Coral Gables Historical Archive
Coral Gables Riviera
Friday, March 20, 1942, page 6 (of 8)
The page
The text of this pageRead by computer from the scan, so some words may be wrong. The page picture is the original.
CORAL GABLES RIVIERA
AN INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER Published every Friday by the Miami Riviera Publishing Co., 206 Coral Way, Coral Gables, Fla. Established January, 1926 Combined with the Dade County and Coconut Grove Times, 1929. ALBERT E. HARUM President and Publisher JAMES B. MOORE Managing Editor Mailing Address, P. O. Box 704 Telephone 4-1634 Member, Florida Press Association National Editorial Association Represented in the National Advertising Field by the American Press Association, New York City SUBSCRIPTION RATES Six Months | $1.25 One Year | $2.00 Out of Town | $3.00 Entered as second class matter May 21, 1926, at the Postoffice at Miami, Florida, under Act of March 3, 1879.
A New Commissioner
Today Coral Gables has a new city commissioner, Dennis A. Cray. Mr. Cray should make Coral Gables a good commissioner. He has lived here long enough to know the city's problems. He is in business in this community and he has taken an active interest in the city's affairs. His appointment seems logical, in that he ran next to Andrew Healy in the last election, and now becomes Healy's successor. Every community requires able and discerning leadership in these troubled times, and as Mr. Cray takes on the duties of his office, he has the well wishes and congratulations of The Riviera.
The Parking Problem
Motorists who leave their cars parked overtime on Coral Gables business streets are surprised these days to find a different kind of "ticket" awaiting their return. Stuck under their windshield wipers is the following message, taking the place of the usual summons: "By parking overtime, you may have prevented the merchant, in front of whose place of business you parked, from making a much needed sale. In times like these we all need every dollar we can make. Won't you cooperate in the future?" The tags are signed by the Coral Gables Police Department. The parking problem in the business district has always been a puzzling one. The merchants themselves often disagree on how long cars should be allowed to park. They are in accord, however, on the point that car owners who leave cars in front of their stores for long periods of time, keep other potential customers away. These new tags may not be the answer to the problem. They should, however, make motorists think a little about their fellow-men and their problems. And certainly, no one could take offense at the wording on the tags.
Know a Service Man?
Do you know a Gables man in the service? If you do, send his name and branch of service to City Manager George Shaw. The city is planning op flying a service flag with a star to represent every Gableite serving in the armed forces. In order to do this, it is necessary to prepare a roster of those men. So pass the names of those you know along to George Shaw.
Book Briefs LOOKING FOR TROUBLE (Harper and Brothers) By Virginia Cowles REVIEWED BY LOUISE LEYDEN
Many volumes have been written concerning the tragic events which changed the face of the European Continent, and which later embroiled the entire world. "Looking for Trouble" deals with these same events although in a fresh, unique manner. The author, a foreign correspondent, saw first-hand the fatal happenings and has presented them through a woman's eye. An American living in Europe when the Spanish Civil War broke out, she fearlessly dashed to the front and covered it from both angles. This was but a beginning. She visited practically all of the capitals of Europe and was present as each world-shocking event transpired. She had a "nose" for trouble and unflinchingly threw herself into the zones where trouble was brewing, sitting in the inermost sanctums, dining with statesmen, interviewing leaders of various countries, talking with men and women of the street. Often accompanied by fellow writers Webb Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, and others, she most frequently pursued her travels and stories alone. The haunts of those in power were open to her and through these media she came to see repeatedly, and to know well, many of the men who guided the destinies of the millions within their power. Several times she was suspected of being a spy and barely missed imprisonment in embattled Spain or escaping across the International bridge into then peaceful France in a car which flew the Union Jack. The book is written in a clear, fast-moving, vigorous style. An authoritative air prevails throughout its numerous pages, sweeping the reader on to the imminent war that was to come, mirroring in no uncertain words the prelude to world conflict.
