Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 June 1943 — Page 9

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| SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1943

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SECOND

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Hoosier Vagabond

1 SOMEWHERE IN NORTH AFRICA (By Wireless). -=There wasn't any real reason for me to go to the Belgian Congo, since we have only a handful of troops in that area now, but when I got to a spot only 1500 miles away I said to myself, “Gee, I hate ‘to be this close and not see the Congo.” ‘ So I just-got in a plane and flew an extra 3000 ‘miles and saw the Congo. Just as I had expected, the Congo looks like a river, that being what it is. It is wide and pretty muddy. It looks a good bit like the Mississippi, only it's darker. It didn’t look either very dangerous or very romantic when I saw it. I stayed down there for a week. : We planned to take a launch and go upriver about a hundred miles to see some flora .and fauna, but at the last minute the launch broke down and.we didn’t get to go. But I did ride across the Congo twice in a motorboat, and I saw the mast out of Stanley’s ship which 3 Shey have planted on the shore at Leopoldville. We «spent 10 minutes walking around and around the mast, looking at it from a sense of duty, but it was Just another mast to me,

~ ‘Leo’ an Attractive City

LEOPOLDVILLE WAS ga big surprise. I expected t ) find just a large village with a few tin-roofed ding posts, such as you see in tropical movies. But actually “Leo” is a beautiful city of 50,000. It © has shipyards, big river docks, and a modern textile . factory with 4000 workers. It has 3000 white inhabitants and scores of homes as beautiful as you would find in Pasadena. Its streets are of macadam. It has fine big stores in buildings of brick and stone and concrete. . Huge trees like maples line the streets. There are many parks, and lovely statues. : There are movies and a zoo and a big tropical museum. Bougainvilleas and other flowers of all kinds splash the city with color. People sit and drink in

By Ernie Pyle

sidewalk cafes. Autos dash along the streets at aston-

ishing speeds. You are suddenly amazed to see S0|

many white women again. - A big ell-shaped hotel sits in ‘the center of the town, with its lovely garden right on the river bank.

The very words Belgian Congon have always suggested the most insufferable kind of tropics, where white people sit and rot with the heat. Yet when I was there it was not as hot as Washington in summer-time, and during half of my week it was almost-chilly, with frequent cloudbursting rains.

Belgians Hospitable

THE WAR seems pretty far away at Leo. The ‘Belgian Congo did send an army up to help the British retake Ethiopia, and Congo troops were with Gen, Jacques LeClerc’s army when it marched up from Lake Chad, and the Congo is producing to the limit of its natural resources—tin, rubber, cotton and other goods—for the war effort. But still the war seems pretty far away. They don’t ration gasoline or tires in Leo. I saw some new-looking autos there. There is plenty to eat. There is liquor to drink. The stores have nearly everything you want. And all the physical labor is still done by natives. The Belgian people have been grand to our troops, inviting them into their homes, and turning over to them the one big club in town. But the Belgians are strict about their women, and a soldier can’t have a date unless the whole family sits around. And if it gets to the point where you are trusted alone with a girl, then you're practically married. At one time there were quite a lot of American soldiers in Leo, but the need for them has ceased and they have been moved out. When I was there about three dozen men were living in a camp built to hold thousands. It was like living with a'couple of friends in the Empire State building. They had a few trucks left, but no jeeps, so for personal transportation they gave me a two-and-a-half-ton truck, in which I noisily whisked back and forth between the camp and the town and was the cynosure of all eyes, I assure you.

'Axis Peace Feelers By Ludwell Denny

(Lowell Nussbaum is on vacation)

WASHINGTON, June 19.—The latest reports of axis peace feelers are not unexpected. This is an old technique, and almost routine procedure for a polite {cal offensive. . Of course there is no danger that the allies will : be tricked by this now. It was to counteract such moves that the allies repeated their public terms of “unconditional surrender.” Significantly those terms were stated not only by Washington and London but also by Moscow. Though the axis.is constantly putting out peace feelers, nobody should jump to the conclusion that Germany is on the verge of collapse. Official information does not support that wishful thinking.

