Cash in hands of public hits all-time high
Money in circulation crosses $20-billion mark
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Völkischer Beobachter (December 11, 1943)
Auf Befehl des Kremlgewaltigen –
USA müssen Moskaus serbische Banden bezahlen
Pacht- und Leihhilfe im Dienste der Bolschewisierung Europas
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Warum das ‚Vierertreffen‘ nicht zustandekam –
Tschiangkaischek mied Begegnung mit Stalin
Eigener Bericht des „Völkischen Beobachters“
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U.S. Navy Department (December 11, 1943)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 191
For Immediate Release
December 11, 1943
Liberator bombers of the Army 7th Air Force which dropped more than 15 tons of bombs on Mille on December 9 (West Longitude Date) were attacked by approximately 20 Zeros. Four Zeros were shot down, three were probably shot down, and one was damaged. We suffered only slight material damage with a few men wounded. Two Zeros dropped six aerial bombs at our planes without results.
The Pittsburgh Press (December 11, 1943)
YANK PLANES BATTER BULGARIAN CAPITAL
Sofia attack spurs nation to quit Axis
Resignations of premier, aides reported as crisis mounts
By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer
London, England –
U.S. heavy bombers blasted Sofia yesterday, an Algiers communiqué announced today, as the Bulgarian crisis mounted with the reported resignations of Premier Dobri Bozhilov and two other Bulgarian Cabinet ministers.
In an apparent attempt to hasten Bulgaria’s abandonment of the Axis, a strong force of four-engined Liberators with an escort of Lightings subjected Sofia’s railway yards to an “accurate and effective bombardment,” Allied headquarters in Algiers announced.
Starts before noon
A Budapest dispatch printed in Sweden said the raid, beginning shortly before noon, lasted nearly two hours and caused heavy damage in the vicinity of the central railway station and military barracks. The bombers attacked in several waves and a few persons were killed, the German radio said.
Forty enemy fighters attacked the Liberators over Bulgaria, an Algiers dispatch said, but 11 were shot down. The number of bombers lost on the Sofia raid was not specified, but only two aircraft were lost in all operations of the Northwest African Air Forces yesterday.
Third raid on city
It was the third raid by the Northwest African Air Forces on Sofia and a Budapest broadcast said the city was shaken by three tremendous explosions only 24 hours before the attack when time bombs dropped during the Nov. 24 raid exploded.
The resumption of the air assault on Sofia presumably strengthened the hand of anti-German elements in the capital who were exerting extreme pressure in an attempt to extricate Bulgaria from the Axis orbit.
European reports said tension in the city was already high as a result of the reported closing of the Turkish-Bulgarian border, the Anglo-American-Turkish conference in Cairo and signs that the Allies were planning a Balkan invasion.
Resignation reported
An Istanbul dispatch to the United Press said unconfirmed reports had reached Turkey that Premier Bozhilov, Foreign Minister Shishmanov and Interior Minister Mihailov had resigned as leftist groups gained strength.
Shishmanov’s resignation had previously been reported from Stockholm.
Radio Vichy said the Bulgarian Parliament had been suspended for one week.
Bulgaria, though at war with Britain and the United States, has strong Slavic ties with Russia and still maintains relations with her despite the presence of sizable German forces on her soil.
Drop pamphlets
Yesterday’s raid on Sofia followed the dropping of pamphlets on the city warning that air assaults would be resumed because of the country’s cooperation with Germany and calling upon Bulgarian soldiers to withdraw from occupied Macedonia, the Greek territory given to Bulgaria after the Nazi occupation of Greece, Swedish press dispatches reported.
Bulgarian soldiers were also said to have been warned not to participate in punitive expeditions against the Serbs and Greeks.
Though reports persisted that both German and Turkish reinforcements were drawn up at the Turkish-Bulgarian border, an Ankara dispatch said Allied circles there contended the rumors, at least concerning German troops, were without foundation.
FATHERS 18-22 TO BE CALLED FIRST
Gen. Hershey to sift 4-Fs for more men
Elimination of group occupational deferments also planned
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Yank planes rip Germany
Fortresses and Liberators cut through vicious Nazi fighter attacks
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer
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Allies tighten net on Rabaul
New airfield put in use on Bougainville
By Brydon C. Taves, United Press staff writer
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8th Army spans river on Adriatic
British soldiers capture San Leonardo; Yanks repel attacks
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
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Gen. Arnold: All of Axis Europe faces air assault
U.S. super-bombers to team with Red and British planes, commander of Yank forces declares
By James E. Roper, United Press staff writer
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Latest Allied war plans outlined to Eisenhower
Roosevelt talks with Mediterranean commander at Carthage after Cairo Conferences
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer
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National policy jolted by Senate rapping of Vinson
Overwhelming 74–4 vote lashes Stabilization Director for disapproving railway lay increases
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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In Washington –
Christmas gift of discharge pay hits House snag
Committee leader finds complications, won’t ‘go crazy like Senate’ on bill to provide soldier $200-$500
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Edson: 1918 experience shows need for post-war plans
By Peter Edson
Washington –
The recent flurry of peace rumors, even though entirely unfounded, emphasizes the need for speed in the formulation of definite governmental plans for the demobilization of war industries and post-war planning. The parallel for that is from the last war, when the 1918 Armistice, coming months before it was expected, caught the President, the Congress and all the war agencies entirely unprepared to deal with the situation.
