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HUntington morning §tar North Carolina’s Oldest Daily Newspaper Published Daily Except Sunday By The Wilmington Star-News At The Murchison Building R. B. Page, Owner and Publisher Telephone All Departments DIAL 3311__ Entered as Second Class Matter at Wilming ton, N. C., Postoffice Under Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY CARRIER Payable Weekly Or In Advance Combina Time Star News tion 1 Week _$ .25 $ .20 * .35 1 Month _ 1.10 .90 1.50 3 Months _ 3.25 2.60 4.55 6 Months _ 6.50 5.20 9.10 1 Year _ 13.00 10.40 18.20 News rates entitle subscriber to Sunday issue of StarNews BY MAIL Payable Strictly in Advance Combina Star News tion 1 Month_i .75 ? .50 $ .90 3 Months _ 2.00 1.50 2.75 S Months _ 4.00 3.00 5.50 1 Year____ 8.00 6.00 10.00 News rates entitle subscriber to Sunday issue of Star-News Card of Thanks charged for at the rate of 25 cents per line. Count five words to line. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS is entitled to the exclusive use of all news stories appearing in The Wilmington Star. TUESDAY, MAY 26, 1942 With confidence in our armed forces — with the unbounding de termination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God. —Roosevelt’s War Message Star-NewsProgram To aid in every way the prosecution of the war to complete victory. Public Port Terminals. Perfected Truck and Berry Preserving and Marketing Facilities. Seaside Highway from Wrightsville Beach to Bald Head Island. Extension of City Limits. 35-foot Cape Fear River channel, wider Turning Basin, with ship lanes into industrial sites along Eastern bank south of Wilmington. Paved River Road to Southport, via Orton Plantation. Development of Pulp Wood Production through sustained-yield methods through out Southeastern North Carolina. Unified Industrial and Resort Promo tional Agency, supported by one county wide tax. Shipyards and Drydocks. Negro Health Center for Southeastern North Carolina, developed around the Community Hospital. Adequate hospital facilities for white. Junior High School. Tobacco Warehouses for Export Buy ers. Development of native grape growing throughout Southeastern North Carolina. Modern Tuberculosis Sanatorium. TOP O’ THE MORNING It is impossible to have a lively hope in another life, and yet be deeply immersed in the enjoyments of this. —ATTERBURY. -V Douse The Glims It is not yet clear how Wilmington will be affected by new dimout rules to be put into effect along the Atlantic coast. But there is one measure that householders may volun tarily employ-in the interest of community security and preservation of their property. It is to extinguish all lights in the house when absent during the evening, provided, of course, no member of the family is on hand to put them out in emergency. This is necessary not only because a single light may be seen at great distance, particu larly from the air, but to save doors and win dows which would be hard to replace, priori ties being what they are. Air raid wardens have authority to break into any building dis playing lights after a raid warning is sounded. -V Nazi Punch Weakens It is impossible to get a clear picture of what is actually taking place along the south ern Russian front, but it would seem that neither the Nazis not the Reds have gained an important advantage over the week-end. Undoubtedly the Germans have driven wedges into the Russian lines around Khar kov. It is quite as possible that they have been closed again. Probably the' Russians have done the same thing to the defenses of Khar kov—with the same results. If, as later Moscow dispatches indicate, the Russian forces have again assumed the offensive, after suffering a check, the fighting there has given them a hard won advantage, particularly as the Germans were reported to have at least a three-to-one edge in troops engaged. For the present it is apparent that the Russian dispatches are exaggerated and the battle is a give-and-take contest. Even if they have not actually succeeded to resuming the offensive, the Russian army is large enough to overcome the handicap of facing superior forces, and should be able to get into position for further advances within a very short time. What is most significant in this fighting is the fact that the Nazi attack is much slower than when Hitler first sent his troops into Russia last summer. Two weeks were re owed for the capture of the Karoh Daninsufe alone. When the Russian war was young the Nazis were taking more territory than was involved there daily. This, we take it, de mr istrates that the punch of those early days is lacking now. --V The Battle Of Shipping This country needs something more now than a good five-cent cigar. Specifically, it needs protected communica tion lines in the Atlantic the southwest Pacific and adjacent waters over which to transport the tools of war upon which we as well as our Allies must largely depend