The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, October 13, 1941, Page 1

THE DAILY ALASKA EMPI VOL. LVIL, NO. 8852. JUNEAU, ALASKA, “ALL THE NEWS ALL THE TIME” MONDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1941. MEMBER ASSOCIATED S PRICE TEN CENT SIX KILLED IN BLAST AT SITKA HULL URGES ARMING OF MERCHANT SHIP REVISION OF NEUTRALITY ACT WANTED Secrefary of State Makes His Plea fo House Commitiee Today DECLARES U. 5. MUST | NOT TURN ITS BACK Asserts Nazi Military Forces Sinking Defense- | less Vessels Now | WASHINGTON, Oct. 13. — Secre- | tary of State Cordell Hull, urging prompt revision of the Neutrality | Act to permit arming of American merchantmen, solemnly told Con- gress today that the United States “cannot turn and walk away from the steadily mounting danger” of the Nazi military campaign for world conquest. Testifying as the first witness be- fore the House Foreign Affairs Com- mittee, Sectetary Hull declared the German Government “is today, and has been throughout the course of the present war, sinking defense- less vessels” of this and other coun- tries, “either without warning or without making provision for the safety of the crews.” | % Bragi;, R RESCUE PARACHUTIST : | WINTER SNOWS MAY | | Surprise S;;é;head from WASHINGTON—A nover‘endingi source of bewilderment about the| Roosevelt Administration is the pas- sionate zeal with which its master- minds seem to love to pull in op- posite directions. One will go one way and another exactly the op- posite. Instances of this peculiar phen- | Four veteran Alpinists struggzled on the fifth day up Bevil's Tower National Monument near Sundance, in northern Wycming, determined to beat a blimp to the job of rescuing George Hopkins, 30, who para- i | | chuted to the top of the 1,280-foot volcanic spire to win a $50 bet and publicize an air show in Texas. land on the basaltic pillar, via parachute. Above is pictured Hopkins about to Hopkins had been unable | to descend the perilous peak but had been in good spirits, had plenty ‘NAZIDRIVE " ONMOSCOW 1S SLOWING Germans Claim Armored | Divisions Still Surging Forward, However BLOCK GERMAN HOPES | Northwest Said fo Have | Hurt Russ Position (By Associated Press) | that her Russian sweep Has been carried to within 100 milés of Mas- ! cow on the west and south, Russian | | dispatches from the blood-bathed | front today declared one German ' | thrust has been slowed down and that the Red Army has launched | counter-attacks at several points, | Authoritative sources in London | asserted the German offensive, now | i tum compared to the first couple of days. Are Stopped Short It was added that it is quite pos- sible the German drive might have | been stopped 70 or 80 miles short of Moscow. The limit of human en- | durance and the wearand tear on | thousands of tanks and armored | cars may intervene to stabilize the | Russian-German front, leaving Mos- | cow untouched as the first snows of | winter blanket the plains, perhaps | smothering Hitler's hope of a pre- winter victory. Russian dispatches said the Ger- man drive has slowed particularly (Continued on Page Eight) BiG ARREST 15 CAUSED BY EXPOSE In the face of Germany's claims | ° omenon are innumerable. Only a | few days ago this column revealed | a bitter undercover tangle between Secretary Harold Ickes and his Cabinet colleague Jesse Jones over a power issue. But this isn’t the only opposite- poles row that is churning the atmosphere behind the scenes. drifted down. was taken from a plane. of food and warm clothes dropped by planes. Note his 'chute as it Below, Hopkins is pictured literally “sitting on top of the world,” marooned on a treeless wind-wept pinnacle. Meanwhile the expert climbers, driving iron ladder pins up the perpendicular wall of columnar phonolite rescued Hopkins. The blimp left Akren, O., for the scene, to rescue Hopkins by means of a parachute linked to a D-ring and hoist him into the cabin by a hand-operated winch but he had already been taken down. The photo | Round Writers Showed |Washingfon Merry-Go- | Up Nazi Propagandist i NEW YORK, Oct. 13.—The biggest | Nazi propaganda story of all broke Another, even more heated and far more important, is raging between OPM Associate Director Sidney Hill- man and trust-busting Assistant At- torney General Thurman. Arnold over a vital question of defense labor policy. t One of the key problems of de- fense production is labor peace. Most of Hillman’s time and effort, as OPM labor chief, are devoted to this question. After months of negotia- tion a labor stabilizafion agreement was worked out with the powerful AFL building trades unions covering all government building projects. COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. Former Atty. General Dies While Wrifing On Cerfain Govt. Scandals 13 —highly turbulent years in office and The accord was a signal achieve- ment. All last winter and spring the Army and Navy were plagued by costly and obstructive construction strikes. But the stabilization agree- ment ended that, assuring uninter- rupted work on scores of urgently needed camps, buildings and plants. But this hard-won peace seems destined to be short-lived—if Thur- | man Arnold has his way. Acting on a complaint from Denny Lewis, brother of John L., who in- stalled him as head of the United Construc.on Workers, Arnold is threatening to smash the stabiliza- tion aceord on the ground of unfair trade