1 The Alamance Gleaner
' ?
VoL LXVIII GRAHAM, N. C., THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1943 No. 60
WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS
Farm Implement Quota Boosted by 30%;
Hitler's Disasters Mount as Russians
Speed Up Caucasus-Ukraine Offensive;
Tripoli's Fall Spurs Tunisia Drive
(KSITM'S NOTE: Wkn ipUtou ut ??tnwl la UtM itliui they are U*m ef
Westers NtwiHH' Uaiea's news analysts and set necessarily ef tkb newspaper.)
Released by Western Newspaper Union.
Closer relations between the United States and Chile and a harder
crackdown an Nasi espionage in South America were results expected
tram the recent action of the Chilean government in breaking diplomatic
n lslisni with the Axis. Shown above are Undersecretary of State Sumner
Wallas (left) and Senor Don KodoUo Michels, Chilean ambassador, dis
cussing the situation.
FOOD PRODUCTION:
Gets Netc Incentive
Two significant steps to spur the
"Food for Victory" campaign were
taken when the War Production
board authorized a 30 per cent in
crease in production of farm ma
chinery and Secretary of Agricul
ture Wickard announced a program
of federal credit designed to extend
from $200,000,000 to $250,000,000 to
farmers for stepping up essential
food production.
The WPB increased the steel al
lotment for farm machinery from
137,000 tons to 187,000 tons for the
first quarter of 1943. This new ton
nage was in addition to an increase
previously authorized for the pro
duction of repair parts for farm im
plements.
Mr. Wickard said loans needed
mostly by small and medium-sized
farmers would be extended through
foe Regional Agricultural Credit
corporation. Size of loans will be
limited only by the amount needed
to do foe production job. The loans
will be of short-term duration at 5
per cent interest.
NORTH AFRICA:
Death of Empire
Tripoli's fall had various meanings
lor various interpreters. To histori
ans it wrote finale to Mussolini's
grandiose dreams of empire, for it
was here the Duce had begun his
disastrous expansion policy. , To
military observers it meant that the
Allies could now concentrate closer
attention on cleaning up the last
Axis strongholds in Tunisia.
It had been apparent to observers
that Marshal Rommel's retreat
through Tripolitania had had Tuni
sia and" not Tripoli as its goal. Rear
guard efforts to protect the main
body of his retreat had constituted
the only action in and around Tripoli.
Allied airmen had not only strafed
doomed Tripoli, but General Mont
gomery's British eighth army and
General LeClerc's Fighting French
had constantly harried the retiring
Afrika Korps.
In Tunisia the Axis had made
strenuous efforts to cover Rommel's
withdrawal by launching offensive
thrusts against French positions
southwest of Pond-du-Fahs.
While junction of Rommel's army
with those of Nazi Col. Gen. Von
Arnim would strengthen Axis forces
in Tunisia, the Allies would similarly
be strengthened by the addition of
British and Fighting French troops
to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's legions.
PRICE RISE:
Predicted by Broun
As additional rationing and price
regulations were promulgated, the
American public learned that Price
Administrator Prentiss M. Brown's
direction of the OPA would be less
dramatic but no less firm than that
of his predecessor Leon Henderson.
Mr. and Mrs. Average Citizen
were assured by the new adminis
trator, however, that the OPA would
be operated solely for the protection
of the American people. Frankly
acknowledging that price rises were
irwvitable. Mr. Brown promised that
such rises would be "slow and well
ordered."
RUSS STEAMROLLER:
Impact Hurts Nazis
From Leningrad to the Black sea
the Russian steamroller offensive
rumbled on, gathering momentum
on all fronts. Nazi armies were
forced to yield ground won in bloody
battles last year, to surrender strate
gic "hedgehog" strong points and
to see supply and communication
lines shattered.
Russian sources asserted that
500,000 Germans had been killed
and 200,000 captured since the winter
offensive was launched in Novem
ber.
Red strategy had specially con
centrated on five key Nazi-held cities
between the Ukraine and the north
Caucasus. These were Kharkov,
steel producing center; Rostov, com
munications city at the mouth of the
Don river; Voroshilovgrad, industri
al metropolis of the Donets basin;
Salsk, important rail junction; and
Armavir, gateway to the Baku
Rostov oil railroad.