Contemporary accounts of the confusion in Washington after the 1918 Armistice are highly amusing, though terribly scandalous. One observer had it that of the 231 dollar-a-year men then in Washington, 230 wanted to go home at the earliest possible minute. Some of them apparently did, leaving on their desks unsigned letters. The catchphrase of the day was that:
The night of Nov. 11, the War Industries Board caught the midnight train home.
The War Industries Board itself, which under the chairmanship of Bernard M. Baruch was the War Production Board of its day, really faded from the picture in three weeks. While it had ample powers for wartime, it lacked authority for post-war operations. Belated proposals to give the Board this post-armistice authority met with no support whatsoever from Congress. The new Congress elected in the November 1918 election was Republican and the lame-duck Congress remaining in office would have no part of any proposal that came from the Wilson administration. A day after the Armistice, Congress has before it proposals to cut back all expenditures.
Such was the psychology of the times for the immediate return to normalcy.
Trend of the times
Today, all this reads like handwriting on the wall. The same forces that shaped the course of events in 1918 are shaping up now. If there is any moral in this potential repetition of history, it should be found in the record of what happened after the 1918 Armistice – months of uncertainty in readjustment shifting gradually into a year of inflation and then the costly deflation of the early 1920s.
Fortunately, something does seem to have been learned from this sad experience. Whereas, in September and October of 1918, President Wilson was counseling against any too definite post-war planning and Mr. Baruch himself was too busy running the war production effort to give them to post-war planning, today the President and Congress and the war agencies have all made a start towards post-war planning.
And Mr. Baruch, as head of a new unit in the Office of War Mobilization under James F. Byrnes, is in this war concentrating all his attention on these readjustment problems he did not have time for in the last war, tackling them one at a time in the order of their importance, beginning with termination of contracts, then the disposal of inventories of surplus materials, disposal of government-owned war plants and machinery, and so on right down the line.
Private industry itself is more alert to the requirements of post-war planning and the need for orderly demobilization than it was in 1918. That is perhaps the most encouraging aspect of all.
Inflation dangers
The dangers of post-war inflation are perhaps greater than the dangers of wartime inflation, release of wartime savings in a national spending spree could easily result in great price rises. Rationing of production might be necessary to avoid running up prices.
Seemingly minor problems like these serve to emphasize that post-war readjustment will be one of the most difficult periods the United States has ever gone through.
The idea that no one should waste time now planning for the future, is thus a fallacy.
Background of news –
Serious rift in Democratic ranks
By Bertram Benedict, editorial research reports
Senator Joseph F. Guffey (D-PA) is likely to be replaced next week as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The Senator was excoriated in the Senate last Tuesday by Senator Harry F. Byrd (D-VA) and Josiah W. Bailey (D-NC) for having declared that Southern Democrats had formed an “unholy alliance” with Northern Republicans to defeat a plan for assuring servicemen of an opportunity to vote in the 1944 presidential election.
Senator Bailey exclaimed bitterly in the Senate on Tuesday that:
Southern Democrats maintained the Democratic Party and kept it alive in all the long years of its exile.
It certainly is true that when the Democratic Party is out of power, the bulk of its strength nationally comes from the South. In 1929, after the Republican landslide of the year before, 24 of the 37 Democrats in the Senate came from the South, and 105 of the 165 in the House.
Even when the Democrats are in power, the South may provide the majority of Democrats in Congress. Today, there are a dozen more Democratic representatives from the South than from other parts of the country. In the Senate, there are 25 Southern and 32 non-Southern Democrats but, with only one-third of the Senate elected every two years, the anti-Democratic trend manifested in the 1942 elections could not make itself fully left in the Senate membership.
Definition of ‘South’ disputed
Sometimes the South is considered as 10 states – Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas – frequently called the “Solid South.” In this case, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Oklahoma are termed “border” states, along with Maryland, Missouri, and sometimes Delaware and West Virginia.
The Census Bureau puts Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia with five Southern states on the Atlantic Seaboard to form a “South Atlantic” category.
In this presentation, the South is considered, perhaps arbitrarily, as comprising 13 states – the “Solid South,” Kentucky, Tennessee and Oklahoma.
The other great source of Democratic strength is the large cities of the East, Midwest and West. Of the 104 non-Southern Democrats now in the House of Representatives, 50 came from cities of over 500,000 population – including 19 from New York and seven from Chicago.
Unlike the Southern members of Congress, who can count on reelection even in a Republican landslide year, most non-Southern Democrats are in danger when the Republicans sweep the country.
Two factions in conflict
The economic interests of the Southern and the urban non-Southern Democrats often conflict. That was well shown in the vote, last June 25, overriding the veto of the Connally-Smith anti-strike bill. In the Senate, the Southern Democrats voted 22–0 to override, the non-Southern Democrats 20–10 to sustain the veto. In the House, the Southern Democrats voted 105–8 to override; the non-Southern, 63–15 to sustain.
In the 1924 Democratic National Convention, a motion was made to condemn in the platform the Ku Klux Klan – anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-alien. The motion was lost by only five votes. The Southern delegates voted 252–54 against it, delegates from the nine New England and Mid-Atlantic states voted 245–36 for it, with others about evenly divided.
Until 1936, the two-thirds rule gave the Southern Democrats a virtual veto power over the presidential and vice-presidential nominations of the party, but in that year, majority rule was substituted.