Where the News Ends
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN The War and the Average Soldier JACKSONVILLE, Florida.—For the last week I have been roaming about this sunny state, delivering lectures, trying to...
...EAST AND WEST IN INDIA T*HE- fasting leader of the Hindus pitted * against the rigidity of British might presents to liberal and humane Americans an appalling . problem...
...He followed up his speech with an article in The New Leader...
...Public opinion must be won to labor's side, or else the drive to smash trade unionism will succeed...
...He is more interested in the practical tachnical side than in any ambitious effort to discern causes and reckon with future objectives...
...It was the Railway Express Agency (a national organization owned by 86 railroads) which engineered the contracts- with the domestic air lines...
...No doubt, the administration and the generals did the right thing...
...iliiiraiuiniiiiiiiitiiHtiiiiniiniiiiiiitiiiinttHiiiiiitiinHititiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiniiitiiiiiiii...
...It was somebody who had money enough to pay for a full-page dose of poisonous propaganda...
...It is said that they could have had the services of Mexican laborers if they had been willing to pay the necessary wages...
...Among people with, the American tradition, such irregular outbursts are practically inevitable...
...But although it is impossible to point to any time when the Treasury will receive less money as a result of making current income instead of last year's income the basis of the income tax currently being paid, it is still seriously argued tjhat in some esoteric sense the Treasury would lose money by "forgiving" the income tax on 1942 income...
...But at the present time I think it is safe to say that the gnat majority of the men in the armed forces haw not been sold on any particular scheme of reconstruction, whether national or internation»« Their political and economic ideas are pretty much those which they brought with them when they were inducted...
...Of course there was no period of 240 hours in which the Sun did not rise, just as there is rifr year in which income tax would not be paid...
...Another is pull of household and family duties on women workers...
...The one big cause is illness...
...the qualities and defects of some new type of airplane...
...Texas, the, soldiers or farmers or women of Texas...
...In war industries there are no strikes...
...Present railroad rates for refrigerator car movements, for example, could be wiped out almost completely, if there were a few hundred cargo planes in domestic service to carry fruits and vegetables from the coast...
...The Treasury •will continue to gain in this way every year as long as the national income increases, and in general we expect the national income to increase in the future even if there should be some temporary relapses...
...This was an emergency measure...
...The United States—birthplace of aviation—had none at all...
...labor has an important story to ; tell...
...Field Marshal Rundstedt, Northern France, Belgium and Holland...
...It is surely the consensus of all intelligent Americans that the President should use his great influence in this direction...
...Field Marshal Dietl, Norway and Finland...
...And here we sit in America— hearing wild cries pf despair and saying to ourselves: "The only way to stop this is to beat Hitler...
...The average soldier is interested in war primarily as a job that he has to learn to do better than the other fellow...
...Such a piling up of horrors never was since the world began...
...ombirted German-ItsBs" forces under General KessenjaUf noted tank expert...
...Once the necessary apprenticeship of experience_jlnder «¦ tual fighting conditions has been passed the American soldier will be physically and technically the equal, if not the superior of any in the world...
...The A. F. of L. set up a committee to work out a program, but no report has been forthcoming...
...As for the complicated business of ''winning the peace"—well, I don't know whether anyone has found an altogether convincing solution for that problem...
...For purposes of waging war effectively this cool-headed realistic approach is admirable...
...But most of them aru *"* on their new jobs and few...
...If its traditional rival...
...The pattern is unmistakable...
...The credo of the soldier, whether officer or enlisted man...
...Washington has every right to speak...
...THE CRIME OF MONOPOLY To the Editor: America's failure to build up an air cargo service is due entirely to the restrictive effects of the transportation monopoly in prewar years...
...Is it that, the earners of high salaries are naturally less patriotic than wage workers...
...The girl soldiers, like the boys, loetWj ward to a weekend of recreation after the i*11*1 of their daily work...
...Quite possibly a long period of contact with death and wounds will modify this feling...
...This anti-labor drive is not a spot event...
