Broadcasting Companies Waging 24-Hour-a-Dav Radio War on Axis
ROGERS, VINCENT
Broadcasting Companies Waging 24-Hour-a-Dav Radio War on Axis By VINCENT ROGERS On at least one front—the short wave radio—the United States is at war with Germany, adroitly manuevering through...
...He fired most of the'staff, and even a telegram from Hemingway, afar off with his Robert Jordans in Spain, failed to keep the tovarischi in their jobs...
...Each one is cursed with tariffs imposed in accordance witt European policies...
...Charming dark-hued girls, educated in Paris, sake you fall in love with the French all over again...
...The camp routine of chopping trees, cutting forest paths, learning soil conservation and rural rehabilitation highlights the difference of treatment accorded to CO's today, and the imprisonment and even death sentences—which were never carried out—accorded to 503 objectors in World War I. Most flagrant violations of civil liberties recorded in the last six months throughout the nation seem to be the sporadic outbursts of violence, in various small towns, against the Jehovah's Witnesses...
...A similar bill was introduced in Michigan...
...In each instance he was'asked about his Nazi connections, and in each instance the NBC broadcaster answered for him in the affirmative...
...e would pound our beer-mugs on the table and sing: "Jo, das ist tint Schnitzelbank...
...Tie shell is put in, the breach pulled shut, the gun-crew put hands o?«r ears, there is a dull explosion—and then the result, the'hit, a croud of smoke, dust and debris rising from a Dutch, Belgian, , or French fort or town...
...Some CIO leaders predict that Bittner, formerly one of CIO's top men, will soon be forced out of his posts as president of District 17, UMWA, and regional director of the SWOC...
...Norman Thomas has been invited to join Senator Wheeler and Charles Lindbergh on the Madison Square Garden platform Friday night to give the demonstration a liberal aura...
...Then it was discovered that a newspaperman was present in the dual capacity of reporter and member of the cooperative...
...Governor W. Lee O'Daniel announced in a state-wide radio address this week that he is a candidate for U. S. Senator, succeeding the late Morris Sheppard...
...And they go on endlessly, hundreds of them...
...So much impressed were Washington newspaper circles by his recent talks that the Women's National Press Chtb has scheduled an off the record Out of the Night talk for May 27...
...Before he goes any further, we recommend a re-reading of his "Freedom of the Press," in which he placed on bis national honor roll:- Eugene Lyons, .Westbrook Pegler, and the Jewish Daily Forward, all of whom he vilified only a few years later...
...y?*ny rate, Messrs Knudson, Knox, and Stimson may comfort {pelves with the thought that they are solidly supported by a«g Jeff Davis and all of his loyal subjects...
...They are, of course, all set in their minds to receive their Leader in America...
...Seldes is peddling an alleged news letter called In Fact, now "just a year old this week...
...Ken" was a good anti-fascist magazine, but it was also anti-Soviet, so the boycott began...
...Reports indicate that, despite all early expectations, Phil Murray has done nothing to clean house...
...Since this would run straight against the Monroe Doctrine, we are united against it...
...it * * ' * tjfifle stiffs for Britain JrING JEFF DAVIS, at the Hobo Convention in Jersey City, ^_ drew the nation's attention to a fact which may have escaped attention of superficial citizens...
...The payoff came when the publisher saw the magazine's center spread...
...Instead, CIO is spending many thousands to defend Harry Bridges, and will spend thousands more to win in New York fox Mike Quill...
...But, many of these are outmoded, having been tooled in 1935-1936...
...The boycott did it...
...Daring the long, off the record, conference Valtin told them of fifth column activity in the Pacific states...
...In Fayette County, Indiana, a group of 75 Jehovah's Witnesses distributing their literature in the streets were arrested recently, beaten by a mob, held in $225,000 bail, and charged under criminal syndicalist statutes with "advocacy of overthrowing the government," because of their belief of a theocratic kingdom on earth...
...People waited for the picture and looked at the picture with a strained tenseness...
...he intimated drastic U.S...
...But some of them •re French, some British, some Dutch, some U.S.A., and some independent...