WALTER LIPPMANN
With the loss of the East Indies it is time to learn the lessons of these defeats. They are not to be learned from the ungasuhed dispatches of correspondents on a dozen widely scattered fronts crying out that not enough help has come from America to that particular point. The defeat of the United Nations in the South Pacific has much more to teach us about the conduct of the war than that we ought to have sent stronger forces everywhere at once. The crux of the matter is that the strategy of the United Nations in the Pacific has been dictated by political rather than by military considerations. There was, the primary political consideration, responding to our own pacifist and isolationist sentiment, which prevented us until December 7 from making any commitments with our allies for a united war against Japan. This left us with a loose understanding that the British would defend their possessions in Hongkong and Malaya and Singapore and Burma and the Dutch would defend their island empire, and that we would defend the Philippines. Thus the strategy of the South Pacific was not to make war against Japan by a united effort at some place but for each of the Allies to stand guard over his own possessions. This, rather than the lack of adequate reinforcements from the other side of the world, is the reason why the scattered defenders have everywhere been outnumbered and overwhelmed. The United Nations, moved by a natural but a false desire to hold their possessions everywhere, have made the worst possible use of the by no means inconsiderable forces which were in the Far East. For political reasons they were unable and unwilling to abandon quickly, if you like coldbloodedly, what they could not hope to defend, and then to concentrate their forces at any vital point for a great action. Thus ships, planes, munitions, troops have been chewed to pieces at isolated points over a vast area. From all these isolated forces have come heartrending please to America or to Great Britain for help before the disaster broke. Why? Because they could not help one another; each commander was instructed by his government at home to protect a territorial possession rather than to make war against Japan. Thus we began by placing our heavy bombers in Luzon within easy reach of the Japanese, and promptly lost a great part of them, first, because Luzon was too near the front, and second, because there were not adequate airfields in Luzon on which to base such bombers. The bombers would have been far more useful if they had been based on some region, where the United Nations meant to concentrate their forces. The British lost troops and ships and guns defending Hongkong. They would have been more useful in Java or Singapore. The combined forces of the British, Dutch and Americans in Malaya and the Indies were by no means negligible. But they were dispersed for the defense of so many places that they were never adequate anywhere. Never was it politically possible for the United Nations to make up their minds to stand together somewhere, say, at Singapore or in Java, and so all the places have fallen separately, and what was once in combination a formidable force has been annihilated in detail. This is not war, and the great lesson to be learned from it is the lesson which General Pershing taught the Americans and the Allies in 1917. It was that wars cannot be won by dispersing and frittering away forces, trying to prop up the weak positions. Wars are won by concentrating forces and then striking all out enemy. In the larger strategy of this war, as in the South Pacific, political considerations override effective military planning. We and the British are trying to make everything secure, which means that we are dispersing our forces and fighting on lines of communications which are so monstrously extended that our navies and our shipping cannot possibly be adequate. At the same time, and also for political reasons, we are not concentrating our forces for effective action in the one theatre of the war, namely western Europe, where our communications are the shortest, our strategic position the most favorable and the gains to be obtained by joining action in conjunction with Russia the largest and most immediate. If Hitler is preparing to move against Russia and the Middle East, it is sound strategy to travel all the way around the perimeter of an immense circle to meet him, or to strike at him from the rear and on the flank from positions where our main forces exist, and can most easily be reinforced? Our answers, when they make war, are not inhibited by political considerations, like ours in regard to France, and so they strike with concentrated fury at the softest spot nearest to them instead of rushing to innumerable inaccessible places with driblets of force. They compel us to meet them where it suits them to fight us. We, on the other hand, dominated by the politics of guarding our possessions and by super-subtle political calculations about the "reactions" of false neutrals, conform to their most optimistic calculations. We exhaust ourselves with rear guard actions fought at frightful expense in indecisive theatres of the war, and we refrain from hitting them where we can hit them the hardest and hurt them the most. The root of the evil is that political considerations, political habits and political sentiment confuse our military planning. We must clear them away. If we conduct this war on the notion that we must defend possessions rather than that we must defeat our two principal enemies, our possessions are liabilities and not assets. They do us no good and they use up our forces; we shall be fighting the war on the principle that the promote of the general of democracy are a series of gigantic WPA projects all over the globe. If we conduct this war on the notion that we will suffer losses defending these places but will not face losses striking at the enemy, we take risks which seem less because they are dispersed, but are in fact greater because there is no corresponding gain. If we conduct this war on the notion that we can deal with the enemy in western Europe by opposing his power with our diplomacy, we shall be giving him exactly what he wants; we shall be giving him exactly what he wants: we shall weakest and dispersing our strength to met him where he is strongest. (Copyright, 1942, New York Tribune, Inc.)
