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WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS BY JOSEPH W. LaBINE
New Totalitarian Combination
May Spell Doom of Empires;
Stalin Acts as String-Puller
(EDITOR’S NOTE—When opinions are expressed in these columns, they
are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.)
- Released by Western Newspaper Union. ___________
POLAND’S PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE (?)
Territory taken by Poland from Lithuania (and previously by Lithuania from
Russia), together with land lost to Poland at the treaty of Riga, is the Soviet's first
military objective in “protecting" Ukrainian and White Russians. Germany wiU
probably take all Polish land formerly belonging to herself and to the Austro-
Hungarian empire. Eastern Galicia, populated by Ukrainians, yet a part of the
Austro-Hungarian empire and highly coveted by Germany, has a problematical future.
Area in white may remain a Polish state.
THE WAR:
Diplomatic Front
Thoroughly vindicated this month
are the astute international observ
ers who have called Russia’s Josef
Stalin the shrewdest diplomat of Eu
rope, shrewder even than Germa
ny’s Adolf Hitler who begged and
won Russia’s friendship a few weeks
ago. Like a remote control opera
tor who needs only to punch buttons,
Dictator Stalin sat in his Kremlin
palace and manipulated diplomatic
machinery that responded like one
two-three clockwork in a sequence
of events that sped westward from
Tokyo to Paris and London, leaving
the harried allies of Europe’s war
in miserable shape:
Truce. For five years stubborn
Japan has fought an undeclared, in
formal war with Russia in the vast
wastelands of Manchukuo and Out
er Mongolia. Ambitious elsewhere,
Dictator Stalin was not free to med-
MOLOTOV
Eyes turned west.
dle in Eu
ropean poli
tics or peck
atthe British
empire so
long as Jap
an remained
a nuisance.
But one up
shot of the
recent Russ-
Germannon
aggression
pact was a
more thor-
ough welding of world totalitarian
ism. Germany, already allied with
Japan, intervened to start conversa
tions between Soviet Premier Via
cheslav Molotov and Japan’s am
bassador to Moscow, Shigenori To
go. Result: A Jap-Soviet truce, wel
comed in Tokyo because it meant
Nippon could not only push her con
quest of China but also oust pestif
erous French and British interests
from the Orient.
Conquest. Thus freed, Russia
turned westward. German troops
already occupied half of Poland,
whose defense was collapsing rap
idly. While Dictator Stalin ran the
show from behind scenes, Premier
Molotov sent his troops, tanks and
planes wheeling across the frontier
to “take under their protection”
about 11,000,000 Ukrainians and
White Russians in eastern and
southern Poland. Thus relieved (by
pre-arrangement) from conquering
the Test of that nation, Germany
was in turn freed to turn westward.
Result. Some observers believed
70 German divisions used against
Poland were rushed to the western
front, where silence still masked
hostilities in the Saar basin. But
both France and Britain knew their
job was becoming more formidable
hourly as the Nazi juggernaut be
gan unleashing its full strength.
Questions, Forecasts
Unnoticed in this ghastly and
growing conflict were the fate and
fortunes of men-at-arms. Britain
had lost 22 ships including the vet
eran airplane carrier, Courageous.
Three hundred thousand men fought
in the Saar, with thousands more on
the way. Gdynia fell. Brest-Litovsk
and Lwow were shambles. Warsaw,
in even worse shape, negotiated her
surrender. Paris heard the Russians
were invading Lithuania, also that
the Polish war had cost Germany
100,000 killed and wounded. (One
dead was a grandson of the ex-Kai
ser.) France’s mine layer, Pluton,
exploded in Morocco.
But men were merely pawns in
the game of war. While they died,
their leaders fretted over a future
which may make today’s holocaust
mild by comparison. Nations with
far-flung territories (France and
Britain) suffer most when their ene
mies (Japan, Russia, Germany and
Italy) are also far flung. While the
harried allies had their hands full
keeping mighty Germany at bay be
hind her invulnerable West wall,
these things might happen:
Japan. Under German coaxing,
Dictator Stalin might withdraw his
support of China’s long-suffering
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, thus
paving the way for immediate com
pletion of Japan’s war. Meanwhile
the maze of European concessions
and settlements in China could be
wiped out because western nations
are too busy at home to complain.
Russia. With 600,000 men concen
trated on the Afghanistan border,
the Soviet could use this nation as a
jumping off place in her campaign
to establish rule over India. Mean
while the Kremlin’s threat is lur
ing Turkey away from her alliance
with Britain and France, thus clos
ing the Black sea outlet which has
been Rumania’s sole hope of inde
pendence.
