AXIS FORCE NEAR TOBRUK SHELLED Greater Patrol And Artil* lery Activity Reported Around Salum, Egypt CAIRO. Egypt, April 26.—(jP) German-Italian troops concentrat ing just outside Tobruk were shell ed and scattered yesterday by the garrison of that fortress lodged menacingly against the seaward flank of the Axis army, the British announced today. This was coincident with more intense patrol and artillery activity around Salum, Egypt, the frontier town where the Axis drive east ward has halted. The RAF reported its fighters guarding Tobruk had shot down eight Axis planes there in one day this week, raising the- toll at that one spot to 44. Bengasi, Libya, w-as bombed and fires started, the RAF also an nounced. and bombers returning from that raid caused fires and explosions in an Axis motor con voy near El Argub, SO miles east of Bengasi. The British said their cleanup campaign in Ethiopia was progress ing, w-ith capture of Fort Mota, north of Addis Ababa, and surren der of several hundred Italian Col onial troops and 12 Italian officers. South African fighters pressed nearer Pessie, strongly-held Italian garrison 175 miles northeast of Ad dis Ababa, despite road blocks cov ered by heavy Italian gunfire. PEANUT MARKETING QUOTAS APPROVED (Continued From Page One) 1.479, a percentage of 91 in favor of quotas. With the approval of two-thirds of the peanut growers in North Carolina and 1- other states where peanuts are grown commercially, marketing quotas will be placed on the 1941, 1942, and 1943 crop, and Officials said farmers already have been notified what their 1941 quotas will be. The vote by counties, with the first figure being ‘‘yes," votes in each case, follows: Beaufort, 83 and 31; Bertie, 1,786 and 191; Bladen, 436, 205; Bruns wick, 24 and 28; Camden, 26 and 1; Chowan, 625 and 10 Columbus, 146 and 22; Craven, 9 and 0; Cum berland, 40 and 9; Currituck, 14 and 0; Duplin, 2 and 1 Edge combe, 1008 and 24; Gates, 787 and 10; Greene, 110 and 0; Hali fax, 1,355 and 365; Harnett 5 and 10; Hertford, 1,094 and 76; Hoke, 4 and 1 Johnston, 51 and 5 Jones, 1 and 2; Martin, 1950 and 22; Nash, 420 and 6; New Hanover, 25, and 0; Northampton, 2,268 and 368; Onslow, 9 and 0; Pamlico, 1 and 0; Pasquotank, 48 and 1; Pen der 128 and 5 Perquimans, 750 and 4 Pitt, 681 and 10; Robeson, 40 and 15; Sampson 46 and 25; Scotland, 2 and 0; Tyrrel, 52 and 6; Wake, 5 and 0; Waren, 68 and 3 Washington, 575 and 15; Wayne, 89 and 18; Wilson, 132 and 0. E. Y. Floyd, AAA executive of ficer at N. C. State college said the main issue in the referendum was the government diversion and loan program. Last year’s record peanut crop forced the government to spend more than $10,0000 to di vert surplus peanuts into oil in an effort to stabilize prices. In providing for the referendum, however, congress provided that there would be no diversion or loan program unless crop quotas were in effect. 3 GERMANS CLAIM PRESSURE AT ATHENS* DOOR (Continued From Page One) sible leader was making predic tions respecting Athens. With Thebes, on the winding road to Atnens, securely in Ger man hands, another indication of the tightening Nazi grip on Greece was the reported occupation of the islands of Samothrace, Thasos and Lemnos in the Aegean sea. Transports Arrive For tnese sea operations Ger man transports popped up in the Aegean and there was much spec ulation as to where they came from. This phase was called an other demonstration of the thoroughness of the preparations for the Balkan campaign. Thasos is about seven miles off the coast of Grecian Thrace east of Salonika; Samothrace is a few milets northwest of the entrance to the Turkish-controlled Dardanelles —gateway to the Black sea—and Lemnos is some 40 miles to the southwest. Germans continued to regard Stuka attacks on British troop ships in Greek waters as a highly important phase of the campaign. The day’s reports said at least six merchantmen were severely damaged by homing between the Greek mainland and Crete. Authorized Germans said there still was no indication that the bulk of the British expeditionary force had made a getaway. 