Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1943-11-23

1t was glorious day for all of us when
our Russian Allies finally won back the
city of Dnepropetrovsk. 1t is almost as
hard to pronounce as it was for them to
recapture after their treacherous allies Of
former days had held it for two years
and left it shambles.
For once, our American Communists
have rejoiced with the rest of our people.
But they are enthusiastically silent about
what they should be Dragging about if
they were true Americans. 1t is not only
that American-built planes and tanks
played big part in the victory; and that
our American people, by saving fats and
rationing themselves on butter, have
helped to keep the Russians warm.
The important thing is that the city
of that impregnably unpronounceable
name of Dnepro-and-s owes
it's glory to America. Everybody knows
that it is the seat of famous dam across
the Dnieper River and that its tremendous
hydro-electric plant was bringing Russian
industry up to date. When the Germans
captured the city, the Russians shattered
the dam to deny its power to the enemy.
They plan, of course, to rebuild 1t.
It's reconquest and restoration will be
a mighty monument to America in the
deep of the Ukraine. For the Dnieper
dam was designed and built by American
engineers. The master builder was Hugh
Lincoln Cooper, who did many colossal
works, but owed his greatest fame to his
dramatic feat of Harvesting the Missis-
sppi River.
The dam he built there was in many
ways greater piece of construction than
the Panama Canal This means great
I1o II in tha
as a boy before the dam was built. Ny
parents had moved from Missouri to the
little Iowa city of Keokuk, whose name is
curiously considered extremely funny.
Somehow, people always find comedy
in name that has 4s" in tive seem
to get kick out of it. In spite of its
amusing name, Keokuk is beautiful little
city overlooking one of the noblest views
in the world. The Mississippi is more than
a mile wide there and used to run over
sharp rocks in rapids that had been
damned with an IN for so years before
Hugh Cooper damned the river with
double m"
A great lake replaces the rapids now
and they are the scene of one of the great
est power plants on earth Because of this
achievement, the Russians called Hugh
Cooper over to harness the mighty
Dnieper
Soon after its terrible struggles with
the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution,
the Russian leaders were forced to import
hundreds. of Americans to teach them
nearly everything about machinery how
to built it; how to run it when it was
built. In agriculture and many other
fields America was the kindergarten in
structor of Russia. We sent them millions
of tons of equipment and are still doing
just that, now at immense sacrifice to us
Of treasure and of life
Only lately, to help them out with trans
portation problems we picked up an entire
Ford plant took it apart and shipped it bod
lily to Russia, and sent along experts to put
the picture puzzle together again and get it
going. We are sending them other complete
plants for making synthetic rubber, aviation
gasoline and other war necessities.
The totalitarians are going to remake and
save the world, yet none tnem nave ever
done anything really important in invention
or any other form Of mechanical progress.
Htlers people, for all their ingenuity and
toll, and their whitening contempt for democ-
racy, could never turn out cheap automobile
that would take you there and bring you