...Wefory In the West BUT I left America behind when I entered a little, dingy theatre ten blocks away from the center of Yorkville life...
...In West Virginia where Communist candidate for Governor Oscar Wheeler was given six years for alleged election irregularities, a state supreme court decision this week reversed a lower court.and freed Wheeler...
...It goes on and on—always the same ^ motions, same sounds, same result...
...The Columbia Broadcasting Corporation is also cooperating -with the Government by sending shortwave broadcasts to Europe from 8 a. m. to 6 p. m. and to 'South America from 6:30 to 1 a. m. These schedules put the United States in the 'front lines of the propaganda war, and for the first time place this nation among the powers fighting back the invisible invasion fom other countries...
...Even their laughs were harsh...
...I EE PRESSMAN, CIO general counsel, has been maneuvering successfully inside CIO...
...Perhaps some of them belong in jail...
...But m the village formerly controlled from Amsterdam, life is painfully neat, and the Negro housewife scours her coppers until they *ouki do honor to any house in Holland...
...Apparently he and the family are taking an active part in our national affairs...
...These are sent from midnight to 4 p. m.—a total of 16 hours...
...I was not scared...
...But in the end they will gain by any move that ties them to the Americas and cuts them free from Europe...
...Bills aimed at barring the Communist Party from the* ballot passed last week in Florida and in Wisconsin...
...Laborites Sweep Election In Minneapolis MINNEAPOLIS—Labor-backed candidates swept the Minneapolis primary last week when T. A. Eide, labor's candidate for Mayor, led Republican Marvin Kline by 34,492 to 32,512...
...There is not the •lightest inkling of a social or political purpose lying back of brute power...
...About 300 members attended...
...Probably some healthful tradition of American ' 'fontier has saved this gallant race from'its talntidg influence...
...Can it possibly be related to the hot love of the gfcsiroek being exhibited by the Daily Worker...
...This schedule has been maintained throughout the first 18 months of the war...
...The principle of sovereignty could lead to no more bisarre result An assertion of power by the American nations with regard to all French possessions in this hemisphere will be a slight step in the right direction...
...There was nothing neutral about the broadcasts...
...Charity begins at home...
...This is the first of twenty camps opening within the next six weeks to receive an expected 2,000 men whose draft numbers have been called and who have refused military service because of religious scruples...
...Which means that Murray will be dumped next winter...
...But first they had their revenge...
...Although most were abusive the Germans were well satisfied...
...Otto Koischwitz, former instructor in Hunter College, New York's free college for womem Meanwhile all of America's big broadcasting corporations have unofficially decided not to re-broadcast any of Adolf Hitler's 1600 Plane Production In May Sets U.S...
...ALL this reminiscing reminds us that the favorite literary companion of our college days was Archie, the cockroach...
...From these came an ungody howl...
...You see miles of the steel helmets veering into breathtaking metallic designs as the divisions swing into action...
...It is vehemently opposed to organized religion and is anti-Catholic...
...About 75 per cent are going to Britain, which in effect, when added to their own production of 1,000 combat ships a month, gives the Allies a total of 1,750 to 1,800 during May...
...One observation was disturbing...
...Exuberant black waiters stick out their chests and orate in court in a manner that would put to shame the legal exhibitionists of France...
...Just as Goebbels has his Lord Haw-Haw for Britain, so he has American announcers for the United States, Chief of them is Fred W. Kaltenbach, native of Iowa, son of a German immigrant...
...By WILLIAM E. BOHN 0 Quiet on the Yorkville Promt THIS is in the nature of a report to my friends in the West...
...Literally hundreds of guns are loaded before your eyes...
...The travelers the box-car and the rods have never been fellow-travelers S* the disloyal...
...These products of German manufacturing genius jmsk through forests, trampling every green and living thing...
...Most of the visitors- had no idea what a Sehmtzelbank is, but that didnt matter...
...What is the significance of this accord between Germans end Irish...
...Eide was endorsed by the Central Labor Union...
...It was better than singing: »]a das ist einePanzer-Abteilung:" Last night I staged a one-man investigation of this Sudeten action on behalf of the Middle West...
