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Show AMERICAN FORK CITIZEN 5 5 VP" Fear of Farm Land Boom Adds fo Inflation Worry Official Figures Show Agricultural Unit Values Have Increased 20 to 24 Per Cent in Year. By BAUKIIAGE Nrw$ Analyst and Commentator. TfLEFACT WAR RAISES VALUE (VALUE PER ACRE IN U S. A.) i9i2uOO0 0000 1917 00000 00000 0 1921 000 00000 0000 1929 0000 C 1933 ( 1942 OGGGGOGGO Eoch symbol represents 5 of 1912-14 volut WNU Service, Union Trust Building Washington, D. C. For many months now, government govern-ment offices and conference rooms, 00 matter how they might echo with glowing reports from the home or the battle front, have never been quite free from a ghost. It hovers In the corner and sends chills down every spine it is the gjhost of Old Man Inflation, trying to come back to the scene of his crimes in the roaring twenties. The Office of War Information has Just issued a warning that this specter spec-ter may appear in his most frightful fright-ful form if we are not careful. The fat pay envelope is the inflation danger dan-ger you hear most about But there Is a worse one, namely, a farm land boom. So far, there has been no spectacular rise in farm land prices but a dangerous trend has been discovered in some states and the bureau of agricultural economics econom-ics is decidedly worried. Here are some figures. Up 20 Per Cent As of March 1 or this year, increases in-creases in farm land values over those of the previous year were 20 to 24 per cent. In September. 1941, I wrote in these columns: "Money to burn! "And the burning question Is how to stop the conflagration before It starts. The chief danger is another prairie fire of farm land speculation, such as started in Iowa In World War I . . . Today, two years after the present war started, farm land prices are up 1 per cent ..." Remember, the was written in September, 1941. Well, steps were taken to prevent speculation then and they met with success. How-ever, How-ever, as we have seen by comparing compar-ing figures, land prices In some states have now increased considerably. consid-erably. That is natural for much has happened since 1941. In 1942, as the Office of War Information points out, "for the first time in 20 years, the annual average of farm prices reached parity with other prices." Since the outbreak of the war, the average of farm prices has risen more than 90 per cent and farm income by about 80 per cent while the average prices paid by farmers, including interest and taxes, has Increased about 25 per cent. Farm income was around 19 billion bil-lion dollars in 1941 it will be about 22 billion for 1943. That means, of course, that the farmer has money to spend and It Is natural that land values would rise to some degree. As I said, they have gone up as high as 24 per cent In some states and less than 6 per cent in only sue states. Those figures, says the bureau of agricultural agricul-tural economics "bear watching"! It Is also reported that bankers in some parts of the Middle West believe be-lieve that in some cases, the land values have risen beyond their real worth based on the long-time earning earn-ing capacity of the land. That, if it is true, of course means that right now some farmers ate buying buy-ing land that won't pay for itself. It Is reasonable to suppose that they are not members of that unhappy un-happy group of 85,000 farm owners who met Old Man Inflation before and who lost their property under foreclosures in the decade that enft ed in 1939. If they are. they deserve to suffer again. But the unfortunate unfortu-nate thing Is that when the farmer BRIEFS In addition to the two pain of shoes itsued every American soldier sol-dier on entering the tcrvice, tlnee xtra pairs must be available In re-strve, re-strve, and two more pairs in process proc-ess of manufacture. Almost 1 billion rounds of small arms ammunition It being turned out each month. That Is seven times at much as the 1918 peak. OF FARM REAL ESTATE loses, the rest of the country does, too. We have struggled through minor mi-nor industrial panics, as we used to call them, but when the farm goes, it means that things are in such a way that there is no stopping until everybody touches, bottom. Campaign Worked in '41 The article which I wrote in 1941 reported a meeting here in Washington Wash-ington of mortgage bankers. Insurance Insur-ance people, farm organization representatives rep-resentatives and others who were urged by the Farm Credit administration admin-istration to make normal appraisals of land. Apparently they did a pretty pret-ty good Job. Meanwhile, an educational educa-tional campaign was started urging the farmer, instead of rushing out and buying land with the first money he. got as income increased, to pay off hit debts. It was gratifying to see the results. In the next year (1942) the net reduction of mortgages mort-gages was 