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HUaungton Horning £>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 2-3311 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 Corobina Time Star News tion 1 Week .S .24 $ .20 $ .40 1 Month ... 1,10 -90 1.75 3 Months . 3.25 2.60 5.£i0 6 Months . 6.50 5.20 10.40 1 Year . 13.00 10.40 20.80 New rates entitle subscriber to Sunday issue of Star-News BY MAIL Payable Strictly 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 New rafes entitle subscriber to Sunday issue ol Star-News Card ol rnanka charged lor at the rate ol 25 cents per line. Count fivo words to line. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Is entitled to the exclusive use ol all news stories appearing in The Wilmington Star TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1943 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 Our Chief Aim To aid in every way the prosecu tion of the war to complete Vic tory. THOUGHT FOR TODAY Many people are willing to believe re garding those things that seem probable to them. Faith has nothing to do with probabilities. The province of faith begins where probabilities cease, and sight and sense fail. —GEORGE MULLER. -V Never Mind The Turkey Because of a late hatch, heavy government buying for the armed forces and a shortage of slaughterers, the supply of turkeys for Thanks giving is from one-v.hird to one-half less than last year. Many a junior will go without his customary drumstick, many a sister the wish bone and dad and mother their usual portions off the breast when the family gathers at the festive board. But the absence of turkey anc! its delecti ble fixings need not mean a glum Thanks giving. The significance of the day is not wholly gastronomic. It reaches further than that. The sheer joy of being together, where it is possible for families to assemble in war time, and of knowing that God is still in His Heaven, despite the efforts of the Hitlerites to destroy His world, are enough to fill hearts with thanksgiving. Also, the comfort of awakening the follow ing morning without a tummy ache is worth looking forward to, and will more than offset the sacrifice involved in going turkeyless. All is not yet well with the world, but the day of peace is not so far ahead we cannot well afford to be patient—as the Founding Fathers were when they set aside one day.to give thanks for their presence in the land they were finally to reward with freedom. -V Save Waste Paper Donald M. Nelson has turned to the Amer ican newspapers to put across a new waste paper campaign. Mr. Nelson need have no doubt of their assistance. The American press is no less interested in furthering the nation’s war effort, whether it be in raising money through bond sales or the conservation of any material, than any group, business or industry. This was prov ed when newspapers, at heavy expense and unlimited space, conducted theix crusade for scrap metal when the steel industry was hard pressed to maintain She necessary pro duction. They are ready to do what they can to assist the collection of waste paper. Now, if Mr. Nelson will use his great influence to reduce the wastage of paper by government itself, he will give substantial aid ^ to the campaign. Surely he can understand that it would be far better to save paper than have it wasted in great quantities, as is now being done by federal agencies, and be put to the trouble and expense of gathering it up for reprocessing. There is enough paper delivered to news i papers in bulletins and directives that go directly into waste baskets because nobody has time to read them or ability to solve the puzzles they contain, to go far toward over coming the shortage. There is another phase of the situation which could well hoid Mr. Nelson’s attention. It is the continuing and increasing reduc tions in the amount of newsprint made avail able to newspapers. Unless a halt is brought to this the nation’s newspapers will have no space to devote to the promotion of the paper salvage campaign, to say nothing of essential news. The Truth About OPA The report of a congressional committee headed by Representative Smith of Virginia concerning Office of Price Administration poli cies and practices is peculiarly interesting to Wilmingtonians because of current OPA acti vities as a result of which certain grocers accused of violating ceiling pi ices are sum moned to answer before a hearing commission er. One paragraph from the report puts the case with exceptional clarity and ought to serve notice on the agency that Congress, no less than the public, will not endure much longer its high-handed domination. The re port charges: The Office of Price Administration has assumed unauthorized powers to legislate by regulation and has, by misinterpreta tion of acts of congress, set up a nation wide system of judicial tribunals through which the executive agency judges the ac tions of American citizens relative to its own regulations and orders and imposes drastic and unconstitutional penalties upon those citizens, depriving them in certain instances of vital rights and liberties with out due process of law. It is inconceivable that Congress intended to give OPA any such powers as it has usurped. It would be inconceivable to believe that Congress, with the Smith report before it, and with the evidence uncovered by its mem bers among their constituants during the re cent recess,' can consent to any continuation of OPA’s unconstitutional processes. If Congress did so, it would set aside its responsibility to the people to enact