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Show I VSIKLY N2VS ANALYSIS . Fall Back Behind Oder River as Red Tide Rolls On; Act for More Essential Apparel Released by Western Newspaper Union. 1 ItDIIOK S N OIF.: When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of Western Newspaper Luions news analysis and not necessarily of this newspaper.) I I ; v i i f f " L - ' hi it , aj s $ :'Z ? , ' Y ; Driving southward to Manila, Yank infantrymen trod gingerly over crude irrigated landscape on Luzon. EUROPE: Red Tide Long in the making, .when Germany Ger-many first envisioned the necessity of fighting by her-r""'"" her-r""'"" self, the Reich 's I 4 Oder river line I , , " ' ;l was put to its first N jreal test as h , 1 Marshal Konev's K. 1 1st Ukraine army J rolled to its ram-r ram-r v 1 parts on a broad j:;il;::::;::Si;;::. ' M front in Silesia, tellsSSSf M the "1'ttle Ruhr" s ll'fji ;;: !f?:? : ? ; T of th"K east, f , K- ' 'Js 1 As K o n e v's - f forces moved on pSteliKi ' . the 0der line. Lai .jiik o.. XjJ Marshal Zhu- Premier Stalin kov's lst White Russian army pushed on the rich agricultural province prov-ince of Pomerania farther to the north, while Marshal Rokossovsky's 2nd. and General Cherniakovsky's 3rd White Russian armies were snapping their huge pincer on East Prussia, traditional home of the Junkers. In sweeping on Silesia, the Russians Rus-sians threatened Germany's second great industrial belt, rich in mineral resources and once distantly removed re-moved from heavy Allied bombardment.'' bombard-ment.'' As the Red tide rolled on, Nazi commentators frankly admitted that loss of Silesia would seriously impair their ability to carry on the war, and it was here that the enemy offered some of his first sizable resistance. re-sistance. While Premier Stalin announced an-nounced the fall of one stronghold strong-hold after another, and declared de-clared that the great Russian winter offensive had licked up the cream of the German army, Nazi circles began to take a calmer view of the situation after aft-er their first frantic reaction, claiming that effective counter-measures counter-measures could be made only in time because of the gigantic scope of the attack. Reneiv Threat As the last remnants of the German Ger-man forces which punched deep into Belgium streamed back into the Siegfried Line under a hail of Allied aerial fire, British forces to the north maintained their heavy pressure against the Roer river line guarding the plain to Cologne. With their Belgium bubble burst, the Germans stepped up the intensity inten-sity of their nuisance attack in Alsace, Al-sace, where the U. S. 7th army, forced to bear the full weight of the Nazi pressure in this area following the retirement of units to meet the enemy's earlier threat in the north, fought off savage tank-led attacks on a broad front. Temporarily relieved by Von Rundstedt's daring thrust into Belgium, Bel-gium, Germany's vital Rhineland again was seriously endangered by the British operations above Aachen, and the U. S. lst and 3rd armies' regaining of the initiative. Terms for Hungary Return of territory to Czechoslovakia, Czechoslo-vakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, payment of $300,000,000 in reparations repara-tions and provision of at least eight infantry divisions to help fighf Germany Ger-many marked the Allies' armistice terms to Hungary accepted in Moscow. Mos-cow. No sooner had Hungary returned Ruthenia to Czechoslovakia than the latter ceded the mountainous province prov-ince to Russia, which sought it as a natural defense barrier to the newly new-ly enlarged Soviet Ukraine. Payment of the $300,000,000 in reparations rep-arations will be made in goods over a six-year period, it was revealed, with Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia sharing in $100,000,000. DROUTH With their fields and pastures scorched, drouths were said to have played havoc with Australia and Argentina's field crops, and, in the case of the former, taken a heavy toll of stock. From a normal 156.000.000 bushels bush-els of wheat. Australia's production produc-tion was estimated to have dropped to a mere 50,000.000 bushels, while 2.000.000 of 137.000.000 sheep and thousands of head of cattle and were said to have been lost. Only a carryover of 75.000.000 bush- ' PACIFIC: Yanks Wary Virtually without opposition during dur-ing the earlier stages of their drive down the broad plains to Manila on Luzon, General MacArthur's all-conquering American forces began to run into stiffer opposition as their drive fully developed. Even so, enemy opposition was chiefly concentrated far behind on the Yanks' left flank, where General Gen-eral MacArthur was forced to bring up strong artillery batteries to pound Japs entrenched in the mountainous terrain, guarding the approaches to the northeastern end of the island. Although the speed of their advance ad-vance southward waited only on the movement of their supply columns, the Yanks pushed forward warily,N, cognizant that the enemy command had not yet committed the major portion of his forces to the fight. As they swept on, however, the Yanks seized a half dozen air strips for use of the numerically superior U. S. air forces. CLOTHING: Plan Controls Seeking to increase the output of essential low and medium priced clothing, and also check the rising cost of apparel, the government mapped a double-edged double-edged program. First, the War Production board planned to give priority preferment for fabrics to manufacturers manu-facturers of work clothing, children's chil-dren's apparel and underwear, with the government controlling quality to assure maximum serviceability serv-iceability of the garments and limiting the trimmings. Second, the Office of Price Administration, Ad-ministration, describing rising clothing costs as the greatest single threat to the anti-inflation program, planned to fix maximum maxi-mum prices at the average level of the first half of 1943, a reduction re-duction of about 6 or 7 per cent. Although most so-called luxury lux-ury items will disappear from the market under the new regulations, regu-lations, WPB said, better grade clothing will continue to be available, avail-able, and the overall supply should remain about the same. CABINET SHIFT: Wallace Named With business generally looking askance at ex-Vice Pres. Henry A. Wallace's appointment as secretary of commerce, the senate sought to soften the opposition to the selection by considering the transfer of the huge lending functions from the department de-partment to a federal loan agency. Such a