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Show WEYGAND: Finally Unmasks WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Threat of German Invasion of Britain And Congressional Lease-Lend Debate Present Grim Picture of War Situation; Italians Continue to Fall Back in Africa (KOITOK'8 NOTE When opinions are expressed In the, eolamns, they ara thoe of the a-iw. analyst and not necessarily of thli newspaper.) (Released by Western Newspaper Union. J f J 1 i ' Si 1 dh : '?v. ' ' Ti i ' illll il'i .lllfi dMil II i 'if " 1f iflflaMM " ill "I tt If Wl"1 iWltl tM LABOR: Raises Its Head The domestic labor situation became be-came steadily worse during the weeks that the lease-lend bill was "on the tapis" in Washington. Perhaps the Allis-Chalmers strike was the most serious, affecting as it did not only that single industry, but as Allis-Chalmers was making parts, it meant a serious hold-up all along the line, particularly in planes and tanks. But the most striking labor development devel-opment of the week was the statement state-ment issued by Henry Ford through one of his industrial lieutenants. Ford authorized this man to say in CRISIS: For Lease-Lend The real crisis in the lease-lend legislation found a well-deflned public pub-lic response to the antagonistic ef-fprts ef-fprts of the isolationists and the non-interventionists. non-interventionists. The result? The administration called big guns to the support of the measure, and predicted its passage during the week beginning March 3. The schedule called for unlimited debate in house and senate, sen-ate, but there were many indications indica-tions that this limitation would bring forth tremendous opposition in Republican Re-publican floor circles and in senate committees as well. Generally speaking, the public attitude, at-titude, as disclosed in numbers of polls of sentiment conducted by newspapers throughout the country, seemed to be that the all-out aid to Britain principle was favorably received. The public, on the other hand, seemed to feel that there was at least a reasonable doubt whether the President should be given as much and as drastic power as the original lease-lend draft indicated. This was reflected even in the sponsorship of the measure, because Representative Bloom (N. Y.) who was chairman of the h,ouse foreign relations committee, scarcely put up any opposition against three or four major amendments, limiting the time for which the presidential powers pow-ers would be granted, declaring in principle against convoys and other items in which the opposition found fault with the bill. This showed the administration forces to be in the unusual position of fostering legislation of which they do not approve themselves, at least in part. Either that, or they were "shooting "shoot-ing for the moon," and willing to "4t if- -) . GEN. MAXIME WEYGAND He'll 'track-along Gen. Maxime Weygand went to Africa an enigma. Much of this enigmatic quality was dispelled when he issued a statement in which he definitely refused re-fused to "throw in" his hand with DeGaulle, but said he would "track along" with the Petain regime in Vichy. Yet it was not quite so clear as all that, although it was extremely important that Weygand should have finally unmasked himself. For the Vichy situation was still, in its way, considerable of a mystery. mys-tery. The Nazis were reportedly much disgusted with Vichy's failure to back up the Laval ideology, particularly particu-larly in regard to the use of Tunisia for Nazi bases of operations in Africa. Af-rica. So the stand, announced by Weygand, Wey-gand, that he would continue to support sup-port the Vichy regime, could or could not be taken to mean that Weygand had fallen in with the Nazi party line. Yet Great Britain had hoped that Weygand, in going to Africa, was "escaping" from Vichy, and would turn in the direction of DeGaulle. That hope, at least, was completely complete-ly dispelled by Weygand's statement, state-ment, which unhesitatingly lined him up with the Vichy government. What that government would turn out to be, remained undecided. i ' G. O. P.: On Tivo Sides Oddest picture of the lease-lend bill fight in America was the sudden junket of Wendell L. Willkie, late G. O. P. standard-bearer, to England Eng-land to take "his personal look" at the state of Britain. Willkie's departure was speeded by a paternal pat on the head from his erstwhile opponent, President Roosevelt, and a note written by hand to Winston Churchill. Willkie flew to Europe. He was greeted practically with presidential honor in the Azores, where the natives na-tives could not be convinced they were not greeting the President himself. him-self. He landed at Lisbon, was ferried hastily to England, dined with Churchill, Chur-chill, lunched with royalty, and hobnobbed hob-nobbed with the plain and fancy in London. He underwent air-raids, habitually roamed about the streets without helmet or gas-mask, (on three occasions occa-sions he had to be handed both with a gentle reprimand from some higher-up), and generally inspected the state of Britain as he, Willkie, had intended to. America was treated to the strange spectacle of the Democratic administration "needing" the testimony testi-mony of the ex-Republican standard-bearer standard-bearer to help it over the hill on the lease-lend bill. The whole situation was something some-thing of a shock to Republican leaders lead-ers of the fight against the measure, meas-ure, especially when Hull let it be-known be-known that Willkie's sudden return had been demanded by Senator