OUR TOWN by Jim Moore
Are you a Nazi agent? "Of course not," you say immediately. But stop and ask yourself again. Are you unwittingly doing Hitler's work? Let's think about that a moment before answering. How many times during the past week have you criticised the administration? How many times have you passed on a rumor you heard? Have you shrugged and said, 'The Germans will never bomb Florida."? Have you neglected to provide your home with all the essentials in preparation for a raid? Have you ever said, "Why should I concern myself with armament production? I'm not a munitions worker and have no connection with any defense industry."? Did you say to your neighbor, "Well, I finally filed my blankety-blank income tax form. It certainly is terrible the way the government is nicking us this year."? How do you stand up to those questions? Personally, we have to say, "not so good." And when we answer that way, like it or not, we are unwittingly acting as Nazi agents, no matter how much we hate Hitler, the Axis and all for which they stand. It doesn't take much of a study of the German conquest formula to discern this cardinal principal-divide and conquer. It's worked many times for the Schicklegruber and his gang. What's more important, it can work here! Donald Nelson presented the problem and its solution in a very effective radio program on Tuesday evening. Probably most of you heard it. If you didn't, say a raid [?did?], you have had it. We all should hear it and heed it. In a series of dramatizations the disputes between capital and labor were presented. The union bickerings and stallings were portrayed. The minutes clicked by-minutes in which tanks, guns, and cannon should be rolling off the assembly line. There was talk, talk, talk of the "emergency". Then came Nelson's punch line. "This isn't an emergency. This is WAR!" Mr. Nelson is right. America is fighting for her very life, and can lose. This isn't only a battle for men in uniform, planes and tanks. Man, woman or child, you are just as much a soldier fighting the Axis as any man in the front line. The day is gone when writers calling attention to our laxness and indifference can be called calamity howlers, war mongers and alarmists. Anyone who thinks that we behind the lines can carry on "business as usual" is a fool. Every day, your very words and actions that seem commonplace are either aiding or hurting the war effort. The sad part about it is that too many of us are hurting rather than aiding. We're still kidding ourselves. We're smug and complacent. Yes, we're fools. It might be good for us to have a few bombs dropped on our homes-to see some of our neighbors or relatives lying still in death, gaping wounds indicating that they have met with the horror from the skies. From most of our attitudes, it looks like that is the only way we're going to wake up and get going. We've got a fight on our hands, and only a small percentage is doing anything about it. Think it over. Check yourself. Then ask the question again: Am I a Nazi Agent?
Mark Sullivan
This column some time ago said that further dwelling upon Pearl Harbor would be a raking over of deaf ashes. Since saying that, and partly because of saying it, this column is made aware that there is in the country a wide-spread feeling which wants further information-and which, lacking in information, imagines or accepts rumors more damaging than the facts. To allay the public, President Roosevelt already has made one speech (Dec. 9), sent Secretary Knox to Pearl Harbor and made public his report, appointed the Robert Board of Investigation and published its report. Yet, after all that there was still so much public disquiet that the President, in his last address to the nation (Feb. 23), felt obliged to devote nearly a fifth of his speech to the ten-weeks-past Pearl Harbor incident. Much of the public discussion is about quantity of damage. To a large degree this has been told. But some still remains untold upon the ground-proper if justified-that the information would be valuable to the enemy. Mr. Roosevelt in his February 23rd speech told the loss of airplanes in terms which could have been more explicit. Mr. Roosevelt said: "To date, and including Pearl Harbor, we have destroyed considerably more Japanese planes that they have destroyed of ours". Now the Japanese know exactly how many of their planes we have destroyed. Consequently, Mr. Roosevelt could have used an exact figure. There is another aspect of Pearl Harbor about which the public imagining is rife, and to a large extent probably incorrect. It has to do with the appointment of the naval officer in charge. Because Admiral Kimmel turned out to be not adequately efficient, imagination assumes that his defect should have been known at the time he was appointed-hence that the appointment ought not to have been made. The reasonable test here is, not what became known after Pearl Harbor, but what could be known at the time Admiral Kimmel was appointed. This writer has inquired, and has been told that among high Navy officers at the time Admiral Kimmel was appointed there was no general feeling that he was less fit for the post than other officers. Plainly, President Roosevelt, who made the appointment, cannot be held to a higher standard of judgment than the common judgment of naval officers. Mr. Roosevelt cannot now be reproached to have known a year ahead how any appointee would act in utterly unanticipated circumstances. It is true that in the appointment of Admiral Kimmel many other officers higher in seniority or rank were passed