Hitler Tries to Crush French
SCHLAMM, WILLI
Hitler Tries to Crush French Morale by "Peace" Offer By WILLI SCHLAMM It is in Paris that the war's really decisive battle is now being fought. The objective is the morale of a...
...Don't be mistaken...
...Thus he prepares a flanking maneuver, compared with which the operations in the Netherlands are truly of minor moment: the annihilation of France's will to resist...
...Degrelle, not even when in the momentous campaign of 1937 Leon Degrelle fought the most vicious battle against the king's own Premier Van Zeeland, and everybody in Belgium made his position clear—except the handsome king...
...practically no field artillery end only enough arms to equip some 72,000 soldiers...
...If the main task for England and France is to come through 1940 without defeat (and nothing but that' ean be their strategy now), then, the horror of Flanders might spoil the sleep of generational to come, but not Western Europe's chance for survival...
...Only when we combine all these with a new-born spirit of sacrifice, with a new militancy and elan, with a determination to see facts as they are and face them boldly—and in time—can we hope to save the world and ourselves...
...Kelly's reply, sent on May 9th, follows in part: Dear Mr...
...GeraH B. Winrod of Kansas...
...That navy cost the U. S. nearly $?,000,000,000 in the pest seven years.' Now American manufacturers send the Nipponese the materials with which to destroy it...
...neither the size nor the power of the United States...
...Meanwhile we would be forced to wage > demoralising battle on the home front, a battle for the preservation of our institutieas and oar internal peace against a tremendously accelerated and accentuated totalitarian propaganda directed from Berlin, bestially flushed with triumph...
...It was not enough to criticise those who insist upon viewing the foreign policy of the United States from a purely partisan standpoint...
...all-important, however, may become the moral collapse of a nation which has fallen, in a mere three weeks, from the height of calm self-confidence and deepest trust in her military leadership into the present misery...
...Statements by Henry Ford and William Knudsen of General Motors, that their companies could each -produce 1,000 planes a day has focused the nation's attention on the present deplorable condition of plane manufacturing...
...Roosevelt discussed ¦a number of subjects that directly affect the future of the United States...
...The Goebbels office knows that isolationist sentiment is strongest west of the Hudson: In Michigan, Louis B. Ward, editorial director of Father Coughlin's Social Justice, has just announced his candidacy for the House of Representatives...
...Precisely his attitude of a "modern, realistic"" breaker of traditions was his asset...
...Certainly, our culture's fate is dark, anyway...
...On the Pacific Coast, Kenneth A. Brown is a candidate for the Republican nomination for the U. S. House of Representatives in the State of Oregon...
...These are the men behind the scenes...
...This takes money—and the National Party never had any in the pest...
...About 400 Garand rifles will shortly be produced every day, and even at that rate it will be a year and a half before the U. 8. army is fully stocked with that weapon...
...but I place no blame et all, I note the facts...
...Another Wisconsin representative, Congressman Lewis D. Thill, has inserted into the Congressional Record various items of pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic nature, some of them clearly stemming from the German Library of Information, Hitler's propaganda office in New York...
...We are aware that the President could not put it as bluntly aa we do, but nevertheless he could have found a way of making the people understand this crucial truthIt was not enough to say at this critical juncture—critical for democracy everywhere—that the isolationists had been wrong all along and that he, the President, wee right...
...If it is not, they can clarify their position publicly...
...Particularly at this time the_ public is confronted with a maze of propaganda originating from foreign controlled sources...
...And if the French will not allow their distress to drive the c.ountry into panic, the world's next young generation will certainly not build monuments for the young King Leopold, but for the old metal workers who voluntarily put in 14 hours daily, in the Paris and London munition plants when theirs and our common .beliefs in the old-fashioned values of liberty and decency were challenged, PLANES Not Fireside Chats Can Save Allies »|»HE President's address to the nation Sunday evening was on the whole satis* factory—as far as it went...
...less than 100 tanks...
...French and British authorities consider the U. S. less effective as an immediate military force than was the Belgian army...
...But it is nonetheless of some importance to clarify this episode...
...May I further add that you might profitably devote in one of your early issues a feature article exposing the Communist and Fascist movements which, you will agree with me, are a more serious menace to the community than is Meyer LaGuardia...
...A sane man, of course, knows the meaning of Hitler's grace and the value of his promises...
...Amazement is rife in all anti-Nazi circles over last week's revelations that Germany holds patents restricting U. S. manufacturers from turning out much of the optical equipment used by the army and navy, restricting the production of beryllium (a metal of great importance in the making of airplane parts) ; the production of chromium plating (vital in the making of airplane engines, artillery and small arms) ; production of molybdenum (for steel alloy) ; maganesium for plane parts, and chemicals, production of which is still largely carried on here by German technicians...
