THE DANBURY REPORTER
Established 1872 Volume 72
The Passing Show Of '43
THE AXIS PAYS y
Germany and Italy are paying an appalling
price now for their brutality and treachery as
steel wings are dropping all the harrowing de
struction of Sodom and Gomorrah over their
cities.
Allan A. Michie in the Reader's Digest tells
about the bombing of the Reich and Italian cit
ies by British and American air fleets:
Lubeck, Rostock, Emden, Cologne, Wilhelm
shaven, Mainz, Karlrushe, Dusseldorf cities
where submarines and airplanes are manu
factured —have been pulverized.
The extent of the damage, Mr. Michie says, is
colossal. The Germans are trying to keep secret
the terrible destruction, but they can't keep it
secret from the photographs made by the
flyers showing the damage.
It will be remembered that in the Nazi raid of
December 29, 1940, on the city of London, the to
tal area of demolished buildings equalled 100
acres.
The stolid English took their medicine, dug
out and buried their dead me?, women and child
ern, then went to work building more and big
ger planes.
Now listen- -
On Cologne, the third largest German city, the
RAF's concentrated raid poured more than 3000
tons of fire and steel in 90 minutes. More damage
was done than the famous fire and earthquake
did to San Francisco. Over 2000 buildings were
razed and thousands of others made uninhabit
able. 200,000 people had to be evacuated. A third
of the city was totally destroyed.
At Lubeck, great submarine city, 3000 houses
were totally demolished and 42,000 people made
homeless.
Rostock is a dead city. More than 6,000 people
were killed and wounded, and 40,000 of the city's
115,000 population had to move away. Almost 70
per cent, of the city's acreage was leveled.
At Karlrushe, the town's center was gutted.
Nearly 260 acres were razed of buildings.
At Dusseldorf 100,000 incendiaries and explos
ives were dropped. Thirty factories were demol
ished. The total damage area covered 380 acres.
The center of Bremen is a heap of debris. Hard
ly a block of Hamburg remains intact. In Nurn
burg 4 square miles honeycombed by fire and
blast.
Almost half of Aachen and Munster, where
3,000 people were killed, are demolished.
this destruction happened before January.
The destruction wrought by American and Brit
ish bombers the last 30 days, the greatest yet,
has not been accounted. Nor the terrible ruin
visited on the cities of Italy during the last few
days.
How long can the criminals who set the pace
for this appalling disaster, and the leaders of the
plot to enslave the free peoples of Europe and
America—how long can they stand this fearful
retribution that has descended upon them ?
The terms are UNCONDITIONAL SURREN
DER ...
Danbury, N. C., Thursday, February 11, 1943 Published Thursdays
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Tomorrow is the birthday of one of America's
! greatest statesmen.
i We pause to give respect to the memory of Ab
raham Lincoln because he was the friend of the
I South in the dark days when men's souls were
j tried, when our people had taken their baptism
of fire and blood and humiliation and defeat.
i The slave-traders of Boston and New York had
iunloaded thousands of Haves on Southern plan
ter?. The abolitionist North then wanted the
!slaves frecl. but was unwilling that congress
I should pay the investors for the loss of their
i property.
I Before it would be co-erced the South would
fight for its rights. It seceded from the Union.
! The terrible war followed.
I The South, after 4 years of unexampled suffer
ing and sacrifice and of resistance to ten times
the number of its own soldiers, and the irresist
• ible power of the Federal Government, bankrupt,
ragged and starving, yielded. It could do no more.
The heads of the party of Lincoln wanted the
South punished and humiliated. Lincoln inter
vened. "Let the erring sisters go in peace," he
counseled.
Though Jefferson Davis and other outstanding
Southerners were imprisoned, the right of suf
frage was denied the white men while granted
to the ignorant slaves, and the country south of
Mason and Dixon line subjected to humiliations j
that have not been forgotten to this day, still
the amelioration of Lincoln's advice was felt and
though dead his influence lived.
Every true Southerner will remember the
friendship of Abraham Lincoln and ever honor
his memory.
SNAP GOES THE BACKBONE OF WINTER
Not only the oomph girls will welcome the re
turn of the sunshine and roses.
The dullest bachelor enjoys the wine-like
warmth of the sweet south in his bones and lis
tens with pleasure when the bluebird is warbling
in the ether.
But there will be more mean weather yet. It is
only that the worst is over. Cold winds will
sweep in from the Blue Ridge, and cold swishing
showers from Norfolk harbor. The Three Sisters
of the Swarries may put on again the silver coats
lof sleet which they wore a week ago.
But the backbone of winter is broken. The bull
frogs have sung in the meadow. Soon violets will
peep out, the fleur-de-lis will open its surprised
eyes in the waking woods. The blacksnake will
craw T l up on the rock to warm .
The spirit of springtime from somewhere
where gardens are blooming is loitering near.
THE EXTRA SCHOOL MONTH—WHAT
SHALL BE DONE WITH IT
Maybe it should be devoted exclusively to the
three R's—readin' 'ritin' and 'rithmetic, and to
the elimination of the three B's—biology, botany
and basketball.
A return to the red-headed curriculum of the
little red school hquse oil the hill —for a month,
EDITORIALS
IS HITLER DEAD?—WE HOPE SO
There is a renort that Hitler is dead.
It may be so or not so. If true, his co-assassins
would not admit it for fear of itr> devastating - ef
fect on Hun morale, and its injury to Hun prest
ige in neutral countries.
Besides, these bandits would not want to af
ford so much satisfaction in England, America
and Russia.
However, why should we center our hate on
the Fuehrer, when all his pals and a goodly por
tion of the German people are fully as ambitious,
arrogant and bloodthirsty as he.
The proud ruthless Prussian spirit is at the bot
tom and behind the crimes of Hitler.
One of the most eminent and conservative
writers of the world says:
"I am convinced that the world could make no
greater mistake than to treat the German peo
jpie as innocent victims of bad leadership. Their,
good qualities are of tremendous potential value
to the world. Put they will remain only of poten
tial value until Germany as a nation, and as a
I mass of individuals, is purged of the poison
|which was in them before Hitler came to power,
land which alone made that aberration from in
jternational sanity possible.
"For I never met a German, even among those
'who talked loudest against Hitler, whose eyes
did not gleam over the speed and success of the
j attack on Poland. I knew only one who was
'ashamed of the rape of Czechoslovakia. I never
found one who did not lind some point in the
Nazi platform to approve.
"There must be no turning back from the task
until Allied troops march down the Linden in
Berlin and German militarism has been turned
into dust in the mouths of the German people."
THE DAY OF RECKONING x K j
The Japanese war lords are very careful to
keep the rats at home in the dark about the ter
rible disasters that have come to them in the
Solomons and at Buna at the hands of the Amer
icans who always remembered Pearl Harbor.
When the last Japs were smashed out, the high'
command gave it out that they had evacuated
Guadalcanal "after fulfilling their mission."
They did not say "their mission" wa> to re-tako
4 ;he island and that in failing dismally they lost
j 25,000 to 40,000 men killed, and that the "ovacua-
Ition" was not back to the Jap army but to the
Jap heaven —wherever that rat hole may be.
But it will take more than 40,000 dead rats to
T.ay for Pearl Harbor.
From the assembly line> in half a hundred
American steel factories bombers are rolling
out at the rate of nearly 6,000 a month now.
This news must sound like the knell of doom
to the most treacherous race in the world who
must answer yet for their treachery at Pearl
Harbor.
at least—would be healthy for high school grad
uates.
Good reading is rare, good writing extinct, and
good arithmetic an abstrusity possessed by but
few.
* * * * Number 3,693