The West News (West, Tex.), Vol. 53, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, November 20, 1942 Page: 2 of 8
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TfTR WKSTNKWS
Washington Dipest
Second Front in Africa
Points North to Italy
Underground Anti-Fascists in Italy Want Strong
, Brand of Democracy for Aiding the
Allies: Seek U. S. Pledge.
F -
' By BAl’KHAGE
\fw« imttiyH and
Kathleen Norris Says:
Nancy Is the Most Unhappy of Wives
Bell Syndicate—WHU Future*.
WVC Service, IMS n Street, N W
WsftiuaitoB, D. C.
According to • number of people
to Washington, of whom your cor-
respondent is one, the most star-
tlingly important event of the wsr
may be taking place and nobody,
including the enemy, will admit it
A second front has been opened
the first carefully planned and
meticulously timed offensive against
the Axis since the war started has
begun to Africa There are diplo-
matic developments as well as mili-
tary which, some believe, indicate
that the path to victory will lead
through Rome.
Of course, you couldn't get even a
whiff of Official confirmation for
such a presumptuous assumption
from anyone higher than a first ser-
geant. Nevertheless, there seems to
be quite a bit of circumstantial evi-
dence to support the observation
•f such a development At the
same tune certain happenings in the
diplomatic field add their touch of
verisimilitude to whst the military
might say was a bald and unwar-
ranted, if not unconvincing state-
ment.
Such military information as 1
might offer, which has not been a
part of official statements, would not
be wise to print. But It Is permis-
sible to recall that the Germans
claim that the British have a million
men under General Alexander's
command In Africa. The official
accounts of the number of American
flown planes in almost continuous
activity over a huge ares mdicate
that the American air force in
Egypt is not inconsiderable, even
la these days of giant armies and
armadas.
Apprahenaion in Tunisia
There are diplomatic reports of
apprehension on the part of the
populace of Tunisia, a vital strip of
territory lying along the coast of the
narrow waters that separate it from
Sicily, the Axis stepping stone from
Italy to Africa, which hint that
activities may extend even further
west than Libya.
These are some of the outward
signs which are there for all to see.
From s military standpoint
Italy is the weak sister of the
Axis partnership. From the
Standpoint of anti-Naxi-Fascist
internal subversive organisation
she is perhaps the strongest ally
for the United Nations. An Af-
rican offensive might logically
end to an invasion of Italy.
The recognition of these anti-
fascist underground organizations
as important elements in the gen-
eral Allied offensive agamst the
Axis can be taken as a straw show-
ing which way the tide of war may
be flowing. And they are being rec-
ognized.
One very significant development
sms a recent statement from Lon-
don, which at first blush simply
seemed to dampen any hopes that
the king of Italy might be a force
to bringing about a separate peace
with Italy. But this negative sug-
gestion, when taken together with
certain other indications, has quite
another meaning. The London re-
port indicated that the king was no
longer the “prisoner of Mussolini”
he had been pictured, but really the
friend of Fascism. This seemingly
gratuitous statement may well have
been offered as a piece of firing data
for the diplomatic marksmen indi-
cating that they must change their
sights. And an inkling of just what
must be done in order to obtain the
support of the elements in Italy
which can be of service to the Allied
cause comes from an objective re-
port on the underground to Italy.
This report, originating with anti-
fascist sources in the United States,
clearly analyzes who these people
are, what they have already accom-
plished and what must be done to
get their co-operation. A realistic
program is laid down by inference
which will not be at all palatable
to the conservative or the conven-
tional masters of official intrigue
among tlie United Nations.
According to this report from anti-
fascist sources the underground in
Italy is now composed largely of
young men, bom and educated in
fascism, who are working entirely
from within its framework They
are members of the party because
they have known no other party and
no other government through their :
mature years. They are members ,
of the armed forces because they !
are loyal to Italy.
Aeeordtag to the report which
I mentioa. made by supposedly
authentic and authorised repre-
sentatives of the anti-Faseists,
the underground movement to
Italy Is powerful and effective;
it has accomplished a weaken-
ing of civilian and military mo-
rale; publishes a large and ef-
ficiest anti Fascist press; has
ergauixed political meetings
and combat groups to nearly
every Italian town; has brought
about unity for the first time in
Italian historv between the
working class and the tatel
lectuals. It baa caused general
toefleieary to the army, canted
sabotage in the campaigns of
Greece, Albania and Libya and
effectively sabotaged war indus-
tries.
