U.S. LIFTS BAN ON SLICED BREAD
Housewives given break by decision
Improved wax paper supply makes action possible; warning issued
…
U.S. LIFTS BAN ON SLICED BREAD
House group labor probe may head off mine strike
Congressmen propose inquiry to develop facts on labor relations throughout country
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent
…
Allied armies beat schedule in North Africa
Early successes caused expectation of quick final victory
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
…
PT boats vs. battleship – and tiny warcraft wins
By William Tyree, United Press staff writer
…
Yanks blast 3 ships in Burma
U.S. bombers also attack Jap airfield
…
No way that is true.
1 Like
‘Public fury at bureaucracy’ mounts, Mrs. Luce warns
Congress delegated to express anger, Roosevelt told
…
Background of news –
Chinese immigration
By editorial research reports
With certain spokesmen for China demanding a greater proportion of Lend-Lease supplies and complaining of too little hostile effort against Japan as compared with Germany, a Chinese newspaper has suggested, courteously, that the time has now come to reconsider the immigration policy of the United States excluding Orientals.
In recent years, China has refrained from following the example of Japan in protesting against flat exclusion of Oriental immigration. That was because China was too weak as a nation to protest with force. What Japan objected to, and China may now object to, is not so much restriction in numbers of immigrants as restriction based on racial discrimination.
The 1924 Immigration Act of the United States bases immigration, except for Orientals and for non-quota countries in the Western Hemisphere, on the proportion of those from each country resident in the United States in 1920. The total number admissible in any one year is 153,774, of which 150,501 are Europeans. The Japanese contention was that if their yardstick were applied to Japan, less than 1,000 Japanese would be allowed to enter annually. If this yardstick were now to be applied to China, it would allow the immigration of about 475 Chinese annually.
Control over immigration is purely a domestic prerogative, so long as the same basis of control is applied to all nations. If there is to be discrimination, however, the problem is held to require diplomatic negotiation.
Between 1850 and 1860, almost 50,000 Chinese emigrated to the Pacific Coast, after the discovery of gold. In the next decade, some 65,000 more entered, most of them for construction work on the transcontinental railroads. The state and cities of California tried to stem Chinese immigration by various restrictive measures. These were held unconstitutional, inasmuch as control over immigration is the province of the federal government.
In 1868, the Burlingame Treaty was signed with China. It barred entrance to Chinese laborers under contract or compulsion, but otherwise committed the United States to a policy of free immigration. In 1870, Chinese were brought into Massachusetts to break a strike, and both major political parties adopted platform declarations for restricting Chinese immigration.
The panic of 1873 and the ensuing depression caused widespread unemployment, and in 1879, Congress passed an act practically closing the gates to Asiatics. It met with a veto from President Hayes, as violating treaty obligations. In 1880, when about 16,000 Chinese were coming into the United States annually, China consented to a revision of the 1868 treaty. Thereby the immigration of Chinese laborers might be controlled if the welfare of the United States demanded.
In accord with the 1880 treaty, Congress passed, in 1882, an act prohibiting immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The act also withheld citizenship from the China-born, thus strengthening the earlier naturalization laws, which has restricted naturalization to “free white persons.”
In 1888, another treaty was concluded with China, but changes made by the Senate impelled the Chinese government not to ratify. A treaty ratified in 1894 gave the United States still further restrictive powers. The Exclusion Act of 1882 was regularly renewed, until Congress, by the Immigration Act of 1924, forbade the immigration of all ineligible to naturalization. This hit the Japanese, the immigration of whom had been limited since 1907 by the “gentlemen’s agreement” of that year.
1 Like
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
The Tunisian front – (March 7, by wireless)
Little cameos of war:
Most of the preliminary battles between Axis and American troops in Tunisia during the past two months have been for possession of mountain passes leading to eastern Tunisia. In one of these battles, our men had worked their way up to the mouth of a pass on one side and the Italians had done the same on the other side. There they lay, well dug in, not more than 200 yards apart. They were separated by previously laid minefields over which neither dared to pass. So, they just stayed there, each side waiting for the other to act.
The Italians began sending over notes to the Americans. I’ve heard many stories of such happenings in the last war, but it is rare in this one. The Italians would send over a note telling the Americans they were badly outnumbered and didn’t have a chance and had better surrender right now. The Americans sent back a note saying:
Go to hell, you lousy spaghetti eaters. We’ll tear your ears off before this is over.
The reason I’m telling this story is that these notes, with perfect incongruousness, were carried back and forth through the mine fields by a small Arab boy who happened to wander past and took on the job for a few francs!
The other day we drove past a big bivouac of supply trucks on the desert a few minutes after some German planes had dive-bombed and strafed them. The soldiers all took to foxholes and nobody was hurt, but three trucks were set afire. The soldiers got two fires out immediately, but the third was hopeless, for it was a big truck loaded with scores of five-gallon tins of gasoline. These would explode and scatter flaming debris.
Tin can’s war journey
Then, suddenly, there was a bigger explosion and one lone gasoline tin went shooting straight up into the air. That can rose majestically to a height of about four hundred feet, gradually slowed down until it seemed to pause motionless for a moment in the sky, then came plunging straight down. Its explosive flight had been so straight up and down that when it fell it grazed the side of the truck not five feet from where it had started.
Some little thing like that – the uncanny straightness of a tin can’s war journey – often stays in your mind for ages after the memory of horror or bravery has dimmed and passed.
Another time, Don Coe of the United Press and I stayed all night at a forward command post a few miles back from a pass where fighting was going on.
We were in a big farmyard. Trucks and jeeps were parked around the edge of the lot under trees. We picked out a vacant spot and threw our bedrolls on the ground. We rolled our jeep in front of us to keep trucks from running over us in the blackout while we slept.
There is something good about sleeping outdoors. For a long time, we lay back, rolled tight in our blankets, looking straight up into the sky. There were millions of stars, and every few seconds one of them would fall. A couple of times stars went shooting horizontally across the heavens. The sky at night is a majestic and inspiring thing, yet we had to come to far-off Africa and sleep on the ground in order to see and feel it.
The general calls early
After a while, we went to sleep. The next thing I knew a gruff voice was saying:
What the hell is this jeep doing out here in the open like this?
I peeked one eye out and saw that it was just daylight, and the voice was no less than that of the general, out on an early-morning inspection prowl. Whereupon I shut my eye and let Don handle the situation.
The general made a few more choice remarks before Don got his sleepy head out of the blankets. Then, all of a sudden, the general said:
Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was you. Forget it. Everything’s all right.
I lay very still, pretending to be asleep, and chuckling to myself. Later in the day, the general apologized to me too, but I was sorry he did and told him so, for we had done something very thoughtless which endangered other people as well as ourselves. And the fact that we were correspondents instead of soldiers didn’t excuse us.
But at least we learned our lesson. We won’t leave jeeps showing after daylight again.