Page 2 SOUTHERN OREGON MINER "Old Friday, Juno 28, 1940 G eneral HUGH S. JOHNSON Jour Washington, D. C. RECRUITING SHOWS PHYSICAL DEFICIENCIES The army campaign for new re cruits is showing up all too vividly how the years of depression have left their mark on American youth. Greatest difficulty in securing re cruits is not the reluctance of young men to enlist, but their inability to pass physical examinations. In peacetime, the armed services get most of their recruits from low er-bracket families. Because of eco nomic conditions it is now the lower- bracket families, with the most chil dren. which lack sufficient nourish ment. fresh air and exercise. This has been a particularly se rious drawback to recruiting in the larger cities. During one recent drive to bring the marine corps up to full strength, recruiting officers left the cities and combed the small er towns in farming communities. There they found a much huskier type of recruit, but many were re jected because of poor teeth. In the cities, the biggest draw backs are bad eyesight and under weight WAR DOOMS CROP CONTROL? Henry Wallace's program of crop curtailment and soil conservation is about to face its toughest year. Rea son is the certain food shortage in Europe and the demand that Amer ican farmers use their surpluses to feed war-torn Europe. There are two causes for the food shortage. One is the fact that many Grove Through at Last? I asked some of the Yanks if they countries have been too busy fight ing to plant sufficient crops, and thought Old Mose was through—that their fields have been fought over. after 15 years of hurling, during Second reason is lack of sufficient which he slipped under the 500 merchant shipping. Four countries mark only once, and that in his first —Norway. Holland, Denmark, and year out of Baltimore—if the Lona Belgium—have a total of 10.000.000 coning Limited really had lost his gross tons of merchant vessels stuff. I asked th-m that, remem which are immobilized, so far as bering that everybody thought he supplying the home ports is con was through as far back as 1934 cerned. Either they are bottled up when he won only eight games in at home, or they are in foreign his first year in Boston. They remembered that, too—and ports, unable to reach home. remembered how he came back with Vessels which a year ago were a rush—and what a pitcher he was carrying U. S. fodder to Denmark, right up to the end of last season. to feed Danish cattle, today are di Only one of them answered. verted to other trade or riding at “I don't know,” he said. “but anchor. Meantime, the cattle are that's what we heard when we were eating up the existing supplies of in Boston, The dope we got was fodder. When these are gone, the that while he might come through cattle will have to be killed. with a good game once in a while— And the killing will be done by the might get out there any afternoon Germans, who will consume the cat tle. This is just one simplified illustra- tion. No such constriction was known in the early days of the World war, because the United States, still neutral, insisted on maintaining its shipping to the neu tral countries of Europe. But now its shipping is barred by the neu trality act from belligerent ports and combat zones. All of this is sure to bring heavy demands on the U. S. farmer, also on congress to appropriate relief money to help Europe's starving populations. And this, in turn, is sure to upset crop control. For it was high food prices during the World war which increased acreage and also sent many farmers heavily into debt to buy new land. • • • DIPLOMATS MAKE WARS? John Q. Public thinks the diplo mats make the wars—and could stop BOB FELLER them. Argentine Ambassador Espil has a and blow that curve ball of his letter saying, "Your country should around the plate and then let go submit itself to becoming a part of with a fast one now and then just the United States.” (No Latin Amer to remind the hitters he still has it— ican country is prouder of its inde he isn't going to be much real help pendence than Argentina, less likely to the club any more. to become part of the U. S. A J “If that’s so, those other Boston Uruguayan Minister Richling gets pitchers had better be hot ail sea so many letters he is working over son. Check back and you’ll find that time to answer them. The tenor is: the 15 games Grove won last year “You must get rid of the dangerous meant the difference between sec Germans.” ond place and fourth—at least.’’ I • • • FRENCH FLEET The White House is not advertis ing it, but the disposition of the French fleet was one vital point which came up in secret discussion with the French just before their capitulation. Roosevelt wanted to make sure that the French navy would not fall into Nazi hands. For France’s warships could just about tip the balance of naval power and give the Nazis a powerful striking arm in the south Atlantic against Latin America. The French have two brand-new 26,000-ton battleships, the Stras bourg and the Dunkerque, probably the fastest in the world; also two new 35,000-ton battleships, the Richelieu and the Jean Bart, the latter not quite completed. These, added to the German fleet, would give Hitler 10 battleships against 15 for the United States, all much older and slower. When you consider that 12 U. S. battleships are kept in the Pacific, with only three in the Atlantic, you get a rough idea of how difficult it would be for this country to defend the Monroe Doctrine if Hitler got the French fleet. Another thing he might get which would add to our Monroe Doctrine problem is the French naval base at Dakar, on the bulge of Africa jutting out toward Brazil. Note—The United States recently has launched two new war monsters, but it will take several months to complete them. Washington. D. C. TRAINING CCC BOYS It is timid nonsense to propose, by law. "non-combatant” military training for the CCC boys. What is non-combatant military service? It is a contradiction in terms—like talking about a two-legged quadru ped or a one-bladed pair of shears. A man may. as has been suggest ed, serve in the army as a cook, a truck driver or an oxy-acetylene welder and many such will be need ed. But hb is a soldier just the same and is not recognized, at in ternational or military law, as a non-combatant. This is just monkey-business with words. This column has long opposed drafting CCC boys as such by any device, They are poor. Whatever form nf military service we adopt must demand absolutely equal sac- rifice regardless of wealth or pov- erty, race or religion, color or poll- tics. But gjving military training is not The Statue of Liberty was a welcome sight io the refugees from war-torn Europe who jam one of the requiring military service. In times decks of the United States liner, Manhattan, as the liner passrs the distinguished lady {background) on Its way like these it is a great boon to any to its New York city pier. The Manhattan brought almost 2,000 passengers from Genua, Italy. boy who may later be called upon, under our democratic form of se lective drafting, to do military serv ice. In the first place, it may save his life or limbs. It is the "half- baked recruit" who is slaughtered like sheep and who, as Kipling sang, "wonders because he is frequent de ceased, ere ’e’s fit for to serve as a soldier.” In the second place, if our bun- gling, blundering foreign and de- fense policies do get us into this bloody mess and require the raising of mass armies, the boy who has had sound military training before conscription starts will have a very great advantage over his fellows in advancement, pay and comforts. My only boy has had about all the military instruction the army gives to men his age and if I had another son who had none now. I would consider the best thing I could do for him would be to see to h that he got an intensive course in military training as promptly as it could be arranged. It is true that modern war re quires specialists in almost every branch of human effort—but basic military training is necessary in ad dition to any special civilian skill a boy may have. General Marshall is reported to have said that the army prefers to give these boys only "non-combat ant” training because It is "incon Relatives and friends of those aboard stand silently on the pier as the Italian liner, jampa< ked with sol venient" to give combatant training diers, leaves Genoa, Italy, for some undisclosed destination. The soldlrrs might have been shipped to Ital in CCC camps. I hesitate to dis ian territory in Africa to be used in attacks on French and llritish territory on the same continent. agree with the chief of staff be cause we are fortunate to have in him at this critical hour one of the best of the world's professional sol diers. It is even hard for me to believe that he said that because it is wrong to the point of absurdity. But General Marshall is an offi cial of this administration—and ut terly loyal. The whole of adminis tration policy on defense has been politically timid and never frank. Up to the point of training by bat talions, the CCC camps and organi zation are almost ideal if the army is prepared to furnish enough in structors, and if it isn't so prepared there isn't any use talking about training anybody. Training now is multiple insur ance against harm and danger, to the boy himself, to men later draft ed raw from the streets that he may have to lead and train and, above all. to the nation which, if war comes, will find its very existence depending upon the degree of skill, strength and toughness ot the men in its armed forces. CCC boys thus trained will be subject to conscription to exactly the same extent and to no greater degree than any other young