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About The Oregon statesman. (Salem, Or.) 1916-1980 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 20, 1945)
. i if 11 i pac2 roua Tie OSTGOM STATESMAN. Salem. Oregon. Thursday Morning. DnibL 23. 1343 . j S - - SeaeiBEPieaeaeaaaa" "No Favor Sways V$; No Fear Shall AwtT from First Statesman. March 28. 1851 TUE STATESMAN PUBLISHING COSIPANY CHARLES A. SPRAOUZ, Editor and Publish? f l i; .4 ' Member of the Associated Press a . 1 The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use for .publication of ail news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this newspaper. On The Credit Side So much of American naval strategy of World War II already has been disclosed that it seems only fitting now to bring out a major instance which shows how the utmost use was made of the fortunate code-breaking early in the hostilities of the Pacific. The Pearl Harbor probe in Washington has brought out testimony to the effect that Ad miral Halsey's fleet if it could be called, such, when compared to the immeasurable greater strength later in the war was 3000 miles or more from Midway when first knowledge was obtained of Japan's plan to conquer that stra tegic island. As a matter of fact, the fleet barren of bat tleships and with hardly a fourth of the strength of the east-bound units of Nippon was more or less Idling off the coast of the New Hebrides; on the edge of the Coral sea. It had arrived in ' the area some 72 or more hours too late to get in that fracas j several hundred miles lo the north and west. Four days after the Coral sea battle, Halsey's ' units were joined by a few ships which had participated. The combined force then' moved northward until one afternoon in mid-May, 1942, Tokyo radio was heard broadcasting a surprisingly accurate description, of the fleet and its location. A high-flying Japanese plane from the Solomons apparently had sighted it, and it is probable Halsey had deliberately moved within Jap-patrol distance to make such -possible. r Anyway, American fleet units then steamed directly south and for all the Japs knew or even the correspondents aboard, for that matter it was heading for Noumea or Australia. At least it seemed to pose no threat to the Japa nese plan at Midway far to the north. But the southward -course was changed late one night. In a wide sweep to the east, and then north. the fleet raced to Pearl Harbor, dropped off Admiral Halsey, who was ill, spent 36 hours refueling and taking on supplies then steamed northwest of Midway to lay the ambush which paid off in a major Nippon disaster when ships of the Rising Sun were battered and sunk in a flaming attack by planes from American car riers while the Japs own air strength was being fought by the army and marines based on Midway. If ever there was coordination of crypto graph and all our service arms, it was at Midway- where strategy and the will to gamble against great odds kept the mid-Pacific secure and paved the way for the great offensives later on. ' J The Pearl Harbor probe so far is succeeding mostly in rattling a lot of skeltons and giving away a lot of vital information without bringing out specifically the accounts on the credit side of the ledger. It's about time some black Ink showed through the red. Gianre In a Million Lot- The court martial of Capt. Charles McVay of the lost cruiser Indianapolis r.pparently points out that the impossible can hppen and that someone must be blamed. It is too early in proceedings yet to judge whether the captain disobeyed specific orders to xig-zag or whether such orders provided him with a legal latitude for personal judgment In the matter. He must have erred, all right, as the tragic deaths of more than 800 men bear mute testimony, and little sympathy for him will go out from . the families so sadly bereaved. But navy men will watch the trial with keen interest as a guide to the future. Zig-zagging was a common practice in the combat tones throughout the war. It made a ahip far less a target, forced a submarine to revealing maneuvers, cut the chances of leaving a too-clear trail with, debris. But it also re duced compass speed, was a hazard with other ships in the Immediate vicinity when (he vis ibility was aero, frequently was halted, during darknesa if fleets were moving at a pace faster ; than a submarine could follow. If failure to zig-zag i blamed for the last July 30 loss of the Leyte-bound Indianapolis, considerable blame