The sun. [volume] (Newberry, S.C.) 1937-1972, July 12, 1940, Image 2
THE SUN, NEWBERRY, S. C, FRIDAY. JULY 12, 1940
Washington, D. C.
PAN-AMERICAN BARTER
When Hitler first began his crush
ing march through Europe, an Ar
gentine business man remarked to
Washington officials:
"At first it will be a little diffi
cult to readjust our trade with Eng
land. All the docks will be blown
up, and shipping will be scarce. But
after these things have been ironed
out, it will be much easier. We
will simply make a deal with one
man. Hitler will buy our meat—not
only for Germany, but for England,
Belgium, France, and all the rest
of Europe.”
This danger of Hitler capturing
Latin America through monopoliz
ing trade is what is behind the giant
trade cartel for the Americas, now
being worked out by the Roosevelt
administration.
And in the secret report handed
Roosevelt by his cabinet members
is a much more far-reaching plan
than anyone dreams. In brief, the
.plan proposes that the United States
buy all the surplus crops of Latin
America. In other words, Mr. Hull’s
much cherished reciprocal trade
treaties go out the window, and the
United States gets down to hard-
boiled, cut-throat bartering in an ef
fort to monopolize Western hemi
sphere trade.
To illustrate, take the case of Bra
zil and Hitler in 1939. In that year,
Brazil sold most of her coffee to the
United States, but had a surplus left
over which she could not sell. So
Germany offered to take the bal
ance of her crop.
Naturally this was an offer Brazil
could not very well resist—except
that there was one catch to it. Hitler
paid in barter. In return he gave
Brazil cameras, motorcycles, radi
os, optical instruments and various
other German specialties.
Then Hitler, having bought the
coffee for German goods, turned
around and sold it not only to Aus
tria and Czech© Slovakia, which he
had conquered, but also to Jugo
slavia, Rumania, Hungary and most
of southern Europe, with which he
had trade agreements. In return
he got cash, thus bolstering Ger
man exchange.
• • •
U. S. Buys Surpluses.
The state and commerce depart
ments now propose somewhat the
same thing, only this time the Unit
ed States will buy up the surpluses
and resell them in Europe. In other
words, we will take Brazil’s surplus
coffee crop and then resell it just
as Hitler did.
The first part of the program is
purely emergency. It will aim to
help out the southern neighbors who
once had thriving markets in Hol
land, Belgium, Norway, Denmark
and France, but whose markets now
have evaporated with Hitler and the
blockade.
Even after the war is over, how
ever, the system may be contin
ued. The plan is definitely being
set up to this end.
What the state department argues
is that it is cheaper to do somt
surplus buying in Latin America
than to fight a war there. Buying
up the surplus coffee crop, for in
stance, probably would cost less
than a new battleship.
Also, no country will be aided
which does business with Hitler.
Present plan is to be ruthless about
this—though if some of the career
boys in the state department are re
lied upon to be ruthless it may
merely boil down to cheek-patting.
Great danger is that the buying
up of surpluses may take the same
road of Herbert Hoover’s Ul-fated
wheat board. The farmers knew
that the more wheat they raised,
the more they could sell to the
board, so Hoover found himself left
with a tremendous surplus which
depressed the market.
Similarly, Latin American nations
may discover that the more coffee
they raise, the more they can sell
to the United States. The cabinet of
ficers who prepared the plan for
Roosevelt realized this, but figured
that they would try the thing out
during the emergency of the war and
try to perfect it later.
NOTE—Comment of one allied
diplomat on the trade plan to keep
Hitler out of South America: “That
sounds like the man who was on a
ladder painting. Someone came
along and took the ladder away, but
he just kept on painting.”
• * *
Merry-Go-Round.
Jesse Jones, Federal Loan admin
istrator, is playing a much greater
part in the national defense picture
than most people realize. He is
discussing with Roosevelt plans to
put federal money behind factories
which need to expand for munitions
production.
Though preoccupied with the war
in Europe, John Q. Public has not
forgotten that China is fighting for
her existence. The Chinese embas
sy receives many small contribu
tions for the cause.
