Saturday, March 31, 1945

The Charlotte News

Saturday, March 31, 1945

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that twelve Allied armored divisions struck deeper into Germany, 175 miles from Berlin and 130 miles from Munich, having nearly encircled the Ruhr to cut it off from supply lanes.

Some 25,000 Germans had surrendered the previous day, Good Friday, 1945. Along the First Army front, 41,721 prisoners had been taken since the beginning of the six-day offensive.

The First and Ninth Armies were moving toward joinder beyond Paderborn in the Ruhr, seeking to entrap some 40,000 Germans, the Ninth Army having moved by moonlight Friday. The First Army tanks had on Friday night moved through Paderborn northwest of Kassel but had to slow down to consolidate the rapid gains and obtain some rest for the tank crews who had operated practically non-stop for six days. In gains of up to 21 miles, the First Army had crossed the Eder River and entered Fritzlar, fifteen miles from Kassel. The Ninth Armored Division captured the Eder Dam and Nitre. The Second Infantry Division followed this 2.5 mile advance.

The Sixth Armored Division of the Third Army moved to within ten miles of Kassel, 165 miles from Berlin, and may have entered Kassel. The Sixth Armored had advanced 45 miles since Friday. Thirty miles to the southeast, the Fourth Armored Division drove to within four miles of Hersfeld, 175 miles from Berlin.

The Seventh Army moved into Odenwald, to within 15 miles of Wuerzburg, 130 miles from Munich.

The French First Army moved across the Rhine at a point somewhere between Mannheim and Karlsruhe during the morning.

The British Second Army continued its movement into Westphalia, making substantial gains of at least 16 miles against little opposition, was reported to be 60 to 70 miles beyond the Rhine north of the Ruhr. Their precise location was held in secret.

The newly deployed Fifteenth Army of Lt. General Leonard Gerow was now on the front lines for the first time.

A Stockholm newspaper reported that the German Government had removed from Berlin to Berchtesgaden and that Hitler and Himmler, as well as all other high Nazis, were now present at that location.

More than 1,300 American heavy bombers, escorted by 850 fighters, attacked railway and industrial targets in Brunswick and Brandenburg, as well as freight yards at Halle and a synthetic oil plant at Zeitz, the latter being one of the few remaining oil refineries still operating in Germany near maximum production.

Some 750 RAF bombers struck the Blohm-Voss submarine yards at Hamburg, hit the previous day by American bombers.

The previous night, RAF Mosquitos bit Berlin, its 43rd bombing in 39 consecutive nights.

On the Eastern Front, the Russians had captured Ratibor, near the Czech border, 150 miles northeast of Vienna and 16 miles from Moravska Ostrava, gateway guarding the Moravian Gap. Two other drives toward Vienna had reached to within 52 miles and 44 miles, respectively, of the Austrian capital. Biskau, a communications center on the left bank of the Oder, was also captured. The Germans were reported to be fighting desperately to defend Vienna.

The drive toward Bratislava in Slovakia was delayed by large minefields and heavy enemy mortar and artillery fire.

The capture of Danzig, as announced the previous day, had freed 50 Russian divisions in the north to concentrate on Berlin.

German communiques reported the loss of Kuestrin and that the First Ukrainian Army had battled into Glogau, 55 miles northwest of Breslau.

On the eve of the invasion of Okinawa, the United States Fifth Fleet, commanded by Admiral Raymond Spruance, in combination with a British task force, continued to pound the island and neighboring islands for the ninth consecutive day. The British were said to be concentrating their fire on the Sakashima group, to the south of Okinawa. The Japanese reported that the American task force included 15 battleships.

There was still no American confirmation of the March 26 landings on the nearby islands of Aka and Tokashiki, fifteen miles from Okinawa.

Admiral Nimitz announced that American warships had attacked on March 27-28 Minami Daito, east of the Ryukyus, and the next night had struck Kyushu and the Ryukyus. In all, these ships had sunk or damaged 47 enemy ships and destroyed or damaged 86 planes and one glider. Eighteen of the ships were sunk, and 14 more probably sunk, with 15 damaged. Twelve American planes were shot down, but six of the pilots were rescued.

Two small forces of B-29's struck Kyushu Island and Nagoya on Honshu, the latter for the 11th time.

In the Philippines on Thursday, the 40th Division, commanded by Maj. General Rapp Brush, landed near the mouth of the Bago River on Negros Island, encountering light opposition. Negros was the last major island in the Philippines still under enemy control and was one of the largest sugar-producing Philippine islands. The Americans immediately seized an airstrip and threatened the capital at Bacolod. Masbate and Bobol were the only remaining islands of the Visayan group which had not been invaded.

Near Manila Bay, hard fighting was required to take tiny Caballo Island, near Corregidor.

On Cebu, fighting continued as the Americans overcame moderate resistance to take Guadalupe, there joined with guerilla forces. The Japanese were reported by A. P. correspondent Richard Bergholz to be dug in within the hills behind Cebu City and that therefore their elimination would take time.

