The object lesson was that it was not the borrowing but the paying back of a loan which was always the trouble.

The column finds the point well taken and then proceeds to rank states against the national average income, with North Carolina in 45th place, showing earnings equal only to 65% of the national average.

It had not always been the case. A year or so earlier, many Americans were concerned that Russia would defeat Germany first and even make a separate peace from the other Allies. The fear was that Europe would then become Communist.

The change had come about from the specter of the German breakthrough in the Ardennes in December juxtaposed in high relief with the beginning of the powerful new Russian winter offensive in the East. Suddenly, it appeared to many Americans that only the Russians knew how to deal militarily with the Germans, that the Americans and British were still struggling. Thus, fears of Communism suddenly were in surrender to practical concerns regarding efficient prosecution of the war to conclusion.

The piece deduces that perhaps the new feeling was signal of future trust to be established with the long feared Soviet Union.

Hope springs eternal...

There was a lot of smoking going on.

No sentiment of the sort, "You won't have Henry Wallace to kick around anymore," was heard. Of course, who knows? Had he left on such a sour note, he might have been elected in 1948 when he ran on the Progressive Party ticket against both President Truman and the Republican nominee, Governor Dewey. Stranger things, by far, have occurred in American politics.

Mr. Pearson tells further of Mr. Wallace's office suite being taken over by Senator Burton Wheeler of Montana, with work and painters moving in a week before the Vice-President's term ended.

Whether they were trying to get a jump on the last of the horse races before they were called off for the winter at the urging of James Byrnes is not indicated. But, since the races had ended on January 3, perhaps they were past-posting. Ye Fala?

He next relates of former Representative Norris Poulson of California having just returned from London, discussing with two influential members of Parliament the prospect of aid from Britain in the war in the Pacific, once Hitler was defeated. Mr. Poulson left with the impression, candidly conveyed, that no aid would be forthcoming, that Britons viewed five years of war as enough. Conventional wisdom, in any event, among the American military leaders in the Pacific was that America was best prepared to handle the war in that theater.

Mr. Pearson reports that when the British sent Indian troops into Salonika in Greece against the ELAS, the troops turned and sided with the Greek forces opposed to the return of King George, notwithstanding Prime Minister Churchill having labeled these Greeks as communist-leaning. The incident was considered especially important as impacting Indian affairs vis à vis Britain. It was consistent with the view imparted the previous summer to U.S. Ambassador to India William Phillips by General Joseph Stilwell that he considered the Indian Gurkhas fighting in Burma to be no more than mercenaries who would not fight with determination and spirit until India was granted independence.

Finally, the column reports of the surprise and consternation of Frances Perkins when she found out at the President's inaugural ceremony that she was to be tapped to remain in the position of Secretary of Labor despite her determination to resign.

Some of the younger generation, brainwashed by Nazi propaganda disseminated prior to the American-British entry, had greeted the Westerners with Nazi salutes. But now things had marginally improved even if still under stress. Some of these same young people had switched to communism. There were ten Communists in the Icelandic Parliament.

In any event, reports Mr. Childs, Iceland, once living in isolation, had inexorably been drawn into the current of modernity.

Mr. Childs, incidentally, does not explain what he is doing in Iceland. Perhaps, it was a ploy coordinated by the Office of War Information to throw off German intelligence, to suggest that the President, now enroute to Malta, would meet instead at Reykjavik with Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin.

The Germans had sent in some twenty parachutists to Tehran, according to Russian reports in November, 1943, in advance of the meeting there of the Big Three, with instructions to assassinate President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill. Precautions had been undertaken, having the President and Prime Minister stay at the Russian Embassy to avoid cross-town travel. On June 1, 1943, an active attempt to shoot down the plane thought to be carrying Churchill from North Africa back to England wound up taking the life of actor Leslie Howard when the German fighter plane shot down the wrong aircraft based on a tip that Churchill was aboard. The tip came through German Abwehr agents based on a sighting of a man who looked as Churchill boarding the plane.

The Congress was considering at the same time separating out the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and its money-lending apparatus from the Department of Commerce, which, if done, would strip Mr. Wallace of much of the power of the office. The conservatives in Congress feared that Mr. Wallace, as a liberal, would be too inclined after the war to loan money to insure full employment.

It had finally been British guns which had knocked out three of the lead tanks heading for the Meuse on the Namur-Dinant Road. But it had been General Harmon's forces in support of the small British contingent which had enabled the operation to succeed. Otherwise, the German armored columns would have overrun the British positions, thus cutting American lines in half, the German object of the Ardennes offensive.

The battle at Celles had not been planned by either side. General Harmon's men had just traveled a hundred miles to reach the area and were not expecting to have to do battle immediately. The General had sent out a patrol which promptly ran into the German tank column heading for the Meuse. General Harmon then sought and obtained permission to counter-attack, though it represented a change in plans from those authorized by General Montgomery, ordering Harmon to wait until Von Rundstedt had stretched his forces to the limit, then counter-attack. Thus followed four days of battle in which the Second Armored Division destroyed most of the enemy armored vehicles and pushed Von Rundstedt's forces back ten miles.

General Montgomery had remonstrated General Harmon initially because he thought that the "Hell on Wheels" Division had jumped the gun and engaged the enemy deliberately, spoiling the plan to concentrate several divisions at once on Von Rundstedt's extended forces. When he found out the spontaneous nature of the engagement, however, General Montgomery provided high praise to "Old Gravel Voice" and his men for saving the day.

Incidentally, should one be looking for inspiration for the characterization of the voice invested in the character of General Patton by George C. Scott in 1970, perhaps it was that of General Harmon. It was certainly not that of General Patton, not quite a contralto, but neither possessed of the fearsome boom of the bowed bass fiddle. In reality, however, the contrast between mellifluous voice and the words which General Patton could deliver with it likely made him the more trepidatious.