The Pittsburgh Press (July 13, 1941)
Tells America to stay out of war that is not her ‘business’
Editor, The Pittsburgh Press:
On June 30, Colonel Knox, Secretary of the Navy, said now is the time to get into the war. On July 1, President Roosevelt said he hopes America can keep out of the war. On July 8, the Navy occupied Iceland, a foreign island 700 miles northwest of England.
Just how would Mr. Roosevelt go about the process of keeping out of Europe’s war? Would he do it by continued insults to any foreign power he did not like or daily acts of a revengeful hate that seem to seep out of his every utterance and act? He doesn’t want to keep out of Churchill’s war. His every act and speech is more warlike. His promise to the American voters last fall is just something to pass off as campaign oratory. He has apparently now broken his promise to the American mothers, fathers and their sons who are to fight his war, that he would not send American boys to fight in foreign wars.
Those American boys in Iceland are on foreign soil and they are there to fight. If you don’t believe this, just let a German set foot in Ireland. From the time Roosevelt was inaugurated, he has been baiting the German people. Read William E. Dodds’ diary. His hatred of Germany has already cost billions of dollars and he is just getting started. Did Roosevelt promise King George help if England declared war on Germany? It has always been my belief that he did. Any foreign entanglements were denied in the campaign last fall. Who can believe any statement made by those that do not regard their sacred promises as anything more than vote-getters?
It looks as though the war party now in power is owned heart and soul by England. On July 5, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden said we are all-out to beat Hitler. In 1936, Churchill said Germany is getting too strong and we will have to crush her. Everyone has read or heard what Roosevelt has said.
We have heard much about Hitler’s scraps of paper, his broken promises, his broken agreements, etc. Did anyone ever hear of England’s broken promises and unpaid war debts? How about those promises by Roosevelt?
I say again and again, no American boys will be sent to fight in foreign wars.
If England wants to crush Germany, let her go to it. If those intellectuals in Europe want wars intermittently, let them have that too. But I do not think they should start wars, then send up a wail that it is “your war” and holler for America to join the pack and also pay the check.
Did England ask for all the aid being given or was it passed on gratuitously by the spenders? Let America stay out of Europe’s periodical wars. It is right to arm to the teeth. We have no other course after our intellectuals in Washington have brought the hate of the world down on our heads. Three thousand miles of water would keep Hitler away, no matter how mad our politicians would make him, but we have to go over there and nose in.
I am for America all out and am asking our elected and appointed servants to mind the business they are paid to do. It is disgusting indeed to watch old men itching for a fight, knowing at the same time they will not be called on to fight after they start it.
E. RODEBAUGH
Meadville, PA
Sees Russia’s stiff opposition as proving costly to Germany
Editor, The Pittsburgh Press:
Russia, to the surprise of some, is holding Germany to a maximum degree of aggressiveness compared to the Germans’ overwhelming victories in the countries preceding the Russian invasion. Germany so far has not captured anything of particular importance in Russia, penetrating not farther than a hundred miles at their greatest point of the invasion, that in central Russia, where the panzer units are numerous.
The Russian claims of German losses are at least 1,000 tanks destroyed, and nearly 700,000 dead, wounded or captured, and numerous airplanes shot down, an average of 30 to 40 a day. But German quarters deny these claims and set the Russian figures far above the losses of their own men and equipment. Leningrad and Moscow still are standing firm, the former having suffered occasional bombing, and the latter very little.
Germany has lost many panzer divisions and airplanes, mostly in the central combat zone. Russia, at the beginning of the German invasion, had 11,000,000 troops compared with Germany’s 6,000,000, but it was understood in most quarters that some of the Russian troops had very little seasoning.
The Russian air force numbered approximately 12,000 while the German air force numbered from 25,000 to 30,000 fighting planes. The navy proposition was about equal, both weak in sea power, with Germany having the edge because of her submarine forces. These numbers have doubtless been reduced since the invasion of Germany into Russia, and although new troops are being seasoned and airplanes are coming off the assembly lines in these two particular countries, the losses are far greater.
The invasion of Russia is from three different sources instead of the usual pincer method used in the French and Greek campaigns. One movement was started at the Lithuanian border, and going from the Minsk sector toward Leningrad. The central and southern combat zone was probably mapped out to be a pincer movement toward Moscow, the central line of which was presumably to go through Russia, taking the cities of Minsk and Smolensk before the Moscow entrance.
The southern campaign was to take the Ukrainian territory, Kiev, the third most important city of Russia, and the cities of Bryansk and Kaluga, before the pincer movement met at Moscow where the main battle was to take place. The plan seemed good enough at the time, but Germany is meeting with admittedly stiff opposition, losing many men and panzer units, and progress is slow and costly to the German forces. More power to the USSR.
JAMES W. PORTER
119 Brady Ave.
Washington, PA
Editor’s note:
Readers should bear in mind that news of the German-Russian war is heavily censored and difficult to obtain.Trained American correspondents have long been barred from most of the territory where the war is being fought. Correspondents located in Berlin and Moscow are dependent upon information given out by the governments or passed by the censorships of those two capitals – the world’s greatest centers of falsehood.
Some important news may come from outside capitals – such as Ankara and Lisbon. American reporters and press associations are working against terrific odds to give accurate news about this momentous struggle. But readers should consider the source of the various dispatches and make allowances for possible propaganda or unsupported rumors and reports.