In Burma, the British 14th Army drove south into central Burma to capture Kyaukse, 24 miles south of Mandalay, and made contact with other forces driving north from Meiktila, trapping Japanese forces in the middle. Mahlaing, twenty miles northwest of Meiktila, had been entered by the forces the previous day.

The United States had rejected a request by the Soviet Union to have the Soviet-sponsored Warsaw Government in Poland attend the United Nations Conference at San Francisco. The State Department was hopeful that there would be a reorganized Polish government, more democratically representative of all Poles, including the Polish government-in-exile in London, which could attend the San Francisco conference, set to begin April 25. The Big Three had agreed at Yalta that there would be such a reconstituted government in Poland. The British also had declined the Russian request.

On the editorial page, "Good, But No Zip" gives tepid praise to the Citizens Group in Charlotte and its slate of proposed candidates to fill seven places on the City Council in the upcoming election. While the Citizens Group was reasonably proficient in their governance in the past, they also lacked resolve and creativity, which Mayor Baxter had supplied. So, the piece concludes, as long as there was a Mayor providing the impetus for progress in provision of improved community services, the Citizens Group would suffice to provide efficient, if lackluster, government.

All they needed was a new campaign slogan: Win One for the Zip.

Alternate: Now Pregnant With Enthusiasm.

"Bottle Tempest" comments on the method of liquor control practiced in South Carolina with its $1.50 per gallon tax, higher than any in the country. Now, there was a proposal to establish state liquor control, similar to the system in Virginia. Both Senator Olin Johnston, a Prohibitionist, and Senator Burnet Maybank opposed liquor control by the State, Senator Johnston on the bases that it compelled the citizenry to support sale of liquor and that it took away revenue from taxation of privately owned liquor stores, Senator Maybank on the philosophical ground that he opposed the State being in the liquor business.

The piece states that it did not know how this issue would be resolved but that state control appeared better than the present system of control by high taxation.

All they needed was a new slogan: What's Prologue is Passed.

"War Easter No. 7" remarks on it being the seventh wartime Easter, that declared by the Council of Christian Churches at Nicea in Eastern Turkey, based on the first Sunday following the fourteenth day of the new moon which begins on or after the vernal equinox. The original reasoning behind this elaborate determination of the flexible date was to provide a full moon to those who made the pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

It informs also that Passover had begun on the previous Wednesday, commemorating the delivery of the Jews from bondage in Egypt. This Passover was the first celebrated on German soil since 1932.

It reminds that Mussolini--who had in 1913 published a study of John Huss--had invaded Albania on Good Friday in 1939, just after Hitler had completed the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia. On Easter Sunday that year, President Roosevelt had sought a ten-year pledge of non-aggression from both dictators; it was treated with open contempt six days later.

Easter of 1940 had occurred during the "phony war", between the conquering of Poland and the invasions of Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, Belgium, and France in the spring.

A year later, the Luftwaffe was destroying Coventry; Belgrade had been captured by the Nazis on Easter Sunday. Japan and Russia that day signed their five-year non-aggression pact, not Easter in the Orthodox Church of Russia, which followed the Julian Calendar.

In 1942 at Easter, Bataan and Corregidor were threatened with Japanese capture. Ceylon was bombed by the enemy.

A year later, the tide of war had turned as the Allies moved in for the final trap of the Germans on the Cap Bon Peninsula in Tunisia. The Russians, having begun the Stalingrad offensive in the late fall, were also driving the Germans from Leningrad.

A year earlier, the plans for D-Day were being finalized as Allied planes leveled German cities to prepare the way for the landing. The Russians moved into Rumania, captured Odessa in the Ukraine on Easter Monday.

This Easter, the piece concludes, brought hope that the long war was near its end, surely so in Europe. It reminds that on Easter, 1918, the German armies had still been advancing, with peace then but seven months away.

By the end of the ensuing month, the two dictators who scoffed at President Roosevelt's entreaty to peace on Easter, 1939, the two dictators who together started the war, started the movement in Europe which led to the war, who set the example for Imperial Japan to follow, would both be dead, one by a mob, one by his own hand.

The President also would be dead, by stroke.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record finds Congressman Robert Rich of Pennsylvania spouting the old saw anent quitting, again with regard to his proposal to cut appropriations to the Department of Agriculture. He says that he had worked from 6:00 in the morning until 11:00 or 12:00 at night for many years, so that he could afford a horse and buggy and a house in the country; now he had an automobile which would wear out someday. He would wear out someday. But he did not intend to rust.

He then quotes President Roosevelt from the 1932 campaign against President Hoover, FDR saying that he intended to reorganize the Department of Agriculture to get more from it for less money, that too much was being spent on it with too little service to the farmers.

Mr. Rich challenges any of his colleagues to dispute the fact that more money was now being spent on the Department than at any other time and to daresay that more service was being received from the Department than under President Hoover.

