The Wilmington morning star., 1945-12-08
Interpreting
The News
BY JAMES d. WHITE

SAN FRANCISCO. Dec. It'll
was dark this morning at Sis
a. m.
Dark just like it was four years
ago this morning in Shanghai. But
I didn't have that tight feeling in
my stomach.
Waiting for the streetcar, full Of
breakfast, ! remembered well how
the Japanese guns sounded as they
went off, like doors slamming,
along the Bund. I remembered
how it seemed as if would never
get my clothes on, and how no
Japanese bothered to stop me as !
walked down to the Whangpoo
where the British gunboat Peterel
was sinking in flames and the
American gunboat Wake already
had a Japanese naval flag on its
mast.
But this morning the streetcar
came clanking up from the ocean
and stopped for me with cheerful
grunting of brakes.
Several stops on, a couple of
men walked in and sat down op-
,posite me. They looked like these
characters who operate the naval
separation" centers along Mar
ket street.-The pin-bal palaces and
aH-night joints that specialize in
separating sailors from their
dough.
One had a newspaper. He
hnnped headline with the back
Of his fingers.
''Whaddya know" he inquired,
I'VE gonna lend them Limeys an
other four billion?"
Hell yes" answered the 9th.
er. How much they owe us
already, six or eleven billion, 1
ferget?"
His eye had been caught by an
other headline about the latest
thing Russia was doing in Iran,
but the man holding the paper was
hunting the sports page, mumbling
about II got one spotted to place
today"
He got snagged by the comic
page first, and in unspoken agree
ment both concentrated quietly for
ten minutes. / knew how they felt.
1 wondered sleepily if either of
these early birds had read the
terms of the white paper issued
when the British loan was an
nounced yesterday, and whether
they knew or cared whether in
ternational trade might be loosen
ed UP in the years to come. III
read those terms because it's part
Of my job, but had to concentrate
l wondered too if these fellows
remembered the stubborn way the
British held on in 1910 or if they
thought about the strange compul-
sion Of postwar bankruptcy which
enables a British Labor govern
ment to hang doggedly or to an
empire that shoulders with revolt.
Or, when they see headlines
about Russia, do these two feel
like man was telling me yester-
day:
THE Russians" he said, "sim.
ply can't believe that we wouldn't
use the atomic bomb again, and
there are lot Of Americans who
won't believe the Russians would
not use one if they had It,"
BY this time they were reading
about General Yamashita's con-
viction and sentence in Manila.
Hanging" asserted the man
with the paper, "is too good for
that fat JAP" and he added a word
which was inaccurate because
Yamashita's parents were legally
married.
We were on Market street by this
time, and as the men got off in the
all-night joint section I wondered
! if either of them could imagine
how General Yamashita looks un.
shaver and IN his undershirt, as I
first saw him, and whether that
nnattered.
The car ratified on down Market
to the stretch where the sailors
and other celebrants broke block
OF store-windows on VI day.
As got off, I had that tight
feeling in my stomach again, but
not as tight as it was in Shanghai
four years ago this morning.
| Even at 5:45 a. M, Market street