Cites moral issues in European fight
Editor, The Pittsburgh Press:
It has been said that Russia’s military alliance with England has clouded the moral issues of the war; that it is not the good against the evil, as some people have been led to believe.
As long as humans fight among themselves, there will be faults on both sides, and as long as one nation attempts to rule the world, it will have to be forcefully resisted. Although Russia is an anti-religious nation, her cause is just in that she is defending her soil from an invader.
England is defending her right to exist as a free Christian nation. She fought for the extension of the British Empire in the past. But for many years she has shared our blinding love of peace to such an extent that she was unable to comprehend the fact that Germany, however aggressive in speech and in arms manufacture, would ever commit the wholesale slaughter of starting another war to achieve her ends. Being nearer to Germany than we, she was disillusioned first.
Germany is so convinced of her destiny to rule the world, because of her self-called superiority to the “degenerate” democracies, that she has executed any deed of hate or barbarism that would further her ambition. Italy has followed the same idea on a smaller scale.
No one denies that there are good and evil elements in every nation. No nation with a long history has a spotless record. It is the desire to progress toward the ideal of peace or the integrity of the cause which has forced them to fight, that seem to me the most significant factors in the moral issue of the present war.
ELEANORE W. GEORGE
Beaver Rd.
Sewickley, PA
Finds Hitler’s doom predicted in Bible
Editor, The Pittsburgh Press:
Napoleon and Apollyon. If the N were dropped, these two names would sound exactly alike.
We have all heard and read about Napoleon, how he made a treaty with the Czar of Russia to divide Europe into two states. Napoleon was to rule Western Europe, and the Czar was to have dominion over Eastern Europe. But when Napoleon became the master of Europe, he repudiated the agreement. Russia then joined with Britain against France. And to conquer Russia, Napoleon invaded that country with a great army of about half a million men.
He reached Moscow and stayed there with his army until lack of food for his army forced him to move. The retreat from Russia became a great disaster and only 25,000 French soldiers reached Poland. “General Winter” and the Russians had decimated his great army.
Will Apollyon, king of the Nazis, have better luck in Russia? It seems not, because the prophet Joel, after describing the terrible judgment to come on the Christian nations by the human locusts (the Nazis), declares:
But I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea (Pacific Ocean), and his hinder part toward the utmost sea (Mediterranean), and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things. (Joel 2:20)
The Nazis now have their faces towards the east sea and their backs to the Mediterranean Sea and they are destined to die in this barren and desolate land, Russia.
There were 10 plagues came on Egypt, one was the plague of locusts. They were very grievous and they devoured everything that the hail had left in Egypt. The east wind brought them but a strong, mighty west wind drove them into the Red Sea, which swallowed them. The locust is a migratory destructive winged insect. They have no king but they go forth by bands (armies). The Nazis, or human locusts have a king over them (Hitler) but his name in Hebrew is Abaddon (destruction) and in the Greek language, his name is Apollyon (destroyer). Apollyon has certainly lived up to his name, as regards the Jews and Greeks.
The Nazis have now been driven into Russia, the land that will be barren and desolate for them as it was for Napoleon’s great army, where they will be swallowed up. The Red Sea was the grave of the Egyptian locusts and the Red country Russia, will be the land that will devour the Nazi locusts. They will perish in the Red land and their stink will come up and their ill savour will come up.
Why did Hitler invade Russia? It is a mystery to us but the old book says that God would drive them there. Man is a free agent, but the Lord overrules this world. Hitler may be mighty like Napoleon but he cannot beat the Almighty and one man with God on his side is a majority.
This war will probably go on for a long time yet, until most of the Nazis lie dead in Russia, but I believe that the Nazi locust plague has passed for the rest of Europe. God sent this judgment on the Christian nations to punish them for their idolatry, the worship of material things. This sin and the previous slaughter of the martyrs brought retribution upon them. Germany will someday also be punished for her sons.
Charles Wesley warned England in the 18th century that it become not a field of blood. Today England has become what Wesley warned against. Germany also will be a land of blood. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord, but God Almighty does not always settle his accounts by the month.
THOMAS H. RUSSELL
Marion, IN
Negro nationalism plan is suggested
Editor, The Pittsburgh Press:
I am writing on behalf of many of the colored population of the United States. We believe a solution to the racial problem is for the colored people to establish a nation in Ethiopia, under the leadership of Haile Selassie.
All colored people between the ages of 18 and 45, male and female, who would fight for their independence, should be permitted to go to that country. That will make the dark race feel that they must make a way for their own people.
The white race must not lay down their lives to save the whole world.
ELZY JOHNSON
714 Gearing Ave.
Says Lindy experiments with mechanical soul
Editor, The Pittsburgh Press:
Isn’t Lindbergh the busy person? He had hardly finished his mechanical heart until he started on a mechanical soul. Some mechanic! It is not a very large soul and there is no room in it for unselfishness. It has a decided odor (not to be confused with the odor of sanctity), which is said to be imported.
Full details are not available at this time but he expects to have it on the market by the summer of 1944.
ELLA COOK
Blawnox, PA
‘Make own heaven and create hell’
Editor, The Pittsburgh Press:
We make our own heaven by doing good to everybody and we create our own hell by not minding our own business.
SENTA HORL
736 Ridge Ave.
McKees Rocks, PA