I I II I
WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS BY ROGER SHAW
Allied Troops Leave Norway
As Spotlight Turns on Italy;
Germans Hold Vital Air Bases
(EDITOR'S NOTE---When opinions are expressed in these columns, they
are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.)
Released by We~em Newspaper Union
"-:'O
U.S.&R.
THE LONGEST SlAY AROUND was the shortest way home
]or British ships in Italian waters when England, ]earing Italy was
getting ready to enter the war on the side el Germany, ordered
these vessels to head for home ports via the Suez canal and Cape
o[ Good Hope. This route, indicated by the broken line on the
above map, is a distance of 15,000 miles. Normal route (indicated
by solid line/ is only 2,000 miles.
WOTAN WINS:
In Norway
Following Austria, Czecho Slova-
kia, Poland, came poor Norway.
Said one neutral statesman, nerv-
ously, "The kiss of England is the
kiss of death." Frightened Swed-
ish, Netherlands, and Balkan lead-
ers were inclined to agree. Norse
writers and generals denounced
John Bull, while the English cabi-
net was tottering.
The Allied troops debarked from
Andalsnes and Namsos, in the stra-
tegic Trondheim area, And sailed
away, under a terrific hammering
from the German bombers. Much
of their equipment was abandoned
and the Norwegian troops, poorly
armed and trained, as is natural in
a small democracy with no imperi-
alist intentions, did not make much
of a stand in isolated sectors. The
English expeditionaries in Norway
had been out%hot, out;flown, and
out-generaled. Raw London militia
and half-trained regulars, had to
face toughened German Veterans:~f
the 18-day Polish war, last fall.
The British marines, too, were n~t
trained for landing operations, to be
~followed by a land war of maneu-
ver. Good men all, their duties h@d
been aboard ship, and as brass-but-
ton garrisons in far-flung colonies.
13. S. marines have had exactly the
right training for a "Norse" opera-
tion, and would have given the Ger-
mans a far more telling battle, ac-
cording to American army and navy
men. This was a technical matter
of opinion.
Anti.ltalics
English and French battleships
were concentrated in the faraway
eastern Mediterranean, and the Brit-
ish merchant marine was ordered
out of the blue Mediterranean wa-
ters. The Englis1~ itinerary to In-
dia--the imperial lifellne--was re-
routed around the African horn, the
Cape of Good Hope, to escape Ital-
ian submarines, seaplanes, and sea-
NAMES
in the news
Alfred Duff Cooper, formerly Eng-
land's secretary of war, and also
her secretary of the navy, called the
German governmental leaders a
gang of "money-making murder-
ers." Duff Coopcr's wife is the beau-
tiful Lady Diana Manners, who
starred in America in the "Miracle"
long years back. Duff Cooper, him-
self, has been a special student of
that shifty old French statesman,
Talleyrand, whose biographer he is.
Declared old Knut Hamsun, great
Norwegian novelist and Nobel prize
winner in 1920, "England is incapa-
ble of helping us, except with small
flocks here and there, roving about
our valleys, and asking, for food."
In Newark, N. J a man got a
divorce. He said he had been com-
pelled to move 27 times in six years.
His name was Allan MaeFee. He
told the judge he never knew which
bus to take home at night. "My
wife was the moving man's friend,"
said he. Mrs. MaeFee got the di-
vorce, on grounds of desertion. Mr.
MacFee did not contest.
sleds. For Italy has the third best
air force in Europe, and perhaps the
world's best submarine flotilla. And
Italian seamed torpedo.carriers are
a tested Roman specialty.
Roosevelt's ambassador to Rome,
William Phillips, pleaded with Mus-
solini to keep out of the war, and
Moscow accused Rome of blackmail
(Finland is so easily forgotten!).
The Aegean sea loomed up as a pos-
sible location for Italo.Allied war-
fare, but some observers believed
that the badgered French might
cede Mussolini their African Tunis
(just below Sicily), in order to keep
the Iron Duce quiet. There are
roughly an equal number of Ital-
ians and French living in the pre-
dominantly Arabic colony. "France
must learn to give," remarked a
worried 13. S. official.