3 ROOSEVELT MAKES CONVOY INQUIRIES (Continued From Page One) Included in this tentative list, one legislator said, were 25 of the senate’s republicans. Most of these have been recorded as likely sup* porters of a resolution by Senator Tobey (R-NH) to put congress on record against use of the navy to guard the transportation of war materials across the Atlantic. The Tobey resolution is scheduled to receive consideration next Wed nesday by the foreign relations committee, with indications that it will be smothered there by an ad ministration majority. While some convoy advocates had proposed that the measure be carried to the floor in the hope of defeating it decisively there, such strategy was regarded as unlikely in the face of the distinct senate cleavage on the issue. Similarly, some legislators were said to take the view that if Presi dent Roosevelt decided convoys were necessary, it might be better for him to order them on his own authority rather than seek con gressional action likely to be pre ceded by lengthy, controversial debate. Senators divided sharply during consideration of the lend-lease legislation on the question of the President’s authority to order con voys, with administration leaders generally contending he had such power and opponents denying it. Taking cognizance of this differ ence of opinion, Senator Nye (R-ND) has placed before the for eign relations committee a pro posal which would require con gressional approval before con voys could be ordered. Senator Barkley of Kentuck, the democratic leader, said he thought both proposals would be voted down when the committee meets Wednesday. Some other members said, however, that final com mittee action, might be delayed while a subcommittee investigates the two measures. ^fhafwahce * KOUBOKSS™ - rnM cnr I' -*■ '-n BnS^ss. ^ *£c^C^S for *'*«n&l0Ul>e** ^E=s% H&«S$)—Two battalions of Uncle Sam’s new sol diers, right out of New England, pa raded in honor of a Confederate gen eral today while their band swung into "Dixie.” As the city observed Confederate Memorial Day, the regular weekly re view of the eighth and 14th battal ions at Camp*Wheeler was dedicated to the memory of Confederate Gen eral Joe Wheeler for whom the camp was named. Stewed rhubarb, chilled and mixed with cubed pineapple, seed ed white cherries or sliced bananas gives a new spring dessert treat. '3 Years $20,000 Fine Joseph Schenck, chairman of the board of 20th Century-Fox Film Corp., leaves federal court in New York after he was sentenced to three years in prison and was fined $20, 000 for income tax evasion. He was convicted of defrauding the govern ment of $223,000 in income taxes. O’NEILL WORKING ON 9-PLAY CYCLE Newly - Completed Drama Is Withheld Until He Can Attend Rehearsals SAN FRANCISCO, April 19.— (The Special News Service)— In a rambling white house 25 miles from the sea he loves so well, Eugene O’Neill is busily working again on his cycle of nine plays. So engrossed in this task is the brooding O’Neill that a newly-com pleted play of his has been with held from production for well over a year because the famed Pulit zer prize playwright refuses now to allow any of his new dramas to be staged unless he is present at rehearsals. Since he moved to California three years ago, O’Neill has fin ish two plays, “The Iceman Cometh” and “Long Day’s Jour ney Into Night.” But their produc tion, unless he changes his present plans, must wait until he is fin ished with his cycle of nine. The idea for “The Iceman Cometh” came when he was in the middle of the cycle, so he quit on that project and did a fast—f o r O’Neill—job on finishing the single play. It is known that when he start ed to write the cycle O’Neill had in mind an American setting with the plot telling the story of several generations of an American fam ily. O’Neill, so he has said, has al ways dqne his best work while liv ing quietly, apart from other lit erary figures and the distractions of the city. The present O’Neill home, which he and his wife planned in 1937 when they moved from the home they had at Sea Island Beach, Ga., is of modest size although it suits the playwright’s needs. It is on a 100-acre farm which rolls across a high ridge and is two miles from any highway where there is thick traffic. Fences suround the house and the only entrance is by a private road —measures he has found neces sary to privacy. O’Neill gets up at 6 a.m. and is working at 7. Mrs. O’Neil is the only one who is allowed to disturb him in his study and sometimes he gets so engrossed in his writing that he won’t answer when she knocks at the door. So she paces up and down the hall outside for a few minutes and then knocks again. He writes steadily until 2 p.m. when he turns his copy over to a stenographer to be typed. He writes in tiny but graceful script so that stenographers have little trouble in reading his words. He first outlines a play and then rewrites the outline several times before taking that as his frame work and starting the actual scenes and dialogue. Like Ernest Hemingway, who said that he once spent ten full days perfecting a paragraph of 110 words in his "For Whom the Bell Tolls”, ‘O’Neill writes only with great effort and his words do not come easily to him. O’Neill drifted into writing for the theater not only because his father, James O’Neill, was a fa mous actor, but also because in his days at 6ea and