The Daily Oklahoman from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma • 8

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1942. THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN, Our Bowiegged Sentry Who Are They? Psychology, Busted Knees THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN E. K. GAYLORD, Editor Edith Johnson Speculates About Gremlin, Newest Of War Mysteries Published Every Morning By THE OKLAHOMA PUBLISHING CO. WEAVER and I sat in a crowd.

the Royal Air Force believe in fairies? will U. S. airmen, participat the only two vacant seats in the place were at our table; and hovering near them in evident indecision, were mother and AGENCY. Ne child. Mother, like Gilbert's, in Alice miable old thing." Child The Oklahoma Publishing Co.

maintains a Bureau of Accuracy and Fair Play on the fifth floor of the Oklahoman Building. Any complaint of unfair treatment in the columns of its newspapers will be adjusted if the public will make use of this bureau. sadistic looking little beast with Pig eyes and a spoiled sneer deeply encrusted among his pimples. Weaver, point of lunacy, rose and gestured iguely toward the vacant seats. The two sat down, and then it sp Wee ired and cquninted.

Mother addrcsied child as ltty-Bit, Itty Bit was. per haps. 6. He was beautifully dressed, and he had the nerve of a cab-horw with the manners of a hyena. He was hungry and he wished the world know it.

Yet when the waitress (. nally arrived the two of them went about the business of orderinR with all the deliberation in the world, settling at length on some complicated salad for mother and ice cream for ltty-Bit. DURING the wait ltty-Bit walked about the place, peering into plates and dishes, getting in the way of waitresses and patrons, and malting a rank nuisance of himself, in response to a request that lie be kept a little closer on leash, mother called suit. So ing in the bombing of German-controlled territory, come to believe in fairies, too? By far the most fantastic story that has come out of the war Is that first told by Charles Collingwood, broadcasting from London on September 6 when he startled his American hearers by his story of disembodied spirits called gremlins that ride on the wings of many a Spitfire, many a bomber and often play puckish tricks. When American fliers now in England were told about the gremlins, they replied cynically, "Oh yeah?" to which men in the R.

A. F. said Collingwood answered, "Let them wait and see." Now, this week's Time magazine publishes its own story of the gremlins together with the Russian artist, Artzy-basheff's conception of a gremlin, sitting above the pilot's instrument board and exclaiming to his dismay, "You fathead, you are flying. upside down." The R. A.

F. so it seems, first made acquaintance with gremlins in 1923, their name derived from an obsolete English verb, greme, meaning "to vex." These little creatures, so the story goes, sometimes perch on an aviator's shoulder and make a noise like a knocking motor when in fact the motor is running smoothly. Another favorite trick is to climb into a gun barrel and deflect bullets, and then how they chuckle. "Sometimes they slide down a radio beam when the plane is making a landing. One of our neighbors, Sergeant Gunner, Z.

E. White of Dallas. Texas, had the guns on his Flying Fortress jammed," says Time magazine, "when he was out over the North sea." ALL peoples have their fairy lore clustering around little creatures which they call gnomes, gobhns, kelpies, brownies, trolls or dryads. Fairies, better known to children, are thought of as being much like human beings who possess magic powers. According to tradition it is dangerous to consort with fairies, adventurous souls who have flirted with them having died mysteriously or having been carried away.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a vast literature was written around fairies, including Spenser's "Faerie Queene" and Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream." So prevalent became the belief in the little creatures that the Church of Scotland instituted a campaign against it. One of the most talked-about of supernatural creatures was a merry and mischievous elf known as Robin Good-fellow, identified by Shakespeare in his fairy play with Puck. Dwarfish creatures called trolls, sometimes hostile, sometimes friendly abounded in Scandinavia. In more than one European country the goblin, a misshapen creature of capricious and malevolent disposition threw fear into the superstitious. A Scottish spirit resern'oling a horse and called a kelpie forewarned men and women of drowning.

That little fellow called a brownie furnished Palmer Cox with many a small hero for a childhood classic of his day, as popular with children as Dick Tracy is now. TT was no crime under the laws of Oklahoma when two prominent members of the state's official family collected nearly $100,000 from multitudinous book companies to help finance a statewide campaign. The crime was committed when the contributing companies were permitted to add the total of their contributions to the price of the text books they sold the state. The collectors of the campaign fund are now under sentence to a federal prison for failing to include the sum of their collections in their income tax returns. But the men who violated the laws of Oklahoma are still at large unindicted.

unprosecuted. and even unknown to the general public. Just who are those men? Who bought those books and agreed to pay padded prices therefor? Who checked the book companies' claims against the state and approved them? Who indorsed those claims and paid them? The men who did all that are the men who violated the laws of Oklahoma. But who are they? Is not the name of every one of those unknown offenders on the Democratic ballot in the approaching state election? If not. why not? Not one of our state officials was defeated for nomination in the July primaries.