One minor school of thought held
that the English battleships were
moved to the eastern Mediterrane-
an, to get them away from
"doomed" Scapa Flow, and the pes-
tiferous German flyers.
THAT '40 ELECTION:
Nomination Notes
Tom Dewey, dashing Wunderkind
of Manhattan, appeared to talk him-
self into indigestion out west, and
was laid up pro tern. He lost some
Republican convention delegates,
too. ~ Massachusetts primary voters
plumped for an unpledged decision,
instead of for Tommy. In Florida, a
stop-Dewey campaign began.
Elltott Roosevelt, described as
"talkative," said his father might
not~un for a third term. The father
of the son said nothing.
Boss Green of the A. F. of L. ac-
cused Boss Lewis of the C. I. O.
of presidential aspirations on a
third ticket. Third term versus
third ticket?
New York's Mayor LaGuardia
was rumored to be considering him-
self either as a Republican, or as
a Democratic, vice president!
There was, too, a lot of talk about
a Farley-Garner, or Garner-Farley,
ticket, and a lot
of wishful think-
ing about Roose.
velt's being tired.
To his friends,
who are many,
Roosevelt did not
seem tired at all.
But Rep. Tink-
ham of Massa-
zhusetta declared
that another term
of "Roosevelt, and
Hull, would sure-
Rep. TInkham ly mean war for
the United States.
Meanwhile, third terms aside, the
President's mother became ill from
food-poisoning on her way to the
World's fair, and had to be treated
in a local drugstore for two hours,
SEEING RED:
'Protection'
Clarence Hathaway, editor of New
York's community "Daily Worker,"
was convicted of criminal libel after
a trial of three weeks. He faced a
maximum penalty of a year in the
concentration camp, like his party
chief, Earl Browder, who got into
trouble over phoney passports, and
the Americo-Nazi chieftain, Fritz
Kuhn, whose followers Uncle Sam
"protected." Hathaway, 46 years
old, is younger than 'Browder.
INDIAN VALLEY RECORD
Kathleen Norris Says:
Wake Up, Mothers of Sons,
This War Year
~E~ell Sy ", e-.-WNU Serv|ce.t
!THERE were vague rumors under
i~the sunny skies of St. Petersburg
:back in March that something was
just a little shy in the camp of the
Cardinals so far as any flaming
i team spirit was concerned. These
i rumors have carried along into the
i starting season.
i Maybe they are true-maybe they
are not. But if they are true the
Cardinals are going
to hear no gonfalon-
:i::~:~i~!iiiiiiii;~iii!iiiiiiiii~iiiiii!iii ie flapping in the
next flurry of au-
tumn winds. For
team spirit happens
to be a vital part of
any ball club, no
matter how strong
their individual
play.
This brings up the
point as to what
Grantland teams in baseball
Rice history, looking
back 30 years, be-
long around the top where the mat-
ter of team spirit is concerned?
Here are just a few that I can rec-
ommend from rather close contact:
1905--McGraw's Giants with Mat-
ty, McGinnity, Bresnahan, Devlin,
Dahlen, Donlin.
190g---The Chicago White Sex with
Fielder Jones,Donohue, Isbell,
Welsh, Altrock.
1907--Frank Chance's Cubs with
Chance, Evers, Tinker, Sheekard,
Steinfeldt, Kling.
1914---The Boston Braves of
George Stallings with Evers, Mar-
anville, Rudolph, Tyler, James,
Gowdy.
1934---St. Louis Cardinals with
Frlsch, Pepper Martin, Medwick,
Dean, Delancey, Collins, Durocher
~the old Gas House Gang.
1936-1939---The N. Y. Yankees, of
whom Joe McCarthy demands team
spirit, even when he has to get rid of
a great pitcher and a star outfielder.
The Two Leaders
My selections from 35 years of
baseball would place two teams on
top in this respect--the White Sex of
1906 and the Boston Braves of 1914,
Neither was anything like a great
ball club. The Sex then were known
as the Hllless Wonders. Their team
batting average was around .223.
They floundered most of the year,
and then under ~ crabby leader-
ship of Fielder Jones and the almost
raving upheaval of Jlggs Donohue at
first they came along to win 19
straight, bag the pennant from
much better teams, and then whip
Frank Chance's Cubs who had won
116 games that season and were sup-
posed to be invincible.