...Kelly: Mayor LaGuardia is undoubtedly one of the most interesting and important personalities on the American scene...
...Why give the slogan "business as usual...
...For (years students of European affairs knew bow dangerously this .young, handsome king influenced his own country and the whole of Western Europe...
...Our article this week on New York's fiery Mayor is no exception...
...This-is the situation Hitler's cynical cleverness wiD utilize to the utmost...
...It was Leopold who caused, in 1936...
...Ever since the coming of Thorkelson, the Wisconsin representative has supported the Montana man, being thoroughly sympathetic with Thorkelson's program, and on a number of occasions expressing himself to this effect...
...It was Leopold who allowed Leon Degrelle, the boyish leader of the Belgian Fascists, to use the name "Sexists" for his movement (in Latin "rex" means king...
...What the tit as t Hi requires is a clarion call to the American people to awaken finally to the realization of the bitter truth...
...We believe the President should find—and could find—ways and means •f atakiag the American people understand that we, too, stand at the crossroads of history and civilization, that we, too, must make a choice...
...But in his desire to allay apprehension and panic, the President failed to make dear the prospect that would confront the United States in the event of a speedy HHler victory hi Europe...
...I am enclosing a copy of the Current issue...
...Terror, hatred and treason are his weapons in this major offensive...
...The American Nationalist Party, a veteran Nazi Bund affiliate, during the week attempted to secure the Hotel Commodore and the Governor Clinton Hotel for a rally...
...If they fail, Europe is Hitler's...
...Mr...
...Since May 10, however, hundreds of thousands of tons of scrap metal, cotton, wool, copper end iron have left this country's ports for the factories and munition mills of two non-belligerent enemies of England and France...
...the terror brought into France through five million crying refugees...
...The President found it expedient to ignore it...
...London has been asking that these be shipped in total, while the U. S. army wait until January when production here will hit the 800-a-month figure...
...Through all channels .of devilish propaganda, promises stream into France: "If (you give in now, and not to morrow, you' will save your sons from useless martyrdom and get a gracious peace— Just accept a little plebiscite in Alsace-Lorraine, jnst let ¦a^Uad'bsrfW&^efi^aiiied fate, just agree to some small corrections eTyour.(border, with Italy...
...the overthrow of Eden in England, by succeeding in convincing the British King that England must not stay in the way of "young" Italy's healthy expansion into Abyssinia, and that she must abandon the idea of preventing "realistic" friendship with these "young" nations'by means of sanctions against aggression in territories of some wild savages...
...He told the people of the state of the national defenses, the government's rearmament program, the social and economic policy to be pursued under the circumstances, the need if maintaining democracy, preserving the gams of the New Deal and national morale, and combating the dangers of the Fifth Column...
...On April 25th Mr...
...King Leopold's influence within his nation and throughout Western Europe was (and probably still is) important, far beyond that of the groups of old-fashioned monarchists...
...If indeed Friday, is controlled by totalitarian forces, we should know it...
...It was Leopold who at any occasion gladly served, free of charge, as diplomatic agent for Mussolini and Hitler, as you may recall, when he offered the Allies peace on Hitler's conditions...
...There may not be a six months hence...
...The already elected lawmakers sympathetic to Nazism are confident that their constituents will keep them in their seats...
...If they beat back Hitler's peace attack, if they crush defeatism within France, then their nation and England have good chances to cross the stream of blood and misery, to reach the saving shores: for then the Allies can rerist, with their own territories and Empire to bolster them, until the rest of the world has developed rescuing resources...
...Allied purchasing agents point out that toe vast potential of at least 60,000 planes a month is sufficient to frighten off new German allies, but that 1000 U. S. army planes now could keep the Allies from going through the echrecklichkeit which they expect Hitler to unloose ever southern England and central France within the next month...
...These are: in the lower house, Congressmen Thorkelson, Schafer, Thill, and Sweeney...
...860 anti-tank guns...
...but it is not true that youth necessarily wins...
...But preserving those gams, rtrtnghtehing our home front against the enemy without and within will not protect ei against Hitler...
...I had assumed that the editors of the magazine would be happy to disabuse my mind of any suspicion that they are related to Communist or Fascist groups...
...Sincerely, DAN GILLMOR...
...ft...
...Election Drives Here Paid for By Reich Agents By VINCENT ROGERS With well organized "spontaneity" the profascist groups here—reorganized by a new German brain trust—launch drives to elect their men to Congress...