There will be but one change in the official personnel if the Democratic ticket wins in November. With the single exception of the gubernatorial nominee, there will be no change at the capitol if the Democratic ticket wins. A Democratic United States attorney says that more than $1,100,000 was looted from the people by that text book iniquity. What state officials made that looting possible? What Democratic nominees aided in the looting? September Sixteenth rOWN in Mexico millions of people are celebrating today and all the bands are playing. For today is the anniversary of that fated day in 1810 when Hidalgo inaugurated the revolution that led finally to the liberation of Mexico.

What the "Fourth of July" is to the people of the United States the "Sixteenth of September" is to the people of Mexico. It is their national birthday. And what the name of Washington is above the Rio Grande the name of Hidalgo is below that sullen river. Washington escaped martyrdom, but Hidalgo was shot as a rebel in July. 1811.

While Hidalgo is now regarded by all Mexicans as a martyr and by some as a saint his name was once proscribed by the ruling authorities in Mexico City. It was in that period of proscription that a band of Mexicans founded a town in southern Texas, and as a tribute to their national hero they sought to name the town Hidalgo. But that was a forbidden name. So they reversed the letters in the name and called their new town Goliad. The letter being silent was omitted from the name.

Later on Goliad became a name of world wide note, but that is another story. Let us remember that the Mexican people have their own national birthday and their own national hero. Let us remember also that the Mexicans once waged a terrible war for freedom. Only Action Is Important T'HAT speed in preventing inflation is now vital is the warning with which the battle against inflation is opened in Washington these were normal times, the public would be justified in asking why the issue was neglected until speed in meeting the issue had become a matter of life and death. For quite a year thoughtful men have been pleading for preventive action, but government ignored the issue until long after the eleventh hour.

But all of that is water over the dam. The one thing left to do is to solve the problem without one hour's unnecessary delay. The country cannot be saved from peril by listing those whose protracted carelessness has brought the country to the brink of ruin. took him by the arm as though ht were a Ming vase and said: "Perhaps you'd better sit down. ltty-BU, you'll miss your ice cream when It comes." The clear logic of this appeal registered with Itty-Blt, but did nothlnj to calm his restless spirit.

He sat down but squirmed desperately. f. nally settling down to a vlRoroui swinging of his legs under the table. It happened that one of his best efforts brought his foot into sharp contact with Weaver's knee. Weaver Involuntarily said "Ouch!" and backed up his chair.

This was good. This was much better than ltty-Bit had hoped for. Whit had begun as mere nervous reaction now became a fascinating occupation; and pretty soon he managed to canned with Weaver ncain. Instead taking the little pest by the nnklei and throwing him through the window. Weaver meekly moved out of range again, casting pleading looks at mother, who was pleasantly oblivloui Obviously, such paltroon tactics oa Weaver's part merely brought another and sharper crack on the knee-cap.

so obvious, in fact, that even mother could not ignore it. UXTOW. ltty-Bit." said mother. Disparaging Themselves IT is easy to understand the indignation with which congressmen deny the charge that they are just so many rubber stamps wielded by the executive hand. It Is a term that is extremely galling to any man of pride.

Moreover, the average congressman feels that what the critics call blind subserviency is really a patriotic willingness to co-operate with the administration in times of admitted perils. It is easy to understand the congressman's resentment and even to extend a measure of sympathy to him. It is not at all easy to understand the congressman's conviction that any criticism of congressional action springs from a dire intention to discredit congress and bring about its utter destruction. That is carrying resentment entirely too far. Some of the most burning criticism that congress has received derived from a popular conviction that congress had made an inexcusable mistake, and congress admitted that the criticism was well founded when it repealed the offending pension bill.