The members of these groups, the
young men who grew up under
Fascism, are not revolting to bring j
about a status quo ante—they are
revolting agamst the status quo for
definite aims They want a new
democratic order.
Italian Anti-Fascist Demands
The members of the Italian un-
derground are thoroughly deter-
mined to overthrow Fascism wher-
ever it exists. But they demand a
concrete, complete, sincere state-
ment of the program of the anti-
fascist forces before they will join
them, since they risk everything
in revolt and think they might sim-
ply gain new chains for old if they
faced a typical political peace.
They want, specifically, a clear-
cut statement of the peace aims ol
the United Nations. They wanl
these aims stated without equivoca-
tion or couched in the fine generali-
ties of the Atlantic Charter. And
they want to be sure that they have
the guarantee of the United States
as the administrator of those terms
with freedom to build the kind oi
an Italy they want.
There is something of a parallel
between these Italian demands and
the revelations, or what the con-
servative diplomats would call the
indiscretions, of Wendell Willkie
when he called for assurances of
the non-imperialistic designs of the
United Nations.
Willkie, as is his wont, used a
biunderbus instead of s scalpel to
obtain his end, but he did clear up
the atmosphere on the subject of
what Russia and China thought
about the need of extending the
scope of the Atlantic Charter. The
realistic Jan Smuts, prime minister
of Sk>uth Africa, echoed this senti-
ment a few days after Willkie's re-
port to the nation. Others are re-
peating the demand for a full state-
ment ol peace aims.
Strong Brand of Democracy
Another point upon which some of
our allies, and particularly our po-
tential allies in Italy, want recog-
nized by us and emphasized is the
belief, many times stated but very
seldom elaborated, namely, that we
don't expect to go back to things
as they were.
They expect democracy, but
they make it plain they expect
it to be economic as well as
political, and they want a brand
that may prove stronger medi-
cine than everyone might eare
to take. The groups in Italy,
like thoie in other countries,
have forged their political
philosophies in the Ire of perse-
cution.
The revolt against the physical
brutalities of totalitarianism is likely
to carry them far in the opposite
direction. They demand an ideal of
democracy hard to attain.
It becomea. therefore, a vital task
of the American statesman, in as-
suming the neceaaary leadership of
the United Nations as their supreme
physical effort approaches, to for-
mulate s post-war world peace
■deal. If. aa seems possible, the
second front will touch Italy, home
of Fascism, before it reaches the
Nazi borders, the attitude of Italy’s
anti-Fascists must be clearly under-
stood and taken into account
Notes of an
Innocent Bystander:
The Magastoes: Lieut. John
Mason Brown takes a civilian wal-
lop at Archibald Henderson, G. B.
Shaw's bioggor, to The Saturday
Review. Henderson kept ’T-ing" his
way into the narrative, said Brown,
until “whst was supposed to be
Shaw's life managed to become Mr.
Henderson's scrapbook” living
Wallace quotes a couple of fabulous
Hollywood xhoestriiigera to Coronet
on how they can make profitable
flickers so fast. “Because,” ex-
plained the quickie wizards, “we
don't have to struggle through red
tape, stooges and relatives" . . .
Pearl Buck's story, "The Enemy,"
in Harper's reminds you whst won-
derful things can be done with
words, if you have talent . . , Wooil-
rott's brilliant story of a refugee to
Reader's Digest points nut that our
first refugees were called Pilgrim*
—an observation that this dept
last-lined more than a year ago . . .
Look?, you mag correwpondenta at
the Fronts: We aren't panting to
know how humpy your plane rules
are, or how outyiay your meala.
let * have something about the war
and the warriors , . . Commenting
on the news thst three thousand
dead Japa received medal* from
their gov't, Time observes: "Tha
interesting thing was not that Japan
had so many heroes, but that the
heroes were dead." Punchy aoa
caam.
The Front Pages; With a secand
front raging on African sands and
a thigd front blazing on Guadal-
canal, some editorialists are still
whooping it up for a second front
. . . Hanson Baldwin's lucid mili-
tary essays about the Solomons, in
the Times, are another glorious
page of journalism's war reportage
As soon as the gazettes fin-
ished patting Congress for having
the rnoxie to pass the 'teen age
draft bill before the elections, Con-
gressional monkey-wrench throwers
made certain it would be deferred
until after them . . The editors
have jumped to the defense of the
AP in the gov’t anti-trust action
against the news service. They
claim it threatens freedom of the
press. Could be. But who tried to
defend that freedom when the rac-
ing sheets were banned from the
stands?