for victory. The United States had just about won the battle of production. Planes, tanks, guns are rolling off assembly lines in tremendous vol ume. The Axis cannot compete with our war industrial output. But this will be of little advantage if we are unable to get them into action against the enemy. Neither Hitler not the Japanese can be defeated if the planes and tanks and guns and munitions we are now manufacturing cannot be landed in the battle areas of Europe and the Orient in overwhelming quantities. We must win the battle of shipping, as well as the battle of production, if we are to take our proper place in the conflict. China is in great need of warplanes to keep the Japanese from blocking her off and knocking her out of the war. Chiang Kai-shek is reported to have said that the difference between success and failure in the present increasing battle of China is 250 American big bombers. More than that is involved, of course. But as air supremacy is essential to victory in the type of warfare now in progress it is Ob vious that this added air strength would ma terially reduce the odds against China. And it is vital to the United Nations’ cause that not only this, but whatever other help China needs to survive, be given before the Japanese make greater inroads upon her territory. Es pecially is it necessary to uphold China’s hands for victory now to prevent the enemy seizing and arming areas from which Japan itself might be attacked —territory within bombing distance of Japan and Formosa. But to get planes and other equipment into position for greatest aid to China it will first be necessary to protect the sea lanes to the Orient against enemy attack. The difficulties are great because of the vast waters of the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian oceans, in all of which Axis naval operations are proving costly and among which our ships must be divided. It would appear that we could concentrate greater effort for the protection of Pacific and Indian ocean sea lanes if we were able to free the Atlantic of the Nazi submarine menace. Thus far we have made small prog ress in doing so. It can only be hoped that present schedules for its accomplishment, which are being drafted but about which the government very properly has little to say, are adequate to the emergency. -V Listening Post Needs Workers Ladies of Wilmington, what are you doing to do about manning the filter center? Are you willing to sacrifice a little in your domes tic schedules or your social engagements so that you can stand a trick at the center, or do you intend to pass up this opportunity to give helpful service? The choice is yours, and yours alone. There is no compulsion, nor is it possible to make more than a simple request for your help. But, as the security of your homes, your home city and all southeastern North Carolina may depend upon the efficient operation of the filter center ,it would seem that nothing, not even for a perfect housekeeper, could under any circumstances be more important. Ever since the center was established there has been difficulty in recruiting a sufficient force of women for its operation. At no time have there been enough workers. Of late the reluctance to serve has increased. This may be due to the strain of training and the burden of regular attendance. If so, it should be considered that if the center is not functioning at par at the moment of the enemy’s approach the necessary signals can not be given to defending forces in time to prevent attack and every home, every house hold, every individual will be under threat of destruction. Isn’t it better to make some sacrifice now than total sacrifice later ? The filter center is the community’s listen ing post. Wouldn’t you rather be stationed there, where your listening can be of most account in emergency, than to be listening at home, in some terrible moment, for the explosion of an enemy bomb on the roof? It is no use to say that this is all im possible here. Wilmington is not exempt from attack. It can happen here, as surely as it happened in Holland and Belgium and France. -V “Summer School” School will be over this week for one set of pupils. For others it will just be opening. Wil mington’s schools will not be locked up this summer. On the contrary, they will be as busy as in regular mid-term. But the courses of study will be different. If present indications are borne out, hun dreds of persons will receive training in skills essential in the war program. This work has been going on, and on a major scale, through out the regular school term, through which many persons have fitted themselves for em ployment in vital industries. It will continue throughout the summer, under capable in structors. Among the many steps taken in the educa tional program here, not only since the war began, but long before, none has been more important or capable of better results than this training which will