Where the News Ends
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
Where the News Ends bY WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN The Russian Military Picture ACOMMENTATOR runs the risk of being hit over the head by developments which he didn't foresee when he ventures to...
...Until the presom offensive almosj all the laurels of the Red Army had been earned in stubborn defensive fighti . something in which Russian soldiers have arwayt shown great courage and endurance...
...He said bluntly that he would not only join the plan, but that he would help spearhead it...
...A German armored unit that had forced its way into Rostov, was compelled to give up the city...
...These figures are from the Biennial Census of Manufactures 1931, pp...
...MOST INFORMATIVE To the Editor: From Mrs...
...But the German resistance in the Rostov area remained stiff while there WSJ a rapid withdrawal from the exposed Csucsi"Uf salient...
...On the other hand they have successfully asked the OWI to issue an official denial, not in their name, and have also been active in getting third parties to issue denials for them...
...With the coming of warm weather it was possible to launch a new big offensive, which carried the German lines in the southern sector of the front far beyond the furthest point of advance in 1941...
...There is also the #*»" sibility of a Russian thrust in the far North, designed to cut across Finland and to link up with any allied attempt to strike at Hitler in northers Norway...
...Political persecution of democrats continues...
...This method of collection has, ^too, the great advantage of casing the burden on the tax-paying citizen...
...On the average, they will receive more during 1943 than during 1942...
...The most the Germans can apparently hope for is to cling to a few of the fruit* of their advance last summer, to maintain s defensive front around Rostov, to hold the econonii*-ally valuable Donets Basin, where the factories...
...Bulletins issued by the group carry the manifesto of a fake Communist United Front conference in Milan and other party-line propaganda material...
...But the Tresca case has raised larger issues, ^reconnected with the murder, which grow out of Tresca's political activities and attempts to invoke his name for political advantage...
...Chamberlain imagine a privately-owned B.M.T...
...On January 22, the World-Telegram quoted the same words of Cranston...
...And it seemed rather appropriate for the Herald Tribune the next morning to remind the Secretary that "the impression under which he seems to labor that he or the State Department has been appointed constitutional maiden aunt to the American people is erroneous...
...E. INGLESTONE 1 must admit The New Leader is the most informative paper there is in this country and wish you further success in the coming year as you certainly deserve it...
...The answer: he once arrested Pierre Laval...
...Thus the Very thing that each employer tries to do to cut down his labor costs also reduces the purchasing power of the great mass of peo•- pie who ate employees in industry, with the result that the workers cannot buy, apart from war : conditions, the tremendous flow of goods that could be produced if purchasing power were adequate and justly distributed throughout the community instead of being concentrated in the hands of a few...
...To skip the year 1942 would be handing this group of citizens a handsome bonus...
...Dollfuss and Schusnigg, supported by Mussolini, were gradually fashioning fascist fetters for Austria...
...If it is collected from all wage and salary workers at the source, it can never compete for goods in clothing-store or food-shop...
...This is not mere theory: The government's figures show that between 1919 and 1929 the index number for the actual physical output of goods.in manufacturing increased by 42...
...The German armies h»ve sustained hard knocks, but they have not lost fighting ability and cohersion...
...Stalin recently asserted that the present offensive had bagged over 200,000 prisoners...
...Hitler had already taken over the rule of Germany...
...The German advance force that occupied Rostov late in November, 1941, was able to make good its retreat...
...These quotes have never been retracted or denials of their authenticity issued by Falk and Cranston to the newspapers involved...
...But labor is also, taken as a ' whole, the largest single source ;Of purchasing power...
...One touched the Volga at Stalingrad, where the Germans wrecked one of the largest new Soviet industrial cities, but could not completely capture it...
...and this fact often furnished a useful corrective to extravagant newspaper headlines, representing Hitler's army as being destroyed like Napoleon's...
...One such denial has been issued by the Maz-zini Society, issued at the request of OWI officials...
...As far as is known, no new leads have been turned up to make clear whether the unquestionably politically-motivated murder was the work of totalitarians of the left or right, both of whom Tresca had fought to the day of his death...
...Organizing society into three quasi-independent or autonomous units — management, the labor unions and the state— each with a "check on the dominance of either of the other two, is certainly one way out of a di-lemna which seems to confuse many intellectuals who were disillusioned by the "Russian experiment...
...Even though this figure may be exaggerated, and although surrender is probably more frequent in the units of the German satellites, Italy, Hungary and Rumania, than in German divisions, it would seem that there has been some decline in Gem morale on the Eastern front...
...This would have been tin capture of Rostov by the Red Army while large German forces were still deep in the Caucasus A huge bag of prisoners or a disorderly flight under unfavorable conditions to the Crimea nught have been the result...
...Roose-" velt gave assurances thatjwe could...
