;■ THE DANBURY REPORTER
Established 1872
Editorial Slant On the News
LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED
If you are gloomy over the bending of the Rus
sian lines, and the present unlikely situation of
the United Nations, recall March, 1918, when
the world was trembling as Hun armies after 4
years of unbroken victories were crashing to
wards the channel ports.
France was bled white, England had lost the
flower of her soldiery and was enlisting 60-year
old men for service.
Yet —look you—ninety days later the onrush
ing Germans were reeling, and six months later
asked for the armistice.
American divisions weie blasting- through the
Argonne forest and crossing the Hindenburg
line, and soon it was all over but the shouting.
America, destined then as now the savior of lib
erty, has been at war only six months.
At the outset treacherously attacked, heinous
ly unprepared, surprised and unready, this na
tion was not war minded.
Today an army of 4,000,000 men grows steadily
and trains methodically.
With a navy strongest in the world, with an air
force increased by 5,000 planes a month, with a
steel production of 97,000,000 tons, twice as big
as all Europe's production including Japan's,
with manpower practically untouched, with un
limited food supplies, America has not yet
thrown its colossal resources into the balance.
Russia's armies are slowly retreating but are
intact. Russia's resources beyond the Urals are
waiting. Russian manpower is far greater than
Germany's.
Fourteen months ago. Hitler w?.s given 3 weeks
to conquer Russia 2 taking LerJrgrad and Mos
cow.
Leningrad and Moscow have not yet been talc
en. Unconquerable Russia reels but does not fall,
and never surrenders. As the enemy creeps for
ward he pays in unmeasured blood and unnum
bered dead and wounded.
England has suffered defeats on many fronts,
but yet no English land is occupied by the foe.
The great British fleet still rides the waves. The
great British air force daily and nightly blasts
German industries. British manpower is still
practically unused.
The resources of the axis are at their peak. Ger
many has shot its bolt, and it falls short. The con
quered populations of France, Poland Czechoslo
vakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, are yet unconquered,
and await the day to rise to the help of the arm
ies battling for freedom.
Hitler and his co-assassins will meet the fate
that a God of justice holds for those who would
enslave their fellow man and plunge the world
into agony, tears and blood.
Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon rode toward
world victory through seas of stiffened corpses.
, They never reached their goals.
Today these tyrants sleep beneath the dust of!
the centuries and their empires have crumbled
into the oblivion of forgotten ages.
The time is drawing near for the turn of the
tide against Germany, and it will be a crimson
tide of destruction—burning, resistless, inexor
able. , r
Let no American heart grow weak in this day
of disaster.
Behind the dark cloud the sun of victory and
freedom is shining.
Soon it will burst forth in its brilliance and
jbeauty and healing.
Volume 71
, N. C., Thursday, An v. 9, 1942 * * *
THE STUPENDOUS INCOME OF THE
UNITED STATES
| The Commerce Department Tuesday issued an
'announcement that the first half of the present
'year showed an American income of more than
52 billions of dollars, and that as the latter halt'
always exceeds the first six months, the year 1942
will probably show an income of far more than
105 billions.
The yearly earning power of this nation there
fore overtops the entire national debt.
If the government is on the brink of bankrupt
cy, as some would predict, expei.di lures far be
yond even war costs must, be incurred.
GERMAN SPIES SHOULD BE SHOWN
NO QUARTER
With our boys going to the front to risk their
lives on every battle front to save the liberties
of this nation, a short shrift and no quarter
should be accorded the German spies.
The President is reviewing the case of the eight
saboteurs caught with the goods.
The people have already considered the case.
Their verdict is the firing squad.
The atmosphere of this free land is too pure to
be poisoned by the breath of German spies.
Let them meet the fate which would be certain
if they were Americans caught spying in Ger
many.
AUTUMN AUGURIES
There's a saffron tint in the poplars, the katy
dids have come, and early corn is hardening in
the shuck.