go on without inter ruption during the customary vacation period. -V- i Graduation Gasoline With graduation time at hand and thousands anxious to attend ceremonies in which their offspring will receive diplomas it would seem to be up to rationing boards to ease their regulations to the extent of allowing parents to purchase enough gasoline to reach state lines on their homeward trips. Certainly the total of gasoline thus conceded would not seri ously decrease the seaboard’s stockpile. Something of this sort has been done by the Georgia rationing authorities. An announce ment to patrons has been issued by the Geor gia Military Academy, saying that “parents ■vyho come (to the academy) for commence ment will be allowed to get enough gasoline to get them out of the state after the , . , exercises are over.” It would bring comfort to parents with grad uates in North Carolina universities, colleges and academies if the state rationing board extended the same courtesy. -V Washington Daybook By JACK STINNETT WASHINGTON, May 25—If the WAAC ever adopts a patron saint, it should be Deborah Sampson. Why? Because aside from the Army nurses, who are “in the Army” as a matter of con venient bookkeeping, discipline and personnel, the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps brings ■women into the Army for the first time in history of the nation. AND, more than 200 years ago, Deborah Sampson was the first women ever to serve with the United States armed forces; and ac cording to. the official record, the only one who ever did until Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby took oath of office the other day as chief of the WAAC. OF COURSE, Deborah stole a march on her * * * Of course, Deborah stole a march on her 20th century sisters by suberfuge. Instead of telling her recruiting officer in Massachusetts that she was just plain Deborah Sampson, she told him she was Robert Shurtleff. The recruiting officer evidently took her word for it, because with no more ado -than that, Deborah was mustered into the Conti nental army. That was April of 1781. Shurtleff proved a stout soldier, too. Nobody ever questioned his courage or his ability to swing one of those weighty old muzzle load ers down on the Red Coats. He was so well thought of by his comrades that when he caught a chunk of British lead at the battle of Tarrytown, they pulled him off the field of battle and rushed him to a dressing station behind the lines. The record here is a little obscure. How Deborah managed to keep her secret isn’t made clear to the otherwise meticulous re port. But she kept it sufficiently to rejoin her regiment, still as Robert Shurtleff, and she was shouldering a musket a few yards away when Lord Cornwallis surrendered to Gen. George Washington. * * * IF YOU are thinking by now that Deborah Sampson was one of nature’s freaks, skip the thought. Honorably discharged from the Army in November, 1783, she married within a year one Benjamin Gannett and there is no record that anything but conjugal bliss prevailed for the next 43 years, when the Army’s one and only (until sometime hence) grand old lady died. Instead of being horrified, the Congressmen of those days tilted their bravers in courteous admiration. They even approved Deborah’s pension—$48 a year at first and finally $76.80 a year. When she died, Bengamin Gannett got a "widow’s pension.” It took a special act of Congress, but those who were close to the memory of the nation’s first female soldier didn’t argue long. With the notation that the history of the young nation “furnishes no sim ilar example of female heroism, fidelity and courage,” Congress voted the soldier’s widow er $80 a year for the rest of his days. The WAACs will be hard put to find a more suitable patron saint than Deborah Sampson. -V Editorial Comment DISCIPLES OF CONFUSION DURHAM HERALD If people more or less on the inside of things develop the notion that the outlook is rosy and give voice to same in the presence of other persons whose job it is to collect and record the views of people supposedly in the know, then you have in semi-official dress the basis for* the sort of optimistic outlook prevalent in some circles today. If after a few days of optimistic talk from folks who are willing to talk but insist that their identity be withheld, high officials, the President and chairman of the Senate For eign Relations Committee, for example, de liberately move in with statements warning against overoptimism, as is now the case, you then have the people in something of a con fused dither. It is on account of that fundamental fact that occasionally we have insisted that chroni clers of news out or Washington should prac tice increasing care in quoting sources they are forbidden to identify and stop hanging speculative stories on such pegs as “informed sources,” “high Administration officials,” “reliable quarters,” “trusted informants,” etc. We realize that to do