THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW America THE EXPLOSIVE possibilities of the Far Eastern crisis and the increasing involvement of the United States in the European holocaust brought growing concern this week...
...Meanwhile, in nearby North Carolina, Lieut...
...1 to Oct...
...The generally cheerful Allied picture was colored somewhat by a British reversal in Libya after a series of initial successes...
...The ceiling on farm ^prices may not be set below the highest of three bases —110 per cent of parity, the general level of prices for Oct...
...Charles McNary, Oregon, Republican floorleader, denounced the House version as "a toothless measure which will not control inflation...
...Officials of the State Department were working in close collaboration with representatives of the British and Dutch Empires and China, all of whom have far greater interests in the Orient than does the United States...
...British headquarters in Cairo revealed at mid-week that the astute Nazi commander, Gen...
...This maneuver placed Axis forces in a position to break through the British encirclement and escape to the West...
...Paul von Kleist had retreated, they emphasized that Russian forces were greatly superior in number...
...In brief, the House-approved bill creates the position of price administrator and authorizes him to prescribe commodity price ceilings, using the Oct...
...The present limit for men is 19 to 41...
...To meet the problem he recommended lowering of the military conscription age limit to 18M> and raising it to 50...
...Optimistic British sources claimed that Gen...
...At Warm Springs, Ga., where he enjoyed a belated and abbreviated Thanksgiving holiday, President Roosevelt issued the ominous warning that the United States may be at war within a year...
...THE WEEK IN REVIEW America THE EXPLOSIVE possibilities of the Far Eastern crisis and the increasing involvement of the United States in the European holocaust brought growing concern this week that America may be involved in a two-front and- two-ocean war long before the Army and the Navy are prepared to wage such far-flung warfare...
...31, 1942...
...Erwin Rommel, had succeeded in joining his two panzer divisions in the desert battle by slashing through the British corridor to Tobruk...
...France moved toward "closer col-1 laboration" as Premier Henri Philippe Petain, accompanied by Vice-Premier Francois Darlan, conferred in occupied France with Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering...
...He warned that eventually men of 60 would be called to the colors...
...Rommel's lightning thrust was only a "local success" whose only effect would be to delay the British advance...
...Churchill announced this week that "a crisis of manpower and womanpower" will dominate the year 1942 for Great Britain...
...Cracking Down On Labor The War Department, which has never been regarded as especially chummy with organized labor, announced last week that the United States is now enjoying the most peaceful labor-management relations since launching of the rearmament program 18 months ago...
...William Green and Philip Murray, AFL and CIO presidents respectively, issued statements contending that labor has strongly supported the defense program and that compulsory prohibitions on strikes would harm rather than help that program...
...Both sides were reported to be reforming their lines and bringing up reserves in preparation for a new and perhaps decisive test in the desert war...
...The test came in an attempt by Independent Laborites to amend Common's traditional reply to the opening speech from the throne by inserting a note of regret that the speech contained no mention of a change in the economic system...
...15, 1941, period as a yardstick...
...The original proposal called for only temporary wage increases and provided that the wage structure should be re-examined after Dec...
...As the Congressional debate over anti-labor legislation neared a showdown, leaders of both the AFL and the CIO presented a solid front against any legislation for compulsory strike settlements...
...Berlin acknowledged the recapture of Rostov, but laconically announced that it had been evacuated to permit air and artillery bombardment of the city whose civilians, the Nazis claimed, had fired upon German soldiers in the city...
...Although German spokesmen refused to comment on how far the army under Col...
...In the capitals of the Allies there were ambitious hopes—with some evidence to support them—that the mighty battalions of Adolf Hitler might at long last have to demonstrate their metal in defensive fighting...
...They can only serve to arouse resentment and encourage industrial disputes...
...The regulations may be overruled by a five-man board of review...
...Rising to support the amendment, John McGovern, Independent Laborite, bitterly attacked the Atlantic Charter, flayed U. S. imperialist ambitions in Europe, and charged that Churchill has a state of mind more akin to the dictators than the anti-Fascists...
...Berlin claimed its forces to be within field-glass sight of the city...
...Speaking informally at the Warm Springs Foundation for the victims of infantile paralysis, he said: "In days like these our Thanksgiving next year may remind us of a peaceful past...
...Rail Strike Averted The threatened walkout of 1,250,000 railroad workers to enforce demands for wage increases to meet the rising cost of living was averted this week when rail management and representatives of the 19 Brotherhoods accepted a compromise proposal submitted by President Roosevelt's special fact-finding board...
...1, it was reported...
...Moscow reports at mid-week told of fierce Communist counter-attacks...
...Churchill Wins Commons' Vote Meanwhile on the British home front the Churchill government pushed steadily forward with the conduct of the war, newly fortified with a 326-2 vote of confidence from the House of Commons...
