The New Ulm Enterprise (New Ulm, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 32, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 22, 1941 Page: 6 of 8
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WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS
By Edward C. Wayne
Reports of Hess Flight to England
Fill News Columns and Radio Lanes;
Convoys Plus Strikes Plus Priorities
Equal Headaches in Defense Program
(KDITOR'S NOTB—Wtoea are la these ealiau, they
are these at the aews analyst aa< net aeeessarily st this newspaper.)
- (Released by Western Newspaper Union. >
BOMBSHELL:
Human Variety
The Rudolf Hess incident was the
dropping of a bombshell into the
moors of Scotland which went up
with a louder explosion than any of
the tons of TNT that Hitler’s aviators
had yet sent across the channel.
Imaginations ran riot—the house
of commons was in a dither—more
than 20 basic theories were ad-
vanced to explain why Hess fled
Germany in an airplane and
dropped to earth in a parachute,
and with the interweaving and vari-
ations of these, one had several
thousand stories to choose from.
To list the British theories and
those of neutrals would be futile be-
cause they were not only limited by
the imaginations of their creators.
To list the German explanations
also would be futile because they
obviously were the propagandic out-
bursts of a government whose nose
was temporarily out of joint.
Outside of this, all was specula-
tion, all was guesswork, but the
guessers, most of them being paid at
so much a word, let themselves go
and endless columns were printed.
Yet the story was not being "over-
played”—most thinking newspaper
men being at a loss for earlier com-
parisons in journalistic history,
which, one must recall, doesn't go
far back when history is considered.
But outside of the type of story
that history presented in the Middle
Ages and during the days of Caesar
and Hannibal, and Anthony and
Cleopatra, and Cassius and Brutus,
and Helen of Troy, Hess’ flight was
unique.
Most newspaper commentators
were willing to call it the biggest
story in centuries and let it go at
that. They wagged their heads and
said, "What if Cordell Hull were to
fly to Germany, or what if it had
been the other way over the chan-
nel and Anthony Eden had made
the trip?”
This was enough to settle the point
as to the magnitude of the news to
their own satisfaction, anyway.
Basic explanation of the Hess in-
cident, on the standpoint of logic,
RUDOLF HESS
/ 'A louder explotion than bombt.'
ibrought personal considerations and
I personal safety to the fore. It was
jpointed out:
; a. Hess had evidently wanted to
escape Germany for some reason
for he was practically under a de-
ltainmen t sentence by Hitler's hav-
ing grounded him.
b. If his reason for escape was
sound, then to pick out a spot where
he would be utterly safe from retri-
bution, England was the one and
only spot in the world.
c. If personal safety was his mo-
tive, then an inescapable parallel
was that something must have been
wrong with the unity of the Nazi
party of which he was No. 3 fuehrer.
This was enough explanation for
British serenity over the incident,
also for German perturbation. It
was significant that most German
dispatches covered these three
points.
Point No. 1 was covered when
Hitler announced Hess was crazy
and had been detained for his own
safety. No. 2, that he should select
England, Germans explained by say-
ing that the nature of his insanity
was that he believed that he, single-
handed, could bring about peace.
Point No. 3 was handled by a
straight-out denial that anything
was wrong with the Nazi party.
Hess was a "good Nazi but crazy."
‘Painted Toenails'
Whether crazy or not, when they
took off his shoe and sock to attend
to his fractured ankle, he was found
to have painted toenails, hardly the
American idea for hard-boiled Nazi
leader’s personal decorations.
Everyone who ever had any con-
tact with Hess told his paragraph
or two, from the palmist who said
he was "superstitious” to the news-
paper commentator who took five
minutes "coast to coast” to tell how
he had seen Hess go skiing two
years ago.
PRIORITIES:
And OPM
A new difficulty in the U. S. han-
dling of defense work loomed when
William S. Knudsen, motor official
and head of OPM, seemed to take
as a personal issue the question of
taking priorities out of his hands
and giving them to a special organi-
zation answerable only to the army
and navy chiefs.
Knudsen was quoted as saying
that he would quit if the plan went
through.
Thus the question of priorities lift-
ed its head as a vital defense issue,
further complicating the picture.
