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Show , WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS UN Flag Ordered Flown In Korea; Gen. MacArlhur Flamed Commander Of International Forces in Area irnTTnn'c vftTP nhn nnlnlons are expressed In these columns, they are those of Wer N.wsplwr un"n'? new. Snalysf. and not n,arll, of thi. UN Flag MANPOWER: Draft in Effect The recently enacted draft law has been put into effect. President Truman ordered an expansion of the fighting forces in view of the Korea situation through enlistment or the draft. Immediately after the President's order, spokesmen for the army, navy and air force said they would be happy to get all their required manpower through enlistments alone if possible. Whether or not enlistments will fill the armed forces needs will be determined within the next two weeks. Just how much the armed forces will be expanded has been kept secret. se-cret. Presumably it could run as high as 547,482 men, bringing the services to 2,005,882. There is also the possibility that reserves will be called up, although spokesmen for the services said none will be ordered to duty at present without their consent. A spokesman for the Pentagon said the enactment of the draft law was necessary to meet "the situation in Korea," and "constitutes "consti-tutes a first step to build up to full operating strength the units of the army, navy and air force to be used in the Korean operation, to provide further maintenance and support therefor, and to replace units to be moved to Korea." Just how far the United States will go in building up its forces depends de-pends entirely upon developments in the Far East and other danger points, military observers report" brnke o.iu (iui.ii Two items of railroad news were , in the public mind, one bad and one good. The AFL switchmen's union agreed to end its strike against four midwest and western railroads. The fifth continued its walkout, but returned to wark after President Truman ordered the army to take over. The switchmen made no bones about why they were calling off the strike. As they put it, we are calling it off "because of the threat of direct government action." Truman had scored again. The day before he had told his weekly press conference at Washington that the union had better halt the strike or else. Evidently the union didn't like that "or else." On the bad side, two high speed Santa Fe railway streamliners, streaking eastward side by side,, one traveling at 90 miles an hour and the other seventy, , bumped midsections in a freakish accident. Nine dead and 75 injured were carried from the twisted metal cars in the Illinois collision. JUMPING JACK: Sets Chute Record Sgt. John (Jumping Jack) Sweitch set out to break the world's record parachute leaps in a single day, which he did with 107 drops. If he proved anything else it was the fact the human body will take a lot of punishment and that some people seem to get pleasure out of risking their necks. The sergeant, with the aid of his buddies of the 82nd Airborne Division, Divi-sion, made 107 drops in 10 hours, an average of one every six minutes. He twisted his ankle and sprained his knee on the 51st jump and slowed down long enough to have his leg taped. After each jump, a jeep and a pickup truck met him. The jeep rushed him back to the Piper Cub plane which took him aloft again, while the truck took his chutes to the hangar where his six buddies were kept busy repacking them. The sergeant's only complaint during the endurance test was he would be all right "if he could survive sur-vive the jeep rides." Korea UNITED NATIONS: Fights Aggression There are moments in the march of current events that make history. his-tory. In the eyes of many political observers such a moment occurred oc-curred recently when Secretary General of the United Nations, Trygve Lie, picked up the three by five-foot blue and white UN flag and handed it to Warren R. Austin, chief U. S. delegate to the UN, and asked him to send it to General Douglas MacArthur. The Security Council had just authorized the UN flag be flown alongside national standards in operations op-erations against the Red Korean invaders. And as he handed the Dag to Austin, Aus-tin, he said: "Bring it back when the job is done." On these words hinge the hopes of the free world. Observers saw in them a belief that the United Nations effort in Korea will be successful and at last a world organization or-ganization has been formed that will endure and protect the minorities minori-ties for generations to come. Observers were particularly impressed im-pressed because it climaxed firm and positive action by the community commun-ity of nations to secure world peace. Up to this point the United Nations Na-tions had: (1) Demanded the withdrawal of Communist invaders from South Korea. (2) Quickly endorsed the United States action of sending aid to South Korea and called upon all members of the United Nations to render assistance to carry out the police action against the Communists. Commu-nists. (3) Appointed General MacArthur MacAr-thur commander of international forces in Korea. The historic flag which Lie handed hand-ed to Ambassador Austin was the one that flew over the headquarters of Dr. Ralph Bunche during his successful mediation of the Arab-Israeli Arab-Israeli war. It is the visible symbol of the first military sanctions ever levied against an aggressor by a world organization. THAT SMELL: Not The Russians Four towns in Illinois and three in Iowa provided the nation with a chuckle, but it was not funny at the time at least to residents of those towns. A foul smell crept through Mo-line, Mo-line, East Moline, Selvis and Rock Island, 111., and then spread across the border into Muscatine, Betten-dorf Betten-dorf and Davenport, Iowa. Some residents went into hysterics, hyster-ics, one man insisted to Selvis police po-lice that "the Russians are flying over and gassing us," citizens were forced from their beds and from taverns, police switchboards were jammed with calls