The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1941-05-29
The Cherry Tree
Where We Hotchet Out
The Truth
Q FRANCE IN A FIX
BUT so ARE WE
9 A MERE HOP
DAKAR TO SOUTH AMERICA

DAKAR TO SOUTH AMERICA
Clump! Clump! Clumpl
Boots, boots, boots!
Planes and guns and tanks!
And diplomatic decoys, side slips,
fancy moves, lies.
The Nazi machine doesn't know
when it's got enough in its over-stutf-
ed belly.
France knuckles. Tragic, strange,
amazing.
lafayette, you're in hell of a
fix!
And so are we.
Vichy gives Hitler all the aces in
the deck; gives him the green light.
It's been coming, clearly; but that
doesn't seem to lessen the shock
Vichy doesn't mean just mainland
France. 1t means Martinique; it
means Dakar.
1t can mean French Guiana.
Straight into this Western Hemis-
phere, right where we have posted our
keep out" signs.
Get your map. Look at Martinique.
And look long time at Dakar That's
on the African coast.
In California we have a new bomb
er that can fly from Los Angeles to
Berlin and back without refueling.
From Dakar to South America is, in
those terms, mere hop.
Look this thing in the eye, coldly.
What do YOU think?
X X X
In Washington officials wake up
slowly. Even in OPM there are
dinky officials-and some bigger ones,
like John ID. Biggers, who think it's
o. X. to go slowly, not to arouse peo-
pie too much The hell with that
stuff. Question is, Can we go fast
enough?
The President knows how serious
the situation is today. But he can't
go much faster than the people will
go; and they have to understand be-
fore they will go.
We had better wake up-and get
ready to go fast, worrying about
whether we haven't started too late.
This isn't just excited talk. It's
cold blooded looking facts in the face.
X x x
1t won't be long before We'll all be
working harder than we are today.
1t won't be long before every school
boy is collecting aluminium and scrap
iron.
1t won't be long before there's lot
more overtime worked
1t won't be long. 1t won't be long!
To repeat: 1t is later than you
think!
Some way will have to be found to
adjust grievances without stopping
work.
Some way will have to be found to
put curb on corporations that bid
eight times the worth of a job, to
bleed nation in dire peril
Some way will have to be found
to bring understanding to a few labor
leaders, who forget that this is
national emergency, not main chance.
Bill Green will need plenty of
backing up-and maybe Uncle Sam
will be forced to give it to him.
Ships must be built, in a race with
the greatest menace we ever faced.
And planes, by the thousands, and
tanks and guns and the whole wide
range of things needed in modern
warfare.
Warfare isn't the wrong word. It's
the right word.
Look at your map again. Read
your papers. Listen to the broadcast
news. Think back of what you read
and hear. War comes awfuIly fast
and probably without declarations
x X
Too many Americans have been
thinking in a dream world, a world
Of hopeful thinking. You know-it
can't happen to US; we can keep out;
were too far away.
Do you know where our navy is at
this hour? Or our merchantmen?
Well, we're going to wake up with
a bang one fine morning and probably
very soon and we won't care On what
date Thanksgiving comes. All we'll
care about will be whether we've start
ed soon enough to build the kind Of
war machine that can win
And in the end it all gets personal
where do YOU fit, and me and every
man among us-and ARE WE Do
ING OUR PROPER SHARE IN THE
PROPER SPIRIT?
1t is going to get very personal
very Soon.-CMW.