That record of 116 victories still
stands. But even such fghters as
Chance, Tinker,
Evers and others
had nothing to
match the whirl-
wind assault of
the keyed-up Sex.
I recall asking
Hughey Fullerton
one of the best of
thej baseball
sages, about Is-
bell at second.
"Here's a hmny
angle," Hughey
said. "Isbell can't
hit u llek, he
can't run, he hasJohnny Evers
a bad arm, and
be is only u fair inflt:Ider. But he Is
one of the greatest bali players I
ever saw."
Isbell had brains ~tnd spirit to a
high degree. The Sox were that
brand or breed of team players.
In 1908 Ed Walsh worked in 66
ball games, won 40 and saved 12
others. It takes splr)'~t, plus an arm,
to carry this load.
About the Braves 1914
George Stallings' Braves were
much along the order of the 1906
White Sex.
They were no great ball club. They
were around last place in early July.
They were supposed to be the league
flop. And then the vital spark ar-
rived. They be&an overhauling one
team after another with Rudolph, Ty-
ler and James working in order.
Rudolph, Tyler and games--Ru-
dolph Tyler and James---day after
day, week after week, month after
month,
In addition, there was Hank Gow.
dy back of the bat, and there were
Johnny Evers and Rabbit Maran-
villa working at second and short--
two "disembodied spirits"--two
diminutive chunks of nerve, brains
and courage.
They won the pennant. They had
to face Connie Mack's brilliant team
that had wou three pennants--a
team that had Bender and Plank in
the box, and Me[nnis, Collins, Barry
and Baker for an ~nfleld,--one of
the great teams of all time.
But the Braves beat them four
straight.
The 1940 Pennant Chasers
Neither may bag ~ pennant this
season but you won't stumble over
any keener spirit than Brooklyn and
Pittsburgh will show this summer.
Leo Durocher and Frank Frisch will
handle that part of the job. Both
demand hustlers, still carrying
along the flame of t,he Gas House
delegation.
The Brooklyn Dodgers demon-
strated their hustle and spark by
winning .the first nine games of the
season. Included in this march were
four shutouts and a no-hit game.
h isn't/or mothers to expect tribute from their sons, this year; there doesn't
seem to be any sense in sittin8 back in pretty old.lady vomplaceney and waiting
tor flowers and candy and telegrams to arrive. There's something we can do
for them.
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
MOTHER'S DAY has
had an especial sig-
nificance this year.
Because the hearts of moth-
ers everywhere are torn with
fears and misery, the dignity
of that relationship has some-
how been emphasized and
made important, and when
we read of English boys
cheering as their ship sinks
in the icy waters of the chan-
nel, and Russian boys piled
in Windrows under the deep
Finnish snows--innocents all,
slaughtered like sheep at the
orders of older men, then the
first thing we say is "God
help their mothers!"
A current newspaper carries the
philosophical statement that only
890 aviators have been lost to Brit-
ain since the beginning of the war.
Not even a thousand yet! Avis.
tors are yo~g men, above the aver-
age in intelligence, resource, cour-
age, aptitude. They are no Foreign
Legion, composed of ex-convict.
loafers, failures, adventurers. No,
they come from fine homes, they
are students, they are entrusted to
carry out the most delicate and
dangerous business of war. And 890
of them have already come down
to violent death in smoking fuselage
and tangled wreckage, and even if
not every one of them had not a
mother or wife to mourn him, fiun-
dreds of them had, Hundreds of
mothers have lain awake restless
and dry-eyed through the endless
nights ever since, and will not know
sleep or rest for many and many
a night to come. thinking of the
young fine body, the loving, eager
heart, the gayety and sweetness of
him, now lying so still, with all her
hopes for him buried with him trader
the deep earth.
Mother's Day im~ Reverse.
And that thought has put a special
value upon our own magnificent
boys, has made us feel this year
that the situation is reversed. It
isn't for mothers to expect tribute
from their sons, this year; there
doesn't seem to be any sense in sit-
ring back in pretty old-lady com-
placency and waiting for flowers
and candy and telegrams to arrive.
