The Nashville Tennessean the Head Hunt Published h TCNNKSSEAN NEWSPAPIRS. INC SILLIMAN EVANS Prssldsnt and Pnbliiher JOHN H. NYE and JENNINGS PXSRT Editors Published Every Morning tnd Sunday at Eleventh and Broadway. Nashville, Tennessee. Entarad at tha Post Office at HashviUe, Tan-nsssss, aa sacond-claaa mail matter. Tha aawt column sball b fair and ecco-rata; tha tutorial columns thill ha honest and put in tha expression at conscientious opinion. f 4 Mon. Morning, April 23, 1945 Tha Tennessean Firsts FOE THE EX-SERVICEMEN: A job for every ona; aids to estsblish- nent in homct and business; educational , opportunity, protection of health. TOR OUR REGION: Induaion of the Cumberland in tha TVA program. FOR TENNESSEE: Kill tha Poll Tax. 1.000.000 Voters. A Merit System in tha Constitution, Refill tha phoiphate cuts. FOR DAVIDSON COUNTY: Consolidation of county and city health services. A metropolitan community hospital. Consolidation of county and city acjiool systems. FOR NASHVILLE: Lafayette Street extension. Smoke abatement Sewage disposal plant A municipal auditorium. The only hope the enemy now has Is to cause confusion, distrust and suspicion on the home front and among the United Nations! We Take Berlin "On to Berlin t" has been the battlecry of the United Nationa in Europe for to long that our arrival in that once resplendent capital may leave us groping for a new battlecry. Fo'r the war promisee to continue yet awhile. And though all are aware that (he Nazi bent is dying fast there ia no warrant to assume that the fall of Berlin will be the coup de grace. Certainly the shock to what remain of morale in the German people generally, and even in the Nasi fanatics, will be severe. In the military scheme the city hai been not only the headquarters of the German war machine, but the plexus of ita transportation system snd a large source of its suppliee. Its loss leaves the Nazi armies pocketed againat the Baltic with but the arms they have in their hands to fight with. But it ia aa a symbol that the overthrow of the capital ahould have the most important conse-quence. After all this waa the spot at which Germane were led to feel most secure. The Russisns have cracked the shell of Berlin and are advancing upon its heart. American forces'are only a few miles away. The long march to Berlin has been consummated in Berlin, in the ruins of its arrogant magnificence. Our aide has worn out a alogan, but soon will have another. The enemy hat lost hie capital and henceforth, though "tbs Germans do contrive to continue for awhile the guerrilla warfare to which Hitler calls them, he never again can evade in his own mind the knowledge that the power thst could take hia chief stronghold can beat him down wherever he may stand. To our aide Berlin is a great prize. It is not victory. But it is the next to the last step to that goal. Plains of the Po The Germane are having to get out of Italy just aa out of all other camps they have held. Gen. Mark Clark's break out of the mountains into the tank plains of the Po valley has changed the whole picture on this third front of the two front war. The capture of Bologna deprives the enemy of his main base and the news that he is withdrawing hurriedly far north of that famed city waa to have been anticipated. The Alps if he can reach them will be his next and last halting place. There haa never been any secret of our strategy in the Italian campaign. It was, up to now, to hold at many German divisions as possible out of the big show in Germany. That purpose has been achieved. Now it will be the aim of General Clark's army of many nationalities to overtake and decimate these divisions in the open country. And it will be surprising if many escape to join their defeated comrades beyond the Alps in that fabled redoubt the Nazis are aupposed to have prepared. It has not slways been front-page warfare in Italy, but the men who have sweated out their detail in the inclement Apennines deserve every credit for their major assist to the conclusive events now ripening in the principal thester of the European war. They deserve some better bresk in comforts snd welcome than they have known, and they should find it in the smiling Italian north, where a more industrious people have more vigorously retained their love of independence. May It Ever Be Riqht Here is a quip from Robert Ouillen: - "A true patriot ia not only proud of his country, but shamed by anything that shames it." The statement is well worth remembering, especially when the company of those self-esteemed super-pa-trlota who resent as unpatriotic any auggestion that reason and right may lie in any position except our own. If a citizen desires no more of his country than a protection of his personal interests he is concerned only with its possession of power for therein lies its sbility to protect him. With the morality of its sets he js concerned only in so far they may affect its power, quite aa many an individual conforms to the ethical standards the community becauss a failurs to do so may injure his standing. But a man who thinks of his country as something more than an organization to fuard his property and hia ssfety and likes to believe himself a pari of an international influence for good, national community for human welfare and advancement, wants hit country to behave among nationa at a man of god will behaves among men. ' shame when it does not do to reflectt his patrotism quite aa much as hit pride may re-. fleet it on other occasions. President Truman la being bedeviled at the outset of his