laws for the people’s protection. It would acknowledge that it is impotent to safeguard the public against fascism. Wilmington is ha.vmg a demonstration of just what the Smith report cites as typical of OPA practices. There are OPA agents in the city going from store to store searching for ceiling price violations and issuing sum monses with a free hand for violators to ap pear before a commissioner chosen from among its own personnel or in lieu of ap pearance to close up shop for an indetermin ate period of time, in which case the charges would be dropped. Clearly this is an unconstitutional procedure. In the first place an OPA Hearing Commis sioner has no Constitutional authority. And in the second, the agent of any tribunal, legal or not, has no constitutional authority to com promise with an offender. If he dees so, he compounds the offense. Quite as clearly, the OPA for all its denseness, cannot but know that to induce a merchant to close up if for only a fortnight is to drive him out of busi ness. Furthermore, the tenor of the summons indicates the OPA has little respect for the Common Law. which declares a man innocent until he is proved guilty, ana inclines to count him guilty until he has proved his in nocence. _ __ A investigators would be to find evidence of deliberate intent to defraud belore dragging a grocer before a Hearing Commissioner, whose own status under both Constitutional and Common Law is questionable, and unless such evidence is found to help him correct his errors. These investigators ought to know that not ane man in a thousand can understand, much less interpret, OPA directives, which are as contradictory as the fancies ol adolescence, instead of holding a big stick over store keep ers they would play a much better part in these difficult times if they bi ought aid in stead of threatening punishment. We have no thought of defending willful vio lators of ceiling prices, but we cannot remain silent when many mistakes pounced upon by the OPA investigators are due to the in ability of grocers to know what the OPA is driving at when it reverses itseii as often as a pendulum. The Smith report adds that the OPA "has developed an unauthorized and illegal judi cial system . . . and such intricate and in volved administrative review machinery that litigants are completely bewildered by the maze of procedure through which they must wander to eventually arrive at a court which will grant them oniy crumbs of relief.” The truth of this is being demonstrated in Wil mington today. ■ V — Reich Housing Shortage An interesting sidelight on the effect of Al lied bombings in Germany is revealed by Dr. Robery Ley, head of the German labor front. Germany is face to face with as great a housing shortage as any American war cen ter. Some 2,000,000 rooms, providing for -6,000, 000 Germans, have been destroyed, requiring a great shift in population and an equally great emergency housirg program. Doctor Ley, writing in Angriff, sums up the measures being taken to meet the housing situation, showing: 1. Since the start of the war 450,000 new homes have been built. 2. 100,000 dwellings are being reconvert ed from offices back into homes again. S. 100,000 unfinished dwellings are be ing completed. 4. Hundreds of thousands of utility bun galows are being turned out. This indicates that the Germans are working at top speed with their reduced facilities and if the war were to end today might meet the housing need. But the war is far from over and Allied bombings will be going on for a long time to come. As they continue and more dwellings are destroyed, it is obvious that the German peo ple will have ample time to learn the full significance of Goering s lie that no enemy plane should ever cross the German frontier. -V R. 0. T. C. Inspection However desirable it is that the world agree to lay down arms and all peoples dwell in peace, it is apparent that for a considerable time after this war there will have to be strong and efficient military forces, lest the conflict started by Hitler break out again and plunge us into another upheaval from which there could be no emergance. This being so, it is gratifying to learn that Wilmington’s R.O.T.C. unit has passed inspec tion with exceptional credit. These high school boys are maintaining the high efficiency which has always characterized the organization, as the report of the inspecting officer, Major A. D. Sanders, proves. There is justification in this for the belief that as the years pass and new pupils fill the ranks there will be no deviation from this fine record. On many of today’s battle fronts former members of the New Hanover High school R.O.T.C. are doing their part for victory. With equal ability we may be sure succeed ing unit* will perform the duties of soldiers of peace. Fair Enough (Editor's Note.—Tho Star and the News seeepta no responsibility (or the persona) views of Mr. Peeler, ind often dlsarree with them as mnch as many of kls rsaders. His articles serve the rood parpose at inakinf people think. \ BY WESTBROOK PEGLER NEW YORK.—A recent issue of the Honolulu Advertiser contained a small and, apparently, for Honolulu, commonplace, news item con cerning civilian absenteeism which should in terest all of us. It said that Capt. John F. Wickhem, provost judge, had made it “per fectly plain to defendants charged with ab senteeism yesterday in his court that he would not be lenient on offenders.” The Advertiser then named 13 men who had been sent to jail for terms of from 20 days to two months for this offense, eight of whom were fined from $100 to $150 in addi tion. Five got straight sentences of two months without fines. One got two months and $150. In the other cases, the fines were suspended but the men were sent to jail, six of them for 30 days and one for 20 days. The story does not say by what authority a military officer could impose these penalties for refusal to work but presumably that au thority has been established and recognized, possibly because Honolulu, in the light of Dec. 7. 