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Wilmington morning #tar Published Daily Except Sunday North Carolina’s Oldest Daily Newspaper 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 Strictly 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 Star-New* BY MAIL Payable Weekly Or In Advance Combina Time Star News tion 1 Month .$ -75 $ .50 $ .90 3 Months . 2 00 1.50 2.75 6 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 exclusve use of all news stories appearing in The Wilmington Star. WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 9, 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’r. War Message Our Chief Aim To aid in every way the prosecu tion of the war to complete vic tory. THOUGHT FOR TODAY God touch my ears that I might hear Above earth’s din, Thy voice ring clear. God touch my eyes that I might see The tasks Thou’d have me do for Thee God, touch my lips that I might say Words that reveal the Narrow Way God, touch my hands that I might do Deeds that inspire men to be true. Selected. -V Sixty-Five “Fronts” One year after Pearl Harbor, the United States has armed forces at sixty-five points outside the country. They range from full armies down to guard and supply detach ments and consist of Army, Navy, Marine and Air Forces. Their stations are just about globe-gridling. Note the locations: Northern Ireland, Eng land, French Morocco, Algeria. Tunisia, Free town, Liberia, Gold Coast, Nigeria, Gabon, French Equitorial Africa, Belgian C o n g o, Chad, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Eritrea, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran, India, China, Philippines, Australia, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, New j Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Canton Island, Palmyra j Island, Johnson Island, Hawaii, Midway Aleutians, Alaska, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Canal Zone, Galapagos Island, Santa Elena, Ecuador, Aruba, Curacao, Trin idad, Venezuela, British Guiana, Surinam, Brazil, St. Lucia, Antigua, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, Baha mas, Bermuda, Canada, Newfoundland, Lab rador, Greenland and Iceland. While it is heartening to know that this country, so illy prepared for war when the Pearl Harbor attack came, has been able to assemble such large forces as this catalogue indicates, and get them to danger points in one short year, there is some reason to won der anxiously if we are not scattering them too thinly. This, naturally, is for the mili tary leaders to determine, but some among us probably believe that greater concentra tions at the most vital points, rather than at so many places, some of which may not have real strategic value, would speed ulti mate victory. At the same time, it must be remembered that it is a world, not mere sections thereof, that must be saved from the enemy. -V Victory Fund Campaign With the announcement of Richard S. Rog ers, chairman of the Region 6 committee in charge of the Victory fund campaign, that the committee will be increased to speed the drive, it may be said that there is ab solute necessity, not only on behalf of the war program but in the interest of the na tional economy, that the full amount of these Victory bond issues be subscribed as quickly as human effort can do the job. The task is to sell nine billion dollars worth of Vic tory bonds in a few short weeks. It can be done if everybody does his part. Nine billions—or one billion—is beyond men tal grasp of most of us. Suffice it to say, however, that for present purposes that stu pendous figure represents the amount of mon ey necessary to keep our government in busi ness and in the war until February. Either we are behind our fighting men, or we^are not. The outcome of a Victory Lojyj* campaign will be a clear index of how seri ously we are behind these boys. The danger of inaction or delay in buying these bonds can be compared only with the danger in Tunisia. The banks, insurance companies and larger corporations in the first few days have re sponded magnificently throughout the state. But they obviously oannot bear the full bur den. In proportion as individuals with $500 or more subscribe these issues, we avert the growing menace of inflation. It has been pointed out that the Victory Fund campaign in no- way supersedes War Savings campaigns. The Victory issues as distinguished from war savings stamps and bonds are simply a different category of is sues, being designed to meet the needs of the larger purchases of securities in varying sums, for varying periods of investment. -V Hot Time in the Old Town When the general proposal for conserva tion of this and that was first heard, and at various times since, we have taken the liberty of suggesting that government depart ments and agencies could help the crusade by setting a good example. It dates back to the time the people were urged to save paper, and federal offices con tinued to flood the mails with tons of litera ture which promptly found the way to waste baskets. Then came the rubber salvage campaign when private citizens heard a demand for articles of all sorts made of rubber, and responded liberally, while federal office build ings, by and large, clung to their rubber mats and runners, and on the heels of this, the scrap metal campaign, during which brass cuspidors and other metal things, in cluding brass stair rails, continued to occupy conspicuous places in post offices, custom houses and other government buildings. The government’s idea seems