‘Buzz’ Wagner given Purple Heart honor
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Arsenal fire injures 7
Radford, Va. –
Seven persons were burned, six critically, in a fire in a powder building of the Radford Arsenal yesterday. The fire was extinguished quickly and did little damage.
Dutch Indies already yield fuel for Japs
U.S. men think for has repaired damage to petroleum fields
By George Weller
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New treason trial denied
Detroit –
Federal Judge Arthur J. Tuttle today denied a new trial for Max Stephan, German-born restaurant owner convicted of treason for helping a German flier after his escape from a Canadian prison camp.
‘Lidice lives,’ Willkie says at ceremonies
Free peoples will sweep Nazis from existence, he declares
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Ruling awaited on ship firm’s airline plea
Outcome very important to aviation’s future
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Texas lynching party hangs accused attacker
Texarkana, Tex. (UP) –
Willie Vinson, 25, Negro, accused of attempted criminal assault, was hanged today by a group of men who abducted him from a basement ward in the Texarkana hospital.
Suffering critical wounds received when he was captured yesterday, Vinson was apparently dragged several bocks behind a speeding auto and was believed dead when he was hanged. He was accused of attempting to attack the wife of a war plant worker early Sunday.
Stabilization of pay bought by labor group
‘Dictatorial’ substitute for collective bargaining agreements seen
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Tokyo deceived own ambassador about Kurusu visit, American says
Special envoy was in Washington with ultimatum while Admiral Nomura was still interested in peace plan, counsellor to Japs reveals
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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Iron for civil uses may be requisitioned
Investigator charges ‘gigantic profits’ made by 4 in rubber collection
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All quiet in Australia
General MacArthur’s Headquarters, Australia –
Aerial activity by both the Allied and Japanese air forces was confined to reconnaissance yesterday, a United Nations communiqué said today.
Editorial: ‘Investigate’ Pegler?
Westbrook Pegler has stolen one of his critics’ more potent weapons in discussing freely and frankly the facts concerning himself which any “investigation” of Mr. Pegler might be expected to uncover. He has done them one better, in fact, in pointing out that in all likelihood he has already been thoroughly “investigated” by persons who, as he said, “would not have neglected… to get something on me if they could.”
Mr. Pegler, who has done a right smart bit of investigating on his own hook through the years, unquestionably would profit from a public inquiry into his life, his connections, his methods and his income. The simple act of the matter is that he has kept all his professional operations on a high plane, and to have the opportunity to demonstrate that fact before some authority, in public, would confound his detractors.
There is, after all, nothing mysterious about what makes Mr. Pegler tick. He has succeeded by applying the fundamentals of good reporting: Accuracy and honesty. He works hard and long to get the facts, and, once he has them, has no fear about using them. He’d have been out of business years ago if he had adopted any lesser standard.
The methods of many Pegler critics are in many cases an admission of the accuracy of his facts, since they do not undertake to deny or challenge them. Instead, they usually attack by generalities and name-calling. One reader wrote recently:
May I also point out that the right of people to unionize is as much a basic democratic right as the freedom of the press. To attack one leaves the privilege of the other pretty much at stake.
If Mr. Pegler ever attacked “the right of people to unionize,” it escaped us, and we read his column pretty faithfully. Mr. Pegler does not attack the right to unionize, but, instead, has attacked union membership by compulsion, extortion of unreasonable fees and dues, union immunity from financial responsibility and downright racketeering and other abuses on the part of certain union officials.
Mr. Pegler doesn’t need our defense. His record speaks for itself. We don’t always agree with him, he doesn’t always agree with us. But we do agree with his opinion that for his “own practical purposes,” an investigation such as his critics propose but don’t insist on, “wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”
Pearl Harbor hero given a commission
Fort Monmouth, New Jersey (UP) –
Staff Sgt. Joseph Lockard, whose warning the morning of Dec. 7 that strange planes were 135 miles off Pearl Harbor went unheeded, was commissioned second lieutenant yesterday.
Lockard, who was decorated after the sneak raid on Pearl Harbor, has spent three months studying at the Signal Corps officers’ training school.