The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-04-21

AOO 111A4Ol 4OCkAA CIA4AAAcAOO V44O %
 The Justice Department charge is that the Swedes, plus American affiliates, have conspired to mon- opolize the match market in vio- lation of the Sherman Anti Trust Act. Amazing evidence has been uncovered.
 The Diamond Match Co.,,
 for instance, controls the pro-
 ductiOn of wooden matches in
 the U. s. A. and has an ar-
 rangement with the Swedes
 whereby they prevent paper
 matches from being promoted
 abroad.
 This situation took a unique turn when American troops went overseas and the Army prepared to buy small cardboard slips of matches of the kind used by many firms for advertisements. Those fit Nlto soldiers pockets more conveniently than bulkier wooden matches. To this the Swedish monopoly was dead opposed.
 The American match people, however, had followed the com mon U. s. practice of placing one of their men inside the War Pro- duction Board. So when the Army proposed buying paper matches, the WIPE tip-off man hurriedlly wrote to the match in- dustry advising them to prepare a memo showing why paper matches should not be used by the Army.
 The industry replied with a memo showing the effect of
 tropical weather on paper matches.
 Their man inside the WIPE saw the memo and commented in effect: "This is pretty weak but will probably do the trick"
 Later, the Swedes also saw the memo prepared by their American affiliate and were definitely of the opinion that the tropical ar- gument was too weak.
 All of this correspondence was picked up by the Justice Depart men and will make instructive reading for the American public on how business places its men in strategic points inside the War Production Board to continue monopolies against American law and the spirit of free competition. CAPITAL CHAFF
 Ex-Assistant Budget Director Wayne Coy, who suffered from stomach ulcers while in the gov- ernment, has written a letter to Harry Hopkins, also suffering from stomach ulcers, at Mayo Clinic. "The remedy for uIcers," advised Coy, lis to get out of Gov ernment. Mine are cured" Friends could hardly believe it when they saw Secretary Morgen- thau at resauarant Twenty One the other day. Usually surrounded by dictataphoneS when anyone enters his office, Henry actually was seen talking to his son at dinner without stenographer talk ing notes Generoso Pope, the alo-American news publisher, has declined to become a New York de1egate-at-large to the Democratic National Convention because of White House high-hat- ting of Italo-Americans. In the past three elections, Italo-Ameri- cans voted 90 per cent for FDR. but they probably won't this time. DRAFT CONFUSION
 Out of the confusion over draft ing manr%yer which has so be- wildered the American public here are a few tangible facts which Congressional probers agree are accurate:
 l. The size of an Army floats. It doesn't remain static. Men are killed, wounded, mustered out be- cause they reach the age limit or because the mental strain under mines them. In the first year of war, nearly one million men were discharged from the combined armed forces. Thus, there have to be replacemants.
 2. Present age of the Army is too high, the average age being 27. In contrast, the average age of the Navy is 2 G-2; and of the Marine Corps, 20 1-2. Army chiefs want to bring its verage age down to 2 or g, especially for combat The Germans largely use IT to 2O- year olds for combat duty.
 3. More than 100000 draft registrants have been deferred for physical reasons and classified as