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About The Oregon statesman. (Salem, Or.) 1916-1980 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 18, 1945)
v ;. pace roua Tt CGOH STATESMAN. Solaza. Oregon, Sunday Morning. February 18, 1S45 i; j I1, 1 ! : "No .... I 1 t 5 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. "imagincering" Chemical research attracts most of the pub lic attention nowadays. Jtts "presto change!" W' worked so many wonders that people are enamored of its magic. But old-fashioned Yan kee ingenuity which found its outlet in mechan ical invention is not out of style by any means. After all, the great inventions which have transformed our living are chiefly mechanical tather than the dlscoverieiof chemistry. Among them are the wheel, the steam engine, the elec tric motor, the Internal j:ombustion engine, the telephone, the telegraph, and wireless or radio. In physical research there is still room for in ventiveness and we have? seen in this war ample 'proof that American genius for invention la still very much alive. American bulldozers have leveled landing fields for airplanes or gouged roads from beachheads in a matter of hours. Flexible steel mats have provided airstrips for planes in swampy ground and beach sands. When the Russians found their power plants de stroyed as they recovered their territory, a Yan kee idea portable power plants helped solve their power problem. This was simply a mobile power plant, a steam boiler and generator and condenser mounted on railway cars. A new word has been used to apply to this facility of the American mind to contrive an swers ... to mechanical problems: imagineering. It combines the words imagination and engi neering, and is the secret of Invention. It is good to know that this native genius still flour ishes, the genius which has given us the cotton gin, .the steamboat, the reaper. Is it too much to expect that this inventive genius will also prove equal to meeting the so cial and economic problems of our time? They, too. call for imagineering: the wedding of im agination and social engineering. The former calls for courage and vision; the latter for test ing by sound principle's of human association. Many are the inventions that are impractical. They do liitle harm because their failure "is dis cerned after limited trial. In the realm of hu man affairs we can't treat the people as guinea pigs for mere experimentation. We must be surer of our moves when we are dealing with the welfare of people. Hence, conservatism has aft important place in scrutinizing proposals for political or economic changes. But any social change Involves some risk; and we cannot stay froien in our tricks merely for fear of risk. Pel haps we should borrow Admiral King's phrase, "calculated risks", and apply it to social affairs: weighing the risks involved in change, but being willing to assume some risk if the prospect of success is good: tn this field the people themselves as well as their leaders need to indulge in imagineering. Kan on Closed Shop The legislature of South Dakota has passed and the governor has signed a bill outlawing the closed shop in that state. Measures along the tame line were adopted in Arkansas and Flor ida at the last election. These moves represent popular reaction against strike in wartime, and rebutment against the principle of the closed shop in war industries why should the worker who is impressed into war industry pay tribute ' to a union? While the popular irritation Is understandable the wisdom of promoting such legislation in wartime is questionable. By and large, labor has done a pretty good job in turning out the stuff of war. The proof may be found in the ; enormous convoys of shipping, the mountains of munitions and the acres of trucks and jeeps and tanks and airplanes which cover military bases. These quantities of physical goods, produced by labor from the mine and the forest to the sup ply dump, are testimony to the fidelity of Amer ican labor. In the face of this production it is ill-timed to promote anti-closed shop legisla tion which will do harm rather than good when it comes to preventing strikes and sustaining production. States are. not justified in changing the pattern of labor relations during wartime; neither is the federal government justified in doing. so. We Jhall not now debate or discuss the ques- 1 Editorial Comment Ol WOULD AIR POUCT The arguments by which many persons are con vinced that American foreign flying should be han dled by a single "community company in which other aviation companies, railroads and steamship lints would b Interested as stockholders are no dvHtbt plausible. Nevertheless in this newspaper's . opinion they do not outweigh one fundamental