Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS by edward C wayne president scores teace peace offensives and urges additional aid for britain nazis pour more troops into rumania english bombers pound invasion ports EDIT NOTE when opinions are re expressed in these hem columns colum nt they are those box of the lh nw news analyst and nd not necessarily of this newspaper ne nelea lessed ted by western newspaper paper union 2 X sv P 4 X V IF SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE A picture released by the he german cen sors bors purporting to show french newspaper men being shown the effect of f german cannon ore fire on the maginot line fortifications the line upon which franco france once pinned its faith against invasion Is now a bad memory of the past for those in occupied france PEACE U 7 S offensive As the U S administration moved evermore ever more vigorously toward aiding britain isolationists groups in senate and house started individual peace offensives which the president had scored in no uncertain terms in his radio address S sunday before new years back of them all was the familiar theme of asking the U S to demand that britain and germany state their war alms and that this country make one last effort to bring the two chief waring nations together ge ther before the world as it now exists falls apart the theory back of it all seemed to be ba a feeling on some of the administrations heartiest opponents that president defit roosevelt still would like to see himself in the role of peacemaker on any basis but the president himself indicated that there could be no negotiations with the axis powers bent on conquering the world by the use ot of gangster tactics the demand of knudsen that manufacturers work for victory and by tits tills evidently meaning a british victory was seen as enough indication of the true temper of white house feeling in the matter editorially the anti british american ican press hailed this domestic peace offensive and the anglophile press editorially condemned it saying that normally intelligent sen acors and congressmen were allowing themselves unwittingly to be made tools of hitler defense rise capacity americas productive capacity for defense Is ii rapidly expanding to meet the nations armament needs according to the defense commission the nations arms output has hai reached 2400 aircraft engines planes more than semi auto matic rifles and tanks a month the commission added that more th than a n a million persons have been put to work in the last two months and that several million more WW will be needed by next november GREECE ECE now Arix anxious arilious ious there were two schools of thought as to the reports that germany was sending anywhere from to soldiers into rumania via hungary school no I 1 figured that these troops were aimed to be shot into greece through bulgaria thus attempting to keep italy going and thus perhaps hurling russia and turkey into the southeastern end ot of the world war school no 2 doped it out that this latter eventuality was just what germany sought to avoid and chati chak the troop movements it any were largely a smoke screen to cover it a severe invasion attempt on the west front I 1 tho the british evidently belonged wholeheartedly whole heartedly to school no 2 for they followed up the unofficial holiday truce by hurling an average of bombs a minute on the invasion ports giving them a taste enste ot of war from the air that they had since october early advices advises from glands En scouts on tho the continent seemed to indicate that the objective had been attained and that any invasion attempt would have to be postponed again at the same time the british put into volume production a new type tybe of torpedo boat said to travel 70 miles per hour barely touching the tops of the waves highly maneuverable and cair carrying ying all sorts of armament including one cannon and several torpedoes purpose of this boat to is to be a countermove counter move against any troop car crying barges that may seek to cross the channel BRITISH get second wind the campaign in egypt which saw the british capture upward of prisoners and huge quantities of war material while hurling the italians not only out of foreign territory but well back within their own libya reached a point where the british sat still tor for a while apparently catching their second wind sit down point was bardia where a state of siege was declared and the british under general wavell apparently decided to shell the defenders into submission with artillery from land and sealand sea and bombs from the air rather than to risk heavy casualties in a direct assault on the well fort fortified I 1 fled town bardia is said to be defended by italians and while cut off from outside help or supplies and apparently doomed to tall fall showed s signs igns of being able to hold out for a while prisoners who deserted from within the town and ran the gantlet of fire to the comparative safety of surrender said barbla wasa was a bellon onearth earth they described the havoc wrought by british fire and felt themselves well out of it all rome was slow to admit british successes but there were signs of sweeping further urther jt changes in command these mostly came from british sources which announced that as the italian air force was wa fighting more vigorously they assumed that italy once more had fired a general and hired a n new ew one DIPLOMACY beats the punch diplomatic circles did a bit of shadowboxing shadow boxing around a supposed plan of president roosevelt to widen the neutrality area to include ireland thus permitting britt sh ald c car a r crying american vessels to run to west irish ports the diplomats themselves said nothing but the newspapers in the dictator nations opened fire ol 01 on this proposal before it was made and their barbs shot hot in all directions and across all oceans german papers threatened america with everything practically including clouding a declaration of war it if the move was as made the ships would be sunk without warning they said they called it britaina Brit ains dirtiest trick that the english have tried to foist on AM america eraca following this the rome press followed sult suit going ever further and promising ireland that the axis powers would give eire full aid if she were to go io to war with brita britain in and this shot fell into ireland and set the irish almost at each others throats again QUAKE but bui no sabotage new england and a large part of the surrounding country was treated to a pair of earthquake shocks one of the few disasters in recent months that been investigated by the FBI or the dies investigators or both most remarkable was the prediction of one quake expert that the shocks felt are just a preliminary and left new england sitting on the anxious seat for this scientist predicted that within eight months the earths fault will really settle and that a truly disastrous quake will occur new englanders who have smugly sat back for decades looking over at sunny california studying their own gloomy climate and saying well anyway we dont have earthquakes are now revising their slogans accordingly and such Is their confidence in I 1 college professors that new england wont be sitting pretty until the eight months have passed away without a quake 1 NLRB gets red tag the smith committee of the house of representatives tendered its final report branding the national labor relations board as avowed enemies of constitutional government and recommending not its disbandment but a thorough house cleaning the committee approved the presidents naming of dr harry A millis and dr william S leiserson to the board and I 1 the be ousting bf of edwin rep howard W smiths group turned burned its chief barbs against smith ending 17 months of investigation of the NLRB the committee recommended and charged 4 1 prompt dismissal cfall of all members of communist front groups 2 sweeping revision of the wag per labor relations act 3 institution by bon congress gress of an investigation vesti gation of the entire field of labor relations the report tied up smith with harry E bridges ts the stormy petrel of labor on thi the west coast charged it with wrecking labor and employers alike I 1 and of having pronounced CI CIO 0 O sympathies TRIAL BY BOMBS air war continues for periods ot of as much as tw two 0 days no german planes appeared over england then in A a lightning raid a devastating blow Is struck one such blow was on the port of liverpool and another at manchester damage was admitted heavy the british on the other hand conducted nightly raids and sought to make them on the same giant scale their most serious blow was on mannerheimo Man home of the huge 1 I G one of the largest plants in the world the bombings were not confined to germany however but strung out from northern norway to italy one night R A 1 F planes flew as far as venice dropped bombs and returned neutrals also felt the effects of the air war several towns in both northern ireland ulster and southern ireland tire eire were struck civilian casualties were recorded as well in switzerland otherwise on the war front fl 1 german junker planes were reported ca carrying italian soldiers from the east coast to albania Alban la it was denied any german troops were being ferried fl the british submarine swordfish which attained a notable record was missing with its crew of 40 and considered lost 41 the house of parliament again was struck by a bomb 41 hitler told his bis nazi soldiers to it new years message that the year 1941 will bring the greatest victory in our hist history nry |