OCR Text |
Show K XP DREW PEARSON a i 1 i t i i 1 1 1 1 i i i mn in. tl Washington, D. C. GOOD NEIGHBOR Many a state department official wishes we could fix up Argentina as neatly as Comrade Stalin thinks we can. When Willkie was in Moscow, Stalin raised a question about Argentina, Ar-gentina, describing it as the Axis source of information about ship movements. He couldn't understand why such a condition should be allowed al-lowed to exist. "If you have so much power," Stalin told Willkie, "why don't you clean up the Argentine government, or take over the country do something some-thing to turn the Axis out of there?" Willkie found it somewhat difficult to explain that the Good Neighbor policy would prevent such interference, interfer-ence, in time of war as in time of peace. NOTE: State department experts expect that, despite the new Argentine Argen-tine government's reactionary attitude atti-tude on domestic questions, it will be driven to break relations with the Axis, in order to get lend-lease supplies from the United States. This is what Latin generals want most. HUMANE BOMBING Strange as it may seem, the United Unit-ed States air forces are planning the humane bombing of Germany. They want to avoid killing people and destroying non-military buildings. build-ings. They want to bring the war to a merciful ending. High ranking officers of the air forces are urging that we conduct our bombing operations in such a way that unnecessary destruction of enemy life and property shall be held to a minimum. This is part of their thesis in favor of precision, or "pin-point" bombing, as contrasted with the "area" bombing of the RAF. The precision bombing, carried on in daylight, is able to pick out the precise pre-cise military target, and destroy that without laying waste to an entire city, or killing helpless civilians. These air forces officers speak of the post-war attitude of nations toward to-ward each other, emphasizing that careless bombing would intensify the hatreds of war, and make it more difficult to build a peaceful world. Somebody will have to rebuild the broken cities of Europe. World ties are now so close that no great areas of destruction can be allowed to remain; re-main; rebuilding will have to be done, and only the victors will have the power to do the work. Therefore, say these exponents of precision bombing, let us have no indiscriminate bombing, but only a precision job, which spares the life and property of the enemy as much as possible. CHURCHILL THE PROPHET Students of air power have dug up an old statement of Winston Churchill's, Church-ill's, written in 1917, which reveals an amazing foresight in the possibilities possi-bilities and limitations of aerial bombing. As everybody knows, the Nazi blitz against England, intended to terrorize the people, failed in its objective. ob-jective. On the other hand, the more scientific bombing of the continent con-tinent by the RAF and AAF strategic stra-tegic bombing is now expected to bring Hitler to his knees. Churchill seemed to foresee both of these developments when he said in a paper on Air Power, written in 1917, that nothing we know about warfare can lead us to believe that bombing for terror alone can cause such a morale collapse as to force a major nation to sue for peace. Churchill emphasized that air power must single out and attack transportation, factories, and other enemy installations, upon which the enemy war-mnking ability depends. England's survived of the blitz i gives dramatic support to the first part cf that statement, and Allied air power is now proving the second sec-ond part INSTALLMENT BUYING Business is usually squawking about government regulation, but here is one case where merchants want It continued after the war. They want to cherish and preserve Regulation W. This is the regulation requiring heavy down payments on consumer purchases. For example, the down payment on a $'-00 refrigerator today to-day If you could get one would be about $(i0, compared with three or four dollars before the war. Wartime purpose of this regulation Is to curb buying and thus reduce In-(latlon. In-(latlon. Hut retail merchants like it for other reasons. It saves them bookkeeping expenses, avoids the nuisance of dunning, and provides cash. CAIMTOL CHALK C Most carefully guarded targets In nil Germany are the synthetic gasoline gas-oline mid synthetic oil works of lUei'hliiiinmer niul Uruex. If they could be knocked out, Germany would be pretty well out of the war U. S. airmen are Itching to get at them, 41 The Japanese embassy and grounds are being can-fully eaiod Tn- by the neullal Spanish embassy. 1 Manpower shoilago has caused 1 substitution of women for men at tha switchboard of the l- IU. |