i:j:^--§UW2CQ^^^EDliESLAY^^APRIL^2 2^^1242. good evening EVERYBODY: Tonight I am in the capital of the Keystone State, on the Susquehanna River, taking part in a the presentation of the coveted Navy "E." However, my news dispatches h8ve followed me to WKBO, and important as the local news is here in Harrisburg, of the world. For example ---- in IJii patriotic ceremony in connection with the war effort, | I am sure you are more eager to hear about other parts j FRANCE ' "*wii —a— The people of France have already begun to to pay heavily for the return af power of Pierre Laval. aore Frenchmen were executed today by the Nazi authorities in Paris^ fifteen in one group, and more in antofeher. Just how many there were in the second / group we are not.told; but, at least a hundred have { been lined up ae^inst the wall and shot in the last three days. Hitler*s men announced that all this is in retaliation for terrorist attacks on the Geriaan Army of occupation. What*£ more, the French authorities only have four days more in which to produce those who were French fail to produce those responsible, then twenty more Frenchmen will be shot and live hundred more will be sent to labor camps, in other words into slaveiy . And that isn't all; at Rouen, eigh..y more I responsible for the attack that occurred April Eighth. If they fail, then fifteen more Frenchmen will be shot, j And -- therewas an attack on April Twentieth. If the i FRANCE - 2 hostages are being held by the Germans. Eighty more Frenchmen who will be executed tomorrow if the French don*t turn over those who played a part in wrecking a Nazi troop t rain. Hostages are also being held at Calais, at face the Nazi executioneer before long. And all this as Premier. The deputy military governor of occupied France has ordered a curfevt in the Paris area, all movies houses, cabarets, music halls and theatres to be shut down for the time being. And this is interpreted to mean that there will be more arrests, on a wholesale scale. Also the accession of Laval has also been followed by more and more raids on France, by British! commandos. There was another today. The raiders ( penetrated the Boulogne area on the coast, drove the „ , o ,qi 5 +ance and then pushed beyond Germans bacK quite a dist n , St. Nazaire, and in Alsace. All of whom probably will j follows directly upon the appointment of Fierre Laval, j FRAN^-.- 3 the Nazi defenses to a depth of some thirty miles, doing all the damage they could. The official communique says the raid primarily was for reconnaissance. The raiding commandos were backedK up a light naval flotilla, which helped in the work of destruction and then took the raiders off. This was the first raid on France since Marshal Von Rundstedt one of Hitler's ace generals from the Russian front, took command in France. Presumably the purpose was to test the German defenses, find out how strong they are; and, to compel Hitler to maintain a larger army of occupation right when he needs every available man in Russia. While the Commandos were making their raid on the ground, the Royal Air Force swooped down on the Cherbourg Peninsula, dropping bombs and devastating a Nazi airdrome. They wre escorted by Hurricane bomber fighters, and encountered no resistance, every R.A.F. plane returning safely. FRANCE - 4 tm ^ Tt\ In Washington, the elevation of Laval has been { i greeted by resignations on the staff of the French i Embassy. A counselor, a first secretary, a vice-consul a third secretary, and the chief of the code room, all have given up their jobs rather than serve as the mouthpiece of Hitler. Unoffica ally,it is reported that others are about to resign. Leon alarshal, the counsellor who resigned from the French Embassy in Vi'ashington, did so with a statement in which he used these words: fit is hard to believe that on the day when so many French hostages were executed, a French voice should havn been heard absolving i" the agression of the crime of the war.* He meant, of course, the utterance bv Pierre Laval. He went on to say that every Frenchman knows that Germany and Germany alone, is responsible for the sufferings of France today, and he added that it is Germany who wants to throe us -- Cleaning the French -- into the war again Leon iarshal is a =ar. of considerable influence ill have a strong effect in and it is believed his woros w 1’^ FRANCE - 5 France. It was largely owing to him that we sent food shipments to French horth Africa. Nor does Fascist Italy seem elated over the news about Laval. In fact the Fascist press has reopened ! the campaign for the ceding of French territory to Italy. BRITAIN Tl j The British Ministry of Economic Warfare [nnounced that the attacks on France have