Germany. Between them the
Reich and Soviet must divide Po
land. If Germany takes only her
pre-World war territory (See Map)
and Russia takes only the land Po
land took by force in 1919-20, a buff
er state would still remain between
the two powers—provided a settle
ment can be reached in southeast
ern Poland, whose rich Galician
lands are coveted by both Berlin
and Moscow.
Italy. Shattered was the popular
belief that Italy would not only stay
neutral, but might even come to the
allies’ side. Observers still expect
ed Benito Mussolini to promulgate
a peace conference any day, but
they also knew he had an ulterior
motive. Italy wants the French-
Italian port of Djibouti, entrance to
Italian Ethiopia, made a free port;
she wants control of the Djibouti-
Addis Ababa railroad; she wants a
Mis
TROOPS IN WEST WALL
While allies had their hands full . . .
major voice in administering the
Suez canal; she wants other assort
ed and miscellaneous concessions
which the allies foolishly denied her
after the World war.
Choice. The four totalitarian na
tions might decide to strike first and
talk peace later. Or they may poise
their threats and then sue. Which
ever course they fake, Britain and
France are on the spot; never in
modern history have their empires
been so completely threatened.
Probably the better part of valor is
to fight and ignore totalitarian
ism’s peace offers. From experi
ence, Europe's democracies have
learned appeasement merely whets
the appetite and prolongs the tor
ture.
BAKER COUNTY NEWS
LOUISIANA:
Next Case
When Dr. James Monroe Smith
fled his Louisiana State university
for a Canadian haven last summer,
the U. S. lost no time sticking its
foot into a messy state political pud
dle. Resigned was Gov. Richard W.
Leche, succeeded by the late Huey
P. (“Kingfish”) Long’s brother,
Earl. One after another of Louisi
ana’s politicians were caught in the
trap, including Seymour Weiss, al
leged political “powerhouse,” and
finally Richard Leche himself.
Rumor had it that U. S. Attorney
General Frank Murphy was merely
using Louisiana as a proving ground
to show the Democratic party was
equal in purity to New York’s rack
et-busting state’s attorney and G. O.
P. presidential possibility, Tom
Dewey. Whatever the reason, the
U. S. got its first conviction: Five
Louisianians, including Dr. Smith
and Seymour Weiss, were found
guilty of selling hotel furniture to
the state university, not once, but
twice. Basis for the federal charge;
A check for the ill-gotten gains was
sent through the U. S. mails.
Immediately the federal prosecu
tors went to work on their second
case, an open-and-shut matter of in
terstate commerce and therefore
clearly under U. S. jurisdiction. In
this trial, prosecutors hope to find
Messrs Weiss and Leche guilty of
conspiracy to violate the Connally
“hot oil” law for allegedly piping
contraband oil to Texas.
DOMESTIC:
War Talk
In 1917 it was public opinion that
forced the U. S. into war. In 1939,
as in 1914, public opinion wants no
truck with Europe’s troubles. But
America’s memory of the war is
still so vivid that its citizenry’s judg
ment is more reasoned, less apt to
be colored by propaganda from
home or abroad. Even so, there is
no unanimity.
Representative of anti-war thought
was the unprecedented radio talk by
Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, whose
congressman father committed po-
■ s v,
.y g p
COLONEL LINDBERGH
“. . . we need fear no invasion."
litical suicide by voting against war
in 1917: “As long as we maintain
an army, a navy and an air force
worthy of the name, as long as
America does not decay within, we
need fear no invasion ... If we
enter fighting for democracy
abroad, we may end by losing it
at home.”
This was a fine spirit, as was the
Gallup poll finding that 84 per cent
of the U. S. wants to keep Ameri
can ships out of war zones (a tenet
of the proposed neutrality act). But
America was nevertheless plugging
for France and Britain. Another
Gallup poll showed 82 per cent of
them thought the allies would win,
while 44 per cent (dangerously near
a majority for so early in the war)
favored sending U. S. troops abroad
if it appeared Germany would win.
Amid such befuddled opinion con
gress met to argue the President’s
neutrality proposal: To repeal the
present arms embargo and sell bel
ligerents anything they want, pro
vided they pay cash and use their
own ships. Isolationist sentiment
was growing, but so was “cash-and
carry” sentiment, simply a result of
greater public interest. Most popu
lar objection to neutrality revision
was not that it would discriminate
in favor of the allies (because they
rule the seas) but that common
sense overruled changing legislation
after the war has started.
Closer to trouble, more realistic
in its attitude, the state department
knew it must move chessmen as
belligerents moved theirs. Exam
ple: Russo-Jap rapprochement
meant the Philippines might fall
easy prey to Tokyo unless the U. S.
delayed independence plans.
No easy job awaited congress.