administration, aa President Roosevelt was in the last yeara of hia administration, by Senator McKellar'a demand for the head of Chairman Lilienthal of the TVA. Mr. Lilicnthal'a term expires nest month. , Ordinarily his reappointment would be a matter of course, hia confirmation in the senate by acclamation. Few public servants, entrusted with task of such importance, have so cleanly and faithfully served or hsve brought a public purpose to so evident a success. The people, fortunate in this service, should want auch a man to continue at hia post. And ths people do. Bat one senator demands his head. Ths representatives in Congress of ths five Tennessee Valley states faithfully and truly reflect the will of the people of this region in urging the President to make the reappointment. There it no personal idolatry in this support, but native fairness, the recognition of meritorious conduct, sn expression of self-interest. In Tennessee, preeminently the proving ground of the TVA program over the past decade, the aupport would be all but unanimous. Yet the Tennessee senator demanda the head of Lilienthal, or else ... The people of Tennessee have some responsibility for Senator McKellar even though in this matter he haa shown not sn iota of responsiveness to their plsin, reasonable and aupposedly sovereign desire. They must be concerned for the retributory uses he proposes to make of ths offics he holds from this state if the new President refuses to grant him the head of the TVA chairman. The new President has been charged with the execution of ths designs for victory and peace bequeathed to the nation by his predecessor. He has sought cordially to work with the U. S. senate to these high ends which hold the hope of mankind. The Tennessee senator, holding power in the aenate, has pledged his aid to the President. If the senator does not get his head, will he scrsp this pledge? Will he, in sheer destructive r fury, turn upon Bretton Woods, upon Dumbarton ' Oaks, upon San Francisco? Will he attempt to tear down the house of hope because he should not have been given the veto of a deserved appointment? That is the threat. And it proceeds from the seat in the U. S. senate that speaks in the name of the people of Tennessee. The senator stands terribly alone, and reckless. In the wings behind him no doubt are the presences of those inimical interests who appreciate the blow that will be struck all public power projects the day that .the hand of politica closes upon the management of TVA. But there is not a spokesman of these interests beside him or who would dare stand beside him. For the senator has no case, he has no just complaint, the weight of all fair considerations is against him. He has only a sense of power and hia whetted demand for the head of this public servant. We insist that government belongs to the people and ought to reflect their judgment. Therefore government should not be a pitiful thing. But if, in violation of the popular will, in derision of the civilized concept of fairness, in contempt of the detriment to TVA that would result, the senator bulls through his quest, then government is made a pitiful thing. It is cheapened in the public mind. The senator himself would gain no stature, but government would be made to seem small indeed. The Tennessean trusts that the congressmen of the Tennessee Valley region will continue to voice the will of their constituents for the reappointment and that the people will renew to them their expressions of approval and support. It is an effort that should not be required of them again and again but must be required of them, apparently, as long as the Tennessee senator forces the choice between himself and the TVA. Fruits of Paganism Studies like Dr. Lasswell's "Propaganda Technique" and the debunking of such widely accepted stories as the Potsdam Conference (supposedly called by the Kaiser to set der tag for the start of the war) and the Belgian atrocities have made Americans exceedingly suspicious about stories of World War II atrocities. This attitude is no doubt buttressed by the natural reluctance to believe that such things are possible in this century. But it is difficult to see how disbelief can hold out against evidence being compiled by the American armies in Germany., General Marshall has invited a congressional delegation to visit captured German concentration camps and see for themselves the conditions therein. While th's is to be commended, it is to be recoemd that such a delegation would not be tra'n-d in objective observation and investigation. If the army desires to lav the facts before the American public, it would do well to follow General Eisenhower's suggestion to include newspaper editors. The delegation would still be more representative if it included a number of eminent -social scientists. Atrocities inevitably accompany war. American history records the scalpings and butcheries of the Indian frontier, the massacre of the Alamo, the horrors of Civil War , prisons, the recon-centrados of Cuba. The army contends that Nazi excesses belong to a different category, both because of their extent and their ideology. Their evidence indicates that, over and above the sadism of perverted individuals and the effects of food and medicine shortages and other exigencies accompanying miliary disintegration, the atrocities were official, deliberate, racist. They were means of controlling conquered peoVes and slave workers. They were the fruits of the new and unbelievably brutal paganism. It is doubtful if any American was