Alaska-New Focal Point In Aerial Global Warfare
LOW, MATTHEW
Alaska—New Focal Point In Aerial Global Warfare Vested Interests Battle Reform Of New Deal By MATTHEW LOW Alaska is now coming in for its chapter in world history. It played a small role in the...
...Is this declaration sincere ? Consider this: In Spain, before the civil war, the normal average crop of wheat was 4.1 million tons...
...When "new bkaod" was needed for war "czars" Roosevelt could only recruit McNutt, Wiekaid, Ickes and ? re* tie* Brown, none of whom aroused enthusiasm...
...The Iberian bloc is to maintain the neutrality of Spain and Portugal...
...5—the activity of the Fair Employment Practice Committee in combating discrimination in employment on racial and religious grounds...
...The fishing and mining people in conjunction with the shipping monopolists have effectively sabotaged the Gruening reforms...
...So passes from the American scene one of the most amazing depression phenomena...
...1941-42 the crop of wheat was no more than 2.8 million tons...
...Politically, Roosevelt is worse off...
...NAM secretary, and John Scovule...
...The explanation of what is happening to the Roosevelt coalition is: Familiarity breeds contempt—or at least boredom...
...But the crucial fact is that he is a great patriot and Frenchman who has lined up against the Axis from the beginning...
...The 566,000-square-mile territory, which lies partly in the north temperate and partly in the arctic zone, has a population of a little over 72,000, which is about equally divided between white and native (one-quarter or more Eskimo, Aleut or Indian blood...
...A frightened middle-class American reaction, these later California evangelistic movements of the dispirited and near-dispossessed, were mild portents of the wild storms ahead if the feelings of insecurity which these aged possessed, seize hold of the population at large...
...Some improvement has been effected with the recent activities of the Office of Indian Affairs, but health, education, and economic opportunities are almost nil...
...Because the winning of the war and continuous employment depend upon a steady and adequate flow of steel, the following excerpts from the House committee's report are of more than passing interest: "Your committee has found that the supply of steel is woefully short of the requirements, as set forth each month by the service agencies—the Maritime Shipbuilding, the Navy and the War Departments...
...The completion of the Alaska highway is another achievement of military importance (although after all the maneuvers and intrigues as to its path, it is a dubious question whether it will be at all suitable for port-war civilian transport...
...Virgil Jordan for the defense of the advertising field...
...It was Billy Mitchell himself who once pointed out that control over Alaska would permit control over much of the globe...
...He was murdered not while he was collaborating with Hitler, but while he was collaborating with the Allies against the Nazis...
...And Chiang Kai-shek...
...The new agreement with Portugal is a weapon in Franco's hands...
...Few Changes in Darlan Regime Seen As GiraudTakes Power in North Africa By GEORGE DECKER L'affaire Darlan ended as spectacularly as it began...
...And its demise in California, the flophouse for social nostrums, underscores the eclipse of the panacea movements, from the fervid and sincere EPIC of Upton Sinclair's (End Poverty in California, remember) with the ugly« and open class warfare fought against it, to the garish racketeering of the Ballard **I Am" cult...
...Now comes a cool and highly realistic analysis by the Washington staff of the WmU Street Journal in a special roundup on the developing situation in wartime Washington...
...OA, Mr...
...Exactly what the cry of "Free enterprise" means in Alaska is well-known — as one document put it, "The cannery and mining interests are eager to preserve their lightly taxed status quo, and oppose expenditures for schooling, civic improvement and other facilities which would raise the standards of living in Alaska," what extent the profit-*sja*js?gfebticos of self-seeking businessenterprise will make a mess of the organization and planning of Alaskan military advantages for global warfare cannot, as yet, be determined...
...3—censorship by the Post Office Department of publications alleged to impede the war effort without hearing or specifications in many cases, and without the application of the U. S. Supreme Court test of "clear and present danger" in others...
...Now with the Japanese landings on Attu, Agattu and Kiska Islands in the Aleutian chain, it is becoming clear how close Alaska is to the Orient, how vital it has became to U. S. defenses, and how strategic a jumping-off place it is going to be as the full implications of global warfare and air power are drawn out...
...The role of Admiral Jean Louis Xavier Francois Darlan was far from glorious, but his end is tragic...
...Some attempt, too, has been made to put through a reservation" plan...
...Its present political meaning is more ominous...
...The salmon fisheries are similarly dominated by a few large, absentee companies...
