| Show weekly Wee BiLly news Asua lysis election day holds spotlight tension in balkans increases by roger i EDITORS NOTE when opinions are f expressed in ia these columns they us are those of the sews news analyst and not necessarily ol of this newspaper THE WAR aerial Z there were rumors and counter rumors about the total evacuation of london in the face of Goe rings aerial bombardment old people over 65 school children and active mothers were advised to leave as soon as possible taking with them all sick or invalided invalid ed souls about half a million children more than 50 per cent of the school population were out of town and expectant mothers were depart 1 N 4 a al N here is admiral sir harry al harwood who mho commanded the british forces og off the coast of south america when the german battleship graf craf spee was trapped and now is named lord commissioner of the british admiralty and assistant chief of the naval stag staff ing weekly for parts unknown it awas was not a cheerful picture the british government still refused to ti leave although an emergency parliament ament house had been prepared in readiness at cheltenham in the ex west of england the board of trade already had announced the removal of its business offices records to the grand hotel in an unpronounceable spot in central wales the spot was actually llandudno the british board of trade corresponds to the U S chamber of commerce reports from london berlin and rome indicated that the british air force had launched a major air offensive against the axis powers in reply to the constant bombings of london by the nazis while the RAF had by no means been idle during the prece preceding ding weeks this current drive seemed to take on more force than heretofore invasion ports on the french side of the english channel were severely bombed and shipyards at bremen were reported blasted industrial cities of northern italy came in tor for their share of the beating according to the dispatches from british headquarters disease dise ase the worst news of all was this spinal meningitis had broken out this was due to the fact that nearly people had been sleeping in unsanitary subways crowded into unhygienic surroundings nerves were wearing out and so was physical resistance with an average of only tour four hours sleep per night the cerebrospinal spinal fever was blamed on a nose and throat germ presumably airborne air borne there was further danger of typhoid influenza a higher insanity rate and other attendant ills it will be remembered that epidemic disease is one of the tour four grim horses of the apocalypse and perhaps the worst of the grisly team the balks when it came to the balkans there was increased tension rumania was further occupied by the german invaders bulgaria headed straight for the axis orbit while british citizens began to decamp from both bucharest and sofia squeezed between italy germany hungary bulgaria and italian albania si signed gneda a new trade and political pact with hitler which tied up the jugoslava Jugo slavs in the german continental system at least for the time being greece was threatened by the bulgarians Bulga rians and italians and was backed up by russia and turkey greece and turkey along with egypt and portugal were still nominal british allies the soviets were moving increasingly to the antl anti hitler viewpoint for a balkans did not appeal to the kremlin at moscow the actual military value of the red army was under constant discussion had it found itself in the last month of the finnish war was the red aviation any good were there any suitable red generals left alive after purges these were the moot questions and even the left eye monocles of the prussian general staff were in some doubt about marshal shi lovs and warboys reported demands upon greece by the axis powers included 1 immediate severance of economic economic relations with the british 2 cession of territory to italy and bulgaria 3 use of greek air bases by uie the axis 4 abdication of king george of greece 5 grant of a right of way to italy for construction of a major military road DOUBT espana when it came to spain generalissimo franco was still in much doubt gibraltar or no gibraltar heinrich himmler went down to see franco himmler is the head of the dread nazi gestapo and his agents were very useful to franco in the long spanish civil war himmler himmier got a big hand in the peninsular except for the ex loyalists still left alive who hated this too able german fanatic POLITICS wind up As the politicians all over the nation were busy winding up their blasts of campaign oratory american voters were preparing to go to the polls to cast what was expected to be the largest ballot in the nations history major candidates were completing their pleas to the electorate and latest public opinion polls indicated a close presidential race on mr R mrs franklin D roosevelt did not try to predict the result of the 1940 campaign which was coming to a peak she said she simply know and implied she could take it or leave it said mrs roosevelt who is popular even with the foes of her husband As far as the polls go they mean very little to me they are so often too much one way or the other when youve been the wife of a politician long enough you learn not to express anything one way or the other but just go along and see what happens duello ditello meanwhile clare boothe and dorothy thompson disagreed on the election miss boothe wrote the women and other things she stood firm for willkie miss thompson N Y herald tribune or no N Y herald tribune plumped for roosevelt miss boothe razzed mazzed miss thompson and the herald tribune h held eld up miss thompsons Thomp sons stuff there was quite a todo to do about it all with miss boothe apparently borsting wor sting miss thompson in this blitzkrieg of hairpins hair pins and cat calls DEFENSE draftees thirty thousand draftees were to be put into the army by november 18 and another by june 15 there had been a total of raw V 0 with america re arming to the lull full the womans comans touch is used at the frankford arsenal philadelphia pa to feed these 50 calibre cartridge cases into the machine that tapers them these cartridges are used in antitank anti tank guns young men that registered which topped the forecasts in reference to these young men war secretary stimson declared only god ana hitler know what will happen to the united states the army it was stated plans to train annually for the next five years which is the life length of the burke wadsworth conscription bill recently passed by congress the BW B W NAMES in the news old Al marshal arshal petain was warned by his fellow politico marcel deat against any attempt to restore the monarchy in la france the so called count of paris henry VI is the candidate a funny looking little creature