Monday, March 19, 1945

The Charlotte News

Monday, March 19, 1945

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that some 80,000 Germans had fled for the Rhine below strafing from American planes within the Bavarian Palatinate and the Saar region of Germany, as the Third and Seventh Armies moved swiftly to within 15 miles of each other between the St. Wendel and Zweibruecken areas of the Saarland. Further east in the Palatinate, the two armies, consisting together of 27 divisions and about 380,000 men, were within 42 miles of one another.

Third Army tanks had moved to within 14 miles of Mainz on the bend of the Rhine, as the Army threatened also Frankfurt am Main, Weisbaden, Ludwigshafen, and Mannheim, taking Bad Kreuznach along the way and advancing six more miles beyond it. General Patton's assault troops entered St. Wendel, cutting off all but the eastern end of a death trap 25 miles long and fifteen miles wide along the Saar Line. The Germans were reported to have blown up the bridge at Mainz the day before, cutting one of the last escape routes for the Germans in the Saar and Bavaria, suggesting that Hitler had abandoned any hope for rescue of the 80,000 soldiers thus caught in the trap.

The Seventh Army moved through the Siegfried Line east of Saarbruecken, into Wissembourg and Lauterbourg, nine miles from Karlsruhe, and captured Bitche.

Over 2,000 sorties were flown along the front as clear sping weather enabled easy visibility. The crammed roads east of St. Wendel and Bad Kreuznach, and at Kaiserlautern, were so filled with targets that the pilots reported using their supplies of ammunition within a few minutes. Civilian refugees fled under white tablecloths so that the strafing planes would avoid them.

It was reported from the Remagen bridgehead that on Saturday, the Ludendorff Bridge had collapsed from a combination of hits by German air and artillery bombardment, the heavy wooden planking added to the bridge to support the Allied traffic across its 1,200-foot span, and the heavy traffic itself during the ten days since the March 7-8 taking of the bridge with hardly any opposition arrayed against it. A central support of the bridge had also been severely weakened by an enemy demolition charge set before the bridge was taken by the First Army. Some 200 American engineers working on the bridge at the time of the collapse were sent into the river 70 feet below the road surface. Many were rescued.

Army officials stated that, nevertheless, temporary pontoon bridging would effect the movement of troops and supplies without respite.

Four German officers, it was announced by the German high command, had been executed for their negligence in allowing the bridge to be taken.

Some 1,800 American planes hit jet plane facilities and war industries in southern Germany, from Leipzig to Ulm, while the RAF struck at the Arnsberg and Bielefeld viaducts in the Ruhr.

The raid followed a record-setting daylight American raid on Berlin by 1,300 heavy bombers, hitting the Rheinmetal-Borsig armament works on Sunday.

In both raids, relatively substantial numbers of German fighters were encountered, with at least 24 shot down.

The night before, the RAF hit the Western Front, as Mosquitos attacked Berlin for the 27th consecutive night.

A British official disclosed that the air war had been so effective against Germany that captured German documents showed the German supplies critically in shortage, one tank force having been ordered from late December not to use any gasoline until it was ordered to the Western Front, at which point it was provided an insufficient quantity of fuel to reach the front. He stated that only one of Germany's 20 synthetic oil plants was still in operation, only 10 of its 79 coke ovens for its vital steel industry.

On the Eastern Front, the Russians had on Sunday captured Kolberg, 63 miles northeast of Stettin, following a thirteen-day siege, moving westward along the Pomeranian coast to support the flank of the First White Russian Army fighting for control of the mouth of the Oder River. The Russians were still in process of cleaning out the "kessels", the stubbornly persisting German troops, in Danzig, Gdynia, Braunsberg, and Heiligbeil, as well as Koenigsberg in East Prussia.

It appeared that German defenses in Western Hungary had completely collapsed after the loss of 600 tanks and 20,000 men, as the Russians pushed 39 miles west of captured Budapest, to within a hundred miles of Vienna.

In Italy, Italian volunteer troops captured the German strongpoint between Cuffiano and Riolo De Bagni, five miles south of the Bologna-Rimini road hub of Imola.