1941, has been identified as a combat area. Similar action has been taken by Amer ican military authorities in other war zones in Afiica and the south Pacific against civi lian sailors for shirking duty and other mis conduct. mi _j- w Affionr in T-Tnnnlnln ic J.11C -- Maj. Gen. R. C. Richardson, the very model of the West Point soldier, who served a tour as commandant of cadets at the Military Aca demy and who is known in the Army as Nel lie Richardson for the reason, I believe, that he is so very precise, proper and strict. He is noted for his tenacity as well, which ex pressed itself not long ago in a conflict between the military authorities which he represented and upheld and the civil authority represent ed by a federal judge. I lost track of the controversy but believe the settlement was postponed, like the trials of the general’s pre decessor and of Admiral Kimmel, until a less crowded hour. I have an impression, how ever, that General Richardson did not lose the contest. Incidentally, for any light that it may throw on the present case, six of the 13 different absentees bore Japanese names and some of the others, at a guess, would be Filipinos. That may be insignificant, however, because there is a large element of citizens and other residents of Japanese blood and Filipinos. The man who sent the item described him self as an officer of the regular Navy who was present during the attack on Pearl Har bor and who has not been home to the main land since the war began. He wrote approv ingly of the sentences and indicated a convic tion that war workers at home who go out on strike are no better than these 13. In this he only voiced an opinion which has been ex pressed in other letters from men of the Navy, the Army and the Marine Corps in combat areas since John Lewis struck the coal mines last spring. They may not know the law, the issues, or the fine points of unionism but they are living under military compulsion them selves and in constant danger and they are, to understate their feelings, impatient. It would be absurd to sugges at the Present stage of the game that similar proceedings could take place against strikers m war pro duction jobs on the mainland ii on y the reason that strikes are so c°mm' and strikers so many. Nevertheiess mean while, an indirect approach to eompuli3i°n £as been made at home under toeJfr”^itrary lists job-freezing orders and through d e of nondeferable occupation^. £ oeen man,. . forcing ostensibly free the incidental effect ot tore s nprmission men to pay tribute to 4e^overn. to work at jobs fheslg“£auve” to military ment, often as the altern been service. Union ieaoers ^“compulsion for observed, have approved this cm v this reason. oases approximate Possibly the Honolulu s^embering that fascism but it is worth ter_revolution fascism in Italy wf Hth"Xn some ele against an aggravated c d made their ments of which nave shea y ^ tempor. ary'absence11 and^Apolitical voicelessness of millions of the most patriotic and vigorous citizens of the republic. We haven’t really begun to rnake^any^atri^ fices in the United States as armoyances to what I’ve seen today our u jndeed _ and sacrifices at home s®e Mo™enthau, Jr., Treasury-Secretary Henry Mo B from Italy,. ' M _“THE RACE TKACK”_ [ Raymond Clapper Says: The Government Faces New Manpower Problem WASHINGTON. — The govern ment is facing a new kind of manpower probiem. Its nature is suggested by Ihe fact that Charles E1. Wilson, executive vice-chair man of WPB, wants to return to his business as president of Gen eral Electric. His case is one of dozens. Hil and B. Batcheller. a steel execu tive, wants to be relieved as op erations vice-president of WPB in order to return to his private business. In the important sec ond and third echelons of the gov ernment war agencies are many high grade executives. industry specialists, men without whom the conversion to war production could not have been done so success fully, who feel they must return to their private businesses. This is a most difficult kind of a prospective manpower shortage to deal with. For instance. Charles E. Wil son resigned his position as pres ident of General Electric, and gave up a $175,000 salary for one of $8,000 in the government. He has been here about a year and has been the sparkplug especially of the airplane production j o b during that time. Production is well up over 8.000 a month. Wilson's achievement in heavy bombers is one of the most gratifying production jobs of the war. These war production men here feel their major work is done. Most raw materials are now pro duced in abundance beyond war requirements. In fact some con version back, or into other lines of war work, is going on. Wilson has been with General Electric 40 years. It is a gigantic company. When conversion back tc peacetime takes place, a tre mendous job of management will be required, taking everything that an executive like Wilson can give it His General E'lectric job now is filled by Gerard Swope, who was called from retirement. Al though Swope is an elderly man, he pitched in and kept up the schedule of visiting three General Electric plants a week, the same as the bounding younger Wilson had been doing. It is a heavy strain. Dozens of other big industrial concerns will need their executives back for the conversion period. For this is bound to be much more difficult than was conver sion to war work. Seventy per cent of industrial production has been turned into war. That was driven by patri otic pressure. There was no sales problem. The government was the single customer. It knew what it wanted. It helped provide the materials and even the labor. The whole operation was underwritten. But it will be something differ ent to get back into civilian pro duction, to locate materials, to get sales organizations developed to compete in the market suc cessfully, to apply inventions and technical advances to civilian goods. Dnl if *-.