The Cass County Sun (Linden, Tex.), Vol. 64, No. 39, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 12, 1940 Page: 2 of 8
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THE CASS COUNTY SUN
GENERAL
HUGH S.
JOHNSON
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DRAFT MUST BE CLEAN
NEW YOkK.—In a matter in
which you have given your heart,
especially when you were very
young, you are likely to take your-
self too seriously. Maybe I am do-
ing that about selective service.
But on that subject I feel sometimes
the agony that David Warfield made
bo clear to everybody in "The Re-
turn of Peter Grimm."
You remember that the gentle old
florist had left some advice and di-
rections to his children before he
passed into the realms of infinite
knowledge.
There he learned the tragic error
of those bequests. In the effort of
his disembodied spirit to come back
and avert disaster he suffered be-
'cause, although he could mingle un-
seen with his beloved, he couldn't
get his message to their ears. I
think two of the most poignant
words I have ever heard on our
stage are his unnoted cry of an-
guish, "Hear me!"
I feel a little that way about the
Burke-Wadsworth selective service
bill. As I have written before, it
makes the classification, selection
and deferment of men a matter of
personalized executive discretion.
There is something of a technical-
ity here, but it is not an unimpor-
tant one. It is at the very heart
of the democracy and public con-
fidence and success in this effort.
The bill as written, and even as
amended by the senate, <Joes no*
repose in the exclusive and uncon-
trolled jurisdiction of the selective
service boards the absolute and
final decisions as to which men shall
be taken for military service and
which shall be selected for civilian
service. That could convert the
whole effort from a perfect use of
our democratic institution of local
self-government to a possible hog-
pen of favoritism, influence and per-
haps of political patronage and pres-
sure.
Now I know that this is the wish
of neither the President, nor Mr.
Willkie, nor any member of con-
gress or politician with influence in
this effort. One of the most inspir-
ing things about this legislation
is the effort on all sides to take it
out of politics. I know that Mr.
Roosevelt wants to keep it clean.
I know that, apart from the un-
doubted patriotism of this wish, it
could ruin any administration or any
politician not to keep it clean. This
legislation will, sooner or later, af-
fect, directly or indirectly, and,
much or little, every home and fam-
ily in this country in the most sacred
of relations. It can't have even the
color of unfairness or favor.
This understandable oversight is a
simple result of the slap-dash fash-
ion in which this bill was put to-
gether. There are other errors
clearly revealed by experience.
Hrey* can! be corrected later without
great harm. This one can't.
I calledlthis fatal oversight to the
attention lof some senators who
seemed to sense its importance
without argument. An amendment
reported in the press from the house
committee, at least as reported,
does not cure the fault.
If, in the present rush for passage,
nobody else gives attention to this
grave error, I hope the President
himself will do so. I sometimes sus-
pect that he does not altogether en-
thusiastically approve of some of
the issues in this column. On this
particular subject, however, I am
sure that he concedes its informa-
tion, experience and his intense
common purpose with even this col-
umnist, no matter how far he
speaks, de profundis, from the of-
ficial dog house. It is an essential
matter of national defense.
WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS
By Roger Shaw
Great Britain Gets 50 U. S. Destroyers
In Exchange for Naval and Air Bases;
U. S. Senator Lundeen of Minnesota
Among 25 Killed in Airliner Crash.
>">tf—vvh**n nri* exnress^d In these columns, they
are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.)
* H'1 by Western Newspaper ITn{nrt
Here's a man that both Republicans and Democrats can congratulate.
He's Senator Hiram W. Johnson of California (center) who won both the
Republican and Democratic nomination for United States senator in the
recent California primary election. This practically assures him of re-
election for his fifth term. He is pictured here being congratulated by
Democratic Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana (left) and G. O. P.
Senator Warren R. Austin of Vermont (right).
