The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-10-28

mt de good on what is perhaps the most thankless job in Washington, in spite of the fact that he is a Republican.
 If you have a soldier or sailor member of your family who has been reported missing in action overseas, or taken prisoner by the Japs or Germans and If some com mercial outfit comes along wanting to "sell' you information about him, picked up from a shortwave broadcast from an enemy country, turn the offer over to the Red Cross or write to the War Department about 1t. Don't buy the irforma- ton. Reason for this warning is that one of the cheapest, I1astiest, most heartless rackets of the war, involving the sale of this informa- tion about prisoners of war to their relatives, recently has been uncover ed and stopped by federal authori- ties.
 The way in which the racket was worked involved merely the trans cribing of the broadcasts of prisoners of war, noting down the names and addresses of the family members whom the prisoner may have been trying to reach in his broadcast message, then offering to sell the messages to the relatives. Germany and Japan both run these prisoner broadcasts. It's considered good bait to get Americans to listen to their shortwave propaganda.
 The racket has been broken up by having this same information re- layed to familities, free of charge, by the government. Important foreign broadcasts are inonitored regularly by the U. S. Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service. Such information as is accurate is relayed immediately to next of kin, with out cost.
 YOUNG ENSIGNS
 U. s. Navy may be commissioning a number of 19-and 20-year-old en- signs before long, as a result of It's officer candidate educational pro- grams now set up on more than 200 U. s. college campuses. When the draft age was lowered to 17, the Navy saw that in a long war 1t might be hard up for officer ma terial if 1t didn't do something to keep the Army from getting the entire supply. So 1t set up system of giving high school graduates a chance at its socalled "" courses. among which is an offlcer-candidate schooling of two years, leading to an ensign's commission. A high school graduate of IT or IS may thus be able to strut his stuff as a one-striper before he's old enough to vote.
 Newest form of bankruptcy to develop as war phenomenon is ration point bankruptcy" If you're thinking of buying a hot-dog stand, @ restaurant or a food store of any kind, you want to check not only the dollars -and-cents credit of the owner, but also his balance of points on deposit in his ration bank ac- count.
 Some proprietors have overdrawn on their allowances of points which they must use in replenishing stocks from wholesalers so heavily that means either they must stop serving rationed stuff till their point acc counts are again in balance, or else shut down entirely. Some, choosing the latter alternative, are trying to sell out. But new owners can't get ration points till their eseablish- ments' accounts are in balance, either. CHALLENGE
 Tn attempting to convince busi- ness men that the renegotiation law was being administered so as to leave war contractors with ample profits, War Department Price Ad- justment Board officials sent the record of 500 cases to the National Association of Manuf a c turers, challenging N. A. M. to produce one instance in which earnings had been reduced unfairly. To date, there