PARIS \^The only reliable news from Paris tonight is brief, ^-iwin »y and swafteubs4 ¥ague, #» ic d^n official announcement FuaT^ir^s.'.—Offiw, terse and perfunctory. France has attacked Germany on the western front, by land and by air. The wording of the communication is, I QUOTE.wContacts have been established progressively at the front.11 In the air, the French planes did nothing more than make reconnoitering flights over Germany. The French government also announces that their naval forces have occupied the positions which have been assigned to them — whatever that means. The inference from this news is that the French have attacked somewhere between the Rhine and the frontier of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It is estimated that the so-called Siegfried Line, otherv/ise the Limes fortifications, along the banks of the Rhine, should be virtually impregnable. The least strong point of the German defense lies between the Rhine and Luxembourg. There are reports from Luxembourg that sounds of heavy cannon-firing were heard in the southern parts of the Grand Duchy. That is as much as can be accurately known or stated The first frenzied excitement over the European war has subsides a little Today’s war news falls into a conventional pattern. Triumphant claims; denials and counter-claims. ^According to German official communications, the invading hordes of ^itler already have the Poles licked to a frazzle. The Poles deny it. ) 7 V One bit of news is definite. Hitler’s planes again bomb Warsaw. Fifteen of them swooped down upon the Polish capitol. Within half an hour fires were burning in three parts of the city. But Polish fighting planes drove the invaders off say the Poles. After incendiary bombs set flames to two railway stations, scattered whole streets deep in glass, killing men, women and children. In some parts of the city there wasn’t an unbroken window for blocks. The firemen extinguished the flames before they had done serious damage An official communication from Warsaw claims that the Polish armies have counter-attacked and have recaptured two cities around Gydnia and Danzig, and stormed another important position on the East Prussian frontier, the Westerplatte Fort outside Danzig that Polsih suicide garrison is . WSR - 2 still holding out against German attacks. Then^here's the latest offieal claim from Berlin. Gerffil forces by land, by sea and by air are smashing ahead on every front, against the Poles. Hitlers Generals are hammering with lightning strokes. The Polish armies to the north of the Corridor are trapped, says the German Press Department.^ This is a claim wefve been hearing repeated over and over again for something like thirty six hours. German publicity now specifies with a statement that the army striking from Pomerania has reached the Banks of the Vistula at Culm, ^f that is true, the Polish divisions in the north really are in a trap. The Germans also declare that the army driving south from East Prussia has occupied an important city, Preischnigg, not far from the frontier. The Poles claim to have recaptured it. Just a moment, herefs a dispatch that came boiling over the wire jjujpt* two minutes ago. It gives b <*m.e color ■••f ii'Utrif to the German claims of success in Poland. The Polish embassy in Paris admits that Polish armies have been forced to evacuate two important cities in the Polish Corridor between Germany aid East Prussia. On e other hand, the same communication states that a brigade of Polish cavalry is invading East Prussia. Polish war planes on another front dropped their cargoes of deadly bombs on a town in German Silesia. The Germans say tfeoafe teoffifre brfly aimed, fell either in vacant fields or a lake PROPAGANDA The first activity of the British air force was to stai’t a propaganda war. was announced in London that fighting planes made a reconnaissance flight over Germany. But the Germar declare that the real purpose was to drop leaflets over German cities .J Evidently some of the pilots iost their way because the government of the Netherlands made a complaint that Holland had been showered with propaganda. The Germans say that German planes drove the Britishers away after they had dropped only a few leaflets. This again is contradicted by a communication from London which says they dropped more than six million leaflets and didn't^encounter a single German plane. In these leaflets, printed in German,the British told the Germans that this war is tka unneoessary, that the German Reich was not threatened from any side, that England had been drawn into it with cool calculation by the German government although that government knows that the results for all humanity will be more disastrous than in Nineteen Fourteen. The text also charged that Hitler's promises were worthless and that censorship keeps the German spirit as In a