PRODUCTION PROBLEM
NEW YORK.—The delay about
getting the armament program go-
ing and this dangerous talk about in-
dustrialists hanging back on ac-
cepting contracts because they
want exorbitant profits is almost
wholly due to bad planning of the
effort in the beginning and bad or-
ganization and direction of it now.
This business of contracting to
make an absolutely new unit—like a
tank—is a fearful and intricate
thing. Laying out a production plan
for a standard type of automobile,
for example, is duck soup in com-
parison.
In the latter case you can figure
very closely on the cost of those
parts of the final assembly that you
will not make yourself, but buy from
perhaps as many as 200 suppliers.
You can figure that because those
parts are near enough to standard
for the manufacturer; of them to
know and tell you to the fraction of
a cent the pride you rriust figure in
your cost.
Much of this war production
misses that whole pattern entirely.
The designs are new and highly
specialized. While the quantities
seem huge—like 50,000 \airplanes—
they are chicken feed compared to
a year's production in a single fac-
tory of, say, automobiles.
Furthermore, "50,000 airplanes"
is a very misleading term. It in-
cludes everything from cheap light
training planes to giant bombers—
items so different that it is like
saying "50,000 vehicles" when you
fnean everything from a stream-
ned train to a kiddie car.
U. S. DEFENSE:
Boats for Bases
President Roosevelt notified con-
gress that the United States had
reached an agreement with Great
Britain whereby this country would
Obtain leases on naval and air bases
in British possessions in this hemi-
sphere in exchange for the transfer
of 50 over-age U. S. destroyers to
England.
Expcted to arouse a storm of de-
bate, the act requires no ratifica-
tion by congress, but was submitted
to that body to advise the nation of
the arrangements made. Attorney
General Robert H. Jackson submit-
ted an opinion to the White House
which upheld the legality of the
trade.
The destroyers were built by the
United States during the World war
and had been out of service for some
time until they were recently re-
commissioned.
Ninety-nine year leases on terri-
tory in Newfoundland, on the island
of Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamai-
ca, St. Lucia, Trinidad, and Antigua
in the Atlantic and in British Guiana
in South America are granted to the
United States by the terms of the
agreement. Naval and air stations
are expected to be constructed at
these points to aid in U. S. plans for
a military defense of the Western
hemisphere.
AVIATION:
Worst Tragedy
In the worst commercial aviation
tragedy in the country's history, and
the first in more than 18 months, 25
persons lost their lives when a Penn-
sylvania-Central airliner crashed
near Lovettsville, Va., during a vio-
lent thunderstorm. The liner, en
route from Washington, D. C., to
Pittsburgh, Pa., plunged into the
side of a Blue Ridge mountain foot-
hill, apparently with the throttles
of its two engines wide open.
All of the persons aboard the ship
perished. Among the 21 passengers
was Sen. Ernest Lundeen, Farmer-
Laborite, of Minnesota. The plane
seemed to have exploded when it
struck the ground, scattering wreck-
age and bodies of the victims over
a large area.
ARKANSAS:
Travelers
Aided by four trusty guards, two
of them convicted murderers, 32
prisoners escaped from Cummins
State prison farm near Pine Bluff,
Ark., in a wild mass break. The
guards were prisoners who had been
j appointed trusties because of their
| good records and were supplied with
j saddle horses and guns.
Of the six loyal trusties who re-
; fused to join in the break, and were
prevented by ringleaders of the plot
NAMES
... in the news
<L Mike Hogg of Texas organized a
no-third-term Democratic party in
his native empire down Mexico way.
The no-third-termites of Texas
pledged themselves as full-breasted,
red-blooded Willxisti of the first wa-
ter. They said they wanted Willkie
to "lead them out of chaos."
C. Capt. George Price of the U. S.
army air corps was awarded the
Distinguished Flying Cross for a test
flight at Buffalo, where he made a
successful "crash" landing based on
rare judgment and skill.