...The highly paid- propagandists who spread slanders about them are utilizing the war crisis to serve their own selfish ends or those of their employers...
...Unspeakable tragedy may result from the conflict between this resistless force and this immovable obstacle...
...They accuse the government of the United States of having betrayed its trust...
...EDITORIAL COMMENT SMEARING THE SOLDIERS OF INDUSTRY ?T is time to use plain language about the * anti-labor smear campaign that is going on from one edge of this country to the other...
...The next would be frank negotiations which would throw responsibility for solutions on the shoulders of the Indians themselves...
...It may be that the big cotton farmers helped to bring on the emergency...
...vice-president of the ILGWU, before the American Labor Press Association, is most sensible...
...Up to the present, the number of helpless martyrs approaches three millions...
...Any whisper of a union's misdeed is amplified into a crime worthy of the front pages of the metropolitan press...
...In the same interview in which he declares that he expects workers to give of their utmost for the' sake of national defense without the incentive of overtime pay!, he insists that $25,-000 a year is an insufficient incentive to induce enterprisers to show American initiative...
...Tied hand and foot by the restrictions of the Railroad monopoly, fearing a huge expansion of air transportation, air freight development was cut short...
...An industry as vital, as widespread and as definitely specialized as agriculture cannot be made dependent on a labor supply so inept and so inadequate and so unavailable...
...The historical analogy is with those who objected to the reformation of the calendar and rioted in protest against being robbed of ten days out of their span of life...
...Hochman made his proposal first at the Toronto convention of the A. F. of L. last winter...
...whom I talked with in Florida, is simple...
...American labor today stands 13,000.000 strong...
...Recently the A. F. of L, CIO, Railway Brotherhood and Farmers Union set up a Joint Legislative Committee to combat attacks...
...LETTERS TO THE EDITOR A. P.Lerner Analyzes the Ruml Tax Muddle, Hits Rickenbacker Economics From ABBA P. LEANER Professor of Economies, the New iSchool Ts the Editor: An historical analogy might throw some light on the mental processes of those who have been .befogging the issue with talk of the money that the Treasury ' would lose by the Ruml plan, 'ft can hardly be denied that ' from, the purely book-keeping aspect the Treasury will receive more in taxes, and not less, if the income tax paid to it in 1943 is based on the higher 1943 income on a pay-as-you-go basis than if the income tax is based on the lower 1942 income...
...Skullduggery on the part of big business is relegated to the back pages or forgotten...
...It has been carefully prepared and nursed for years...
...In this manner, the Workmen's Circle and the Jewish Labor Committee will combine their forces against the continuance of Nazi butchery...
...MfKcrs-e...
...What hatred there is seems to be directed against the Japanese more than against the Germans, partly because of the brutality and treachery of the attack on Pearl Harbor, partly because - there is a little dose of racial bitterness in many Americans' thinking about Japan...
...Daytona Beach and many of the other resorts where the inflow of vacationists and tour ists has been sharply curtailed by gas rationing and other wartime conditions...
...Many of them—in the hope of saving their own hides—would pay heed to the word from nations which are already on the road to victory...
...sir," and got the fct**' ing retort that in the British Army only oanen were considered gentlemen...
...That story must be told...
...By the same token it is not an army that would satisfy any of our more ardent ideologists...
...Labor was forgotten or shunted aside...
...By definite and prompt action we can'make -4 start now toward putting an end to this unspeakable horror...
...Hi wants to beat the enemy as quickly as possible and get back to his family and his job...
...The necessary moves should be made by the United Nations...
...Florida has an especially high proportion of men in the air corps...
...This illusion comes from thinking not of the tax, which is paid regularly every year, butj of the income on which It is based...
...through the manipulation of a »ell-oiled industrialist publicity machine, labor has received the worst press in its history...
...It is doing a top job on production and can't get that story across.' Its work has been praised by Army . and Navy officials, but »e have lacked a coordinated attempt to tell that story to the American public...