to be: “Do as I say, not as I do.” It must be some thing like this, else Washington’s federal buildings would not now be overheated, when the public is told that temperatures above the maximum fixed by the rationeers for the conservation of fuel, are to be guarded against as one guards against plague. The Baltimore Sun says that the average temperature of federal office buildings at Washington is in excess of 76 degrees, and that the average has been determined by actual tests in widely scattered sections of the capital with “two carefully calibrated thermometers from the Bureau of Standards.” That is pretty good evidence in any man’s court. And the irony of it is that among offices in which the temperature was found far above the maximum was the office of Harold Ickes’ appointed secretary, where the ther mometer registered 77 degrees, and with win dows wide open besides. Ickes, himself, it seems, has installed thermostats in his own offices and obeys the rule, but just two of fice beyond, his secretary must fling open his windows to keep from suffocating. In Leon Henderson's secretary’s office, the Sun says, the temperature was 76 degrees. Are we to assume that rules set up for the common herd are too common for the rationeers, that inspectors employed to watch for infractions of multiplying restrictions have had a tip from higher up to keep away from the sacrosanct bureaucrats? -V Pattern Grows Threadbare The strength of Nazi counter-attacks in cen tral Russia seem to indicate Hitler’s purpose to pursue the same general policy on the Eastern front this winter as he did last. In the blizzardy months of the last winter cam paign, Axis forces were withdrawn from for ward positions, when they could not hope to increase their advance, to towns farther back where Nazi thrift and foresight had seen to the establishment of supply bases, and from which the Russians, with all their skill in winter fighting, could not dislodge them. They suffered heavy losses, both in men and ma terial, but not so heavy that they could not come back in the spring with tremendous striking power. While Hitler has been compelled to with draw much of his air force and great num bers of men from the Stalingrad area, to meet the Allied expeditionary forces in Tu nisia, and so has loosened his grip in the Don-Volga salient, it is obvious that this win ter’s activities to the north are to follow the same general pattern as last year. His ability or failure to do as well as then must depend upon the power of the Russians to hit harder, with the additional war tools obtained from America and England, and the power of Allied air forces to further cripple his war indus tries in Germany and Nazi-held countries. Hitler cannot hope to hold his chosen posi tions in Russia indefinitely unless he can build up reserves in men and equipment. His reserves in manpower are no longer great. Vassal states upon which he has drawn heav ily in the past, particularly Rumania and Italy, are near the bottom of the man-power barrel. Germany itself is not capable of pro viding many more divisions and keep war industries working simultaneously. France, through Laval’s apostacy, may force perhaps '■ as many as a million reluctant men into Axis armed ranks, though this is questionable. But there is no reason to think that Hitler can again raise the personnel of his fighting and reserve forces to the high total under ' his command when he brought war to the 1 world. I Nor can he hope to raise the level of industrial production if air raids are a regu lar thing on his centers of output, and he cannot get what is made to the battlefront if his communications are blasted by per petual bombing. It is not taking too much for granted, then, to believe that while this winter’s pattern of Nazi defense on the Eastern front will closely resemble that of last winter?* it is growing threadbare. -V Lull Before Storm Save for the fighting in the Solomons and New Guinea, the Japanese have been mostly idle for some time, so far as surface indi cations show. What does it mean? Secretary Knox is almost persuaded that Japanese naval losses have created a greater problem than can be solved at Tokyo. It seems more likely, how ever, that the Japanese are drafting plans for another major offensive and are concen trating land, air and naval strength for its launching. It would be silly to think for a moment that the Tokyo war lords are discouraged by past naval defeats or the success of our arms in Guadalcanal and New Guinea. Fanatics of the worst sort, and determined to spend their utmost effort to gain domination in eastern Asia, the Japanese will never take to the defensive until their striking power has been wiped out. It is more likely that the present calm precedes the storm of another attack. Where will it come? We may be fairly sure of but one thing: it probably will not be against the Russians in Siberia. Time was when Japan would have come to Hitler’s aid by setting up a second front there, but Hitler’s failure to take Stalingrad on schedule, cou pled with the probability of Hitler’s defeat in Europe, seems to justify an assumption that Japan henceforth will wage its own war, on its own lines and independent of all de mands from Berlin. If this is the true state of affairs, Japan intends to go it alone, the next blow prob ably will be directed either against India or China, with Yunnan, the Chinese province bordering on Burma, as the most probable objective. Possession of Yunnan province would give the Japanese a distinct advantage in the Chinese area and place Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek under necessity of engaging in the greatest campaign of the protracted Sino-Jap anese war. It seems very probable that with the ar rival of the new year there will be a new offensive by the enemy in the Pacific. The direction it takes is not so important as that the Allies, with their increasing strength, be ready for it wherever it comes. FAIR ENOUGH (Editor’s Note.