...A brief prologue suggests that Germany has been op-pieaed, squeezed in, held down since 1648...
...In the winter of 1939-1940 Kaltenbach was joined by Edward De-laney, alias E. D. Ward, former press agent and writer of cheap fiction...
...These broadcasts are believed to have been the first indication to the average Frenchman that his nation was about to declare war on England, and for all purposes, the United States...
...Yon have heard of Yorkville—just as you have heard of Wall Street, *e Bowery, and Broadway...
...Record WASHINGTON, D. C—By the end of May, the United States will have produced more fighting and bombing planes in the first five months of 1941 than during the entire year of 1940, according to sources close to aircraft manufacturers...
...Added to the British and allied output this definitely places Anglo-American plane production well ahead in a position to keep all its factories going at full strength...
...Some of the non-combatant planes however are for military use as observers...
...Under O'Daniel, Texas has just passed one of the most vicious anti-labor legislation...
...Soviet Russia gleamed^ radiantly in a bright yellow...
...Like a Panzerdivision in an all-out charge, the British Broadcasting Corporation swoops down on the German radio beams each time they attempt to blot out (by jamming) American broadcasts to Europe...
...The first camp for CO's opened last week in Patapsco State Forest, about 29 miles from Washington, with twenty-three young men from four Eastern seabord states starting a year's service...
...Their case is being appealed...
...And they wouldn't uBc I tried to start conversations—as any of you Midwesterners Mold have done...
...At this rate American factories will be turning out a minimum of 3,500 planes a month by January 1, 1942...
...jit ladies, some of them blond, were baying their groceries in the A. & P. and their dresses and hose in the emporium of H. Green-berg...
...AUSTIN, Tex...
...You realize to the full the idiocy of this doctrine of blood when, in walking across an island, you leave a village where Negroes act like Frenchmen and soon enter one where they act like Dutchmen...
...I was horrified at the exhi-» bition of German degradation and more than ever convinced that American democracy cannot live in the same world with this mechanized beastliness...
...If they were under one government, they could in the course of centuries build a civilization that would be a boon to mankind...
...fEORGE SELDES, who is rapidly molding himself into a re-^* spectable copy ef Mike Gold, is offering prizes for hypocrisy...
...As a result, tovarischi J. C. Lewis, former president of the Mine Workers' Iowa district, was put in charge of PWOC, third largest union in CJO...
...Or something like that...
...The natural life of the people is impoverished and cramped in a score of ways by a pattern imposed •Toss four or five thousand miles of water...
...Few Civil Rights Restricted by War Effort asGov'tOpensCampsforGO's Special «o Tge^Ew Leader WASHINGTON, D. C. — An analysis of the status of civil liberties shows that the defense effort here has had comparatively little effect in, restricting the civil rights of individuals—unless one takes the position of the Civil Liberties Union on the current drive against the Nazis, Communists and unregistered aliens...
...The only thing admirable about this official German product is its baldness, its boldness, its ruthlessness...
...The tanks clank through European civilization with hellish rutklessness...
...How the inhabitants of Martinique,.Guadeloupe and French Guiana feel about it I don't know...
...Labor candidates for the school board, the library board and the park board also led the field...
...and Valtin is making friends rapidly...
...This is a religious sect which believes in the "establishment of God's Kingdom on Earth, and advocates a theocracy in which God shall be the supreme ruler...
...If Hitler or Goering appeared on the screen, there woold be a sharp clap of applause and then sudden silence—as if tke onlookers feared to miss even the slightest detail...
...DM has been receiving some startling replies to its letters * and telegrams asking prominent literary and political figures what they think of that afternoon sheet . . . some of the comments may not be published...
...The men, the German soldiers to whose glory the picture has been created, appear to have -achieved the rigid hardness of their machines...
...This was exemplified by the government treatment of conscientious objectors...
...They mast be watched...
...Last week, after long years, we heard that Archie and his relatives had prospered...
...Later these broadcasts were repeated in Spanish, German, Portuguese and Italian...
...The major part of these broadcasts go to Europe...
...What happened was that the publishers of Esquire decided to start an anti-fascist magazine and gain wide circulation for it...