Priorities were becoming a very
real issue in business, also, many
manufacturers finding that this one
question might easily keep them
from success or failure in carrying
out contracts. The right to a prior-
ity of delivery of machine tools
might alone answer an entire ques-
tion of manufacture.
Knudsen took the attitude that
if the work of production manage-
WILL1AM S. KNUDSEN
tie forced an issue.
ment was his, that to remove from
his hands a vital tool like the right
to decide questions of priorities,
would be to make his task impos-
sible, and to rob him of his prime
prerogative.
It seemed likely that unless this
question was ironed out swiftly to
the liking of the Danish-born pro-
duction expert, the government
might be looking for a new man.
STRIKES:
Up-Grade Again
The labor trouble tempo in the
United States defense industry was
on the upward curve again, with a
$30,000,000 order for Browning ma-
chine guns held up at the Colt fac-
tory at Hartford, Conn., and other
old labor difficulties threatening to
break out anew, including the coal
strike.
Always rearing its head was the
threatened General Motors strike,
which would, if it occurred, affect
millions of dollars in defense work
and about 160,000 employees, and
John L. Lewis said that if the coal
contract with southern operators
was not forthcoming soon, he would
call the 400,000 coal miners out
again.
This brought the strike news back
onto the front pages with a bang,
and Representative Thomas of New
Jersey, a Republican, called for a
roundup of Communists in labor
groups, and to order them all arrest-
ed on treason charges. This was
the most drastic step suggested thus
far.
SHIPS:
Britain Bound
President Roosevelt assured the
nation that the administration's ob-
jective of 2,000,000 tons of merchant
shipping for Britain would be real-
ized by mid-June.
This assurance carried with it the
important promise that the bill per-
mitting the President to take pos-
session of foreign vessels idle in
American ports was in the category
of “sure things."
The senate and house engaged in
a desultory effort to write into the
bill amendments chief among which
was the Tobey amendment forbid-
ding the use of convoys.
The whole convoy issue, as indeed
all other news of the war on this
side of the water took a back seat
during the news ascendancy of Ru-
dolf Hess, but the issue was there,
ready to rip itself out into the open
at an appropriate moment, and to
become the central point of a whole
congressional debate on the Presi-
dent’s general foreign policy.
The 2,000,000 tons of ships for Brit-
ain within a month came as the
Nazis were claiming 10,000,000 tons
of British ships sunk by U-boats
since the start of the war, and with
the British, while admitting losses
of at least half that amount, gen-
erally showing the pinch sharply.
Further drastic reductions in the
meat ration (and little is as dear
to the Britisher as his beloved beef
and mutton) were announced and
the genera] trend of commons de-
bate indicated that Britain was feel-
ing the ship pinch tremendously. •
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THE NEW I'LM ENTERPRISE, THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1941
NOTE: You will find directions tor rs-
modellns and slip-covering many types ot
chairs, as well as an out-moded couch In
Book 5 ot the aeries ot home-making book-
lets ollered with these articles. The new
Book 1 contains a number at ways to use
slip covers In It boxes become ottomans;
and an old wicker chair la padded and
tutted. Each book contains more than
thirty useful home-making projects with
complete directions tor making. Send
order Io:
which are screwed to all four
sides of the top At down over the
stool. Flowered chintz is used for
the top of the cover and a plain
3-inch glazed chintz frill is added
repeating one of the tones in the
flower pattern. The seam allow-
ance around the cover may be
tacked to the removable top of the
table and the whole thing may
then be folded away in a small
space when not in use.
MRS. RUTH WYETH SPEARS
Drawer IS
Bedlord Hills Now York
Enclose 10 cents tor each book
ordered.
Name ...............................
Address .............................
DRAFT:
Bars Lifted
Ot extreme import was the deci
sion of congress to lift all bans to
the size of the army or to the ques-
tion of selective service for any pur-
pose for which it might be used in
the national defense.
Also vital was the decision imme-
diately to classify the 10,000,000
young men still unclassified in the
first call, and to set up the second
call for an early date, probably in
July.
Two things were highly likely as
a result—that the draft would be
used to call men of a younger age
than before, and that it would also
be used to hunt out “missing links”
among the skilled trades for use in
defense industry.
The first eventuality naturally
would follow the report of army
chiefs after a few months’ experi-
ence with draftees that the younger
men were far more adaptable than
the older, and could take their train-
ing quicker and better.
