The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1942-03-05
WNU Service. 1913 II Street, NV.
WASHINGTON. ID. c.

WNU Service. 1913 Street. NV.
Washington, ID. c.
Now is the WAITER IF our HiscNn
tent and a st.ll more disconnected
spring may no: be- IA: behind. WASH
ington at Valley Forge, Lincoln b. d
ing with kHott2d h0nlS a rH2l|l SN!9l
r0Hy Welt iroA G2"H ."
us with GrC0 c acorn.
NJ: that tbs r,C&t r;t. " l. even
near the G%~-~" Which hoVCrcd s.
close to the bu.;crcd arms If
Washir%;cH's c ~l@"IaIs. or TREAT
cncd the ccntu"H-yrurg Republic.
We have just passed a $4,000. OGO.-
coo appropriation. the largest in his
tory. We are preparing to arm
1000. 900 men, training an air force
of 1000. OJ0. When the planes which
cur factories can turn out are ready
to spread their wings they al
Garken the skies over Berlin and
Tokyo.
But as the mists of spring spread
out over the oceans. they touch the
brows of new masters. rulers who
never dared lay claim to rule the
seven sea
Gradually the American people
realize that the world they looked
upon from their comfortable Win
dows is a different world from the
n which their peaceful minds eyes
saw before Pearl Harbor and Sirga-
pore. 1t is a world that all but a
very few would have scoffed at if it
had been described to them before
the crushing defeats which the Eng
lish speaking peoples have suffered
in the scant weeks since December
z, 194l.
1t was a soft February day when
we strolled up to the White House
gate, showed Jul Photographic
passes to the policemen, filed into
the Executive Wing and finally found
ourselves in the Presidents office as
the newsmen do twice each week.
President Rebukes
Runor Mongers
There were no quips as we waited
until the last man was in. And the
Presidents easy smile was absent.
Some of the nswe were sharp.
There was rebuke for repeating a
rumor, condemnation of Washing
toms Clivenden set. as the Presi-
dent called them-defeatists.
Then when a reporter asked if the
President would comment on the Wis
it of the British ambassador, there
was an effort to tighten the gloom
and the President who had no inten-
ton of revealing the ambassadors
mission answered that they had
had a good lunch. Then one of the
reporters who had buttonholed the
ambassador on his way out and got
ten no comment, remarked THE
ambassador didn't look like a mar
who had had a good lunch when he
came out"
And that remark expressed the
mood of the city.
Why? Not because officials did not
recognize what might be ahead after
the first reverses. But because they
knew that all they could do. all that
the United Nations could do, was to
mark time while a tiny nation, ia
pan, with a population of 70. ZOO, 900.
putting out So. 600, 900, 900 worth of
arms annually, was holding at bay a
coalition of 200, 0OO, 900 people with a
monthly, not yearly, output of arms
worth 81 billion dollars.
But we are marking time from a
military standpoint only. Our pro-
duction is mounting. Already we
have supplies enough for the demand
in Russia if we had the ships to
carry them. Soon we will be turn
ing out two ships a day.
And we are preparing an army.
And that is the point. At first we
thought that America had one task,
to be the arsenal of the democrat
cies. Simply the job of production.
Then we saw that we must help get
those supplies to their destination.
And to protect the supply lines we
needed to man bases. All this was
before we actually we're at war.
Supply Lines Threatened
Then war came and now, sudden
ly, We realize that the supply lines
are threatened. Threatened at Ran
goon, gateway of the Burma road.
Threatened in the Red sea and the
Persian gulf if Hitler breaks through
the Middle East. Threatened with
.Japan's far-flung. base-studded ar
.chipelagoes which have now spread
eastward from the Marshall islands
to Borneo and the Celebes and per-
haps, before this is written, within
bombing distance of Australia it.
self.
And so we learned that we might
not be able to arm our allies but
that we would have to arm our