360 million dollars as against an average of 120 million reduction over the three preceding preced-ing years. Of course, there is nothing noth-ing Old Man Inflation hates worse than seeing debts paid up. Another thing which has helped the present situation is the fact that the farmers who are buying land now usually put up a large initial cash payment In other words, they are avoiding future debts and that is another thing, of course, which is equally unpleasant to Old Man Inflation. In-flation. There is nothing to stop the farmer farm-er from speculating in land if he wants to, buying on a margin the way the gamblers used to do on the stock exchange. Now such transactions trans-actions are considerably limited by law but there Is no law to keep a farmer from gambling if he doesn't know any better. a a 'Ptyehology for The Fighting Man' I have Just been reading a little booklet called "Psychology for the Fighting Man." It is one of those books published primarily for the soldiers, and every soldier able to read, ought to have it It has 20 chapters, each written by a well-known well-known psychologist or expert In his line. Any chapter can be read separately sep-arately and they are all highly interesting in-teresting Familiarity with them will make any man a better soldier and a better leader. The chapter on mobs is only one. It tells how and why mobs form, what starts a panic and how to stop one. But here are a few of the other topics I found exceedingly interesting: interest-ing: Tsycholugy and combat Seeing in the dark Color and camouflage Food and sex as military problems Differences among races and peoples and many others. Simply-told psychology. In this war, a man needs all the helps of that kind that he can get for the contrast between army life and civilian life is greater than ever. This book, "Psychology for the Fighting Man," is put out by a nonprofit non-profit corporation the Infantry Journal, here in Washington. It costs only a quarter. It is for the soldier, sailor, private or general, ensign or admiral. And it would be a good idea for a lot of next of kin to read this book, too. It might help them to understand' what the soldier it up against. by Baukhage The Japanese Dome! agency disclosed dis-closed that Emperor Hirohito had sunt a message of "congratulations" to Marshal ilenri Philippe Petain, Vichy chief of state, "on the occasion occa-sion of Bastille day." a a Under wartime operation, railroad freight cars must travel about 16 per cent farther on the average haul. WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Mussolini's Exit Marks End of an Era For Fascism; Italy Ponders New Setup; Reds Continue Strong Westward Drive; WMC Rule Effects 'Super Critical' Jobs (EDITOR' NOTE: Whoa eBlaieaa are eaareeaaa' la taaae ilia, taoy are taeee el Waaler Newspaper Ualea'a aewe aaaJjrsta mat aat eeeeearllr ef this Bewasaeer.) Released by Western m inSiinii I Seated at right, General Cottl-Porclnarl, commander of the Napoll ! llvlsion of the Italian army In Sicily, fell at prisoner of war to the advancing ad-vancing British army. Allied armlet finally encountered stiff resistance In the northeastern area. MUSSOLINI: No Caesar I Biggest news story of the war that was Benito Mussolini's resigna-I resigna-I Lion as Italy's prime minister and j strong man for 21 years. Taking i bit place was Fascism's shadow. Marshal Pietro Badoglio, avowedly Mussolini's bitter enemy, yet the builder of his armies and his conqueror con-queror of Ethiopia. Mussolini left the scene with Italy's empire lost; with Axi armies pocketed in the northeastern corner of Sicily by Allied forces, and with the Italian mainland afire from bombs. As he left. King Victor Emmanuel Em-manuel called on all Italians to itand firm in the most fateful hour of the country's destiny. Italy again will find the road of the future, he laid. Twenty-one years ago, Mussolini took over the Italian government following fol-lowing a march of 8.000 of his Black-ihirts Black-ihirts on Rome. Italy writhed in disorder, her industries crippled from strikes, and her unemployed war veterans in riot' In the crisis, King Victor turned to Mussolini, and thus did the strong man come to power. He restored order. He created public works and set up the corporate cor-porate state, in which all economic groups are represented in government govern-ment He settled papal claims to the amount of 92 million dollars and recognized the Vatican's sovereignty. sovereign-ty. But it was over empire that Mussolini stumbled. Take U p Last Line At the beginning of the final stage of resistance in Sicily, the Axis line roughly ran from the east coast port of Catania westward to the mountains, moun-tains, and then curved northward to the shores of the Tyrrhenian sea. Near Catania, strong Axis forces held firm after early tank battles had failed to pierce their lines. To the west Canadian troops