...If we look deeper than mere book-keeping permits, we see that tiie whole question is silly because the government is going to collect whatever is possible and necessary for the war whatever the method of calculating the amount of tax anyone has to pay in any particular year...
...Just as these ten days did not really exist so the year would not exist in which the income tax paid would be based on 1942 income, but there is no more sense in saying that the Treasury is cheated out of the tax than to say that the public is being cheated out of the non-existent year...
...Reynolds News said that l»* German High Command attsj*"** increasing importance to Tunisian campaign, since lieves the Allies will not until tiie Axis is eliminated North Africa...
...The soonei it makes up its mind, the better for all of us...
...The memory of the strange episode of the strike against being cheated out of ten days promised by the calendar, while providing a precedent, will hardly comfort the present remonstra-tors against a similar improvement...
...At the same time, the corporations and the NAM-spon-sored (tax-exempt) full-page ads in newspapers and magazines, identifying the achievements of production with the | deeds of management...
...if any...
...T SAW few signs of the military snobbishness * the setting up of an artificial casta aarri*" between officers and men that is a hangover frorr the days before the French Revolution...
...You can overhear animated discussions about the merits of this or that gun...
...Every smear against labor was picked up and splashed large...
...Anyone who can read knows, or should know, that trade unionism is not one of its causes...
...Before the war, it has been pointed out, every country in Europe, and even in backward South America, had extensive air freight services...
...Labor Needs fo Fight Back WE think the proposal for a National Labor Public Relations Bureau, made by Julius Hocbman...
...Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN The War and the Average Soldier JACKSONVILLE, Florida.—For the last week I have been roaming about this sunny state, delivering lectures, trying to get rid of a lingering bronchitis, and getting close-up views of the soldiers and soldierettes who predominate in Miami...
...It seems somewhat improper to raise two unconnected points in a letter to the editor, but I am moved to express my regret that Captain Rickenbacker's heroic ordeal would seem so to have disturbed his sense of proportion as to destroy entirely his sense of humor...
...They are attempting to divide the country in the face of the enemy...
...And what help is given must come from camps which happen to lie near the points where labor is scarce...
...California, makes a great many of the airplanes it is in Florida that men learn how to use them...
...But I doubt if it is being carried in many soldiers' knapsacks...
...Air training centers seem to be about as numerous as orange groves in this state...
...And I suspect that if anyone should get up and begin to talk to a group of soldiers in hifaluting language about their crusio-ing mission he would soon see his audience melting away to the nearest beer or coca-cols emporium...
...Six of the eleven roots can be removed only by the managers of war industries...
...Italy, where an Allied landing is ¦»»' feared...
...And it is not beyond the scope of possibility that herq and there even a German magistrate or police -jjOfficer would have some salutary fear injected into his consciousness...
...The trade unions have done more than any other element in this country to give us continuous and all-out production...
...The time is here to broaden the scope and set up a Publicity Bureau to answer the smears on Labor and spotlight the misdeeds of its enemies...
...And what do-these anonymous persons say in the expensive space...
...If the government tried to dictate, as these Texans seem to want it to do, such flare-ups would become epidemic...
...Assignments, said to have been announced at a German military conference last week, are as follows: Field Marshal List, the Balkan zone...
...PROM these talks and contacts (and the soldier *^ on leave naturally lets down his hair a little more than the soldier on duty) I got the impression that the typical cross-section of young America that is in the armed forces carries into military life very much the same psychology, the same habits of thinking and acting that these same men would have displayed in the colleges, factories, farms and shops from which they have been recruited...
...But most soldiers are too busy learning how to kill to worry overmuch about the fine points of hating...
...and no year's income tax happens to be based on 1942 income...
...An immense amount of oratory and printers' ink have been expended to prove the proposition that this war is not as other wars, that somehow it must be endowed with the qualities of a crusading cleansing revolution...
...To have immediate effect, it must be solemnly proclaimed by a body which has authority to speak for the United Nations...
...The government of the United States is under obligation to prove to the British leaders that this is an international, affair A tragedy in India would involve us and ai: our Allies...