C. Dr. B. A. Maw, the premier of
British - owned Burma, between
China and „'ndia, was jailed for a
year. He was anti-British, and they
called him "the dictator of the free-
dom bloc."
<L Norman Thomas, the socialist
candidate for Yankee President, 1940
edition, started a 15,000-mile cam-
paign trip through 28 states.
from interfering, one was killed when
he tried to shoot it out with the es-
caping prisoners.
The convicts fled with four high-
powered rifles and six sawed-off shot-
guns, some of which were weapons
they had had in their possession pri.
or to the break.
II GERMAN WAR:
Aerial
The Germans reversed their ae-
rial tactics, just as they reversed
their infantry tactics in 1917. At
the beginning of the first World war,
the Germans would attack in regu-
lar, regimented mass formation.
The losses were colossal, especially
at Verdun. It was sheer mass mur-
der. Late in 1917, General von Hu-
tier changed the German method-
ology. He devised a hit-and-run, in-
dividual, scattering attack, which
wiped out the whole British Fifth
army at St. Quentin, on March 21,
1918. It was the worst day the Brit-
ish army ever had, until Dunkirk, in
1940.
The same cycle has come to Ger-
man aviation. In the battle of Eng-
land, the German planes were at-
tacking in regimented, mass waves.
The losses were tremendous—close
to 1,000 planes. General Milch
changed the method. He sent the
German machines over in irregular,
individualistic jabs, and by night,
instead of by day. This proved
much more economical, and much
less ineffective. The amusing fea-
ture was this: Generals von Hutier
and Milch learned their "novel" mil-
itary maneuvers from no less a
source than the American Indians of
the Eighteenth century—the red-
skins that ambushed General Brad<
dock, etc., out Pittsburgher way.
TRANSYLVANIA:
Here I Come
Ever since the last war, Hungary
and Rumania have been quarreling
about the disputed province of Tran-
sylvania. It was Hungarian for 1,000
years—till 1919—and has been Ru-
manic since. Over the past some
weeks, the Rumanians and Hungars
have been squabbling at a great
rate. Germany and Italy want peace
in the Balkans, so at last they set-
tled the row in arbitrary style. They
split up Transylvania, half and half,
Hungary getting the top half, and
Rumania keeping the bottom half.
The name Transylvania, by the way,
gave William Penn the idea for his
Pennsylvania nomenclature, and not
so bad at that. Transylvania is the
special home of vampires, as anyone
who had read "Dracula" will re-
member.
And Also
Rumania also lost territory to lit-
tle Bulgaria, on the Black sea coast,
and to the Russian Soviets: the big
province of Bessarabia. Rumania
was phoney from start to finish, and
few tears were shed over King Car-
ol's cruel fate. Italy and Germany
have now given Carol an air-tight
guarantee of what's left of his king-
dom. How grateful that merry mon-
arch feels, remains to be seen. The
guarantee, however, may lead to
trouble in the Balkans, between Ger-
many and Russia. That's what Mr.
Churchill sits up nights, and prays
for.
DAMAGED:
In France
The French ministry of fine arts
investigated what spots in France
had been hardest hit by the war with
Germany. It gave out the follow-
ing list. Many of the places are
well known to the Americans. Here
it is: Rouen, Laon, Soissons, Com-
piegne, Beauvais, Amiens, Gien,
Saumur, Auxerre, Orleans, Calais,
Dunkirk, Sedan, Mezieres, Arras
Vitry-le-Francois. Vitry, the last
named, was wiped out. The Amiens
cathedral had a miraculous escape.
Stowaway
rT
So desperate ivas Leonore
Hirmukallio, 18 (above), to get
to the United States that she
stowed away on the ship Ameri-
can Legion, which brought 870
refugees from the European tvar
zones. Leonore comes from
Helsinki, Finland. Latest re-
ports indicate that immigra-
tion authorities in the United
States would be forced to ex-
clude her from entrance into
this country.