ob jection to this type of organization for aviation m the pott war world. Slated generally, its defect is that it emphasizes the principles of "nationalism" at a time and in a field in which this emphasis is undesirable in view vt the effort to reach an International understanding upon which to build world peace. It we put into world aviation a single agent which would be at all times and In all resoecta subordinate to the Gov ernment and its interest it ts certain that the ef " feet will be to stimulate a similar treatment of "avi ation by other nations, even promoting actually government owned and operated systems. These could not fail to be a perpetual source of interna tional friction. The logic of such a situation would aeem to require an overall-international organiza tion which would control all national lines. As a matter of fact. Colonel Bishop Canada's ace air man. believe that world aviation must be so con trolled tn the interests of world peace. A "single ctwamuoity company" is a monopoly from any point of view. Theoretically the proposed company would be a privately owned affair but it '., would be la fact little short of Government con cern and would be universally so regarded. Certain it is that the less intervention to trade by govern ment that there is to be in post war days the great er the chance for international agreements in other matters being made and kept . . U i Indeed, ft for no other reason, than that of ap pearances it would be desirable that there should ' be actual or at least potential competition In our toteisn commercial aviation unless we are pre pared U put that whole matter under a large meas ure of control by a world body Intangibles are gtotng to weigh heavily fa the creation and mainte- nance X a real international order, and we cannot afford to tenor them. Wall St JouraaL Favor Swayt U$; No Fear Shall Ato from First SUlesman, March 28, 1851 mmammmKmmKmmK THE i STATESJIAN PUBLISHING , COMPANY! . CHARLES A. SPRAGUE, Editor and 'Publisher Member of th Associated Press Japi an a Shell? I If one reads Iron Mitt Interpreting 7 tioh of the closed shop, believing that such an issue should be deferred until the war Is over. But we cannot avoid the comment that this anti closed shop legislation is favored only in the non-industrial states. South Dakota,!; Arkansas and Florida are chiefly agricultural. California defeated such a measure list falL In; the states where industry is concentrated such inti-unipn legislation is scarcely even attempted. While this may be due to the voting strength; Of labor groups, it may also be partly due to the growing ability of employers to wop k with unions. The closed shop collides head-on with tha theories of political liberalism and laissez faire economics that flowered in the 18th century. . It will take more than an ct of the South Da kota legislature to restore j the virgin i purity of those classic theories. j . ! Hit . behind the pines of the ; military dispatches on the Japanese war he may discover rather broad hints that Japan is now something of a shell as far as war strength goes. I The bat tle for Luzon has not been nearly so fierce and so costly as was feared. Our fleet sails within 300 miles of Tokyo and its planes rake Tokyo and other Japanese cities and meet scant re sistance. The impression Is allowed to go out that landings pn Honshu island itself may not be very difficult, or very far off. , We do not want to be deluded by false hopes or by erroneous interpretation of reports, but all these signs indicate Japanese bewilderment or exhaustion. Our forces rapping at Japan's wall seem to detect a hollow sound. It will not be surprising, therefore, if swift hammer strokes fall on Honshu in the effort to knock out the Japs on their home base while they are groggy. After all, Japan's resources are limited. Its armies are dispersed over Manchuria1, China, Indo-China, the Malay peninsula, Burma and the Asiatic islands. Its shipping strength is so reduced and its naval power so weak that it cannot supply adequately j the outlying; garri sons. The Japs have never obtained full con trol of the alternate rail route across China and that route is subject to nightly guerilla' raids. With their suicide complex the Japs will con tinue to fight, but it begins to. look as though the rest of the war may consist principally of running down and . slaughtering Japanese sol diers. Japan may prove to be only a shell, and that shell badly fractured.! I I II The New York regional OPA administrator, when he ordered cigaret industry to get stocks back on retail counters by Monday, said: The OPA has power tojforce you to do it This is a beautiful, soft velvet glove on a hell of a tough iron mitt. j That's a heluva way f orj a