...I am satisfied to withhold any further action regarding our correspondence on the assumption "that it will appear in your publication...
...His constant pro-fascist insertions in the Congressional Record have been a subject of indignant protests throughout the country...
...Not "business as usual," but unity, action, daring, discipline, duty, moral fervor now will save us from the fate that has already befallen the greater part of Vsiaaeu civilization—our civilizationHot "business as usual," but leadership, leadership with the courage to leap in elrance of public opinion, leadership to guide it, to stir it, to urge it forward to clear ^faking and bold action before it is too late...
...Won't you send me a note giving gnour opinion of the article...
...in the mid-Pacific...
...Old nations and old ways of life have an enormous stamina if they really believe in the values they stand for, and if they are not afraid to risk^ individual death for their collective survival...
...Our world experiences are, in truth, a civil war, although this civil war takes a rather surprising form: not two social Btrata fighting against each other, but two different types of men...
...The article discusses the pros and the cons of the Mayor...
...This front crosses all classes, all parties, all religions, all nations, ail philosophies—by far more along biological than social lines...
...In addition U. S. factories are turning out a total of 450 planes a month...
...Whet the responsible leaders of this nation must tell the American people is ' teat we must now, immediately, at once come to the aid of the Allies in every way passible, and with ell the weapons, airplanes, and material we can muster...
...Friday pulls no punches...
...Sphere wiaybe no immediate invasion of the United States should Hitler win the war, but the impact of a Hitler victory upon this country, both at home and in its foreign relations, would be definite, profound, and inescapable...
...It is expected that the Silver-Shirters, at one time quite vociferous if not numerous in the Northwest, will come out in Brown's support with all the influence they think they have and all the noise they certainly can make...
...Kelly issued his statement after waiting about a month for "Friday" to acknowledge a comment they had requested on their special article on Mayor LaGuardia...
...and in the upper house, Senator Reynolds...
...j-.Why tell the American people that no" emergency confronts them...
...The great metropolitan dailies have, in fact, cautioned its reading public to the effect that news is censored at the source of issuance...
...That clarion call, we regret to say, was atlsaiaf fax the President's address...
...The Uaie for "fireside chats" is past...
...this week...
...Fronting for them is the McWilliams-Unity PartyKu Klux Klan-Silver Shirt* periphery...
...This is a moment when all may be lost if the nation's leaders do not live up to their task—and all may be saved if a handful of men, aware of their duty and of the issues at stake, control the nation...
...It was not enough to say that a defense policy based solely upon the continental United States was inadequate...
...Certainly the "pro" side of the Mayor deserved more space than y»u gave it...
...aer the Atlantic Ocean are adequate defenses against the Nasi Trojan Horse and tWI^r*1 parachutists, aided and abetted by their Communist allies...
...Hitler has done this suceasafully in other countries—in Norway, Holland, Belgium, Pound, Czechc-Slovakia...
...Before long we would be confronted with the necessity of fighting single-handed not only Hitler but Japan, tee, and possibly Russia or Italy, or both...
...Of course, the social and 1*W gains of recent years must be maintained...
...troops (and not their advance guards' gadgets) have occupied France and the British labs...
...There has not been a single success, not the smallest, for nine months to fill the French nation's heart with hope...
...It was Leopold who pushed ahead within his own nation the "realistic" idea (supported, unfortunately by men like Spaak) that Belgium must prefer good terms with the "German efficiency" instead of remaining faithful toward her traditional ally, Western Europe's "oldfashioned," "decayed" democratic way of life...
...U. S. Aids Italy While Allies Wait for Planes By EDWARD LORING Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D.C.—Only Secretary Hull's permitting American pilots to fly U. S. planes over the Canadian border has saved the past three weeks from being a complete blank as far as actual aid to the Allies can be measured...
...Public opinion judged.by the Gallup polls is overwhelmingly for all aid to the Allies "short of war...
...The decision "over there" may come within six weeks if the French and British fail to held the front against the German avalanche...
...Hitler will not win the war before his...
...Hitler Tries to Crush French Morale by "Peace" Offer By WILLI SCHLAMM It is in Paris that the war's really decisive battle is now being fought...
...King Leopold is not just an uninteresting person who unfortunately stood in an important place...
...Very truly yours, GEOGE B. KELLY...
...Gillmor: Needless to say, I fonnd your criticism of tbe Mayor somewhat unfair...
...By smearing all such action as "attempts to drag America into a Jewish war" they will pay Herr Goebbels dividends on the money provided by the Reich to such men as Sylvester Viereck and Carl Byoir who were characterized in Congress this week as the "real brain trust of Nazi propaganda in America...