practice. CERTAIN CHAOS Should Arnold - succeed, chaos Harry M. Daugherty, 81, former Attorney General of the United States and confidante of Presi- dent Warren G. Harding, died yes- terday. Daugherty was stricken while writing a book explaining the political attacks involving the Teapot Dome oil scandals and other alleged Government irregu- larities in the twenties. The book was not finished. Daugherty resigned from his of- fice at the request of President Calvin Coolidge. “President Maker” Daugherty, hailed in November, 1920 as a “President maker” after he had mangged Warren G. Hard- ing’s successful campaign, and named the following March as At- (Continued on Page Foar) torney General, experienced three in March, 1924, virtually was driv- en to political obscurity under seri- ous charges of miscorfiuct. Not one powerful friend remained | to defend him. Harding was dead; | his close friefd angiconstant com- panion, Jess Smith, was a suicide; his fellow cabinet officer, Albert B. Fall, was facing criminal prose- cution and former Republican al- lies were among his aecusers. Federal Indictment His resignation, offered at the | behest of President Coolidge, did not end the storm. Two years later he was called upon to face a Fed- eral indictment in New York. The| case charged criminal conspiracy in connection with = disposal of German interests in the American 1 in Washington when George Sylves- | ter Viereck was indicted several days |ago on five counts and described as being the “top-ranking German | propagandist in the world.” Justice Department officials gave credit in part for this indictment to the Washington Merry-Go-Round which exactly one year ago first broke the story of how Viereck was ghost writing speeches for the late Senator Lundeen. Immediately after they wrote that story Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen were denounced |on the floor of the Senate by Sen- {ators Wheeler and Bennett Clark, |and $5,000 was appropriated to in- vestigate them, Despite continuing attacks, how- ever, they continued to expose the activities of Viereck and the manner in which he was able to use Con- gressmen to insert speeches in the Congressional Record and distribute them free from the Congressional franking privilege, Last June they were the first to report the fact that Congressman Day, of Illinois, had published a book through Flanders Hall, a pub- They also told how Day had deliv- ered a radio speech under the aus- pices of Viereck and his Washington panks and *the Seattle plane come | representative, Prescott Denpett, all of which was cited in the indict-| ments against Viereck. They dxs-‘ (Contmuea on Page Pive) J (Continued to Page Two) With its two 250-pounad high explosive bombs inches above the ground, Canadian Bomber Down in New Hampshire ! plane is shown in a field near Greenland, N. H., after making a pancake ‘ship escaped injury. Cameramen were kept a long distance from the plane, 300 BOMBING o i 1 4 Of Red B1G DEFEMSE PLANT AFIRE; L0SS HEAV 'Firemen from Thirty Dif- . ferent Cities Fight Blaze fgr Eight Hours FALL RIVER, Mass, Oct. 13.— great factory for National Defense was crippled severely after a furious explosion and fire that ravaged huge stores of government rubber equip- ment for the armed forces of the United States. ‘The loss is estimated at $13.000,- 009. Firemen from | the blaze for more than cigh’ hours befere it was cuibe The b'a% - vmas fed Lv highly combustible latex crude rubber and spread through most of the water- front. The plant of the Firestone Rubber Company here was where the fire originated. Workmen said the blaze started in a small yoom on the third floor of a five-story brick manu- facturing building where rubber auto cushions were being heated and cured. Plant officials said twelve build- ings and contents were destroyed by the fire, covered approximately by $17,000,000 insurance. Four buildings of the big section were virtually undamaged. R iy WEATHER BALKS PLANE FLYiNG Two Pan American Electras in| Whitehorse and Lodestars in Jun-| eau and Seattle remained on the ground today, balked by poor weather conditions. Both: Whitehorse planes are engers and mail from the Interior. The Juneau plane will go to Fair- heré tomorrow. “weather permitt- ing:” BUY DEFENSE STAMPS beyley,‘ in Washinglon, . J| ~(wls Himself a Slice -PLANE #| provisicn 30-01d Massachu- | | setts and Rhode Island cities fou United States mechanics. Tape,fia'_:"!d How | By JACK STINNETT I | WASHINGTON, Oct. 13.—1 | Thomas E. Dewey, who not so long |ago had at least a toe-hold on ‘nommntlon for the Presidency, | came to Washington the other day "to cut himself a slice of red ane.