George, head of foreign relations in the senate, who wanted the Indian-ian Indian-ian to testify before the committee hearings on the bill. In fact, the shock was so drastic in some quarters that Republican groups in various centers held meetings meet-ings to "decide Willkie's status" in the party, with the evident intimation intima-tion that if he should prove too good a friend to the administration, he mieht be "read out of the Dartv." SIDNEY HILLMAN Mr. Ford refused to 'sit down' with him. his name that the Ford enterprises would never yield to the government govern-ment demand that defense products be manufactured under union labor conditions. Ford's rejoinder was that he would never knuckle down to labor's demands, that instead he would lease his industries to the government govern-ment at one dollar a year, and let the government run them. Ford agreed in principle with the necessity of America arming in its own defense, and with the principle that in defense work patriotism was the primary urge, and profits had no part. He therefore offered to give up his industries, and let the government operate them under a non-profit arrangement, ar-rangement, producing whatever vital vi-tal materials were wished for. The only government answer to this was to refuse Ford a contract on which his organization had been low bidder. Basis of the dispute had been Ford's refusal to sit down with Sidney Sid-ney Hillman, labor chief of the national na-tional defense, and to find some plan by which the Ford interests could operate in the defense scheme settling set-tling the labor difficulty once and for all. Labor, as personified by the C.I.O, had set as its major objective for 1941 the organization of the Ford plants. This objective seemed to mean only one thing abandonment of the Ford plants of their complete divorcement di-vorcement from national defense contracts. ITALY: In Africa The African campaign of the British Brit-ish forces against the troops of Mussolini Mus-solini continued to be a victorious one, despite the fact that it was reported re-ported that the Nazi air force had given considerable aid to the Fascist legions. In succession one port on the Mediterranean Medi-terranean after another had fallen to General Wavell's men Salum, Bardia, Tobruk and Derna. In Libya, none but Bengasi remained to be conquered. All the cities previously captured, some of them cities only by courtesy, cour-tesy, for they were only a few huts huddled together and a small group of embryo wharfs, had been on flat land. In passing Derna the British were moving on the capital of Cyre-naica, Cyre-naica, and were stepping into a more mountainous territory, the so-called so-called Green Mountains of Libya, where a force of 50,000 Italians were determined to hold out to the last. The same combination of land attack, at-tack, backed up by air force and navy shelling from naval craft at sea, was being used by General Wavell in the final phase of the Libyan campaign. There was every belief that with the capture of Bengasi Ben-gasi the campaign would end. REP. SOL BLOOM Scarcely any opposition. give and take in order to reach their main objective of the passage of a bill which would in effect repeal the Johnson act forbidding loans to belligerents bel-ligerents who had not paid their World war debts. INVASION: Threat Near As the lease-lend argument reached its zenith, predictions that England was nearing the critical period in the Battle For Britain were legion. Lindbergh had set the most gloomy picture, figuring that Britain could never withstand the onslaught. One could figure which side of the lease-lend battle the predictor was on by the darkness of the picture he painted. Knox and Stimson predicted predict-ed a crisis, but gave few details and little soothsaying as to what would be the outcome. But those opposed to the lease-lend lease-lend proposal varied widely in what they saw in the future's crystal ball. Most gloomy of all was Von Wie-gand, Wie-gand, who in a dispatch date-lined Shanghai, purported to report what German and Japanese authorities believed was about to occur. Six weeks would tell the tale, said Von Wiegand. He envisioned 247 d visions of trained men, 15,000 parachutists, para-chutists, a score of tank divisions, descending on England, and Hearst papers printed an "artist's conception" concep-tion" of the "Blitz on Britain," which would tear London into shreds long before American aid could swing the balance. Every authority wrho discussed blitzkrieg on London talked of poison gas new forms, lethal gas for which "no gas mask" has yet been provided. JAPAN: The 'Peacemaker With dramatic suddenness, peace came in the Indo-China war with the Siamese. Japan, it developed, had been "invited" "in-vited" by the belligerents, when a strong Nipponese fleet had appeared ap-peared in the offing, to sit down and settle the hostilities. This settlement, as might have been expected, was that Thailand should keep what it had taken from Indo-China, together with some additional ad-ditional cessions of territory. Keenest observers of the far-eastern scene foresaw in the Japanese intervention only one outcome. They believed that Japan would become so dominant in southeastern southeast-ern Asia that Thailand and Indo-China Indo-China would soon be mere puppet states similar to Manchukuo. The state department in Washington Washing-ton viewed these events with a serious seri-ous eye, seeing in them assured proof that sooner or later there would have to be a showdown ot power in the Pacific between the United States and Japan. |