CAMPAIGN:
Not Hot Enough
The 1940 campaign still was not
very hot. Both the candidates acted
very genteel, although some of their
supporters vocalized like cats on a
back fence. The best Republican
crack was this (for a lot of Repub-
licans still didn't care for Willkie):
If Mr. Willkie wasn't going to vote
for Mr. Willkie, he would undoubted-
ly vote for Mr. Roosevelt. These
Republicans (there were a lot of
them) felt that the foreign policies
of Willkie were no better than those
of Roosevelt, and that—they growled
—was a sad state of affairs. This
growling was becoming a really se-
rious matter, within the Republican
ranks. Willkie, meanwhile, leaned
more and more on the Willkie clubs
and the independent Democrats, and
less and less on the angry Republi-
can regulars, who tend to be isola-
tionist.
Revolution?
The Russell-Overton amendment
to the conscription bill brought forth
some Willkie-Roosevelt nastiness.
The amendment in question, would
permit the government to conscript
any industry in peacetime, if the
government considered that industry
necessary for national defense.
Some people felt it was aimed di-
rectly at Henry Ford, who wouldn't
play ball with the New Dealers, and
wouldn't help the British. Willkie
didn't like the amendment, and tried
to draw Roosevelt out on it. Roose-
velt refused to be drawn out, but
the dopesters believed he liked the
amendment, and the radical New
Dealers certainly liked it fine. It
was the key, they said, to unlock
the castle of entrenched Yankee cap-
italism. The Russell-Overton amend-
ment, said the political scientists,
was probably the most truly revo-
lutionary detail in American history
—more revolutionary than the Dec-
laration of Independence, or the
emancipation proclamation. This
was hotly contradicted, and the de-
bate grew bitter. Meanwhile, Sec-
retary Ickes got called a Hitler-in-
short-pants, and Willkie got smeared
as a "barefoot Wall Street boy—the
rich man's Roosevelt." Even so, the
1940 campaign was pokey, and Nor-
man Thomas looked awfully good to
a lot of perfectly respectable Re*
publicans and Democrats.
DICTATOR:
Non-Dictatorial
Dictator Winston Churchill of Eng-
land was in a big air raid on the
coast of Kent. It was at a place
called Ramsgate. The dictator en-
tered an underground air-raid shel-
ter, puffing on one of his favorite
cigars—which he chews like Barney
Oldfield. The mayor of Ramsgate
said, sternly, "Put out that cigar,
Mr. Churchill!" The dictator looked
sheepish, and humbly did so. "There
goes a good 'un," said he, crest-
fallen. Therein lies the essential
difference between British and Ger-
man dictators, in the year of grace,
1940. Churchill's daughter married
a vaudeville actor, and his nephew
is a Communist. He himself is a
trade-unionized brick-layer, an art-
ist, and an author. He is an ultra-
blue-blood, he is half American, and
he served with the Spanish against
America (he has never cared for
America) in the Spanish war of 1898.
When a New York taxi-driver
knocked him down a few years ago,
he gave the penitent fellow a cigar.
He also told him an off-color joke.
In short, the dictatorial Mr. Church,
ill tends to be a pretty good guy.
Namesake
In London, Umbrella Chamberlain
—Churchill's great rival—has a
namesake, called plain George
Chamberlain. He is 23. He is a
soldier. During a furious German
air raid, he yawned so widely that
he dislocated his jaw, and had to
go to a hospital for serious treat-
ment. Let that be a lesson to the
hysteriacs of America I
E^SCREEN
Washington, D. C.
NEW WILLKIE STRATEGY
Wendell Willkie already has in-
troduced one major innovation in
Republican campaigning by subor-
dinating the regular party organiza-
tion to his new network of Willkie
clubs. But now his lieutenants are
considering another.
This is a plan of "direct selling";
in other words, personal solicitation
or "button-holing" to win votes for
Willkie.
