Houston home journal. (Perry, Houston County, Ga.) 1924-1994, October 09, 1941, Image 2

Houston home journal., October 09, 1941, Image 2

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Newspaper Page TextWashington, D. C. 1941’s ‘GREATEST TRAGEDY’ You don’t have to wait for his torians to record the fact that the greatest tragedy of the year 1941 as far as this war is concerned is the way the British have twiddled their thumbs, watched the Russians, and done almost nothing except cheer. Over three months have passed smce Hitler sent his mechanized masses hurtling across the Russian border, and in that time the British sent only a trickle of help. Yet the British knew that pro longed Russian resistance was the biggest chance they had of defeat ing Hitler. They also knew that Hitler’s tactic always has been to pick his victims one by one. Yet realizing this, the British have done virtually the same thing Poland did when Czechoslovakia was in vaded, what Jugoslavia did when Bulgaria was invaded, and what Turkey did when Jugoslavia was invaded. They have merely sat on the sidelines, sent 200 airplanes, plus a mission to Moscow, taken a good long rest—and cheered. Second Front? Meanwhile, the general staff ad visers of both the British and Amer ican armies have bluntly warned that the Russians were sure to be defeated unless a second front was created against Hitler. This second front against Hitler meant, of course, a British expedi tionary force landing in France, Holland or Spain. This question has been discussed carefully behind the scenes, but the British have wanted two things: one was tanks, most of theirs having been de molished at Dunkirk; the second has been an American Expedi tionary force to help them. The British did not really push this idea of an A.E.F., for they knew politically it was impossible for Roosevelt. But nevertheless they did want company in attempting to land troops on the Continent. They had plenty of troops in England—in fact so many that there has been restlessness and bad morale be cause of inactivity. It is true that these troops are not completely equipped and are sadly lacking in tanks. But there is considerable belief that they wore equipped sulliciently to make a land ing in Spain from Gibraltar; and that in France the local people would have risen up to welcome them. However, all summer long the British have maintained an “after you, Alphonse” attitude. Meanwhile the situation in Russia has become darker and darker—as every mili tary expert knew was inevitable. All of which brings up the vital question of exactly who is the dom inating factor in the now virtual Anglo-American alliance. We have thrown a very large pile of chips into the gamble on a British vic tory; yet no one seems to know whether the British are taking ad vice from us or whether we are tak ing orders from the British. Presi dent Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins may know, but if so they have not in formed those closest to them. * * * HITLER’S OIL PROBLEM Most of the reports from Russia look black; and to U. S. army ob servers they have been that way for some time. However, one en couraging factor stands out. This is the question of oil. Without oil no army or navy can move. And despite the tremendous areas taken by Hitler in all Europe, he still faces, two years after start ing the war, almost the same oil shortage as before. Rumania, seized chiefly for her oil fields, has a capacity of 8,000,000 tons annually. However, the Rus sians bombed the Rumanian oil fields so badly that production is now down to about 4,000,000 tons or less. Germany itself has a synthetic gasoline production of about 3,000,- 000 tons, making a total annual pro duction today of about 7,000,000 tons. On the other hand, Germany is us ing oil and gas to operate its army at the rate of about 25,000,000 tons a year, most of which has come from reserves. It is estimated that Germany still has reserves on hand of 10 or perhaps 15 million tons. All of which means that the real pinch will come next spring. In other words, Hitler has enough oil and gas to last through the win ter, but by the end of the winter he absolutely must take the Russian oil fields of the Caucasus. In fact, he is sure to stage a terrific drive to take them even earlier. The tre mendous Nazi sacrifices to take Kiev and Odessa all were because those two cities are the path of the Nazi march to the Caucasus. Russian Chances. During the coming winter, howev er, the Russians should be able to hold out. The Caucasian mountains are high and rugged. The Russians have a huge force in this area. The British also have rushed troops through Iran to the border of i the Caucasus. However, if Hitler’s gasoline situ ation is even more desperate than indicated above—which may be quite possible—then he is almost sure to put the pincers on Turkey harder than ever before in order to drive on the Caucasus. | Youth Work Defense Program A new national defense work experience program of the National Youth administration, designed to fit young people for jobs in defense industries, has been put into operation. This new effort, the “Youth ff orh Defense Program,” for which congress appropriated 560,000,000 , will supplement the regular out-of-school work program of the National Youth administration. Young people , 17 to 21, who are N. S. citizens, out of school and in need of employment, are eligible. Here in the NY A work center girls learn, through actual on-the-job experience, how to operate metal machinery. Learning the elements of draft- Welding is one of the important ing will help this youth in reading jobs in metal industries. The NYA blueprints