...the hatred felt by every Frenchman against the rotten clan of politicians and generals who led their nation into this abyss of despair with the most wanton dilettantism history has ever recorded...
...He must smash the biggest offensive Hitler has ever started: the imminent danger of an offer for a separate peace the Nazis have already submitted in the way of sinister rumors, demoralizing the French masses, and perhaps '?f$fea diplomatically through "neutral" mediators...
...The energetic decency and the bold imagination of Reynaud, the ruthlessness of Georges Mandel, Clemenceau's proper and merciless pupil, are at the'present moment France's real Magihot line...
...He is a prototype, even a landmark of our crucial epoch...
...The situation clamors for deeds...
...Let him display it now...
...The proposals cover Samoa as well as the mainland and ere retrospective in effect...
...Whether you agree or disagree, with Jfc your reactions are of interest to me and to 10* staff...
...Because I highly approve of the need for a greater awareness on the part of the public, I am inviting y6u to publish this letter in one of your early issues and your comment thereon...
...The thee to talk in whispers is over...
...He has recently effected a connection with the "Jayhawk Nazi," Rev...
...is running on an out-and-out profascist and anti-Semitic platform, blaming the Jews for all the farmers' ills, and announcing as one of his planks that "Communism is a Jewish movement...
...Prime Minister Peter Eraser announced that the measures, paralleling the actions taken by - the British cabinet, places all persons end properties at the disposal of the state...
...Handsome, physically fit, faces not yet touched by vestiges of thinking's pain, humorless, cynical without wit, godless without any scientific education, militant without any real heroism, are these young men of today - I know . . . not they but tlieir time is to blame...
...Government control of vital supplies could stop this practice tomorrow...
...As you have properly anticipated when yen state that "it is a little more con then pro," I found the article completely "con" which, I think, is an injustice to tbe subject disufaiaJ...
...These men are reported working with the newly arrived Herr Westrick, German commercial attache...
...The American people mast perceive without a moment's delay that an Allied victory is absolutely essential to the security of the United States and all the American republics...
...It would be the spring of 1941 before a strong American military force could reach Europe...
...He has set up permanent headquarters in the Hotel Plaza in New York City...
...Events this week on the battlefields of Flanders make this ntoseect even mere grim...
...weeks...
...Congressman Jacob Thorkelson, of Montana, a Republican, is of Norwegian origin and proHitler attitude but loudly against "alienism" in this country...
...A superficial saying has it that the future ¦belongs to those who get the youth behind them, and thus our culture's fate is sealed if kings and unemployed, sons of Wall Street bankers and fascist adventurers stick together because they share youth...
...the past week Italy has placed orders here . for more than a quarter of a million tons of scrap steel...
...Formally, Degrelle asserted that he took this name because he wanted to fight for Christ, the King...
...He runs on an anti-Semitic, anti-union platform...
...It was Leopold who kept the Belgian General Staff from entering into precautionary negotiations with the French General Staff,, just to coordinate defense a bit preparatory to possible German aggression...
...Kelly received the following letter from the publisher of "Friday": Dear Mr...
...the treason executed by Leopold the Contemptible, King of all Quislings...
...But how sane is 8 nation wftich has just passed through these hist few...
...There is not a single nation •broad or overseas which has given convincing evidence of ¦practical sympathy and strengthening encouragement...
...After a reasonable lapse of time, they have neither acknowledged my letter or seen fit to publish it...
...President Roosevelt's plans call for a standing force of 256,000 men...
...The British are resolved to teach the bunch of "young" nations and young traitors this lesson...
...While the United States press thunders sympathy for the European democracies, and while this country is woefully snort of such essential war items as iron and steel, machine tools, combustion engines, small arms and heavy ordnance, communications equipment, gun emplacements, automobiles, tanks and boilers, the enemies of the Allies are being supplied...
...Farther in the Middle West the^ootorious "goat-gland" Doctor John R. Brinkley has announced that he may run for the United States Senate...
...But it did not go far enough...
...vsr-'-;-^ r--~—r-'.7 ^fit Americanpeoplemust be roused to S realisation that provision for our boaie end hemisphere defense is not enough, that our first line of defense is in France •¦4 In the waters around the British Isles, that however self-sufficient we may believe aaiselves to be, we cannot endure alone in a totalitarian world...
...but there was always this whispering among the plain Belgian people that a certain other king was involved—and Leopold never denounced Mr...
...One tteUiaild five hundred—battle planes sent to France now would be worth more than 1M00 six months hence...
...They won't succeed but will, through, cleverly planned anti-semi tic propaganda, inject disruption into the national efforts to aid the Allies...
...But this nation has 2,700 first-line airplanes...