Hundreds of carrier planes and 350 B-29's, flying about 3,000 sorties, hit Japan again, this time with 5,000 tons of incendiary bombs, during Sunday and this day. About half the tonnage was released over Nagoya, hit the previous Monday with 2,000 tons of bombs. "We burned hell out of Nagoya," reported Col. Carl Starrie of Denton, Texas. The whole of the city appeared from the air to be on fire.

Admiral Nimitz announced that a carrier-borne task force had struck Kyushu.

The Senate called for an investigation into the domestic meat shortage, cut 12 percent by the OPA during the weekend, giving military personnel four percent more meat, while a 37 percent cut from the previous month was ordered in civilian tire quotas for passenger vehicles. Leather was also in short supply for civilian shoes. Overall, the supply situation was the most strained yet encountered during the war, was predicted to continue until both Germany and Japan were defeated.

Reporting from Bonn, Louis Lochner of the Associated Press had received an inside account of the July 20 bombing on the Wolf's Lair, which narrowly missed killing Hitler, the so-called Valkyrie plot. The informant was known to Mr. Lochner as a man of integrity, had been implicated in the plot himself, and was fleeing the grip of the Gestapo, moving house to house in western Germany.

The informant indicated that the bomb's effectiveness had been diminished when Hitler changed his plan from a meeting in the concrete bunker to a wooden shed to accommodate visiting Fascist Italian officials, to demonstrate that Hitler was not fearful of air raids. The bomb, designed for detonation in a concrete structure, had less confined impact in the wooden facility, where the force of the explosion could be blown outward and thus dissipated.

The informant, contrary to other reports that the briefcase containing the bomb had been fortuitously moved in front of a table leg, sparing Hitler, told of the Fuehrer standing up to obtain a magnifying glass from a cupboard when the bomb had exploded beneath his chair.

He also informed that Hitler's hearing had been permanently impaired, his right arm injured but nursed back to health, and burns also inflicted. Hitler had become seriously ill in September from the aftershock of the experience and often would lose his memory, causing him to be unable to function for days on end as head of state and the military. He also suffered from fainting spells and his speech was faltering, causing him to be able to pronounce some words only with difficulty.

In 42 days, all of his health problems would suddenly go away, miraculously, his burns, no doubt, to become eternal and everlasting in the Hellfire to which he consigned himself.

On the editorial page, "Case History" regards an arrested man with eight automobile titles in his possession, including one belonging to the Sheriff, and driving a stolen car. It turned out that he had stolen the titles from a dealer. He had been arrested three or four times previously and the piece sets forth the history from January, 1943 for various offenses, the first time getting two years, suspended on condition that the defendant join the Army, despite the Army's policy of not wanting convicted criminals having such an option.

Nevertheless, he had joined the Army, served 17 months and was discharged, returned to civilian life at the end of 1944, then promptly was charged with stealing a wallet with $48, a car wheel and tire plus tools, only to be arrested a week later for stealing more tires and tubes from a wrecked vehicle while the driver took his wife to the hospital. He received probation on both cases.

Then he was arrested on the stolen vehicle charge. The man was but 20.

The piece lays the blame at the feet of Solicitor John Carpenter for his too lenient treatment of convicted defendants.

"The Squatters" remarks on two mockingbirds who had begun building a nest on a "rambling rose bush atop an ancient arbor, just where they'll be covered by a great blanket of pink buds about the time egg production gets underway." They appeared to be newlyweds as they were more ardent in their courtship than the previous mockers and thrashers which had nested in the vicinity.

The pair of mockingbirds had settled on the homestead after Papa bird had made several trips out on a limb to "the tip of an oak where he warmed up his first bursts of song." By nightfall, they were building the nest. Before they had completed the task, came a cardinal and his lady friend. Lady Mocker suggested that there was no room at the inn for the two interlopers on the elopement. So, they went about finding their own home in a neighboring hedge.

Such are the observations, we trow, of Mr. Davis or Mr. Dowd of a weekend during the latter stages of World War II, with the world on the precipice of an acknowledged sea change in the currents of world events into the future. That, however, could go hang for a couple of days as the editors took their leave observing birds in the bush, Mockers and Cardinals.