Not on the subject of war but of
age was one letter a lady sent to
Ambassador Hu Shih, who is 49
years old, but looks 30. She said,
“I have heard that all Chinese look
10 years younger than they are. How
do you do it?”
Hu Shih is still reflecting on his
answer.
GENERAL
HUGH S.
JOHNSON
Jour:
United Feature* W WNU Service
Washington, D. C.
DEFENSE DANGERS
There is a grave danger of this
country going completely haywire
under the pressure of war. It is
true that the grossest neglect of
defense in our history and the most
reckless impairment of our credit
and industrial efficiency have left
us in a most defenseless posture.
Although very weak, due to these
deficiencies, we have roved the
world like a lamb rampant slapping
down the ears of every ferocious ani
mal in the menagerie—lions and ti
gers as well as jackals—until we
haven’t a friend on earth.
Perhaps the most cock-eyed im
pertinence on record is that the au-
( thors of all this incompetence and
danger insist that they must be per
petuated in a third term for Mr.
Roosevelt.
I am accused of constant scold
ing. I don’t want to be a scold. I
examine myself about that “in the
night session.” I can’t think that my
kind of preachment is wrong in this
crisis. If I can’t think it is wrong
I ought not to stop it—scold or no
scold.
Last Mobilization.
Why do I feel so confident? Well,
I sat at the center of both industrial
and manpower mobilization in the
first World war. It is a strange re
sult but the fact is that, although
Scharnhorst and Stein invented the
German idea of the “nation in
arms,” to overthrow / Napoleon and
change the face of war, and, al
though the Kaiser’s was almost as
complete a dictatorship as Hitler’s,
it was not German autocracy but
American democracy that taught the
world the terrible modem lesson of
total war.
This is no time for perfumed nice
ties. The cold fact is that without
the full naval, military and eco
nomic strength of this country, mo
bilized and organized for war the
first time in the modem sense, the
Germans had total victory in the
bag in early 1918. Then something
happened. The M. P.’s didn’t win
that war. American resources and
organization — both economic and
military—did it.
But they were masterfully organ
ized and used by efficient and expe
rienced men who believed, almost
as a religion, in both our economic
and political system. This adminis
tration is allergic to both that kind
of man and belief. Hopkins, Per
kins, Wallace, Morgenthau—I hate
to scold them—but do I have to rep
resent that such incompetents are
fit to manage this great country
against an enemy who has shown
himself so fiendishly clever in ap
plying the very lesson that compe
tent Americans taught him and Ger
many in 1918?
Concentration Camps?
The President recently suggested
that it would be a good thing for
members of his press conference to
go to a CCC camp. Are they go
ing to be concentration camps? For
Mark Sullivan, he is reported to
have told other newshawks that he
had a pardon “written out in blank.”
Mark is frequently critical but al
ways gentle, I wonder about my
“pardon in blank.” If, as and when
it can be done, I shall be boiled in
oil.
So should I shut up? If I do, I
shall write myself down as gutless
as a kippered herring and as simple
as a snipe. There has been no move
of this administration that to me
seemed right that I have not rushed
out to defend until my fan mail
groaned with accusations of being
a water-carrier on two shoulders.
Just now 1 think many of the di
rections in which we are going are
wrong and dangerous. I would like
to forget to say so and to break the
too strident pace of this column by
writing a piece about the “bees and
the rabbits and their sweet engag
ing habits,” but solar systems and
universes are being too rapidly re
oriented. If not doing so is “scold
ing,” I intend to apologize—and do
it some more.
THE SIZE OF THE JOB
It is natural for military thinking
to channel itself into grooves set
by precedents and examples. Sol
diers don’t fight all the time. In
periods of peace, industrial progress
and invention go on but military
science comes to a full stop.
The results of any test of it in
war are so deadly that soldiers, in
peace, try to “keep up with their
profession” and, in times like these,
almost frantically. No two wars are
ever quite alike. We learned some
things in late 1918 that should help
us now, particularly in industrial
mobilization. But we also learned
some things it would behoove us
now to forget, particularly that our
principal problem is raising men
whose equipment we can somehow
pick out of the air.
The war in Europe has been be
tween densely populated nations
within a few hours flying distance
of each other, and only a few more
hours for motorized blitzkrieg ma
chines. Industrial and railroad cen
ters in each small country practi
cally are the vital organs controlling
the whole of it and paralyzing the
punches in any such solar-plexes
nearly told the end of the story.