Nobody wants to injure congress as such except the radicals who want to destroy the entire government. Curiously enough the greatest real in-Jury done to the congress is being done by congress itself at the very time it is repelling criticism and claiming that nje-ditionists are trying to destroy it. At the very time that it is giving circulation to a 38-page document that was prepared to put congress in a better light before the people scores of congressmen are continually asserting both inside and out of congress that the president is the only living mortal who recognized the inevitability of war and courageously took steps to prepare for its breaking. BUT in that self same 38-page defensive document is a record showing that in the decade of 1933-42 congress appropriated 11 billion dollars more for national defense than the president and the budget bureau asked for. It is passing strange that the only living man who foresaw the future was less willing by one billion dollars a year to prepare for war than congress was.

ir it had not been for congress, the country would not have been as well prepared for defense by 11 round billion dollars. That record is indisputable. If a willingness or a determination to prepare for the inevitable is to be taken as the test of foresight, the record proves that the average congressman was more foresight-cd than the president ever was and had a clearer conception of what the future had in store for the country. But have congressmen stood on this record and claimed the credit which unquestionably is their due? They have not. On the contrary they are shaking the air all over America with their continuous claim that in this time of accumulating perils the president was the only living mortal with sufficient foresight to read the future and sufficient courage to prepare for the future.

They persist in denying themselves credit to which they are entitled and giving that credit to a president who Is not entitled to it at all. And having done everything they possibly can to discredit their own record they complain that they are misunderstood and maligned. A Letter to the Editor Chinese View of India Problem TO THE EDITOR: MANY Americans have such a kind of idea to talk about India. They compare India with China. They say when aggression comes China can unify together to fight Japan while India is still in dream.

But if the whole situation should be viewed by a Chinese, he will hold a slight different light. Versailles treaty has done two unjustices to China. The allies agreed to transfer all Germany 'imperialism in China to Japan. They forced Germany to withdraw imperialism while the allies themselves still maintain their own imperialism in Chinn. After then, the Chinese automatically divided European powers into two groups, and unfortunately they made a great mistake to put Germany on democratic side and France and England imperialism side.

Now China fight with Japan and declared war with Germany again. But the real demand of China to all western powers is a post-war automatically and peaceful withdrawal of imperialism from China. Hence both India and China faced a same kind of situation. Both countries must fight with Japan, and then get complete freedom from western powers. But the difference is this China fight for China, while India fight for Britain only.

The explanation of Atlantic charter by two greatest human leaders are different. President Roosevelt of United States agreed to apply to both China and India, while Prime Minister Churchill said that it applied to China but not to India. Actually no Indian believe Japan can free them nor they believe Japan can win the war. But on the other side, they also have reasons to disbelieve Britain. Once, battle of India begin, at least the Indians believe that this Is an imperialism war.

They don't. like either and they do not believe either. The only way for them to go is "non-co-operation with any ftg- For United Nations sake, especially for China sake, we must expect Britain can settle this home problem very successfully, but such a kind of hope lack of moral basis, it is only for selfish, Hence on the other side, we must sympathize India. The fundamental cause to rise this world wide war is due to the fact that we are now using European nationalism and militarism only one as standard to judge different countries. China is Europeanized a little bit slower than Japan, then Japan believe she is "superior." After this war, if there should be a peaceful America, where every countries maintain their good neighbor policy with each other, and if there should be a free India and free China, they also maintain good neighbor policy in Asia as they had done before for 5.000 years then we can hope to create new Europe.

All those gentlemen in Berlin, Rome and Paris may begin to realize their standard is not so ideal as they think it will be. then we can hope no more war. CHEN CHUN KU, Chinese Student at University of Oklahoma. After that, you may kick Mr. Weave as much as you please." This was too much for me.

I "What in the world dtd you tell him that for?" "Oh." said mother, "you know all the best child psvchologlsts tell we must never say -Don't' to a child Always give them some positive direction. I think that's sweet, don't yob? So sensible, too." Even Weaver's sense of courier balked at this. "No." he said. "I don't think sweet or sensible. But.

even if it why pick on me? Why must 1 kicked just because you have to thint up something positive?" "Oh. well, you know." said mothtr. "he'll have forgotten nil about lliatb; the time he has finished his cream." "Not if I know ltty-Bit. lie wont, said Weaver. "He'll not only lake very literally, but he will regard It the opportunity of his blistering you; life." "Well," said mother, "what you have suggested?" "Oh." said Weaver, "why not son; thint; really practical and useful? WK'I not tell him he may Jump off the of the First National bank? in itf' why not insist on it?" C.

