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THE SUN, NEWBERRY, S. DECEMBER 19, 1941 Washington, D. C. HIDDEN TREASURE With American industries crying for war materials, the government has finally got around to seizing a giant horde of semi-manufactured war materials originally intended for the conquered countries. Tons upon tons of steel bars, steel rods, steel sheets, ship plates, tin plate, copper wire were ordered by Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Holland and Belgium, some of it three years ago. It has been in warehouses and idle freight cars ever since, despite the scarcity of raw materials and despite the fact that some indus tries are even closing for lack of them. Why this horde of priceless ma terial remained untouched for so long is a mystery. But the secret is first, government red tape and bureaucracy; second, the fact that owners of these materials, who were holding them for higher prices, did not want to sell. The old Export Control board un der Gen. Russell Maxwell, who is now devoting his abilities to the Near East, did nothing about this treasure horde. But now Henry Wallace’s Economic Defense board is finally moving in. A small haul was made earlier this year in Hoboken, N. J., of alu minum and other materials, but the coming seizures are on a far great er scalx. Of one commodity alone, tin plain, there will be 100,000 cases, or 15,900 tons, taken from three areas. New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The total haul of all commodities will be between 20 and 25 thousand carloads, which, at an average of 50 tons to the car, means over a million tons. The Economic Defense board will use only $200,000 to finance the requisitioning of all this material, the value of which runs into many millions. Most of it will be seized and sold again on the same day, so the $200,000 will be merely a re volving fund. * • • INTERNED ITALIANS One of the Italian ship officers in detention at Fort Missoula, Mont., wrote his wife in Italy a letter which U. S. officials are sure will never reach her. The letter will get to Italy, all right. Mail is still being exchanged regularly between the two coun tries. But authorities are certain that the officer’s letter will not get by II Duce’s censors, for, in hungry, battered, war-weary Italy this poignant message would not be "good propaganda.” This is the reason: "We left Philadelphia for the city of Missoula,” wrote the husband. "The journey lasted three days and three nights on a train and was a real pleasure. We did not lack a thing because we traveled in a Pull man. At meal times we turned it into a dining room and at night into a dormitory. The meals were magnificent. “I can tell you that for me the journey was one I had dreamed of for years and then, in an extraor dinary way, it came true. As I said before, this place is beautiful, all green with woods and surround ed by hills. The air is fine and healthy, my appetite very good and the food abundant and exquisite. “We do not lack milk, butter, meat, bread, vegetables, fruit, sugar or coffee. When I am eating I always think of you, who are per haps without food. No one can complain about the guards. They treat us with every respect and consideration.” Note: To Americans the effusive description of the food as “abun dant and exquisite” is interesting, because the alien prisoners at Fort Missoula are fed straight army fare. In quality and quantity their rations are exactly the same as those of U. S. soldiers. » • • SCRAP IRON TO JAPAN For years, the heaviest foreign buyer of U. S. scrap iron was Japan. Despite much public protesting, the state department permitted Nippon ese militarists to import huge quan tities of this vital strategic materi al. Now appeasement' chickens are coming home to roost. With defense production swinging into full tide, the U. S. suddenly is confronted with a serious scrap shortage. For various reasons, de fense' chiefs are saying nothing about the situation. But it is very acute. A number of steel makers have privately reported curtailed production schedules in the offing because of inability to obtain need ed supplies of scrap. One important plant executive went so far as to describe his con dition as "almost desperate.” • • • CAPITAL CHAFF Everyone is getting increased Wages, except the poor postman. The cost of living has gone up but he can’t strike against the govern ment. The army air corps is wind-tunnel testing a new single-engine fighter plane that will do 512 miles an hour, 100 miles faster than any other plane in existence. All the bugs have been eliminated from the plane except one—finding a pilot who can safely fly a plane at that terrific speed. IMAGINARY CHRISTMAS COLUMN (“Mrs. Roosevelt says she be lieves in telling children there is a Santa Claus. ‘Let them have the joy of believing that Santa Claus does come and that he is such a jolly old saint,’ she writes.”