GraatUnd Wee
I mrl si • rtwirrn dome eke mol who termed ever) iking u underfill in tk,
The U. S. Civil Service commis-
sion is looking for dietitians to fill
jobs at $1 800 a year.
• o •
When soldiers den't writ* to their
girls, the girls write to camp best-
tee
One company ia hoping to ease the
transportation situation by building
a 117-oaaaenger bus.
San Francisco motorists can now
park their care to a four-floor un-
derground steel and parking area
beneath the park.
• • •
farmers received higher prices to
mid-September then s month earlier
for grains, cotton, tobacco, fruits,
dairy poultry product*, report*
the U. S. bureau ai agricultural eco-
The Intelligentsia; Carl Sand-
burg's epic four-volume treatise of
Lincoln and the Civil War has been
digested into a single meaty vol-
ume, “Storm Over the Land’’ (Har-
court. Brace). It's a gold mine of
historical knowledge . . . Two dec-
ades of Thomas Mann's wisdom
have been put between covers in
“Order of the Day” (Knopf). You
don't have to be told that it con-
tains a shining intelligence worth
wrapping around your mind . . .
Like the dress suit in “Tales of
Manhattan,” a passport strings to-
gether the arresting story of Ed
Beattie's life as a UP foreign news-
boy in “Freely to Pass" (Crowell)
I . . . The typewriters of foreign
i correspondents may be turning out
| oceans of books, but each performs
; a vital function—painting an impor-
tant segment of the background for
i the global struggle.
Edward W. Beattie Jr., the United
Press correspondent, whose new
book, "Freely to Pass,” is a click,
tells this one . . At the Munich
conference there was a large bowl
containing a lone goldfish on a table
. . . Someone suggested that they
all try to catch it . . . Daiadier
cautiously rolled up a starched cuff,
put his hand into the water and
made a grab, but the fish easily got
away . . . Chamberlain tried to
hook it with his umbrella handle
and failed . . . Mussolini shot out
his chin, put on his most awesome
scowl and lunged with both paws.
He almost got it . . . Hitler stepped
up and started bailing out the water
with a teacup . . . Soon there was
only a little water left and the fish
flopped around dismally on its side
. . “Grab him, grab him I” cried
Benito.
"No,” said Hitler, “first he must
cry for help!”
Dewey got this telegram on his
election: "Congratulations and ail
the other headaches that go with
being a winner.”
Judith Evelya of "Angel Street”
relays the latest draft fable A near-
sighted youngster with thick lensed
specs was put in 1A.
“Didn't they examine your eyes?”
asked a pal. *
“No,” he said, "they just counted
’em!”
Typewriter Ribbons: Ring Lard-
ner: He looked at me like I was
a aide dish he hadn’t ordered . . .
Edith Wharton: A lady of energetic
eyebrows . , . B. Alexander: Her
wrinkle* proved that time had dug
to for a kng stay . . . Margaret
Bailey: She wore conviction like a
well cut gown . . , Anne Parrish:
A lace aa calm aa custard . . . O.
Henry: She gave him a well-
manicured glance at a cultured lady
. , , John G. Pollard: Geneology
means tracing yourself back to peo-
ala better than you are.
to me. Our aWectiva hwi mutual; run
popular.
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
V TANCY ROBINSON con-
siders herself the unhap-
-*• ^ piest young wife in all the
world. She isn't that, but she
has indeed a sad problem to
solve, and one that probably
won't be the only one of its kind,
as these war years go by.
"Last February," she writes,
"I mpt at a canteen dance the
man who seemed everything
wonderful in the world to me.
“Our attraction was mutual, Paul
was a second lieuteant, handsome
and popular; old friends of my fam-
ily knew all about his people, ar.d
there seemed no reason for our de-
laying our marriage, which took
place in April. I was then the hap-
piest girl in the world, aa I am now
the moat miserable!
"Shortly afterward Paul wa» sent
away to Central America; it was s
hard parting, for we had had five
wonderful weeks to a little beach
home borrowed from a friend, and
felt ourselves sn ideally companion-
able couple. But 1 had expected it,
and bore it as heroically as I could.
In a few weeks a long letter came
from Paul, then a shorter one, and
several cards and notes. In my
heart I felt that something was
wrong, but nothing to really prepare
me for the shock I received this
morning, when a long letter arrived.
