Ferguson: Ten Commandments
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
…
Background of news –
Willkie and the primaries
By Jay G. Hayden, North American Newspaper Alliance
Washington –
By withdrawing his name from the California presidential primary, Wendell L. Willkie has just about ended any chance he might have had to demonstrate popular strength sufficient to induce the Republican National Convention to nominate him.
California was important for many reasons. With 50 delegates, it is exceeded in voting power by only four states – New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio. It is the ne primary state where the full block of delegates goes with the preference vote and the commitment to stand by the popular choice to the last ditch is irrevocable.
California is one of very few states where Mr. Willkie has run ahead in the straw votes. And most important of all, in California he was offered a straight-out contest against the combination that has set out to beat him by creating an uninstructed convention.
Governor Earl Warren, while declaring himself not a candidate, consented to become a figurehead for the purpose of keeping the delegation free from commitment. Supporters of all the other leading candidates – Dewey, Bricker, Stassen and MacArthur – had agreed to this plan.
Clear-cut test avoided
Thus Mr. Willkie was presented with the opportunity to strike squarely at the “smoke-filled room” conception, and to get a clean-cut decision on it from the voters of a major state.
After much cogitation Mr. Willkie refused this test. The point, as most political observers see it, is that Mr. Willkie cannot hope to win by any such timid method. He hasn’t a chance if the party leaders have their way, and the only means by which he can upset them is to prove that he is the popular choice.
Mr. Willkie has previously indicated that he would not enter the primaries in three other of the five biggest states – New York, Illinois and Ohio. Of the remaining nine states that have some sort of popular participation in selection or instruction of presidential delegates, Mr. Willkie so far has definitely entered in only one – Wisconsin.
In New Hampshire, the Willkie managers are still backing and filling. early last fall Mr. Willkie definitely threatened that unless New Hampshire leaders agreed to a delegate slate favorable to him he would make a fight.
This led to a convergence of elements in favor of an uninstructed delegation, which as finally entered includes George H. Moses and Huntley Spaulding, former Senator and Governor, respectively, definitely anti-Willkie, and Robert Burroughs, present national committeeman, who is pro-Willkie. Others in this slate are non-committal, but most of them are suspected of being anti-Willkie.
First showdown in Wisconsin
Four pro-Willkie candidates meanwhile have filed in an apparent attempt to force the hand of the “uninstructed” group. Mr. Burroughs has made a proposition that if the while delegation will agree to vote for Mr. Willkie through two ballots, all opposition to it will be withdrawn.
The first big primary showdown will come in Wisconsin where delegate lists pledged to four candidates – Willkie, Dewey, MacArthur and Stassen – seem sure to be entered.
In this contest Mr. Willkie will be running against three shadows, in that not one of his opponents is in the open. Gen. MacArthur and Lt. Cdr. Harold E. Stassen are barred from active campaigning by their service connections and Mr. Dewey continues to insist he is not a candidate.
And in spite of the fact that the Willkie campaign in Wisconsin has been going forward for some time, with strong newspaper support, a Gallup Poll Wednesday showed Mr. Dewey with 40% of the state’s Republican vote, as against 20% for Mr. Willkie, 15% for Gen. MacArthur and 11% for Mr. Stassen.
Poll: WAVE uniform picked as tops by U.S. public
Survey shows WACs near least popular military dress
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
…
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
The several Air Force units I’ve been with lately are lousy with Hoosiers. I thought I’d take down their names and put them in the column, but the list got so long I realized it would sound like discrimination and the 47 other states might get mad at me.
So I decided to compromise and name only one. He is Lt. James F. Short of Clinton, Indiana. He has been in the Army four years, and was a sergeant up until he got his commission a year ago. He calls himself “one of the 90-day wonders.” He’s only 22, and he is the assistant operations officer of his squadron.
The reason I picked Lt. Short out of all the Hoosiers is that he was born and raised five miles from that proud metropolis from which I sprang – Dana, Indiana.
Compass is enlarged
One afternoon on our field we had an exciting half hour. We had two full groups of dive bombers on the field plus a menagerie of night fighters, day fighters, photo planes, light bombers and cargo ships. We were all standing out waiting for our squadron to come back from a mission, when lo and behold the entire caboodle came back at once. It was the damndest melee in the sky you ever saw. It was as though somebody had broken open a hornet’s nest.