Possession of these cities would
not only open a vast reservoir of
materials and machinery to the Rus
sians, but it would loosen the Nazi
stranglehold on the central and
southern front. It would mean that
the Germans would have to fall all
the way back to the Dnieper river
and hold lines dangerously close to
Rumania, Poland and Lithuania.
CHILDBIRTH:
Pain Is Stilled
To a world snuffing out lives in
pain on scores of battle fields,
the American Medical association
brought tidings that the sufferings
attendant on life's beginnings might
be banished through a new method
of childbirth anesthesia that is with
out danger either to mother or baby.
Designated as "continuous caudal
anesthesia" the new technique was
developed by Dm. Robert Hingson
and Waldo Edwards of the Marine
hospital at Staten Island, N. Y.
Their report was corroborated by
statements from 19 other clinics and
hospitals which tested the new meth
od on 589 patients.
SOUTH PACIFIC:
Prelude by Air
"Softening up" attacks by air on
Jap-held Lae were carried on by
Allied fliers as a prelude to land
movements by General MacArthur's
forces. For Lae was the next call
ing spot on the Allies schedule after
mopping-up operations had been suc
cessfully concluded in the Sanananda
area, last Jap toehold in the Papuan
peninsula.
Aerial activity was not confined to
the Lae area, for American and Aus
tralian planes bombed shipping at
Finschaven and hit the airdrome
and wharf sections of Madang in
New Guinea. Elsewhere Allied air
men visited Cape Gloucester and
Gasmata in Jap-held New Britain
and strafed an enemy barge concen
tration off Willaumex peninsula.
In Australia, Allied bombers con
tinued their pounding of enemy war
ships and merchantmen far to the
north. At Ambon, 600 miles north
west of Darwin, they scored hits on
a cruiser and cargo vesseL
HARD COAL:
Miners Bow to FDR
Dangers of a crippling hard coal
shortage were averted and a face
saving maneuver for labor execut
ed when 12,000 Pennsylvania miners
returned to work after a three-week
old unauthorized walkout following
a curt ultimatum from President
Roosevelt.
The President had served notice
that unless the miners ceased their
wildcat strike within 48 hours, he
would take "necessary steps" to
safeguard the war effort.
A tangled skein of labor politics
had complicated the eastern hard
coal situation. Efforts of John L.
Lewis, president of the United Mine
Workers, and the War Labor board
to get the strikers back on the job
had failed. Strike leaders said the
miners had walked out in protest
against a UMW dues increase of SO
cents a month. The strikers, how
ever, had also demanded a $2 a day
wage increase.
AXIS TRUMP:
Subs Still Potent
Hurled back on all world fronts by
the ever-increasing ferocity of Unit
ed Nations attacks, the Axis still
controlled one ace offensive weapon
?German submarines.
Hitler was said by British Admiral
Sir Percy Noble to be maintaining 200
U-boats of his fleet of 500 at sea all '
the time in an effort to keep the
tremendous output of Allied war fac
tories from the battlefields. Unof
ficial British estimates placed Nazi
submarine construction at 15 to 20
a month?faster than naval experts
believe the Allies are sinking them.
Elmer Davis, director of the Of
fice of War Information, reported
that German submarines had sunk
more Allied shipping in January
than in December.
A brighter side of the picture
emerged, however, when the Lend
Lease administration announced that
the United States and Britain had
sent Russia 5,800 tanks and 4,600
airplanes up to January 1 and prom
ised that aid to the Soviet "will grow
still more in 1943." Regardless of
submarine wolfpacks, convoys were
getting through.
RUBBER:
Jeffers vs. RFC
With his synthetic robber pro
gram facing further curtailment so
that more convoy escort vessels can
be built and more high octane gaso
line produced for fighting fliers, Rub
ber Conservation Director William
M. Jeffers assumed control of all'
rubber import programs formerly
exercised by the Board of Economic
Warfare through the Rubber Re
mnn
serve company, a Reconstruction
Finance corporation subsidiary.
This action meant that henceforth
Jesse Jones, as head of the RFC's
Rubber Reserve company, which
supplies the money for operations,
would take orders from Mr. Jeflers
instead of from the BEW on rubber
imports. It meant, moreover, that
Jeflers hoped to bolster lagging syn
thetic rubber production by imports
as a means of keeping civilians sup
plied with automobile tires.
