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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne National Lottery for Peacetime Draft Holds Spotlight of Defense Program; Germany Changes Tactics in Air War; Tension in Far East Affairs Grows (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of Uie news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) I iRpUtpri by Western Newspaper Union ) f ' : ; i '' , 1 ""v v Y !N I N ' 1 A . . y'-yi x Y Y - n I Interest in the current draft program has led the government to place on display in the Washington office of the Selective Service board this first World war draft register. The register shows that the draft lottery lot-tery began 9:16 a. m., Friday, July 20, 1917, and ended 16 hours and 46 minutes later, with the drawing of the 10,500th capsule. The same method is being used to determine the order in which men shall be called for the 1940 peacetime conscription program. DEFENSE: Numbers Called To War Secretary Henry L. Stimson Stim-son went the honor of selecting the first number in the national selective service lottery. President Roosevelt was to pick the first capsule out of the goldfish bowl that was used in the 1917 draft lottery, but graciously yielded to Stimson. The late Newton New-ton D. Baker, secretary of war under un-der President Wilson, selected the first number in 1917. Contracts The industrial program of national defense entered its second phase. First was drafting and awarding of contracts. Billions of dollars worth of goods, from battleships to paper clips, were contracted for. The job now is one of procurement, procure-ment, actual manufacture on the speed-up scale demanded by the Defense De-fense Commission in order to achieve the two-ocean navy and equip an army that will number close to 1,500,000 within a few months. Chief bottleneck is machine tools, the machinery and gear necessary in the process of turning automobile shops into tank factories, and the mass production of warplanes and munitions. William S. Knudsen, head of the production division of the commission, said tool makers are swamped with orders, sold out a year in advance. President Roosevelt Roose-velt issued an order permitting seizure seiz-ure of tool machines being made for foreign countries, wherever the material ma-terial is necessary in American defense. de-fense. Outside tools, however, the vast industrial capacity of the United States seemed to be taking both defense de-fense and expanding civilian orders in its stride toward record production produc-tion figures. The climb in manufacturing manu-facturing indices since last spring still has left a margin of surplus in manpower, raw materials and money. But despite the rise of various business statistics to new peaks since 1929, Wall Street security markets mar-kets remained inert. WAR AT NIGHT: Tactics Change England was emerging from almost al-most three months of continual bombing with greater confidence in its ability to withstand whatever the Luftwaffe can deliver. As the stormv weather wore on and Ger man planes were not halted by fog and freezing weather, British air leaders increased the fury of their own raids over France, Germany ' and Italy. Prime Minister Winston Churchill made bold to predict that by spring, 1941, with the help of American production, England will seize supremacy of the air. The German air attack on London was reduced in one respect. Daylight Day-light raids were fewer and less violent. vio-lent. In the beginning Air Marshal Goering sent large formations in daylight raids. During this period the British scored heavily. Then the tactics shifted to single planes at varying heights. The German losses were reduced, but still remained high. Now raids are confined largely to night Bombers drop their packages from the substratosphere and scoot for home. The result is that the Germans no longer can pick their targets, but bomb indiscriminately. However, the height of the German planes is too great for British antiaircraft anti-aircraft guns while defense planes are unable to climb into battle fast enough. German losses have dwindled. dwin-dled. The English people have been told a new, fast-climbing plane soon will take the air in quantities. Otherwise on the war front: C. France denied rumors in diplomatic diplo-matic circles that it would declare war on Britain in order to get better peace terms from Germany. The terms were said to give Alsace-Lorraine to Germany, Nice and Tunis to Italy, and provide for control of all other French colonies by a three-nation three-nation board. Vice Premier Laval conferred with Adolf Hitler and was said to favor the plan. C. London revealed after several denials, that Adolf Hitler twice has tried to start his promised invasion of Britain. The British said that on September 16, German troops were loaded in barges along the French ports, but R.A.F. bombers attacked the boats so heavily the attempt was frustrated. ROADS OF DESTINY: Burma Road . For three years China has absorbed ab-sorbed and dispersed the heaviest shocks that a superior Japanese army hurled against it While European Eu-ropean nations who considered themselves them-selves a nobler race have been subjugated, sub-jugated, China has produced nothing noth-ing to equal the treachery of the Fifth Column, costly errors of command, com-mand, or the crimes and stupidity of European diplomacy. For more than a year its sole avenue ave-nue of supply from the outside world has been via Rangoon by ship, then by narrow gauge railroad across Burma to Lashio, thence over hundreds of miles of tortuous road through