Just today, before we read the editorial page, we happened to look again at President Kennedy's Fort Worth breakfast address, sponsored by the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, on November 22, 1963, occurring just about three hours or less before the assassination. This time, we found the full film of the breakfast that morning, lasting 51 minutes, including a period of about ten minutes during which the President had not yet entered the dining room from the adjoining kitchen area through which he had passed for security reasons.

Until a couple of weeks ago, we had seen only short snippets of this breakfast, the eerie presentation, by the head of the Chamber of Commerce, of the Texas hat, to shield the President from the rain, which he promised to don on Monday at the White House, and the cowboy boots to protect him from the rattlesnakes on Vice-President Johnson's ranch. The Chamber head also presented to Mrs. Kennedy a pair of boots "to ride to the hounds or walk to the rattlesnakes".

We were struck by a few things in this full presentation of that breakfast, the last speech the President would ever give. The local television reporter who narrated the event, while awaiting the arrival of the President, indicated that the President had violated a protocol of security that morning outside the hotel by wading into the crowd to shake hands. The reporter, obviously beginning to read then from a script, oddly began a detailed statement about the assassination of William McKinley, Friday, September 6, 1901, at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. You may listen for yourself as he describes, at about the six-minute mark of the film, how anarchist Leon Czolgosz, sometimes using the alias "Fred Nobody" or "Fred Nieman", fired twice at close range on President McKinley as an organist played a Bach Sonata. President McKinley lived eight days, until September 14, at which point he died of complications from his abdominal wound.

This incident had been vividly put forth in the 1959 book on President McKinley, In the Days of McKinley by Margaret Leech, published by Harper. Time-Life publisher Henry Luce had remarked at some point in 1961 about visiting President Kennedy in the Oval Office and seeing the rather thick book lying on his desk and asking him where he found the time to read such a heavy, thick book.

Why, we have to question, did the commentator start into a description of the assassination of William McKinley? It was not an anniversary. It obviously was an assassination seldom discussed in American history since its time, at least until later that day, as President McKinley was not one of our more revered Presidents, even if he had been re-elected in 1900. The assassination of President Lincoln, by contrast, was regularly in the media of the day because of the centennial of the Civil War, and, of course, the centennial of the Gettysburg Address had occurred just on the previous Tuesday, November 19, 1963. But the commentator made no mention of that or the assassination of President Garfield, also occurring at close quarters, in 1881.

One has to admit that, as a coincidence, it stands out rather markedly that an anarchist named Leon, who had assassinated President McKinley 62 years earlier, was openly discussed on Fort Worth television that morning, when thirty miles up the road in Dallas, a putative assassin named Lee, whose name had been given out by Cuban associates as "Leon", according to Sylvia Odio in her testimony to the Warren Commission, was supposedly preparing to kill the President just three hours hence. Was it a signal, confirming that the plot was still afoot, a confirmation in plain view, communicated via television, that persons in authority at some level were sanctioning the thing? The tv reporter was just reading a script. But who provided it? Why would someone script such a thing in detail on a morning when everyone was aware that the President was about to visit the "city which loved to hate", in a climate of xenophobic hate running through the South of the time?

In any event, the book does not further describe the Sonata in question, playing at the time of the McKinley shooting. But we traced it down to find that, apparently, it was said to be the "Sonata in F", but not further distinguished between the Sonata No. 5 in F Minor and No. 1 in F Major. We do not know what the band was playing when President Kennedy took his seat next to the rostrum on November 22 in Fort Worth, but it was not far off the Sonata No. 5 by Bach.

The Texas Boys Choir then sang "The Eyes of Texas", sung to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad"—the derivation of the parody sung by the Chad Mitchell Trio on an album released in 1962 as "The Ides of Texas", re the various machinations of Billy Sol Estes, to which we linked on Saturday. The next song, not on the program, while awaiting the delayed arrival of Mrs. Kennedy, was not identified. But we were able to find its lyrics, set forth below, and its history. It is called "Mustang Gray".

