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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Army, Navy and Commercial Airlines Suffer in Series of Plane Crashes; 'Reuben James' Sinking, F.D.R. Speech Draw Formal Statement From Hitler (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressed In these columns, they are those of the newa analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) V Rp3"i'H by Western Newspaper trninn I Troops who took over the Bendix, N. J., plant of Air Associates, at the command of President Roosevelt are shown camping in a field near the plant. The order for the plant's occupation came in the interests of "national defense" according to official sources as Air Associates holds millions of dollars' worth of defense contracts for various kinds of aviation avia-tion equipment. Production had been held up because of difficulty between be-tween the company and union leaders, but work got under way soon after the troops moved in. JAPAN: Viewed Menace Following the German declaration that she had been "attacked" by the United States, Washington was openly fearful that peace in the Pacific Pa-cific could no longer be maintained. There were many signs, it was asserted, that Japan would receive a signal from Germany to open hostilities, hos-tilities, thus to draw the American fleet strength into the Pacific and remove some of the vessels, perhaps per-haps from North Atlantic convoy service. It was significant that Hallett Abend should have sent a dispatch to the Times from Honolulu stating that the Japanese navy had been guilty of activities in American waters wa-ters that verged closely on the commencement of hostilities. The American navy has been watching the activity of a Japanese submarine, and while it had not taken tak-en any measures, much was learned of the Japanese tactics through American apparent indifference to what was going on. A submarine had been observed in HaVaiian territorial waters, submerging sub-merging by day and coming up only after nightfall. This vessel had at all times been at the mercy of American naval vessels, but the naval officers laughed at it, saying that the Japs could not have observed anything worthwhile through their periscope. Other fast Japanese ships have been cruising openly at full speed around Midway, Wake island, Johnson, John-son, Palmyra and other U. S. Pacific Pa-cific islands, always keeping just outside the territorial limits, Abend said. Japan's comment on the James incident was that the United States was close to participation in the war. "Therefore," it continued, "the United States is making every effort to avoid a clash in the Pacific, which now seems inevitable. Tension Ten-sion is growing despite sincere efforts of Japan.'' This was regarded as being written writ-ten on an extremely menacing note. PLANES: Keep Crashing Started off by the crashing of five army pursuit planes, this disaster seemed the signal for a series of tragic losses, which had reached a new record for American aviation. A Northwest Airlines plane dropped to earth in a fog, killing 14 persons and hurling the pilot clear. Within 24 hours a 21-passenger" American Airlines plane, carrying 20 persons, plummeted to earth in a rainstorm near St. Thomas, Can., and burst into flames. All lost their lives. Less than 48 hours later an army bomber, with five air corps men aboard, fell out of misty clouds into a cornfield near Findlay, Ohio, and burst into flames. The five men were instantly killed. Then it was the navy's turn to announce an-nounce a disaster. This was the crash of a huge bomber at sea with the loss of 12 lives. The plane was "operating in the Atlantic ocean area." At nearly the same time a 22-year-old American of German extraction was arrested at the Glenn L. Martin Mar-tin plant in Baltimore, and confessed con-fessed to be a saboteur of planes, having cut electrical wires in such a way that contacts would be broken at some later date. His deeds had affected more than a hundred planes, though most, if not all of them, had been discovered. dis-covered. So cleverly did he hide his work that suspicion had been thrown on hundreds of other employees. em-ployees. It took the FBI agents from July until late October to catch him. FIRST LOSS: Sinking of 'James' First American naval loss of the war was the Reuben James, 1,000-ton 1,000-ton destroyer, 20 years old, sent to the bottom of the Atlantic with an undetermined loss of life somewhere west of Iceland. Details were shrouded with greatest great-est secrecy by the navy, who finally disclosed that 44 men, apparently all enlisted men, were saved. Whether more would later be rescued res-cued was problematical. She carried about 120 officers and men. Whether she had previously encountered and battled successfully success-fully with submarines was a matter of conjecture. One news service had obtained a purported letter from one of the sailors on the Reuben James which stated that the vessel had sunk two submarines, "maybe more." The writer was Leonidas C. Dick-erson, Dick-erson, a seaman, who wrote to his aunt in Danville, Va.: "We've been at sea for 42 consecutive consecu-tive days, and I've lost lots of sleep. I'll be glad when we're through with this job and I can get some sleep again." The letter, written several weeks before the sinking, said: "We have gotten two subs, maybe more. I have lots to tell you when I see you." Another letter told of a submarine subma-rine attack on the James. It had been written by Harold James Or-ange Or-ange to his mother, Mrs. Marie Orange, in Chicago. He said: "I was up on the crow's nest on watch when we were nearing Iceland Ice-land and I saw a torpedo. It was coming right for