One group of dive bombers approached the field from one direction, and the other from the opposite, at exactly the same time. They both came over the field at about 400 feet, and when they met at mid-runway, they all chandelled off in a thousand directions.
Before that I had thought there were only 360 points on the compass, but now we all know better. Planes were going in at least three times that many directions.
And three to come
Of course, everybody knew what he was doing and it was actually well regulated, but it looked like a madhouse even to other pilots on the ground. Our squadron leader stood there putting on an act of alternately tearing his hair and hiding his face.
In the midst of all this confusion, a Flying Fortress flew over the field and we saw white parachutes begin to spring out behind it. At first, we thought they must be having a practice jump, but you don’t make practice jumps over a frontline. The plane was in trouble.
One by one these scores of dive bombers got themselves successfully landed, and in the meantime seven parachutes had come out of the Fortress. That meant three still inside, and she was still flying.
Finally, the air was clear and the Fortress approached for a landing. The entire complement of the field, several thousand men were standing on top of anything they could find to see the excitement, and the ambulance and firetrucks were all ready. As the Fort approached the field, we could see that the bomb-bay doors were still open.
A bomber is bombed
The big plane touched the runway as softly as down, rolled straight in and through and gradually came to a stop, and we all heaved sighs of relief. The fliers on the ground began acting comically exaggerated scenes of how the ambulance drivers’ faces would fall as they’d reach over in disgust and turn off their switches.
A little later we went around and got the story on the Fortress. One of those unbelievable things had happened that sometimes occur in the best regulated wars. A fellow Flying Fortress had dropped its bombs on this one in midair.
Fortunately, they were only carrying 25-pound fragmentation bombs that day instead of large ones. A couple of these bombs had blown the left wing full of great jagged holes, had knocked out one engine and the radio, and jammed the bomb-bay doors.
One bomb stays alive
But that’s the mildest part of the story. The payoff was that one bomb hadn’t gone off and was still lodged inside the Fortress’ wing, liable to explode at any moment and blow the wing clear off.
When we finally left the plane was roped off, the field engineering officer had got a tall stepladder, had climbed up to the wing, and had been standing there on the stepladder for an hour looking down at the bomb and wondering why he ever chose to be an engineer anyway.
Later that evening some of our pilots and I went to a neighboring field to see some friends. They were complaining about the traffic on their field and said they believed they’d bring their 50 planes over to our field. At which we all howled and said:
Sure, come on over. In the confusion over there you wouldn’t even be noticed.
Pegler: Fourth term
By Westbrook Pegler
New York –
A fourth term for President Roosevelt would just about finish off the form of government under which we lived when he took office in 1933, but even though the men and women in the services undoubtedly would give him a big bulge over Tom Dewey in the autumn election, I say Congress had better find some way to let them have their say.
In thus nominating Governor Dewey, I am anticipating the Republican Convention, but I suppose nobody is going to dispute me.
Congress had better find a way to let these people vote because they would be awful sore at Congress if not, and in the event that Dewey were elected by a strict home-guard vote, he would take office under a handicap of resentment and suspicion in the fighting forces and his authority and prestige as Commander-in-Chief would be badly impaired.
There is some dissatisfaction with the conduct of the home-guard already, mostly because of the strikes.
This annoyance should be directed against Mr. Roosevelt himself, because he is ultimately responsible and the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Merchantmen, WACs and WAVES undoubtedly know it in a subconscious way.
Lewis also blamed
However, in their immediate view, John L. Lewis was the devil in the coal strike and old Green and Murray and the racketeering Fays and de Lorenzos are responsible for the five thousand and odd walkouts since Pearl Harbor.
Most of these people grew up under President Roosevelt. A fellow of say 25 years fighting in Italy or the South Pacific was only a leggedy, bucktoothed kid when Mr. Big walked in and had no mature appreciation of the nature of the American system.
He has no perspective on the changes toward fascism wrought in those 12 years and he is going to feel that he has been gypped of a very important and precious right if he doesn’t get a chance to vote.
Moreover, in addition to the other advantages which Mr. Roosevelt enjoys with this great block of voters, he now appears before them as their champion against a lot of no-good Republicans whose very sincere and valid arguments on the question of states’ rights will seem mean and tricky and inspired by no other consideration than low politics.