in the shop, is giving youth this experience. Shoulder to shoulder the boys and girls of America are finding their place in the defense program. r L . .. $ | ■ #' I “The youth themselves are our principal product,” says Aubn ff illiams, administrator of the National Youth administration. “The have been made to feel that they are part of a social structure.” America's youth learns correct work habits —one is being on time. HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL, PERRY, GEORGIA I WKL'Wrv*. IlMtlUa * $ Eleanor Roosevelt AN ENTERTAINING EVENING We had an interesting evening as we watched some short documenta ry films, and then two gentlemen, Mr. Charles L. Todd and Mr. Son kin, who have been making record ings of interesting folk songs and dance music in the migratory camps on the West coast, for the Library of Congress, played some of their records. One, a song by a boy of 14, was a gem, though he was covered with confusion and ran away when he heard it played! Many of the rec ords, like the song written by a woman about her trip from Texas to the West, were heart-rending, in spite of the fact that one could not i help laughing at certain little twists of language and expression. These recordings are going to be ■ historically interesting, but the in spiring thing to me is that people can live through such hardships and still have music in their souls and the ability to express themselves hopefully. Mr. Todd told me that when they have a dance, or are | happy, over the prospect of work or I some small event in their daily lives, these people apparently seem | to be able to enjoy themselves with complete forgetfulness of the past and the future. They have learned what so many of us do not learn— that the present is the only thing we really possess. ♦ * * CHINESE PHILOSOPHY That night I read a little volume, arranged for publication by Stan wood Cobb. It is called, “The Wis dom of Wu Ming Fu,” and is a col lection of his translated poems and sayings. The Chinese philosophy over the centuries has come to the same conclusion as our migrants, and they would agree wrth Mr. Fu that “it should be our concern to make each present moment per fect.” ‘WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS’ The next da? was most beautiful and four of us went by car to Sugar Loaf mountain and basked in the sun, with a beautiful view spread out below us After lunch, in the : shade of some trees, with the rocks j as our seats we read aloud the j preface to a Jihort anthology called “We Hold Xnese Truths,” compiled by Stuart Gerry Brown of Grinnell, lowa. This address impressed me, for I know two pretty good representa tives of what American citizenship means, who are now in Washing ton and who have had close associa tion with this same place in the past. This anthology is a collection of documents, written by our great men over the period of our whole history. Documents which all of us frequently want and should turn to, to clarify our own beliefs. One afternoon I received Dr. Juan Carlos Blanco, the ambassador of Uruguay and Madame Blanco, and Mr. Fernand Dennis, the minister of Haiti, and Madame Dennis. They were my first diplomatic visitors for the fall, and they certainly were charming ones. Secretary and Mrs. Morgenthau dined with us that night, and the next day Mrs. Morgenthau was catching up on some of the civilian defense work on which we are go ing to work together in the coming months. I find a wealth of volun teers who are anxious to do some thing useful, but I shall not be satis fied until I begin to see people ac tually at work in communities all over the country. That is where the real civilian defense must have its roots. By proxy, that day, I learned a good deal about my new job, be cause Mrs. Henry Morgenthau Jr. met the staff in the morning, and sat in on Director LaGuardia’s meeting. In the afternoon, she met with another group, which discussed the complexities of the jurisdiction of work. All existing organizations will finally be drawn into a pattern | where everybody will do his best, with the least possible friction. Anybody with experience knows what this can mean in the way of difficulty during the period of or- 1 ganization. A hundred times a day I shall wish what I have so often wished in the past, that human be- \ ings could be reconstructed over- i night. If we would think only of the objectives to be achieved and never of the instruments to be used, least of all ourselves, how much more we could accomplish. Great teachers through the ages have tried to teach us that this is the only efficient way of work ing and, perhaps, in the end, the only way through which any civili zation can be saved. However, we do not always believe these teach ers. • * * ‘DIGGING FOR MRS. MILLER’ i I read through a little book called “Digging for Mrs. Miller,” by John Strachey. It is an account of the I experiences of an air raid warden S in England. It is certainly different from anything I have ever read by | him before. He is dealing with facts, whereas in the past he has dealt almost always with theories. It is a valuable little book and will en able people to visualize daily life for the ordinary man and woman where total defense is required Kathleen Norris Says: Time Heals All Wounds (Bell Syndicate— WNU Service.) Ted’s mother came to stay with us and ran me out. We lived at an army post tmdl became intimate with an army officer who was a married man. / teas carried away by I his devotion to a lonely girl. By KATHLEEN NORRIS ONE of the hardest lessons for an American woman to learn is to leave any thing to time. We are an impa tient people, and whatever we do must be accomplished