NAZI AIR RAIDS:
RAF Welcomes Reprisals
Tragic as was the death of scores
of school children in German bomb
ing raids on London, aviation author
ities hailed the renewal of Nazi at
tacks as a further opportunity to
weaken the Axis in the air.
Every raid means a further thin
ning of Hitler's already over-extend
ed air forces, these authorities point
ed out. In the biggest daylight air
assault on London since the 1940 bat
tle of Britain, the Nazis lost 13 planes
while the British lost two. Because
of improved anti-aircraft defense,
destruction and loss of civilian life
were held to minimum levels.
The German raids have been in
reprisal for gutting attacks on Ber
lin by large flights of RAF bombers
raining down four-ton "block bust
ers" on the Nazi capital, and spew
ing incendiary bombs that caused
untold damage. British losses on
these raids were comparatively light,
officials revealed.
WILLIAM M. JEFFERS
Tree Farming on Mined-Out Land
Answer to Coal Industry Problem
Stripped Acreage Being
Turned Into Recreation
Centers by Foresters.
Forest operators have been
called on by coal mine oper
ators to provide the answer to
one of the most annoying prob
lems which beset the coal indus
try?what to do with mined-out
land.
Tree-farming is proving to be
the answer. The forest oper
ators knew what it should be,
because to a lesser degree they
had a somewhat related prob
lem, which new crops of trees
have helped solve.
Coal miners call the devastated
areas of land surface left by strip
mining, "spoils." No word could
be more fitting than "spoil" in the
way the coal miners use it. After
the strippers have finished, the earth
surface looks to the public eye as if
it had been plowed by blasts from
hell.
The appearance of the stripped
acreage to the public eye does not
happen to be agriculturally true. The
fact is that the strip miners' steam
shovels have turned up virgin
soil which otherwise could never
have been touched by a plow nor
have nourished a seed; aerated it
by the shovels' action; enriched the
tumbled earth by mixing through it
broken-up limestone; and provided
new surface contours which hold .run
off water and raise the water level
for the entire surrounding area.
Trees can turn these "spoils" into
sections of recreational paradise, but
until the foresters have done their
work, the public remains blissfully
ignorant of this.
The "spoils" can support vegeta
tion, but the only plants passers
by see growing before the tree
farmers go to work are jimson weed
and an occasional volunteer brush.
The shoveled-up earth is full of rocks
that would defeat or break the
strongest plow, and the ridges and
depressions left by the shovels' turn
over would exhaust livestock pas
tured there if acreage could be put
to grass. Trees are an answer to
this Situation.
Strip Mining.
Strip mining is practiced in 21
states. Mine operators prefer to call
it "open cut" mining. By whatever
name, it is the oldest mining meth
od. Aboriginal man doubtless first
found "black stone" would burn
when he happened to light a fire on
an outcrop. Then with his rude tools
he forced the surface earth back to
uncover more of the hot and lasting
fuel. The only difference between
him and modern strip miners is that
with steam shovels we can go deep
er after the coal?60 feet down if
necessary. Instead of bringing the
coal to the surface, this method of
mining carries the surface down to
the coal.
Surface earth is piled up in steep
banked hills with intervening val
leys. The valley at the end usually
becomes, in the course of nature, a
lake storing run-off water.
PaMfa Dees Not Understand.
The public fails to grasp the pos
sibilities of such land. It sees a big
mud-bordered pond surrounded by
devastation. John Q. does not re
call, if he ever heard, the state
ment of the U. S. Bureau of Mines
that "strip mining is a means of
preventing waste of natural re
sources that can never be replaced."
John Q. is no geologist, no engineer.
He does not know that most of the
strip-mined coal veins are less than
three feet thick, so there would not
be room for men to burrow through
them if they could go underground;
and that they can't go underground
Decause in* ceilings 01 siaie over
these veins are so thin and crumbly
that no mine timbering could sup
port them.
Snbmarginal Land.
Most of the ground which bears
coal close enough to the surface to
be strip mined is submarginal which
government agricultural experts
have been urging for years be taken
from ordinary agriculture and put
back into woodland. In Indiana its
value before mining averaged only
$20 an acre in the nine southern
counties where there is "open cut"
pining. The college of agriculture
of the University of Illinois rates
grazing land on a score of from 1 to
10. "One" is tops; 10 is impossi
ble. Before the strippers went to
work, the land they shoveled in thst
state was rated 9.63?barely par.