...Moscow reports acclaimed the drive as the biggest Nazi reversal since the beginning of the five months old Russian campaign and asserted that the Germans had retreated 40 to 60 miles from Rostov...
...Wage increases recommended by the board will be retroactive to Sept...
...It was announced that-this feature had been abandoned in the agreement accepted by both sides this week...
...The most frenzied anti-labor activity and the most repressive legislation came, as usual, from interventionist legislators who are so anxious to free European labor from the shackles of Hitlerism...
...Wages are specifically exempt...
...it is always possible that our boys in the Military and Naval Academies may be fighting for the defense of these American institutions of ours...
...Rommel Escapes Trap Last week's desperate Nazi lunge to complete the encirclement of Moscow—a drive that sent the Red defenders reeling back to their second lines of defense —this week seemed to have been checked again...
...The President's fact-finding board, whose original proposal was accepted with alacrity by the roads but rejected emphatically by the Brotherhoods, added $50,000,000 in wage increases to the first figure, bringing the total increase for all of the 1,200,000 workers to $325,000,000...
...Secretary Hull handed the Nipponese representatives a document setting forth the official American position on the situation in the Orient, but by mid-week the Japanese ambassadors had received no reply from their home government...
...Overseas OF THE MANY agonized weeks that have bled themselves out in Europe's crazy war, none has held more hope for forces fighting the Axis than the week now ending...
...Most encouraging aspect of the conversations in Washington was the obvious reluctance of Kichisaburo Nomura and Saburo Kurusu, regular and special envoys respectively, to break off negotiations despite the hostile tone of the Japanese press and politicians in Tokyo...
...Previously the Tory bloc in the House was handed a crushing setback when the House voted 218 to 63 against the so-called Gore substitute which would have frozen wages...
...The White House and the State Department feared the worst when Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo charged at an emergency session of his cabinet that Great Britain and the United States are trying to exploit East Asia and that "we must purge this practice with' vengeance...
...Senate Gets Price Control Issue The bitter controversy over price control as a brake on inflation shifted to the Senate this week following House passage, 224 to 161, of a bill which differed sharply from the legislation sought by the Administration...
...Murray declared that the proposed bills "endanger the national defense program...
...Pacific Tension Grows Tension between the United States and Japan heightened daily, almost hourly during the past week as Japanese envoys conferred repeatedly with Secretary of State Cordell Hull and occasionally with President Roosevelt...
...The Rules Committee, dominated by hard-boiled foes of labor who are also flaming interventionists, had provided that the House could consider freezing wages but could not act on a provision which would have limited profits of defense contractors to eight per cent...
...j Goering Confers With Petain Speaking for the government Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden voiced a belief that Germany, seeking a respite from the Russian campaign, would launch a new peace offensive...
...They had, said Berlin, "a long conversation about questions of interest to France and Germany...
...Green called on President Roosevelt to announce officially the AFL's "resolute and uncompromising opposition" to any anti-strike legislation...
...7, and strike instructions had been printed and sent to all locals of the rail unions...
...McNair said, "but it is to be added with emphasis that the losses would be unduly heavy and the results of action against an adversary such as the Germans might not be all that could be desired...
...Although the compromise wage plan falls far short of the demands made by the railroad workers, the latter agreed to accept the terms in the interest of national defense...
...The nation-wide strike had been scheduled to start Sunday, Dec...
...There were grim warnings everywhere that negotiations had thus far settled little if anything and that peace in the Pacific hung on a slender thread indeed...
...He served new notice that it would be flatly rejected...
...Although his Republican colleagues in the House played a leading role in rejecting the more drastic provisions urged by the Administration, Sen...
...Nevertheless, the bitter drive against organized labor, engineered by labor-hating Congressmen and the labor-baiting press, continued unabated as the legislative mill hammered out a variety of handcuffs for the nation's workers...
...There were only 11 minor strikes in progress in the whole nation and they involved but 2,600 workers...
...Special Envoy Kurusu, however, insisted that the American press has "badly misquoted" Tojo...
...Although it was expected that Petain would see Hitler, Berlin reports spoke only of Goering's presence at the conference...
...Strongest indication of such a turn in the war was the Russian report that the Red army's fierce counter blast at the invading Nazis in the Donets Basin had not only retaken Rostov-on-Don, vital anchor in the defense of the Caucasus, but had followed its advantage and was in hot pursuit of westward fleeing Germans...
...The House showed its resentment by walloping the Gore substitute by a vote that was almost four to one...
...Lesley McNair, general headquarters director of the large-scale Carolina maneuvers just completed, indicated that the United States is unprepared to face a foe like Germany now...
...The Army could fight today if given complete equipment," Gen...
...1, 1941, and the general level of prices from 1919 to 1929, The Administration suffered its greatest reversal when the House rejected the provision which would have permitted the government to license business as a means of forcing compliance with price orders...
Vol. 5 • December 1941 • No. 49