also could attach itself to many another commander who was more for tunate in bringing his ship through. Zig-zagging was mandatory during the most dangerous hours of dawn"and dusk, in almost all areas, when ships were all-too-well silhouetted against the . sky. But ships other than the In dianapolia have weathered a straight course at night in many instances. , If the captain is convicted of a direct dis obeying of orders it probably will go hard with him. If his actions after the ahip was hit were not In the best keeping of naval traditions, he won't escape punishment. But many a navy man still weuld like to know just what mathe matical chance there would be for a fast ship to be hit' eti a dark night In an 17,000,000-aquare-mile ocean. . Truman Favors Unification j President Truman has i sent h a very strong message to congress in support of the proposal for unification of the war and navy depart ments into a single department of national de fense. Thus he . takes at stand alongside the army and in opposition to the navy which hss fought strenuously against consolidation of ihe departments. The navy has feared it will be swallowed up or minimized in such a combina-" tion and is said to fear$ also possible loss of control of its air arm. Tniman proposes a single ' department with equality of rating among land, sea .and air forces. j . f j : The weight of opinion seems strongly g to favor consolidation, although the navy's many friends hate to see it come. The experience of the last war has proved; pretty well that too great division of responsibility and authority prevents "the proper coordination of effort . needed in military operations, pases have been cited where unity of command in the field did not work well, but this does not deny - the ' value of unity; instead it emphasizes it. I j The admirals, loyal to their branch ofithe service, are doubtless entirely I sincere in their opposition to unification, but what must - be considered is the national defense as a whole. That, it seems, would bei strengthened greatly, by consolidation of the services into a sirigle department. . 1 I I Consolidation will not do away with jeal ousies and contentions. We have plenty of those within a department or bureau now, but j it should under able administration coordinate operations with resulting great, savings of mon ey and increase of effectiveness of the military forces. The recognition proposed for the j air forces is timely, because; all signs point tothe probability that the next war,' if it comes, vill be primarily a war which uses the air a its chief medium. 'U : I j ' Congress will do well ; to complete its hear ings on the unification measure and adopt I it at an early date, so the necessary reorganiza tion may get under way. i " 'fk Hy --f rcr- Roseburg Blan Starts Sentence for Assault ROSEBURG, Dec 19, iJi George E. Pankey, 33. was at Sa lem today for the start of a three year penitentiary term for assault with a dangerous weaoon. Pankey leaded guilty to the charge filed after he fired a rifle bullet at a restaurant waitress as she fled - during a i quarrel. The bullet grzed her clothing. t Services Held for Halsey Banker ; Funeral services were held Wed nesday at Halsey Methodist church for Douglas Taylor, 86 years old, resident of Halsey. Tay lor was born near Salem, May 12, 18S9 but had lived in Halsey for the past 50 years. He was president of the Halsey State bank which he had helped organize In 1910. i ! In June, 1895, he was married to Etta May Drinkard ;who died last July. The ccuple had observ ed their golden weding annivers ary last year .hue both were confined to a CorvaUia hospital. fct nraagwatmt with Xkm Waahmgtoa Star He Know What He Wants Mews Behind j the News f By PAUL MALLON (Distribution by King Features Syndicate, Inc. Reproduction In whole I or in part strictly prohibited.) Second City , 1 ' j,: Did Vanport City ever become the second largest city in Oregon? It was' built on a sfcale to accommodate between 30,000 and 40,000 persons; but as we understand it was never Completely occupied. We qviestion therefore r y' aM our if it ever exceeded Salem in 'population. Now; TZZJ of course Vanport's population is declining. Salem needn't be too' smug, however, for ;Eu gene has been barging ahead due to expansion of the lumber industry there! : f j WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 Does Russia want war? I am confident she does not. The in ner portent of events clearly says she want-: ed to conquer Europe and Asia for com munism, or her e u r rent arbi trary socialist equivalent. We can only judge by what she has said and done, plus her apparent self interest. She has pursued the policy of taking as much as she can get without stepping over the line into overt belligerency. She has used her troops in the Baltic and Balkans, revolution in Iran, treaties in China and diplomacy in Japan, Italy, France and our iiiiji y an MJ.t Pan! Halloa The circulation manager of the Medford Mail-Tribune computes Medford's present pdpr ulation at 16,812, which; brings the city up to where it thought it was in 1910, if the circula tion manager has a better grade of veracity than CMs did in 1910. J 1 " 11 Interpreting . The Day's News! By John Roderick (Substituting for James. :D. .White) does not vary; her tactics are, adjusted 10 locale. X do not for one moment be lieve any Russian official con siders capitalistic democracy su perior to arbitrary socialism. I think they expect the world to come to dictatorial socialism. Capitalism Has Troubles But they also see democratic capitalism is having its troubles. Britain is bent upon a labor party socialism under modified capitalism and a parliament for the next step at least. (Churchill claims they will have to make it dictatorial eventually lit order to make, it work.) . -We have a debt around 300 billion dollars, a drag which capitalism has never tried to carry before, and we have a confused people. The Rus"S niay well figure they can wait as far as we are concerned while picking up power in Europe and Asia. Our foreign policy has hewed to onr line. We have defended our hopes for postwar through United Nations organization and its modified Atlantic -charter background; and we have re sisted encroachments upon this hope by Russia or Britain. We have tried appeasement, wait ing,, money, gifta and pressure with limited, if not discouraging results. Peace has-not been ful filled. . : Isolationists, War "Oaf We have not tried isolation : or war, and will not voluntarily, i Russian diplomacy is not likely to force us into either eventual- J ity, for plain reasons, namely j these: '. ' I In the final depth of our own i ideology we represent in this world a basic God-fearing prin- ! ciple. In us, it manifests itself ' generally as a belief in Chris- : tian social faith. But the confucionists and the ' Mohammedans are also God feaVing. They have leaned ; sharply toward jour political policy in the postwar events. In I thf matter of communism or 1 Russianism they are naturally ! our diplomatic allies. ; Marx fundament ally and rightly realized the state ideal ': could not be erected among the God-fearing. Russia uses the 4 orthodox politically, alternately 1 as a football and foreign pres- tige builder (Balkans), but bas ic arbitrary socialism holds for the long run with Marx. , Pressure Is Upon Us There are said to be 220,000,- ; 000 Mohammedans in this ' world; 338,000,000 Roman Cath- i olics; 135,000,000 Protestants, and 15,000,000 Jews, (with ma- -jorities naturally antagonistic to -state dominated religions). Certainly a great many peo ple like our world influence more than any other, and ap- . preciate that upon our leader ship rests the world hope of all; the God-fearing. We can hardly return to isolationism, if we wished. We' have assumed a world responsibility, and the . pressure of it will be upon us. Our desire for peace, based onj freedom of the individual, has thrown us into conflict with the policy of Russia and involv ed Jus in incongruities which be wilder our people. Mr. Truman told China he would keep our troops there only until the Japs were demo bilized, warning Chiang Kai Shek to take the revolting coin-' munists and other parties into the Chines government, prom ising credits and economic help if this is done, j . RevoletkMi Satotifml r '' Contrariwise and- simultan eously, . Moscow announces suc cessful conclusion' of a commun- ist revolution in Iran, a nation she occupies. The difference in i procedure isj otherwise appar i ent. I ! Mr. Truman denounces "one i party government," rightly con- sidering it dictatorship, in China, : while one-party rule still con : trols Russia and is being ex- tended by Russia through the . Baltic, Balkans and a one-party ' revolution in Iran. Is it possi j ble for our people to be other than confused? What do fwe do then? Ap- pease? or 'ar? Both courses are unthinkable. We cannot win ' Russia by j appeasement, land : know