No. there's something we can do for
them; something they can't or won't
do for themselves.
That something Is to stir up con-
tinual agitation over the question of
our men being sent to fight over
seek Our young men, that is, for
the old men who send them never
go. We want to keep Washington
continually reminded that several
millions of American mothers, for
the lqrs! time in all history armed
with the vote that sent these legis-
lators and representatives to Wash-
ington, are uniting for the siugle
purpose of electing the men who will
promise that we shall be kept out
of Europe's purposeless orgy of
bloodshed.
One of the stghts they show in
Mexico is the old altar of the Mayan
civilization that once prevailed
there; a magnificent amphitheater
whose stoves were once running riv-
ers of young blood. Thousands of
young men were selected as religious
offerings; indulged, petted, fattened
for one year, and then led to the
sacrificial stone to Imve their liv-
ing hearts cut out. The story is
that on one single occasion thirty
thousand boys were thus destroyed.
Horrible, isn't it? American tour-
is,s, in their smart silk [rocks and
broad flowered hats, have been
known to faint, contemplating the
scene, even so many years after the
Mayan religion has been swept
away.
But in what way does the slaugh-
ter of innocent boys across the seas
improve upon these barbaric days?
In one way, today's wars are even
worse For the Mayan had at least
the feeling that this was destiny;
he was helpless and he hsd been
chosen for death. But our English,
German, French, Russian boys
have no such consolation. They
have no feeling against each other.
They have committed no crime.
They hate no one. And too often
they writhe into slow, agonizing, bit-
terly lonely deaths with every crim-
inal instinct of their natures roused
and brought to life; hate, a desire
for revenge, a complete loss of
faith in everything their mothers
taught them of goodness and for-
giveness and generosity.
Their mothersl Here we are
back to their mothers again, as
Mother's day passes by. It is no
use to watch their babyhood sick-
nesses, to train them in boyhood to
goodness, only to fail them when
the first bugle blows, and send them
forth to freeze in muddy trenches,
to meet hot death in the air, to
drive their bayonets into the bodies
of boys they never saw before, Just
as shrapnel or bullets pierce their
own splendid bodies, to rot unnoted
in crowded, fetid hospitals, and final-
ly to lie still and unremembered--
by all except Mothers!--in foreign
soil.
Let Men Over Forty Fight.
If I could I would get a bill
through congress prohibiting the en-
listment in army or davy of any
man under forty years. This would
stop war so fast that soon its mem-
ory would blend with witch-burning,
small-pox epidemics, slavery, and
a hundred other insanitles and
abuses that shame the pages of his-
tory. If thoughtful, established
middle-aged men, men who are ab-
sorbed in offices or professions, who
love wife and home and children, and
golf and fishing and bridge games,
had to fret themselves into olive
drab and sail across seas to solve
Europe's never-ending quarrels,
how quickly we should be reading
some other plan for the solution of
international problems!
Even if their health and strength
didn't match those of younger men,
what of it? If life is to be destroyed,
why not begin with the unfit? Send
them into battle sneezing and rheu-
matic and taking soda mints, for
war destroys health anyway, and
all camps are full of invalids.
There was one battalion of strong
young men with fiat feet, who
stayed safe in camp all through
bloody 1918, and went home happily
to draw their bonus a few years
later
Older Men Make Wars.
It is the old men who shrewdly
consider profits and expanding mar-
kets and uses for surplus products;
it is the old men who make the
wars. Is there in the tong, tong
history of these decisions to destroy
young life some shadow of the old
jealousy of the males? Male bulls
kill young ones. deer and elephant
and even household cats do the
same. Unexpressed and perhaps
completely unsuspected, is jealousy
at the base of the policy that sends
the finest men of each generation
to their death?
Sometimes it almost seems so.
At all events, men obviously can't
solve this war question. They never
have and they never will.
Thursday, May 16, 1940
GENERAL
HUGH $.
JOHNSON
trnit~l Fe~,urm Wl~
THE WAR AS ELECTION ISSUE
Washington, D. C.
The rapidly crystalizing policy of
this administration to defend Amer-
ica by mixing aggressively in
European and Asian power politi(.s,
with whatever consequence that
may carry, is sure to be an issue
this year.