Neither condition prevails here.
Without nearby naval air bases, no
enemy on either coast is going to
threaten us or even this hemisphere.
Mass Training of Pilots at ‘West Point of Air’
High over Uncle Sam’s “West Point of the Air” at Randolph field, Texas, soars a training plane manned
by a flying cadet and his instructor. Seven thousand pilots will be trained annually in the recently inaugu
rated air corps’ expansion program. Within 36 weeks from the time a flying cadet starts his flight training,
he will be graduated as a full-fledged military pilot and second lieutenant in the air corps reserve.
British Anti-Aircraft Guns Alert for Nazis
English anti-aircraft gunners snap into position at their post somewhere along the coast on the alert for
surprise attacks by hordes of Hitler’s planes. Elsewhere throughout the United Kingdom similar defenses
were ready. Defense of the homeland against Nazi onslaughts by air, sea and parachute troops became a
problem vital to the continued existence of the British empire after the complete defeat of France.
Sen. Glass and Bride at Honeymoon Home
Next First Lady?
Carter Glass, the senior senator from Virginia, is shown with his
bride, the former Mrs. Mary Scott Meade, at their Montview Farms, Va.,
home near Lynchburg. The senator is 82 years old. His bride is 50. A
leader in the senate for the past generation. Glass is known as an expert
on currency and fiscal matters.
As the wife of the Republican
presidential nominee, Mrs. Wendell
L. Willkie comes into the public eye.
She was town librarian of Rush-
viL’e, Ind., when she married Willkie
in 1918 on the eve of his departure
for France with the A. E. F.
WPA Workers Swear Allegiance to U. S.
Just ‘Two-Ton’
Taking oaths of allegiance to the United States are Daniel P. Sullivan, itor from Mars, but simply Tonj
Ernest Verrier, Albert E. Lindley and Frank Osello, (left to right). (“Two-Ton”) Galento, heavyweight
George C. Lawlor, head timekeeper of construction work on the new pugilist. Tony is hiding behind hi!
Boston subway, reads the oath. As WPA workers they signed affi- new training mask which saves hi)
davits declaring their citizenship. f ace / rom disfigurement.
Kathleen Norris Says:
How Dangerous Is College
For Your Daughter?
(Bell Syndicate—WNU Service.)
' Carolyn will also find at college a wild young group that mistakes freedom for
license, and familiarity for love. She will find girls and men who are at home in
every nightclub and roadhouse for miles.
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
AROLYN graduated from
high school this spring,
and Carolyn’s mother
wants to know whether it’s safe
to let a girl of eighteen go 500
miles away to college.
Carolyn, of course, is dying to
go. She has never been away
from home. She has never been
on her own. Jean is going. Caro
lyn and Jean have been school
mates for all the four years of
“high.” They have studied and
shattered and walked to and
fro together since small-girl
days; they have danced with the
same boys at school dances, and
gone to many a movie with boys
and without.
It would be really cruel, thinks
Carolyn’s mother, to refuse to let
the child go on into the new experi
ence that means so much to her,
that glamorous world of college of
which she and Jean have been
dreaming for actual years. And
yet—
Pitfalls Loom Large.
And yet one hears such disturbing
things about girls who are pushed
out of the home nest so young, who
have to choose their own friends, de
cide which amusements to take and
which ones to refuse, manage allow
ances, guard health, and avoid all
the pitfalls that are always awaiting
the inexperienced. The general con
sensus of opinion, thinks Carolyn’s
mother, is that college girls are
pretty reckless, and that home train
ing is soon forgotten in the inde
pendence and exhilaration of univer
sity life.
It’s expensive, too. Extremely ex
pensive. No, Carolyn’s parents think
they’ll have to say “no.”
But what to offer her in place of
a prospect so completely alluring?