left unmoved by the story of the tour which twelve hundred citizens of Weimar (birthplace of the German Republic) made of the concentration camp at Buchenwald under compulsion by the American army. Three citizens were compelled to look upon corded bodies of the dead about a furnace, the piles of human ashes, the twenty thousand living dead occupants. Whatever the nature and extent of these atrocities, Americans muat make every effort to re- . act to them intelligently and wisely. After all, it was our own itolationitm, economic and political, our own intittence that wa were not our brother's keeper, which permitted the riss snd triumph of the sgents of this inhumanity. Tha anawer lies not in hate and vengeance in turn. That would be falling vjctim to the very malady which infects so much of Germany. It lies in our resolution never to permit to exist again the conditions which gave rise to Nazi barbarism. The answer lies in part at San Francisco. '1 Will Be In On The Peace!' , ' fif SStH'' Letters to The Tennessean House Hunter Asks Why Not Ceiling on Real Estate We hope we'll never, see the time whin well look bsck upon the present as "the good old days." To the Editor: There'e a ceiling price on food, ceiling price on clothing, ceiling price on rent, and most everything else, but there happens to bn no ceiling price on property. Thus real estate continues to aoar and soar. Mighty nice for the property owner, but what about the many, many families who have been comfortably settled for years in a little house that has grown very dear to them, when very suddenly, like a bolt of lightning out of-a clear gky, that cold formal letter arrives announcing the sale of such property. Profit, yes. lots of profit for the owner, but nights of restless sleep for the tenant, eager eyes searching the want ads daily for a house to rent, but there are no houses for rent. Plenty of houses for sale, yes, lots of them, but at prices three times their worth. Could buy a tittle lot somewhere, but there is such a shortage of building material there will be' anothee shock to your aims and desires. Some folks may think this a very small matter to worry about but to us who have failed to gain much of this world's goods It's a mighty big problem. Yes, a continual search of the want ads, inquiring of other individuals still seeking an abode and still wondering why there isn't a celling price on property. MRS. O. C. Nashville, Tenn. NAVY POSTER To the Editor: This poem was sent me by my son, a Marine in the Pacific. I wish John L. Lewis, and every striker in the coun- try could read it. The explanation . states that It appeared on posters throughout the Navy Yard. It should have appeared on posters where every congressman and senator could have seen it every way they turned while they were arguing over the "Work or Fight" bill. We're voters who have in mind a list of those who killed that bill. This poem was written by a Marine on the Pacific and appeared on posters throughout the Navy Yard: And If our lines should form and break. Because of things you failed to make That extra tank, that ship, that plane. For which we waited all in vain. Will you then, come to take the blame For we, not' you must beas the cost Of battles you, not we, have lost. MRS. GLADYS GALLOWAY. Lawrenceburg, Tenn. VOTE IS THE ANSWER To the Editor: Everyone is familiar with the old saying, "Two things ate certain, taxes and death." From the occasional and recent hugs Increases of already high salaries of government employes, an Inevitable change of thia phrase will be, "One thing Is certain, he was taxed to death." There would be little or no criticism if wage Increases started from the bottom. Instead of. the top as always and stopping about in between. Unnecessary political Jobs and waste In overhead expense is what should be used to keep within the budget thought sufficient for construction public service. The button on the common man's pocket is of no use now A PUILIC FORUM The Tennessean Is alwaya glad to receive letters from its readers giving their views on questions of the day. When requested, only initials or a nom de plums will be printed. However, the Identity and address of ths sender must alwaya be known to the Editor. Because Forum space ia limited letters must be edited and often cannot be printed In full, though every effort will be made to preserve ths idea in each letter used. Each day an award of One Dollar will be made for the communication deemed best by the Editor. That letter will be designated by three stars. and it has become essential that an ivory clad zipper be put there Instead. A timely way for the constant overtaxed little man to get more of his own small income is to vote intelligently at each election and demand that his vote count. It's time for unified action. Why wait for a miracle to come your way? Speak your piece, "live and let live," splne-fully where it should be heard and observed, or you may soon find yourself without one shirt even ior wintertime. STOOPBD TAXPAYER. Nashville, Tenn. IT LOOKS DIFFERENT To the Editor: Speaking of Tennessean fillers,' this one makes senss: 'It's easy to see the silver lining of . the cloud over ths other fellow." I've told mothers not to worry when their young sons left home to enter service. I've said that military training and new experiences would be fine for the boy; that he'd have excellent care and food; that mothers ahould be proud their son waa physically fit and acceptable. Their cioud had a bright shining silver lining, from the sunny field where I stand. Now