...In Lisbon his Foreign Minister, General de Jordana, recalled what Spain had gone through during the civil war, and said: "With the same energy we now intend to maintain our international position, because we understand that we defend today by the path of peace what we defended yesterday by arms...
...For the past several years," - said a prepared F.B.I, release, "Bell has been directing the activities of the bureaus or units .of the movement through various California cities...
...3) splits within the New Deal entourage and the lack of a dominant personality who could succeed Roosevelt...
...The situation is desperate in some regions because of lacking transport facilities...
...Newspapers and magazines have been packed with expanding ad copy, in disregard of the scarcity of raw materials, power, transportation, and skilled labor, not to mention the larger implications with respect to the danger of inflation...
...2—the lack of witch-hunting, mob-violence, and spirit of persecution...
...Advertising, it was pointed out, is now 21 per cent above the level of the years 1935-1939...
...How has the economy of Alaska developed...
...These are listed as 1) a dissident agrarian south and west...
...4—the prosecutions undertaken by the Justice Department for peonage in the South, and the federal investigation of lynch-ings...
...in his speeches he praises fascism and proclaims the coming doom of the democracies...
...Sixteen men were arrested, including the leader of the group, Arthur Bell...
...The huge gold industry is today a highly capitalizied, mechanized monopoly...
...The authority for the quou and the itifiil is the Departmam of Commerce, bawled by the conservative Jesse Jones—which is cold water to the business yowls about taxation...
...Factors the Wall Street Journal neglects, which are creating much speculation in labor and libera...
...He is for maintaining Spanish neutrality not because but in spite of his ideological sympathies...
...The agrarian problem has economic roots...
...Bureau of Labor Statistics...
...And most of the white towns have degraded slums for natives on the fringes...
...FBI Smasbes Subversive Mankind United 1 t Special to The New Leader LOS ANGELES—F.B.I...
...chief statistician of the Chrysler Corporation * * * Beveridge in Waff Sfree* POR those interested in Wall Street's reaction * to the Beveridge Plan, here is a report by Harold Fleming, a conservative financial writer for the Christian Science Mwxtor' "The report came out, curiously, the day before the annual meeting of the Institute of Life Insurance and of the Association of Life Insurance Presidents...
...That is the meaning of the "interim" report submitted by the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries to the House on the day the old Congress adjourned...
...That period is a goldmine for the chronicler of our skewed social and political mores, for those movements are the inheritors of that strange emulsion in American historical currents which includes the Labadists, Brook Farm, Oneida...
...More probable is that Giraud is a conservative military man, like de Gaulle, and like Petain too...
...Tuberculosos, liquor, and veneral diseases are serious problems...
...Conditions among the native people belong, and nothing can gainsay this, on a black and shameful record...
...In the Democratic Party Senators George, Byrd and McKellar insist on their own fiscal and budget program which impugn the administration's proposals, while Democrats Truman, Kilgore and Pepper expose the shortcomings in the war effort...
...Huge and strategic installations have been put through at Dutch Harbor, at Sitka, on Kodiak Island and elsewhere...
...A statistical investigation by this department shows that S*7 economists collaborated on 4? of the monographs while three ware prepared by the Federal Trade Commission...
...select a prominent American legal expert to act as a consulting adviser for the court...
...The sodden spotlight which has been turned on the Alaskan territory is turning up other items of interest for Americans other than those urgent with military implic cations...
...been the general feeling for some time that the New Deal is falling apart at the seams...
...The story of the war effort elsewhere has indicated that firmly - intrenched special - interests are rather incapable of being adjusted to the fullest demands of an all-out war against the Axis...
...The same old faces are weary of each other...
...That is another way of saying that it will become of primary importance aa soon aa the war ends...
...It hit sharply the Treasury's decision to permit business concerns that expend huge sums on advertising to deduct the cost from their profits, thus dodging taxation...
...Incidentally, Jones, one of the chief big business representatives in the administration, was approached by a group of industrialists a little while ago, who com plained that all post-war planning was being done by the "liberals" and that the program of the National Resource* Planning Board would lead to "collectivism...
...ACLU Reviews Wartime Liberties Reviewing the status of civil liberties in America after a year of war, the American Civil Liberties Union in a statement issued this week declared that "while it is clear that the general condition is far better than in World War I," the view asserted by government spokesmen that civil liberties are intact, "must be qualified" by recognition of "serious exceptions...