move would serve to quiet apprehensions over Wallace's experience expe-rience in the handling of huge sums, and the concern that he might use the department's tremendous resources re-sources for the active entrance of government in business to provide postwar employment. On being apprized ap-prized of his appointment, Wallace declared: "The department of-com-merce and federal loan agency provide pro-vide an opportunity ... for intelligent intelli-gent work in behalf of the producing and consuming public. Roughly, the job is to promote a maximum of national employment by private business. Government must accept the duty of seeing that all men in health have jobs. ... " Wallace's appointment was not made smoother by the displacement of incumbent Sec. Jesse Jones, the big Texas business mogul who handled the multi-billion doUar lending lend-ing activities of the Reconstruction Finance corporation with small loss even before the RFC was made part of the department of commerce in 1942. els of wheat from the previous year curbed the stock fatalities and enabled en-abled the country to meet its domestic domes-tic and foreign commitments. In Argentina the prolonged drouths and excessive heat is seriously seri-ously endangering field crops, with prospects for corn 80 per cent below be-low last year's harvest and for wheat down 50 per cent. Flax and rye production also is expected to suffer heavily. Seared pastures and small forage for-age reserves cloud the country's stock situation. POLITICS: Party Plans j Girding for the 1946 congressional and 1948 presidential elections, the Republican national committee, meeting in Indianapolis, Ind., adopted adopt-ed a program looking toward the active revitalization of the party. ! Proposed by Chairman Herbert ' Brownell, who was reelected to the position, the program calls for the establishment of a full time organization organ-ization with an enlarged staff, which, in addition to maintaining contact with state units, would work closely with GOP representatives and senators sena-tors and help them prepare legislation. legis-lation. Originally a Dewey man, Brownell faced some opposition to his reelec- j tion as chairman chiefly because of j discontent with the last campaign i and the feeling that his retention might strengthen the New York governor's gov-ernor's position in 1948, but he set fears at rest by declaring that he would work for no man's candidacy but would merely interest himself in operating the party machinery. On the other side of the fence, the Democratic national committee, with $400,000 in the kitty, revealed plans to have each state raise a certain cer-tain quota of money to help defray the expenses of the party's between-election between-election publicity and "educational drives. At the same time, Chairman Han-negan Han-negan announced that the Jefferson Day birthday banquets to be held April 13 would replace the former Jackson Day dinners for the raising of funds for future election campaigns. cam-paigns. CANNED VEGETABLES : Guard Supplies Because uncontrolled demand would have resulted in the disappearance disap-pearance of short stocks of canned i vegetables three to five months before be-fore the new pack, rationing of these items was restored in December, it was .revealed. Originally, OPA had removed canned vegetables from rationing in September because of the indication indi-cation of an early end to the European Euro-pean war and OPA's wish to avoid the accumulation of a surplus of stocks. At the time rationing was restored, re-stored, it was said, only 31 per cent of the year's supply of peas remained re-mained for distribution in the next eight months; 60 per cent of the year's supply of corn for ten months, and 46 per cent of the year's supply of snap beans for eight months. ( was a burdened but firm Franklin Frank-lin D. Roosevelt, who, laying his left hand upon an old family bible and raising his right, was sworn in to a fourth term as President of the United States on the south portico of the IVhile House, as 7,000 selected guests stood in the chill air to wit-, ness the event. In the briefest of his four inaugural inaugu-ral addresses, the President called for total victory, then asked for perseverance per-severance in the achievement of a just peace. Said he: "We shall strive for perfection. We shall not achieve it immediately but we shall strive. We may make mistakes' but they must never be mistakes which result from faint-ness faint-ness of heart or abandonment of, moral principle. . . ." WAR PRODUCTION: Further Boosts Reflecting the government's intensive inten-sive efforts to speed up output, production pro-duction of critical war material showed a sharp increase in the last half of 1944, ranging from 20 per cent for tires and trucks to over 200 per cent for rockets. Despite the substantial boosts, however! plans call for even greater great-er production in succeeding months, with further increases for rockets, tires and trucks, planes, light artillery artil-lery field pieces and batteries. In addition to these items, it was revealed, the government's program calls for greater output of artillery ammunition, navy high capacity ammunition, cotton duck, communications communi-cations wire and tanks. AUSSIES: Mop-Up To Australia's half-million men between 18 and 35, who have volunteered volun-teered for overseas service, has fallen fall-en the task of cleaning out the Jap pockets of resistance in the South Pacific, left far behind the front lines by General MacArthur's leapfrogging leap-frogging tactics. Left to wither away, 100,000 Japs, supplied by submarine, have managed man-aged to maintain their positions in a great arc extending from the Solomons Solo-mons to New Guinea. By planting troops behind these Jap garrisons to coop them up while 1 superior U. S. aerial and naval ' forces reduced their communica- , tions to a minimum. General Mac-Arthur Mac-Arthur avoided the necessity of com- j mitting large units in long and cost- ly all-out battle to storm them one by one, thus delaying his whole offensive of-fensive schedule. RAIL TRAFFIC Railroads in 1944 handled the greatest volume of freight traffic, ; measured in ton-miles of revenue freight, for any year on record. Total traffic amounted to approximately approxi-mately 737,000.000.000 revenue ton-miles, ton-miles, according to preliminary estimates esti-mates based on reports from Class I railroads. 1 4 per cent above the previous record. The volume of freight traffic carried car-ried by the railroads in 1944 was an increase of 121 per cent compared com-pared with 1939. |