[ Along in the spring he was se- !lccled chairman of that drive to |raise $11,000,000 for the United !Sex'vh:e Organizations — the com- imunlty chest for recreation in the { armed forces. Dewey did his part and the mcney topped the goal. | The government had sponsored | the idea and agreed to furnish off- the - reservation housing for the | USO. Into the national defense {nuusmg pill for $120,000,000 went | for building 225 USO | cantonments. The bill passed and | John M. Carmody’s Federal Works | Ageney was given administration, So what happens? Nothing, says Dewey With no cantonmen’s | | uilt and no word of any build- | |ing, Devey began to get a lct of! ompla What was happening| hat $11,0000£0? } That's why the former Presi- | :ential asphiant came to Wash- ston te :pip-a little red tape. | | He wouldn't tell how he did it, but| he did say that “I think every- | thing will be all right from now on. | I just called a few people and saw | a few more. For the most part, I found everybody very cooperative especially in the Army and Navy.” | DELAY A CAPITAL MYSTERY The delay in getting the USO recreation drive under way has been one of the mysteries of the capital. The subject of Army mor-| ale has been widely discussed. Edi- | torials, articles and speeches on if | have been included in the Coa-| Record almost daily. gressional Still, no one has taken it very | seriously for very long. Not even those politicians who seize on anything for a cause. Why? I asked an Army official, a veteran of |Wurld War I. There are, he told me, two definite sides to this question and besides, almost any politician knows that the quickest way to raise a group’s morale is to ‘go about tom. “TEN TIMES {MORE ENJOYABLE" Perhaps he is right. Typical of the conflicting stories that have poured intd Washington are those (Continued un Prge Six) ishouting that it js dragging bot- lishing house financed by Viereck.|.cheduled to come here with pass-| PO e ] a twin-motored Canadian bombing landing. All four occupants of the which will be repaired by NAZI CITIES RAF Blasls_flemberg in Large-scale Atfacks During Night LONDON, Oct. 13.—Bomber crews who last night blasted Nuernberg, setting of the Nazi Party’s annual congresses “saw roofs cave in and factory buildings collapse and flames pour through the windows of the skeletons of burned-out buildings standing out against the blaze,” the | | Alr Ministry announced today. | ‘The raid was part of a broad I sertes of attacks on industrial Ger- many from north to south in which | a force of 300 bombers took part. | Informed sources said the mass raid was an effort to relieve the Nazl pressure on Russia. { | In a follow-up sweep over north- ' | authoritatively to have destroyed 13 | |German planes, losing ten of its Nuernberg was the main objective of the night raiders because of its many war industries. The fires were s0 huge that the wings of the bomb- ers were singed, the Air Ministry said. CCNFESSION OF EX-CON. SOLVES MURDER MYSTERY Slaying of_(fid Star and Mother Atfributed fo Robbers FORT WORTH, Texas, Oot. 13.— | Kentucky's most puzzling slaying, | | that of golf star Marion Miley and | | her mother, appeared solved today ' by the confession of Tom Penney | that he participated in the hold-up | slaying in the Mileys’ Lexington, | Ky., apartment September 28. { Penny, 32-year-old ex-convict from Lexington, said in a statement, that he and Robert Anderson, Louis- ville night eclub operator, shot the women in a scuffle when they re- sisted the robbery attempt. | The statement led to the immed- | iate arrest of Anderson in Louisville on a murder charge. He denied | complicity. { i e | The Department of Commerce estimates that defense expenditures will total about 20 billion dollars| in 1942, l | ern France today themmuul"‘" 'DYNAMITE MAGAZINE BLOWS UP Unexplained Explosion, Maybe Startedby Fire, Kills Service Men 'BUILDINGS AT AIR " BASE ARE DAMAGED Glass Shaftered Causing | Injury to Many Persons -Board Starts Probe BULLETIN—SITKA, Alaska, Oct. 13.~It is said a fire, be- lieved to have started near a contractor’s powder supply house, caused the explosion. Five of the men killed, were on a fire truck golng to the scene of the fire when the blast detonated. A Military Board is sitting to- day to determine the cause. . C. Allen, Army MAGAZINE EXPLODES SITKA, Alaska, Oct. 13.—An un- explllnd explosion of ,an under- ground dynamite magazine at the Sitka Naval Alr Station shortly after the noon hour Sunday killed at least six service men and injured dosens of persons nearby in a fishing vil- . lage and also damaged defense and | private construction. | The blast crashed across to Bar- anof Island as hundreds of civillans and Army and Navy families were listening to the benediction in Sitka churches. The concussion of the explosion sent windows cascading down the streets in showers and broken, hurl- ing glass inflicted cuts on many women and children as they walked out of the churches along the nar- row streets. The st of ‘dead include the fol- CAPT. FANCIS C. ALLEN, of Kent Field, Calif., former official | of the Standard Oil Company . and recently appointed Provost ; Marshal at the air station. | PRIVATE RALPH E. KIRK- | BRIDGE, of Los Gatos, Cali- ! fornia. | PRIVATE HEDLEY O. EAST- | BROOKS, of San Francisco, | PRIVATE FRANK E. HAY- TON, of San Francisco. PRIVATE ALBERT A. SPUR- | LING, of Evertsville, West Vir- | sinia. | THOMAS A, BASKOM, Unit- | ‘ed States Marine. | Many, of the homes built recently | (Continued to Page Two) | Blast af Sitka Should Never Havp Happened “In my opinien, if the explosives on Japonski Island had been prop- erly stored, and were set off by & brush fire the accident Sunday af- ternoon which cost the lives of six men would never have happened," B. D. Stewart, Territorial Commis- sioner of Mines, declared today. Stewart referred to the fatal ex- iplosion at the Sitka base, when a brush fire was said to have set off blasting caps stored in a, build- ng there, which in turn exploded a powder magazine. To back up his statement, Stew~ art quoted a number of authorities and safety regulations regarding the handling and storage of explo- (Continued to Page Two)