over. But that is common. It is true that President Roosevelt has been well acquainted with Admiral Kimmel, and from that innuendo of favoritism is hinted. But personal knowledge about an appointee in a natural factor in the judgment which makes any appointment. In yet another area there is discussion. It is alluded to in the admirable Roberts report: "At our Hearings reference was made to what has long been a matter of common knowledge-that there are, and have been, diverse views of national policy respecting the basing of the entire United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. We feel that the national policy in this matter is one that has been settled by those responsible for such decisions and that it is not within our province.. . to discuss any such topic." Undoubtedly before the war began, and since, grave decisions have been made about every aspect of policy and strategy. Without doubt mistakes have been made. As it is put by journalist Ernest Lindley, close to the Administration: "There was scarcely a hint in his (President Roosevelt's) speech that, with the help of his highest professional advisers, he has had to make difficult choices and that some, even though they probably were the best that could be made in the light of all evidence, have not panned out." Yes, we have made mistakes. So have the British. But- if it's any comfort-think of Hitler. Probably the greatest error of judgment made by any leader or power in this war was Hitler's wanton invasion of Russia. Immediately later Pearl Harbor, when in our hot anger we felt that the vile crime was upon the Japanese treachery, we generated a slogan, "Remember Pearl Harbor". But since we have learned that some of the blame is upon ourselves; that, however odious the Japanese treachery, we ought to have been on guard against it, and were not. Probably the better injunction would be, forget Pearl Harbor. To counsel that we forget a mistake is by no means to counsel that we conceal it or any part of it. On the contrary, complete ventilation of a mistake gives us the material by which we may avoid future ones. Moreover, in a democracy, and to a people such as ours, the guide must be candor, and still more candor. But the time for dwelling on Peral Harbor is past. Today we face situation more desperately urgent than most of use realize. (Copyright, 1942, New York Tribune, Inc.)
This One's on You
AN ARDENT YOUNG Coral Gables baseball fan, aged seven, attended the major league practice game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants at Miami Field on Saturday with his mother. Hal Schumacher was doing his customarily neat mound stint for the Giants when, during a quiet moment, the young lad turned to his mother and said, "Mommie, you went to school with Schumacher, didn't you?" "Yes, dear." Occupants of seats four and five rows fore and aft of the pair by this time had turned to look at "mommie" and her little darling . . . and were still looking, when the youngster eyed his mother for a little bit and softly, but asked, "Aw, gee, mom why didn't you marry him?" To howls of amusement from the crowd his mother had to explain: 1-That she hadn't been asked; and, 2-you had to be pretty darn smart to be manager of a high school nine like daddy was ... in his day! * * * TIP-TO-TOE-Dr. Warren Crim's departure for the Navy probably means a lot to sailors with sore feet; but it put Dr. Glenn Clapp, the optometrist, in a funny position the other day. Prior to the chiropodist's departure, he maintained an office next door to Dr. Clapp in the Renxart Arcade. The other day, Clapp's office was full of patients. He saw them, one by one, until a single patient remained. The last caller was ushered into the inner sanctum and Dr. Clapp readied his eye examining implements. When he turned around to get started, he was surprised to see his "patient" with shoe and sock removed, all ready to describe his arch trouble. * * * SHORT CUT-Judge O. B. Sutton's 2 1/2-month-old son has been blessed with an exceedingly luxurious growth of hair. In fact, it reached to his shoulders until the other day, when "Obie" decided that it was time the young man was introduced to a barber shop. The judge walked in, plumped down in the chair with the baby on his lap, and gave the barber the go-ahead signal. The barber looked at the long tresses, and not knowing the sex of the child, innocently asked, "Shall I bob it?" The judge glared. Then, in his deepest basso profundo, he growled, "H- no! Cut it short. He's a BOY!" * * * FAN MAIL-The editor's mail bag was unusually crammed this week when 21 letters from the pupils in Mrs. Ruth Williams' room at the Coral Gables Elementary School arrived en masse. All very neatly printed and some embellished with crayon drawings, the letters expressed appreciation for the picture we ran last week, showing the children collecting scrap iron for defense and for supplying each student with a copy of the paper. Several of the letters told us that "we didn't used to go to all the trouble but that it was appreciated." One, signed Betty Thomas, on three worth repeating. It stated: "Thank you for the newspaper. We did need it. We thank you for it anyhow." * * * PURE SCHMALTZ-Wells Bruen, the Gables lad who is now assistant manager at the Paramount Theatre, is still a press agent at heart. Bruen called the office the other day to tell us of a "whale of a human interest story". Then he tried to cram down our throats the tale of three fellers at the theatre, who after viewing the picture, "Fleet's In", marched right out and joined the Navy.