Drive on pressure groups seen in Roosevelt speech
Organizations opposing anti-inflation plans ‘singled out,’ Illinois Congressman says; talk falls short, some think; others call it magnificent
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Ceilings must be posted on 170 chief commodities
Highest prices charged in each store in March constitute maximum for that establishment
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Parents hear Roosevelt’s tribute to bomber pilot
Pleased Texas rancher wants flier son to ‘keep on giving it to the Japanese’
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Los Angeles has alert
Los Angeles, California –
Radio stations were silenced for 33 minutes early today while a preliminary alert was in force in Los Angeles and an area of 50-mile radius. The Fourth Army Headquarters in San Francisco said the alert was called because of the presence of “an unidentified object off the coast.”
Ferguson: Work – but where?
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
This challenging moment must be met intelligently. The preservation of democracy depends upon the choices we make today. Therefore, women should not permit the pressure of events to swerve them from their fundamental task – the care of homes and children.
Work is plenty outside and wages are excellent. With several members holding jobs, the family pay envelope is delightfully fat. There is money to tempt them. The patriotic motive must also be considered. Women, as well as men, are eager to help win the war.
American’s 30 million housewives must be regarded as the reservoir from which can be drawn millions of new workers who are needed for the war effort. We know that hundreds of thousands will be forced to take jobs outside their homes.
But great care must be exercised so that among these numbers there shall not be chosen any person who is more needed at home by her own children than she can ever be needed in factory or in volunteer service.
Countless poor and middle-class housewives, women who want and may need extra money desperately, now face the temptation to drop domestic duty and engage in some new kind of work.
The choice is a grave one for them, and very, very grave for the nation. It involves something more profound than any peacetime phase of the old working-wife question. For that question is no longer paramount. We MUST work now. But where? Where can the mother most effectively serve democracy?
Not for a moment would I hesitate in my answer. Somehow, even in the midst of a war, the children of the United States must be cared for. And the best people for that job are their own mothers. The American home is the heart of our democratic system. If it is destroyed and the usual moral disintegration follows, what shall we win with our armaments?
Background of news –
Shoreline blackout
By Editorial Research Reports
Designation of 16 Atlantic Seaboard states and the District of Columbia as a military area similar to that established along the Pacific Coast underlines the necessity of keeping all of America’s coastline darkened to protect men and cargoes at sea. Although this new military zone has not yet been officially proclaimed, it is expected that Lt. Gen. Hugh A. Drum, commander of the First Army and the Eastern Defense Command, will issue formal orders within two weeks. One of the immediate purposes of establishing the Atlantic Military Zone will be to give the Army complete control over lighting in crucial areas.
Shoreline dim-outs actually have been in effect along thousands of miles of the nation’s seacoast since shortly after the country entered the war: but in the East these precautions have been in the hands of loral civilian defense groups and have not always been effective.
A request directed to all cities in coastal areas, urging that defense councils be ready for instant blackouts, was issued on February 27 by Director James M. Landis of the Office of Civilian Defense. This request did not suggest nightly dim-outs for the protection of ships at sea, but was aimed principally at keeping the “target areas” in constant readiness for enemy aerial attack.
Many seaside resort areas already have taken elaborate precautions against showing lights that can be seen from offshore. Lights along boardwalks and on streets that follow the beaches have been blacked out on the side that faces the sea. The Atlantic City, N.J., Boardwalk is dimly illuminated with the light that is allowed to escape from a small triangle on the shore side of the lights. In Ocean City boardwalk lights have been masked similarly on the ocean side, and three small slits provide light shoreward. Boardwalk lights have been extinguished altogether at many of the smaller resorts.
The cumulative effect of many bright lights that create a halo over a city may be even more dangerous to shipping than lights that can be seen directly from the sea. When this condition exists, ships plying the coast stand out as sharp black shadows against the glow and their courses can be followed easily when they are in position between an enemy submarine and the shore. All neon signs and other bright lighting have therefore been eliminated in coastal cities.
More difficult to control are the lights that stream from the windows of private homes and seaside hotels. Residents with windows facing the ocean have been repeatedly instructed to blackout such windows every night from sunset to sunrise. Hotel proprietors are doing their best to impress on guests occupying rooms with an ocean view the importance of keeping their window curtains down during the hours of darkness.
A surprise blackout went into effect all along the Connecticut coast a few hours after Gen. Drum’s announcement on April 26 concerning the establishment of the Eastern Military Area. The order, issued by the First Corps Area, with headquarters at Boston, affected all lighting, including the headlights of moving vehicles. Window shades in trains were pulled down and motorists were compelled to drive on their dimmest lights at speeds not exceeding 20 miles an hour.