the Nazis worred to such a point that they have commandeered more ^ than a million tons of French cement to build stronger defenses on the coast. And likewise in Belgium, Holland and Norway. In the upper chamber of the British Parliament, | i' r a Labor peer gave voice to the popular clamor for action by the Allies in Europe. This peer, Lord Strabolgi, a former Naval Commander, said he hoped the Allies would hurry ap about it. This was answered on behalf of the governemtn by Viscount Selborne, who hinted that one of the things discussed by General Marshall when he was in London recently was a joint invasion of the continent by British and American troops. I PHILIPPINES Just about the most important South Pacific news today com^s from the Island of Panay, in the As a matter of fact, the news of fighting there came as a good deal of a surprise. And today it *s fiercer than ever. The Japanese have landed there in overwhelming numbers and have forced the United States and Filipino troops to withdraw from Lambuqao. The enemy landed at San Jose on the southwest coast of Panay, and there established a beachead. Lacking air and naval strength, We also learn that Japanese planes have been scouting over Negris, the Island adjoining Panay. Philippines -- which used to produce a lot of our sugar. j J ; tl I the Americans and Filipinos were unable to prevnet that. j I 5 t M r AUSTRALIA General :^acArthur*s flying fighters have made another raid on the Japanese base at Rabaul, in New Britain. This was thje,- in three daysJ They concentrated on wharves and buildings that the Japanese were using for depots. The crews reported that they left fierce fires burning on the ground behind them as they turned back. / The Japanese were active too, with a riad on Port loveshy^) Eight Japanese bombers with a fighter escort took part in that one and for their pains lost four of their escort planes, four Jap zero fighters i FA^ You may remember that some weeks ago we were all electrified by the story of a monster American c onvoy that had traveled safely across the Pacific. It was reported by Walter Farr, a corresoondent of the London Daily lAail, and created a furore in more senses than one. Not only was it a story oi. a military operation, but it was a story about an American military operation reported by an English correspondent. Everybody wanted to know, how come? Why should such a military secret by revealed and why by an Englishman? As the story was printed, it purported to have been written by somebody aboard one of the ships in that convoy. The Hi explanation was that Farr had not been aboard the convoy story but he had ffiled the SHkjcx from Honolulu. Today the War Department announces that it has revoked Farr*s credentials and has ordered Lieutenant General Emmons, commanding the Department of Hawaii, to take them up, and bar him from any further reporting of the doings of our armed forces. The explanation is that EGYPT 1 Despite Burners to the contrary the people of I i the Nile Valley are for Britain. There have be® all | 1 1 sorts of stroies about this, but the Egyptian Parliamenli has expressed itself. The arrest of Ali Maher Pasha, the ex-Premier, has been approved in the parliament at Cairo by a vote of a hundred and eighty-five to five.^ And isuch an overwhelming vote must represent the feeling of the Egyptian..people. / By the same majority the parliament puts itseli^ on record as being in favor of all possible cooperation with Britain and her Allies. HARRISBURG The Navy E award here in the capital of Pennsylvania today went to the Harrisburg Steel Corporation, a concern that has been in continuous 1 ‘operatio n for ninety years* A throng of employees, ! men in overalls, their hands and faces black with smoke and grease, gathered around, an open air platform on which n were rows of naval and army officers, state and governmentj officials, and the heads of Harrisburgh Steel. The Army was represented by Colonel D. I'l. Hauseman, head of the Army Ordnance Department in Philadelphia, And just to | n show how ranid has been the growth cf our Ordnance, when > i Colonel Hauseman went to Philadelphia a year and a half ago there were thirty employees xxii there in Ordnance and now the Colonel has four thousand.* The Navy E was presented to Harrisburg Steel, which Iturnsout Ourdnance for both arms of Uncle'Sam s Services -- the presentation was by an eloquent and picturesque sea-dog Rear Admiral Cluverius, ioraer Chief of Staff of the Navy, former Commandant of the Philadelphi?