We comment on these matters because, while not faulting the participants in the breakfast itself, it is almost as if the entire breakfast, save of course the President's speech, was scripted for the upcoming assassination.

The hat was presented by Washer Brothers, a men's store founded by Nat Washer, born in Somerville, Tennessee, April 12, 1861, the date the Civil War began, died in 1935, serving as first president of the Texas State Board of Education, appointed in 1929, and a member of the Texas Textbook Commission from 1927; the boots came from John Justin, former Mayor of Fort Worth, "manufacturer of the most walked about boots in the world".

The Cubans associated with Lee Oswald in Dallas had, during the spring of 1963, gone to Bolton Ford in Dallas to inquire about the purchase of several Econoline vans for the purpose of supplying arms to the anti-Castro Cubans. Oswald, who did not have a driver's license, was listed as the person receiving the price quote.

The President, upon arrival in Texas, is reported to have said, "We're in nut country, now," in reference to some of the "Wanted for Treason" signs bearing President Kennedy's profile, appearing on telephone poles around Dallas and Fort Worth, and the other John Bircher-type activities for which Dallas had become known, including the incident in late October in protest of the United Nations, at which U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson had been pushed and spat upon by a couple of students.

There are other things about the breakfast worth noting also in this regard, but you may listen to it carefully yourself. If it all was coincidence, it passes our understanding.

In any event, you may read the lyrics of "Mustang Gray" and compare them below to the poetry of Sir Walter Scott's "The Lady of the Lake".

The President, at the beginning of the breakfast speech, by way of complimenting the work of Fort Worth Congressman, and future House Speaker, Jim Wright, tells the story of the California Congressman in 1928 who, having been in Washington a month, received a letter from a constituent asking why he had not yet fulfilled his campaign promise to have the Sierra Madre Mountains reforested.

The very first episode of the television series "Bonanza", which aired September 12, 1959, was titled "A Rose for Lotta", in reference to the real-life Lotta Crabtree, a nineteenth century and early twentieth century actress who was prominent in her day. The episode is worth watching in its entirety. The first season of "Bonanza", of course, was filmed in part on location at Lake Tahoe in the Sierras.

Posit, if you will, as you view it, that someone at the time saw the Cartwrights as the Kennedys, with Ben as Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., someone not kindly disposed to the Kennedys.

Recall, too, when the Cartwrights ambush the carriage riding through the Ponderosa, with Hoss holding a shotgun on the landau carriage, as Ms. Crabtree steps from it in a huff for the intrusion, the photographs of the aftermath of the bombing of the open Mercedes-Benz convertible of Reinhard Heydrich on the long U-curve in Prague on May 27, 1942, as well as some of the images we showed you in that regard three years ago, the relationship to Hertz, the relationship to the Herblock cartoons appearing in 1941. The carriage carrying Ms. Crabtree across the fictive figure of the Ponderosa had, under the Cartwright guns, lost its right rear wheel, just as the Mercedes-Benz of Herr Heydrich in 1942.

Again, we are referencing in this vein the subconscious or conscious retention of memories by a perceiver of the "Bonanza" episode of that time, not conscious intent of the writers of the episode, or the actors obviously, who merely recited and acted out the script which they were presented.

Why did President Kennedy have come to mind the California Congressman and the Sierra Madre Mountains reforestation in relation to Congressman Jim Wright, that fateful morning of November 22, 1963? Was the reference given him by Theodore Sorensen or another of his speech writers or was it his own? We cannot answer the questions, but we can at least intuit that it was coincident with the continuing theme of the trip, the effort to relate to Texans, to bring them onboard with a spirit of unity in the country and in the world, a principal embodiment of which of course at that time was the United Nations, having played the major role in saving the world from nuclear conflict in October, 1962, mindful of the episode with Ambassador Stevenson three weeks earlier. The primary focus of the trip to Texas had been party-healing efforts, to unite, in advance of the 1964 election year, the conservative and liberal wings of the party, so vastly at odds in those times, as well as in the times earlier of which we are concerned principally herein.

