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Show I WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS . Allies Smash, at Heart of Reich. As Enemy's Defenses Crumble; Congress Renews Tariff Fight Released by Western Newspaper Union. ' I (EDITOR'S NOTE! When opinion urn expresfteil in theso columns, they are thone of Western Newspaper Union's news analysts and not necessarily of this newspaper.) : : v t : ;: vua M As General Pattoa's drive Into the Reich developed, droves of German prisoners like these surrendered when entrapped. . EUROPE: Berlin Bound In what the Germans themselves called the week of greatest decision, de-cision, U. S. and British armies poured across the Reich from the west while the enemy high com- J mand strove desperately to reestablish reestab-lish organized resistance. Touched off by the crossing of the Rhine along its entire length, the mighty push, involving upwards of 1,200,000 U. S. and British troops, threw the enemy's defenses into turmoil, with Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges' 1st. and Lt. Gen. George Patton's U. S. 3rd armies leading the advance deep into the heart of southern Germany. As the great U, S, and British thrust unfolded, the Germans put up their staunchest resistance about the Ruhr valley in the north, where Field Marshal Kesselring strove to hold his lines at all costs to prevent a break-through to the east. Patton U psets Foe To the south, however, it was a different story, with Generals Hodges' and Pat-ton's Pat-ton's armored bursts through the thinly held and ''"j forested wester-'tfi wester-'tfi wald posing a dif-S-; 't f ficult problem for gp( the - Nazi com-IWIIK com-IWIIK mand- Apparently Wi0M0M cauSht off balance mZw '''MYvm8l by Patton's quick passage of the Gen. Eisenhower Rhine after the collapse of resistance resist-ance in the Saar, the enemy could not react sharply to the breakthrough break-through and lost valuable time in organizing reserves far to the rear. Considering the U. S.'s southern push of the greatest significance, the Germans said it could not only lead to a juncture with Russian forces driving eastward from Silesia, but could also achieve the historic objective ob-jective of cutting the Reich in two along the Main river. While Supreme Commander Eisenhower's Eisen-hower's U. S. and British forces streamed eastward across a crumbling crum-bling Germany, Russian forces maintained main-tained the heaviest pressure on enemy lines all the way from the Baltic to Hungary. All along the Berlin front, the Reds poured in additional troops for the tough drive through the capital's heavily defended forefleld, while farther far-ther to the south two Russian armies hammered at the historic Sudeten mountain gateway to Czechoslovakia and two more forces smashed at the Hungarian passage to Austria. Break-throughs in the south would Imperil Nazi plans for a last ditch stand in the surrounding mountain mass and their remaining large industrial in-dustrial area. Hard Fight Ahead But though Allied armies were on the quick move both in the west and east. General Eisenhower cautioned cau-tioned against the conclusion that the road to Berlin would stand wide open. Because of the eventual necessity neces-sity of U. S. and British forces to brake their romp to enable supplies sup-plies to catch up to them, the Germans Ger-mans may be allowed enough time to reorganize a line to the rear, he said. "I believe that, so far as he is able, the German will stand and fight wherever we find him," Eisenhower said. "The elimination of German troops west of the Rhine was one of the greatest victories of this or any other war." LOSE RESOURCES When deprived of the Philippine islands, Japan will lose large tonnages ton-nages of iron ore, chrome ore and manganese which her steel industry indus-try needs for vital war production. The islands also are rich in other natural resources. In 1940. Japan obtained 1,310,805 net tons of iron ore from the Philippines, Philip-pines, the entire production of iron ore in the islands. In seven months of 1941 iron ore shipments to Japan totaled 954.300 tons, it w disclosed. PACIFIC: Warns Japs Even while American forces closed on the approaches to the Japanese Jap-anese homeland, Fleet Comdr. Adm. Ernest King declared that we were first gaining a position from which we could assault the heart of the empire. em-pire. Latest of the American assaults was on the Ryukyu islands, lying midway between the big enemy air base of Formosa and the Japanese Japa-nese homeland. Possession of the Ryukyus would furnish the rapidly rapid-ly growing U. S. air force in the Pacific with yet another advance base for peppering vital military and industrial installations in enemy homeland, already smoking from concentrated B-29 and carrier plane raids. In declaring that American forces were gaining a springboard for the all-out smash on Japan itself. Admiral Ad-miral King made no bones about U. S. objectives. Said he: "That is our goal and the enemy isswelcome to know that we shall continue to press him with every means at our command. We must never forget for-get that there is a long, tough, laborious road ahead." TARIFF: Neiv Fight America's historic tariff question came to the fore again with President Presi-dent Roosevelt asking congress to slash levies 50 per cent under January Janu-ary 1 levels in extending the reciprocal recipro-cal trade agreements for three years, and Republican members of congress opposing the move. Should the program go through, it would mean that tariffs on some items would be cut 75 per cent under un-der the rates established by the Smoot-Hawley bill of 1930. The original reciprocal trade agreements' agree-ments' act in 1934 provided for a 50 per cent cut in those rates, and since that reduction already has been made on some items, another decrease of 50 per cent would amount to 75 per cent in all. In advocating a further cut in tariffs along with extension of the reciprocal trade agreements, agree-ments, the President said that not only would increased exports ex-ports to the U. S. enable foreign countries to buy more goods from us, but additional employment employ-ment would be created in the U. S. in the processing and distributing dis-tributing industries. Approval of the program wou'-d be vital to the foundation of postwar international interna-tional cooperation, Mr. Roosevelt added. In bucking the President's proposal, pro-posal, GOP members of congress repeated re-peated the traditional argument that lower tariffs would spell an increase in the