ilkAB The greatest ol all battles ia being foughtJ In this Naxi-ijoviet war we’ve had an abundance of xifi superlatives. The greatest, the largest, the most gigantic. And yet, it takes superlatives to state the case, oo great are the armies and the distances. /Berlin tonight teils of a stupendous battle along the entire front of eighteen hunared miles. «ine million men locked in a struggle o^ mad violence - nine million men and an incalcuible lOfeight of machines. \ along the front from Berlin pictures a supreme blitzkrieg xxxji assault all the Baltic to the i5^ck nea, and claims that the Red Army hasltMrowm into the uubckMKKXxxz* Maelstrom the last of its reserves.! The bazls admit that the red forces are y I iWI ■! * I I*" niw t counte^>i!iig fim een doing that for days now. launching savage counter—dri^>es to stop the plunging and advance of the i^azi war machine. ^ Concerning the importance of the battle. Berlin says, ’’Frobauly will decide the fate of the whole soviet German War." The German high command is fetill silent, and even the propaganda accounts given out in Berlin do not epecify places to ^ southsm zon©^ "tli© l6S. iinpor'tHnt zon©. <\ AAR any extent. There are two exceptions, ^ne iis Kishinev, the capital of Bessarabia. ihe oerinan and Rumanian troops are said to have captured that important city, which, however, is in the The other city named is- Braolensk, and that is important Nazi spokesmen today an lounced the capture of Smolensk, that important railroad center and vital objective along the road to Moscow. The ajee claim is the more plausible, because Moscow had previously told A of fighting near Smolensk - Lndic^ting that the German Panzer cilumns got there, a long adviince. tn this, the ^^oviet A war bulletins have followed the customary pattern - telling of success at one place^and then^of success at another plac^to the rear, implying a retreat. For days, the reds cl^aimed^a victorious resldtance at Vitebsk. Now suddenly they announce fighting near Smolensk, which is a long drive to the east from Vitebsk. One iJmi thing of the utmost importance is that Smolensk would seem to be insidd the Stalin line . If the Germans have got there, they*ve smashed through that much extolled series of Red . ii 'i ii\ ftAR -S Army fortifications. Or have they? It’s hard to tell where the btlain line is. News accounts and maps have located it ^ at various places from time to time, now here and now there. So maybe the Stalin line is like a party line - it changes. These are the broad outlines in the monster clash of arms, which unquestionably deserves the superlative - the greatest of battles. m 4 SI ■I I The reestablish.iient of political com.dsbars ii the Red army may be highxy significant A After the war with Finland, the winter before last, com.i'unist functionaries were shorn of their high prerogative. They were guixsik deprived of their share in the actual military command oG ooviet units. ‘They were limited to the business of giving political instruction to the soldiers - to keep them strong in the red ffaith ofthe proletarifa-n revolution I ^ and loyal to otalin. At the xjiiue , we hear(^ the change was made because meddling ut‘ political commissars was partly responsible for ta bad* shewing the red army made xn Finland. restored to power. This is officially ha'n, however, tney«« announced in “Moscow. /As representatives of the Com unist pcrty. theyVrm to share authority with the officers commanding troops in battle.) -ak nTit - a dual command. Every military order is ^ be signed by the political comxuissai as well A commander. What's the reason for this? The official Jioscow dispatch *< . ,,,, I, T4- pMvs l^as demanded th at our gives us the following:- "War' . it says, / ^!i Mi I: iii political workers ao not confine their activities to propaganda. but also to assume responsibility for military operations at the fronts•*' Just what that meoas is not ciear, but the suspicion is it s a move Stalin for the c minunist party to ke^j closer control ^ the officers of the Red Army. The commissars have a special duty which the Moscow dispatch describes in these words:- ^Uproot cowards, panic mongers and deserters.” They^ also ordered to A report on the behavior of officers in the units to which they are attached. It is easy to surniise th»t this has