When they got through it was rated
7.49?good enough to grow trees. The
strippers' shovels damaged surface
fertility, but did not destroy it
Stripping shovels do destroy earth
top humus. The deep fresh earth
tbey bring up to replace it lacks
nitrogen. If humus and nitrogen can
be returned, the new soil, because
it is virgin, will be fetter than it
was before. It has not been worked
out by improper farming or bleached
of its minerals by uncontrolled wa
ter. It has been enriched by min
erals mixed in from below. For
merly below average on the raters'
scale, the land is now well above.
Trees are regenerating this land
and making parks out of waste. In
Illinois alone, only one of the 21 strip
mining states, 7,290 acres of strip
mined land in 12 counties have been
planted with 7,000,000 trees since
1830, and the rate of forestation is
increasing so that 2,000,000 trees
have already been planted this year.
Favorite species tor the "spoils"
reforestsr? are black locusts and the
evergreen conifers. Black locust for
three reasons:
(a) It is a legume, a tree bean.
(b) It is a fairly fast-growing hard
wood tree, even in poor soU, and
sheds each autumn a large fall of
big !*????.
(c) From the time that it has
readied a diameter of four inches it
has commercial value; first as fence
posts; later as mine timbers and
ties.
The first of these reasons is most
important to the "spoil" reforester
because the peculiar function of the
legumes, in the book of the soil
chemists, is that bean-growing plants
put nitrogen into the soil?the crit
ical chemical lack of "spoiled"
earth.
Haass.
Humus is plant food ? decayed
vegetation. Its chief source is fallen
leaves. The broad leaves of hard
wood trees are its most prolific pro
vider. The "spoil" reforester is
faced with the problem of getting
as much humus on the surface of
the tumbled-up earth as possible,
as quickly as possible.
It it were not for the need of lay
ering humus on the soil the reforest
er might plant, except for black lo
cust, no hardwood trees at all. Be
would concentrate on the evergreens.
For the conifers, members of the
great pine family, will grow on land
too poor to support any other kind
of trees. Out of the first 8,000,000
trees planted by the "Open Cut Min
ing Industry of Illinois," 1,761,900
were black locusts, and 1,463,000
conifers. The needle-like leaves of
these evergreens drop only every
three or four years, but it is a con
tinuous process. Their "duff" does
not make as much humus as broad
hardwood leaves, but it is good
humus.
Favorite conifers for strip "spoil"
planting are those which are native
to poor soils?such hard-scrapple
evergreens as the Scotch pine, Nor
way spruce, and the red pine which
struggles a gallant living out of the
thin earth which veils the rocks of '
northeast Canada and the bleached
hillsides of abandoned-farm New
England and coal-country Pennsyl
vania.
Such species are grateful for the
mineral food the strip miners' shov
els have brought up from under
ground. They grow much more lux
uriantly and rapidly on the "spoils"
than they do on the untumbled land
nearby, and far better than they ever
did at home. A large proportion of
the conifers included in the 6,000,000
trees planted on Indiana "spoils"
during the 1930s are now 10 or 13
feet high, covering the steep-pitched
banks of the lakes created by the
shoveled-up contours. At least one
observer is reminded by this refor
ested land of the Irish Hills of Michi
gan and the forest-bordered lakes of
the Adirondacks.
Forests Replaceable.
The (oreat producta industries are
able to five the open-cut mine op
erators constructive aid and advice
because they formerly faced a prob
lem which, while not so (rave, was
similar. Early loggers looked on
forests as if they were mines. Both
timber and coal are natural re
sources; the prime difference is that
once coal has been mined it is gone,
while forests are replaceable. Long
ago loggers were faced by a triple
economic problem;
First, land had to be cleared be
fore it could be farmed. Woodcut
ters were the first pioneers, proud of
their accomplishment when their
axes "let light into the swamp" the
life-giving sunlight without which
corn could not grow.
Second, the country was in urgent
need of harvested wood for construc
tion lumber, for fencing, and for
fuel. In 300 years it took seven
trillion two hundred billion board feet
of lumber to build this country. .