that nearly every newsman, commentator and columnist would have to revise his approach to the job of re porting and interpreting news, and that the only hope of making it work in our sort of society without damage to that society is f o r the recorders of news voluntarily to practice restraint. And that isn’t likely to happen to any great extent, partly because of the truth in the old saying “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks.” Still, fact is that it is just as important that he -who presumes to voice the Govern ment’s estimate of the war outlook do so oyer his own name in the fullness of his offi cial position as it is that only military news adjudged by official sources of no value to the enemy be released for publication. And if it takes some arrangement whereby official pronouncements, including those given the color of officiality, are cleared through an of. ficial clearing house to accomplish that essen tial correlation, then it is by far better that that be done than that the present haphazard system of positive jabber and negative jab ber be continued. What we mean is the Government should have but one official estimate of the outlook and that should be voiced by persons author ized and willing to be identified. There was a place, in other times, for the so-called htthind-the-news dispensers. “scAp". 1,500 Years Doesn’t Seem To Have Convinced Anybody It-the mountain wont COME TO MOHAMMED, them mohammedmust <50 TO THE MOUNTAIN. m. ,V?STEI2C>A^ GUESS I'LL STICK AROUND A WHILE LONGER AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS \ *foDAV As Others Say It COTON AGAIN KING The resiliency of the cotton tex tile industry is shown in the man ner in which it has managed to keep in step with changing condi tions, variations which, in these swift-moving days, are constantly occurring. No better illustration of this could be seen than in the new fed eral order that all textile mills convert at least 60 percent of their output to war goods within the next 60 days. The cotton mills of the country already, looked at from an over-all picture, are devot ing half their output to war goods. These include vast amounts of such articles as bagging for sand, foods and agricultural products, millions of yards of camouflage goods and washables for the arm ed services. Yet, at the same time, the in dustry has not only met, but even expanded, an unprecedented con sumer demand, a demand based primarily on modern research which has made cotton style worthy. Interesting in connection with what the cotton textile indus try has done are the figuers which show that during the depression years it consumed annually be tween five and six million bales. Last year the total amount of bales used was 10 million. And so far this year, consumption has been at even higher level.—Atlanta Con stitution. MAKE IT “RASHUN” The case for the defense is woe fully weak—but we like it. Governor Broughton deposes that the way to pronounce “ration” is “rashun” and not “rayshun.” His Excellency was up in Washington the other day, and that’s the way Leon Henderson, brash, rash, OPA rationef, pronounces it. And he ought to know.—Asheville Citizen. columnists and just plain gossipers. But in our view there is no place for that sort of mischievousness now and we feel rather strongly that those who practice it under the cloak of freedom of the press are enemies of the freedom they assert. Raymond Clapper Says: SyntheticRubber Means Nothing To Mr. Citizen By RAYMOND CLAPPER WASHINGTON, May 25. — For you and me, the main fact about the big synthetic rubber program is that it won’t mean the slightest easing of the tire situaton for non essental uses. Every pound of syn thetic that can be made in the next two years mu^t go to the mil itary. Officials want to emphasize that. They are afraid the public may think the situation will improve be cause we are gong to have more rubber, or because efforts are be ing made to increase gasoline transportation into the east. The situation won’t improve so far as civilians are concerned. Ra tioning almost certainly will spread throughout the country within a few weeks—not to save gasoline but to save rubber. Gasoline ra tioning is the best method yet found for reducing the use of auto mobles which is considered im perative. » » * The Government is trying to make the present stogk of automo biles now in private fiands last for the duration. No more tires can be supplied and present ones must run through. Furthermore it is easily possible that many private cars will be needed by the Govern ment before the war is over. For instance officials here have heard of one enormous war plant, 40 miles or so from the nearest city, which needs 12,000 pas senger automobiles now to haul de fense workers from ther homes to the plant. Buses and other forms of public conveyance cannot be provided in sufficient form. That particular situation may be over come without having