Time inevitably moves in a continuum, not in fits and starts as dots on a map without interconnection. The memories of people alive in those times, whether accurate or inaccurate, whether educated or uneducated, whether driven by the esoteric or by the inane and inartful, whether disposed to salutary acts or untoward acts, whether fuzzy in reason or precise in cogitation, whether allowing too much emotion to dilute cognition or allowing too little sentiment and recognition of existential uncertainty to dilute too much of the didactic or empirically achieved certainty, nevertheless, join times together from one day, one week, one month, one year, one decade, to the next, from one generation to the next, sometimes freighted with good will, all too often freighted with the worst, the desire for Triumph of the Will.

Younger people who do not remember the original run of "Bonanza" should also bear in mind that it was sponsored principally by Chevrolet, a prominent feature on the program near the beginning of each season having been the unveiling of the new Chevrolet line of cars, around the third week of September. We mention it because of the Hertz, Ford, Chevrolet connection to Dealey Plaza, the Lincoln Continental, etc., the Cheviot Hills locale within "The Lady of the Lake", and the fact that Chevy Chase, Maryland, was the place of residence of J. Edgar Hoover.

The fountain at the corner of Kearny and Market Streets in San Francisco, which, according to Drew Pearson on Saturday, Congressman Sol Bloom had stated as the locus at which he sold violets and other flowers in or around 1895, is named for Lotta Crabtree, dubbed "Lotta's Fountain", because of her having donated the physical structure to the city in 1911, in commemoration of the spot where opera singer Luiza Tetrazzini sang to an estimated crowd of 250,000 on Christmas Eve, 1910, presumably in celebration of the city having been rebuilt following the April 18, 1906 devastating earthquake, starting fires unquenchable because of the demise of the water system, resulting in most of the city being gutted.

Mr. Bloom had indicated that, upon his attendance of the upcoming United Nations Charter Conference in San Francisco, to start April 25, he would drop by the fountain and sell a few flowers, as he had done at the spot in 1895.

Young John F. Kennedy would also be present at the U. N. Charter Conference, as a journalist covering it.

We relate these observations to the piece on the mockingbirds because one of the streets on which the motorcade passed from Love Field that day was Mockingbird Lane.

And, of course, the well-known novel of the time of the early 1960's, published in 1960, and producing an equally celebrated film of the same name in 1962, To Kill a Mockingbird, had been authored by Harper Lee, close friend of Truman Capote.

Thanksgiving, 1959.

Cranberry sauce.

"Changing World" gets back down to practical observation, suggesting that it was a fair bet that the citizenry of the globe had not yet reckoned with the prospect of huge population shifts after the war. The piece forecasts that it would impact industry, social development, and military might.

It then sets forth the statistics between actual fighting strength of the principal nations involved in World War II as of 1940 versus the projected figures for those nations in 1970. It finds a precipitous increase likely in Russia, from 30.1 to 43.3 million, a substantial decline in the U.K., from 7.1 million to 5.7 million, a similar decline in France, from six million to 4.8 million, a decline in Germany from 11.3 million to 9.9 million, stagnation in Italy at 7.4 million, a slight decline in Poland, from 6.3 million to 6.1 million, and, finally, a relatively small increase in the United States fighting population, from 20.1 million in 1940 to 21.6 million in 1970.

It suggests the figures as indicative of an inexorably altered post-war world, for which planning would likely be ineffective in changing its otherwise immutable course, based on prior failed attempts at social engineering.

"Speaking Out" finds the New Hampshire vote of the previous weak, overwhelmingly endorsing America's membership in the prospective United Nations organization and a world police force to combat any attempts by any nation at aggressive action, to hearken a new era in world relations, given that New Hampshire was a traditional Republican stronghold.

In only a few communities, mostly neighboring Vermont, had the old isolationist doctrine appeared to persist such that the vote had been negative. But for the most part, the sentiment was overwhelmingly cast in favor of the new world cooperation.

The piece suggests that the Republican Party take note and perceive it as a signal that the party faithful no longer placed stock in the old doctrine of isolationism, that the party should use it as a bellwether therefore by which to gauge the future platform of the party in the 1946 mid-term election cycle.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record finds Senator James Eastland of Mississippi objecting to the salt meat of the country going to Russia as the salt meat diet was crucial to Southerners. (Didn't we tell ye last week that it would likely be the case from down yan t'other side of Asheville somers?)