public official to talk to American citizens. J It is precisely what the people are afraid of: bureaucrats vfith iron mitts. We'll put up with it during the: war, but no longer. ' j lift Japan is throwing out hints about f peace. Undoubtedly Japan would gladly settle on a basis of "as is, where is." ?hey would be quite willing to let the United States regain, the Philippines if they could j keep their grip on Asia from Manchuria to Singapore, with the Dutch East Indies thrown in. Il l ?1, The War News By KIRKE L. SIMPSON H ASSOCIATED PRESS WAJt ANALYST The war in Europe seems! all set for climactic happenings. j ik Massive Russian armies are in striking distance of the upper reaches of the Elbe river in east cen tral Germany as well as Berlin, and expanding Al lied tentacles are fastened securely on a 20 mile span of the lower Rhine In the west P j Less than six weeks away he the seasonal thaws on which Nazi hopes of warding oft immediate com plete disaster have been based ever since the jaws of the Russian-Allied winter j offensive began to clamp down. . Had the Red army juggernaut been brought to a stand in Poland jor eastern Silesia un til the spring floods broke loose and the simultaneous- Allied advance to the Rhine been balked be hind the Roer and the Maas, a brief breathing space might have been won by the Germans. Almost cer tainly organised resistance could have been pro longed for months, perhaps j until another winter sets in. ;l That time pattern definitely underscored the des perate and futile Nazi gamble that carved the now vanished Belgian bulge into American lines in De cember at terrible cost to the Nazi attackers. It was evident too, in the equally futile Nazi effort to relieve Budapest that only further weakened Ger man defense lines in Poland at the very moment Moscow was waiting to launch its major operation of the war from the Vistula. $.- As the war map stands this) week end in the east however, spring thaws should have little effect on Russian campaigning. Huge! Red armies are de ployed within Germany itself along or beyond the Oder all the way from tlie Sudenten mountains to BalUs estuaries. They have! gained access to the vast, interlocking network pt German J highways and railroads which make a communications wheel hub of every city and town of consequence They are using effectively the system of Nazj military super roads intended to make the. retch Invulner able in defense in invincible ion the offense. 3 The problem of maintaining supply lines across the Polish plains when they become water-logged in early spring still confronts the RussiansJ but they will have to deal only witbj nature: Their rear communications are beyond Nasi reach H and the Nazi air force has been, reduced to virtual impo tency inadequate even for effective observation of enemy movements. . Once the western Allies reach and cross the Rhine, much the same situation would present it self. Whether in the Ruhr! area or beyond the Rhine east of the Sear basin, Eisenhower' troops will rind hard surfaced roads; available t move in any direction. That is the Irony of thel situation for the foe. A road plan geared strictly to military considerations, as is the Nazi network, can be just as useful in reverse t an invading foe. ? ; The Yankees Are Coming-4y Land, Sea and Air Your Federal Income Tax Ne, 17 i Nonbusiness Expenses Manyj taxpayers have income and expenses which do not re late to tirade or business but concern the production or col lection of taxable Income, Or the management, conservation, or maintenance of property held for the' production of income, such af investment securities. Formerly these expenses I were not deductible, but now they may l! ji : - - be deducted in arriving at the net income for 1944 subject to normal lax and surtax. Wheth- j! I; e you should deduct them in your return depends in part on the method you use in making your returns and in part oh spe cific provisions of law. ; A.j Special Deductions s By special provisions of law you may deduct, in computing your adjusted gross Income, in terest and taxes chargeable against rental or royalty income, as well as expenditures for inci dental repairs and minor expen ditures for the upkeep of rental of royalty property. These ex penses should be deducted in Schedule B, page S of Form 1040 for 1944. if- ' I Bl Other Deductions . IThe allowable nonbusiness ex penditures which are not deduc tible in computing your adjusted gross income may not be deduct ed if you use your Withholding Receipt Form W-2 (Rev.) ; as a return, or if you file Form 1040 and use either the tax table or the standard deduction, because you will receive an allowance in lieu of such deductions. However, if you file Form 1040 and item ize youf deductions on page 4, then you may list these expendi tures as deduction under "Mis cellaneous Deductions' on page 4 of the return. C General Principles I Expenses of this kind must be reasonable In amount, and must bar a reasonable and close re lation to the income or the income-producing property.