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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS FDR Moves to Stabilize Living Costs With Deadline Ultimatum to Congress; Labor 'Frozen' on Jobs in 12 States; New Pacific Action Takes High Jap Toll ( F f) I TOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysts and not necessarily of this newspaper.) . Released by Western Newspaper Union. J DOUBLE OFFENSIVE: In China Strong Chinese offensives in central cen-tral and southern China have succeeded suc-ceeded in recapturing a number of important points, the Chinese high command has announced. The drive in the central province of Anhwei liberated 25 villages in 20 days, while the thrust in the south resulted in the recapture of a number num-ber of places near Samshui, terminus termi-nus of the Canton-Samshui railway 25 miles west of Canton. The Chinese have recaptured the three most important air bases taken tak-en by the Japanese in their summer offensive. They are Chuhsien and Lishui in the coastal Chekiang province, prov-ince, and Yushan in Kiangsi. In addition, ad-dition, they have recaptured approximately approx-imately 350 miles of the Cbekiang-Kiangsi Cbekiang-Kiangsi railway and more than 10,-000 10,-000 square miles of territory. Chinese sources acknowledge that advances have been due in part to voluntary Japanese withdrawals. These withdrawals are looked upon as the prelude to a major attack against either India or Siberia. The successful Chinese advances have largely nullified the effects of the Jap drive, which has been described de-scribed as the greatest since the beginning be-ginning of the "China incident." JAPSONKISKA: 'Must Be Thrown Out' A stern warning that the Japanese Japa-nese must be thrown off the Aleutian Aleu-tian island of Kiska was delivered by Sen. A. B. Chandler (Ky.), chairman of a senate military affairs af-fairs subcommittee which recently investigated Alaskan and West coast defenses. "The continued Dresence of the f ' - J t ' V ' t ' Yi ' ; fu :L H if i -1 Granting labor a greater voice in the management of war production, Donald M. Nelson, WPB chairman, told AFL and CIO leaders that he would consider labor nominations for two vice chairmanships in WPB. Union labor leaders had told Nelson that WPB's approach to war conversion, con-version, curtailment and production policies was "unbalanced and onesided" one-sided" because top administrative posts were held by industrialists. Pictured Pic-tured here among the labor chiefs are (seated, second from left) William Green, AFL president; Donald Nelson and Phillip Murray, CIO president. Japanese in the island of Kiska constitutes a continued menace and , threat to the safety of the people of the United States, and they must be removed at the earliest possible moment," mo-ment," Chandler declared. He expressed ex-pressed the hope that the "high command" has been "awakened to the necessity of holding Alaska at all costs." Chandler and his committee, upon its return from the 8,000-mile investigational in-vestigational trip, recommended immediate im-mediate improvement of the Alaskan Alas-kan military establishments, including includ-ing airplane ferry routes to Asia. He pointed, out that a Jap offensive would be much more likely to succeed suc-ceed "if we failed to recognize the possibility of their coming up through the Aleutians to the American Ameri-can mainland." SPAIN: Complications Many reliable foreign sources viewed the shake-up in Spain's political po-litical set-up as pretty much a domestic do-mestic matter and forecast no general gen-eral change in the pro-Axis leanings lean-ings of Gen. Francisco Franco's-government. Franco's-government. Though one of Hitler's Hit-ler's best friends in Spain, Foreign Minister Serrano Suner, had been ousted, it appeared that the main point of difficulty was discord between be-tween the Spanish army and the Falange political organization. However, there was an international interna-tional complication as well as the domestic dissension which had some effect on the change. Suner was re- HALT LIVING COSTS: FDR Orders Congress In a forthright speech to the nation. na-tion. President Roosevelt carried his battle against rising prices to the people, demanding immediate anti-inflation anti-inflation action to avoid a "serious domestic economic crisis." In a message to congress he demanded de-manded legislation by October 1 to bring farm prices under control. "In the event that the congress should fail to act, and act adequately, I shall accept the responsibility and I will act," he said. With farm prices stabilized, he himself would act to stabilize wages, he promised. He stressed the point that the control of the inflationary threat could be obtained only by control of all the factors influencing it Wages and farm prices remain to be stabilized. "... I give you the solemn assurance that failure to solve this problem at home and to solve it now will make more difficult diffi-cult the winning of this war." "I cannot tell what power may have to be exercised in order to win this war. The American people can be sure that I will use my power pow-er with a full sense of my responsibility responsi-bility to the Constitution and to my country . . . When the war is won, the powers under which I act automatically auto-matically revert to the people to whom they belong," he said. EGYPT: The Tide of War Although his Africa corps was stopped cold in its second major bid for the valley of the Nile, Nazi Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was reported report-ed to have retained certain territorial territori-al gains at the southern end of the El Alamein line. Reports from Cairo indicated that Rommel's chief gain was the El Hememat ridge, a 700-foot observation observa-tion post from which the Nazis can watch British movements. However, the position of the then retreating German and Italian troops was given officially as west . of the British mine fields which they entered the previous week. This indicates in-dicates that Rommel had been forced to retreat beyond his starting point. A blow to Axis strength was revealed