a good deal to do with the suppression of possible discontent and sedition in the Red Army. Stalin on«e defined the function of thj com. issars in these words:j- ’’The commander is the head of the regiment," said t>talin, "And^the commissar is the father and soul of the regiment ,1 'll '! \ VICTORI Ae have oae bit of vivid detail acout a British Air Raid today. There were attacks on various German centers - the biggest daylight assault. At the great Dutch narbor of Rotterdam, twenty-two Nazi-operated ships were blasted - totaling more than a hundred and forty thousand tons, iind the London account tells us that ireh when the British Air squadrons roared over Rotterdam they were in V-shaped formation. — for victory. This — as a dramatic act in the striking victory campaign the British are conducting. Propaganda in tne countries occupied by the Nazis. People incited to mark the letter on houses and walls. Bymbol of the victory that will free them from Nazi domination. So the British bobbers at Rotterdam flew in the shape of the letter . They roared low over the housetops, still in the form of tnat letter of victory. And the London story tells us tney were wildly cheered by tne people of Rotterdam. They then dropped their bombs on tne harbor. In London today a member of Parliament proposed the formation of a special V department of political warfare. VICTOR - 2 de recommended the regular use of the morse code letter in all foreign broadcasts originating in Britain. And then there’s the story of a wing Commander in the Australian Air Force who has written a victory song - in tempo of the Morse Code for , ihree short beats and a lone one. In Berlin a propaganda representative today admitted that the marking of was on the Increase in the conquered countries. He said it was an expression of peoples* hope for a German victory over Comrunlst Russia. That sounds i±B like a tall one — the Nazis trying to take over the British campaign for taiEX themselves. M ill '1 I r-if Mil 1 i.TNbBUhGL There v^as X a lively e^cchange of words today in the great Lindbergh Ickes duel. An ap'>©al to the i/thite House^ the famous flyer protesting uO the President against things that Secretary of the Interior Icnes has had to say about him . The other nifeht for exam;. ley wiien the secretary called the aviator •'The ijaight of tne German eagle", and acousea Lindbergh of presenting what Ickes called, "The Wax! party line. LindJ)ergh says that Ickes has been accusing him of being connected with the Interests of a foreign government, and aske for a presidential investigation. The Lindbergh letter reads in part as follows:- "Mr. President, I give you my word th^it I have no connection with any foreigh government. I*ve had no communication directly e £. or indirectly with anyone in Germany or Italy since I was last in xwryw Eurppe - in the spring if nineteen thirty-nine. "Prior to that time", the letter continues, "My activities were well Known to your embassies in the countries where I lived and traHeled," Then Lindbergh goes on to refer to the much talked about aecofoLtlon that he received In cei-iin - a favorite subject for i t j attack by Ickes. "kr. tTesident", he writes, "Is It too much to ask that you i.iform your secretary of the Interior that I at was decorated by the German Government v/hile I ’.vas carrying out the re;uest of your Ambassador to that Government?’* Is it unfair for me to you to inform your Secretary that I received this decoration in the American embassy in the presence of your ambassador, nd that i was there at his request? The letter from -‘-•indbergh to the President concludes as follows: ’’If there is no question in your mind, I ask that you give me the opportunity to answer any charge made a^^ainst me. From the nhite nouse came a quick response - an intimation that Lindbergh’s request for a Presidential investigation was made for publicity, ^residential secretary Steve Early referred to the fact that the com.lUnication to the White House had been given to the newspaper for publication. And Secretary of the Interior Ickes made a prompt rejoinder ^6 denied saying that Lindbergh had any Nazi-Fascist connection "I never said at any time that he was connected with the interests of a foreign government," dec Ickes. To v;hlcb he II; iii lf> rn 4 ^ LINDBERGH - 3 added