It is true that the allied air

offensive is increasingly effective against German war production and transportation, that the axis Mediterranean defeats and Russia’s growing strength are robbing Hitler of the initiative, and that war-weari-ness in Germany is increasing. But it is also true that Hitler still has tremendous military power. at his command. have

Mais Sees Eventual Defeat

PEACE MOVES are inspired by fear not of immediate but of eventual defeat. They are a recognition that axis power has passed its peak and will continue to decline, probably at an accelerated rate, They are an attempt to win by propaganda and political maneuver a war which can no longer be won by Nazi military might alone. ; The point is that any place short of complete de struction of Nazi political and military power should

England

LONDON, June 19 (By Wireless).—Approval of the Fulbright resolution by the house foreign affairs - committee indicates there is still hope that ‘congress will support participation by America in machinery : to maintain the peace. ; News from home in the last few weeks, at least as it appears in the press here, has indicated a serious disintegration. The coal trike, the rubber strike, and now illiam Green’s advice to labor to rebel if the anti-strike bill becomes law, plus what appears to be continued griping over rationing, are all disquieting. Do these signs mean that. America is about to turn its back again on the task of maintaining peace after this war is won? : The action of the house foreign affairs committee ds the first sign recently that there is still sentiment congress for following through to give enduring .to what the American soldiers over here are risking and losing their lives for.

. Next War Would Be Worse

ALREADY SOME of the men of the American .

. 8th air force with whom I have visited since {arriving in England have been killed. Twenty-four ¥big bombers failed to return from the last raid on Kiel and Bremen. One of the survivors said that _ of the men with whom he had played poker the night before only two came back. Until you have been here it is difficult to visualize the size of the operations. that are being planned. Indeed, unless you are here it is difficult to realize what has already been done here—the vast number of airfields, the enormous supply depots which are ' almost cities in themselves. : And then, when on top of all that you see the best of America’s young men trained for a year or ‘more in modern killing, and realize the countless

My Day

W YORK CITY, Friday—Wednesday we had the pleasure of having Mrs. Jan Struther, the author of “Mrs. Miniver,” spend the night with us in Washington. She was a delightful guest and left me a new poem, which she had written as a result of one of $ > her trips through: the country. by Mrs. Struther has been on a lec“ture tour, and has had an oppor- © tunity on many trains, to see men ‘ jn the armed services and their

be a Nazi victory. Hitler has nothing to lose and everything to gain by a negotiated or compromise peace. : Nor is there any mystery about his method. The method is one of the oldest political weapons in the history of warfare—split the enemy alliance, divide and rule. It is the weapon with which Hitler first captured power in Germany and then conquered most of Europe. Today it is the effort to separate the United States, Britain and Russia, which is Hitler's only hope of survival.

Attempts to Split Allies

‘ALL THREE of the latest reported maneuvers are attempts to use this weapon. Italy whispers that she might be ready to talk business with America and Britain, but not with Russia. Hitler's Rumanian puppet tells Britain she is ready to quit if she can keep the Russian-¢laimed provinces of Bessarabia and Bukovina.

And Hitler inspires a report in Sweden that the Nazis and Russians have been talking peace, though without results so far. One minute the western allies are asked to double-cross Russia, the next minute they are told that Russia already is trying to doublecross them, ‘ 2

Presumably Hitler knows this transparent trick will not work—now. But, on the basis of his propaganda experience, he apparently still thinks that a lie if repeated often enough is finally believed, first by a few and then by many. So he pecks away, month after month. All he gets toddy is a Bropx cheer. But the test will be three months, six months, a year hence.

Nothing must be allowed to divide the allies. Hitler cannot win if we march together. Hitler almost certainly will win—by trickery if not by arms —if we don’t stick together,

By Raymond Clapper

tragedies for our people as well as many other peoples, it seems the most fantastic lunacy not to make an effort to prevent a repetition. Here the war is 60 minutes away. It is even less than that, for 1300 civilians were killed or injured in air raids in England during May. This war reaches everywhere. It will be worse the next time, because planes now in the experimental stage which probably won't make this war will be available for the next one. And then there will be no place in America where you can consider yourself safe from danger such as blitz-ridden England has suffered, or from the worse hammering that German cities are taking now.

U.S. Holds Knockout Punch

I BELIEVE America has far more power to shape things after the war than we have ourselves realized. The knockout blow of the war will come from America. Britain and Russia have carried most of the load up to now, and are still carrying it, but the extra punch will come from America, without which it is not likely that an unconditional surrender could

. be forced.