...A decision by the New Hampshire Supreme Court voided a jail sentence against three children of Nashua who had refused to pledge to the flag, and who had been removed from school...
...Allen then proceeded to hire an almost solid set of caviar literateurs...
...These broadcasts are Washington's reply to the increasingly abusive Berlin radio, which was practically unknown in the United States until Goebbels arranged what later proved to be one of the best publicity stunts in decades...
...It is .believed that broadcasts from Boston last March touched off the iSimko-vitch revolt against the Ovetko-vitch government in Belgrade...
...He began broadcasting before the war started...
...Funds were to come out of Esquire profits...
...Persecution is lessening in other centers...
...Al Hansen, candidate of the Farmer-Labor Party, now in the hands of a caucus led by Elmer Benson and Communist elements, ran a poor fourth, polling 6,157...
...As the meeting got under way, one eye witness reports, "an attempt was made to swear all those present to secrecy...
...Down all of the side streets, boys were playing stick-ball and baseball practically under the wheels of the cars.' At Loew's rttttering picture palaces, crowds were swarming in to see "Men of Boys' Town," "The Wild Man of Borneo," and "Andy Hardy's private Secretary...
...You see human bodies projecting rigidly from monster mechanisms like horrible twentieth century centaurs—the men as hard as the mttaL The destructive hardness becomes the symbol of totalitarian nature...
...Because of its devout beliefs in the Bible and the commandments, the sect forbids its members to salute the flag—a commandment forbids the worship of any idol or symbol other than God...
...Ken's publisher was in a rage...
...They voted to expel the first reporter "from membership...
...It is about as dull as an earthquake or a flood...
...This schedule was launched last Friday night by the National Broadcasting Company...
...The first important broadcasts of the recently enlarged schedule to the French people were the rela*ys of President Roosevelt's warning to Petain...
...Get a first edition of Ken and see for yourself...
...Since then, frantic efforts hare been made to prevent the Committee from publishing tthat list of the Bookshop...
...If any of them are citizens, they are obviously traitors...
...The Bookshop's membership list had party members checked off...
...Here nrtrmed silent, gaunt, unsmiling people...
...The staff had turned out a glorified New Masses...
...The rest of the time is devoted to South American good-will programs, including a refutation of Axis propaganda...
...Nine questions were addressed to Fernand de Brinon, Vichy's agent in Paris...
...has alternated with r° «ell with Hitler...
...Colonel Lindbergh and other anti-British experts, estimating German production optimistically, give the Reich a 3,000 to 3,500 top figure...
...For the first time the United States is depositing on Axis doorsteps, the type of propaganda which Rome and Berlin thought was exclusively theirs...
...The Marseillaise and the Star Spangled Banner were played...
...Each island supports an expensive and well nigh useless governor...
...A third commentator with an American background is Dr...
...Nothing could be more American...
...There is some Spanish blood, but the people are predominantly Negro...
...Broadcasting Companies Waging 24-Hour-a-Dav Radio War on Axis By VINCENT ROGERS On at least one front—the short wave radio—the United States is at war with Germany, adroitly manuevering through the ionosphere with the aid of the powerful British blitz-broadcasting apparatus...
...Teutons m short either pants would blow and pound and scrape in the orchestra...
...Occasionally we would talk of Don Marquis and other humorists, some of whom were City College lads who went "red...
...Whether'this fact can be used to bolster Willi Schlamm's taens that too much learning corrupts the heart and that the *wW must be saved by the simple is questionable...
...action...
...Readers will recall that some months ago Berlin authorized the Postal Telegraph company to accept collect telegrams up to 25 cents for the German Propaganda Ministry...
...Archie was always jealous of other vermin, so we'd never discuss the comrades...
...These Franken-ttein monsters splinter them without faltering and without favoritism...
...In any scrap, Murray will get little support from the anti-Lewis section of CIO...
...If there is a spot on earth where no European brutality Ihould be allowed to enter, it is the harbor of Martinique...
...And so the first edition rolled off the press—with the Soviet premier (he was only parteigenoese then) beaming,brightly down on all the other dictators...
