AY,
'TU 1,1941
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
PAGE THREE
Air, T 17, 1941 PAGE THREE.
Re-Alignments
In The Axis
THE
WEEK
IN
REVIEW
Only A Signature
Needed Now
......._.r.. ...+...
I
FOREIGN:
'Somewhere
In
The
Atlani
Red Setback
In The South
Following a surge of desperate of-
fensive fighting, the Russians last
week returned to the defensive, cut
communiques again to indescriptive
phrases, implied that all was not
so well on the southern front.
Capture of oft-claimed Smolensk
was finally confirmed last week, as
German military chiefs invited a U.
S. newsman to tor the ruins of that
strategic city on the road to Moscow.
What AP correspondent Steinkopf
saw and reported substantially con-
firmed Russian adherence to Joe
Stalin's scorched earth policy. The
Nazis held Smolensk, and apparently
had captured it sometime ago, but it
was a prize hardly worth the winning.
Of the 160,000 inhabitants, only 20,-
000 remained. Frightened and re-
sourceless, they huddled in little
bits of roof; all that remained of
a once proud city.
Though they had captured the city
proper through bitter street to street
fighting, the Nazi blitz drive had not
proceeded far past Smolensk. Heavy
artillery fire and th drone of planes
was only a few kilometers further on
the road to Moscow.
Nor were things proceeding too well
for the Russians in the Southern sec-
tor. British and U. S. sources were
already expressing grave concern ovei
Soviet "strategic withdrawals."
Large Nazi and Rumanian units
ivere described as driving toward
Kiev, but the main German southern
drive centered toward Uman and
Dnepropetrovsk, and was apparently
timed to surround Russian forces at
Nikolaev and Odessa. Worried Brit-
ish observers saw the impending
doom of another, more costly Dun-
kirk at Odessa.
Rich are the prizes to be had in
the Ukraine battle. If she can reach
this sector in time, Germany will have
wheat; to Russia retreat means loss
of two important Black Sea ports,
including the naval base at Odessa.
hnd the rich industrial city of Dne-
propetrovsk.
Complete Collaboration
It was a weak France, exhausted
by encirclement, undermined by Nazi
terrorism, that last week submitted
to complete collaboration with her
former foe. Worn and haggard too
last week was 85-year old Marshal
Philippe Petain who sadly admitted
to his countrymen that his program
for the regeneration of France had
been .a miserable failure, that French
democracy had been completely re-
duced to a lost ideal.
Placed in sub-Hitler dictatorial
power over France was pro-German
Vice Premier Admiral Darlan, who
immeditely set about to alleviate
serious food shortages. Frankly ad-
mitted was the critical shortage of
meat, Vine and tobacco: the oncom-'
ing winter may well see serious V-
campaign in a hungry France.
Worried by the collaboration were
London and Washington. To them,
the change meant complete Nazi
control over Dakar and Martinique:
a serious threat to the Western Hemi-
sphere and to British shipping about
the Horn.
Japanese Preparations
In the Far East, events tightened
to the breaking point in more than
one sector. In Thailand, Japan con-
tinued to rush troops and supplies to
forces now wetl-entrenched in Indo-
China, while form Australia, England
and the U. S. came ominous threats
of reprisal.
In Tokyo, the Konoye government
tightened the economic belt another
notch, announced that Nippon would
be placed on a full economic war
footing under the general mobiliza-
tion act.
And from Shanghai late in the
week came word through diplomatic
sources that Japan was getting set
to attack Russian Siberia within the
next few weeks. If the Soviets are
hard pressed in the West, Nippon will
be ready to cut off her share of Stal-
in's empire in the east.
No good news to the U. S. last
week was the near-fatal shooting of
Vice Premier Hiranuma, long con-
sidered the moderating and steadying
influence in the Japanese cabinet.
From Two Sides
Events on the Aerial front last
week indicated that Germany would
have to face consequences of the
London threat that the two RAF's-
the British Royal Air Force and the
Red Air Force-would turn German
cities into "hells of death and de-
struction."
From Britain came wave upon wave
of English and high-flying American
made bombers, from Russia came
scores of six-motored slow, but bomb
heavy planes. With the lenghening
Somewhere in the Atlantic last
week two graying, wearied leaders of
two great nations met on board a
British battleship, surrounded by de-
stroyers and submarines as naval
planes soared above.
In that dramatic, secret scene
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Prime Minister Winston Churchill
pledged their two nations never to
make peace with Nazi Germany,
sketched the post-war world order
and laid the foundations for a bitter
death, struggle with the totalitarian
powers.