Carolyn has had a week-end at col
lege. She has seen the beautiful
dignified buildings set under the
great trees; she has heard the laugh
ter of the free and happy groups
crossing the lawns and going in and
out of the big doorways; she has sat
in the memorial theater, so fasci
natingly complete in every detail,
and listened while girls and boys no
alder than herself have walked the
boards. Friendships, excitement,
fun, picnics, theatricals, beaus—
summed up, college comprises ev
erything Carolyn’s heart or any oth
er girl’s heart wants, and she pleads
and weeps and promises and argues
passionately while the matter is in
debate.
“She is so pretty,” her mother
writes. “She has always been so
carefully watched! How can we
safeguard her from the danger we
know is there? What is your honest
opinion of co-educational institu
tions? What do you think are the
chances that she will have the won
derful time she anticipates, and re
turn to us happy and satisfied when
she graduates, ready to take up
family and home and smalltown life
again?”
Questions Mother Can Answer.
Well, the answer to that is, what
sort of a girl is Carolyn? From what
sort of a home has Carolyn come?
In the everyday tests of character
low sure of Carolyn is Carolyn’s
mother?
A hundred years ago Carolyn
would have been marrying, at 18,
and perhaps departing, bonneted
and shawled, on the front seat of a
prairie schooner, never to see her
homefolk again. She might have
been stepping into a lifetime of
misery and disappointment, but she
would have faced it, plunged into
cooking and sewing and farming
and bearing children, endured what
ever discomfort her mate’s intem
perance, or unsuccess, or harshness
imposed upon her.
College isn’t quite so serious a
step. And yet it’s grave enough,
too, and mistakes made in college
years can shadow all her future-
for a woman quite as deeply as
even an unfortunate marriage can.
Even the most ill-starred marriage
has about it a certain dignity. But
the girl who creeps home beaten
and destroyed from college has to
possess superhuman qualities to
bring her young, broken life back to
anything near normal again.
Groups Vary Morally.
At college Carolyn will find all
she dreams in companionship and
freedom. She will find that many of
the girls and men are fine, come
from good homes, hold to a code es
sentially the same as that their fa
thers and mothers knew. These love
good tunes, dancing, picnics, house-
parties, theatricals, sports, big
games, and are continually planning
and plotting for all of them. But
they take them as rational human
beings, the men, however uncon
sciously, thinking of all women in
the terms of their mothers and sis
ters, and the girls well aware that
to hold the respect of desirable men
friends they have to preserve their
own. So in groups, with the right
element of brothers and sisters and
responsible persons, they go up into
the snows to ski, descend to the
beaches to swim, fall in love, fall
out again, consult over finals and
seminars and extract from a glori
ous youthful time its very happiest
possibilities.
Carolyn will also find at college
a wild young group that mistakes
freedom for license, and familiarity
for love. She will find girls and men
who cut classes, entertain a general
scorn for teachers and for learn
ing, are at home in every night
club and roadhouse for miles, and
believe in giving free rein to the
most elementary human instincts.
The first boy she fancies will choose
some occasion when she has been
eating and drinking, petting and
dancing to excess, to convince Caro
lyn that, what all the other girls do
certainly can’t be such a serious
mistake, and without caring very
much Carolyn will presently find
herself involved in the usual sordid
affair.
A Sheepskin of Cynicism.
There may be moments when she
is genuinely shocked, made u..easy
by considering just how rapidly all
this has come about, but the tele
phone ringing, and the voice of some
ringleader tellin* her of the new
day’s plans will quickly reassure
her, and she will plunge back into
the whirlpool, glad to escape the
need of analysis or giving the matter
any great consideration or any very
serious thought.
When the inevitable moment
comes to end all this, the valuable,
the irreplacahle element of her life
is destroyed. Whether she has had
only a dozen petting parties or a
hundred, one lover or six, one be
wildered half-intoxicated evening in
a night-club or twenty, one flunked
subject or ten, won’t matter. She
will come home utterly disenchant
ed, hardened, cynical. Her old
friends will not interest her, but no
town or crossroads village will be
so small but what she will find in it
the sort of superficial Bohemianism.
to which college years have accus
tomed her.
Girl Must Make Own Decision.
Some colleges and all sororities
try to keep their girls under control
by means of permissions, regula
tions, closing hours, “lockouts.” But
these only work with the girls who
want them to work.
So the problem is strictly Caro
lyn’s. It is for her to decide it;
Mother and Dad can’t do much.