Also, all such machinery as food relief, rehabilitation, and medical measures against plagues which know no national boundary lines will be fuelled largely with supplies from America. It is up to us to see that in return conditions are created to reduce the chances of another big war. “We won't escape paying the price by refusing to participate in machinery to preserve the peace, for the price would eventually be a depression with another cycle of war. That is the price of a negative policy. : All the American soldiers I have talked with want to get the job over with as soon as possible so they can go home. It would be the rankest ingratitude for what these American men are doing if congress and all the rest of us did not do everything in our power to build the means of preventing a repetition of such sacrifice,

By Eleanor Roosevelt

entitled “reading for democracy,” with 31 important books which “every American should read”. It is published by the Chicago Round Table of Christians and Jews, and I think everybody will find it an interesting list. I keep getting letters which point up the prejudices in which so many of us indulge, even in war time. They are not always prejudices against a race, sometimes they are religious prejudices. For instance, some people do not wish to be where Catholics or Jews predominate in their environment. Sometimes, it is Protestants who are banned. All this seems out of place in a country with so many racial origins and so many religions. Our soldiers fight and die, side by side, and are comforted by ‘priests, ministers or rabbis, as the case may be, quite regardless of whether the dying boys belong

0 to the ‘particular church represented near them at

~ the moment, t

to me this might teach us, as is really important is not what , but how we live our

The next morning,

secret-service men. Arriving at the Villa Torlonia, Rocco led us through a wooded grove to a good-sized paddock. : We waited for 10 minutes and

then out galloped the Duce on a finely trained chestnut mare, & Hanoverian cavalry horse, which was a gift from Hitler. After making the Fascist salute, he proceeded to gallop around the paddock with two grooms. As soon as he had warmed up, the Duce began to take the various jumps—brush jumps, fences and hurdles. The two grooms, who followed 20 yards behind, carefully knocked down three of the highest hurdles, which, of course, the Duce had cleared without difficulty. The Duce was always good by contrast. Sweating and smiling, the Duce rode over to the German group and said: “Bin Ich muede? Bin Ich krank? Schwach?” “Nein, nein,” chorused the German correspondents. ” » ”

Mussolini Broods

IT WAS CLEAR that Mussolini was still brooding over Bud Ekins’ message about his reported illness. Now that Italy was at war, more than ever did he want people to believe that he was not sick, tired or weak. Rocco said that the same correspondents were to meet at the press ministry at 3 p. m. for the afternoon visit. At noon, Capomazza telephoned the U. P. office and said that Eleanor was

afternoon. When we reached the press ministry, the assembled throng this time included, besides the women correspondents, at least 15 girls, mainly young stenographers who worked in the different newspaper offices. Only the prettiest stenographers, however, had been invited. Later we learned what had happened. The Duce had reprimanded Rocco for bringing only men in the morning and added that he expected the afternoon gathering to be bedizened by a certain amount of femininity. It was the tennis match more than anything else that turned us against Mussolini as a As we were being conducted to the old jousting field, which had been converted into an excellent tennis court, Eleanor, Reynolds and Allen Raymond saw Mussolini slip out of the back door of the villa and bicycle through a sylvan patch toward the tennis court, only 300 yards away. Five minutes later, we arrived by a more roundabout way at the tennis court. The game was in full progress and the umpire, who was Press Minister Pavolini, insisted the Duce had been playing for more than half an hour. 8.2 2

Serves Underhanded

THE DICTATOR, GARBED in a beige polo shirt and shorts, was playing doubles. He was serving underhand like a novice, and he violated every tennis rule and tradition by walking at least two steps beyond the base line to serve. -Even so, the two athletes who were playing against him— Mario Delardinelli, Rome’s leading professional tennis player, and

Italy’s national soccer team—had difficulty in returning his soapbubble serves. £2 Whenever the ball was returned, it floated slowly up so that a lame man with a broken arm could have hit it.. II Duce lobbed, nas! smiled, pleased with “his triumph. partner, Lucio Savorgnan, champion,

oF )

