America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

1413

Only infirm have heat, Japanese radio admits

The Tokyo radio, in a review of the changes that 1943 brought to Japan, said yesterday they included “the figure of the young girls of Japan who are now garbed in mompei [a kind of slack suit or overall] instead of the traditional kimonos.”

The broadcast to Japanese areas also said that now “only the old and weak receive fuel for heating purposes” and that hardly any government buildings in Tokyo had heating facilities in operation.

The broadcast was recorded by the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service.

1414

U.S. fliers blast Japanese in China

Hit communications from Burma to central China

…

Japanese stiffen Marshall defense

U.S. loses three Liberators in recent air attacks

…

1415

americavotes1944

President stays indoors

Head cold continues, but he gets some paperwork done

Washington – (Dec. 30)
President Roosevelt remained in his quarters for a second day today, suffering from a head cold. His condition was reported as virtually unchanged, and he still had no fever.

The President felt well enough to do “a good bit” of paperwork, but had no callers, his aides reported, he will not hold his regular Friday press conference tomorrow morning.

1416

Devers: Nazis face defeat in 1944

American chief in ETO tells young British officers Allies will free Europe

…

1417

Nazis mass planes for defense in south

Allies split foe’s air strength – Po Valley reinforced

…

Priest risks his life to bury 57 soldiers in ‘no-man’s land’ beyond U.S. lines in Italy

…

1418

‘Dangerous year’ seen by Goebbels

But the Nazi Propaganda Minister says Germans are still ‘sure of victory’

Dr. Joseph Goebbels, German Propaganda Minister, writing in the latest issue of The Reich, declared that 1944 would be a “dangerous year” containing “riddles upon riddles,” and then urged the German people to have “faith,” the German Transocean News Agency said in a wireless dispatch to the United States yesterday.

Dr. Goebbels’ article, as transmitted for American consumption, attempted to minimize Allied gains during 1943 and repeated the stock phrase that German home-front morale was still strong, but failed to make any personal predictions of victory, either in 1944 or later.

The Propaganda Minister, who has previously used such phrases as “unshakable certainty” to describe his belief in an Axis triumph, said in his latest article merely that the German people were still “sure of victory.”

The article, according to the dispatch recorded by the Federal Communications Commission, concluded:

The year 1944 contains riddles upon riddles, but we know that we can and must solve them all. It will be a dangerous year in which the fate of civilized mankind is once more at stake. But just as it has been so frequently in crises of former centuries, a great salvation is at hand when man believes it to be the most distant.

We must have full faith in it and fight for it. Our salvation is in loyalty to ourselves and to the tasks set for us.

Sees Germans out to win

London, England (Reuters) – (Dec. 30)
Dr. Joseph Goebbels, in his article in this week’s The Reich, quoted by Transocean News Agency, said the German people had never before been so determined to fight and win.

The British and Americans, by cunning and arrogant bluff and propaganda, succeeded in creating the impression in certain parts of the world that their victory was an absolute certainty. In reality, they are still outside the unassailable walls of our continent.

If they could, London and Washington would head over all the German leaders to hangmen, but they have not got the power to do it and they never will have.

After likening Germany’s role to that of a police force dealing with “a mob of gangsters,” Dr. Goebbels added:

There is no crime against humanity, culture or civilization that has not been committed by the enemy in this war.

He then said:

When, after all this, has the right to take of war crimes and to demand judgment before history? Is it the enemy or we?

1419

Eisenhower pays visit to de Gaulle

Military talk believed opening of new era in U.S. dealing with French leader
By Harold Callender

…

1420

Neglect charged in coast war area

House group urges corrective federal action in congested Los Angeles sector
By C. P. Trussell

…

1421

3 RAIL UNIONS HIT ADMINISTRATION
Chiefs of operating groups who held out charge their case was mishandled

Disclaim role in seizure; there was no need to change the rules in middle of game, statement contends

…

Davis explains steel reversal

Chairman insists WLB will not act while stoppages are in progress

…

1422

22 peace blunders are laid to Wilson

Bailey, historian of Stanford, lists them as danger signs to avoid in pact making

…

1423

americavotes1944

Lewis’ paper hits Roosevelt slogan

Calls ‘Win the War’ cloak of politics – sees New Deal dead 6 years ago

Washington – (Dec. 30)
On the heels of President Roosevelt’s adoption of the slogan “Win the War” in place of “New Deal,” the United Mine Workers Journal, the official organ for John L. Lewis’ miners union, says that the New Deal died more than six years ago.

In a leading editorial, the Journal contended in its issue to be distributed tomorrow that the “Win the War” slogan “has a greedy ring, like trying to rob the people of their birthright, of appropriating the people’s wartime prayers and their every desire, to cloak a political party.”

Criticism of the administration from this source was not unexpected, in view of the rift that developed after the mine union chief actively supported Mr. Roosevelt in two campaigns for the presidency.

The editorial said:

President Roosevelt’s belated acknowledgement that the “New Deal” is dead as such could have been well made, and honestly so, in mid-1937 – six-and-a-half years ago – for it was during the Little Steel strikes of that year when intelligent labor leaders first learned of the President’s feat that the rapid organization of the rank and file of American workers into unions might reach such huge totals as to give to the American workingman that degree of economic and political power which banking, business and industry, as well as those of the upper social caste, coupon clippers and the self-anointed ruling-class boys, deemed unwise for the workers to possess in these United States.

All of the social and control legislation which was enacted during the first years of the “New Deal” would have resulted in time, out of necessity, for the very sound reason that it represented needed reform long overdue.

The period of the Little Steel strikes, the editorial continued, made it “a matter of common gossip in big business circles that the ‘New Deal,’ as such, was dead.”

For that reason, and since the President’s second term still had some time to run, the Journal said, Mr. Lewis felt it was prudent for “labor to pay its hand out and get along the best it could for the remainder of the second term.”

It went on:

To us it seems incredible that, in shifting from the “New Deal” emblem, the domestic situation being what it is, the utter confusion which prevails as regards mustering out our fighting men and the complete lack of plans for the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy, the erstwhile “New Dealers” would have the audacity to adopt as a new political slogan the one thing which all Americans are agreed upon – “Win the War.”

It has a greedy ring like trying to rob the people of their birthright – of appropriating the people’s wartime prayers and their every desire – to cloak a political party. In a democracy, when patriotism is involved against a common foe, the President of the United States, or a political party, has no more right to patriotic claims than the humblest citizen.

1424

auldlangsyne

1425

Hull hails Burke, resigning as aide

Chief of world communications resigns to enter business – in department 5 years

…

1426

FIGHT TO BE WAGED ON ANTISEMITISM
Protestant, Catholic, Jewish leaders to meet next week to plan a campaign

More incidents reported; Mayor La Guardia says program ‘has had special police attention for some time’

…

1427

1943 spending tops U.S. 150-year total

Up to 1926, federal costs were $87.3 million – for this year $88 million spent

…

1428

Defers limiting newspaper radio

FCC, facing Craven’s dissent, puts off ruling until Fly consults Roosevelt

…

1429

MOST FROZEN FOOD IS MADE POINT-FREE
Canned beans also get zero value Sunday as OPA acts to free space to store pork

Tomatoes, peas reduced; buying of these fell 10% in autumn – jams are raised 2 points to 8 a pound

…

1430

Englishwoman finds we influence Arabs

American education gives rise to a middle class, she says

…

1431

Exiled scholars aid Library of Congress

Answer questions from war agencies and others

…

1432

Editorial: Anglo-American team

…