re-vealed with the information that Maj. Gen. George von Bismarck, first cousin of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, founder of the modern German empire, was killed in action. ac-tion. Von Bismarck was one of Hitler's Hit-ler's most able generals. MANPOWER 'Freeze' Labor in essential war industries in 12 western states was "frozen" under terms of a far-reaching order or-der of the U. S. War Manpower commission. Announced by Paul MeNutt, head of the commission, the order specified that no worker in the 12-state area engaged in non-ferrous non-ferrous metal mining, milling, smelting and refining, or in logging or lumbering, could seek other employment em-ployment without first obtaining a certificate of separation from a designated des-ignated representative of the U. S. employment service. States included in the "critical" area were: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Ida-ho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, California. Cali-fornia. Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Washing-ton, New Mexico and Texas. SOUTH PACIFIC: Back for More The Jap evidently had not learned his lesson. He knew that the marines had taken important bases in the Solomons. He knew, too, that these marines had been backed up by regular army and navy detachments detach-ments and that important air bases had been taken away from him and put to use for the United Nations. All this did not discourage him. For despite these facts the Jap came back and after heavy losses succeeded in establishing small landing parties on Guadalcanal in the Solomon group. According to U. S. navy communiques this was but one of several minor Jap operations op-erations in the Solomons. These communiques attached importance to large loss of life by the landing parties and the implication seemed to be that those Japs unlucky enough to get ashore would be dealt with in typical marine fashion. From New Guinea the news was different. Official reports from Melbourne, Mel-bourne, Australia, reported that Jap ground forces penetrated a gap in the Owen Stanley mountain range and advanced down the southern slope toward Port Moresby. About this same time a heavy Jap bombing bomb-ing attack on Port Moresby broke a three-week lull in this type operation. opera-tion. A series of frontal attacks made it possible for the Jap to reach this objective. As he approached Port Moresby the fighting grew more terrific ter-rific and his losses grew higher. RUSSIAN FRONT: 'Greatest Weight' Russian reports that the spearhead spear-head of the Nazi drive through the Grozny oil-fields in the Caucasus had been checked tended to offset the more ominous news from Stalingrad. Stalin-grad. There, 1,500 German dive bombers led the final attack on that city. It was at Stalingrad that the Russians had admitted that they battled the greatest weight of armament arma-ment ever hurled against a single objective. Before the final assault came this was typical of the Moscow communiques commu-niques on the fighting in this sector: sec-tor: "West of Stalingrad our troops engaged in heavy fighting. One Soviet So-viet unit repulsed four attacks, one after another, but then was forced to retreat to new positions." How the Russians stood up under the pounding was baffling to many military mili-tary experts. Nazi assault forces had aimed their heaviest blows at Soviet artillery ar-tillery and anti-tank batteries, thus striving to level these anchors of the centers of resistance. East of the Volga, said German reports, their fliers had raided important Russian airfields. Russian attacks on the northwest front, near Leningrad, rolled on, stalled, rolled on again. Conflicting reports from Moscow and Berlin dimmed the picvure of this front. Germany claimed the fall of No-vorossisk, No-vorossisk, strategic Black sea naval base, and military sources saw its capture as a terrific blow to Russian Rus-sian naval action. Since the Soviet navy had been driven from its strongest base at Sevastopol fleet operations had been badly curtailed and the loss of Novorossisk would even more hamper these operations. GEN. FRANCISCO FRANCO No change in pro-Axis leanings. ported to have lost diplomatic "face" because of the swing to the side of United Nations by many of the Latin-American countries. He was replaced by Count Gen. Francisco Gomez de Jordana and it was expected that both this new official and Franco would now be less inclined to issue anti-United Nations declarations even though their sympathies must continue to lean toward the Axis. This point of view appeared to be rather well based on logic for Franco's Fran-co's power in great part is dependent depend-ent upon help given him by Hitler and Mussolini. Yet as Latin-America tended to draw away from the Axis, he would be forced to take account ac-count of this attitude for the tie between be-tween his country and Central and South America is close. SCRAP: "Every home has scrap. We need it." HIGHLIGHTS in the week's news inat was die message delivered to the nation by Donald Nelson, chairman of the War Production board as he discussed the critical scrap iron situation with newspaper publishers at a conference in Washington. Wash-ington. Nelson had called the meeting meet-ing to show these newspaper men how serious this problem really was. Scrap iron is urgently needed if the country's steel mills are to be kept running. PEACEFUL: Because the law-abiding law-abiding city of Old Ripley, 111., (Pop. 115) had no use for its jail, six tons of scrap metal from the cells have gone to the scrap-metal drive. LIMIT: Because the volume is exceeding facilities for distributing it, air mail addressed for points outside out-side the continental U. S. has been limited by weight to two ounces per piece. COMMANDOS: It was announced in Ottawa that 170 Canadian soldiers lost their lives in the Commando raid on Dieppe. France. FINGERPRINTS: Fingerprinting of every man. woman and child in the United States as a war measure is being urged by Rep. Sam Hobbs (Ala.), who is drafting legislation to that effect It would also be a boon to law enforcement agencies. |