- Fees for services of investment counsel,: custodian fees, clerical help, office rent, and similar in vestment expenses may be de ducted If they are shown to be ordinary and necessary expenses of producing investment income o caring for investment proper ty I i Expenses Which may not be de ducted as hontrade or nonbusi ness expenses Include personal items such ' as commuters ex penses, jcost of taking special courses of training, and expenses for improving persontd appear ance, ; I - j . -.'":: H "THE YOUNG IDEA" By Mossier t . FT f 1 -! fCcT : r . r.n. ill Y- ' After !L there's tafUUs V nun tmwwirtknau i News Behind the News ! By PAUL MALLON (Distribution by King Features Syndicate, Inc. Reproduction In whole I or in part strictly prohibited.) CHARLESTON, S. O. Feb. 17 -The war cities down this At lantic seaboard, bulging at their seams, are worried and confused about their post-war prospects (as (every collection of people, ev erywhere. Food is good, money plenti ful. Rationing has r been less painful than in Washington and New York. The people have got ten through the war better. But just about half! of the au-1 raaJ aiaUoa thorities are ap prehensively anticipating de pression and unemployment, while singular as it sounds the j other half expect the op posite result, good postwar busi ness, built on great private spending, with the towns hold ing much of their growth arid the people retaining much of their improved financial posi tion, i This divergence of opinion ties precisely with-a poll of national business management, recently made, showing also that , about half) the employers are optimis tic, half pessimistic,. The pessimist side, as I find it, is based upon logical reason ing running like this: People have money in banks and) bonds in unprecedented amounts, it is true,; but their very apprehension about the , future will keep them from spending It to buy all the things they need. The constantly advertised at tude of the labor union leaden, who! are trying to pry big post war spending appropriations out of congress, has strengthened the already latent fear among the people that a depression must follow a war. ; Confidence in the future is lacking, money is already becom ing (wary. This is a new and true condi tion; which has not been noticed before, and it makes more crit ical! the prospects that recon version of factories to peace pro duction will lag. The auto indus try (which is the nation's fore most) will take j at least six months to change over, they now 'aay.J . f But perhaps the most impres sive) line of new thought on the subject is that our war produc tiVhas been so greatly expand ed, this nation cannot possibly absorb the products of its own machines. I have heard the con tention from a foremost indus trial leader that our airplane fac tories in one week can make enough planes for a whole year VJl J I r ' i 111 of four post-war needs. Some means must be found of selling our production ; abroad, but no foreign nation has much with which to buy or barter and it lakes a long time to build up an J equalized foreign trade, not founded on credit (which in most instances Would amount to giv ing our goods' away at the Amer ican taxpayers' expense.) These are powerful and un questionably true analyses of the problem ahead. Nevertheless the forecast result can and should bef avoided. the divergence of opinion, in the first place, does not repre sent confusion. These authori ties and employers are thinking of their own business. Their split, therefore, seems to forecast that perhaps half the business of the country will suf fer unemployment and depres sion, but that the-other half log ically can anticipate good busi ness. Then, furthermore, this much is true: Tfhere never has been so 'much money in the hands of the peo ple; and never a timewhen peo ple needed everything for living. The government has control over the release of men from the serv ice!, control over business recon version through war contracts, control over every aspect of the economic situation. I cannot bring myself to be lieve that ther could possibly be depression in this country, dur ing the 2 years following peace unless the government makes a bad job of this, too. Every ingredient for success is present Wisely managed capital ism, working under imaginative, clear minded leaders, should cer tainly make all these ends meet. The trouble today is no one has taken hold to furnish that leadership. The propaganda