Congressman Charles Savage of Washington promptly answered Mr. Rich's invitation by saying that in 1932, the farmers were losing their farms, their income was the lowest in history, their reserves the lowest in history, and now they enjoyed their lowest indebtedness in history, their highest incomes, and the best overall financial condition in the history of American farming.

Drew Pearson discusses the importance of the decision on Monday by the Supreme Court to hear the case of Governor Ellis Arnall, brought on behalf of the State of Georgia to challenge the railroads for alleged collusion in setting discriminatory freight rates, higher for the South than the North. Mr. Pearson hails Governor Arnall as the greatest leader out of the South since the Civil War.

The achievement meant that states which believed that they were victimized by corporate monopolies could come to Washington and argue their case before the Supreme Court without having first to wade through the machinery of the lower Federal courts. It also meant that the Executive Branch could not avoid operation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act should one of the states challenge its being excepted in a given area of the economy.

For years, the Southern states had complained about these rate differentials, but finally someone was doing something about it.

Governor Arnall had been progressive in other areas also. He had led the movement in Georgia to abolish the poll tax, and the Legislature in February by a large majority, 151 to 41 in the Georgia House and 41 to 3 in the Senate, had done so.

By self-confession, he had grown up a son of privilege, his father having earned the family fortune by employing blacks at 25 cents per day. But, now Governor Arnall insisted that the root problem in the black community was economic, not social, and that the needed balance would come from the political realm.

He had also shaped the state around sound fiscal policy, reducing the debt from 36 million dollars to 6.9 million dollars, and despite heavy increases in spending for education. Yet, he did it without raising taxes.

He had also convinced the Legislature to revise completely the Georgia Constitution, amended in the wake of the Civil War 301 times, all in an effort to keep carpet-baggers and blacks in check. It had become so wieldy as to be unworkable. Now, a streamlined revision had been passed unanimously by the Georgia House.

Samuel Grafton criticizes Congress and special interests in the country for holding up various international agreements recommended by the President, from the Bretton Woods accord, opposed by the bankers, to a treaty with Mexico regarding water rights, opposed by California, to an Anglo-American agreement regarding oil in the Middle East, opposed by American oil interests fearful of competition on the world market.

In each case, the agreements were prudent, but in each, Congress had lagged in approving them because of the special interests in opposition.

Mr. Grafton warns that if the country continued in this vein, other countries would give up on meeting for international conferences to form agreements which could then not have hope of implementation by the Congress.

Two new proposals had been sent to Congress by the President, one favoring U.S. membership in a Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, to plan for avoidance of world hunger, and a proposal to give the President the power to reduce tariffs by 50 percent as a tool by which to negotiate international trade. But in each case, it was likely, if history was a predictor of future patterns, that the Congress would take its time about acting on these proposals.

Marquis Childs, just back from the European front, tells of the feeling by most American soldiers of being divorced from American life. Dissemination of news to the soldiers was limited, contributing to this feeling. Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper, sought to fill the void, but there was still a considerable gap between what was printed at home and what was read by the soldier at the front.

Sometimes, in consequence, relatively minor news stories at home achieved sensational importance with the servicemen abroad. While Mr. Childs had been in Italy, the fisticuffs between Representatives John Rankin of Mississippi and Frank Hook of Michigan on the floor of the House had made headlines in Stars and Stripes. He wondered what the soldiers thought about it as they read of the democracy for which they were fighting.

There was ill feeling among the men regarding the behavior of some of the delegation of the special Military Affairs Committee of the House which had visited the front during December. Many of the Congressmen had shown lack of interest while being briefed, some falling asleep. Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce of Connecticut had scored a hit, in large part because of her genuine demonstration of intellectual curiosity and understanding of what she was shown. Congressman Albert Gore of Tennessee had demonstrated after his return that he had studied matters closely during his visit, as he had made a thorough and intelligent report to the House the previous week regarding the Allied Military Government of Germany and how it was working.

The primary link, Mr. Childs reminds his readers, between the soldier and the home front was via mail.

Tom Jimison provides his annual message on Easter. It would be his last Easter, as he would die from natural causes in September.

The former Methodist minister discusses the sermon by Peter on the Pentecost and uses as the theme the words of Acts 2:24, Because it was not possible that he should be holden, the reason why Jesus was raised from the dead.

He says that Peter knew what he was talking about.

"He knew that it was not possible for Jesus to be holden. He could not be holden by any creed or clique. Time out of mind Peter had seen Him burst to flinders and smash to smithereens the traditions of men, their cherished creeds, their pious pretensions. He had looked on with amusement while the Carpenter of Nazareth broke down the barriers of race and punctured relentlessly the pious frauds who would divide human society into clashing classes. And he had seen it done with such a strange dignity that the keenest and shrewdest of His critics could think of no way to silence Him save by the monstrous method of murder."

Mr. Jimison urges that the dead of the war who had fought for freedom of mankind could likewise not be holden by the grave, that their spirits dwell on the "hilltops of glory everlasting".

And so it was well, he advises, to heed Peter's admonition to "'take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts.'"

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