^4- _ . . '-aav iur xne government to lose all of its skill ed industrial brains. Conversion back is a difficult government task : also. Will the least efficient war manufacturers be dropped first, ; and the exficient ones held on to ■ provide the remaining war equip ment: That seems logical from ; But rfnTnt’s point of v i e w. , But that only gives the least ef- . k Eicient manufacturer a chance to get back into peace production and out to the customers while the more efficient manufacturer is held to war work. It penalizes the most efficient producer and he may have difficulty in ever regaining his place in post war competition. To whom is the government go ing to give priorities for materi als? For there probably will be need to continue control for a time. But for how long w-ill be another question. Bernard M. Baruch is staying on to make policy in these mat ters. But he can't do the job alone. Perhaps new industry committees will be his answer, but even that will not make it possible for all businessmen to leave the 'govern ment. -V You’re Telling Me MOTHS, according to Facto graphs, have been found flying over the ocean as far out as 1,000 miles from shore. Tracking down, no doubt, some sea captain’s over coat. ! ! ! The optimist thinks of a snowfall in terms of flakes— the pessimist in terms of shov elsful. t • i A post-war planner’s “castle in the air” most likely will turn out to be just a transport plane filling station. ! ! ! Zadok Dumkopf says Diogenes had a soft snap trying to find an honest man. For a real test, says Z. D., old Dioge should have tried to find a department store Santa Claus that looked like Santa Claus. As Others Say It MICKEY'S AMOURS. Hollywood reports have it that Mickey Rooney, youthful movie star, who married a North Caro lina girl and recently divorced her, is comtemplating another matri monial venture. The same report has it that the young woman men tioned by Rooney as his prospec tive bride, empnatically denies the engagement, saying that she would not “take him from a Christmas tree”, or something to that effect. We don’t know what her name is but at least she is a “girl after our own heart.” if those are her senti ments.—Kinston Daily Free Press. IT A REMINDER. The late Nikola Tesla, the wiz are of electricity, said one day in an interview: “Statesmen every where are promising us a new and better world but in the midst of the gunfire and the slaughter and the grief, let us remember that every kind of progress is a novel ty but every kind of novelty is not progress."—Philadelphia Evening Bullitin. -V-— ANOTHER UNION SUIT. Organized laundry workers in the west are refused a court in junction. But what’s another lost union suit, among so many?—Ra leigh Times. -V INFLATION RUN RIOT. It was 20 yearn ago that the German government, finally decid ed to withdraw the paper mark from circulation and substitute a new stable currency. At the time of the substitution the paper mark was selling at the fantastic price of 420.000,000,000 to the dollar, a purely “metaphysi cal” value. It has been charged that the German government deliberately engineered the destruction of the value of the mark as a postwar fiscal policy Be that as it may, the inflation that brought so much distress to the German people af ter the first world war set an ex ample which no other nation in its right mind wants to follow.— Greenville, (S. C.) News. The Literary Guidepost By JOHN SELBY “We Followed Our Hearts To Hollywood,’’ by Emily Kimbrough (Dodd, Mead; $2.50). You remember “Our Hearts Were Young and Gay,” which was the quaint story of a trip ?.broad, undertaken some years sack by Cornelia Otis Skinner find her friend Emily Kimbrough. Sfou also may remember that this book was a thumping success, that it was bought for Hollywood, and that its two authors were engaged by Paramount to work an the movie script. The infor mation was bruited about the Hol y-wood columns at considerable ength. Well, when the work out there was done Miss Skinner was hired tor a part in another picture and Miss Kimbrough went home to ler children, her poodles, and all he rest of her menage. She had lothing to do but keep house, so ;he wrote the facts of her Holly wood life down, and these have idded up to a book called “We rollowed Our Hearts to Holly wood.” It’s a grand job, prob ’.bly as funny as the trip abroad, md strangely interesting for an :ther reason. The reason is its iomewhat glorified, but I suspect | • accurate, picture of what really goes, out there. When the innocents arrived in Hollywood they faced a battery cf news cameras willingly, only to find that the cameras were awaiting Joe Louis, not Skinner and Kimbrough. Their apartments at the hotel were magnificent, suitable for wearing