...Nathan T. Porter, a Townsendite running for Governor, polled 15.501 votes...
...His escapes from German' prison and then from Vichy France have given him the halo of a romantic hero...
...Proposals for three basic taxes (a personal and corporate income tax, a gold tax, and a general property tax) were stopped cold in the Legislature, although the Governor's program was supported by the progressives, labor, many small-business men, and most Federal officials...
...TJw MAM ???»* ? Fiyr I 1BERAL writers have long maintained that *-* the most crashing indictments of the inequalities of onr social system were to be found in the various government investigations—few agencies possess the resources to do the tremendous job* From these have come the Walsh Industrial Com mission reports, the Pujo-Untermeyer ftnancia investigation, the -Nye munitions probe, the Peeora banking scandals, the Black lobbyists inquiry, the LaFollette Civil Liberties exposes, the Bone patents hearings and, .coming to the story at hand, the comprehensive researches ef th* O'Mahoney Committee, or TNEC...
...One understands without difficulty that a country in such situation prefers "the path of peace...
...The Spanish standard of living is miserable...
...He himself stresses the fact that he is a soldier and not a politician, and this is a point that can be held to be reliable...
...It played a small role in the Washington story when Secretary of State William Seward handed 7 million dollars worth of gold to the Czar Alexander for his property in Russian America...
...That is what gives life and warmth to the Iberian bloc...
...It is hardly likely that the Nogues clique will balk at Giraud, nor is it probable that the composition of the Darlan secretariats will be significantly altered...
...It should not be overlooked, however^ that in the days of the Republic he was considered a very reactionary man, even a fascist...
...And military experts hare since formulated what is generally called "The Great Circle Route...
...Adv...
...The nation is weary of the same old faces...
...A reading of the findings and summary of the committee's work, published separately, reveals the terrible grip of monopoly on American economic life and what that concentration of economic power means when translated into political and social terms...
...Are there any signs of a developing political maturity...
...Social reforms have been on the Alaskan agenda for a great many years now, and under Ernest Gruening, New Deal Gover-???,, for the Territory, some BenJthy efforts have been made...
...If internal difficulties ensue, the grave social problems which have been so lightly postponed until the post-war .period may coma sharply to the fore...
...Albert Brisbane, the Populists, Jacob Coxey, Tom Watson, William Jennings Bryan and others...
...But the discount is heavy on those old epithets...
...Salazar is interesting now because he is playing a very important role as a supporter of Iberian neutrality...
...Far from being tarred with the Moscow brush, it assumes a return in the post-war period to approximately the same essential economic conditions as those before the war—in other words, a limited market for goods and a buyer's market for labor...
...Members of Congress have no intention of abandoning study and supervision of steel production for war needs and for post-war purposes...
...The letter, according to advertising informants of The New Leader, is "an effective shaft at the very heart of advertising...
...They asked aid in setting up a committee which would present business's views on post-war planning...
...Industrial wage earners are irked by wage ceilings, taxes and threat of compulsory work...
...The chief exceptions listed are, 1—removal of the entire Japanese population from the West Coast by military authority and their detention in "virtual concentration camps," and the exercise of the power of removal of individual citizens from military zones without civilian review...
...3—the action of the Attorney General in removing the restrictions on enemy aliens of Italian nationality...
...Clippings and Comment By DANIEL BELL Emd of ? Dye try...
...Giraud's great advantages are his popularity as military chief and his reputation of irreproachable honesty...
...The dog-team days of individual prospecting have long been gone...
...The NAM's "exhaustive" analysis ol the 43 monographs, which total 12,260 pages (the NAM survey excludes apparently a 783-page final report and 31 bulkier volumes of hearings on selected subjects which total 20.000 pages plus 3,300 technical exhibits— to complete the statistics, 552 witnesses appeared and spoke for 775 hours)—the NAM's exhaustive analysis, however, charged that the monographs are filled with "glaring errors, inconsistencies, inadequacies and alleged evidence to lay the groundwork for governmental control of private activity along virtually Nazi and Fascist lines in the post-war world...
...Federal men charge leaders of the cult counseled followers not to purchase bonds, stating they were "worthless...
...During the six months of inquiry the supply has never come even close to meeting the demand for steel, as indicated by the requirements which the service agencies set forth as necessary for their monthly production needs...
...The magnitude of this shortage is so serious that any public statement of the actual figures is impossible at this time, for such information would be of real aid to the enemy...
