Editorial: How big? How fast?
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The home front –
Marine Corps offers commissions to specially qualified men
Photography and journalism language, engineering fields are open
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Bryon: Send your serviceman’s present early!
And be sure you heed regulations for overseas shipments
By Betty Byron
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White House statement on Columbus Day
October 12, 1942
It is 450 years since Christopher Columbus first saw the new Western world off his bow. He and his followers found a great expanse where new beginnings could be made, where men could steer their courses free of the fetters of tyranny and the encompassment of outworn institutions. In the wake of his courageous and unprecedented voyage there came to the Americas the seeking people of many countries – people who sought liberty, democracy, religious tolerance, the fuller life.
This was the American experiment, a bold experiment and successful. Our immigrant ancestors, yours and mine, made it successful.
But now the free nations we created on two continents, the very liberties we made law, are endangered by destructive forces from without. We are in the midst of mankind’s greatest war, a war to determine whether the march of progress shall proceed or be halted by the totality of conquest.
Our cause is not only liberty for ourselves but liberation for others. An American victory will be a United Nations victory and a victory for oppressed and enslaved people everywhere. I like to remember on this significant anniversary the words of a contemporary poet:
Columbus found a world and had no chart, save one that faith deciphered in the skies.
We have faith; deeds will implement it.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 12, 1942)
Allied fliers strike hard in Middle East
Americans attack ships near Crete; Axis loses 18 planes
By Leon Kay, United Press staff writer
Cairo, Egypt –
American and British bombers and fighters, in one of their biggest days over the Mediterranean, blasted a convoy, damaged a schooner and shot down 18 Axis planes yesterday with only one Allied loss.
Heavy American bombers attacked an enemy convoy south of Crete and scored two direct hits on one of two large merchant vessels and shot down three Nazi planes, United States Army Headquarters announced.
The Royal Air Force announced that its fighters based on Malta repulsed five attacks by enemy air fleets. The Axis sent 69 bombers and more than 150 fighters against the tiny, frequently-bombed island. They lost 15 planes – seven bombers and eight fighters.
U.S. bomber damaged
RAF planes also left a two-masted schooner afire two miles northwest of Sidi Barrani and caused considerable damage to an eastbound motor convoy along the North African supply route.
In all these operations, the Americans and British lost only one plane. It was a Spitfire that fell in the defense of Malta, where, the RAF added, little damage was caused. One of the American Navy bombers in the convoy attacked was damaged but it reached its base.
The convoy compromised two large merchant vessels and three destroyers. Numerous near misses were observed around both of the merchant ships beside the two direct hits on one.
Blow up train and trucks
Reconnaissance planes early today reported that the bomb victim was still afloat but was ablaze and in a sinking condition.
One element of the bomber formation was attacked by three Messerschmitts. One of the enemy planes was shot down and another damaged. Several Messerschmitts also came in toward this formation but did not attack the sharpshooting Americans.
Another element of the bomber formation accounted for one Nazi bomber and one fighter destroyed out of a squadron of six that attacked it.
RAF Headquarters announced that Allied fighters and bombers had blown up a 500-ton enemy train and 20 trucks loaded with ammunition and guns en route to the El Alamein front in a successful raid Friday.
Jeffers defiantly tells Senators that he’s boss
Rubber chief says too many officials are afraid of Congressional committees and pressure groups
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Save old stockings
Washington –
Women today were urged to save their worn or discarded silk and nylon hosiery for use in the manufacture of gunpowder bags. The War Production Board said it would soon announce arrangements for collecting the stockings.
Final action on big tax bill believed near
Treasury prepares new revenue plans’ major problems remain
Washington (UP) –
The long-debated $8-billion bill was near enactment today, but Congressmen and tax experts agreed that the really tough tax problems had been left for the next tax bill which the Treasury is preparing.
House acceptance of the Senate’s 5% victory tax, levied on the earnings of all who make more than $12 a week, was forecast as Senate-House conferees prepared to adjust differences over the pending bill.
Chairman Walter F. George (D-GA) of the Senate Finance Committee said he hoped to start conferences with the House tomorrow and complete work this week on the history-making measure.
Victory tax debate due
Chairman Robert L. Doughton (D-NC) of the House Ways and Means Committee indicated that it was a question of accepting the Senate’s victory tax – designed to raise $3,650,000,000 annually – or finding the lost revenue elsewhere, with no apparent place to turn but a sales tax, which neither House has approved.
The Senate passed the bill Saturday, 77–0, but left several important questions for the next tax bill which Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. has announced will follow immediately.
Five problems remain
Those problems include:
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Compulsory savings. The pending bill creates a committee to study the problem and recommend legislation, which will have to be dovetailed with taxes.
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The Treasury’s “spendings” tax, involving the compulsory saving s principle, which the Treasury has indicated it would renew in the next bill.
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Social Security taxes. Although the Senate overrode President Roosevelt’s wishes by freezing the old age benefit tax at 1% on employer and 1% on employee for 1943, the President gave notice that he would ask for “substantial increases” after disposal of the pending bill.
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Sales tax. Advocates of this type of levy assert it is “absolutely inevitable” in any new revenue bill because all other sources have about reached the point of diminishing returns.
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Percentage depletion for oil and gas wells. Those oppressed to the $124-million “loophole” in the tax laws have promised to renew the fight at the first opportunity.
Aside from the victory tax, which is a super levy imposed on top of increased normal and surtax rates for individuals, there is no difference in the other individual rates between Senate and House. In individual exemptions, however, the Senate voted $300 for each dependent while the House voted $400.
The main difference in the corporation rates of the two bills is that the House provides a combined normal and surtax rate of 45% and the Senate 40%. The Senate provides a 10% post-war credit against excess profits taxes paid, which is lacking in the House bill.
VFW leader dies
Detroit, Michigan –
William J. Corbett, 71, leader in the Veterans of Foreign Wars, died yesterday after a heart attack. He once sold eight million copies of the book America, to raise funds for erection of the VFW national house at Evanston, Illinois.