In it my husband writes me that he
feels that our hasty marriage was a
mistake; that we were both too
young. He is Mil will be 21 in
December. That does not seem too
young to me.
Wants Hts Freedom.
“He assures me that there is no
other woman in the cast, but says
he would like ta be free. He says
that since our marriage was a very
quiet one, and I live in a small
Nevada town, there need be no pub-
licity. as he has not told any of his
new friends that he it married, and
I live alone with my mother, things
can be ‘sort of hushed up until every
one loses interest.'
“Paul has met some friends at
his new post; they ore evidently
making a great deal of him, for he
speaks of dinners and dances, and
thst in one Spaniah-American fam-
ily there are lota of brothers and
sisters and cousins and they keep
things moving. Beach parties and
singing every week-end; that sort of
thing. He says he is very glad that
a little scare I had about ? baby
coming turned out to be nothing, and
that he will always think of Mother
and me affectionately. I will give
you the actual words with which he
finishes his letter:
” 'It is up to you, of course,
Nancy, to do as you think best. But
under the circumstances I can feel
that nothing but divorce is the solu-
tion. You may be sure that I will
send you all the money I can, at
much as your lawyer thinks right,
and more, and always remember
those happy days at Beachwood. We
surely had a terrible crush on each
other, but a* we grew older we
would be sure to grow apart, and the
beat tiling is freedom for both now,
no matter how badly we fee! at
breaking up things this way. So
take a big kiss and a hug from your
ex-hubby, and write me that you
think this is the wisest way. If I
had been at home it would have been
different, but aa U is I feel that my
whole interest should belong to my
country, without any distraction*
from home. After the war I intend
to aeltle somewhere down here, so
we may not meet again for a long,
long time.' ”
t tarond lieutenant, handsome
PASSING FANCY
II hen the first thrill of far
places has been liuUrd by the
reality of the.it distance from
home; when the seductive effec-
tive of soft, tropical moonlight is
sharpened by the conflicts of
tear; when the memory of fried
chicken and church on Sunday
and thick, clear ice on the neigh-
borhood pond cannot be shaken
by the sights and sounds of a
foreign land; then ’‘Paul Robin-
son" may understand u hy Kath-
leen Norris has told hit wife to
refuse him a divorce. He may
see the things he thinks he manli
for what they really are—mere
pasting fancies.
A Bitter Blow,
To a loving, lonely woman, only
six months a wife, this letter might j
well be a thunderbolt. Nancy Isn't j
to be blamed for almost collapsing
when ahe received It. Somehow, she
ia keeping its content* from her
mother, who works to a garment
factory, and somehow she is man- J
aging to act before her friends and j
neighbors as if nothing was wrong.
My advice to Nancy ia to put her
chin up. summon her dignity to her
aid, and write Paul as if she were ;
twice her 20 years. He has so evi-
dently lost his head in an at- I
mosphere of tropical sunshine, lei-
sure and enjoyment that ail his j
values of honor, obligation, decency, 1
character have gone up in smoke— >
or rather, evaporated in silver j
moonlight and the music of the sea j
She must write him that talk ol |
separation or divorce ia ridiculous; j
that she will wait for him as his s
wife, of course, and that she has en ;
tered into correspondence witn his j
mother and father, who live in Ken- i
tucky. It seems that out of shyness j
and diffidence Nancy didn't get in
touch with them until after her mar-
riage, but that then they wrote her
cordially, glad that their boy had
found a good young wife. If the
can she ought to visit them; in every
way she can she ought to strengthen
the tie that Paul would break.
Make Marriage a Success.
It is highly possible that these two
really are not congenial mates, thst
their hurried young marriage was
a mistake. But even so. when the
war is ended, they may decide to
make it a success, as any man and
woman may, by resolutely building
a life together, and with patience
and courage learning to depend upon
each other.
But it ia more likely, if Nancy
can be strong enough to forgive, to
overlook this youthful, cruel, selfish
letter, that Paul will come home to
find that he loves his young wife,
after ail, that the glamour of the
southern beaches and the charms of
the dark-eyed enchantresses were
not permanent things, that after the
war he want* to come back to his
own country, and live the life hi*
father and hi* ancestors did before
him. If Paui had a lister, and tome
man wrote to her the letter he just
sent Nancy, he would perhaps be
able to get some idea of just how
brutal it was. If, a* I definitely
suspect, Paul is to love again, and
hasn’t had the courage to tell his
new friends that he has been less
than a year the husband of a girl
to the United States, then he may be
to for a rude awakening. For Span-
iah-American mothers have theit
firm religious convictions, too, and
Pawl’s conchita will be locked to a
remote upper bedroom and bimaelt
forbidden the hacienda entirely, tha
moment the family get* tha new*.
n ILL BRADY handled Jim Corbett
eA when the pompadoured stylist
beat John L. Sullivan SO year* go.