...To be sincere about it, left politicians have a penchant for that kind of name-calling...
...Towneendism reached its peak in 1935 but crashed the next year in the Lemke-Coughlin abortive Presidential campaign...
...No admen are openly involved, and it is being run through associations with the National Association of Manufacturers...
...The existence of the Great Circle Route formes the basis, in one way or another, of most calculations of Alaska's military value —for it puts Alaska within bomber reach of nearly every important capital in the world...
...To make an admittedly invidious comparison, the exhaustive and impartial...
...It is worth mentioning that M. Alexis Carrel stated that the malnutrition in Spain "contradicted all admissible theories concerning the quantity of calories necessary for the organic activity of the human body...
...Warned Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C— The manifesto last week of 100 economists, and educators condemning "the overwhelming waste involved in the continuation of the full peace-time volume of advertising" has thrown a bombshell into the offices of America's advertising big business...
...Is it correct to call the Portuguese dictator, Salazar, "a fascist...
...Says the Wall Street Journal* writers: "A (rest coalition, which ruled the nation for 10 years, is breaking up...
...All of these in vestigations and their findings touched sore spots among the vested interests and each was the target of abuse...
...In this sense it is a "voice from the past' for it apparently assumes that the bright post-war hope of full employment and a sellers msrket for labor (end of the 'Iron law of wages') will not be realized...
...If action is taken on the economist's manifesto, the restrictive program would make for a drastic lowering of the income of advertising media, which have been stimulating the purchase of restricted goods, sounding off patriotic affirmations at the Government's expense...
...On the favorable side, the Union listed, 1—relative freedom of debate and criticism...
...The most difficult task has, however, already been handled, and Giraud will now move to consolidate the administrative regime he has inherited...
...All the consequences of the assassination of Darlan cannot be accounted exactly until we learn exactly how the nomination of General Giraud is actually accepted in French North Africa, and to what extent an agreement between Giraud and de Gaulle can be reached...
...Whether Giraud is as wily as the late Admiral for the tricky problems of the complicated military situation is another problem...
...2— the international censorship of opinion, including "unreasonable restrictions" on the transmission to the Allied nations of facts and opinions concerning race discrimination...
...Last August it was announced officially that all preparations were completed for a new system of individual rationing in place of rationing by families, but that this reform had to be postponed because there was no paper with which to make new ration cards...
...Weariness is aggravated by war nerves—inconveniences, irritations, restrictions—which make 'normalcy' seem such a lovely state...
...In directing its activities he has used such mysterious aliases as 'The Voice of a Right Idea,' The Divisional Superintendent,' 'Department A,' Department B,' and The Voice.' [Editor's Note: Coincident or not, Superman is now engaged in combatting a Nazi agent celled "The Voice...
...This week saw a campaign against the TNEC monographs—launched by the National Association of Manufacturers...
...Alaska has been, and still is, thanks to the big-business lobbies, the most lightly-taxed political entity under the American flag...
...agents here have smashed a secret subversive organization "Mankind United" which was said to have plotted "to blow up all the munition plants in the world," and to have seditiously undermined, the American war effort...
...And as yet we don't know for which he has been eliminated...
...If Spain resists, Portugal may become a military stronghold of the Allies on the continent...
...2) a restless labor movement...
...These economists, most of them from the Department of Commerce...
...At first they were scared by the headlines, but perusal of the actual premiums and benefit* offset this impression, except perhaps for the officers of companies telling casualty, health and other lines of special insurance...
...The advertising bigwigs, in the face of possible sacrifices due to pressures of an all-out war program, have been solidifying themselves more and more with the upper cliques of big-business in the hope of making themselves "indispensable...
...Notwithstanding the many drastic WPB limitation orders issued since Pearl Harbor—each of which prohibits the use of steel in the manufacture of hundreds of items—the shortage still persists...
...A fund of $500,-000 is in the process of being raised by Dr...
...Members of the influential Advertising Council, the admen's central committee, are reported "in a turmoil...
...All this remains of secondary importance while the war continues...
...report was prepared by Noel Sargeant...
...But Alaskan natives have always regarded this as racial discrimination on a mass scale...
...Post-war cleavages already are hinted in the cracks across the Roosevelt coalition...
...Instead all three service agencies are regularly compelled to curtail their schedules and war production and to pare down their requirement figures to the total amount of steel which the steel mills are producing...