from Washington has been wrong in disturbing confidence. An inspir ing! leader there, who thought he could do the job, could soon cor rect this condition. . As for the reconversion of men and machines, good business brains certainly could work this outf If men of proven success were put to this task (as Knud sen Nelson and all business was put to the war task at the out set) the technical features of re conversion would justify confi dence. Certainly this is no tougher than the war task. The only real cause for pessi mism then lies in the fact that Washington has shown ne, signs of furnishing the proper leader ship. Politics and personal en mities should be dropped for this business, as they were dropped forwar. ' .j , ... Mr. Roosevelt had better send outja hurry-call for brains be fore it is too late. Practical Religion by Her. Jafcn L. Kalght, Jr Ovnseior oa Rengtow fife. Picture a group of rather sul len disgruntled people sitting in a bus or in a streetcar. And then a small child comes aboard and with smiling glee looks at the other pasengers. The usual result is mat smiles also begin to be c&rfie apparent on the faces of all concerned. The child's smile has become Kxrtagiotts. This is simply one of the oc currences of every day life which we have all observed, but there is it great lesson for us in it! Goodness as well as disease can be Contagious! BALTIMORE-iTVA man stood m a cigaret line for nearly an hour just before noon today, and fainted as he reached the counter and got his pack. : He was taken to a hospital where a patrolman, looking through bis pockets for identifi cation, discovered eight packs of cigasrets. The fagged out smok-i er explained that be bad started making the rounds" without i eating any breakfast, t t . . f .. .AT THE FRONT) : By Sid Feder (Substituting for Kenneth I , - i Dixon) f WITH FIFTH ARMY, Italy-(;p)-The "unknown soldier" of Battle Mountain has been iden tified. " i Through the enterprise or combat correspondent Cpl. Cer oid Root, former Lansing (Mich.) State Journal reporter, the iden tity of the hero of one of the fiercest fights in the cracking of the Gothic line last fall has been established as Pfc. Felix B. Mestas, jr. '1, ! Mestas, aSpanish - American Browning automatic rifleman, came from Walsenburg, Colo, near Denver. His father lives at LaVeta, Colo. ! The capture and securing of vital Montebattaglia, Which translates to battle mountain in English, was a savage week-long struggle. Men of the 350th regi ment, now known as the 'Bat tle Mountain regiment," took the peak and held it against almost continuous counterattacks and artillery fire in rain and cold and mud for seven days. A few weeks ago the 350th's second battalion received the war de partment's distinguished unit citation for Its part of the job. At the height of one particul arly vicious attack September 29, the official record noted: "One unknown hero was seeen standing on the crest of the hill in full view of a charging group of fanatical Germans and firing nisi Browning automatic rifle from the hip in order to get a better field of fire down the slope.. With the heavy rifle he killed 24 of the advancing Ger mans. He accounted for two more with grenades.' Since then this unknown hero's action has been the talk of the regiment,; but his identity was never learned until recently they had three packages j of K when Root began checking up. THC CAPTAIN OF ST. MARGAK- j ET S - ky Permc Mal&ar (Daell, f Molnar, an old hand at old fashioned romance, has written a lighthearted. Inconsequential tale laid on St, Margaret's Isl and in the Danube at Budapest. There is nothing of "Liliom" in this, and that's too bad. The captain belongs to another world, - the pre-World War I world, and Molnar fails to recreate- it, , . I read it sort of page byrpage, no one of them completely dis couraging me but no one driving me s on feverishly to the j next There are a few gay and witty spots and some colorful .writing: the captain wished to kill him self with a "beautiful dark blue revolver;" trusting to the law of averages, he gambled his way successfully through a medical examination; he preferred flies in a side dish, he told a Waiter, not in the soup. . j Talkative and ingenious,; dar ling of some ladies but not of all, the captain had figured out various ways of going without sleep. A shave, he said, was as good as an hour in bed; a; com plete change of clothing, three hours; big breakfast and strong coffee, four hours. He made one point emphatically: Dont, he warned, if you want to rtay awake, dont read anything tire some. A really carping critic could make something out of that piece of advice. Sl at ar: TK INNOVATOR," ky Jha Brvtt KeMcy DahW4ay. Drma; S2.TI), The Innovator in Jesus