—News item. Yes, there is a Santa Claus. I sometimes hear people say there is not but yesterday we had quite a few friends over to luncheon and they all quite willingly came out for his existence. Last night I mo tored to Westbrook. A motorcycle policeman held me up. Hq wanted to talk about the red light but I got him to talk about Kris Kringle. I told him there really was a Santa Claus and in a very few moments he caught the spirit of the whole thing and told me to drive on. • • • Today I am attending two lunch eons and I shall bring up the mat ter of Santa and ask for a more universal emphasis. There is so much every one of us can do about it if we only try. It is always hard for me to understand people who say there is no Santa Claus, but I suppose there will always be people of that kind. I get around quite a bit and I find the belief in the jolly saint rather general this time of year. Chicago, Kansas City, Du buque, Poughkeepsie, Nyack, Los Angeles, Houston—everywhere one finds this true. I have also noticed it in New York, Haverstraw, Chico pee Falls, Cleveland, Brooklyn and Golden Beach. * * * x I also think Santa Claus exists in a very real way in radio. In deed, it is in a broadcasting station that he seems especially tangible to me. I never look at a microphone without seeing a little red hat on it and long white whiskers. * * * I think newspapers are full of Santa Clauses, too. Whenever I think of a managing editor I seem to imagine him in a sleigh crying “On Donder, On Prancer, On Cu pid, On Vixen” to eight tiny rein deer. • » • Theater of War Between U. S. and Japan Here in graphic detail is shown the location of strategic points in the war between Japan and the United States. Distances between important points now in the headlines are also shown. Of particular interest are the following points: the Russian port of Vladivostok and its nearness to Japan, which would make it an ideal air base in a bombing raid campaign on the enemy; the Hawaiian islands where at Pearl Harbor the Japanese opened their war on the United States with a devastating aerial attack; the most vulnerable sector of the continental United States to Japan attack—the Pacific coast area. How Navies of Warring Nations Compare AIRCRAFT CARRIERS CRUISERS DESTROYERS SUBMARINES UNITED STATES ■■7 ■3/ ■1113 GREAT BRITAIN ■Hi 16 ■4 ■■62 ■■■■■■■■219 ■48 JAPAN ■■10 ■16 ■3D ■■HID ■66 GERMANY ■16 11 14 ■■20 *>50 ITALY ■5 ■20 ■HM123 ■105 This chart shows the naval strength of the Axis and Allied navies. Latest figures available are shown. Heads Pacific Fleet As President Asked War Declaration Yes, Santa is very real. Very, very real. I would be the last to doubt it. I believed in him as a little girl, but he has never seemed so genuine to me as now. Some of my associates do not believe in him, I regret to say. Westbrook Pegler, for example, thinks he is a fake and I hear he may expose him. I trust not. • * • After all we are all little chil dren, some more so than others. I sometimes wonder if the kiddies are not smarter than the grown-ups. So let us make this a land of chil dren and childish illusions. Until the last decade not much was done about Santa, in an aggressive way I mean. It all seemed so ineffectu al. There was no government inter est. But now Santa has the federal government behind him and he is a different person. • * * Tomorrow I drive to Carson City where there will be a council meet ing for Better Santas and the next day I go to Oil City, Pa., to help launch the Women’s Federation for the Standardization of Artificial Snow Flakes. If anybody asks me if there is a Santa Claus I shall not mince words. * • • WANNA BET? The Society of Restaurateurs re ports that a poll of patrons on the question of what to do to solve the problem of serving adequate meals in the crisis shows that 15 per cent favored a charge for bread and butter and 8 per cent favored charging extra for coffee or tea with dinners. Well, we just don’t believe it. We have never yet encountered anybody who didn’t fume over a separate charge for bread and butter. And nothing makes the average patron as sore as the 35-cent pot of tea or coffee. * • * If the gas crisis gets as bad as predicted we may yet see a fellow with a half-pint of gasoline trying to get a garage to open up to let him have enough automobile for a little fun. * * * ‘HOW’S THE HOUSE COMING ON?’ Among the more irascible citizens of the moment are those who were fortunate enough to begin building or remodeling a house this summer. We know a man who has been a vic tim of so many priority lists that he is naming his new manse “Pri orities Manor.” “I can’t get any plumbing, shingle nails, gutters, radiators or door knobs,” he wailed yesterday. "Tell me, did Japan get all our door knobs and keyholes, too?” The American fleet in the Pacific is under the command of Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel, 59, who took over command of the Pacific fleet and also of the entire U. S. fleet last February 1. President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressing the joint session of con gress, when he asked congress to declare a state of war against Japan. Congress passed the declaration 33 minutes after FDR’s speech. U. S. Fleet Off Coast of Hawaii In Asiatic Waters Admiral Thomas C. Hart, 64, who commands the U. S. Asiatic fleet. A splendid view of units of the United States fleet at anchor in Lahaina roads, Hawaii, near the scene of the unprovoked attack by Japanese bombers at a Sunday’s dawn. In bombing raid* on Japan, Russia’s port of Vladivostok would make an ideal air base for U. S. I I ‘Peace on Earth . . .’ There seems to be precious little of either on this Cbristmas day. Yet that’s not so unusual. Glance through the pages of American his tory and you’ll find plenty of ex amples .of Christmas days given over to war, instead of peace, and to ill will, instead of good will. It has been true since this repub lic Was founded. The first Christ mas after the signing of the Decla ration of Independence saw George Washington and his Continentals struggling to keep alive the fight for liberty. On the evening of Decem ber 25 he crossed the Delaware, at tacked Trenton and spoiled the Christmas celebration of Colonel Hall and his force of 1,000 Hessians, killing 22, wounding 84 and captur ing 868. The American casualty list was only four wounded. But if Christmas, 1776, was bright with victory, Christmas, 1777 was correspondingly dark with despair. For it was spent at Valley Forge and that fact speaks for itself. Christmas, 1786, was scarcely a time of good will among the men of the new nation, especially in western Massachusetts where armed men were marching over the hills and through the valleys, ready to plunge their state into the horrors of a civil war. For on that Christ mas day the incident, which has come down in history as “Shays’ Rebellion,” was mounting to a cli max because a people, driven to DANIEL SHAYS despair by poverty, high taxes and a loss of faith in their government, had resorted to armed force to right their wrongs. Their leader was Daniel Shays, who had served with distinction for five years in the Continental army and came out of the Revolu tion a captain. But the “Patriot” of 1776 became a “rebel” in 1786, was driven out of his native state when the governor of Massachusetts called out the militia to suppress the “rebellion” and died a poverty- stricken exile in 1825. In 1836 the Texans won their in dependence from Mexico and for a time there was peace between the two countries. Then the Mexicans began making raids on Texan terri tory and the Texans, under Gen. Thomas Jefferson Green, deter mined to retaliate. Over the pro test of Sam Houston, an army of 304 men invaded Mexico. On Christ mas day, 1842, they met a force of more than 2,000 Mexicans under General Ampudia at Mier and after killing nearly half of the enemy were induced by false promises to sur render. Thus the famous “Mier ex pedition” ended in disaster, for later, by order of Gen. Santa Anna, every tenth Texan was executed. Four years later the Americans and Mexicans were at war again— this time a formally declared war— and on December 25, 1846, Col. Alexander Doniphan of the First Regiment of Missouri Mounted Vol unteers was fighting a battle with 1,200 Mexicans at Bracito river. The Mexican loss was 63 killed and 150 wounded; the American, seven wounded. December 25, 1860, was a fateful Christmas in American history. On that night a little force of soldiers, commanded by Maj. Robert Ander son, stole quietly out of Fort Moul trie and occupied Fort Sumter in the middle of the entrance to the harbor of Charleston, S. C. Four months later the commander of the Confederate forces in Charleston called upon him to surrender; he refused and when a shell went screaming across the waters to strike Sumter’s brick walls it set 2,000,000 Americans against each other in the greatest civil war in history. Happily, not all Christmas days in American history have been dedi cated to war. On Christmas Eve, 1814, John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, James Bayard, Jonathan Russell, and Henry Clay, American commissioners, met with represen tatives from Great Britain in the city of Ghent in Belgium, to try to end the long-drawn-out negotiations which had kept them there since the preceding August. Perhaps the spirit of Christmas filled them. At any rate the wrangling ceased and they signed the treaty which ended the War of 1812. \ ASK ME J t l ANOTHER l I l A General Quiz ? The Question* 1. In British history, what is meant by the star chamber? 2. What is a menage? 3. What name is given to a poem in which the initial letters of the lines, when taken in order, form a word or words? 4. If London bridge should fall down, into what river would it land? 5. What is the plural of the word mongoose? 6. At what is a calligrapher adept? 7. One-fourth of a barrel is called what? 8. Who coached the “point-a- minute” team famous in football history? 9. When was the first star measured? 10. Whioh country first intro, duced thi.! lifeboat? The Answers 1. Ai; ancient high court which sat without a jury. 2. A household. 3. Ah acrostic. 4. The Thames. 5. Mongooses. 6. Handwriting. 7. A firkin. 8. Fielding H. Yost. 9. Although the stars have been scientifically studied for hundreds of years, not one was ever meas ured until December 13, 1920, when the diameter of Betelgeuse was determined with the aid of a special type of interferometer at the Mount Wilson observatory in California. 10. The lifeboat was a British in troduction. The first was launched at South Shields in 1789. There were many wrecks and great loss of life in the stormy waters at the entrance to the Tyne, and South Shields residents offered a prize for the design of a boat capa ble of riding the rough seas. The best points in the various designs submitted were combined in the first boat. DON'T LET CONSTIPATION SLOW YOU UP • When bowels are sluggish and you fed Irritable, headachy and everything you do Is an effort, do as tnilliont do — chew FEEN-A-MINT, the modem chewing gam laxative. Simply chew FEEN-A- MXNT before you go to bed—sleep with out being disturbed—next momi ig gentle, thorough relief, helping you led aweM again, full of your normal pep. Try FEEN-A-MINT. Tastes good, is handy end economical. A generous family supply FEEN-A-MINTTo* Selfish Gratitude The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits. — La Rochefou cauld. /MIDDLE-AGE^ WOMEN (££) HEED THIS ADVICEI! 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