...Yet...
...The flower of that seed is the rash of | anti-labor bills that have been introduced into various state legislatures and the national Congress...
...But there is one thing which we can do right now...
...The time is more* than ripe for all Americans to take thought with regard to their responsibility in relation to these horrors...
...The implications of this question are nothing more than a filthy falsehood...
...And there will be talk about the prospects of movies and dances in the towns near the posts and about the best place to bead for In a period of leave...
...Out of eleven causes listed, not one had anything to do with trade unionism or the government...
...have S**" courtmartialled for "conduct unbecoming a h* and an officer...
...Some of these victims can be saved if we will act...
...In Daytona Beach, where old Jo** P Rockefeller formerly indulged in his treats*** for giving away shiny dimes to little boys, •»»' eight thousand WAACS h^ve practically WfP over the resort, and can be seen at aU hfljaaW the day drilling in the intervals of lcarnihgk' to do everything from keeping accounts to eaT"' trucks...
...jTheir treason is far more sinister than that of a simple fellow like Benedict Arnold...
...Everyone who knows anything about the business will recognize the dirty lie for what it is...
...Little, wildcat stoppages occur here or there and are ended as soon as the union leaders and government Officials can get around to them...
...The result is that labor is on the run...
...But any man who accepts either set of premises and follows through to a conclusion will feel unsatisfied with his position...
...But a lot of citizens don't know...
...In such a battle it is the wiser and stronger who gives way...
...The war on the bronchitis front was somewhat complicated because Florida shared in the national cold wave to the extent of a few sub-freezing temperatures—sort of thing that makes the realtor and the local patriot teal their hair and protest that such things were never known in Florida history...
...On Friday of this week, 50,000 members of the Workmen's Circle will gather in 100 meeting places to protest the massacre of European Jews...
...On the compromise plan supported in your editorial on Monday it is half the 1942 income and half the ~-1943 income which escapes being the base of any income tax...
...When the authors of this smear imply" that the Roosevelt administration and the unions are responsible for absenteeism, they are telling a plain, crude, unvarnished and vicious lie...
...NO FARM SOLUTION IT is very well for the Army to send soldiers * to save some bales of Arizona long-staple cotton from destruction...
...It must be made a part of our policy by a body solemnly established and in a position to carry through after the war is ended and the criminals are in our power...
...Occasionally an evangelical book about the war like Herbert Agar's A Time for Greatness retains a place in the best-seller lists...
...J. T. R. KEITEL UNES UP NAZI GENERALS FOR ALUED INVASION LONDON, Engl...
...Last week The New Leader printed the recruits of a survey by the Manpower Commission...
...About absenteeism we now have figures...
...It is not only men who are in uniform" " Florida...
...In short, the American soldier carries into the army pretty much the same spirit with which he would approach the problem of mastering some subject of study or of learning a new job...
...For it is a pretty jreneral American trait, with both its "good and bad sides, to be long on practical action and short on ideology...
...With full realization of all of the military interests involved and with a deep sympathy for the people of India, we demand that a humane and democratic solution of basic problems be found, i Tifef first move would necessarily be the liberation of the Indian Congress leaders...
...It is well to know that there is enough flexibility in our military system to make such action possible...
...There, cringing officials already see the handwriting on the wall and are rapidly losing faith in a Hitler victory...
...Louis Fischer tells one of the prize stWriss of this antediluvian military snobbishness...
...DaSini a period of service as a noncommissioned omeai rn the British Army in Palestine during the F)W World War Fischer presented two privates V> an officer with the remark: "These two gentlemen went to speak to you...
...Mohandas Gandhi and the Marquess of Linthligow are worlds apart in their approach to life's, problems...
...Both - are unyielding, rigid, fixed...
...My audiences will have to judge as 'to the success of the lectures...
...But the trip was very rewarding insofar as I was able to talk with soldiers on buses and in waiting-rooms (both trains and buses in the South don't keep very closely to scheduled times, so there is always opportunity for the traveller to wait) and to get some feeling of the spirit of our new Army...