picked their way through rugged terrain to advance on the Axis outpost of Re-galbuto, Re-galbuto, which huddlet behind mountainous ranges. After seizing the big Sicilian port of Palermo, Gen. George S. Pat-ton's Pat-ton's American Seventh army drove westward along the Tyrrhenian coast toward the last Axis defenses defending Messina, which lies at the extreme tip of the island, two miles from the Italian mainland. German attempts to reinforce Axis troops in Sicily by means of giant Junkers and Merseberg three-and three-and six-engined transport planes met ttiff opposition from the Allies. RUSSIA: Reds Press In With three columns driving In from the north, east and south, and another force swinging wide to the west to cut off the rear1 Russian armies tightened their hold on the German held bulge of Orel. The westwardly drive threatened jthe railroad linking Orel with the great Nazi supply base of Bryansk. Severance of the line meant interruption inter-ruption in the flow of supplies being be-ing shunted to German troops stubbornly stub-bornly resisting the Reds' three-cornered drive on Orel. While the Russians pressed slow- j ly against German defenses at Orel. the Nazis told of a massive Red of-' of-' fensive south of Lake Ladoga on the Finnish front and below Leningrad. The Germans also said strong Rus-; Rus-; sian attacks at Novprossi$k,.in the , northwestern Caucasus had been re-1 re-1 pelled. HIGHLIGHTS BEER: Inability of brewers to : get corn and other grains is resulting ' in a shortage of beer that will be- ! come Increasingly acute at reserves 1 are used up, industry leaders say. I j MILK: Rationing of fluid milk Is likely by autumn, says a statement from the department of agriculture, , forecasting a fall slump in produc- tlon of 1 to 3 per rent Nawapapar Union. - - -11 in- - - SOUTHWEST PACIFIC: Jungle Fighting Working their way through Jungle brush, American doughboys braved hidden Japanese machine gun outposts out-posts to advance within range of the enemy's main perimeter of defenses around the strategic airfield of Mun-da Mun-da in the Solomon islands. As the troops crept closer to their objective, the U. S. air force continued con-tinued furnishing heavy support dive-bombers roaring in to pound the Japs' nest of wooden and earthen pill boxes. . In New Guinea, Liberator and Mitchell bombers gave Salamaua a going over, dropping 250 tons of explosives ex-plosives in two days. As the air force softened up this important enemy base, Allied ground troops fought off Jap patrols to advance eastward to the town. MANPOWER: 'Super-CriticaV Over and above the 3,000 jobs that the War Manpower commission has designated essential, it has prepared pre-pared a list of "super-critical" occupations occu-pations for which draft boards will be asked to give especial consideration. consider-ation. WMC Chairman Paul V. Mc-Nutt Mc-Nutt announced. The new "super-critical" list will not replace the old list McNutt explained, ex-plained, but rather will be given preferential ranking above it Draft boards will not be ordered to exempt ex-empt worker in the "tuper-critical" occupations because the boards have this power under law. The new "super-critical" classification classifi-cation followed WMC plans for allowing al-lowing workers to transfer to other plants to receive higher pay for the same Jobs. HARVEST: Production Down Despite unfavorable spring weather, weath-er, the nation's farmers have all but completed their harvesting of spring wheat, being but only one week behind be-hind normal schedule, according to federal crop statisticians. But as of July 1, total production for 1943 was estimated at 790 million bushels against 981 million last year. Only in Illinois. Indiana and Ohio did harvesting fall back to any extent. ex-tent. Through Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas the wheat wat cleaned up according to achedule, and work in Nebraska and Missouri progressed favorably. Estimations of the winter wheat harvesting showed Kansas with a crop of 150 million bushels, against 206 million last year; Nebraska with 51 million against 68 million; Oklahoma Okla-homa with 32 million against 57 million, mil-lion, and Texas with 33 million against 47 million. Illinois with 17 million against 12 million was credited cred-ited with the biggest advance over last year. RATIONING: Mark Up Butter To keep purchases in line with supplies, the point value of butter was raised, by 2 to 10 points per pound for the period ending September Septem-ber 4, the Office of Price Administration Adminis-tration announced. The action followed fol-lowed civilian purchases in excess of allotments during the last few months. Housewives switching 10 other fats will be able to obtain shortening, shorten-ing, lard and cooking and salad oils at one point less. Margarine remains re-mains unchanged at four points. in the tooek'i newt CHINA: The