us. I gave the alarm and we started zig-zagging. It missed us, sped right by. I saw not one, but several submarines." REDS: 'Reservoirs' Although the defense lines around Moscow had been bending now and then, the break had not come, and enormous reserves from "manpower "manpow-er reservoirs" in Siberia and other parts of the vast country were reported re-ported as having been hurled into the fray. The United States heard that the first American planes had gone into battle, and had bombed Berlin, a fact which Berlin promptly denied. It was an unquestioned fact that the Reds had, however, some of the newest and largest American bombing bomb-ing planes, easily capable of flights over Berlin and back. The Nazis had broken through into the Crimea, however, and the fall of the whole peninsula, thus opening one narrow and difficult road to the Caucasus, was believed certain. NEUTRALITY: Battle With even its opponents admitting that victory was sure, and anti-administration anti-administration editorial writers regarding re-garding it editorially as a fait accompli, ac-compli, there still was bitter fighting fight-ing over the measure on the floor of the senate. A notable acquisition of support, however, came when Senator Bridges of New Hampshire, long a foe of the administration's policy, switched over and spoke in behaj of the bill which would remove from the Neutrality act those measures which would prevent arming of merchant mer-chant vessels, and would open all ports to the American flag ships. Another indication of support was the agreement in the senate to push forward action on the bill. This had followed the sinking of the Reuben Reu-ben James. Senator Ball of Minnesota, a Republican, Re-publican, held that freedom of the seas was necessary for the preservation preser-vation of our liberties; while Senator Sena-tor Clark of Missouri was attacking attack-ing the President, and daring him to ask for a formal declaration of war. Clark said the measure was "intended "in-tended to be and can only be an authorization for a state of war." REACTION: In Many Quarters Following the sinking of the Reuben Reu-ben James the reactions followed swiftly, drawing certain powerful figures closer to the President's foreign for-eign policy, and bringing from Hitler's Hit-ler's headquarters no other statement state-ment than that "people foolish enough to walk down a railroad track may expect to be run over." Berlin issued a lengthy formal statement from Hitler, most of which was devoted to answering the President's Navy day address. He reiterated his statements that the South American map and the document purporting to reveal a Nazi plan to do away with all religion re-ligion as "nonsensical" and "crude forgeries." He categorically denied that the Reich government had created cre-ated either of these items. The wording of the declarations from the German leader was scanned carefully by foreign correspondents, corre-spondents, who saw in it the typical Nazi line of argument that their vessels ves-sels had been attacked; that Germany Ger-many was being attacked by the United States, that the U. S. was stamping itself as the aggressor. These words were believed significant sig-nificant in that it was the usual German Ger-man terminology preceding an open break between the Reich and another anoth-er nation. It was pointed out that treaties bf A'een Germany and her Axis partners called for help in case any member of the three is attacked. 'Declaration ? Hitler, it was believed by the correspondents, cor-respondents, was simply laying the usual groundwork for a definite hostile hos-tile declaration against this country and its policies. He said: "Herr Roosevelt has been placed before the tribunal for world judgment of his acts." The declaration attacked the truth of Roosevelt's statements that the Greer and the Kearny bad been attacked by the Germans, and stamped both vessels as the attackers. CEILINGS: Prices, Note Wages The drastic price control bill reported re-ported out by the house banking and currency committee had turned out to be one which set price tops, which forbid farm price ceilings below boom prices, and specifically exempted ex-empted wages from government control. The vote had been 18 to 5, but the session reportedly had been turbulent. turbu-lent. There were some modified provisions for rent control. All rents in defense areas were to be subject to ceilings. Farm prices were to have ceilings prohibited at any point lower than 110 per cent of parity, or at less than the average price between 1919 and 1929, the boom years. Some of the administration experts, ex-perts, studying the bill, said that it would be impossible under it to control con-trol prices at Jess than 30 per cent above parity. They cited the example of sugar, which now had a ceiling of $3.50 a hundred, and showed that it would, under the committee ruling, be permitted per-mitted to rise to $5.84 per hundred before being pegged off. A price administrator had been named in the bill with a salary of $10,000 a year to be named by the President and confirmed by the senate sen-ate to administer the act with advisory ad-visory councils from the various industries. in-dustries. The original draft did not require senate confirmation. MISCELLANY: Washington: The navy announced its sixth battleship, the Alabama, will be launched February 16. New York: Senator Barkley, in an address, had urged that "when the time comes for the building of a new world, Palestine be restored to the Jewish people." Lansing, Mich.: Governor Dickinson, Dick-inson, 82, gave this recipe for a long life: (1) Be yourself; (2) take care of your tissues; (3) don't get stuck on yourself or another man's wife. |