The Senator assured that it was proper to desire that the Russians be well-fed but nevertheless objected to the food coming from the tables of Americans who could now scarcely find meat to eat. Not only had the salt meat disappeared from the butchers' counters, but also the canned fish, sardines, and salmon had become scarce. In consequence, the farmers' diet in the South was insufficient.

Senator Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska chimed in that the same thing was noted in his home state.

Senator Eastland added that farm implements were also in shortage, making it difficult for the farmer to produce food to feed the world.

Senator Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin added that his state had been stripped of butter and cheese, leaving no substitute for the missing meat.

Senator Eastland responded that farm labor in the South would not be able to afford to purchase the Wisconsin cheese even had it been available.

The front page contradicts that which Senator Eastland claimed. The military was receving a four percent boost in its meat allotment while the civilian population had been cut by 12 percent.

Drew Pearson reports of new orders from the President to the Army Civil Affairs Branch with respect to occupation of German cities. The orders indicated the President's tough stand against Nazis and that they be ferreted out from captured cities, thus far not being effectively accomplished. FDR had issued strict orders to counter any repeat performance of that transpiring in Aachen during the previous fall when Nazis were placed in positions of civilian control.

Henceforth, the Army was to find non-Nazis and persons not previously connected with them, even if unknown to the civilian populace, to place in positions of leadership. Cologne would be the test case. The President's own personal representatives would check to determine that the orders were being followed. The orders suggested the President's desire for a tough peace.

Mr. Pearson next tells of the hearings before the Senate Military Affairs Committee in which Senator Happy Chandler of Kentucky expressed his displeasure to Undersecretary of War Patterson regarding the manner in which the Army had been building up the defenses of Alaska, contending that the Japanese could invade the Aleutians against insufficient defenses in place to stop them. He favored building the defense presently, because, after the war, it would appear as a slap to Russia.

Undersecretary Patterson stated that the Army had determined to send all available equipment from the European theater at war's end to the Pacific front, rather than ship new equipment to the Pacific.

There were at present three million American troops in Europe and 250,000 British. It was estimated that a third would need to remain after the war to police the occupied countries. About half of the remaining personnel would not see duty in the Pacific but rather would be discharged, a decision to be made individually rather than by divisions, premised on length of service, length of time overseas, wounds, and family status.

Those going to the Pacific would first return home for a thirty-day furlough. Senator Chandler and other members of the committee, however, expressed the belief that the 30-day furlough would not be a good idea for it having the tendency to cause the soldier to forget that he was a soldier and further to cause complications with family having to see him depart once again after a month-long stay.

Marquis Childs, reporting from the Tenth Mountain Division on the Italian Front, tells of four dead German soldiers brought into the lines after snipers had killed them along a mountain slope, expertly shot through the head or heart. They explained that, first, the Germans had to be killed, then brought down the slope, then buried. Nevertheless the G.I.'s argued for a moment over whether they really needed to bury these enemy soldiers.

Just then a flight of American planes flew overhead and strafing could be heard down the valley where enemy artillery positions were located.

The Tenth Mountain Division had been activated in Italy in the fighting for Mount Belvedere, now captured. Previously, they had been engaged for seven months in the fighting on Kiska in the Aleutians. Then, they returned stateside and trained in the Rockies in Colorado for more than a year.

One G.I. said that it was the shelling by the enemy which got them down. Mr. Childs could understand what he meant, as the enemy could see through their binoculars every movement of the division, giving one the feeling of being a clay pigeon within range of enemy 88-mm. guns, having the accuracy of a rifle.

W. S. Creighton, vice-president of the Charlotte Shippers and Manufacturers Association, writes a letter to the editor re the editorial "Ol' 42" appearing March 8, stating that, while his organization found no fault in the conclusion that North Carolina was at or near the bottom in both war manufacturing wages and non-war manufacturing wages, there was exception to made to the further conclusion of North Carolina's low-standing in other categories of social and economic indicators. He cites the state's position in population as 11th and, in terms of population per mile of railroad, 14th. He further contends that North Carolina's relatively low-standing in wages was the result of a great number of available unskilled laborers, principally black, who tended to depress wages for unskilled jobs.