...Of course, he is a dictator, but surely not every dictatorship is fascist...
...Congress to Further Probe Steel Shortage WASHINGTON, D. C. — Investigation of steel shortages will continue when the new Congress convenes...
...THERE 1...
...they have apparently preferred to struggle for existence among the bottom strata of Alaskan society...
...The organization, just prior to the outbreak of war was actively-engaged here in showing anti-war or pro-Nazi movies...
...To the extent advertising accelerates buying," U. S. war economy's leading administrators were told, "it is running in direct opposition to the efforts of the war agencies to check inflation...
...But Gruening, far more than Rex Tugwell of Puerto Rico, is up against an economic and political machine which has its own way almost since the gold-rush days...
...Exit Townsencf ? LACONIC "stick" in the news this week re-ported that the Townsend party had lost its legal standing in California by polling less than one-fourth of the required number of votes at the last election to keep it alive...
...Franco is a fascist...
...Spain needs the support of Portugal to strengthen her position vis-a-vis Germany...
...Kemal Ataturk was a dictator but hardly a fascist...
...In global war this all-direction perspective for aerial operations could be a unique advantage for America's offensives...
...her special trumps are the islands in the Atlantic which may become very important bases for the Allied operations...
...These monumental studies are the most complete picture extant of economic life in America today...
...Je***.' "*T*HERE is no confirmation from the fact that * either the war or high taxes are destroying the profit ability of American corporate business...
...Reason lor taking the report rather calmly, despite the large increase in premium costs and scope of benefits which it would give, appears to be that the plan is big for Britain but not for the United States...
...A dynasty is dying...
...The committee blamed the Iron and Steel branch of the WPB as in large measures responsible for the situation...
...But this is no place for theoretical considerations...
...The open letter was sent to Treasury-Chief Henry Mergenthau, Economic Director James Byrnes, WPB chairman Donald Nelson, and ???-head Leon Henderson...
...4—certain federal prosecutions for utterances and publications alleged to encourage disaffection in the armed forces witho/it a showing of "clear and present danger" of illegal acts...
...A curious aspect of the Beveridge report is its essential conservatism...
...Wages have not kept pace with living costs and the weekly 5% victory tax reduction starting January 1, with wages frozen is not likely to ease the situation...
...After all deductions, including more than is needed to meet tax payments, corporation profits are 160 per cent higher than in 1939 and at least 40 per cent higher than Last year...
...It played a larger and more hectic national role at the turn of the centnry when the gold strikes in Juneau and the Yukon brought a rush of Klondikers through Alaska...
...Some attempt has ¦ been made to develope a native economy that would be independent...
...In the White House orbit, Hopkins, Wallace, Ickes, Mergenthau, Henderson...
...This business of political epithets is provocative...
...That patticake over with, the analysis settles down to the major items...
...Exactly what advances have been made in the way of naval and air bases in Alaska for global maneuvers cannot, of course, be revealed...
...Jones is reported to have quietly set up and given apace to such an office, with ready use of the Department of Commerce's facilities...
...Traditionally nationalist, the farm belt doesn't want to share the American market with Argentine beef, Polish rye or CuAan sugar...
...Wastes Spur Inflation U.S...
...Where necessary messages are being conveyed to the public, the economist's suggest, the Government ought to pay directly for the information...
...Alaska may shortly shape up as the new "hot>epot" of the war...
...Perkins, Barkley, Jackson are not commanding figures in their own right...
...In the same year, Spain imported 360,000 tons of wheat and 1.9 million tons of maize...
...At the moment Roosevelt seems to be caught in the cross-pull of the farm and labor pressures, and will have to choose one or the other...
...circles, are: the rapprochement of the administra-' tion with big business, the lack of adequate labor representation in production policies, the industrialist domination of the War Production Board, and the uneasiness regarding the influence of certain agencies, apart from the State Department, which lean to the idea of maintaining a pre-war . status quo in a post-war Europe...
...In this resolution they are supported by both AFL and CIO...
...Nevertheless, the position of Spain is not absolutely certain, for German pressure may be too strong...
...In what ways may Alaska be said to constitute (with Puerto Rico) America's "colonial problem...
...Federal Trade Commission, represent some of the best technical minds in the field...
...What are the White-Native relations...
...His prominent role has been stressed by the fact that a new "Iberian bloc" was sealed and proclaimed not in Madrid but in Lisbon...
Vol. 26 • January 1943 • No. 1