Japanese army authorities au-thorities have executed at least 91 Chinese families for assisting American Amer-ican airmen who participated in the raid on Tokyo in 1942, a statement from Chungking says'. . a ,. POLAND: The German army Is constructing a line of 'fortifications In Poland, 400 miles back from the present Russian battle lines. BOMBERS: Strike Nazi Industry Heavy round-the-clock raids on Hitlcr't European fortress got under way again with a U. S. raid on the Nazis' Norwegian submarine port of Trondheim and a neighboring aluminum plant. No sooner had the bombers alight" ed than fresh squadrons took off, this time for northern Germany. The RAF pointed bomber nosea toward the great North tea port of Hamburg Ham-burg and dropped 2.300 torn of explosives ex-plosives Another British force struck hard at the gigantic Krupp arms works at Essen. Following in the wake of the British, Brit-ish, U. S. airmen worked over Hamburg Ham-burg in daylight Con tinting the concentrated assault on German Industry, In-dustry, other formations plastered rubber factories at Hanover and the Focke-Wulfe aircraft assembly plant at Warnemuende. Shipyards were hit at the German naval station of KleL Almost 60 Allied planes were lott in the raids, the bombera encountering encounter-ing heavy - anti-aircraft fire to a height of from 20.000 to 35.000 feet and fleets of fighters. 95 Billion! The American home front's tremendous tre-mendous effort Is best grasped by congressional appropriations for V. S. war spending for the next 12 months. Approximately 88 billion dollars wat appropriated for expenditure on tanks, planet, guns, etc., and for the purchase of food, etc., for oar embattled allies. In the fiscal fis-cal year ended last June, 73 billion bil-lion dollars wat tpent for war purposes. Besides the 88 billion dollars for the war, an additional seven billion dollars was appropriated for other government oxpendl-ture. oxpendl-ture. Of the total amount, three billion dollars will be used for payment of Interest on the public debt, which amounted to 140 billion bil-lion dollars last June. All told, government expenditures expendi-tures have been estimated at 95 billion, 330 million dollars for the pext 12 months, greater than the total national Income In peak years of prosperity. WHEAT: Stocks for Feed Feeling that the present corn shortage is the gravest emergency facing the country, and that any future fu-ture civilian wheat scarcity can be met out of Canada's record production, produc-tion, the Commodity Credit corporation corpo-ration has determined to raise practically prac-tically all limits on its sales of wheat stocks for feeds. Under the new regulation made in agreement with the War Food administration, only 30 days trade and 90 days feeders inventories will be held. The CCC had 215 million bushels of grain with which to start the program, and it was expected that stocks would be augmented by purchases of excess elevator tup-plies. tup-plies. Since wheat generally was selling above the CCC loan rate, it was not thought that stocks could be built from this source. At the same time, CCC divulged it was seeking to Import additional grain from Canada by raiL Approximately Ap-proximately 154 million bushels are to be shipped over the Great Lakes. Coastal shipment from Canada to American Pacific ports also was being be-ing sought. TREASON: Broadcasters Named Eight American citizens charged with broadcasting Axis' propaganda from Germany and Italy were indicted in-dicted by a federal grand jury for treason. To secure the indictment the government presented phonograph phono-graph recordings of talks, and acquaintances ac-quaintances Identified their voices. Among the elgt, six of the accused ac-cused are native ' ericans and .two are naturalized citizens of German birth. Most prominent of those in- Indicted for broadcasUnf enemy propaganda were (from left to right) Douglas Chandler, Wllhelra Kaltenbach and Eira. Ponnd. dieted Is Ezra Pound, 57-year-old poet and writer who has lived in England. France and Italy tince 1911. He. was said to be the only one of the group broadcasting from Italy. Three of the group, including a woman, were former newspaper reporters. re-porters. According to the indictments, indict-ments, the broadcasts included denunciation de-nunciation of communism and the Jews, criticism of the American war program, and praise of Germany and Italy. STRIKE: Test New Law First test of the new congressional anti-strike law came with a Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania grand Jury's indictment of 30 United Mine Workers local officials of-ficials and members for conspiring conspir-ing and acting to Interrupt production produc-tion In government-held pits Conviction Con-viction on the charges would make the defendants liable to fines up to $5,000 or sentences up to a year in Jail. I 1 IIP Votes of an . Innocent