In 1899, the total income of the ten Southern states was 90 million dollars, compared to 1.421 billion in 1939 just for North Carolina, indicative, he suggests, of enormous progress in the South as a whole, and for North Carolina, in terms of wages "since the gay nineties when frugal living was a virtue even among the well-to-do."

Mr. Creighton puts forth a table showing the states in terms of population and population per railroad mile.

He does not explain, however, why it was that these two indicators promised a higher standard of living or progress within the state, especially in light of the freight-rate differential between the South and the North.

The editors produced a piece marking the 25th anniversary of the vote against American membership in the League of Nations. The vote had been 49 Senators in favor and 35 opposed, seven short of the necessary two-thirds majority of the voting Senators at the time. Though not mentioned, there were 12 abstentions. The vote in favor had been premised on a reservation of power of the United States to act independently of the League in declaring war.

An earlier vote, on November 19, 1919, had found 39 Senators in favor and 55 opposed, also premised on the reservations, with 38 yeas and 53 nays registered the same date without the reservations.

The piece contends that the Yalta accord had rendered moot the need for such reservations on the proposed United Nations organization for the fact that the Security Council vote required unanimity for action against a member of the Council. Thus, as to the major powers, each could veto sanctions against itself by the Security Council. Each nation reserved the right to declare war unilaterally.

But, in fact, the President had stated that the issue of voting had not been finally determined and would be left to the United Nations charter conference, to begin April 25 in San Francisco. The contentions of the piece in this regard had indeed been discussed for several months as a possibility, one favored by the Soviet Union, but apparently by this point, no such agreement had in fact been made.

Among the quotes of the day: "I hate the Americans. One thing they cannot take away from us. We will start our new life under the old principle that we have been taught—to live means to fight. Wait and see who laughs last... Today I just about rushed into a buried mine. An American saved my life." –Girl, 17, at Monschau, Germany, in a letter to her SS sweetheart.

Welcome to the new world for which millions fought and died, little baby.

There was a noble ranger,
They called him Mustang Gray;
He left his home when but a youth,
Went ranging far away.

But he'll go no more a-ranging
The savage to affright;
He's bear'd his last war whoop
And fought his last fight.

He ne'er would sleep within a tent
No comforts would he know;
But like a brave old Tex-i-an
A-ranging he would go.

When Texas was invaded
By a mighty tyrant foe,
He mounted his noble war horse
And a-ranging he did go.

Once he was taken prisoner,
Bound in chains upon the way;
He wore the yoke of bondage
Through the streets of Monterrey.

A senorita loved him
And followed by his side;
She opened the gates and gave to him
Her father's steed to ride.

God bless the senorita,
The belle of Monterrey;
She opened wide the prison door
And let him ride away.

And when this veteran's life was spent,
It was his last command,
To bury him on Texas soil
On the banks of the Rio Grande.

And there the lonely traveler,
When passing by his grave,
Will shed a farewell tear
O'er the bravest of the brave.

Now he'll go no more a-ranging,
The savage to affright;
He's heard his last war whoop
And fought his last fight.

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;
Dream of battled fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking.
In our isle's enchanted hall,
Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,
Fairy strains of music fall,
Every sense in slumber dewing.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Dream of fighting fields no more:
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.

No rude sound shall reach thine ear,
Armour's clang, or war-steed champing,
Trump nor pibroch summon here
Mustering clan, or squadron tramping;
Yet the lark's shrill fife may come
At the day-break from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,
Booming from the sedgy shallow.
Ruder sounds shall none be near,
Guards nor warders challenge here,
Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing,
Shouting clans, or squadrons stamping.

Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;
While our slumbrous spells assail ye,
Dream not, with the rising sun,
Bugles here shall sound reveille.
Sleep! the deer is in his den;
Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;
Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen
How thy gallant steed lay dying.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
Think not of the rising sun,
For at dawning to assail ye,
Here no bugles sound reveille.

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