my own dark cloud of separation is overhead. Viewed from directly underneath, I can't see any silver. It's merely a dull gray, monotonous void. Joelton, Tenn. LIVE AND L.EARN To the Editor: "Live and Learn." you often hear it repeated, all kinds of peo- ?le in the world, and sometimes believe that quite true, right here in our city. One afternoon recently, I. as hundreds of other War Mothers after a hard day's work, was trying to get home on a bus. There was a woman who boarded the bus with boxes, bags and etc., and yes, loaded with beer and whisky. A kind nurse and I were sitting together. She was leaning on me. I asked her kindly to stand, up since I had worked hard all day. and was very tired. She remarked that she didn't have to work. It Along the Way By Albert Hines WITHOUT INITIATIVE, WHAT HAVE YOUT A number of persons seem to have missed the point of our recent discussion relative to the extensive building of homes for the feathered songsters. Ws want to make it clear here and now and for all time that ! we are for the birds 147 per cent In their many and varied undertakings. Any bird, be It titmouse or a great horned owl, may come to us at any time of the day or night, up to 1:43 p. m., with the full assurance that he will be received In a most cordial manner., May it never be said that A. Hines was too busy to listen to the troubles of his feathered friends: But we do believe that the present trend In home building for the birds by man is a dangerous one end that unless It Is abandoned, or sharply curtailed, thsrs will be reason for serious regret within ths next decade or so. Doing for the birds what they ought to do for themselves will hsve a tendency to destroy their initiative, and when that ia gone there is, aa a rule, hardly enough worthwhile left to say grace over. Not only will It mean that man must do all their building, but tbay. will have become so trifling and Indifferent that Its effect may be felt In other ways. Suppose the birds take a notion that man may aa well do the singing along with ths house building? Suppose they arrive at the point where they feel man ought to feed them In the summertime aa well as when the days are cold and the countryside is burled deep in snow? Ones the birds have reached that stage, which no doubt they will unless they sre left to shift mors for themselves, the snd win not bs far off. Some bright spring morning, man will rise up, with hia shotgun or whatever gun may be handy, and alas! the birds will be no more. Csn you think of anything more tragic? Can you Imagine a country going along the way without so much ss a sapsucker in tha hinterland to raise its voice in song, come April and the blossoming of (he violets? Would It not bring tears to your eyes as you sang "Listen to the Mockingbird" when there was no mockingbird to listen to? Lend the birds a reasonable amount of assistance, to be sure. Counsel with them. Help them Help them with their problems whenever you are asked to do so. If conditions and circumstances are such that there is a shortage of crab grass, sticks, scrap paper, rags and feathers and other nesting material, then man should atep in and see that these items are supplied in abundance If they . are to be had. Neither time nor effort should be spared to make them available. In such an emergency, the true bird lover will arise and call his boys together, and his girls, too, and hia wife, if needs be, and all their energies will be devoted to the task until each bird on the premises haa been provided with sufficient building material. If It becomes necessary, he will alay several old roosters and scatter the feathera about the yard and garden, where they may be picked up with the minimum of effort by the birds. If he has no old roosters, he will dig down in his Jeans and bring home a few from the market. If and when it becomes necessary to'tfti j step In that direction. It -no one else volunteers for the Job, --the services of A. Hlmss, aa leader, director or what not, may be had merely for the . asking. was bad enough to be drunk, much less to add, that she didn't have to work. The lowest thing, and next to animals in my estimation, is a drunk woman. Oh, she might not have to work, but why don't such people as that offer a helping hand to the Red Cross and make surgical dressings. It is needed for our boys over the entire world. I have an only child, son in the South Pacific, war zone, 28 months now. I am trying to help in every way possible, just recently donated a liberal amount to the Red Cross. Why? My son has often written me: "Mother, if you ever help anyone, or can, do it for the Red Cross, they have been wonderful to me." DISGUSTED. Nashville, Tenn. MORALE BOOSTER To the Editor: Much has been said about letters as morale boosters to our boys on the fighting front, but did you ever stop to think how much the mothers, fathers, wives and other loved ones here at home need them? Right now, many of our boys can't write www their folks at home; others will never write them again. They have paid the supreme sacrifice. If we would only take off a few minutes each day to write some , family who is anxiously waiting a word from their loved one in service, or perhaps Is in deep sorrow on account of that telegram: "We regret to inform you ," it seems to me that would be a little thing which might help in a large way. I am sure it would bring happiness or give encouragement to those who e.re putting up a brave but silent fight on the home front. Nothing is more welcome than a good letter. Sometimes It means