this. We can buy delay; we cannot purchase devotion to our principles. On the Other hand, we ould not conquer Russia, if we wanted to, ! and we do not want -to. How then? Course Seems Clear ' : The course required of us seems clear! We mustk defend our principles and resist Russia politically -4 with politics, By superior statesmanship, ingenu ity and by all other means in accord with jour principles we must resist, j r We must fresist Britain when she deviates j from our principle (Java). Aboje all, we must re sist ourselves, when our people wish to escape principles, for peace. j This nation desires to go back to sleep in peace, more than anything else. If we could just have world j disarmament and (et our boys back home and safe we would be happy and world politics could go hang. We all want this, j - GRIN AND BEAR IT The Klamath Tails Herald-News praised its community for reaching its victory bond quota but tempered its praise .with scolding over its failure en the war chest campaign. Remark ing that the KF state liquor store was about the best patronized of any in the state, the II-N proposed that 'store patrons match the coat of a quart of liquor with a check for the war chest, and offered to duplicate the con tribution ef the firsts ten to respond. To date- -it has had no takers. Vice and virtue do not eccm to be at iT neighborly. But looking at the crowd alci the liquor stores at this eaion of the year one easily can agree with the Herald-News that the money is here to meet the quotas of . the war chest; only the will to give is lacking. YEN AN, China, Dec. W.-W-The "inscrutable" Chinese? That's Just another old, romantic notion a myth that westerners have taken far too pong to correct. 1 Ij j j Listen, with us, to Ko Chung-ping, and watch his Yangko dancers perform. You'll realize, as we did, that Chinese are people, after all; and they laugh and cry just like people in Kennebunk 'port or Santa Barbara. ; - M Ko, the 45-year-old chairman of cultural groups in this border region, is shy but' warm and vivac ious. Above his straggling beard and thin mustache he peers with bright, merry, eyes. When he smiles, his mouth widens over rows of uneven teeth,: and when he talks his voice fs low, 'almost Inaudible as though he were apologizing for presuming to make his opinions public. ' j -I - - That is the Ko of everyday life. ; j Poetry Major Love. ; - ; -I I - But as we sit in a Yenari guest house with our feet toasting on a chacoal brazier, the idle -' talk turn) to poetry, his major love and Ko becomes a new man. He talks now; without hesitancy; his thin, expressive hands puncutate his speech fas hie tells of his poems, "Songs in .the Night, and others, written for the communist party, j " : ' , I Finally, shyness overcome by purging, he agrees to recite. And in the wavering light of the candles he begins the first stanza of "To the Comrades." We forget we are In one of ithe most desolate " regions of the world, a few hundred miles from the Gobi desert. Ko's voice rises loud and clear into song then breaks, like water against a rock, to the still level of . ordinary speech. To the western ear, this half-song.Tialf -recitation to which the Chinese language is so admirably adapted is strange and compelling. ( '4 , II - His listeners feel that i here is a medium; new to European and American art. ; In Ko's mouth it Is powerful. His hearers join in his urge to rally against the Japanese, to dje defending the land and then he sits down,' half-smiling, half-afraid he has been too obtrusive, -, . J ! Adapted .Folklore f'. ' "; ?! j: -Cultural workers of " the communist party' of China, when they first came to this region in 1937, found farmers still enacting the old Yangko dances, interwoven with folklore- thousands of . years old. The dances were adapted to the needs of people working in communist production for the war, and social motifs were woven into Ithe fabric of the . pageantry. ;, ' - ' Thus the colorful dances tell stories of a wound ed eoldier, hidden by peasants from the Japanese; . of the manufacture of , 12 sickles by peasants for the communist army; and of the difficulties farm ers meet when they cannot read, and write. -f j J . While they absorb these themes, the farm folk .laugh or applaud just as the Americans 'do "Gotta go. boys the wife mlsht start worrying and; when she sees when they can grasp the point! Peace of Responsibility Yet do you; not plainly see the peace to which we have come in oar victory is not that 1 kind of peace? By its very nature it has become a peace of respon sibility; an Unfulfilled peace; a peace to be maintained. You and j did not make it this way. We cannot un-make it The world is that way. It can be different in the future only as we work to make it different. j Truth does not jump out eag er to confront you at every cor ner. You must seek to find, it. Propaganda,; deception, -delusions, artifices these devices . are not only ! served to you free ly; your hopes can be played upon against your own inter ests. A ..