The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1942-01-01
4 zr Though
lu1 Knox
By BERNARD TASSLER

'lheadquarterS of the armOred force OF
the United States Army. The trip was
|made by dozen labor editors and
,lpublicity men-AFL, CIO and unaf-
lfliated-to Whom the War Depart
ment was eager to impart some idea
|of what is being done as America
buckles down to the job of repelling
powerful enemies in both the East
and West.
l The trip to Fort Knox and subse
'lquent meetings in Washington with
lUndersecretary of War Robert P. Pat
|terson and high-ranking Army officers
were part of an enlightened and un
,lprecedented campaign which the War
Department has been conducting for
more than year in an effort to breed
mutual respect and understanding be-
tween labor and Army and to give de-
Ifense workers realization of the i'm
Iportance of their tasks, no matter
how minute.
The War Departments campaign,
(which is bearing fruit, has embraced
Visits by Americas fighting men to
the factories where the equipment
(which they use is produced. Thus,
Army fliers have been taken to air
craft plants, where they have seen the
|ships which they and their buddies
Twill operate being built. These and
'!similar activities on the part of the
War Department have done much to
make the men in uniform realize that
.lthey need the nations workers, and
Ivice versa.
At Fort Knox the labor journalists
saw as much as could possibly be seen
lin "a hours We observed the routine
of the soldiers. We ate with them
and we rode in tanks, "half-tracks,"
"jeeps" and "peeps" with them. We
put questions to them and to officers
ranking all the way up to Major Gen
!, eral Jacob L. Devers, successor to the
late Adna r. Chaffee as chief of the
iarmored force.
We witnessed sham battle with
noise and violence enough to have
been the real thing. We went through
the armored force school, We were
shown anything and everything that
interested us. We learned a great
deal at Fort Knox-and later in our
conversations with Army leaders in
Washington.
: Of course, it would be ridiculous to
pretend to be an expert on the basis
/ of what we saw and heard, and this
! writer has no intention of attempting
to pose as one. However, there were
certain significant things which did
stand out-things that can be told.
They are:
despite lot of anti-labor propa-
ganda in the press and on the radio
: in the months prior to Pearl Harbor,
, the average officer we met at Fort
l Knox and later in Washington seemed
1 decidedly frie4Sly toward labor. OF
| course, this might prove great deal
and then again it might prove very
little, for our contracts were with only
a small number, who may have been
not typical.
2-Olficers and men displayed an
= enthusiastic spirit and an eagerness
to come to grips with the enemy at
FL
daisical attitude which we are told
many Of the men had manifested prior
to Pearl Harbor.
} 3-American tanks are good-very
| good. In fact, according to our in
= formants, our juggernauts are far bet
ter than the best tanks the Axis has.
| Naturally, the particulars Of the su-
periorty of our armored equipment
u, cannot be printed. We were given the
data, but "of the record"
4-While what we have in tanks is
of excellent quality, we don't have
l lanything like enough-not yet. The
Army is confident that we will if COM
t Iplacency disappears and the Ameri-
lean people realize that we are up
against a tough proposition and simp-
ly have got to turn out the tools of
battle seven days a week, "a hours a
day, starting now.
In welcoming the visiting labor edi-
e tors and publicity men General Devers
4 said:
:? "You have all heard about Guam,
= where the Marines and the working
men fought shoulder to shoulder.
That's the kind of war this is. When
! a bomb falls out of the sky it doesn't
- care whether it kills man in uniform
q or man in overalls. We're all the
same people, all the same kind of peo-
pie, whether we're in the Army or in
I the factory producing the equipment
S that the Army uses. We're all in this
t thing together-the whole American
g people. We have got to realize that
:, and act accordingly"
i To which we believe American
~ labor, as represented by the American
: Federation of Labor, will make reply
y thus:
q Count on us! We're in this with
the Army and with all the services for
the duration-until victory"