importation of cheaper goods with which higher paid American producers would be unable to compete. com-pete. Such a situation,' they said, would tend to defeat the administration's adminis-tration's goal of 60.000,000 postwar jobs. Meanwhile, a review of tariff reductions re-ductions under the reciprocal trade agreements since 1934 showed that of 1,226 rates pared in the 15 standard schedules more than 500 were cut in half. Of 245 reductions made in agricultural agricul-tural products, 156 were cut in half, it was revealed. Other reductions included in-cluded 237 in metals and. metal manufactures, with a third cut in half; 126 in chemicals, oils and paints, with nearly 63 cut in half; 107 in earths, earthenware and glassware, with 46 cut in half, and 78 in wool and wool manufactures with 25 cut over 40 per cent BIG BUSINESS REPORTS In doing over a 2,000,000,000 dollar business in 1914, the U. S. Steel corporation turned oat 30,-800.000 30,-800.000 tons of ingots and castings, cast-ings, with profit of $60,791,281. Reporting a drop in taxes for the year to $106,000,000, the corporation said that wage increases in-creases included as expense cut down the figure from which taxes could be figured. As a result, re-sult, taxes decreased $25,700,-000 $25,700,-000 while loss of Income only totaled $4,300,000. i i WAR PRODUCTION: At Peak Because further diversion of resources re-sources and cuts in supplies for war-supporting war-supporting and essential civilian activities would probably impair the nation's economy to the point of adversely ad-versely affecting war production, munitions output has just about reached its peak, it was revealed. At the same lime, the War Production Pro-duction board revealed that military authorities had joined in studies to determine what readjustments could be made in munitions output so as to divert more material and manpower man-power toward the manufacture of needed civilian goods. Though bad winter weather and nuisance strikes have complicated the task of meeting higher production goals, output has been satisfactory, WPB said. While production of guns and fire control, ammunition and combat and motor vehicles showed increases in February over the preceding pre-ceding month, output of extra heavy trucks, aircraft, ships, communication communica-tion and electronic equipment and other supplies was down. ) BANK CREDIT: For Little Business Opportunities of little businessmen seeking money for enterprises in the postwar world have been greatly enhanced en-hanced by bankers pooling of funds for general use In meeting applicants' appli-cants' requests. With such credit pools already organized or-ganized in 27 districts throughout the country, with funds of over one-half billion dollars, individual bankers who cannot furnish money to a prospective borrower will be able to obtain it for him from others. Putting the policy into action, banks have established small business busi-ness loan departments, set up easier borrowing conditions and revitalized communication between institutions looking for use of surplus funds. MOURN STATESMAN To Britain's mourned David Lloyd George, who died in his sleep t 82 years of age, went his countrymen's distinction distinc-tion of being the "man who won the last war." For it was the bushy-haired Welsh firebrand who reorganized Britain's Brit-ain's faltering tear effort in 1916 by converting her industry indus-try to munitions pro-Auction; pro-Auction; raised an Y my of 5,500,000 sol- f diors and 5,000,000 , y:,;,," J workers; provided for ij&'fxm the construction of rwif&fef? 4,000,000 tons of ship- )piStO ping; made truck gar- lf"$f$ dens of the big landed C$ j estates and established VA '$" conscription in a free 'if'l and spirited country. Ey '-fat i iVr A iWriw i If Lloyd George , played a vital part in L,oyd Georie the winning of the tear, he played an equally vital part in the making of the peace, being one of the Big Four at the Versailles conference. In 1921, he negotiated ne-gotiated the treaty creating the Irish Free State. Though critical of Chamberlain's appeasement ap-peasement policies, Lloyd George counselled coun-selled consideration of German offers for a negotiated pcuce early in the war. WORLD FARMING: Netv Organization Declaring that the U, S. must work to eliminate the unstable economic conditions which cause unrest and lead to war, President Roosevelt called upon congress to authorize American participation in the Allied food and agriculture organization. With the work of the organization primarily technical and advisory, it will provide for the pooling of knowledge and information looking to the improvement in standards of nutrition, increase in levels of farm income and avoidance of surpluses, sur-pluses, the president said. In advocating participation in the organization, the president said that, in lacking power of direction or control over any country in adoption adop-tion of policies, it would not impair the U. S.'s sovereignty over its own domestic agriculture. POLITICS: 'First Battle9 Thwarted in his efforts to have Henry A. Wallace appointed secretary secre-tary of commerce with power over the vast financial resources of the Reconstruction Finance corporation, President Roosevelt met another rebuff re-buff in the senate's refusal to confirm con-firm the nomination of Aubrey Williams Wil-liams as Rural Electrification administrator. ad-ministrator. In opposing nomination of Liberal Williams, the senate's opposition followed fol-lowed the lines of its rejection of Wallace's appointment, until the RFC was divorced from the commerce com-merce department. Williams, like Wallace, was charged with favoring a government spending program, which might impair the nation's fiscal fis-cal soundness, and also leaning to the left in his political beliefs. Commenting on Williams rejection. rejec-tion. James Patton, National Farmers Farm-ers Union chieftain, declared: "This is just the first battle in the war of issues as to what's going to happen to this country." NEW FIBERS Research into the chemistry of clothing is developing new fibers, including in-cluding some made from milk, soybeans soy-beans and peanuts and better methods meth-ods of making fabrics waterproof and fungusproof. scientists report. New Gbers recently "have been spun from a great variety of proteins pro-teins such as casein (the principal protein of milk), soybean, peanut, zein (a soft, yellow protein from Indian corn), Collagen (a main constituent con-stituent of bone and flesh), chicken feather keratin and egg albumen. |