But even hore ominous sounding
to isolationists in this country was
strong. implication in the official
statement issued after the meeting
that agreement had been reached on
points of strategy to meet new Axis
military threats on a far-flung front,
-in the East, in the West and in
sprawling, struggling Russia.
Arsenal Of Democracy
Officially the United States was
assigned only the position of "the
arsenal of the democracies" by the
declaration; but there was no indica-
tion from the pronouncement that
this nation woud remain indefinitely
on a "short of war" basis in "the
steps which their countries are re-
spectively taking for their safety in
the face of these dangers."
Gist of the official proclamation
was contained in the eight-point
program, comparable to the famous
fourteen points of Woodrow Wilson-
proclaimed on Jan. 8, 1918.
The two leaders, representing the
people of the United States of Ameri-
ca and His Majesty's Government
in the United Kingdom, proclaimed
to the world these eight common
principles:
1) That their countries seek no
aggrandizement, territorial or other;
2) That they desire to see no terr-
borial changes that do not accord
with the freely expressed wishes of
,he peoples concerned;
3) That they respect the right of
all peoples to choose the for~n of
government under which they will
live;
4) That they will endeavor, with
due respect to their existing obliga-
tions, to further the enjoyment by all
States, great or small, victor or van-
quished, of access, on equal terms,
to the trade and to the raw materials
of the world which are needed for
their economic prosperity;
5) That they desire to bring about
fullest collaboration between all na-
tions in the economic field with the
object of securing for all improved
labor standards, economic adjust-
ment and social security;
6) That after final destruction of
Nazi tyranny, they hope to see a
peace which will afford to all nations
the'means of dwelling in safety with-
in their own boundaries, and which
will afford assurance that all the men
in all the lands may live out their
lives in freedom from fear and want;
7) That such a peace should en-
able all men to traverse the high
seas and oceans without hindrance;
8) That they believe that all of,
the nations of the world, for realistic
,as well as spiritual reasons, must
come to the abandonment of the use
of force. Since no further peace can
be maintained if land, sea or air
armaments continue to be employed
by nations which threaten, or may
threaten, aggression outside of their
frontiers, they believe, pending estab-
lishment of a wider and permanent
system of general security, that the
tisarmament of such nations is essen-
tial. They will likewise aid and en-
courage all other practicable measures
which will lighten for peace-loving
peoples the crushing burden of arma-
ments.
Signed And Sealed
To this historic yet unpretentious
document the lfourishing signatures
of the two graying, wearied leaders,
were attached: Franklin D. Roosevelt
and-Winston S. Churchill.
And thus as Russian and British
warplanes flew over German cities
dropping bombs, as Germany claimed
new gains in the - Battle of the Uk-
raine, and as Japan girded its loinsc
for a blow against Russian Siberia,a
came the first joint declaration ofa
Anglo-American war aims, the ulti-v
mate warning that the U.S. wasr
aligned against Hitler and Co. for
keeps.t
In this country reaction to the
eight points was varied, with isola-
tionists viewing with alarm the ir-t
revocable commission of the U.S. to
aid Bditain, and interventionists sett-
ling back into the easy chair of vic-c
tory, their battle for American in-
tervention vitrually won.
Said administration foe Senatorf
McCarran (Dem.-Nev.): "The declar-
ation was made on the unwarrantedt
assumption that the United States
is a belligerent in this war. It ist
tantamount to a declaration of war
by this country, which is the provincei
of Congress only."<
Somewhat different was the re-i
action of another administration foe,i
New Hampshire's Republican Sena-I
tor Bridges, who praised wholeheart-
edly the proposal and its aims.
Outside of Congress most quoted
Italian Pants Up,
Italian Pants Down
Last year in order. to preserve the
nation's cloth supply, Italy's Supreme
Council of Autarch (commission on
self-sufficiency, headed by self-suffi-
cient boss-man Benito Mussolini) ex-1
horted Italian men to get out of long!
pants, get into shorts. Newspapers
praised shorts as "not only hygienic
but masculine and patriotic."
Last week from Italy came an
abrupt about-face in styles, a harsh
pants-down order. Telegrafo, organ
of Count Ciano, breeches-wearing
husband of Edda Mussolini, herself
notorious as a pants-wearer, spoke
thus: "Men wearing short pants look
absurd .. Grown men.,with hairy legs
barely covered and short panties re-
semble ridiculous absent-minded pro-
fessors . . . there was a short-pants
campaign last year, but this medio-
cre idea has failed."
comment was made by Socialist and
anti-interventionist Norman Thom-
as, who claimed that President Roose-
velt had "definitely committed this
nation to war."