The plan was devised by Hugh
Stuart Center of San Jose, Calif.,
former head of the state's Associat-
ed Republican clubs and organizer
of the California Independents and
Democrats for Willkie. Here is how
tbe plan would work:
In each state, separate organiza-
tions would be set up in 12 classifica-,
tions: agriculture, real estate, pro-
duction, insurance, professional,
finance, education, merchandising,
transportation, hotel, personal serv-
ices, and religion. Each group would
finance its own activities, thus light-
ening the load of the regular cam-
paign organizations and also not pil-
ing up big totals in their official re-
ports.
Business men would be asked to
assign an energetic and personable
young man to devote his time to cir-
culating among workmen in the
same business, and to selling them
the importance to that business of
electing Willkie. Sponsors of the
plan claim three advantages for it:
1. "No time is wasted in seeking
prospects. Each representative
meets them through the day, in the
apparent normal course of busi-
ness."
2. "No sales resistance is encoun-
tered. The prospect does not real-
ize he is being approached political-
ly. It is just a case of two or more
persons talking shop."
3. "No time is wasted on cam-
paign material that will not interest
the prospect, and the cost of the
work is carried by the representa-
tive's employer or firm, thus avoid-
ing reportable expenditures."
• • •
TIN FOR AMERICA
The capital is full of tin men.
Patino is here from Paris, and
Hochschild from Bolivia. Pierce has
arrived from Liverpool and Van den
Brocke from Amsterdam. National
Lead is represented, and the Grace
Lines, and Aramayo; while an ex-
pert is on his way from the Mineral
Bank of Bolivia.
It is a matter of moment when
these men come to Washington.
They are Dutch, British, Bolivian
only in name. Actually, they are
men of all countries. Simon Patino
is a Bolivian who lives in France
and controls the great tin smelters
of England plus tin mines in Bolivia.
Mauricio Hochschild is an Argentine
of Dutch descent who lives in Bolivia
and aspires to unseat Patino from
the tin throne of the world.
But today they are all willing to
be Americans. They see that inter-
national tin control is cracking, and
that Uncle Sam, who consumes
more refined tin than all the rest
of the world, means to smelt his
own at last. The tin men have
come to talk with the defense com-
mission and the RFC in order to get
in on the business.
• • •
TIN STORY
Here are the latest facts in this
tremendously important tin story:
1. The United States is on the
point of signing a contract with one
or more American metal firms to
establish tin smelting in this coun-
try.
2. Bolivia is ready to sign a con-
tract to deliver metallic tin to the
equivalent of 1,000 tons per month.
3. Van den Brocke declares the
readiness of the Dutch government
to deliver 2,000 tons a month from
the Dutch East Indies.
4. Grace Lines are ready to re-
duce freight rates on tin ore from
Bolivia to the United States.
Behind all this is a tangled skein
of conflicting interests. Patino, the
Bolivian, is worried that his gov-
ernment is playing a close game
with his rival, Hochschild, the Ar-
gentine. Van den Brocke, the Hol-
lander, would like to set up a smelt-
ery with Patino, but insists that he
should control it, since he would
supply more ore.
Meanwhile, the U. S. government
sits back, dickering over prices.
Out of all this frenzied activity,
there can be no doubt that a smelt-
ing industry will be established
here. But the long-range question
remains undecided:
Will this new industry outlast the
emergency, or will it, as in the
World war period, smelt itself out of
existence and return control to the
international cartel overseas?
• • •
PINCHOT TO BOLT G. O. P.
Gilford Pinchot, twice Republican
governor of Pennsylvania, will "take
a walk" in favor of President Roose-
velt as against Wendell Willkie.
The bolt will be particularly in-
teresting because a few years ago
Pinchot had a personal squabble
with the White House, and only a
few months ago clashed bitterly with
Secretary Harold Ickes over his de-
fense of Richard A. Ballinger, mem-
ber of the Taft cabinet who was
forced to resign because of charges
involving a sale of government laud,
By VIRGINIA VALE
(Released by Western Newspaper Union.)