of Naz areth. Since spirit and earnest ness: count most in an odd book of this sort, this historical novel might have a wider popularity than its literary merits warrant. The idea is good, but the han dling stilted. Jesus appears only rarely, for these pages have to do principally with the Jewish lead ers who fought for political con trol!, and for profits from the Temple trade. To Annas and Caiaphas, Jesus was a trouble maker. They had to condemn Him themselves or surrender still more of their power to the Rom ans.' ' - j : There are obscure and unreal ized references linking the first few decades of the Christian era to the first few decades of the ' 20th century. The destruction of Aziz's Tolly seems intended as a pareUel to the Reicnstax lire; there is talk of communiza taon; and the High Priest Annas gioats over -peace m our time," 7a Sat t Our Ova Rrrmonda Diamonds Reset r -? DirUed GUIDEPOST i Spanish Soldier From Colorado Is ,J 'Unknown U.S Hero From i Sgt Cleo Peek of Arvin, Calif., Mestas assistant bar man and Pfc. I C. Burnett, a rifle man from Fjoral, Ark who was in a spot to observe the Colora dan; Root obtained enough facts to establish that the hero was Mestas, who died in defense of Battaglia. "Cowboys always liked ,to stand up and shoot that heavy gun from the hip," Peek recalled. His buddy, he said, was a husky 1 80-pounder who handled the 21-pound automatic rifle like an ' M-l. ' r'. -r- : Peek, : himself a .silver star winner on Battaglia, related that when he and Mestas took up their advance post on the. height rations. They shared one the first night and another the following ray. The third never was eaten. After standing off several tas and Peek saw the Nazis charging up "like wild men." counterattacks on the 29th, Mes Mestas and Peek were almost out of ammunition and knew they'd have to pull out. Standing up in his position and starting to fire, Mestas insisted that Peek leave first,;..'1 "I'm sure cowboy killed at least 24 Jerries with his last clip," Peek relates. . "They were coming up there all massed to gether and he had the best field of fire of anyone on the hill, standing up like he did." With Cowboy firing to cover his withdrawal Peek started back, stiff and lame from two days of exposure stumbling , and crawling along. He and two riflemen were the only surviv ors of their entire squad. "After Peek left the entrench ment,, Burnett picked up the story. "I saw Cowboy stand up and fire that last clip. Then I saw his steel helmet fall back and he stooped to pick it up. That's the last X saw of him." "I've never seen a better man with a BAR." (Continued from page 1) would think that in this splen did natural environment, 'where children have so many advan- 1 tagesi and opportunities, that the . very f favorable conditions for child-rearing would - stimulate parentage. But,, the statistics show; It does not: only 755 net population gain from reproduc tion in 1944; only 627 in 1943. And this In years when the "baby crop" was large. This is true, that Oregon does pretty well for the children it does bear. Dr. Harold M. Erick son, assistant state health officer, reports that in the only state-by-state table of rejection rates published by Selective Service, Oregon's rate of rejection was the lowest of any state. This cov ered :the period from February through August, 1943, a time of rapid, induction. The rejection rate for Oregon was 24.4 per cent, j Other low-rate states were Kansas 25.4, Utah 28.1. The na tional average wis 39.2. Th high states were: North Carolina 58.8, South Carolina 55.9, Arkan sas 55 J. Dr.j Erickson observes: "That Oregon's rejection rate is low is certainly due, in large part, to the fact that our medical practitioners, our public health and school officials have been cooperating and that our existing programs were soundly conceiv ed." . .., i He makes a plea for further at tention to programs for physical fitness. Alt that Is good. Children who are brought into the world de serve a Jair break for health, for education, for moral training. But that still doesn't "substitute for fruitfulness of marriage. It still doesn't meet the requirement which Dr, Durant bluntly stated. IwisiaV birth rate, lor instance, is twice that of the United States. I know the reaction against bearing and raising children for eannon-roddi hut until the world is safely launched on per manently stormless we must have a high potential ct military power whether the plain state ment sounds rough and brutal or not. Ohere really are grave im plication In the fact that our natural increase in population runs only at seven one-hun- oreotas of one percent, or less. fThiUXou JTcxt! 1 Stan nrsV taa a, ag. iv LFlP i. 8 .. . i . .. :.....;-v"s .v -. . ........ S :!7i.