...This news will be made public shortly when the military announces the progress it has made in streamlining the new American citizens-army...
...My friends had warned me that the movie would be dull...
...During the past few moriths the Dies Committee has been pouring over lists showing the affiliation of 9,000 Washington residents, 1,000 of whom are Federal employees...
...The old Prussian "military spirit, Wr embodied in a newer, more ruthless leader, is realizing the Bcient dream of destruction and domination...
...He went to Berlin in 1936 for a graduate course at Berlin University...
...But, dear friends, don't let any of" tfcni make your flesh creep...
...Whether the homes of men are in Holland, Belgium or France makes no difference...
...But there was no conversation on tap...
...And reports" persist that John Lewis is restive and anxious to get back in as President of CIO...
...The people down there are practically of one sort, of one blood, of one way of life...
...All were impressed...
...But there was no room at the bottom for that gentleman, so the cartoonist did the next best thing—he painted Joe in bright colors over the black somewhere east of Leningrad...
...Bittner has long supported Roosevelt's policies...
...Seldes reports that the advertisers killed it...
...You sit there for an hoar-and-a-half and hear German guns boom and German tanks dank...
...No German gemutlich-teit in a carload...
...He told Congress that cockroaches swarming throughout the U. S. Capitol are a greater peril than Hitler...
...Last week all of California's Representatives, along with some from Oregon and Washington, arranged a mass interview with Valtin...
...To Hell with Stalin...
...as a favorite head-line in the "Hobo News...
...A few nights ago the Bookshop called an emergency meeting at the Burlington Hotel to lay out strategy in preparation far the opening of the Dies Committee hearings...
...When the first edition wad in the proof stage, it was sent out to prospective advertisers...
...As in Harlan County, last year where a Federal Court enjoined local officials from prosecuting six Witnesses on a criminal syndicalist charge, it is expected that these cases will finally be dismissed...
...x - • * * T\EBO\AlR MELVYN DOUGLAS, the movie star, ha* just been elected to the national committee of the American.fCMI Liberties Union...
...Representative George H. Bender, Ohio Republican, is annoyed...
...A Federal Court is now hearing an appeal on this charge...
...A bill recently introduced in the Rhode Island legislature, aimed at this sect, was withdrawn...
...Compare this with the 1,400 planes produced in April...
...The only purpose of this performance must be to scare people into submission...
...N 17th Street, N.W., in Washington, D. C, is the Cooperative v Bookshop, where you knock twice, glance furtively down the street for the cossacks, and then scurry away triumphantly with a copy of the Red Dean's Soviet Canterbury Tales...
...More than 60 percent of the aircraft being turned out are combat planes...
...Germany has been broadcasting short-wave propaganda to the United States since April 1, 1933, gradually increasing the length of its transmissions, until in 1939, they amounted to eleven hours daily...
...They are not so different from things t^t you have back home...
...When the Germans interfere with the American propaganda messages, in dive the British broadcasters, jamming'the Reith radio, thereby leaving a clear channel for the American news to cftme .through...
...Among the languages in which music and the days news arc) broadcast are German, French, Italian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish...
...The Dies Committee will publish the list...
...Occasionally the publishers dropped in, looked around and went golfing...
...It is no news to listeners-in «¦ slumgullion councils—that under the informal jacket of each *J8ht of the road beats a warm patriotic heart...
...He demanded $25,000 for a WAR on the roaches...
...One Washington reporter predicts that some of them hold important top positions in the government...
...Some of the names were obtained from the Bookshop's membership list, which, in turn, was obtained only after a she-comrade slugged a he-Dies Committee agent...
...Houses, gardens, hospitals crumble before them...
...Now Petain has succumbed to Hitler, and lie peaceful residents of this heavenly spot theoretically are lined "P with the Germans...
...Considerably more than 1,600 planes in all will be turned out during this month alone...
...Production plans call for an increase of this type as soon as a reserve of trainers are on hand for army and navy use...
...This indicates that several more of the larger plane factories reached the mass production stage in May and that during June between 1,800 and 1,900 military planes will be assembled...