A handicap for Dewey
And just as Hitler and Mussolini raised a generation in their own beliefs, the younger Americans whose whole conscious or intelligent life has been spent under the influence of the New Deal were taught not to be fastidious about strict observance of the Constitution and the laws of their own country, the less so when strict observance would subject them to a plain injustice and leave the election of the next President to civilians who have made little or no sacrifice and felt no physical pain.
This will be an awful handicap to Dewey even if he should hop up in Albany this very day with a loud declaration in favor of letting the fighters vote the federal ballot at least.
They all know Mr. Roosevelt.
He has shaped their lives to a great extent, he is their C-in-C and a gaudy showman and they will be more afraid of a change of command in a war which, in the military way and in the matter of production at home, has been going amazingly well, than of changes in their form of government and the status of the civilian under government at home.
They don’t know Dewey, they won’t be able to read his campaign speeches and he won’t be able to get around among them to stand inspection, so the choice in their minds is bound to be one between Mr. Big and Mr. Who.
Like the Democratic National Committee, I am anticipating the Democratic Convention in nominating Mr. Roosevelt for a fourth term and assuming he will run, and for like reasons.
If Mr. Roosevelt doesn’t accept the nomination, he will defeat his own party because there just isn’t any other Democrat who could like Dewey.
And if Dewey, the best vote-getter the Republicans have, should refuse to run, he would be throwing down his party and millions of people who really believe in him and regard him as the only hope of saving what is left of constitutional government under law and restoring some of that which was done away with in the adolescent days of the generation which is now fighting the war.
Clapper: Sailors talk
By Raymond Clapper
Aboard an LST – (by wireless)
We came aboard this LST from a small naval craft which brought us out to a rendezvous at sea.
The captain of the small craft was Ens. David Chase of West Haven, Connecticut. He used to be a high school teacher and he has been in the Navy only 15 months. He has a most interesting crew.
A few minutes after we were underway, they began to gather around to talk, as happens everywhere when a stranger from home appears.
We talked of strikes and presidential politics, the only two public-affairs subjects that get into conversations out here, where everyone is absorbed in his duties and at other times is reading or wondering when he’ll get home.
These men, as most others out here, favor Roosevelt, but not in any blind or slavish fashion. Aubrey Gibson of Waco, Texas, said that if Roosevelt would do more about strikes and inflation, he would get more votes. He said a majority of the crew of this craft were for Roosevelt, with Willkie and Dewey the first and second Republican choices.
Men concerned about strikes
But the men are more concerned about strikes than politics.
That is where they always begin to show heat whereas the presidential campaign seems remote to them.
John L. Lewis has become a symbol for bitterness among servicemen here, the same as I found him to be in Africa and England last summer. His name is used as a symbol for all the union leaders who put strikes above war production.
Remember, these were not normally anti-labor men I was talking with, but the run of the crew – farm boys and workmen, some of them union members.
There were three union men in the group I chatted with while going out to board this LST. Robert Loma of Lorain, Ohio, was a CIO welder at the American Bridge Company plant in Lorain. He said:
I think what John Lewis is doing is close to treason. I don’t see how he gets away with it.
Pro-Roosevelt and anti-strike
Another was a member of the Typographical Union but did not wish to be identified, as he worked in a non-union shop. He said he would like to see the government take over the railroads in order to end strike threats.
He said:
We have to have unions. We can’t let the big corporations run things. But I’m against strikes.
There was more about John Lewis from James C. Jones of Houston, Texas, of the AFL Iron Workers in the shipyards. He said he was sure Roosevelt was the man for the place – speaking of the 1944 campaign. I asked him why the men felt that way. He said it was because Roosevelt was for the working man.
I don’t know how it would add up if I could take a complete canvass, but everything I have found thus far is pro-Roosevelt and anti-strike.
One of the crew, named Gibson, was in the Navy before the war, and when his enlistment ran out in 1940, he took a job in an aircraft factory on the West Coast. In a short time, a strike was pulled.
Gibson said:
I was disgusted, and I reenlisted in the Navy.
Maj. de Seversky: Air invention and engineering burst restraints of military conservatism
By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky
…
Jap guards put Filipino’s head on top of pole
Further horrors in prison camp told by U.S. Army captain
Los Angeles, California (UP) –
Capt. Samuel R. Grashio of Spokane, Washington, today added to the story of American soldiers who stumbled across Bataan under the lash of their Jap captors, then died of starvation and infection in a prison camp around which gleeful guards paraded with the head of a Filipino on the end of a pole.