^ NavyYard, former Commandant at Annapolis, and when the HARRISBURG - 2 Admiral was a young officer in the Navy he was aboard the Battleship MAINE when she went down. Those men of Harrisburg Steel who stood before us this afternoon, in front of the buildings and smoke stack of the huge plant for whom they work, seemed enthusiastic about the job they have done and anxious to get on with it, anxious to provide the fellows who are fighting with the stuff that they need to lick the ^azis and the Japs. A.N.P j .A' TT t- Araerican Newspaper Publishers told a story of woe today. The war is hitting them even harder than other industries. Costs are going up, revenue down, and they say the unions are practicing what they call "Unioneering as usual", killing jobs. Such are the words of the report of a committee of the Newspapers Publishers’Association. The committee reports that, among other things. there is no let-up in the campaign for the closed shop. in the editorial depart ents. Nevertheless, many publishers, by firm resistance, have found it possible to continue harmonious relations on an open shop basis. In other words, no forced membership in the union. This afternoon the American publishers Associ­ ation heard a speech from Frank Tripp» General il^anager of the Gannett Nevispapers uring his colleagues to agitate for a sound advertising program for the government a program put in the hands of ta advertising men w.o knor their business. What we have in Washington today, said Tripp, is a loose-ended, betangled, over-lapping. ANPA^- 2 ;ontradictory and wasteful publicity system, long since diacredited everywhere else but in Washington. At the same time Tripp favored a resolution opposing any action which dould be construed as an effort to bring pressure upon the government to buy advertising apace in the nation’s newspapers. A resolution to that effect was rejected by the American Society of Newspaper Editors last week hours Before long nearly every city in the United States will be an a staggered hour basis. Among those already doing it are Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Akron, Pontiac Mighican, Washington, Salt Lake City, Dalis, Seattle, and hew York. In the first week of a staggered hour plan in Los Angeles, the workers have been classified into three groups. Those who work in facotires, in retail trade, and in government. Each group now has a different hour for going to work, and for quitting have staggered hours for their employees. In New York no fev/er than three hundred firms j RATIQliiiiii Your sugar rationing books will be available ten days from nov;. £pch of us will be allowed one pound of sugar, to last from wiay Fifth to May Sixteenth. another pound from ...ay seventeenth to Thirtieth, Another || pound from May Thirty-First to June Thirteenth, another from June Fourteenth to June Twenty-Seventh. And that’s II considerably less than a pound a week/ much less than ^ n I was promised several weeks ago. !! II Furthermore, you may only have that much if j| I' m II you have less than six pounds of sugar in your house, j| I! If you have a supply, then you don'L get a rationing book || > f I II 11 i! < until you have consumed what you have. A sugar expert declared today that the annual normal production of sugar could be doubled or trebled at any time if the market were available. That statement was made by a chemist of the National Sugar Refinery Company to the American Chemical Society conventioii at Memphis, Tennessee. He added that manufacturing equipment for the production of raw sugar is idle a large part of the year and it is quite evident that larger crops would RATIONII? - 2 1 create a considerable reduction in overhead costs A report canae from Washington the other day that the A.A.A. the Agricultural Adjustment Administration still continues to restrict the production of sugar. As for the commercial users of sugar, they will be cut to seventy percent of their normal supply. iaximura allowances are established for canneries. The Office of Price Administration says nothing about allowing more sugar to people who want to comply with the urgings of the secretary of Agriculture that every person should can as much vegetaoles and limit as possible The restructiDHS as imposed in today's announceroent do not seem to take that into consideration. And, gasoline rationing will follow soon. The probability is that your allowance will be five s^cdlons a week, or less, unless you happen to be a physicians. or a government job holder. A story from Albany, New YorK gives us a laugh Governor Lehman has just signed a bill making it illegal to drive a car more than forty miles an hour so long as the war lasts. At that , anybody who drives evan at forty miles an hour will promptly consume his week’s allowance of gasoline in two hours or so And now Hugh what jiiave you got to s sy about that interesting topic -- oil and gas. li i i 1