...On-Tuesday, readers of the Washington Times-Herald were slapped in the face with a full-page spread entitled "Texas Speaks...
...So soldiers will drop their arms, break ranks and bend their backs over the lews...
...But one hears little dWn>-sion of what the shape of the world after the war will be like...
...Each one believes unconditionally in his way of life and the validity of his cause...
...Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Staff Chief of the German High Command, was reported by Reynolds News to 1iave outlined a near strategy dividing Occupied Europe into five zones, each under the command of one of Hitler's ace generals, in expectation of a mighty Allied invasion early this year...
...The Manpower Commission should long ago have adopted an adequate policy...
...And because there were private restrictive agreements between the railroads, trying to preserve their own positions, and the air lines, who had to be satisfied with a small share of the traffic...
...MOR is there any widespread sense of war as a 1 great international human tragedy or any general adhesion to any particular scheme for putting a stop to wars in the future...
...But they are alike in tho main points of their character...
...But unless it wants a nationwide revolt of farmers, it had better not count on making general use of the men in uniform...
...That is, there are no regular authorized strikes, no strikes called by unions and carried on by consent of the government...
...Wherever the blame belongs, the cotton was unpicked...
...It may be that the Department of Agriculture could have done more to save the day...
...So far, this determination has been expressed only informally and unofficially...
...Or can it be that while Captain Rickenbacker is sufficiently familiar with earners of high salaries to recognise that menetary incentives are necessary in addition to their patriotism he is sufficiently removed from wage workers to > suppose (with the more extreme equalitarian communists) that with the workers social spirit or patriotism is enough...
...But as a move toward the solution of the farm labor problem, this sending of soldiers into the cotton fields offers not the slightest hope...
...General McNamey made clear that it will be impossible to single out men who have had agricultural experience...
...but there were ten days in the old calendars which were not counted just as there is a year's income which woflM>mpt be made trie subject of income lax calculation...
...I must say that all this does not seem to have made any profound impression on the men who are being trained to fight the war...
...In their minds the Hitlerian poison will stick...
...A newly commissioned flying lieutenant, sitting in a trait-ingroom with some privates and corporals snc sergeants from the base to which he was going asked them about the superior officers and the U> out and the recreation facilities in much the same way that a new student in a college might ¦*•* information about the professors, the food asd the dormitories...
...We have every right to apeak...
...JUDGE THE NAZI CRIMINALS NOW TJITLER has announced that all the millions of European Jews are to be wiped out by April 1st...
...Logical arguments for either side in the struggle can easily be constructed...
...This move would be most effective in certain of the satellite countries of the Axis...
...The fact that a year's income escapes being the subject of an operation in arithmetic is confused with the idea of a taxpayer escaping the payment of a year's income tax, and this confusion seems, in some people's minds to be able to survive the recognition that nobody is really permitted to take a year's holiday from paying income' tax...
...Neither does one find the average soldier gritting his teeth, rolling his eyes or otherwise working himself up into the paroxysms of hatred without which (or so some civilian publicists assure us) our souls and the war will be lost...
...They are tied in with our war aims and our announced determination to see that the Nazi and Fascist criminals shall be tried nd punished...
...This sort of thrat is clearly on the way out when war is beooashw more and more a mechanical job, concerned wH* motors and internal combustion engines and olr*' dirty, greasy objects which had no place is the life of the full-dress uniform eighteenth <e*ofc»P general...
...The key sentence is this: "W-hy does the government still permit strikes, slowdowns and absentee periods in war industry...
...Large advertisements years ago warned that France "fell because of the 40-hour week...
...Then the campaign against "absenteeism...
...The British and the United Nations can attest their confidence in theii own cause and prove their moral right to world leadership by making the first move The British newspapers, including the Manchester Guardian, have already asked the British Raj to act...
...Then came cries against overtime...
...It was not, o?l?Rira)jf\ Texas that was speaking—not the...
...General Blaskowitz, Southern France...
Vol. 26 • February 1943 • No. 9