th&t if -indbergh were what he called - "An outstanding American", he woulci return the German decoration he received - no matter how he happened to get it. The Secretary also made a retort to a letter sent to him by the Brooklyn chapter of the ameriaa First Committee. Tnis letter proposed that ickes take six months off and tour the country on a smear campaign in a big way. "After you have completed your six months* service," says the American first letter. "You might then lend-lease yourself to the British Government They might be willing to fly you to Germcny a la Hess. We are sure,""The epistle from Brooklyn concludes, "That one or tw'o blasts of your mud 3dLB would blov.' Hitler right off the map." To this the secretary replied in the following words: I didn*t know that dog days came xiocsct. early in Brooklyn." And / /\ then he coined t!hat sounds to me like a new grainmatical form. Speaking of the Brooklyn letter, he KxtiExJti called it "Smart alecness." That*s new and elegant, and suggests a whole series of similar locutions. You mic^ht speak of "American firstness oiyHarold Ickesness." yoo Today the general v.as officially upheld in the great -hoo episode. The war Department supports LieutenJint Genera. ben Lear and his eiscrs=af discipline, -^his was announced in A ^ Washington by under-secretary of War Patterson, who said:- "We always sup^>ort our generals. >«here would we be otherwise?" he added that the incident had been exaggerated, although he admitteu that it made a fine news story, /-hich reminds me y of a poem, La a/version 4^<.a 111 mu lllJ,l|-T^g^yr~a cltT-lUfc fi-.ai II ftim nna to the tune of Yankee Doodle: " a bunch of troops came riding by And cried -»What*s here before us:’ A lot of girls ir^ anappy shorts »i oo-hoo ’ they^ fz±rsi^ chorus. ianxee ooodle keep it up Yanke^^ Doc^dle Dandy Mind the ‘^ueic and the step .Itt (iru b. - f1 In a newspaper at Albany yesterday a poem was printed, a lyrical effusion that had to do with the weather. In the area of albanya, no rain had fallen for two weeks, and the farmers were becoming desperate. The drought was so bad th t it inspired one farmer*s wife to poetry - Mrs. iiilla Fuller. Her verses were printed, and it went like this:- '•The farmer* s toil, his calloused hand. His honest pride in his hallowed land. All his hopes for a job well done Lie iiiS and blighted in the sun. A The drouth lies low on the land again: God, send us rain: bend us rain. That appeared yesterday, and this morning a downpour nit Albany. It has been rainixig heavily all day - over a large section of the east, in fact. This morning at the entrance of New iork harbor. stesmboat from jjandy was navigating along, when a strange object was spied at sea. The boat investigated, and found a young woman sitting iu an automobile inner tube, iou know the way people float around in the water, supported by an inner tube. They resuced her, and she was able to ^ive them a smile- a^though she had been drifting out v/n the deep blue ever since yesterday. She is Eleanore Maldonado, nineteen year old daughter of a minister, xesterday, sn* went to the shore near fiedar Beach, New uersey, and splashed out into the water with her inflated inner tuisl tube. The ocean was calm, and it imxBQtxxlklixQtxjcxs was pleasant to float idly, sitting in the tube. She mused with day dreams, nd didn*t notice the passage of time. Nor did jEh A she notice that an off- shore breeze was blowing her out to sea. Then she happened to look toward shore, and saw it i long distance away. Too far for anybody to see her and discover her lutAgki plight. »^he shouted for help, but it was ^^0 use. ohe continued to drift further out, and night came on, During the hours of dardnesc, she saw the lights of passing ships. SBSOi recode -a V and tried to hail them - but they couldn't hear her. She kept herself from growin, numb, by switching her position and tfVN /M--' kicking her legs. /»«bxi»l:he night. i ^nrn’^ Meanwhile, her disapt-ear tnce had been reported. There was a frantic hunt for her along the shore, and it v/as supposed that she had drowned. But hhis rnoruing, as the Sandy Hook boat went chugging along, there she was, sitting in an inner tube - out at sea. She*s no worse for the strange misadventure, suffering a bit from exposure - but nothing serious. 1 tvAjG^