Wily Mussolini Even ‘Fixed’ His Tennis ~ Games for Press

VI—IL DUCE SHOWS HIS PROWESS

AT THE END of the summer of 1940, with all the Rome correspondents fed up with writing stories about the Balkans, we welcomed the announcement at the daily press conference that Mussolini would receive the heads _ of bureaus the -next morning at 7 a. m. at the Villa Torlonia, an armed citadel in the heart of Rome. Guido Rocco, head of the foreign press, made the announcement. He said he was sorry but that women correspondents were not invited. After the meeting was over, Marchese di Capomazza, Rocco’s assistant, told us that the idea of the reception was to show how Mussolini kept fit in wartime. we would have a chance to see him do his early-morning calisthenics before he went to his desk in the Palazzo Venezia and that, later in the afternoon, we would see him take more exercise before resuming work in the evening. twenty-three correspondents gathered in front of the ministry of popular culture—the official title of the press ministry, which the American correspondents generally dubbed the ministry of unpopular culture—and were herded into busses by more than a dozen press officers, foreign office representatives, and

He said

invited to join the party in the

the Fascist black shirts in the gale lery : fawning congratulations. “Thanks,” he resporided, “I am proud to have won.” ” 8 ”

Announce Score

WE GASPED, FOR we had seen him leave his house and knew he had played five games only, three of which he lost, despite the efforts of his opponents to force

victory upon him. Pavolini joined.

the correspondents and announced that the official score was 7-5. That night in a faraway corner of the press club, Herbert Matthews and Raymond discussed with us the spectacle we had seen. If ‘Mussolini could not afford to lose even a tennis game for fear of suffering loss of prestige, it was evident to what ends he was going in world war II to keep Italians from learning how much he was losing. By the end of September, Mussolini began to prepare for an annexation of Greece. He had already, as only an exnewspaperman could have done, made a legendary figure out of an Albanian hill-billy named Daut Hoggia. In reality a local drunkard and mountain bandit, Daut Hoggia, who had had his head chopped off, was suddenly glorified in the Italian press as an Albanian nationalist leader. EJ 2 EJ

Explains Hoggia Death

ACCORDING to Mussolini's own newspaper, the Popolo d'Italia, Hoggia had been executed by an interborder organization led by Greeks, which decapitated him while he slept on the Albanian side of the Greco-Albanian border and took his head to Greek police officials to collect the reward for his death. According to the Greeks, a price had been put on his head because he was a murderer, while the Italians claimed it was because he was an Albanian patriot who had agitated for the return to Albania of the Greek province of Ciamuria. Reports began to emanate from

When Mussolini decided to attack tiny Albania, his propagandists carefully Belgrade” that Albanian tribal leaders, such as these shown above, were causing disorders.

y 4 A ar

LLONY EMPIRE |

14 LAV A AN LULA 4

concocted “reports from - She is staying in a house just: down the street. She is a per-. -sonal friend of mine, and I am sure I can arrange for her to re= ceive you.”

As we entered the rickety whites

washed housé, Madame Hoggia was expectantly sitting on the: edge of a chair. The horse doctor ! talked to her for about 15 min- | utes and then translated what he claimed she had said. His version was: “I think the Greeks poisoned him because he was too big and strong to be attacked even if asleep. They probably put poison into a watermelon, of which he was very fond, and then cut off his head. I hope Italy will see that the assassination of my husband is paid for by the Greeks.” ” » ” :

- Launch Press Attack

“We waited for 10 minutes and then out galloped the Duce on a finely trained chestnut mare. After making the Fascist salute, he proceeded to gallop around the paddock with two grooms. As soon as he had warmed up, the Duce began to take the various jumps—brush jumps, fences and hurdles. The two grooms carefully knocked down three of the highest hurdles which, of course, the Duce had cleared

without difficulty.”

Belgrade that there were serious disorders in Albania and that the Italians were having great difficulty in controlling tribal chieftains. The U. P. bureau manager of Yugoslavia sent many of these reports. Ciano was so incensed that he insisted that Reynolds go to Albania immediately and see for himself whether or not they were true. . The whole thing was absurd, as Reynolds was to be escorted throughout the trip by an Italian press officer. Nevertheless, Reynolds took a plane to Tirana. As he got out of the airplane, he was greeted by Paolo Veronese, an Italian member of the Albanian press bureau. From then on, like a sticker bur, Veronese never left Reynolds. During the next four days,

Erlado Monzogoio, a member of’

former university |

THIS CURIOUS WORLD

By William Ferguson

2,308 FLEETS

PULLED THE BOWSTRING WITH BOTH HANDS.

