Wednesday, September 22, 1943

The Charlotte News

Wednesday, September 22, 1943

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that General George Marshall was to be appointed Supreme Commander of all Allied forces worldwide. The appointment had been decided by Roosevelt and Churchill at the Quebec Conference and was contingent only upon confirmation by Parliament.

General MacArthur, perhaps playing the role backhandedly of the prima donna, issued a statement from Australia that no matter how subordinate his role in the war, he would pursue it "manfully".

Ernest Agnew, A.P. correspondent, reports that it was probable, in light of Churchill's speech the day before in Commons, that the Allies would mount an offensive against the Balkans before the end of 1943 and invade Western Europe by the spring of 1944.

German forces laid down a strong defensive cordon around Naples as the Fifth Army sought to move closer to the city from the area around Salerno.

On the Russian front, the Red Army had moved close enough to Kiev to see the domes of its churches. The way to Kiev had been opened by the capture of Chernigov, the most important Nazi base on the lower Dneiper River. Other contingents were within eighteen miles of Smolensk.

On the editorial page, "Secret Desire" finds Republican Congresswoman Jessie Sumner to be less than candid in her expression of concern that Britain had been seeking to undermine the effectiveness of the command of General MacArthur by placing too much emphasis on the European theater of war. What she was really after, says the piece, was the continued vitality of the public image of General MacArthur to provide sustenance to his potential candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 1944.

"Underdog's Day" finds an independent spirit extant in China in venturing to plan its own post-war framework for achieving freedom. It would not kowtow to the Western democracies or wholly model itself on their systems.

Based on the two Chinas ultimately to emerge after the war by 1949, the notion would prove gross understatement.

"Just A Peep" remarks on the criticism by Congress of the President’s statement of policy regarding repayment of Lend-Lease aid during the war. He had asserted that there would be none. The President was quick to explain away his faux pas by saying that his words were not well-chosen.

The editorial dismisses the issue as a non-starter, that the repayment would come in the prospect of a better post-war world while saving the United States from destruction.

As had been pointed out in another editorial in the column a few weeks earlier, it also effectively saved American lives by outfitting armies in Britain, Russia, China, and among the Free French.

Raymond Clapper expresses concern that FDR had not in his latest war message to Congress made any reference to the French or provided any approbation to the French Committee of National Liberation. The united spirits of General Giraud as military commander of the French and General De Gaulle, despite his temperamental attitude and uneasy relations with both Roosevelt and Churchill, as recognized leader of the French, were both necessary to effect the kind of positive attitude among the French toward the Allies to foist revolution from within against the Nazi occupiers, to enable better the liberation of France when finally the invasion would come.

By contrast, the day before, Churchill had made special note in his speech to Commons that the French had trained between 300,000 and 400,000 troops in North Africa, ready to be deployed as part of a Western European invasionary force.

Drew Pearson finds FDR caustically critical of remarks by Herbert Hoover that the food distribution program in the country was below par, calling the former President’s words divisive in time of war.

In the meantime, the President was trying to woo the farmer to the salutary effect of price controls on food as hedge against inflation. The farm organizations responded that while farm incomes were at an all-time high, the greatest share of the benefits had gone to the big farms which dealt in volume, while the average small farmer had suffered under price controls. Farm leaders generally voiced favor, however, for the Administration's plan for price subsidies, finding them necessary to insure a bumper crop in the ensuing year and to ward off inflation generally in the country.

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