—The Siar and the New« accept no responsibility for the personal views of Mr. Pegler, and often disagree with them as much as many of his readera. His articles serve the good purpose of making people think). By WESTBROOK PEGLER NEW YORK, Dec. 8—Years and years ago, when a smooth and amazingly pushful county politician named James A. Farley, was lining up things for his man, Governor Roosevelt of New York, a party of Chicago Democrats came on to Brooklyn to attend a rather pre tentious prizefight at the ball yard, expect ing, one and all, to sit in the first row, as befitted their station, among the leading boot leggers and men and women about the me tropolis. Their leader, the late Tony Cermak, got seats for himself, and one, in this su perior company but the rest of his party, or mob, were offended to find themselves pewed among the lower classes back near the play ers’ dugout and when Mr. Cermak heard of this his loyalty was touched and he rose up, himself and one, and declared that he would not sit above his friends and so moved back among them. To Mr. Farley and the American people as it turned out, this was a portentious mis carriage of protocol, for Mr. Cermak con trolled a number of votes to be cast in the impending convention and was a man to be wooed and placated at any cost. As the pre liminaries moved along toward the semifinal, Mr. Farley could be seen bustling among the gangsters, grafters and socially prom inent brokers and other poseurs up front pleading earnestly with them to be good fel lows and give up their seats for his sake, a favor which he would never forget, and, by ringtime for the main event, he had ne gotiated places for about half of Mr. Cer mak’s delegation. Mr. Cermak was a man of stout mind, however, and he refused to come back to the ringside without all, includ ing the least of his friends and Mr. Farley in despair and having in mind the nomination of Governor Roosevelt for the presidency fi nally did his best by vacating his own front seat and moving back with Mr. Cermak. Incidentally, Mr. Cermak’s feelings were not entirely cured by this sacrifice for, as may be remembered, he held out against Mr. Farley’s man in that convention until the last minute and only just caught the tail board of the bandwagon to clamber aboard before it went around the ring for the last time, already almost full. The point of this parable, if that is what this is, is that there seems to be a deter mination among the rulers for whom Mr. Farley sacrificed his own social standard that night to the end that they might be elected, to do the same in the name and at the expense of the people of the United States lest the people of other lands in the rear ward rows envy and resent us. The Ameri cans, it appears, are to move back among them, vacating the front seats altogether, whereupon the flagpole and dugout areas will become ringside sections according to the formula of the man who couldn’t heft his drunken friend out of the gutter, and to show his earnest humanity, lay down beside him. Who authorized all this on behalf of the American people nobody has said specifically and there is nothing at all on the subject in any of the platforms on which the party stood for election nor in any of the speeches by which the votes were won. The United States is a luxury country. The PERSISTENT CHILDHOOD WAVSMTAt-i UEASBmMi WDOFTHE IV/9& BY gggssa Raymond Clapper Says: U. S. Obviously Learned Lesson At Pearl Harbor By RAYMOND CLAPPER WASHINGTON, Dec. 8.—We ob viously have learned the military lessons of Pearl Harbor. What hap pened a year ago jolted us for ward as if we had been shot out of a catapult. Within a year we have reached a tempo of military preparation that probably no nation ever equal led in such a period. We have surprised ourselves—as I know from a visit to war industries in the Detroit area last week. The monumental performance of war industry is matched by the work of the Government in mo bilizing an army which must be now around five million. When we criticize the government for inef fiency, we forget that the raising of this army by the government is an achievement to match the production of the weapons for it. One year ago we discovered that this was war, and it didn’t take the country very long to rise to the all-out demands that total war makes. If we seemed slow from week to week, the look back over cosmetics trade, for example, which consists of paint for ladies’ faces and perfume, shellac, soap and sweet-smelling greases and oils, and glue and dye for their hair, is important in our economy as giving work to a great num ber of workers and yielding im portant taxes to the Treasury. This is strictly a luxury trade and nonessential and the beauty par lors which are to be found even in the shabbiest little towns, em ploying workers and yielding wages, profits and rent, are an extension of the same industry. Jewelry, cheap and costly, is a luxury trade, also employing x hundred thousands, the fur indus try caters mainly to and mainly lives on vanity and extravagance, and tobacco