...The whole of the Donets Basin, Russia's largest source of coal, was occupied...
...tn Russia during the last month add up to s severe check or may be considered the prelude t* » really crashing defeat, with all the effect thai this might have on morale in the occupied ee«a-tries and in Germany itself...
...I was astonished to have Mr...
...A lot of men who received incomes far above $25,000 last year will be held down to that maximum this year...
...who opposed this trend can only aid theafms and efforts of the totalitarians...
...In the twelve years from 1920 to 1932 under Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, the free enterprise of profit seekers was subject to very little regulation by the government...
...THE Russian winter offensive of 1942-43 started earlier and has already achieved greater results, in recovery of territory and in destruction of enemy forces than its predecessor in 1941-42...
...that Dakar and the West African colonies must never again be a threat to the Americas...
...money out of the market is to take it from the citizen before it is spent...
...Rzhe\> Orel, Kursk, Kharkov and Taganrog, and held on to them throughout the winter...
...It has the virtues of installment buying without its vices...
...They had no hope of victory...
...T*HE biggest conceivable military disaster, from * the German standpoint, has probably already been warded off...
...The present Soviet offensive is all the more creditable, from the military standpoint, because the C mans had a great advantage in the possession ol a larger network of communicating railways br fore the fighting began...
...But there is one grave objection to the Ruml Plan...
...The situation, of course, can not reasonably be called "grave," for the military,, progress of the campaign has been rather satisfactory...
...The probable purpose of this propaganda is to lay the necessary political founda-' tion of getting rid of...
...What will the OWI do about the Chicago situation ? The OWI policy of "forgive and forget" in order to forge "national unity" appears simple, but all lessons of the past 25 years show that democratic groups cannot work with Communists or ex-Fascist partisans without serious damage to the democratic cause...
...EDITORIAL COMMENT AFRICA—MUDDLE IT STILL IS THE overwhelming press, radio and cinema publicity about the Casablanca conference has come and gone, but the North African muddle (strange how that word stays with us) still seems to us to have the makings of the first major American political crisis of World War II...
...The Austrian Social Democracies and trade unionists, surrounded on all sides by reactionaries, could easily see the handwriting on the wall...
...No foreign observer can have mot* than a sketchy idea of such vital elements in the military situation on the Eastern Front as the reserves of manpower and materiel at the disposal of each side...
...That this is the fact is plentifully clear...
...On January 30, the Italian anti-fascist paper La Parola revealed that Professor Renzo Sereno of OWI had worked to include "Pearl Harbor Democrats...
...The larger German army that had established itself in the ruins of Stalingrad has been gradually cut to pieces...
...But the owners of industry, exercising their "right" of free enterprise, were using labor displacing machinery to cut labor costs and thus increase their profits, not to raise the standard of living or increase the leisure of the workers...
...The Treasury scheme proposes to get all the advantages of the Ruml Plan without its • one tremendous disadvantage...
...Are we simply going to Stand by and wait for something to •surprise* us...
...Certain economic factors compelled employers to raise wage rates somewhat, so that the total payrolls in manufacturing went up by 11 'r during that decade...
...The next few weeks, before the spring tha* limits the possibility of big operations, zhouki prove most interesting, if not decisive, on the Russian front...
...his solution of the problem of making collectivism compatible with democracy deserves our consideration...
...This statement, tending to whitewash the OWI, nevertheless contains some significant statements concerning OWI policy with respect to the Victory Council...
...Only the unfolding of futon* events will show whether the German reverse...
...Obviously, if wages had been raised an average of 42% equally with the increased output made possible by labor displacing devices the workers would have had enough purchasing power to enable them to buy all that they produced, and no serious or general unemployment would have resulted...
...As the growing armies of the United Nations now look forward to victory, it^is well to recall that the first force of fighting men to offer opposition to Nazism and Fascism was that band of Austrian workers, the Sckutzband...
...The only relevant comments he cared to make this week in the face of blistering press criticism throughout the country Involved rather insulting remarks directed against two newspaper critics...
...t The muddle in North Africa is alarming...
...The Russians may hope to follow up their preliminary victories by breaking "through tin* line and forcing a withdrawal, perhaps to the line of the River Dnieper...
...The Germans took Novorossiak, largest of the eastern Black Sea ports, but their southward progress was stalled in the difficult hilly country between Novorossisk and Tuapse...
...In view of the misgivings felt by Mr...
...The experience el Stalingrad, that super-Verdun, where slaughter probably unequaled in the entire present war ended in military defeat and frustration must have impressed the consciousness of the toughest and most fanatical Hitler Youth...
...It happens that at the very time Laval was being detained even then Peyrouton was seeking to strike a bargain—but we don't have to go into footnotes to document the blunder of Vaffaire Peyrouton...