Covered with lice and open sores, in agony from hunger and dysentery, the captured Americans watched their well-fed guards smoke American cigarettes from a “new-type package,” presumably sent by the Red Cross for the prisoners.
He told of the pluck of a 19-year-old member of the Air Force who died from the barbarism of his Jap captors.
Skeleton in skin
Capt. Grashio said:
He was a skeleton in skin lying by a garbage pit. Blowflies swarmed over countless sores on his body. They were eating him alive. I asked him if I could do anything for him.
He asked me to take him away somewhere so the other boys wouldn’t see him dying there like a rat.
The hero of Capot. Grashio’s story was Lt. Col. William Edwin Dyess of Albany, Texas, with whom he surrendered to the overwhelming Jap horde, and with whom he escaped. Col. Dyess was killed in the crash of a P-38 at Burbank, California, on Dec. 22.
Prodded, beaten
On April 9, 1942, Capt. Grashio said, he and Col. Dyess were captured by a tank-led Jap spearhead while trying to help enlisted men in their unit prepare a couple of boats to flee Bataan.
Dyess and I were ordered out of a car we had gotten into and herded over by the tanks.
They took all our personal things like rings and watches.
Jap enlisted men had a field day. They were under ordered not to treat officers as officers. We were prodded and beaten with gun butts and taunted. About three or four thousand of us were grouped together.
Describes death march
After we surrendered, the Japs grouped some of us around artillery objectives being shelled from Corregidor so that some of our men were killed by our own artillery.
The “death march” toward a prison camp started about 10:30 a.m. PHT, Capt. Grashio said.
He said:
We all prayed for death and cursed the day we surrendered. I am here today because I followed Dyess out. He is the greatest man of the war to me.
The Japs prodded us in relays so they wouldn’t get tired themselves. We got a little water out of a caribou wallow, but had no food.
Legless boy crawls
A Filipino boy with both legs off crawled along on his stomach and was finally abandoned. Many were on crutches.
We vomited as we walked along, always with the Japs shoving and beating us. We couldn’t stop to take care of ourselves, and we had to do that, too, as we walked and stumbled.
Once, Capt. Grashio said, a Jap soldier clubbed Col. Dyess into a ditch for no purpose at all, and he was forced to march on and leave him.
Hit in face
Capt. Grashio said:
At Hermosa a Jap hit me in the face for nothing and knocked my teeth out with a bamboo cane the size of a two-by-hour. In seven days, we got to San Fernando, but we still had no food. Pretty soon they gave us a little rice.
Occasionally American soldiers would go out of their mind and rush for a well. They were beaten back by clubs and guns.
Once a light Jap tank met us head-on. The driver purposely swerved the machine and ran over a soldier, crushing him into the road.
Stand for hours
At San Fernando, the Americans were forced to stand for hours in the hot rays of the sun. Then they were crowded into small freight cars and five hours later were pushed out at the village of Capris.
They marched the remaining nine miles to Camp O’Donnell.
He said:
We again got a few handfuls of rice. We couldn’t wash. I figured there were four or five thousand U.S. troops and seven or eight thousand Filipino soldiers there. I estimated that I saw 1,100 American and 14,000 Filipino soldiers buried.
Two Filipinos help Yanks to escape
Miami, Florida (UP) –
Two Filipino prisoners at the Davao Penal Colony assisted in the escape of three American officers on whose sworn statements the Army-Navy account of Jap prison camp atrocities was based, according to Philippine President Manuel Quezon.
Mr. Quezon said last night that when he heard what the two Filipinos had done, he granted them “absolute pardon” for the pre-war offenses which had occasioned their commitment to the Penal Colony by the Philippine government.
The American officers were the late Lt. Col. William E. Dyess, Cdr. Melvin H. McCoy, and Lt. Cdr. S. M. Mellnik. Whether the aides escaped, too, Quezon did not say. Nor did he disclose their names.
Allied HQ, New Guinea (UP) –
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commenting on revelations of Jap atrocities against Allied war prisoners, said today “the stories speak for themselves.”