to appeal to private owners to sell their cars. But others like it will be coming up from now on. It might be desirable for the Government to begin now buying up automobiles from owners who wish to sell. Let it form a defense The Literary Guidepost By JOHN SELBY “AND NOW TOMORROW,” by Rachel Field (Macmillan; $2,75). The late Rachel Field is trans lating, in “And Now Tomorrow.” two pressing problems into wholly feminine terms. One of these is the ancient problem of the haves and the have nots. The other is the problem of the “handicapped,” particularly as it affects that old standby of the novelist—“love.” Emily Blair is Miss Field’s he roine. Emily is one of those who have, not because she earned any thing, but because her Grandfa ther Blair built a mill which manu factured sheets and pillow cases and towels. Grandfather Blair’s mill was successful, and gradu ally it collected people and a little city about it as a stone in a river sometimes becomes the center of a sandbar. But the mill was run largely by habit, its relations with the employees was paternal in the old sense, and there came a de pression. Just before the depression ar rived, Emily became suddenly deaf as the result of meningitis. She was engaged, and with no real intention of doing such a thing, Emily found herself using he" deafness to bind her young man Harry to her. It is not clear form the text just why Emily should have bothered, since Har ry was merely a dull young man on the make, using his fiancee as job insurance. But she thought she loved him. The side characters are more rewarding. Young Doctor Vance from the wrong side of the tracks is one. Jo Kelly, grandson of the Blair handyman, is another. Aunt Em Blair is a third, and Emily’s pouty sister Janice, who eventu ally gets Harry, is still another. Jo becomes a labor organizer but remains a friend of our heroine’s Vance eventually marries our he roine, after miraculously curing her deafness. Aunt Em cracks up and takes to bed, and the Blair mill just fades away, without af fecting the living standard of its owners very much. I suspect that the female pa trons of rental libraries will sing joyful praises over "And Now To morrow,” because the book is so amazingly female. Emily is so sweet, even when she does sour things. Harry is such a nice, weak young man. Janice is the wicked girl women would like to be Vance is strong and thrilling. And everything is so dratted genteel. 2 ./:r workers’ transportation corpora tion, buy up cars, assign them to local operating companies for fil ling gasps in defense plant trans portation. I have a car in good con dition that they can have. Thou sands of people are in the same position. Certainly most two - car families might as well get rid of one car at least. It would be better to put such cars into needed use than to allow them to deteriorate while standing idle. * • • No responsible official takes any thing but a grim view of private car transportation. Joseph B. East man, director of defense transpor tation does. He is even worried whether there will be enough rub ber to keep buses going. Leon Hen derson, in his capacity as WPB director of civilian supply, and Donald Nelson, the man finally re sponsible for war production, are in complete agreement. It isn’t a matter of seizing your tires. What we are short of is transportation. The tires go with the car and both need to be con served for imperative use. That is the basic consideration. It applies all over the country, whereas the gasoline shortage arises from oil transportation difficulty in the east. We were vulnerable because the whole nation was transporting it self on rubber entirely supplied from the Southwest Pacific. When the Japs knocked that rubber out we were left on our uppers for transportation. If the Axis had de liberately planned how to immo bilize the United States it could not have hit upon a more practical way to do it, as one official was saying here. * * * That we can produce synthetic rubber in enormous volume may be taken as a certainty. But time will be required to construct the plants. Some are under construc tion now. The technical processes are established. The pinch comes m finding steel, copper, special machinery such as compressors, and transportation facilites for the manufacture of 1,000,000 tons a year perhaps. That requres delicate balancing of many other demands for these restricted materials. Large quanti ties of copper are needed and cop per is so short that it is more valuable than gold m the sense of use. This synthetic rubber program for this year and next is th ebig gest job of chemical engineering ever undertaken in the world To crowd it into the tight situation with regard to construction mater ials will require one of the most ingenious jobs of puzzle - solving that American industry ever fac ed. , 3 -V Factographs King Nikita of Montenegro, who died in 1921, ruled over a kingdom of at least 150,000 men