wild, malaria-infected countryside coun-tryside to Kunming, in China, where railroads again are available. For three months Britain kept the road closed, as an act of appeasement appease-ment to Japan. When Japan signed the alliance with Germany and Italy It-aly the road was reopened. But during those three months Japan seized control of near-by Indo-China from France and based airplanes within bombing distance of the Burma Bur-ma Road. Nightly the crude bridges are being blown to bits and rebuilt by thousands of coolies working in disregard of their lives. Blue Danube Famed in song and romance, the beautiful blue Danube has become a highway of conflict in Hitler's march to the east. Germany was supposed to have agreed with Russia to limit its penetration pene-tration of the Balkans to commercial ties. When Nazi legions were sent into Rumania to "instruct" King Michael's army, Russia apparently looked at the proceedings with sour face. Heavy echelons of Soviet troops were sent along the Danube to create cre-ate a military area. German troops lined the other bank. German submarines, sub-marines, knocked down and shipped by rail to Rumania, were floated down the Danube to its mouth in the Black sea. There a German naval na-val base quickly grew up. The base is a definite threat to the main Russian Rus-sian fleet in those waters. Previously Russian warships were protected by an understanding with Turkey, which controlled the Dardanelles, Dar-danelles, entrance to the Black sea. But the Germans have outflanked this fortification by land. Just where Hitler's Balkan adventure adven-ture is headed none seemed willing to prophesy. It may be only a diverting di-verting sortie toward the oil lines of Asia Minor, or it may be a full assault toward Suez. Rumor and retraction discussed alleged "demands" "de-mands" made by the Axis powers on Greece, Turkey, Jugoslavia and Bulgaria. POWER: On the St. Lawrence An agreement between the United States and Canada looking toward development of a hydroelectric system sys-tem along the St Lawrence river has been advocated by four Presidents Presi-dents but never achieved. The war need for ereater nower has brought about a start. With the consent of the United States, Canada will take more water wa-ter from the Niagara river to generate gen-erate power for its defense industries. indus-tries. So as to maintain the level of the Great Lakes, waterways now flowing into the Albany river and Hudson bay will be diverted southward south-ward to the lakes. The announcement immediately awoke echoes of the two-decade fight for a Great Lakes-to-the-Seas waterway. water-way. Existing navigation- above Montreal is limited to 14 feet. Locks are sought to provide a 32-foot draft Farmers of the West favor the plan. It would permit ocean liners to dock at Great Lakes ports and load wheat Advocates of public power look upon the proposal as providing pro-viding cheap electricity. Opposition comes chiefly from ports in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic, as well as trans-shippers trans-shippers of grain. On the Canadian side the same is true. President Roosevelt has allotted $1,000,000 of special defense funds for a survey. SABOTAGE: Mr. Dies Again A wave of fires and explosions in U. S. defense industries "like the recent Hercules powder blast in New Jersey," is predicted by Representative Rep-resentative Dies (D., Texas), chairman chair-man of the house committee investigating investi-gating un-American activities. He called attention to the fact that a former member of the German American Bund told his committee several weeks before the New Jersey Jer-sey disaster that it could be expected. ex-pected. Dies said there are more than 250,000 alien agents in the United States and more than 5,000 in defense de-fense industrial plants in the Detroit De-troit area alone. Meanwhile members of the same committee declared they have proof that Friedhelm Draeger, German consul in New York, has for six years been the actual head of the National Socialist party in the United Unit-ed States. They said the German diplomat has been "under observation observa-tion for a long time" and is head of a vast ring of espionage, sabotage sabo-tage and propaganda. It was revealed that Draeger's connections were linked up when a raid was made on the German Tourist Tour-ist Information Bureau and Trans-ocean Trans-ocean Press, both in New York. Far East Bloc In Manilla, Capt. Rufo Romero, a native Filipino, graduate of West Point and officer of the Fourteenth Engineers at Fort McKinley, was formally arrested and charged with plotting to sell confidential military papers to an unnamed foreign power. pow-er. He was taken into custody in the basement of his home while allegedly alleged-ly photographing documents showing show-ing defense fortifications at the entrance en-trance to Manila bay. Two civilian accomplices were arrested. His American-born wife was sought. Meanwhile a Japanese, whv feigned insanity, was seized on the U. S. aircraft carrier Langley, at Olangapo. He was found when still in a wet bathing costume and apparently ap-parently had swum from shore to the ship. MISCELLANY: C. President Roosevelt borrowed a dollar from Postmaster General Walker to buy ?6 worth of the new defense stamps. The stamps were exhibited at the White House on the first day of sale, but when the President Presi-dent went to make a purchase for his collecton he had only $5 in his pocket C An attendance record was established estab-lished in the national parks during the 1940 travel year. Visitors numbered num-bered 16.741,855, a million more than last year. |