And third, the pioneers were faced
with seemingly endless mature for
ests. Only swift harvesting of some
of them could save them from the
deterioration of old age. As a mat
tar of silvicultural fact, this is still
true of thousands of thousands of
square miles of forestland in Amer
ica. Harvesting virgin ponderoea
pine has in soma sections resolved
Itself into a race against the beetle,
plague of these aged trees. Harvest
ing soma stands of virgin Douglas
fir is a race against internal tree
decay. If we are to continue to have
forests in those sections many old
trees need to be removed so that a
new young tree crop can grow.
Enough farm land was finally
cleared. In some sections of the
country, too much. Some harvested
forestland proved unfit to farm.
Trees were the natural and only use
ful crop these acres would grow.
New England and southern loggers
found themselves harvesting second
and even third-growth trees. The
evidence was inescapable. These
trees Were volunteer crops.
Giant lhorela Ml uU< the ererburden and expose the coal.
Planting joaif P*?e trees m stripped acreage.
WHO'S I
NEWS
This Week
*F
I?d F. fit*
Consolidated Features.?WNU Btitua.
XTEW YORK-?The swelling army
^- of these embattled United
States travels triumphantly on a
stomach Ailed ? stuffed ? by Gen.
Edmund B.
Keeps Army on Gregory. It
The Go With It* is his guaran
Stomach Stuff md
general, that army groceries will
put six pounds at least on any sol
dier who eats them regularly for
six months.
The general pat ea his ewa six
pounds long age. Fer years. In
fact, he would have been hap- -
pier with a few el. No lack!
Sixtyish bow he Is bread ef face
and broad ef beam. And tor all
that a few congressional critics
growl in his direction, he ie gen
erally reputed to be a bread
gauged executive. His degree
from West Point is only a lesser
qualification for his pseaent )eb
ef having plenty piping hat when
four odd million American sol
diers Jam Into mess halls all
ever the globe. He did a tour ef
post-graduate duty at the Har
vard Business school besides a
swing through the war college.
This last attests to Ids IjQ. Ten
have to be bright before the
army lets yen go there.
General Gregory was bom in Iowa
and it could be that boyhood strug
gles through Iowa's mud fit him pe
culiarly now for the job at moving
goods regardless. His fleet of trucks
would make Genghis Khan's biggest
train of pony carts look like some
thing out of Lilliput. He has to fig
ure on 230,000 vehicles for every
1,230,000 soldiers. He is one swivel
chair general whose shiny pants
seat is the result of hard work. And
if ever his wife of 31 years gives
his wide front a look and says,
"Edmund, you really ought to diet
a little," he can fairly answer that
he has to keep on eating to keep up
his strength.
??
COME people grow surer every
^ day that the wings of peace will
take all America into the air. Pol
ish off this war, they say, and aerial
flivvers will
All America May become so
Take to Air With foolproof, so
as is
use them to run down to the gro
cery. Whole families will go vaca
tioning deep into South America and
whatever is left of Europe. It will
be push-button travel. A button for
elevation. A button for distance. A
button for correct for drift A safe
ty button to fend off other craft
If this miracle ever esmes to .
pass Mae Short will certainly
have bad something to do with
the planet that make It passi
ble. He has bees 1 eve Hag to
ward tome such result over
since he tested home-made glid
ers and his own skeletal struc
ture off the ridge of his father's
bars in Kansas. That was mora
than 25 years ago. Now he la
the new president ef the Society
of Automotive Engineers, an
earth hound name that only hints
at the aero-dynamies with wWeh
' many members, the new presi
dent included, busy themselves.
Short was in the army air service
at 19, a flying lieutenant when the
last World war ended, a graduate
mechanical engineer in 1923 and bo
has been an airplane engineer and
designer ever since. He formed the
Vega Aircraft corporation in Cali
fornia in 1937 and for three yean
has spent all his time taking the
bugs out of that company's ships.
Forty-flve now, he is married and
has two daughters and a son.
?
JAMES L. FLY, chairman at the
Federal Communications com
mission, squares off and gives the
radio industry the eye. Radio gives
it right back.
FCC Chief, Radio if Gmgress
Indattry Clubby man Loco
A? Kilkenny Cods ^plTo'l
women as opposite she'd have them
in each other's hair before you could
say frequency modulation The com
missioner and the industry have
been that way about one another
ever since the commissioner took
: over in 1939. He eras re appointed
last year so there is every likeli
hood that they will continue.
Mr. Fly new draws bleed wtth
vulgarity oa radio programs has
Me FOC tfh? '?