and liquor, movies and music and most, if not all of our annual list of 10,000 book titles, are items that a people returned to the primitive could do with out. Ice cream and candy and chewing gum are affectations em ploying some shocking total of pairs of hands and consuming foodstuffs unnecessarily and the clothing trades produce vastly more new garments that could be done without than are absolutely necessary as replacements of gar ments utterly done for by long wear and tear. Reduced to essentials and noth ing more, the American people would lose their press not only because people gone primitive could get along with the services of the town crier and the gossip or, at most, with an official, gov ernment press which would tell them only what the government desired them to know or believe. Our housing and the privacy of the individual family are wasteful in that they are not used beyond a small fraction of their whole capacity according to the Russian communal housing customs and one lawn mower on a suburban block, used in rotation could retire half a dozen others to the smelt ers for scrap. John L. Lewis used to say that it was his mission in life to level off the peaks and fill in the val leys and this nation, as a whole constitutes a peak of relation to most others. one year gives us perspective to recognize the achievement for what it is. Will we be as quick and as apt in learning another lesson? Will we be as quick to learn the lesson that the world is now so small we can’t escape the ef fects of what happens anywhere on the globe? Will we recognize what the heavy bomber means, and what the bigger models that are sure to come will mean? Will we see that the super-bomber, still to come, puts us at the mercy of any other nation that can built it in volume? Will we see that the super-bomber also gives us and like-minded nations the weap on to stop future warmakers in their tracks? Our engineers and our indus trialists are smart enough to de sign and build those bombers, ones that will make the present Flying Fortress look like a sparrow7. Will the rest of us be smart enough to use that production genius to end this crazy business of German or Japanese war maniacs setting the world afire every time they can accumulate enough powder to start a war? Will we be so dumb as to have the weapons in our hands and still let them go on doing that to us? Anybody who has flown over the oceans and continents, as many have done now, and anybody who has a glimpse of imagination about the kinds of airplane that are to come, knows what Anthony Eden, British Foreign Minister, means when he says that after this war the world will be one village street from Edinburgh to Chungking. Anybody who starts using his shooting irons anywhere along that street endangers all who live on it. Like the Chicago Loop, it is no place for gangsters to be allowed to play with ma chine guns. The street of the world The Literary Guidpost By JOHN SELBY “Bombs Away: The Story of A Bomber Team,” by John Stein beck (Viking; $2.50). John Steinbeck’s “Bombs Away” is part of a project called the Air Forces Aid Society Trust Fund, the purpose of which is to care for dependents of men in the air force perpetually. “Bombs Away” represents a very large contribution to the fund. It already has been sold to the movies for $250,000, and all the royalties normally due Mr. Steinbeck and his photographer] John Swope, are also to go to the fund. In addition, the publisher is turning over his profit. So much for the background. It would be a pleasure to say that the book is a typically good Steinbeck job, but unfortunately this is not the case. It is the worst job of writing Steinbeck ever has .done, at least in the form of a book—and I have read all his books. At that, the book is prob ably as good a job as most men could have turned out under the circumstances. Mr. Steinbeck and Mr. Swope were chaperoned over the country by the Army Air Force, which naturally saw that he got to Army fields exclusively. Therefore, the extremely important Navy side of the subject is practically ignored. And the brass hats appear to have 1 insisted that Mr. Steinbeck do a gloss on a factual basis, which is not his forte. “The Grapes of Wrath” was a striking job in spite of the fact that the author’s ac quaintance with Oklahoma and her Okies was superficial—or per haps because of that fact. What has emerged is a kind of super-ad for the Army Air Force. It is scrupulously truthful about the difficulty of the course, and lavishly, appreciative of the high calibre of the men in the force, ■nte reader’s admiration for the thoroughness and speed of the training is inevitably high. You like the boys, you think Mr. Stein beck is a fine fellow, the photo graphs are average, and the project is worthy. The book just doesn’t read very well; it repeats its fundamental ideas too often for reading comfort, like the “begats” in the Bible. must be made safe for civilized people to go about their business. Also, we expect to have a lot of business to be about after the war. War production has built up American manufacturing capacity that will need markets all over the world. We will have an enor mous shipping fleet, and airplane capacity for passengers and high value goods. We want markets abroad. We also want to relieve our I selves of the heavy cost of mod ern war. Even to keep in the state of preparedness for total war that would be necessary if the world slipped back into the con dition it was in after the 'last war would be so costly