Squirrels chatter in the big hickory woods, the
owl hoots from the dead pine as he winks at the
moon, and ribaldry floats down the valley echo
ing from the tobacco barn on the ridge where the
night vigil is kept over the sweet commodity that
coaxes in the cash —atta boy!
In the weeds that grow in the stubble by the
leaf-dyed stream that ever chants its lullaby,
apricots are ripe. Muscadines blush in the vine
entangled thicket. Young rabbits, getting grown
and bold, gambol in open places. The rattlesnake
that lies where grazing cattle tread, whose hate
is turned on everything and whose bite is swifter
than light, is still blind. Look out for him.
August is the hinge on which the year turns to
ward Autumn, the season of melancholy and
memories.
BIG INCREASE IN CIGftRfcTTK
PRODUCTION
The Department of Agriculture this week fore
casts a big increase in cigarette production.
Thanks to wise government control of produc
tion in response to the wise request of the grow
ers themselves, and thanks to the wise provisions
of lend-lease demands from Europe, the position
Jof the tobacco farmer is highly favorable.
The markets in this belt soon to open for the
purchase of an excellent crop, will scatter a pros
perity around second only to the golden eras of
11918-1919-1920.
BORDER BELT MARKETS OPEN WITH
PRICES STILL HIGHER
The 16 tobacco markets of the Carolinas bor
der belt opened yesterday with prices $4.50 to
$16.25 higher than last year's opening.
The U. S. Agriculture Department says the
prices are at the highest levels for years.
Published Thursdays
VICTORY THROUGH AIR POWER
In his book "Victory Through Air IWer," and
later in articles published in the newspapers and
magazines, Major Seversky shows that victory
may come quickly to the United Nations when
they control the air.
i
i Seversky says fleets of warships are out of
| date and that the battleship is obsoVte.
! These great machines which require two or
three years to build and which cost around 100
million dollars each, are helpless against land
based planes.
It is noted that the government has slowed up
on battleships, and has adopted instead a pro
gram of airplane carriers.
The writer says this policy is wrong, that the
carriers themselves are also helpless against the
land-based plane.
Seversky advocates huge planes that can fly
to Germany and back home without refueling—
land-based machines that carry tremendous
loads of bombs and are capable of great speed
and power. „
He proves his case by showing that while Ger
many has practically no navy, yet the great nav
lies of Britian and America cannot approaci- the
German-held coasts for fear of the land-based
German planes.
In the war so far, he points out, practically all
the warships of Germany and Japan that have
:been sunk by England and America were the
victims of airplanes. # ,
Somebody has said that the only thing the bat
tleship has done in this war was to sink.
This newspaper has always believed that the
salvation of this nation is the airplane, and more
than three years before this war started, advo
cated the building of 100,000 of the finest and
best planes in the world.
At that time Congress was humming and haw
ing over a program to produce "3,500 planes by
1942"'—in the then distant future. . .
Mr. Wheeler, Mr. Borah, Mr. Johnson of Cali
jfornia, Mr. Vandenburg, Mr. Reynolds of North
jCarolina, and various other isolationist:* in the
'Senate —men without vision or guts -were bit
terly fighting every gesture toward sea, land or
air preparation.
Wheeler declared later —and was vociferous
ly applauded—that if Germany could not reach
England across 30 or 40 miles of channel, how
foolish to fear she could ever reach America.
When victory comes to the United Nations it
will come on the wings of an invincible air power.
STOKES FARMERS DOING THEIR PART
TO WIN THE WAR
In the long run food wins wars. It is the urgent
desire of the government that ample supplies oi*
food be raised, as this country will have to feed
the great armies now being trained as well as
supply in a large degree the people of other
countries.
The farmers of Stokes county are doing their
part loyally, and rarely if ever before have there
been such crops of wheat, corn and vegetables of
all kinds produced in this county.
* * * * Number ,3663