The second resulted from the
realization that many men in the
uniform would be much more pro-
ductive to defense in shipyards or
munitions plants and that the classi-
fication lists, if turned over to de-
fense production men might result
in discovery of these facts before
the uniform was donned.
The lifting of any ban on the size
of the army tended to indicate that
there was justification for the grow-
ing belief that the end of a calendar
year would not very likely mean
the end of a man’s military service,
under present conditions.
VICHY:
A Netv Role
More and more it was becoming
apparent that newest German prop-
aganda was to convince the world,
especially the United States, of one
fact—that the war was over and
Germany was about to undertake
the difficult task of reconstruction.
In effect the story to (as one Ger-
man writer put it) “poor daddy
Roosevelt” was this:
"All British have been chased
from the European continent except
at Gibraltar.
“Thus Germany’s prime objective
has been achieved. We shall now
try to cement these 300,000,000 peo-
ple into one force, working for Ger-
many.
“With this force we shall confront
the United States and defeated
Britain."
First move in the “war is now over
game” was to lighten, somewhat,
the armistice terms for France—
and to ask deeper collaboration.
This, according to dispatches,
Vichy accepted unanimously.
The German plan called for the
return of some prisoners of war,
the raising of the line between oc-
cupied and unoccupied France, and
a list of demands on the French for
co-operation which might never be
made public.
Most observers believed that Ger-
many, in order to get and hold the
Mediterranean, would give almost
any concession to beaten France to
grab the French fleet, but this did
not appear on the surface as a
condition.
Jf/iy a Change?
What did change Vichy's role in
the world? Up to that moment the
world had pictured Vichy and un-
occupied France as a saddened,
hungry nation, bled white by the
Nazis, and hoping against hope for
the day when a British victory
would return the country to peace,
prosperity and freedom.
Now the world had to picture a
France which had further surren-
dered, which was sending Darlan to
repeated close and secret confer-
ences with a "high Nazi authority,”
and which was prepared to tell the
United States, in effect, just what
the Germans were claiming:
“The war is over, Europe now is
dominated by Germany, and France
is going to collaborate politically
and socially, to see what she can
gain for herself in the reorganiza-
tion of Europe. If you go into the
war on the side of Britain you are
against, not for us."
Gold Star Mother
Jlsk Me Jlnother
Q A General Quiz
U'hen American Gold Star
Mother* conducted their annual
ceremonies in Glendale, Califor-
nia, Mrs. Anna Barnbrock, 94,
oldest of the group in the nation,
participated in the ceremonies.
Mrs. Barnbrock is pictured stand-
ing before the marble statuary,
UA Compassionate Mother,"
which was unveiled.
per-
lan-
press scam
soot* or cove*
SACK ON RUFFLE
CO MANY clever slip cover
tricks are being used now that
it is possible to transform an en-
tire house with a few yards of gay
chintz. Old chairs of all types
step right out and become the life
of the party in smart new frocks.
Even tables and lamp shades
are slip-covered but the best trick
is to make something out of next
to nothing by slip-covering it. A
smart coffee table from a camp
stool for instance.
The lower sketch shows how to
make a substantial removable top
for the stool. The 2-inch boards
1. Are alligators the slow,
creeping creatures they appear to
be?
2.
both
3.
Are all national flags alike on
sides?
What lake, 12,300 feet above
sea level, is the highest large body
of navigable water in the world?
4. Are marriages in England
restricted as to the time
formed?
5. What is a tympanist?
6. What is the principal
guage of Brazil?
The Answer*
1. No. They are real sprinters
when they care to run. Their legs
stretch out to 18 inches in length
when in top speed.
2. The national flags of Para-
guay, Lithuania and Yemen, Ara-
bia, are not alike on both sides.
3. Lake Titicaca (in Bolivia).
4. Marriages in England are
legal only when performed be-
tween 8 a. m. and 6 p. m. on
week days.
5. A drummer.
6. Portuguese. Italian and Ger-
man are widely spoken in the
southern states.
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The New Ulm Enterprise (New Ulm, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 32, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 22, 1941, newspaper, May 22, 1941; New Ulm, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1208330/m1/6/?q=+date%3A1941-1945: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.