As in 1916, the sentiment again#t
that, west of the Alleghanies, is
overwhelming. In 1917, we were at
war and, before the end of that
year, with complete and even enthu-
siastic support of the country. Yet
immediately after the declaration a
war, there was no such sentiment
except on the Eastern seaboard.
I know, because I had undertaken
the organization of the selective
draft in every American commU"
nity.
Most of the gray hairs I had until
recently, I got in the first anxious
30 days of that effort.
Was the ambitious experiment ~o-
.ing to flop? In most states, except
the East, there was only aloof and
skeptical if not sullen acceptance.
By the persuasive power of tl~e
eloquence and idealism of WoodroW
Wilson, by some arts we used ol
blatant ballyhoo and hokum national
high-pressure selling, that was
changed in a fe,~ weeks to a war
psychosis which ,~pproached hyste-
ria.
Woodrow Wilson could do that be-
cause he prepared the seed bed bY
months of patient and long.suffering
restraint and, of far more impor-
tancc, because we were actually in,
and not merely flirting with, a
bloody war and a sickly season.
Can Franklin Roosevelt do that--*
which to be elected, he must do, or
sincerely change the whole course
of his foreign policy? Can he do it
when we are not engaged in war, and
when no such seed bed is ready?
He has another handicap which
Mr. Wilson had not. This country
had then never tried a mass ad*
venture in the double-crossing war
diplomacy of Europe.
We tried in 1917 and 1918 and we
know it to have been the most dis,
astrous gamble this nation ever
made.
Apart from the handicap of our
dolorous experience, is the simple
military question of whether we
should scatter our strength over
vast areas of this globe, or whether,
the obvious course is to retain our
interior lines, our concentrated
strength, the advantages of our nat-
ural barriers and our unquestioned
unity.
It is a reversal of every Ameri-
can traditional (if not constitutional)
political principle and of every mili-
tary and naval axiom. Coupled
with the reversal of the third term
tradition, it will certainly be a
massive handicap. It cannot be
shushed or ever~ minimized.
Only the persuasive skill of Mr.
Roosevelt, his literary ghosts, and
the greater pulling power of four
billion dollars, coupled with possible
Republican campaign blundering
could overcome it.
Yet, so great is the power of good
or ill of all these elements, that I
for one, am not yetready'to say,it
can't be done.
$ $ $
OMINOUS WAR MOPE
How can the British abandon the
Mediterranean? That would be to
abandon France, whose lifeline and
link with her African colonies it is.
It would be to abandon the grea!
Anglo-French near-eastern army,
which is rapidly being assembled
o's a threat to the totalitarian left
flank. That army couldn't be aunt.
tioned and supplied by the long
route around Africa. It might pos-
sibly be fed by supplies coming
through the Red sea but not sup-
ported by munitions and equipment.
To abandon the Mediterranean to
Italy would also be to abandon Tur-
key and leave the mess in south-
eastern Europe in Hitler's hands,
to the extent that he could divide
up the spoils by some kind of trade
between the supposed enemies,
Mussolini and Stalin. Such a pair-
ing of strange bedfellows would be
stronger than the coupling of sup-
posed enemies, Hitler and Stalin, to
ravage and divide Poland.
Such results are impossible for
England and certainly for France
to contemplate. Therefore it seems
pretty clear that England is not
leaving the Mediterranean with
anything except her ordinary com-
mercial traffic usually routed
through thc Suez canal. She is just
getting her rich argosies promptly
out of an area of danger from a
sudden possible (:lash of aerial and
maritime navies in those waters.
It seems to me that the critical
element in this war just now is not
what happened in Norway, as what
may happen in the Mediterranean.
If that warfare opens up, the af-
fair in Norway will just be a side-
show and that raises my principal
conjecture. Hitler has two choices
in grand strategy. He can concen-
trate on the British empire by strik-
ing at its heart in western Europe,
or, if he has the armed assisthnce
of Italy, he can attempt to cut it in
pieces it" detail and strengthen his
own ecor.'omic, if not military, posi-
tion by operation in southeastern
Europe and the Mediterranean. He
can do either, but he can't do both
at the same time.