over 35 years of age. It was claimed that the king knew the name, age and occupation of each. • * * The farm woodlot is capable of providing a potential added in come for the American farmer of 000,000 a year, the equ5$00 TAOIN $500,000,000 a year, the equivalent of a new major crop, it is es timated. *' Interpreting The War Kharkov Fighting Indicates Soviets Are On Even Terms By KIRKE L. SIMPSON Wide World War Analyst Conflicting reports from th Kharkov front in Russia throw lit'' tie light on the probable duration or outcome of the first pitched bat tie of the summer campaign- but they do reveal that for once the Russians are on something iik_ even terms with their Nazi foes in modern war equipment. The size of the armies invo'v.ri can only be conjectured from*the fact that an irregular fighting front more than 200 miles long appears to be aflame with attack and counter-attack. That means troon, by the hundred thousand on both sides. More than two weeks have elans, ed since Marshal Timoshenko seiz'. ed the initiative and struck out to hamstring an impending German offensive before it could get roll, ing. In that time, there has been no intimation that the Nazis have succeeded in gaining control of the air or breaking armored panzer columns loose to lunge deep be hind Russian lines. Lacking those two prime factors which have figured in every pre! ceding German victory in Russia, the battle of Kharkov may go down in history as the turning point in the war. Even Russian failure to take Kharkov or to break through to the Dnieper crossings and un dermine the whole German south, em flank could not be set down as a defeat if it delayed Hitler’s promised master offensive. If Timoshenko has succeeded in sucking into the blazing struggle any substantial portion of Nazi re. serves behind the Ukraine front and worn them down by losses in men and equipment to the extent Russian official accounts report, he has already seriously short-cir. cuited the Hitler offensive sched ule. Kerch peninsula, bridgehead to the Caucasus, is again completely in German hands. Heavy Red loss es there are highly probably. Un less the Nazis can soon clinch an even greater victory in the Khar kov fight, however, and emerge from that conflict in shape to ex ploit it promptly, the value of the Kerch bridgehead to them will be doubtful. It has seemed certain since Ti moshenko’s broad strategy became clear with the Red attack at Khar kov that he regarded the Kerch front as wholly secondary. He had opportunity to mass men and equipment there in sufficient strength to challenge the foe suc cessfully had he so desired: but elected to make Kerch merely a holding operation while he con centrated for a counter smash at Kharkov. Kerch peninsula in Russian hands was obviously only an out post position covering the far bet ter defensive terrain that Kerch strait and the area east of it af ford. If its loss has cost the Nazis as heaiily as indicated, it served its purpose well. The cumulative attrition of Kerch and Kharkov on Nazi strik ing power is yet to be measured by events. If it has been any where new- as great as Russian observers claim, in their tales of German tanks shattered by the hundred and Nazi planes shot down and bombed on the ground, the battle of Kharkov must be re corded as a Russian victory re gardless of the status of the city itself or Russian failure to reach the Dnieper crossings immediately Is That So! ANANIAS ANGLER, just back from a winter in Florida, says he saw a couple of game fish so tough they were playing catch with a floating mine. * * * Recipe for a daytime radio serial: A sponsor and enough crying towels to go all around. * * * Grandpappy Jenkins says the Nazis are unique in gang history —instead of each other, they are taking the German people Lr i one-way ride. » * * A good thing to remember at this time is that the pioneer fore fathers car ried civilization every corner of this country an they did it without benefit of a single gallon of gas or a set « pneumatic tires. * * * An European exile predicts * complete Axis collapse by end of the year. Gosh, but is that asking Santa Claus -or much at one time? * * * Vaudeville is staging a comeback here while over in Europe «'e one is watching the Vichy do. in their ill-starred tight rope ancing act. * * * It will be a Victory garden, sure enough, says Grandpappy JenK j if he can figure out some way defeating the neighbors’ seed gry chickens. In after years the German, dier can always reminisce a the winter of 1940-41. That is. survived. * * * Many Italians, we read, h®* forgotten what coffee tas,eS ' sC So that can’t be the reason many of ’em can’t sleep. * * * A trap door keeps mousie ^ reaching the bait so one Pie cheese should last for the auia
Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.)
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May 26, 1942, edition 1
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