...Meanwhile the tovarischi were in the lobby generously distributing free membership cards to their friends so they might come in and vote...
...While it has only alight chance of passing, it will be strongly supported by Western Congressmen...
...The only pressure for such action is coming from Communist and Nasi circles and should be thoroughly investigated by the Department of Justice...
...Any-day-now the American Peace Mobilization will picket...
...By V/CTO* RIESBL . A BILL to give Jan Valtin citizenship was introduced Into the House a few days ago by California's young and progressive Jerry Voorhis...
...Hitler is sharply OefSBid with the tradition of Bluecher, Von Hindenburg, and tie old German army corps...
...In the lower right-hand corner was a caricature of each dictator, but Joseph Stalin was among those missing...
...R/IE AN WHILE Van A. Bittner, who in a recent letter to this "* columnist emphasized his loyalty to big John, is being purged...
...Voorhis and other friends of Valtin are incensed over incessant bragging by the caviar crowd that they can force a deportation order against the author, as a deal to neutralize the coming Bridges decision, which all feel will be for deportation...
...The answer is this deadly push to splinter European civilization...
...These poor strained and breathless Germans who watched in awe and admiration are more pitiable than dangerous...
...Instead of dropping tears into oar Seer to the tone of -Schnitzelbank'' we did it to the melancholy sir of "The giver Shannon" or to the more spirited one of "My Wild Irish, gose...
...Several members then attempted to throw him out bodily, but this proved too strenuous, so they agreed to permit other newspapermen to enter...
...In Connorsville, Indiana, part of this same county, a seventy-year-old and a sixty-year-old woman were sentenced to ten years in prison last September for refusal to salute the flag...
...Murray appointed Jim Carey and Allan S. Haywood to investigate grievances against Bittner...
...Not so...
...In this particular edition he "exposes" the late "Ken," a magazine which the popular fronters drove from the newsstands when they couldn't control it- Seldes was one of that crowd...
...They put Jay Allen, now in a Nazi prison, in charge...
...Allowing them to be batted about would make nothing but a maritime Balkan area put of what should be a paradise...
...For philos-•JJy is by no means a stranger to ^he jungles where hobos ?B*;«*»te...
...There are some Germans in Yorkville—it is true...
...A few days later Voorhis introduced his citizens naturalisation bill, arguing that "from .reliable information I have learned that Valtin has been useful to our national defense and should not be deported...
...For some $10,000 they received ->jri-ternational publicity and dre% America's attention to tbeir broadcasts of defeatism and doubt...
...All of this is brought to mind by the,sudden catapulting of lovely Martinique into the war news...
...He was forced to resign from the Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee chairmanship some weeks ago, when PWOC locals threatened cessation of per capita payments unless he was dropped...
...Archie would keep lonely vigil while we stayed far into the night working on copy for the undergraduate sheet...
...But when I thought of all the men and women of German blood who have come to America, this darkling crowd in the dingy movie house looked subhuman...
...At this rate at least 1,000 planes are fighters or bombers...
...A DEAL has been made between what is left of the Socialist ^» Party and the America First Committee—who exchange mailing lists—in an effort to "give the isolationist rallies" an anti-fascist character...
...That is its only ideology...
...Since it was too late to replate the center spread, the publisher had another cartoonist black in Russia and dub in Stalin...
...But out in the street, any of you would feel right at home...
...We all used to' eo up there for simple Teutonic pleasures...
...Members voted he be expelled, but he refused to go...
...By keeping the lanes open, the British enable the American broadcasters to carry out Secretary Hull's "suggestion" that propaganda broadcasts to South America and Europe stay on the air 24 hours a day...
...Incumbent Mayor Leach polled 25,946, failing to win a place on the regular election ballot...
...lirope in the West Indies AS far as she could, Europe tried to plant her jigsaw civilization *• on the West Indies...
...It was a huge two-page cartoorr~*howing the totalitarian nations in black...
...The announcer read in French a message to the French to shun the Axis...
...Because of its super-modern techniques, its powerful stations, and its internationally known personalities—thanks to Hollywood—America will shortly become the most powerful factor in the radio war...
Vol. 24 • May 1941 • No. 21
