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Show . News rtx BehindM At TTTniTTTTrf By PaULMaLLON Released by Western Newspaper Union. WHAT AMERICA FACES IN YEAR AHEAD WASHINGTON. The official headlines head-lines have cheered us with almost daily victories through 1943, but any sober contemplation of 1944 must make us look behind them at the reality of our war effort. In Italy, the Pacific islands and New Guinea, we have been engaged in costly, brave but token-scale fighting. fight-ing. A very small fraction of our massive army has even now a month more than two years after the war started seen the enemy. There have been official estimates that 2,500,000 (possibly about a third of our preparing army) will be overseas over-seas by New Year's Day. Official pronouncements disclose that we had four divisions in action in Tunisia, five in Sicily, and four or five in Italy about 60,000 to 75,000 men fighting at a time. About half these divisions have carried on through, so that only half of them may be assumed to be additional addi-tional troops. These considerations would furnish an estimate that a little over 100,000 men had yet seen action on this front. On Guadalcanal and in the Solomons, Solo-mons, three different divisions have been mentioned. In New Guinea, elements of two more have been officially of-ficially declared. A division is supposed sup-posed to have been involved at Attu. Thus in the Pacific, the estimate could be safely placed at around 90,000 in action, plus the 19,000 regulars regu-lars who fought for the Philippines. Certainly few more than 200,000 troops one-tenth of the land force supposed to be overseas now and only an infinitesimal 2M per cent of the army we have been raising and training to beat the Axis have yet been turned upon the enemy. This does not mean their fighting has not been great and historic. Valor and greatness in combat do not rest on numbers. Nor will any future action of this war be more important than the work they had to do. The only point of this cold truth is we are still in the preparatory prepara-tory phase of this war now more than two years after its start. REASONS FOR FORGETTING That none of us has fully appreciated appre-ciated these facts, however, is due to several natural reasons. In the first place, collapse of the German war machine was anticipated anticipat-ed because of a shortage of oil and raw materials, and this proved unjustified. un-justified. Secondly, the air corps expected bombings of German cities to bring a possible capitulation due to the same reasons, and this may come any day, but it has not come yet. Furthermore, it was wise and necessary nec-essary for us to make the Nazis continue to believe new invasions of Europe were imminent, in order to keep as many Germans as possible away from the Russian front. Finally, the profound extent of Nazi stubbornness in continued fruitless fruit-less resistance to the Russians has been truly amazing. Only a nation which wants suicide could continue to face what Germany faces with the new year. The end of the war in Europe is surely to be expected this coming year. Fuller use of our great power is practically promised officially, not on far scattered atolls but in concentrated power. Places where the blows are to be launched have almost officially heen suggested. Disappointments cannot continue to delay the inevitable. Yet if we continue only, to plod along remote sandy island by island in the Pacific, and mountain by mountain in Italy, with no more than 200,000 men in action on land, anyone can see this war could last- interminably (the long hard years originally forecast). My best guess is Germany will yet crack, and quickly, that the war in Europe will certainly end in the first six months of 1944, probably the first quarter, and that Japan will last less than a year longer. S 5 Cf GETTING ELECTED AND 'TAX VOTING' A young lawyer friend of mine In the Southwest decided to enter politics poli-tics as a career. He started the right way, at the bottom, getting himself elected to a county board of supervisors. At once, however, he raised the tax levy on all real estate in the county, caused an increase in the valuations and just about doubled the tax bill on all the people. I thought that would nip his political career practically in embryo. But, immediately he ran for the state legislature, and was elected almost unanimously. Both he and I found that not a I single taxpayer resented or remembered remem-bered his permanent doubling of J their cost of living in his communi- j ty, but a small group of individu- als whose lands were benefited by building a sewer through their property, prop-erty, thereby increasing its value, and certain farmers v.ho obtained county roads through their property, i clearly remembered his work in their interests "development of the county," I suppose they would call j it and they whooped up almost unanimous sentiment for him. His actions paid off. |