Minneapolis, Minnesota (UP) –
Marine Maj. Michael Dobervich, 28, of Ironton, Minnesota, said today that he had received a vicious blow with a rifle butt when he was a Jap prisoner and that he knows “those atrocity stories are no baloney.” He is another of the few fighting men who escaped after being captured at Bataan with Lt. Col. W. E. Dyess.
Davis explains delay in story
Says U.S. feared news would hit exchanges
Washington (UP) –
Director Elmer Davis of the Office of War Information disclosed today that the OWI wanted to “break” the Jap prison camp atrocity report long before the Army and Navy made it public.
But the report was held up, he added, for fear that its release would jeopardize further exchange of civilian internees between the United States and Japan. Efforts to arrange a third exchange apparently have broken down.
Got news in November
Mr. Davis said the OWI learned last November of the existence of an atrocity report made by the late Lt. Col. William E. Dyess, Cdr. Melvyn H. McCoy and Lt. Col. S. M. Mellnik after they escaped from a prison camp in the Philippines.
He said:
The OWI was hoping for a change in policy quite a while back. If the decision had rested with us, the story would have been out long before this.
Part withheld
It was learned from other sources that, for security reasons, a considerable portion of the accounts given by the three officers was withheld from the public. The withheld parts, it was said, dealt chiefly with their methods of escape.
It was also learned that the atrocity account might have been kept secret even longer had not the British decided to publish a comparable report yesterday.
Mr. Davis scoffed at any suggestion that the report’s release was timed to coincide with the Fourth War Loan Drive.
Americans in dark on fate of kin
Washington (UP) –
American kin of men who were taken prisoner by the Japs on Bataan and Corregidor are at the mercy of the enemy on the score of learning whether their captured relatives are still alive or have died in captivity.
The Army-Navy revelation of Jap atrocities said at least 5,200 Americans had died in two prison camps in the Philippines by October 1942, with another 2,500 in such condition that doctors were convinced they could not live long. But Japan has reported the names of only 1,555 Americans as having died in prison camps.
The American Red Cross expects a surge of anguished inquiries as a result of the Army-Navy revelation of torture, starvation and murder of American soldiers but, it said today, it has no means of obtaining the answers.
Albuquerque, New Mexico (UP) –
Dr. V. H. Spensley, president of the Bataan Relief Organization and father of a soldier who died in a Jap prison camp, said today he doubted the “entire truth” of stories of enemy atrocities in the Philippines and asked if such “propaganda” is required to “sell war bonds.”
In Washington –
Tax conferees agree to hold security levy
War contract adjustment to be debated today; yield increased
…
GOP asks votes for all
Washington (UP) –
Senate Republicans were reported today to be studying the possibility of joining amendments proposed by two of their members as an alternative to the administration-supported “federal ballot” soldier-voting legislation.
The Iowa Legislature passed enabling legislation to permit servicemen and women to vote by absentee ballot in this year’s primary and general elections last night. Governor Burke B. Hickenlooper signed the measure a few minutes later.
The plan, as tentatively put forth, would combine the proposals introduced by Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH) and Senator Joseph H. Ball (R-MN) during the past week of debate.
The Taft proposal, offered as a substitute for the entire Lucas-Green “federal-ballot” bill, provides for absentee voting by state ballot and recommends that the various states amend their election laws so that all their soldiers and sailors would have a chance to vote by that method.
The Ball proposal would permit a federal ballot for residents of those states which failed to amend their election laws in such a method as to facilitate soldier voting.
Radio Appeal by President Roosevelt for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis
January 29, 1944
Broadcast audio:
Ladies and gentlemen:
Tonight, on behalf of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, I wish to express heartfelt thanks to all of you who have contributed your dimes and your dollars to further the fight against a cruel disease – a disease which strikes primarily against little children.
The generous participation of the American people in this fight is a sign of the healthy condition of our nation. It is democracy in action. The unity of our people in helping those who are disabled, in protecting the welfare of our young, in preserving the eternal principle of kindliness – all of this is evidence of our fundamental strength – the strength with which we are meeting our enemies throughout the world.
Early in our history, we realized that the basic wealth of our land is in its healthy, enlightened children, trained to assume the responsibilities and enjoy the privileges of a democracy. The wellbeing of our youth is indeed our foremost concern – their health and happiness our enduring responsibility. If any become handicapped from any cause, we are determined that they shall be properly cared for and guided to full and useful lives.