...It brought about the worst depression we have ever had...
...The Austrian fascists conquered and smoothed the way for Hitler...
...Shortly after Tresca's murder two OWI officials, who had been negotiating with Tresca and other Italian-Americans on the formation of an Italian-American Victory Council, stated that Tresca did not oppose the inclusion of Communists...
...The other salient extended far down along the line of the Moscow-Caucasus Railway and touched the outer rim of the Grozny oil-fields...
...On January W, PM quoted Alan Cranston of OWI as follows: Tresca was not opposed to participation of Communists on the Victory Council because he felt that all anti-Fascists should be united until Fascism is defeated...
...The Germans, unable to hold a solid line in the bitter cold of the Russian "winter, developed the thick of strongly fortifying certain key points, or so - called hedgehogs, including Smolensk, Vyazma...
...Russian^ claims of captured prisoners and materiel were comparatively small a year ago...
...A graphic picture of corruption and irresponsibility and confusion triply confounded was painted by correspondent Drew Middleton in two amazing dispatches...
...The tide was running against democracy...
...It took more than five years for the world to awaken to its dangers...
...The biggest Soviet territorial gains were in the North, where exposed German salients north and south of Moscow were cleared of the enemy and some fairly-large towns, including Kalinin (Tver) and Kaluga, were retaken...
...The same thing would have occurred if the hours of labor had been reduced enough without reducing wages...
...and 20...
...and the testi-"mony of his closest personal friends and journalistic collaborators who made it clear that Tresca opposed inclusion of the "June 22 Patriots," the Communists, and the "Pearl Harbor Democrats," the admirers of Italian Fascism, In the January 18th issue of the New York Poet though, OWI official Lee Falk is quoted on the question of forming a Council "which would have embraced all Anti-Fascist and Anti-Nazi groups including Communists," as follows: Tresca told me the plan had his wholehearted approval He told me it was what he had wanted for a long time...
...Their heroism was not in vain...
...The striking power of the Red Army has improved with war experience...
...Could we be confident of the loyalty of the French regime in North Africa...
...The President in his press conference this week in Washington faced some of the vital questions that have been on everybody's lips...
...LETTERS TO THE EDITOR NAM's'Free Enterprise'Meant Freedom To Cut Wages, Slash Labor Gains From ALFRED BAKER LEWIS To the Editor: Governor Stassen of Minnesota, • Herbert Hoover and, of course, the National Association of Manufacturers pre putting on a Strong newspaper propaganda campaign in favor of freedom of enterprise...
...At the high point of their success last autumn the German lines were stretched out in two long and, as it proved, vulnerable salients...
...The Red Army in the winter of 1941-42 won the distinction of being the first army that had been able to compel Hitler's war machine to retreat on an extensive scale...
...THE TRESCA CASE T^HE search for Carlo Tresca's murderer * seemingly has bogged down, while the F.B.I...
...But from every other point of view what has been happening in Algeria and Morocco is alarming...
...Schenectady...
...Does Mr...
...Carmine Galente, professional criminal held by the District Attorney, has still failed to give an account of himself...
...Some difficult problems of organization and supply must have been soKsc before the Russians were able to deliver their successive blows at various points along the frnf line, blows which, by the end of January, ha<^ wrested back most of the territory which tht Germans had gained last summer and •utnmr and had also broken the ring of near encirclemw1 -which the Germans had thrown around Leningrad At the same time it would be rash to asssme...
...This policy has been commented on in connection with the German and Hungarian groups as well as the Italian...
...Chamberlain as to the survival of freedom of expression in any collectivist regime, such an advertisement in a municipally-owned institution was particularly illuminating...
...Now this criticism no longer holds* good...
...Offens've moves were infrequent, halting, poorly coordinated...
...continues to remain aloof from the case...
...If the President was a little fuzzy on political details, Secretary of State Cordell Hull has apparently set his face completely in other directions...
...Corey during the first world war...
...But the Russian drive against the German lines in the East is so important, both in what it has achieved and in what it may accomplish, that I have decided to take this risk...
...CATCH IN THE RUML PLAN A PAY-AS-YOU-GO PLAN is better for the *" taxpayer and better for the government-There is no argument against it...
...i _ X THE FIRST TO FIGHT f\N February 12th, 1934, occurred the first heroic effort to stem the tide of Nazism...
...It was carefully and competently stated by Paul Freehling in The New Leader of January 23...
...I was confronted by a sign on the walls of the subway which advertised the "Daily Worker...
...These third parties were not present at interviews between Cranston-Falk and the reporters and their denials can hardly be called authoritative...
...But this Soviet offensive was a stumbling affair and bogged down short of reaching major objectives...
...Sevastopol, the main fortress of the Crimea, was taken after a prolonged siege...