- We must daily establish more ' firmly an American foreign pol icy based on our agreed prin ciple alone, and pursue itwith- By Lichty ..out . apology or exception. e CWr Tmm. tat ThQ Literary Guidcpost By W. G. Rogers Tat an right, the relief she. feels will be terrible: HO MA.K KNOWS MY HISTOST, ky . Fawv M. Brdie (Knopf; S4). ' Joseph Smith, businessman, ; drinker, wrestler, politician and, jthe author claims, a husband ''many times bver, is the subject . this biography. ' j Mrs. Brodie had the advantage of working with extremely col- orful and dramatic material. But she has made the most of it; she i documents ; her findings i with ; scholarly, thoroughness and then r j lets us have! the story raw and strong right jin the face, as it , i were. It's like something followed tensely across the footlights, and every curtain is a thrilL ' i ' If Latter Day Saints . they 1 number 1,600,000 ... dislike '.I some of the things she says about i Smith, Americans regardless of religious beliefs wfll dislike, will j Indeed be shocked by what they learn about themselves or their ancestors, who i in Illinois and j Missouri persecuted the seer and i his hapless people with an un . believable ferocity. l The lay reader will be Inter Rested in the facU about Smith: t birth . in Vermont,, removal to i upper New: York state, search ;for treasure withr the aid"" of j magic, the Book of Mormon and its authorship, the settlements in Independence and Far West and Nauvoo, run-ins . with the law, presidential campaign; belief in plural marriages despite Smith's first wife's objections !..- .. Mrs. Brodie says Mormon leaders now prefer to "forget the magnificent immoderation with which he ful filled the new marriage eove nant." j But this book is important not merely as biography but also as a picture of a : lurid, violent, heartless and intolerant frontier. Americans could be vicious and brutal; what they did to Mor mons was what Hitler did to Jews. The author worked on an Al fred A. Knopf fellowship; it paid off handsomely. Salvation Army , Colonel Talks To Rotary Gub, It la merry Christmas because of the "Babe of Bethlehem," CoC p. L. DeBevoise, field secretary of the Salvation Army for the 11 western states, told members of Salem Rotary dub Wednesday noon. The weekly luncheon meeting was held at the citadel of the Sal vation Army on State street where a turkey dinner was served by the army women. A girls sextet sang Christmas songs. Special guests included Lt. Col. James Dee and Maj. T. W. Stevens,-'both of Salvation Army., Major Stevens was formerly the Salem representative and a mem ber of the Salem Rotary club. The Rotary club "father' and son" luncheon program will be held December 26, it was an nounced. Ruth .Bedford, for many years accompanist for singing at the weekly luncheon club meeting, was called to the head table by R. L. Elfstrom, president, to receive the club's Christmas remembrance. ; Civil Service Exam Complete Written tests for a full-time di rector of , the state " dvil service commission have been completed and selection of the official pro bably will be announced within the next two or three weeks." J. N. Chambers, commission chairman, reported here Wednesday. Oral examinations will follow shortly. There originally . were 38 applicants for the job but this number later dwindled to 22. The director will be selected from the three applicants scoring highest in the examinations. The office will carry a salary of $5000 a year. C2 3? w matches tiat tell f im i& jhristmas -time r I j '.- ' 've- atp"'" i Gem-like wrist watches some set with dia monds, some demurely Victorian, others cjcrily modern.' They're1 made by famous American and European ; watch o . houses. : her . on m rJ B. perfect little gold watches beau- Os 3ewelry .la their exquisite cases, with fine mech anisms on which she rely. --..V:. X511112': -5 Give A e tiful fX fiJL but Kxteadet Paynenta Ceart Street t -? i i - i