...It will be from that State that Brinkley will attempt his Senatorial race...
...a "handful" of the famous 76mm howitzers...
...Let us be done with illusions...
...Militarily the consequences of the sinister tragedy in the narrow strip of FJanders are by no means a final -blow for Western Europe...
...L«t us finally understand that this is our war every bit as much as that of the French and British...
...Heinrich Albert, assistant to Franz von Papen, who as military attache was in charge of sabotage there, in the last war, recently presented his credentials in Washington...
...All this was reassuring...
...At this moment not Geralissimo Weygand, bat France's Minister for the Interior, George Mandel, holds our civlfiati^-t Me in his hands...
...As the President's new National , Defense Comnsisawn meiW^ai pert^Wmtidape'fcJi: was revealed in other official eMastVBl^e Army and Navy combined had only 16# aOM aircraft guns...
...This is the question of the hour...
...Armaments, too, will not protect us...
...Roosevelt has the capacity for such leadership...
...Brinkley owns XERA, a powerful radio station across the border in Mexico (to escape U. S. Federal regulations of broadcasting),, and his official magazine Publicity is a vicious proNazi and anti-Semitic publication...
...If it seems to you that it is a little more con than pro, it is because many thoughtful New Yorkers, including myself* ate beginning to wonder what the Mayor is up to...
...Not a single soldier, killed through history's most shameful treachery, can be brought back to life through exposure of King Leopold's wickedness...
...The peril would not be immediate, but it would be more real than many believe...
...v The annihilation of the Allied army in Belgium, though the suffering of hundreds of thousands of French and British soldiers bleeding to death is beyong all imagination, does in itself not decide the war: nine-tenths of the Allied forces are not only not affected but gained from tbe super--— human sacrifice in Flanders the opportunity to organize and to strengthen their position...
...Westrick, former legal partner of Dr...
...This country for all its effort can now put into the field barely 68,000 well trained, well equipped men...
...In the interests of all democracy-loving Americans, I feel compelled to make this correspondence public...
...There isn't a single complete mechanized division in the U. S. army...
...It is well to say as did the President that there is nothing in the present emergency that justifies us in abandoning certain policies at home...
...Congressman John C Schafer, of Wisconsin, a Republican, was in the Lower House of the U. S. Congress in 1934-35, and was again elected in 1938...
...Kelly's statement and the original correspondence follow: "The publication Friday has invited me to comment on their LaGuardia issue...
...Because of this, Friday feels Justified in devoting its lead article to him in this issue...
...I have done so, and in so doing, raised certain questions...
...New Zealand Labor Gov't Acts to Socialize Wealth WELLINGTON, N. Z—New Zealand's Labor Government, led by Social Democrats, will introduce emergency power war measures at the session of Parliament convening...
...About 1,000 of those 2,700 front-line American planes can keep London from becoming another Rotterdam next month...
...And let us have no illusions...
...The objective is the morale of a diatiae^Mtafca...
...Not only because he was a •king, but because he was, in Western Europe, the most prominent personification of a trend: his generation's disrespect for the moral values of democracy, undiscriminating admiration for physical power and material successes, unhappy, truly senile cynicism...
...This vital war material continues to flow in huge quantities also to Japan, against whom the American navy is now maneuvering...
...This was precisely the slogan that opened the French front to the Hitler hordes...
...I think you will agree that the discussion confines itself to what the Mayor has done or not done...
...But tbe German, subsidized anti-Allied movement has its activities far beyond New York...
...Fortunately, there is a healthy skepticism in the public mind which refuses to accept the stories and dispatches appearing in our daily and periodical publications without reservations...
...The rest of the Western Hemisphere would be even less immune to such attack should Hitler emerge iriemphant from the titanic struggle in Europe...
...That might be too late...
...Their representatives are asking whether it will take another battle of Flanders, another blitzkrieg through to Paris before the American industrial grant bestirs itself, rationalizes industry, and begins pouring planes into France...
...Not yet entirely senile himself, this writer is of the opinion that Leopold of Belgium represents merely his generation—this horrifying "youth" of today...
...There is hardly a single family in France which has not to fear that one of its members is at the moment crushed by a German mechanised monster...
...George Kelly, Regional Wage Chief, Demands "Friday" Expose Communists George B. Kelly, Regional Administrator of the Wages and Hours Division in the New York and Connecticut area, in a statement to The New Leader, this week demanded that the new magazine "Friday" reveal whether or not it is controlled by totalitarian forces...
...This propaganda would have ode purpose: to destroy the unity of our people, weaken our moral defenses, and render resistance difficult...
Vol. 23 • June 1940 • No. 22