Slice Up The World
In Axis capitals comment was bit-
ter but not surprising. ' Said Berlin:
"A case of plagiarism of Wilson's
abortive Fourteen/Points-and a bad
one at that." Vichy rejected the
aims as "old stuff," and a cartoonist
mouthpiece of the Mussolini Govern-
ment depicted "Roosevelt and col-
league" slicing up the world between
them.
On the whole general recation was
that the program was a condensed
version of the famed fourteen points,
issued in a time of even greater
stress. The fate of Wilson's procla-
mation was recalled, and commenta-
tors warily wondered if the Eight
Points would meet a like fate in a
war-torn world.
Whether the proclamation was
nothing more than the hollow words
of two diplomats, a typical scrap of
paper of the Frightful Forties, re-
mained to be seen. Backed by the
combined forces of American indus-
try and British armament, it may o
may not meet a different fate. On
thing was definite at week's end
however: that secret, dramatic meet.
ing "somewhere in the Atlantic'
scored for the Democracies their big-
gest victory to date in the war o
nerves.
As this eventful week of unarme
war moves drew to a close, however
news came jointly from London an
Washington that seemed to answer
skeptics who viewed the proclamation
as merely a hollow piece of democra
tic verbosity.
An Invitation
A proposal was issued to Russia
Premier Joseph Stalin that high Bri
tish and American representative
meet with him in Moscow to discus
allocation of war supplies to th
Soviet Union.
'>-
* C
The note, couched in didactic diplo-
matic language, was handed to Stalin
by American and British ambassa-
dors in Moscow. It praised the
"splendid defense of the Soviet
Union" and asserted that the Uniteds
States and Great Britain were "co-s
operating to provide you the veryt
maximum of supplies that you urg-r
ently need."
In diplomatic circles the plan wass
seen to have a threefold purpose: 1)s
To seek to draw Russia into the An-t
glo-American plan for a new worldt
era based on lasting peace and theX
mutual advancement of the commons
welfare of mankind; 2) To ascertain
the strategic position of the Red
armies on the eastern front and soundE
out Stalin on the possibility of Bri-
tish military advisers aiding the Sovi-r
et general staff in directing Russian
resistance; and 3) To seek assurance
that the Soviet far eastern army will
be maintained intact as a check on1
Japan regardless of developments on
the western front.
s Wa r Pow-Wow
f I
Ever eager to secure additional aid
from his new bedfellows, Bearded Joe
. accepted the invitation readily, made
r plank for the three-power pow-wow,
which observers predicted would be
attended by Washington's Harry Hop-
, kins and London's dapper Anthony
Eden. Stalin himself, in his dual role
- of premier and defense commissar,
f will be the chief delegate of the
U.S.S.R.
And thus at week's end the first
move was made to put teeth into an
, eight point proposal that came from
r the dramatic sea meeting of the lead-
n ers of the two great democracies.
- Not so long ago mortal enemies,
Communism and Democracy this
week drew closer together in their
struggle against a common enemy,
geared their people and industry for
n all-out action in World - War II-
- civilization's worst war, fought on
s three fronts: "in the East, in the
s West and in sprawling, struggling
e Russia."
-Bln lB.r-
AT HOME:
Army
Bill Sent
' Dill nrax
To President .
Sent to President Roosevelt for his
signature last week was the Army
service extension bill after squeezing
through the. House by a one-vote
margin.
Authorizing the President to hold
selectees, National Guardsmen, re-
servists and enlisted men 18 months
beyond their present service period,
the bill would grant a $10 per month
pay increase to all men who have
served 12 months.
The bill differs from original Army
requests inasmuch as it limits the
extension, rather than granting pow-
er for indefinite extension, and does
not erase the ban on sending selectees
outside the Western Hemisphere.
After passing the House the bill
went back to the Senate where it was
passed after eight minutes of debate.
It was assumed that the bill would
be flown to the President at sea in
order for quickest possible action.
Secretary of War Stimson ex-
plained the necessity of the legisla-
tion to soldiers in a radio address
Friday, saying the world now faces
a more dangerous threat to general
peace than any which has existed
during all the years of recorded his-
tory. Reactions from the armed
forces to Stimson's address were not
publicized.