IF YOU plan to be driving,
in Tucson, Ariz., early in
October make sure in ad-
vance whether you'll be al-
lowed to or not. For there'll
be three days when it will be
the only city in the United
States without an automobile,
truck, motorcycle or even a:
gasoline scooter on its streets.
And it's all because of the movies.
"Arizona" will have what's known,
in the trade as its world premier
in Tucson, and the city is planning
quite a celebration—a governor's
state ball, a three-day 1860 fiesta
in the adobe city of Tucson, built
for the picture, a rodeo with nation-
al roping and riding stars, and In-
dian pow-wows. Jean Arthur, Wil-
liam Holden, Warren William and
all other members of the cast will
be specially honored.
—*—
Some of the best stories about a
movie are not heard until it is fin-
ished and the principals have gone
on to other pictures. Here's one.
Arriving at the set for "He Stayed
for Breakfast," Columbia's new
comedy starring Loretta Young and
Melvyn Douglas, visitors found the
set barred to outsiders. They were
MELVYN DOUGLAS
told that the players were working
in an extremely small space where
it would be impossible to watch.
The real reason, disclosed later,
was that Douglas was working in
a woman's dressing gown. "I'll!
look silly enough on the screen," he
explained, when asking that the set
be closed.
When you see Hedy Lamarr and
Clark Gable in "Comrade X" don't
be puzzled if the story seems
familiar. It's "Clear All Wires,"
which Spencer Tracy made seven
years ago. The story of an Ameri-
can newspaper man's adventures in
Russia, it's been rewritten to include
incidents in the recent Soviet mili-
tary ventures. Gable draws it as
an assignment instead of "Osborne
of Sing Sing," which he didn't like
anyway. .
June McCloy may win a bet with
her husband if you like her well
enough in "Glamour for Sale," in
which she has the second feminine
lead. Nine years ago she left Holly-
wood to make a name for herself
as a night club singer, and suc-
ceeded. In 1936 she married and
retired. Now she wants to return
to the screen; she's bet her husband
that she can make good within six
months; if she can't, she'll go back
to being just a wife. So she's work-
ing now in the picture starring Anita
Louise and Roger Pryor. She has
a chance at her specialty—she sings
a torch song. But so does Anita
Louise.
Denis Day became singing star of
the Jack Benny show because an
inflamed appendix kept him out of
law school. An honor graduate of
Manhattan college in New York,
Eugene Denis McNulty won a schol-
arship that entitled him to try city
government work for several*
months. He chose radio, and was
doing production work at the city's
broadcasting station, pending his en-
try to law school, when the appen-
dix interfered just as his law classes
were about to begin.
When he got out of the hospital it
was to enter law school that year.'
He turned again to radio, got onto
a sustaining program, and made a
recording which Jack Benny's agent
heard.
He was summoned to Hollywood;
Benny was looking for a tenor to re-
place Kenny Baker, you'll remem-
ber, and they were auditioning liter-
ally by the hundreds. At the last
minute young McNulty got the job,
became Denis Day, and began car v.
ing out a nice career for himself.
ODDS AND ENDS
<L l°n Hall recently celebrated three years
of tilling in the same chair at the CBS
Star Theater broadcasts. He began attend-
ing the broadcasls to hear his wife, Fran-
ces Langford, sing, and has never misted
one since. If someone else sits in hit par-
ticular chair in the clients' room, he says
"I m sorry. You're tilling in our good
luck chair—I'll have to atk you to move."
C. Norma Shearer and George Raft flew
from New York to Hollywood on the
tame day, but not in the tame plane—
couldn't get accommodaliont.
B
SfflK!
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Banger, J. E. A. & Erwin, W. L. The Cass County Sun (Linden, Tex.), Vol. 64, No. 39, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 12, 1940, newspaper, September 12, 1940; Linden, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth340771/m1/2/: accessed July 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Atlanta Public Library.