FIFTY FIVE SPECIES OF NATIVE ORCHIDS.” IN HAWAII, THERE ARE ONLY 7/A7R&EE.

KEN WILHELM, OF CALIFORNIA, SHOT AN ARROW A DISTANCE OF

HE LAY ON HIS BACK, STRAPPED THE BOW TO HIS FEET, AND

Reynolds was taken throughout the breadth of Albania by automobile and muleback. Needless to say there was no sign of disorder of any kind. o ” 8

Veronese’s Trick

BUT THE BEST TRICK that Veronese unfolded was an apparently chance meeting with Madame Daut Hoggia, the widow of the Albanian patriot at the village of Konispoli on the GreekAlbanian frontier, Reynolds and Veronese ran into an Albanian horse doctor, Muhri Timos. “A newspaperman?” he said. “Then you should have an interview with Madame Daut Hoggia.

SHORTLY AFTER Reynolds' return to Rome, the Italian press launched = a campaign against Greece, claiming that Albanians in the Greek province of Ciamuria were being mistreated, The second phase of Mussolini’s preparatory work was the publication of stories that the Greeks, “under the influence of their anglophile King George II,” were giving surreptitious aid to Britain. The culming= tion of the Italian press came= paign came Oct. 26, when the of=ficial Fascist news agency, Stefani, announced that Greek troops had attacked an Albanian frontier post. The next day, Greek official circles hastened to deny the report, but it was useless. On Oct. 28, at 3 o'clock in the morning, the Italian minister in Athens, handed Premier John Metaxas an ultimatum. It de-' manded that Italy be given the right to occupy certain strategic po rfu, Crete, Epirus and | th raeus—‘for the duration of the war in the Mediteranean.” Metaxas rejected the ultimatum. It was supposed to expire at 5:30 a. m., two and one-half hours after presented, but actually the Italian troops started crossing the Greek border at 5 a. m. and the Italoe

Greek war had started. Ta

NEXT-—Greece Not for Sale.

(Copyright, 1042, by Reynolds and Eleanor Packard; published by Qxtord University Press; distributed by Uni Feature Syndicate, Inc.) ok na

SENATOR HERE FOR "MOOSE CONVENTION

U. 8. Senator James J. Davis of Pennsylvania is in Indianapolis for the 21st annual convention of the Indiana Loyal Order of Moose,

a | meeting here today and tomorrow. ‘| William E. Littlefield, Terre Haute,

{| is presiding.

Mr. Davis, director general of

N | the Moose and founder of Moose-

COPR. 1943 BY NEA SERVIC T. M. REG. U. S. PAT. OFF.

heart, the “child city” at Mooseheart, Ill, spoke last night at a double initiation in the Indianapolis lodge. A class of 350 was initiated into the lodge, and a class of 100 into the women of the Moose, both groups being named in honor of the senator. In his talk Senator Davis reported that about 50,000 members of the Moose are in the armed forces. The Indianapolis lodge has a service flag of 544. The convention is being attended by 400 delegates.

LABOR, TOWNSEND GROUPS TO MEET

Dr. Ora Simmons of Marion will give the address at the "all-day labor and Townsend meeting to-

/{__]|morrow at 2:30 p. m. at Beulah

WHICH RACE HORSES

ARE FASTER, ON THE AVERAGE,

BALE roms have > Posen 4 a Pr n

w x -

NEWSPAPER GUILD RE-ELECTS MURRAY,

BOSTON, June 19 (U. P.) ~Dele« gates to the American newspapes

guild (C. I. O.) convention were en

route home today after a four-day

meeting which concluded yester= day with the renomination

President Milton Murray of Dee

troit for a second term. The guild also voted unanimously to hold next ‘year's convention in Milwaukee, Wis. Murray's renomination virtually assured his re-election although officers will be announced under rules of the ntaional refe endun election practice.

HOLD EVERYTHING

WE. NPY Bias L : Ea REE. A a Td ;