "Nuts!" came the retort i ? 1 Oh, wait a minute, chum," ex horted BUL "Don't give up like that if you can show you're con nected with war work in some way, they might even give you a priority on it!" ' " - , - i . Hours later we jeeped back i through the town's ruins, where the reek of death still was strong. The long line of transport moved slowly as night approached. At night the Germans venture forth.. Nnfwfv said mnh' because oil keep quiet when you're caught in a slow, creeping convoy ot am munition irucxs in a anon rown . at night with. black clouds roll ing overhead to hide enemy bom bers. - v '--"M ' ' i''v;: ' In that hushed atmosphere, I heard some GI's talking to a pret ty blonde USO entertainer,; Nor . ma Browne of Chicago. They spoke softly, kidding a bit 'and whistling a little. . - ' 'Pracjtfc Rcligipn . by Rev. John L. Kaigtxt, jtm . v Counselor on ReUftoia LUa. Willamette rmlrmity. . ' ' American life has had many prejudices .racial prejudice, class prejudice, and so on. In re cent years another prejudice, just as dangerous as all others, has appeared. It is a prejudice against the commonplace. i; Somehow we have been put ting an undue stress on the big, . spectacular tbings-ruhusual In ventions, skyscrapers, high hon ors, and all the rest And, per haps unconsciously, ' we have . been ; discounting the . common place to such an extent that many . people have a definite prejudice against it-. : One who looks at life realisti cally, .however, will soon see the folly of such thinking. In the whole scene and plan of life the farm is as significant as the sky scraper,, the laborer as necessary as the foreman, and the flowers of the field as lovelyas the gal lery's best art . Bus Operators Face Critical Tire Shortage WASHINGTON, Sept 2 Faced With the necessity of being forced to curtail schedules because of the shortage of fires, officials, of the National Association of Motor Bus Operators -." today made ' another plea for the elimination of all but the most essential travel over the Labor Day weekend. ,f",sT Ama Itvieass rvnsk air rt sitrnrw five buses is out of service be cause i of lack of tire replace ments," said Arthur M. Hill, presi dent of the bus ' organization. "So far, the intercity operators have uvcu wuv Mr jnuviuc ucui; nui- M.I .nkulAlM An V. i obviously they whi-not be able to run the multiple sections required if travel' continues unabated. Some war-essential travelers may be stranded because a tire fail ure today, with no replacements, means another bus must be with-rl drawn from service. " ; The war production board's re cent order for a. drastic reduction in the quantity of heavy bus and truck tires that were to be made available for August and Septem ber was brought about to avoid a possible shortage of heavy-duty military tires. ; ;.'-." 1 Since tire manufacturers . are meeting increased, quotas, It is expected that the situation .may, be eased in the near future but any-relief will not come in time to avoid Labor Day congestion.' Ei: Each besuUful Jewel nthrnnMl in a hand CSE!l Afsome setting has a personality of its own. Choose yours - with care n wuuua- from our select collec tion of fine stones. " '