Meanwhile, in order to speed ac-
tion on the construction of fortifica-
tions, troop housing units and similar
{tems, the President suspended the
eight-hour day for mechanics and
laborers employed by the War De-
partment on public works necessary
to national defense.
Curbing Credit
In an attempt to curb inflationary
tendencies and conserve materials vi-
tal to defense a system of installment
credit control was set up by the
President last week.
An Executive :Order directed. the
Federal Reserve Board tousea World
War statute to curb installment cred-
it used for the purchase of consum-
ers' durable goods.
Consumers' durable goods, accord-
ing to Federal Reserve Board Chair-
man Marriner. S; Eccle, meant "au-
tomobiles, washing machines, refrig-
erators, ironers, vacuum cleaners and
many other goods.
Eccles stated regulations would be
issued in several days and at that
time a date would be set after which
it would be unlawful for anyone to
sell listed items on any more liberal
credit terms than those specified.
First To Be Cut
After a week of slashing and re-
storing items, the House and Senate
finally agreed on a form for the d-
fense appropriations bill, approved
it and sent it to the President.
As it passed, the, measure would
appropriate $7,586,895,000 additional
for the continuance of the defense
program.
Remarkable was the fact that this
was the first defense appropriation
bill to be at all cut by Congress since
the beginning of "all-out" defense
15 months ago. Among items reduced
or eliminated were $1,000,000 for po-
licing naval establishments with a
special guard force, $640,000 off the
funds for ship facilities at New Or
leans, $200,000 off the funds for' a
naval warehouse at Norfolk and $1,-
500,000 off the President's "confi-
dential" fund, to be spent by him
without accounting to Congress, re-
ducing that item to $2,500,000.
Gas 10 Per Cent Off
Failure of the voluntary cut in use
of gasoline by motorists -in Eastern
and Southern seaboard states was
admitted Friday when the OPACS
ordered a restriction of gasoline to
be supplied retailers in the area.
Service stations, under the order,
will receive only 90% of their usual
supply. The proclamation came from
Leon Henderson at the request of
Secretary Ickes, Defense Petroleum
Coordinator.
Earlier in the week eleven oil com-
panies submitted a plan to Ickes for
a 1,820-mile pipeline to transpoft
250,000 barrels of crude oil a day
into the New York-Philadelphia area.
The system would be privately fi-
nanced at an estimated cost of $70,-
000,000.
Presidential action would be neces-
sary before any such proposition
could be put into action, the Secre-
tary said. It is transportatioi diffi-
culties that create the present
threatened shortage.
First 100 The Hardest
The national debt jumped over the
halfway mark of the first hundred
billion dollars last Wednesday and
KREMLIN: from the high,
parapeted Kremlin all Russia
is governed. Josef Stalin and
other high Soviet officials
have both offices and resi-
dences on its 63 acres.
Q :
PALACE OF THE SOVIETS,
taller than the Empire State
Building, is being built here.
I Grand Palace (Stalin's Residence) 9 New Government House 17 Kremlin Hospital
2 Headquarters, Central Executive Committee
3 Cathedral of St. Basil
4 Lenin's Tomb
5 Historical Museum
6 Theater Square
7 Mostorg (Central Department Store)
8 Grand (Bolshoi) Theater
10 State Bank 18 Central Market
I1 Moscow Art Theater
12 Moscow Soviet (City Half)
13 Central Telegraph and Post Office
14 American Embassy
15 Moscow University (First)
16 Kalinin's Office
19 Lenin Public Library
20 Palace of Soviets (Under construction)
21 Kamern Bridge
22 Tretiakov Art Gallery
23 Moscow Bridge
24 Main Power Plant
I -
MOSCOW, first city of the Soviet
and target of Hitler's panzer
columns, has been vulnerable in past
wars, is wide open to air attack in
this on.
of dwellings conceivably could cause
a holocaust unequalled in this war.
Nazi airmen over the city see five
cities in one, clearly defined rings
simbolizing the growth of the town.
ope's most congested population cen-
ters. But this very congestion has
inspired measures resulting in some
sources of safety in air raids. New
housing has taken the form princi-
THE U.S.S.R. has made definite ef-
forts to end dependence on Mos-
cow as prime manufactory for the
country by construction of industrial
centers far to the east. Nevertheless,
MOSCOW'S principal defense has
been the Stalin line, a system of
defense-in-depth along 'the borders
of pre-war Russia. When pierced,
little but the river lines stand be-