in a very fury of speed. Hundreds of women go to Reno for di vorces every year, only to plunge into fresh matrimonial experiments the moment they are free. Decisions that should be made only after months or even years of planning and praying, they reach in a few mo ments. Having failed conspicu ously in one attempt at wife hood, they plunge into another, sure that if happiness doesn’t wait on one pathway it must on some other. But happiness and charac ter and success in marriage are things of slow growth. They are never ready-made. It takes months and sometimes years of patient effort to work out even the simplest domestic problem, and in these days almost no marital prob lem is simple. Impatience and marriage never mix. Threats of European conquest and invasion from sea or air have never given me a moment’s concern. But the destruction of that all-important thing—American marriage—through the hasty and ill-considered action of husbands and wives who flock to divorce courts at the first sign of trouble, is a real blow at the safety of the nation. Divorce Is an Evil. Divorce is not a solution, it is an unmitigated evil and it ought to be used sparingly, like the poisonous drugs that help pain, or the sur geon’s knife that is employed only in the last emergency. Unless this national failing is somewhat lessened, we are going to be a nation without homes; and a nation without homes is no nation at all. It doesn’t hurt children to grow up in the care of a mother who is silently enduring difficulties and in justices. It hurts them irreparably to be told by their mother that Daddy is a bad man; and by Dad dy’s mother that their own mother is so selfish and vain that poor Dad dy had to leave her. In the beginning the men and women who contemplate divorce al ways assert eagerly that there will not be this sort of criticism before the children. But when those chil dren, missing their father, shifted uncomfortably about, trying to ac custom themselves to a stepfather, ask wistfully why their own Daddy has gone away, then Mother has to take a defensive attitude. So she tells them how mean Daddy was to her, wouldn’t give her any money, and liked another lady better than Mummy, and twist ed her arm. And when they tell their paternal grandmother this she can only counter majestically, “Well, Mummy doesn’t always say what’s true, dear. She was very unkind to poor Daddy. Don’t be lieve everything Mummy says.” The army of the children of di vorced parents—that’s the army we ought to fear. What possible train ing in self-control, consideration, patience can they derive from the ill-disciplined man and woman they call their parents? And how find happiness against a background of changes, recriminations, charges and countercharges? 1 HOME DEFENSE Far more terrifying than the possibility of invasion by a for eign army, says Kathleen Nor ris, is the menace of divorce, which is breaking up our homes. More sinister than Hillers le gions is the army of children of divorced parents. But how are we to prevent divorce? Patience will help. Impatience is prob ably our greatest national iveak ness. We leap from one mistake to another; we plunge into ill considered marriage and hasty divorce , . . Don't fail to read Kathleen Norris’ uncompromis ing discussion of the part women can play in building one of our first lines of national defense, happy homes. Here is a letter from a woman who has made a series of hasty mistakes, and who feels that to make a fresh series would be the way out. “I am 28,” writes Em-Bee, from Indianapolis. “I was married at 19, and have two sons, seven and four. That first marriage was a girl’s mistake; Ted seemed to me the epitome of everything that was wonderful, but I was too much of a kid really to judge a man as a husband. We were miserable from the start, quarreling, making it up, quarreling again. One of my babies was delicate and the other unman ageable, and we had very little money. “Ted’s mother came to stay with us and ran things generally. She ran them so well that she ran me out and I went home to my step mother, as I cannot stand the man my own mother married after di vorcing my father. We lived at an army post and I became intimate with an officer who was a married man. I don’t excuse this, but I was carried away by his devotion to a lonely, bewildered girl of 24. This gave Ted an excuse to ask for com plete guardianship of the boys, which was granted him. Floyd s wife divorced him and we were married. “Ted died last December and his mother has my boys. They come to see me now and then, but we are strangers. My husband does no understand how a mother fee s about her children. We have been married three years and as yet have no hope of another chil • Ted’s mother, who is well fixed, says she is going to take the boys to another city and place them in school, and Floyd feels that that is a good thing for them. But they are mine, mine, mine, and I W1 not have them carted about as they had no mother. Can’t Help Her. “On the other hand, we have on y Floyd’s pay, not sufficient for many expenses connected with tw growing boys. I feel strongly t a I have made many mistakes 1 handling my life, and am anxio not to make any more. “What do you think of my present plan of going to Reno for a £ t lvor^ j { asking an alimony that will P® r . me to learn a profession that support my children, and suing n mother-in-law for their c ■ Does that seem the best thing- Em-Bee is not speaking honest, when she says this, nor when speaks of a mother’s feeling for ■* children. Having broken up her life and Floyd’s and Ted's and •* children’s, no advice will s a ' e now from crashing ahead m o ILJ ther mistakes.