How different it is in the lands of our enemies! In Germany and Japan, those who are handicapped in body or mind are regarded as unnecessary burdens to the state. There, an individual’s usefulness is measured solely by the direct contribution that he can make to the war machine – not by his service to a society at peace.
The dread disease that we battle at home, like the enemy we oppose abroad, shows no concern, no pity for the young. It strikes – with its most frequent and devastating force – against children. And that is why much of the future strength of America depends upon the success that we achieve in combatting this disease.
The dollars and dimes you contribute are the victory bonds that buy the ammunition for this fight against disease – just as the war bonds you purchase help to finance the fight against tyranny.
Tonight, I am happy to receive the report that your generous aid has made possible another year of progress against this dread malady. We are prepared to fight it with the planned strategy of a military campaign – not only because the enemy is a merciless and insidious one, but because the danger of epidemic in wartime makes this fight an actual military necessity.
The tireless men and women working night and day over test tubes and microscopes – searching for drugs and serums, for methods that will prevent and cure – these are the workers on the production line in this war against disease. The gallant chapter workers, the doctors and nurses in our hospitals, the public health officials, the volunteers who go into epidemic areas to help the physician – these are the frontline fighters.
And just as in war – there is that subtle weapon that, more than anything else, spells victory or defeat. That weapon is morale – the morale of a people who know that they are fighting “the good fight” – that they are keeping the faith – the only faith through which civilization can survive – the faith that man must live to help and not to destroy his fellowmen.
We are engaged now in the Fourth War Bond campaign. The outpouring of American dollars in this campaign will assure that superiority of fighting equipment with which we shall blast our way to Berlin and Tokyo. It will also serve notice that we Americans are irrevocably united in determination to end this war as quickly as possible in the unconditional surrender of our enemies. Every one of us has a chance too to participate in victory by buying war bonds.
Tonight, in the midst of a terrible war against tyranny and savagery, it is not easy for us to celebrate. There cannot be much happiness in our hearts as we contemplate the kind of enemies we face and the very grimness of the task that lies before us.
But we may thank God that here in our country we are keeping alive the spirit of good will toward one another – that spirit which is the very essence of the cause for which we fight. God speed the spirit of good will.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 9418
Authorizing the War Food Administration to Place Orders With Other Agencies for Materials or Services to Be Obtained by Contract or Otherwise
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 29, 1944
By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the Statutes of the United States, particularly by Title I of the First War Powers Act, 1941, as President of the United States and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, it is hereby ordered as follows:
The functions, powers, and duties, with respect to placing orders for materials, supplies, equipment, work, or services, of any kind that any requisitioned Federal agency may be in a position to supply, or to render or to obtain by contract, which are vested in the War Department, Navy Department, Treasury Department, Civil Aeronautics Administration, and the Maritime Commission under Section 7 (a) of the Act of May 21, 1920 (41 Stat. 613), as amended by Section 601 of the Act of June 30, 1932 (47 Stat. 417), and the Act of July 20, 1942 (56 Stat. 661, 31 U.S.C., 686) may be exercised also by the War Food Administration, and by any constituent agency or corporation thereof designated by the War Food Administrator. Any provision of any executive order or proclamation conflicting with this order is superseded to the extent of such conflict.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 29, 1944
Mit dem Zusammenbruch auf den Philippinen fing es an –
Milliardenrausch der Versicherer in USA
Von unserer Stockholmer Schriftleitung
vb. Stockholm, 29. Jänner –
Nicht nur die amerikanische Schwer- und Rüstungsindustrie scheffelt in Roosevelts Krieg die Dollar milliardenweise, auch das Versicherungskapital wirft Zinsen ab wie noch nie. Das ist die Schlußfolgerung des Jahresberichtes der amerikanischen Versicherungsgesellschaften, der jetzt veröffentlicht worden ist.
Die schwedische Zeitung Stockholms Tidningen gibt in einem Bericht aus Neuyork ein ungefähres Bild von dem Rausch, der zurzeit durch die Büros der großen amerikanischen Versicherungshäuser geht. Auf über rund 10 Milliarden Dollar belaufen sich die Beträge, über die allein von Angehörigen der amerikanischen Wehrmacht Versicherungen abgeschlossen wurden, ganz abgesehen von den vielartigen Versicherungsgeschäften auch auf zivilen Gebieten. 90 Prozent der Mannschaften und 98 Prozent der Offiziere hätten sich versichern lassen, dabei seien Abschlüsse über 100.000 Dollar durchaus nichts Ungewöhnliches.