retain himself would make a better king it if any the duke of guise father of the present pretender died in morocco last august so much for him al smith hiram johnson of california ex candidate john davis and hitler were variously reported as working for Will willkie kle so were former members of woodrow Wil wilsons sons cabinet former members ot of the socialist party the isolationists and william allen alien whites committee tor for intervention the new york daily news and the st louis post dis patch both strongly isolation mind ed came out none the less for roosevelt so did the paradoxically named springfield republican anti tammany laguardia and the pro tammany tigers worked for roosevelt in N Y side by each it was all very peculiar the earl of athlone and his wife princess alice visited mr roost roosevelt at hyde park they conferred on aid for england informally the earl is dowager queen marys brother and an ardent convert he is a nice old military man and his wife is a nice old female ditto ralph hope british flying officer was a nephew of neville chamberlain he was killed in an aerial action over england three weeks earlier he had been shot down but escaped safely the loss was reported as a heavy personal loss to the man of munich bill provided that an annual was to be the maximum number called up per year western JV estern one southwestern indian was found who claimed to be a member of the german bund and want to register he said he was waiting for hitler to come and free him from the white man the white house and the great white father some people said that this aborigine was red in more ways than one A C L U reforms 9 the american civil liberties union used to be called radical it defended communists nazis negroes trade unions and other varied causes which was certainly an american way of doing things but its leaders were sometimes accused of leftist tendencies eleven new members were added to the national committee of the A C L U they were certainly of an orthodox and even conservative type the new members included mr Roosevel ts headmaster of aristocratic to groton school dr endicott peabody also interventionist ic robert sherwood the famous playwright van wyck brooks the blue blooded author and critic was another and so was pearl buck the chinese novelist dean christian gauss of conservative princeton university was on the list and dr frank kingdon director of the citizenship educational service also william draper lewis of philadelphia director of the american law institute william allan neilson president emeritus of smith college for women bishop bromley oxnam of the methodist church in boston and professor Sophon isba breckinridge of the university of chicago NATIONAL socialism certain gloomy political scientists were maintaining that the blight of national socialism was spreading round the world to all the major countries germany italy england france japan america etc in each country they declared it varied its pattern but the basic essentials senti als were always there sad they said that national socialism now combined the aggressive militarism of the politician cial right with the aggressive socialism of the political left this united left and right and made tor for some sort of totalitarian state the churchill government tor for example unites radical labor under ernest bevin with the military mentality of churchill himself chamberlain they claimed represented the last stand of victorian middle class capitalism ital ism the vargas dictatorship in brazil the franco rule in spain and the konoye regime in japan mili and anti capitalist were additional dit ional samples in france the generals and admirals were dominant at vichy petain darlan etc and plu plutocracy to cracy was severely condemned by this gallic national socialists who thirsted tor for the blood of and so called profiteers LEOPOLD the king leopold of belgium was accused last june of grave military treachery in the flanders campaign they said he let the british and french troops down by making that initial separate peace france revoked his legion of honor decoration and the bust was removed from the belgium pavilion at the new york worlds fair then months later people began to renovate their opinions about leopold of the belgians the petain government of france restored his leg legion i on of honor the marble bust was restored to the worlds fair exhibit some people were specially invited to the bustill restoration the pavilion had been 0 ocen only two weeks when leo ma mas aen peace with the Hitler ians sf weary months since that time have meant seclusion for the monarch in a guarded belgian chateau where he rules vaguely and in name only NAZIS explanation the three nastiest papers in germany are dr goebbels andriff in berlin the anti semitic of julius in nuremberg and the official organ of the black uniformed formed hitler guards the schwarze korps the schwarze korps gave the following scientific explanation of the defense of london londona Lon dons ability to carry on under a continuous hail of bombs amid seething wreckage and rae a ing flames without a root roof OVE heads of people without sleep y with the slenderest slen derest food supplies is not due to british ability to take it or proverbial toughness rather this england approaches death with sensual pleasure and smacks its lips lipi over every phase and bears every humiliation and every cynicism if only it can hope that in dying it may also drag its enemy into the abyss the psychopath knows that in such cases pleasure in destruction st parallels pleasure in self destruction thus is solved the puzzle of british toughness and endurance iron lun lunged luned ed about the bravest young man in america is fred jr of chicago he has lived for four years in an iron lung and has traveled in it to distant places he hiis tiis h as married happily and now has an heir wanted to register for the draft with his customary pluck and grit they appointed senior as a special registrar and the father registered the son junior answered all the usual questions like any other draftee when his adoring father asked him for other obvious physical characteristics fred answered infantile paralysis unable to walk this action made jr more popular than ever aircraft award 2 ti A Z A 4 1 4 lit in recognition of his contributions at aeronautical development and the production of many types of aircraft of high performance glenn L martin above president of the aircraft company that bears his name has been awarded the daniel guggenheim medal for 1940 mr martin hartin shown in itis his baltimore office with a model of the first airplane he ever built and in which he learned in 1909 is currently working on two new bombing planes said to be the largest aircraft of their kind in the world released by western newspaper urion union |