Administration forces moved to lim
it debate and the nation both booed
and praised. No problem ever de
served more thought and discussion,
yet, paradoxically, this was a prob
lem which seemed only to grow
more confusing when pondered and
debated.
AGRICULTURE:
Cotton
Last December 84.1 per cent of the
South’s cotton - growing farmers
agreed to limit the unrestricted sale
of this year’s crop to 12,000,000
bales. Penalty: A fine of three
cents per pound on all cotton sold
above the quota. Announced in
Washington by Secretary of Agricul
ture Wallace was another referen
dum on 1940 marketing to take place
December 9.
ADVENTURERS’ CLUB
HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES
OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI
“ White Streak in the Water 99
Hello everybody:
Bill Mogge says he has nothing to kick about, and that’s
a swell way of looking at it. And at the same time I’m wonder
ing how many other people could go through what Bill did, and
suffer as Bill suffered, and lose as Bill lost, and still take that
same attitude that Bill takes about what happened to him in the
dreadful hours that followed his seeing a white line shoot toward
him across the wind-tossed waters of the North sea.
That white line was a common sight on the North sea in
World war days. It meant bad luck to the ship from which it
was seen, and that was no mere sailors’ superstition either. Bill
saw it on July 29, 1915, from the Belgian steamer Princesse
Marie, on which he was working as an able seaman. And now
the Princesse Marie is at the bottom of the sea, several of her
crew are dead, and Bill Mogge has some terrible hours to
remember.
Bill lives in Nutley, N. J. He has a wife and a thirteen
year-old daughter, and he says, “Life is good, after all.”
But on that July day in 1915 his prospects for continuing that
life began to look as though they weren’t worth a plugged nickel. Then
he was a young Dutch lad working on that Belgian ship for the extra
ten shillings that were handed out every month to the men who risked
death in the submarine-infested war aone. Bill and the boatswain were
up on a scaffold washing the sides of the wheelhouse and the bridge
when Bill looked off over the water to starboard and saw that white
streak.
Streak Headed for Center of Ship.
Bill says he froze in his shoes. Every sailor knew what that
streak meant. Torpedo! And this streak was headed right for
the center of the ship—right for the spot below the wheelhouse
on which he and the boatswain were working.
“Like a man in a dream I watched that white mark grow longer,”
he says. “It was almost on us, and I knew there wasn’t time to avoid
it. Almost at the same instant I saw a periscope come out of the water.
I shouted to the bos’n, but I’ll never know whether he heard me or not.
For at that same instant there was a terrific explosion, and everything
went black before my eyes.”
When Bill came to again he was lying on the deck in a lot of
debris—and a pool of blood. The ship had all but broken in two.
Water was rushing into it and it was sinking fast. Bill tried to
get to his feet, but he couldn’t move. His arm hurt, and his
head seemed to be spinning around like a top. “I tried to
shake off that dizzy feeling,” he says, “but it was no use. Blood
was running into my eyes from a wound in my head, and my
injured arm was useless. I thought I would go crazy as I lay
there, unable to move, while the ship sank steadily, threatening
every moment to go under.”
But at last Bill managed to pull himself together. He struggled to
his feet and looked about him. The decks were deserted. His right
93X1^^
■sb-" 1
“At the same instant there was a terrific explosion, apd everything
went black before my eyes.”
arm. was covered with blood and nearly blown off. Using his left arm,
he climbed the ladder to the boat deck—but there were no boats there
any more. His shipmates had gone, leaving him to drown.
Last Life Boat Ready to Shove Off.
Just as Bill was ready to give up he looked over the side, and that
look saved his life. Down there in the water was just one lifeboat—the
last one—getting ready to shove off. Bill knew he didn’t have a moment
to lose. Those lads in the boat weren’t going to wait for stragglers.
He had to get in that boat or go down with the ship, and the only way
to get into it in time was to jump for it. Bill did jump—right from the
boat deck. He landed in a heap on top of a bunch of cursing sailors
who wanted to know who he was.
“I thought they were crazy to ask such a question,” says
Bill. “Didn’t they know me—their shipmate—any more? Little
did I realize how I looked to them. I was just a black and
bloody mess that even my own mother wouldn’t have recognized.”
Lifeboat Steams Full Speed Toward Harwich.
The boat had no sooner pulled away than the ship sank with a groan
and a hiss of steam. Bill lay in the bottom while the others rowed.
“My head was burning,” he says, “and I thought I would go crazy. Off
and on I did go out of my mind. About an hour later we were picked
up by a British mine sweeper. They pulled me up in a canvas because
I was too weak to climb aboard. Some officer put an emergency
bandage around my head, and they kept giving me coffee and cigarettes
to keep me alive. We steamed full speed toward Harwich, the nearest
port where there was a hospital.”