Echt amerikanisch wirkt vor allem eine Schilderung über die geschäftlichen Begleitumstände des Zusammenbruches der Yankees auf den Philippinen. Bisher hat Roosevelt zwar energisch bestreiten lassen, daß bei der Kapitulation der von MacArthur schmählich im Stich gelassenen US-Armee auf den Inseln 30.000 Mann in japanische Gefangenschaft gerieten. Durch die Versicherungsgesellschaften erfährt jetzt das amerikanische Volk die Wahrheit dieser Tatsache. So heißt es in dem schwedischen Blatt wörtlich:
Erst jetzt wird zugegeben daß die Funkverbindung von den Philippinen in den letzten historischen Tagen von Bataan so gut wie ausschließlich für die Vermittlung von Lebensversicherungsgesuchen für die auf der Halbinsel eingeschlossenen Truppen reserviert war. Rund 30.000 Versicherungen dieser Art wurden in Washington gebucht.
Selbstverständlich wurde dieses Geschäft für die Versicherungsgesellschaften zu einem ungemein ergiebigen Fischzug. Es liegt auf der Hand, daß in diesem Falle ungewöhnlich hohe Risikoprämien gezahlt werden mußten, da die Lebensgefahr der Versicherungsnehmer als sehr hoch eingeschätzt werden konnte. Aber die Versicherungsjuden hatten die richtigen Riecher. Sie sahen voraus, daß der von ihren Rassengenossen in den Zeitungen besungene „heroische Widerstand“ nicht bis zum Letzten getrieben wurde, sondern daß, da nichts mehr zu retten war, die Yankees die Kapitulation als Ausweg aus ihrer hoffnungslosen Lage wählen würden. Und sie behielten recht. Auf diese Weise wurden die 30.000 Versicherungen, die zum großen feil en bloc abgeschlossen wurden, nicht fällig und die Versicherungsgesellschaften heimsten ihre Wucherpreise ein.
Diese Enthüllungen zeigen den von Roosevelt entfesselten Krieg in einem neuen Licht, das auch die viel erörterte Frage der zweiten Front berührt. Die Rüstungsindustrie und die von ihr bezahlten Blätter verlangen dieses Unternehmen ja schon seit langem, denn erhöhter Materialverschleiß garantiert ihnen erhöhten Gewinn. Das Versicherungskapital seinerseits ist daran interessiert, daß sich die blutigen Verluste der Yankees in Grenzen halten. Das Leben des einzelnen amerikanischen Soldaten als solches spielt für sie dabei natürlich keine Rolle, ist vielmehr für die Rüstungs- wie für die Versicherungshyänen lediglich von Geschäftsinteresse. Die einzige Frage ist, ob sich die Yankees lebend oder tot besser für die Geschäftsmänner des Krieges verzinsen.
Ein neuer Plan der Plutokraten –
Deutschland ohne Handelsflotte
tc. Lissabon, 29. Jänner –
Außer der Luftfahrt müsse der Achse nach dem Krieg auch jede überseeschifffahrt untersagt werden, forderte der Leiter der US-Schiffahrtskommission, Admiral Land, in einem Bericht an den Kongreß.
Ein Teil der nach dem Krieg überschüssigen Tonnage soll für den Außenhandel Deutschlands und Japans eingesetzt werden. Damit soll gleichzeitig verhindert werden, daß diese Länder sich in absehbarer Zeit wieder eine eigene Handelsflotte zulegen. Man müsse der Achse die Daumenschrauben anlegen und sie auf Jahre hinaus in diesen Fesseln halten.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 30, 1944)
1,500 U.S. planes blast Frankfurt, drop 1,800 tons, down 102 Nazis
44 U.S. aircraft lost; RAF renews fires in devastated Berlin
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer
…
Birthday appeal –
Roosevelt asks bonds to blast Berlin, Tokyo
President deplores Axis attitude on handicapped
…
Paving the way –
Pre-invasion attacks begun
Parachutes drop picked men in Hitler’s fortress
By John R. Parris, United Press staff writer
…