...Chid es Authors On Lack of Reading From HERBERT M. MERRILL To the Editor:, Returning to my New York hotel on January 23rd, after listening to John Chamberlain, Raphael Abramovitch, George S. Counts and Abba Lerner discuss the compatability of collectivism and democracy...
...would tolerate the advertisement of a Communist newspaper on its property...
...Suggestions that the Communist Party, which claims that Sormenti is in Mexico, produce their comrade in New York, have been ignored...
...This ran completely counter to statements in Tresca's newspaper, II Martello...
...1s nothing going to be done to clear up the North African muddle...
...New York...
...No doubt, the unbounded enthusiasm for this particular plan is .somewhat connected with this fact...
...Yet at the same time he addressed a warning (to whom...
...and "June 22 Patriots" into the Chicago Victory Council—and the Communists have now captured it...
...We refer to the controversy about the Office of War Information...
...With respect to Communist or "former Fascist" elements, it states that OWI has "the policy of not opposing the participation of elements not considered dangerous to democracy...
...Competent anti-fascist administrators are left out in the cold...
...Enea Sormenti, alias Carlos Contreras, Communist hatchet man, whom the District Attorney expressed a desire to see, continues to be unavailable...
...Whatever may or may not have been thought of Mr...
...It can hardly be said that the answers met the issues squarely...
...Meanwhile, misrepresentation of the position of Carlo Tresca...
...Payment will go along simultaneously with earning, but " those who earned large incomes during 1942 and smaller ones in 1943 will not be handed /any presents...
...It is a sad commentary on national policy when the government cannot rely upon or encourage democratic elements and groups alone in the foreign language communities to lead and organize war activities but asks the inclusion of totalitarian elements...
...Chamberlain admit that he hadn't even read Lewis Corey's "Unfinished Task...
...Therefore, the enterprise of profit seekers, free from all but a very little government regulation for the benefit of workers or consumers, caused a deficiency of purchasing power, lack of an adequate market for the products of industry and agriculture, and a severe depression...
...For the 30,000,000, wage arid salary workers whose incomes do not rise above the $2,000 mark, the skipping of 1942 would involve no loss to the government...
...In his statement to the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday, Randolph Paul, General Counsel of the Treasury Department, proposed that we enter upon s pay-as-you-go plan not later than July 1, but that payments for the year 1942 be deferred "a certain number of years...
...They were the forerunners of our great armies...
...Where the News Ends bY WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN The Russian Military Picture ACOMMENTATOR runs the risk of being hit over the head by developments which he didn't foresee when he ventures to discuss a current military operation...
...But, at last, someone had stood up and fought against this new form of^tyranny...
...They could expect no help from any democratic land...
...It is amazing but true that this 42% more goods was turned out by 6% fewer workers, due to the rapid introduction of labor displacing devices...
...The way to tax...
...Why was a corrupt fascist politico like Marcel Peyrouton imported and now maintained in power...
...The Treasury scheme would make it possible to adjust the taxes from those in the upper brackets in order to reduce or completely eliminate losses from this source...
...Nine years ago the Austrian democrats decided to fight...
...The fertile agricultural lands of the Don and Kuban Valleys were overrun...
...Clearly we need more government regulation of free enterprise in the interest of workers, consumers, and the public, not less, as soon as normal conditions are restored after our victory...
...There are many indications that OWI policy with regard to the organization of foreign-language groups is to encourage inclusion of all groups without reference to their activities in the recent past, and to veto democratic groups seeking to exclude those of totalitarian connection...
...But you cannot sell 42% more goods to people with only 11% more pay on any price basis that is satisfactory to the owners of industry...
...the mines and the large network of local rail ways may help defense, to keep unbroken the backbone of their Russisn line of communication and defense, which runs roughly west-east front Smolensk to Orel and then turns south throufh Kursk, Kharkov and Rostov...
...Their purpose was to rouse mankind to the tragedy taking place in the heart of Europe...
...on the basis of the present situation, that Get many is confronted with an imminent military catastrophe in Russia...
...Hundreds of them died...
...And an ' Allied Chieftain like General Charles Nogues, Middleton testifies, calls the Americans gobeurs [simpletons or suckers] whom he can easily manipulate...
...For in no other way can the owners of industry be compelled to raise wages and reduce the hours of toil equally with the increased productivity made possible by new-machinery, and thus make new machines a blessing to mankind instead of a dangerous source of unemployment...
...And I was still more surprised that none of the presumably well-read participants in that symposium, including "moderator" Sidney Hook, mentioned Carl Dreher...
...labor's so-cial gains as soon as the war is over if not before...
...From 1934 to 1939 Hitler went on from one aggression to another...
Vol. 26 • February 1943 • No. 6