concentration PROPAGANDA - £ camp. Also that the British have no enmity for the German people -*-t concluded with the warning, «you are on the edge of bankruptcy ¥/e have unlimited reserves of men and provisions,n said the leaflets. LEGION The Polish government announced today that one of the units facing the German invaders is a foreign legion of Czechs and Slovaks, They are under the leadership of the Czech General, Prchala, - —your-j-i-have kreB^^aafc he was known as the "Iron Man of Czechoslovakia.T1 Before the seizure of that unhappy country, this General was the last Czech gjsxKXSu&Kxk governor of the Province of Carpatho-Ukraine. When the Nazis invaded his country he fled from Prague into Slovakia and made his way over the frontier into Poland. As.oon as Hitler begem threatening Poland, this A Czech General sent out a call for ■IffT.rue Czech refugees from ^ 4 , Slovakia. They were assembled in a large cam^, pie minute hostilities began, this legion joined the Polish army. Among them are no fewer than two thousand officers. Here we have another repetition of the history of the last war* during which thousands of Czechs and Slovaks deserted the Austrian army and went over to the enemy. PALESTINE The Jews in Palestine will fight for the British if necessary. This was announced In London today by the Jewish Agency. They still object to the British White Paper of last May,^ nevertheless they will help Britain in the war.^) The National Council of Palestine Jews has called upon all men and women in Jerusalem between the ages of eighteen and fifty to register fo - national service QUEEN MARY Two thousand, three hundred and thirty-one passengers were on the QUEEN MARY when she arrived safely in New York harbor today. The largest passenger list she had ever carried. Two hundred had to sleep on cots in the public rooms. No portholes open at night. Traveling at full speed. ATHEKIA Mwe-^' 'the-^uof oj44^ig---figh^of the day was the battle of words between London and Berlin over the sinking of the Steamship ATHENIA. The British declare she was sunk by a torpedo from a German submarine^ an unexpectedly inhumane act of crime against the laws of the sea and humanity, and so forth. The Germans deny it flatly and categorically. No British ship has been torpedoed by any submarine, they maintain. There have been no German craft in the waters off the northwest shore of Scotland. The ATHENIA, say® -2T the German gyvnrument» must have struck a British mine. That / charge in turn is countered by the British statement that the£« are no mines in those waters. The German denial was made iSp the -X& n Charge dfAffains^ of the American Embassy in Berlin, "lib ^ of the Admiralty, declared that the AHTNEIA was torpedoed % without the slightest warning, and in circumstances which the whole world opinion, after the late war, an opinion in which Germafay concurred, stigmatized as inhuman®. The ATHENIA cax’ried no munitions.^ She left port before war was declared. She sank at five o*clock this morning, by which time the fourteen hundred passengers. ATHKMIA - 2 including three hundred and thirteen Americans, had long since been safely loaded into the ship’s boats. It is pointed out that by a treaty signed in Nineteen Thirty, Germany had agreed that in case of war no merchant ship should be sunk without warning, and in any case not until the safety of all passengers and crews was assured. When Hitler denounced the Naval Treaty with London, he still promised to abide by those rules for the safety of passengers. In the rules it was stipulated that ships1 boats are not to be considered a place of safety unless %hey« wore within half an hour’s rowing distance of land in a smooth sea. 4 It is not known yet how many people persihed in thiSfe disasterj killed when the torpedo, mine, or whatever it was, exploded. iiLoCt'' ww**.**** OLINDA FOLLOW A_HEKIA In another part of the world, a German vessel became the second war casualty at sea. Afreighter, the OLIiJDA, was on her way from the Argentine to Germany, carrying a cargo of cereals and canned meat. She was overhauled by the British cruiser AJAX, which stopped her and ordered the crew to abandon ship. When the crew was safely aboard a Mexican oil tanker which was on the scene of action, the AJAX destroyed the OLINDA with shell fire. The Mexican tanker took the OLINDATS crew to Montevideo. ITALIAN TANKER An Italian tanker has aroused the alarm of the folks in the Virgin Islands. She has been anchored outside the harbor of Charlotte Amalie. A protest was made to the harbor master, asking him to send that Italian tanker away. Humors that have been current in the Virgin Islands a couple of submarines have been seen near St#Thomas. &M3r««reba»d So some people were afraid that this Italian tanker was being used for the refueling of submarines. The harbor master took no action. GREEK STEAMER