and firemen kept on a near-emergency basis. Scores of Moline residents jumped into their cars and drove in their night clothes to high ground and fresher air. When the excitement died down investigation disclosed the odor resulted re-sulted from a leak in a tank of ental-arm ental-arm being hauled through the area on a truck headed west. Entalarm is an ordorant used to inject a smell into natural gas, normally odorless, to permit detection of leaks. It is not injurious but can cause nausea. REORGANIZATION: New Plan Killed President Truman's plan to create cre-ate a new department of health, education and security has been killed by the house. It was, incidentally, inci-dentally, the first time this session the house has rejected a reorganization reorgani-zation plan. The senate has killed six. The house adopted, 249 to 71, a resolution of disapproval of the measure. It was killed apparently by opponents who argued it would be a step toward "socialized medicine." medi-cine." Democrats who supported the plan, however, denied it had any bearing on socialized medicine. They said only congress could biing this about by passing necessary neces-sary legislation. The blue and white flag of the United Nations has been sent to Korea to be flown by troops battling the Communist invaders from North Korea. Gen. Douglas MacArthur has been named commander in chief of the United Nations forces. KOREA: The Tide Flows Military observers, still watching watch-ing the Soviet Union for any signs of open participation in the Kor- -war, were of the opinion the has begun to flow against the gressors. During the first two weeks of the conflict South Korean and American Ameri-can troops, acting under orders of the United Nations, took a beating. But as the battle went into the third week, American arms guns, tanks and planes and U.S. soldiers stemmed the rush of the Communist Commu-nist armies. At a point some 50 to 60 miles south of Seoul, capital of South Korea which fell into the hands of the invaders a few days after the sneak attack, American and Communist Com-munist troops met. At first American troops were forced to withdraw before Red tanks. And at the moment when it seemed the invaders might break through again, U. S. big guns and tanks, plus fresh foot soldiers poured into the area. The attack was stopped and many observers "believe the counter attack will come as the stream of supplies increase. in-crease. A big factor in the blunted Communist Com-munist attack was the U. S., British Brit-ish and Australian air forces. Fighters and bombers carried out continuous attacks upon tanks, roads, and bridges. They ripped open Communist positions with low flying rocket and machine gun attack. The big bombers blasted away at supply lines and communication commun-ication centers. Their blows were felt by the invaders and will spearhead spear-head the inevitable counter attack. Meanwhile, American divisions within the United States were being be-ing readied to move to the Far East. General MacArthur had, at the beginning of the conflict, four divisions in Japan. He has already drawn upon them and troops within with-in the country will replace those from Japan plus reinforcements for the battle area. TRUTH CAMPAIGN: Counteract Propaganda For years Communist propaganda propagan-da has been spread around the world, but no one seems to know just how much of the story of democracy de-mocracy has reached the enslaved peoples of the world. Now the state department has announced plans for "a great campaign of truth1; to counter Moscow's broadsides ' of propaganda against the United States and other democratic nations. na-tions. Secretary of State Acheson told about the plan in testimony before a senate foreign-relations subcommittee. subcom-mittee. General Eisenhower also testified before the committee, declaring, de-claring, "Truth could almost be classified as our T-bomb (truth-bomb) (truth-bomb) in this warfare." General Marshall, who also testified, testi-fied, said he is firmly convinced that "we must confine ourselves to the truth" and that we must meet the Soviet procedure in what is called their conquest of the minds of people. Acheson told the senators the Communist campaign of vilification "jeopardizes the security of the United States and is a threat to the security of the free world." "The cynical aggression of communism com-munism in Korea, and the falsehoods false-hoods that have preceded and accompanied ac-companied it, make inescapably clear the importance of the campaign cam-paign .of truth," he said. I" Economy . Economically the nation seemed in much better condition as the labor department reported signs pointing to record-breaking employ, ment this year, exceeding the 1948 peak of 61.600.000. Secretary Tobin said much of the nonagricultural employment gain stemmed from seasonal activities, activi-ties, intensified especially in the construction industry which is enl joying record-breaking activity -3 1 'IMJ" mm m m M -3- jr 8X U. S. infantry and artillery rushed into Korea in an effort to stem the Communist advance. ad-vance. Later reports indicated good results from increasing supplies of big guns and troops. COLOMBIA: Quake Toll 270 Five successive earthquakes in Colombia, some 200 miles northeast north-east of Bogota, is reported to have killed 270 persons, injured some 500, and left 40,000 homeless. Ten towns in north central Colombia Colom-bia were reported destroyed with property damage estimated at approximately ap-proximately $20,700,000. Additional damage and loss of life may be revealed when a final survey sur-vey of the area is made. RETAIL PRICES: Up Another Notch The Korean situation was not the only worry of Americans during the past week or so. Living costs went up another notch with the prices of meat and bread being increased in retail stores. Cocoa, coffee, sugar, hides and t'n continued upward, cotton soared to S15 a bale, and cattle went to the highest price level in a year. It is all blamed on the Korean war, but other factors entered in. |