sables in— but the hotel didn’t serve lunch, for which the guests went across the street to a drug store. At Paramount a most engaging care lessness obtained — there seemed to be no hurry about their job, their secretary kept herself hid den for days, nobody paid any attention to them, and for that matter, nobody told them where or how to draw their pay. Emily found herself looming over the mountains of Bataan, by mischance, and a woman in a skirt made of mink was seen on the street. Cornelia developed an odd habit of taking out her chew ing gum and throwing it away when she had anything important to contribute, and the script went forward, usually ^ by going back ward. There were some incred ible mixups, and yet somehow the script got itself done. Later, as seems usual, most of it was thrown away. And Emily liked it all— she went back as “technical ad viser” for the shooting, in fact. Inside Washington WASHINGTON. - Mihtarv oh. ervers In the capital are cou. 'ineed that the present -island •' stand” campaign in the Southwest ’acific will end witn the success ul conclusion of the current M Arthur offensive. Once the last Jap strongholds n the Northern Solomons. Ncw Guinea, New Britain and New I. . and aie cleared, the real te-a • American and Allied strate <v -» :ome. The United States and United Nations high commands then w nave to decide in which direct m to concentrate their next main, olows against the Rising Sun There are two theories on > h e matter: 1- Gen. Douglas MacArthurs idea is to drive into the Ph-Ulin pines, possibly to the southern is land of Mindinao, and thence northward to Manila. 2— Once the Navy has enough aircraft carriers and ships for a large scale movement, it probabh will want to strike into the hea;* of Japan's mandated islands. If MacArthur should have his way, the Navy would have to p,‘. powerful naval forces under his command to carry out his mill tary ideas as he spes fit. However, Navy men have made no secret of the fact that once the South and Southwest Pacifc campaigns are over, the war against Japan will be largely a “Navy show” with a Navy man d.. recting the operations. xne nouse ways and Means committee, which originates all tax bills, has adopted the dodse of not taking record votes on tax proposals. The unconcealed pur. pose is to prevent the public from finding out how members vote on tax increases. It all began when Rep. Donalj H. McLean (R.) of New Jersey, was publicly mentioned as having voted to increase the liquor tax from $6 to $10 a gallon. McLean squawked at a secret, session of the committee, complaining bitter, ly that the liquor interests of his state kept him on the telephone half the preceding night. Chairman Robert L Doughton (D.) of North Carolina, also was irked, feeling that some commit teeman had been discourteous to him by taking the liberty of dis closing how McLean voted. Dough ton made all committee members vow to leave public announcements to him. Subsequently, the chairman re fused to reveal how members vot ed in rejecting a general sale tax, despite an unprecedented let ter from reporters demanding the information. The reporters insist ed secrecy violated the democrat ic principle of accountability of elected officials to their constitu ents. The committee held a hush-hush confab on the matter but stood firm behind Doughton. Then it de veloped that the group was not taking record votes to make dou bly sure that the "ayes” and “noes” of its members are kept secret. Newsmen in Washington got a "break” on the recent announce ment of the Moscow pact. OWI Director Kilmer Davis and Censorship Chief Byron Price squelched an attempt to "censoi the United States press. Oddly enough, the “censorship" proposal came from their American repor torial colleagues in Moscow. The Moscow reporters, feeling that they ought to be allowed to write the +'inal climactic chapu1 to the conference of foreign min isters, asked for seven hours lee way to transmit then stories and also a stipulation that if the nev was picked up in transition < German radio, no United States paper would use any story which the Nazis might broadcast. Davis and Price promptly tim - ed thumbs down on the latter idea at a conference with Acting Sec reta„ oI Slate Edward Moreover, it was agreed lease the stories simultane Moscow, London and Washn f three hours after reporter i inh * cities were given the text of the agreements. Daily Prayer for audacity Thy word, O Lord, has Pr°n‘j; that “the people that kn°W God shall be strong, and do ^ j ploits.” We crave the of this word in ourselves. ■ name and strength, we would « daring exploits—exploits of , exploits of ingenuity, exploits ; audacity. Deliver us fr°m d F a sive mood of life, and , ; us mere defensive attitude u not be content with small se. Grant us heroic hearts, that P* the war on every front a. and abroad. We thank Thee ^ the exploits of our brave ■ ^ ^ action. Put into the hear ol ery service .man, and o ^ war worker at home, a c ■ , ness of Thine enabling Pr^* the confidence that we are ( mg for the goals of God » every one from the sin o • ^ erism. Enable us to . fi, the courageous patience ■ _ keeps on keeping on lant for new opportunnic • ■ ( exploits. Ths we Pra'’ J\mCn. name of the heroic Christ. —W.T.E. The man at the next desk his alma mater’s tootba 1 was so terrible this yea' . coach probably will award ters in lower case. ,
Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.)
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Nov. 16, 1943, edition 1
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