Later an the able Mr. Brady direct-
'd Jim Jeffries, another of the old-
time greats
For more than SO years Mr. Brady
has kept to close touch with boxing
and the fight game
in general, but he
-dmits now that no
one can guess what
might happen be-
yond the fog of war.
“The length of the
war will be a big
factor,” Bili says,
“and who can say
how long this war
will last?
“We knew that
after another year
or two to the army
that neither Joe Lewis nor Billy Comb
taa hop* ta be what they were at
their peak form. I am referring to
spaed, skill, timing sad reflexes.
They may bo jast a* bvaNhj and
jnst as powerful, but there la almost
sura ta be a dull edge an their
sharpness.
"This doesn't mean, however, that
they will be outriarsed U they re-
turn to ring action. For who ta cam-
tog along fo show much more f
The Difference
"This war ia different from the
first World wsr," Mr Brady con-
tinued “The kids id II and 18 now
are going Into service. There in
more boxing now, and there will be
more and more boxing than any ex-
tended sweep of army and navy
camps ever knew. This applies to
million*.
"Thera will be a Mg average iaa-
provement on the hoxtng side. More
meu will know bow to handle thalr
flats and use their feet la the ring.
But developing a champion under
wsr conditions It snother matter. It
can be dent, but It will take timo-
plaaly of Ume after the war.
"We might take the ease of Gene
Tunncy,” Mr. Brady went on. “He
went from tho marines to the heavy-
weight title. He was a fin* all-
around fighter.
“But don’t forget that the armis-
tice came in November, 191*. and
1926 had arrived be-
fore Tunney reached
the top Here was a
smart, hard-work-
ing fellow who
trained perfectly.
Yet he needed eight
years to get there.
Three years after
the wsr Gene was
still just another
floundering heavy-
weight, as he
proved against Sol-
dier Jones—I thmk
that wa* the name—on the Demp-
sey-Carpentier card.
“Gene's boxing improvement
came after he left the marines—and
you won't find as many ambitious,
determined young fellows as Tunney
was to hts eight-year campaign. And
on his way up he had to weather on*
of the worst beatings in ring history
—from 160-pound Harry Greb ”
Someone—But Who?
“As I said before, there are sev-
eral millions taking boxing lessons
now from good instructors sll ever
the country—camp by camp,” Bill
said. “The majority from this big
group never would have boxed If
it hadn't been for camp training.
Naturally, many af these will ahew
undeveloped talent that may lead
to something after the war.”
Jack Dempsey brought out this
point at hit coast guard station
"We have several thousand kids
here taking boxing lessons, learn-
ing at least how to stand and how to
use their hands.” Jack said “Nat-
urally, the great majority of these
never could be good fighters to the
ring. It would be the same if you
taught the fundamentals ol golf to
several thousand youngsters From
this group you might get five or six
possible champions — maybe not
even that many. But you would get
a few who could take high ranking.
“It is the same way in boxing.
I don’t think many people know how
many have been trying to get some-
place to the ring game—up to the
thousands—but less than 1 per cent
ever get anywhere.
One of the Toughest
“Boxing i* one of the toughest
games to the world to lace. When
you have a heavyweight champion,
for example, you rarely have more
than one or two challengers who are
any good at all. Baseball and foot-
ball and golf arc full of stars, but
there are never many good fighters
—I mean topnotchers.
“I agree with Bill Brady,” the
Manassa Mauler went on, “that out
of aeveral millions who are botng
given Intensive training under many
good instructors, we should he able
to dig up many mare good ring
fighters than we have had before.
But thin is someth tut that belong*
to the future, not to the present. We
won’t have the answer tor some
time, hut It must he en the side at
youth when tee get it Jnst as fat
any other game, the yconger they
get started the better chance they
have." Tha truth at Dempsey's state-
ments wU ho proved in the totnm.
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Webb, Leonard. The West News (West, Tex.), Vol. 53, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, November 20, 1942, newspaper, November 20, 1942; West, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth590459/m1/2/?rotate=270: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting West Public Library.