Radio messages to shore had told the hospital of their com
ing, and there was an ambulance waiting for Bill at the dock.
“When I got to the hospital,” says Bill, “I felt somehow that
I would be safe, and didn’t fight any more against the darkness
that kept trying to close down over my eyes. I don’t know what
happened after that, but when I awoke the nurse told me I had
been unconscious for two days.”
They did their best for Bill at that hospital—in spite of the fact that
he was a Hollander and the English had just about all they could do o
take care of their own wounded who were coming over every day from
France. One day a nurse started to teach him to write with his left hand
—and then Bill knew he would never use his right arm again.
When his wounds had healed up the Dutch consul general
sent Bill to a hospital in Holland, and there he spent two more
years while the doctors performed five operations trying to give
him back the use of his arm, and a little while after he was dis
charged he eame to America.
And after all he went through, gill still says he has no kick coming.
“The Belgian government awarded me a pension,” he says, “and I am
grateful to that country for the square deal it gave me. I’ll never
forget the wonderful treatment I got in the British hospital, and I am
thankful to America for the wonderful opportunities it has giyen me.”
And that’s from a bird who really got a tough break and has every
right in the world to complain about his luck.
(Released by Western Newspaper Union.)
Epitaph
The epitaph on the statue erected
to William Wilberforce in Westmin
ster Abbey is: “In an age and
country fertile in great and good
men he was among the foremost
of those who fixed the character of
their times; because to high and
various talents, to warm benevo
lence, and to universal candour, he
added, the abiding eloquence of a
Christian life ”
Uses of Potato Starch
Potato starch is used in the cotton
and woolen textile industries, the pa
per industry, in confectionery, and
in plywood factories. Other uses
are as a thickener in Canned goods,
cold water glues, adhesives, dextrin,
face powders, nitro-starch explo
sives, glucose, toilet articles, malt
sugar, distilled liquors, cocoas, choc
olates, sausages, baked products,
dyeing, laundries and medicine.
Simple Patches for
This Applique Quilt
Pattern 6416
A leaf, a flower, a center patch
•-that’s all there is to Mayflower
applique. Start your blocks now—
the patches are easy to apply!
You can use the same material
throughout for the flower patches
or do each one in a different
scrap. Use this easy and effec
tive block for pillow or scarf as
well. Pattern 6416 contains the
Block Chart; carefully drawn pat
tern pieces; Color schemes; direc
tions for making the quilt; yard
age chart; illustration of quilt.
To obtain this pattern send 15
cents in coins to The Sewing Cir
cle Household Arts Dept., 259 W.
14th St., New York.
Please write your name, ad
dress and pattern number plainly.
Pull the Trigger on
Lazy Bowels, and Also
Pepsin-ize Stomach!
When constipation brings on acid indi
gestion, bloating, dizzy spells, gas, coated
tongue, sour taste, and Sad breath, your
stomach is probably loaded up with cer
tain undigested food and your bowels don’t
move. So you need both Pepsin to help
break up fast that rich undigested food in
your stomach, and Laxative Senna to pull
the trigger on those lazy bowels. So be
sure your laxative also contains Pepsin.
Take Dr. Caldwell’s Laxative, because its
Syrup Pepsin helps you gain that won
derful stomach-relief, while the Laxative
Senna moves your bowels. Tests prove the
power of Pepsin to dissolve those lumps of
undigested protein food which may linger
in your stomach, to cause belching, gastric
acidity and nausea. This is how pepsin
izing your stomach helps relieve it of such
distress. At the same time this medicine
wakes up lazy nerves and muscles in your/
bowels to relieve your constipation. So see
how much better you feel by taking the
laxative that also puts Pepsin to work on
that stomach discomfort, too. Even fin
icky children love to taste this pleasant
family laxative. Buy Dr. Caldwell’s Lax
ative-Senna with Syrup Pepsin at your
druggist today!
Pleasure a Reflex
Pleasure is the reflex of unim
peded energy.—Sir William Ham
ilton.
fWRBBHBHHPut just “2 drops” In
l each nostril for quick
R^WfflFrß relief from Spring
I Brill bi illll' ■ head cold discomforts.
PENETROL
Source of Pleasure
A babe in a house is a well
spring of pleasure.—Tupper.
strained eyes -
quickly recover their strength If
treated with Leonardi’s Golden.
Eye Lotion. Blood-shot, inflam
mation and soreness are relieved
In one day. Cools, heals and strength—
LEONARDI’S
GOLDEN EYE LOTION
MAKES WEAK EYES STRONG
Nn Large Size with Dropper— 50 cents
»■ B. Leonard! 8 Co. Ine., Wew RocheUe, W.T.
There to Stay
What’s bred in the bone will
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Grandmother knew,too!
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