Bystander: The Magic Lanterns: Take "For Whom the Bell Tolls" as a hearty action flicker, and you've got something some-thing to like. Tha acting of Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, Katina Paxi-nou Paxi-nou and the cast It big time. It all holds together fine." But if you want Hemingway's ttory, which called Franco tome of the things he it. thit isn't your dish. All very proper and tparing of the Fasciat feelings . . . Too bad it wat released right after Allen Chase's sizzling "Falange," documented truth about what Franco's Fran-co's Spain Is up to. The cinema has made Hemingway flabby, poor a-uv. The Wireless: The commentators, especially the Britons, were full of contradictions during the first days in Sicily. They kept cautioning us that it looked tough ahead. Then they'd have to report the fabulous progress that had been made . . . Bob Trout debunked the idea that the Sicilians were Fascist-haters who would jump right in on our side. He cited a dispatch from John Gun-ther Gun-ther to prove his point. Gunther reported that on the first night three Allied sentries had their throats cut . . . Joe Goebbels, the liar who looks like a midget, kidded the home folks, but betrayed his panic to the world. His radio stooges claimed that all landings in Sicily were repulsed, re-pulsed, save a few on the East coast. That being the only coast that was visited . . . Willkie put this common sense into the mikes: "It is time for us to decide whether we are going go-ing to commit ourselves to staying in this war until it has been really won in a lasting peace and not in just an armistice" . . . The whimpering whim-pering of the Axis short-wavers makes delicious listening. a The Magazines: Max , Werner makes a point worth thinking about in Liberty. It is the Nazis, he writes, who are cheered by all this talk of a long war. That is their only hope now. Werner reminds, since the Blitz is gone on the Fritz. Werner guesses there will be a ninth inning in. 1944 . . . Collier's is concerned (editorially) about Americans who keep picking on John L. Lewis. The editorialist fears that criticism of labor's prima donna may arouse new attempts to slow up the war effort. ef-fort. Such nail-biting leaves me cold. Beverly Hills Novelette: He is well known among the Texas millionaires mil-lionaires . . . After a long struggle to accumulate his great wealth he decided to settle down and marry . . . "Where does an aging man with nearly all the money in the world," he once said, "find a woman who will marry him because she cares about him and not his dough?" ... He finally met a lovely love-ly gal considerably younger . . . "If you marry me," he proposed, "I'll build you the most beautiful home in California among all the movie stars and we will give wonderful won-derful parties there and meet them all" . . . "But that's not what I want," she said. "I want someone who loves me. A beautiful mansion and all the money there is couldn't make me live in it. If you want to try your luck. I'll marry you" . . . And so they were married . . . The mansion is now his tomb ... A week after it was finished she ran away with the interior decorator. Studio Small Talk: They hear Myrna Loy will return to pictures with Wm. Powell in "The Thin Man Comes Home." And then one film a year for MGM . . . Errol Flynn. Ida Lupino and Ann Sheridan are dickering to finance films in Mexico . . . Robert Donat, the star, is in Algeria broadcasting news for BBC. He was first to air the Sicily inva-tion inva-tion . . . The "Victory Through Air-power" Air-power" film has reconciled Gen. Arnold Ar-nold and Major Seversky . . . Barbara Brewster (Mrs. A. Bloom-lngdale) Bloom-lngdale) has retained former U. S. Attorney I. R. Kaufman in her melting melt-ing action . , , Insiders hear that it may be a sizzler . . . Edith Gwynn's sum-up of a certain celeb: "She's my best false friend!" Brown Derby Tlrkertape: Add local lo-cal fads: Mrs. -Darryl Zanuck wears her husband's campaign ribbons rib-bons . . . Stop-the-press-item: OPA has abandoned price control over book-ends, artificial fruit and reading read-ing racks. The Intelllgeiitsia: John Lardner and Vincent Sheean are among the correspondents back in town . . . Lt. Doug Fairbanks, on leave, appears ap-pears younger than ever. Faces About Mo vie town: Greer Garson in teart over a surprise gift of Jewelry from "The Gang" during dur-ing the last "take" of "Mme. Curie" . . . Mervyn LeRoy's headache shaving it from 20 reels to 14 . .. . The Chaplint on a Beverly Hilla corner cor-ner chatting. And not a passerby stared. ("Whaddaya think thit Is New York?") . . . Sophie Tucker, who attracts a weekly gross of nearly near-ly $40,000 in a local cafe. Previous stars there averaged 22 Gs Capt. Jimmy Stewart who wat always al-ways so thin now very skinny. Voice Oi.r5jl Howe thrrr? 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