FOLLOW OLIiNDA Still another marine casualty was a neutral vessel. A Greek freighter on its way from Leningrad to Antwerp. While still In the Baltic, she struck a mine and went down. The captain and crew were saved. fi President Roosevelt passed some time today in conference with the Secretary of State and Secretary of the fiiavy^ They were considering whether it would be practical or necessary to protect American ships crossing tlB Atlantic, Several liners will be busy for some time to come bringing American citizens home from the war zones, the sinking of the ATHENIA raised the question of danger from submarines to our own vessels. Apting Secretary Edison said the President had not yet decided whether he would have American liners convoyed by Uncle Sam’s men-o-war. NEUTRALITY President Roosevelt will issue his Neutrality proclamation within twenty-four hours. That’s the word that comes from the White H^use today"the 1 mou'^h 'of fttctyhcn'-fearly. In that proclamation he will declare an embargo on A the shipments of arms, implements of war and munitions, to any of the fighting nations. Ixxx In a—jftcce-ti-re wujr f LUBtr^BITY place tehe*^nite.d Oftatw an Lh'C!1 iMldL mt Oeinnuij^ Though the embargo applies to Germany just as well as to Great Britain and France, Hitler couldn’t get any munitions from this country anyway since John Bull has command of the Atlantic. It Is no secret that hat this embargo will go against the grain of more than one personage in high places in the government. However, the President has no choice in the matter. Under the Neutrality Ajjt, passed by Congress, he is obliged to proclaim the embargo as soon as he decides that a state of war exists. And as Great Britain and Fpance have both declared a state of war, Mr. Roosevelt could hardly decide otherwise. For the time being, there will be no special session NEUTRALITY 2 of Congress to revise that Neutrality Law. The President will wait and watch the way the embargo works. So said Steve Early LABOR Labor Day is always the date for the union chiefs to get big thoughts off their chests. John L. Lewis seized theoccasion for a spec acular political move. In unequivocal terms he left it beyond all doubt that the ancient love feast between President Roosevelt and the C.I.O. is at an end. He delivered a blast at the Roosevelt administration which would have sounded like an echo of the Liberty League if it had been spoken a few years ago. He accused the New Deal of complete failure to mend the ills that afflict the Republic. nThe nation, n said Lewis, neannot forever continue its appalling drift,” Then he went on to say that thoughtless and sadly exe­ cuted experimentation will not always suffice to beguile a suffering people, ^he internal national debt, he declared, has reached such proportions that it may never be liquidated by orth­ odox methods GREEN On the other hand* William Green, President of the Amer­ ican Federation of Labor, made his Labor Day speech mostly about war. He said American labor cannot believe that the working people of Germany favor war. "In the spirit of tolerance and reason,” Green added, ”the A.F. of L. appeals again for labor unity. Come home. All is forgiven BASEBALL In the nine years that I have been doing this daily news broadcast I have tried to make It a rule to end with an item of good news or^nonsense. But, on a day like this, with half the world involved in a war that almost makes us ashamed 2 ^ tha-t we belong to the human race, there Isn't much I can do A about it. I had hoped I could wind up with baseball news this evening. Up at Cooperstown, New York/where Abner Doubleday invented baseball one hundred years ago^today they staged the finale of their eentenhlal celebration. A Exactly fifty years ago a young Irish boy, with three cents in his pocket, ran away from home, made his way to Cooperstown on a freight train, ± dropped off there, worked, went to school and became captain of the high school baseball team. His name^99 John T, McUovern. The boys called him Terry. Later he became a famous s lawyer in New York, member of the American Olympic committee, head of the Baseball Federation of New York City and devoted most of his life to making this a better place In which to live for the poor kids of New York.fey-~^ay 4 rft BASEBALL - 2 tie has about eleven thousand of them In his sand-lot baseball organization in New York City now, 1 lo&ay as the climax to the^celebration of the invention of baseball at Cooperstown, Terry McGovern went back there. And, the Cooperstown High Schhol team put on a game forhiuy playing afc against a gas good team from Dutchess County, New York. And, Terry saw his boys win by a score of four to three. If it were not for the out break of a second world war I -- *^*A*J( 4 could make a big story about that. Instead, there is Just time to say — Solong until tomorrow.