men of their age and condition as to health and dependency of others Recent photo ot King Victor Em upon them. Let's not hobble our- i manuel of Italy, who, according to Dimple Causey, selected as “Miss Houston” in a contest of more an official announcement in Rome, selves with any such nonsensical than 14,000 Texas school children, is here shown at the engine room tele has left for the front to lead his legal restrictions. graph of the liner Algonquin, arriving In New York, to take part in a troops. In his declaration of war II • • • series of events at the World’s fair. Miss Causey was scheduled for a Duce referred Io him as "the soul RECRUITING ERRORS mighty busy time. of Italy.” Part of the war department plans for a major military effort is a whoop-la recruiting drive for volun teers to "bridge the gap of time until the system for compulsory selective service can be created and started working.” Before we got through with it, ev ery boy who preferred to wait for the scientific selective service sys tem would be called a heel and every impulsive youngster who was fifed, kettle-drummed and orated into signing up would be a hero. The process would put a shadow on the former class and not get the best material in the latter. Modern mechanized war requires careful selection. An excellent, if extreme example, of the change is in the German para chute troops. Each man is dropped down strictly on his own behind enemy lines to be a little army in himself. Soldiers in mechanized troops have to be automotive and radio mechanics, expert gunners and drivers and sometimes adept Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt aboard the with explosives, gases and defenses U. S. liner President Roosevelt, as against both. They must know far An Italian motorized division rolls along the streets of Rome In true more of the principles of military art “blitzkrieg” tempo. Their destination was not disclosed. Motorized troops It docked In New York, with more than any non-commissioned soldier and guns like these got into the grim business of destruction when II Duce than 700 refugees from England aboard. Iler husband la a major ever had to know before. •niererf the war. with the British army. i The New York Yankees are look ing closely at the Red Sox and the Indians. Although holding every club in the league dangerous on any I given occasion, they naturally ex pect die strongest resistance from those two teams They are concerned with the pitch ing in Boston and Cleveland, they see it. they will be aided by a contin uance of the ineffec tiveness of Old Mose Grove and menaced by the skill of Bob Feller. They even think—at least some of them that I talked to the other day— that these two pitch ers, one near the end of the string as a big 4 leaguer and the oth er just heading into Bob Grove thedays of his great ness, may bring about a change in the positions of their two leading rivals. As Joe McCarthy puts it, Feller is doing for the Indians what Grove used to do (or the Red Sox but can do no longer, apparently: step tn and halt their skidding with a well- pitched game when the other pitch ers are faltering. So far. of course, the Red Sox have managed to do all right without Old Mose in the form he held through last year. But what of the months ahead—the hot months when the strain will be heav ier on the other pitchers. The Yanks Admire Them Incidentally, Grove and Feller, who may in one way or the other have such an effect not only on the fate of their own clubs but on the fate of the Yankees as well, are two of the Yanks’ favorite athletes. Naturally, they like to beat the two Bobs every time they hook up with them. But they admire Grove for bis year-in and year-out perform- ances, the courage he showed in beating his way back when every- body had him tagged for the clean ers and the skill with which he has made over his pitching style. They Don’t Like ’Showboats’ They admire Feller not only for the natural stuff he has but for the way he has taken his fame in stride. There are no swelled-heads or show- offs among the Yankees and they freely band it to the kid from Van Meter for having already touched greatness without making any fuss about it The Yanks, I might say, are criti cal of ball players they call “show boats.” Not understanding Dizzy Dean, they took an almost violent dislike to him and got a terrific kick out of his crack-up In the all* star game in Washington in 1937 and the defeat they slapped on him In the World Series of 1938. But Diz got them on his side after the final game of the 1938 series when he walked into their clubhouse at the Stadium and said he hated to lose but getting beaten by a great ball club took some of the sting out of the defeat. \\ hither Bound, Soldier Boys of ‘Miss Houston' of the Ix>ne Star State The Italian ‘Blitzkrieg’ Machine Under Way ly? of Italy' Arrives in U. S.