more to the- recipient than food. It warms the heart anThas no equal as a morale booster) GAE" LEE. Tullahoma, Tenn. Hambone's Meditations By Alley Timmont Soyti f ' Madam Perkins Sitting Pretty I In Cabinet Post Removal From Laborl Department Regarded Unlikely Any Time Soon By BASCOM N. TIMMONt rrom Wtthlncton Buntu WASHINGTON. April 22 -It's an odd thing, with sll the problems confronting President Ttu-:jv man, that one of the principal topics of speculation should ba the future of the labor department The reason la that. In the concluding months of Presidsnt Roosevelt's life, the same subject came up again and again, even though the prospect of action waa slim. Actually. Secretary of Labor Frencea Perkins is probably alt-ting prettier. If she, wishes to continue Indefinitely, than several other cabinet officers. She picked a hot potato the coal wage dispute Juggled It neatly, and saw her appeal for a compromise agreement accepted. And aha once gave Harry Truman Job .in 1933, though he didn't especially need a Job. she made him Missouri State Director of the old national reemployment service, which cleared WPA and other relief projects for his State. The work he did then, while concurrently county Judge of Jackson County did not hurt him at all in getting elected to ths senate the following year. In fact, it'a been said that the Pen-dergast organization waa as Impressed with his work as employment director as with hia excellent record as county Judge. Black Urged for Job Some radicals have strongly urged that Justice Hugh Black he asked to resign from the U. S. Supreme Court to take the labor department secretaryship, with an assurance that congress would then place under hia control all governmental labor functions war labor board, national labor relations hoard, perhaps even ths war manpower commission. But Black is now regarded by the same radicals as a presidential possibility, a role for which the supreme court provided a better jumping off place, and the man whom some say President Truman prefers to reorganize the labor department, which now exercises but a few skimpy functions, ia V. S Senator Harley M. Kilgore I. W. Va.. one of his old colleacues on the Truman Wnr Investigating Committee. Po Madame Secretary is apparently set to continue Indefinitely, or at least until she definitely decides herself that she wants to leave. TDM'S BOY 5 Art HE htltD k HAIR-CUT BUT HE CAIN NEVUH GIT UP EARLY 'NOUfirt TO Crr IM DE BAR-BUK'S CHEER..' V.s .. if mm T-i3-4 sihi eta Wrong Party An elderly man. applying for a civil service job, visited the proper office, was put through the prescribed list of questions by a civil service commission Interviewer. She asked, among others: "Do you belong to any party seeking to overthrow the government of the United States?" After a moment's reflection, hs replied to her surprise and amassment: "Yes, ma'am, I do." "What party?" "The Republican, ma'am. Learned in Spain Lt. Col. Richard L. Melllng. Army Medical Corps, Columbus, Ohio, who received the Legion of Merit this week for hia work In reorganizing air evacuation of the wounded, received his grounding for this task while watching Germans evacuate their own troops from fighting in Spain. Before this war started. Colonel Meiling was a student in hospitals In Germany where he also had experience working on war wounded at that time. Oddly enough, what he saw there enabled him later to help ssve the lives of many an American and Allied youth, shot down by German fire. Air evacuation of the wounded in this war has frequently been named one of three major rea. sons along with blood plasma and quick surgery at the front for the fact the death rate from those wounded has been less than 3 per cent of the total Likes British Plan Better Ernest Van Lloyd, .who has he?n teaching British men to fly airplanes at Terrell. Texas, told high Washington officiate this week that he believes the British course of" training surpasses that of the United Statea. Van Lloyd, instructor with the Aeronautical Training Society, was in Washington to receive the Order of the British Empire Medal from Lord Halifax, the British arubnssador. He has trained 2.200 British pilots. He explained that the British system takes one week longer, but is more Integrated. One Instructor remains with each student from early stages through the final training. The American system Is to route students from one instructor-specialist to another and break up primary and advanced stages. Van Lloyd said that the British men have a lower percentage of "washouts." Partly this Is) be cause they are stubborn, be believes. Odds ond Ends X At first . Japanese ships traveled singly. Then they had to abandon that and provide con voys, then air cover for the con voys. They were forced t move closer and closer to the China coast, traveling from harbor to ' harber. They tried hard to keep the road open, hut they started too late. Rear Adml. Frank . D. Wagner, Seventh Fleet Air Force Commander. We intend to follow our system of democracy, capitalism and Individual enterprise. We shall leave it up to each country to decide what lt wants. We shall make it clear that we win not countenance any other government undermining us. Comer, Harold E. 8tassen, United Nations Conference delegate. We cannot have prosperity ia the United States if the rest of the world is sunk in depression and poverty. Secretary of State Edward) R. Stettinius, Jr. Tbs only way we can win ths peacs is to promote economic security throughout the worlds-Rep. Helen Gahagsn Douglas ef California.