wandering around the waterfronts of the world he was a devoted reader of Jack London, Kipling and Joseph Conrad. KJ IN dll lias aiwap now « mystic affection for the ocean. When he finally ended his wander ings, he settled down in a beach hoiee at Provincetown, Mass., on the tip of Cape Cod, and it was in the famous Provincetown play house that some of his first ef forts were played. In 1915, while O’Neill was still in his 20’s, the Provincetown theatrical group — headed by George Cram Cook, Susan Glaspell and Robert Edmond Jones—moved to a tiny theater in Greenwich village. Their first selections for production there were O’Neil’s one-acters—chosen for the dual re«on that they were considered excellent and were inexpensive to put on. Only a little more than a de cade later, his “strange interlude” became a 423-performance broad way hit. Now, even, 25 miles from the Pacific, he misses the ocean. A+ Sea Island, he often swam in the surf for hours at a time, attaining the precious solitude he spoke of in one of his earliest published works, a poem “free,” printed in 1912— “Weary am I of the tumult, sick of the staring crowd, “Pining for wild sea places where the soul may think aloud.” 3 BOMBERS LAND MANILA, April 26.—(iP>—An American made bomber destined for British UEe was landed here today by an American crew which flew it across the Pacific ocean over the commercial air route. It was the third* such warplane brought to Ma nila by American fliers. A British crew will fly the ship to Hongkong or Singapore. TWO KILLED NORTH BAY, Ont., April 26.— OB—Two unidentified members of the Royal Norwegian Air Force were killed here today when the plane in which they had been searching for a companion avi ator, believed downed in the bush district near Mattawa, plunged in to the dense bush of a swamp three miles south of this city. The mo tor was buried five feet in the bog. M3 light combat tanks for U. S. Army roll out of American Car and Foundry Company at Berwick, Pa. Plant formerly made subway cars, now has contract for $70,000,000 worth of these tough babies. JEFFREY EXPLAINS HOUSING SITUATION (Continued From Page One) proximately 1.400 of these skilled workers will have to be brought into Wilmington from the outside, and these will probably all have families who will have to be housed locally. The new marine base at Jack sonville will also cause an influx of officers of whom it is antici pated that at least 100 will have families and will desire to live in Wilmington. It is fully realized that there are not enough homes and apart ments in Wilmington at the pres ent time to care for this need. However, plans are under way for the construction of several hundred units by private investors and with in a short time any deficiency in the number of units which is not made up by private capital will have to be taken care of by the Federal Government. One way in which Wilmingtonians may ease this situation is through the con version of spare bedrooms and other rooms into apartments. An F. H. A. Insured loan can be ob tained for this purpose. All of the workers in this can vass are volunteering their serv ices in order to furnish the Wil mington Housing committee with an accurate picture of the condi tion in Wilmington today and it is urged that all householders co operate to the fullest extent in tire answering of the questions in ordei that the work of the canvassers be facilitated. After the canvass has been com pleted anyone who may happen to be overlooked is requested to tele phone' their listings to Mrs. Maf fitt, dial 5917. or Mrs. Gause. dial 3670. Nazis Still Lack Labor For Its War Economy WASHINGTON. April 26.—GP>— The Commerce department said to day that Germany still lacked the needed labor for its war econonf’ despite the use of more t^an 2,000, 000 foreigners. Surveying the Nazi situation in its foreign commerce weekly, the department said that an agreement recently had been made under which 60,000 Italian farm labors would be made available to German agricul ture this summer and that meas ures had been taken to draft French laborers from the occupied zone. DROPS MAIN DEMAND BOMBAY, India, April 26.—UP)— Mohandas K. Gandhi declared to night that his all India congress (Nationalist Party) has dropped temporarily its demand for the independence of India and wants only “freedom of the speech and the pen.” Hints Convoy Aid Calling upon America to “make good our promise to give aid to Britain,” Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox tells the American Newspaper Publishers convention in New York that if America allows its war supplies for Britain to be sunk en route "we shall be beaten.” | Test Of Giant Bomber Expected To Be Delayed SANTA MONICA, Calif., April 26. —