that our Standard of living would have to go down sharply. By ’ every re quirement of our own security and welfare, we must have a steady world around us. I was not an isolationist before Pearl Harbor but I was before the fall of France. Events since then have convinced me that we were all wrong in our belief after the last war that we could escape another one by keeping our heads down. We tried that. We gave it a thorough trial. It didn’t work. We know that policy will only bring us back again to another one of these wars. It is not even a risk. It is a certainty. Pearl Harbor brought the war to us a second time. It ought not take three lessons to teach us what is so clear now after the second lesson. -V You're Telling Me Zadok Dumpkof has made the supreme sacrifice. Strictly a two porkchop man, today he proudly ordered — and ate — a fishburger. ! 1 ! Too many people still travel for pleasure, we are told. Must be 1 # ■ cause so many hoped to grow up to become locomotive engineers—and didn’t. -V Gravy Train Riders Betcha, though, that those who ride the gravy trains, won’t be pestered with the meat shortage.— Statesville Daily. Interpreting TheJWar By KIRKE L. SIMPSox Whatever the political rep‘ei. " sions of General Eisenho\vehs'd with Admiral Darlan in y 'Cd Africa, its military advantages a not only clear cut but SU1] panding. It has now placed the , ■ important Dakar base and at midable portion of the French h tie fleet and substantial iw cargo tonnage there at Allied , posal. That, too, at the ZJl Secretary Knox was reve iin" Washington that part of the ‘n fleet at Toulon was still intact ■ m* in Nazi hands. a The Eisenhower announcement as to Dakar included this nar! graph: Details regarding future Pn. ployment of French naval unh and shipping are to be developed at later conferences at Dakar’’ Knox may not have been aware of that when he said the Dak', agreement was primarily a “nf‘ ative” asset for the Allies in that it denied the enemy use of that key observation post overlook,,; south Atlantic traffic Given s,’ tive participation of the French' fleet at Dakar against the Axi; as well as Allied use of urgently needed base facilities and French merchant tonnage, very positive values attach to the new Eiser hower-Darlan agreement. The Dakar deal more than off. sets any salvage value the f0e can hope to get out of the Toulon flee; in time to figure importantly !n the African - Mediterranean stru ■ gle. The French fleet at Dakar is a powerful force potentially, and possibly now ready for action. It includes one modern battleship half a dozen cruisers and fast de stroyer leaders, some destroyers and a considerable number of sub marines. Its active participation in tiie fight in the Mediterranean or the Atlantic where American supply lines to French Africa run must substantially increase the odds at sea in Allied favor. The Dakar base also must short en the turn-around for American naval and cargo craft convey reinforcements or supplies to Af rica as well as the Atlantic air ferry span for bombers moving to the African fronts under their own power. It is a reasonable guess that Eisenhower himself looks upon his dealings with Darlan, including the Dakar pact, as the most critical and essential element of his whole campaign. Without it French re sistance in Morocco and Algeria might still be jeopardizing or ham pering seriously his long and dif ficult supply lines. Even the damage to the French fleet at Toulon can be specula tively attributed to the Eisenhov er-Darlan deal. The voice of the French admiral, the creator and commander of that fleet, probably had much to do with its destruc tion. Its officers were of his se lection. His broadcast plea that they escape the Nazi clutch to join the Allies carried with it an im plied order in any case not let their ships fall into German hands. -V Civilian Defense Timetable BASIC TRAINING COI'RSIS High School Room 109 at 8 I’ • Fire Defense A—every Monday. General Course—every Tuesday. Gas Defense B—every Wednes day. FIRST AID 10 HOI Ks Room 106, New Honover High School First lesson — every Monday. Second lesson — every Tuesday Third lesson — every Wednes day. Fourth lesson — every Thursday Final lesson — every 1- ridajr. SPECIAL COl'RSES Police course — every 'Ihurswi i high school room 109. at 8 I’ HEALTH FOR VICTORY U-lB MEETINGS Nutrition Program 2nd. December 10th. 2 P St. Paul’s Parish House, Princess streets. Mrs. Core :, ter, instructor. 3rd. (Negro! December Si! P. M. at Salem Hal!. 8th Cross streets. Mrs. Cordelia I ter, instructor. If you hear or observe a suspicious in character report > promptly to: Wilmington Police, 5244 Wrightsville Beach Polio' ■ Carolina Beach Police. 2001. Captain of the Port. 2-2-m County Defense Council • Sheriff, 4252. _V PRAISE FRANCO SPEECH BERLIN, (From German b“'; costs), Dec. 8.—(/Pi—Tran ‘ _ diplomatic correspondei night that Generalissim 1 co Franco’s speech before lange national council wn- ■ -; ;^ ed in Berlin as a ’great championing the European and as a spiritual decla war against liberalism. <i< and Bolshevism.” -V READY TO SERVE ^ MADISON, Wls.. Dee 8 Li. Gov. Walter Goodlar r tn. into the political spotlight ® . age of 80 by the dean, e 1 nor-Elect O. S. Loom -, ea™f ,f Madison today upon rci-e p. gal advice that he prepare n as acting governor for ,nP two years. J
Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.)
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Dec. 9, 1942, edition 1
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