B. MACKLIN. tN the belief of certain rational and in- telligent persons these "little people" as they sometimes are called, actually exista few declare they have seen them, To the majority, however, fairies belong only to childish fancy and within the pages of fairy-story books such as those of Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson. If the German army knows about the gremlin it may try to exploit him for its own purposes. One feature of Germany's tactics is to encourage superstition among the enemy.

It was authoritatively reported that during the 1940 fighting on the western front, the Germans through secret agents used "magic lanterns" to project mirages on the face of drifting clouds on moonlit nights. For the duration let us leave the gremlin to his pilot friend or foe. After the war the legend or the reality may be added to the supernatural phenomena of previous wars, notably the angelic host said to have appeared at the battle of Ypres, inciting the Germans to flee. EDITH JOHNSON. Weather Cuts Bombing Days ONDON, Sept.

15. (Wide World) Air experts pointed Tuesday to approaching bad weather, and a consequent drop in the number of days for bombing operations, as increasing the need for immediate concentration of American bombers for an "air blitz" against Hitler. Even as the R. A. F.

added Bremen to its "select" five cities which have been raided 100 times or more, these informants asserted that if the German war machine is to be "softened by spring" the British and American air forces must be able to throw hundreds even thousands of bombers into single actions every good flying day. The weather axiom holds particularly true for high-flying American Flying Fortresses which have made a sensational start. Because American bombing raids have been on a small scale, the German air force has been able to concentrate practically every fighter along the invasion coast on stopping fcem. Concentration of British-American air strength for an all-out assault against Germany this winter has been hampered experts agree, by dispersal of planes to India, Egypt, China and other fronts. The belief that Germany could be dealt a mortal blow from the air was expressed by Air Marshal Arthur T.

Harris recently when he said the Nazis could be knocked out of the war if 1,000 bombers could be sent on each raid. The bombing pattern of the R. A. now supplemented by precision blows of the Flying Fortresses and swift daylight forays by American-manned Bostons, has resulted in more than 100 attacks on each of five German or Nazi-occupied inland cities and ports since the war's start. These cities, and the numbers of attacks, include Boulogne.

133: Brest. 112: Cologne. 105; Ostend, 101; and Bremen, an even 100, counting Sunday night's attack. Because the term "raids" is misleading, no total of raid figures lately has boon compiled by the R. A.

F. It was pointed out that, while an attack by one or two planes on a Rhineland town might be termed a "raid." it is not comparable to body blows delivered by night. Thus, in weight of bombs dropped. Bremen has been assaulted far more heavily than Boulogne which has been attacked by Bostons and smaller two-motored planes. Paragraphs By Robert Quillen War sAves lives, too.

for examination reveals troubles that wouldn't have been suspected until too late. Woman's intuition is only putting two and two together to make four while man Is dreaming of making It come out 40. "I don't believe all this stuff I read," growls the optimist. He means that he believes only the good news If any. Educated friends are helpful.

The ignorant don't exchange amused looks when you mispronounce big You can still hear the heart-melting, persuasive voice of the evangelist, but now it is on the radio, selling cigarets and cosmetics. Americanism: Brave men fighting against odds for want of enough weapons; production held up because our leaders arc too nice to offend profiteer friends. Would Control of Trade Promote Peace? As debated for the American Economic Foundation Englishmen get rich and retire to be public servants; Americans become public servants and retire to get rich by selling their influence. Clapper Says Churchill Told Us to Quit Meddling Washington Loses Patience With London's India Attitude By EUGENE SITTERLY Tub. Importer Guide JiyrR.

SITTERLY OPENS: Foreign trade is a time function of private enterprise. needs proper world framework in which to operate not political control. The interchange of the world's i Is the greatest single force for world peace when tin trade is allowed to function in private hands. Yet the basic cause of all wars when used as an cconotf weapon by governments. There is need in this country for the develop; of a strong national foreign-trade policy in the of private business.

There is also a great need sound peace-table thinking if the economic ills of last quarter century are to be avoided. Those who seek to transplant wartime forclgn-lrW controls to peace-time, (snore the fact that sold abroad especially tnose in which wc exc same competitive methods we witness here, not tf charts, curves, and directives. Let governments provide the world with vorr. channels of trade, eliminate the misdeeds of the peace-table, and foreign trade in the hands of fret tcrprise will adequately serve the peace. MR.

SOULE CHALLENGES: Mr. Sittcrly If harmful interferences with foreign trade were By GEORGE SOULE Editor, New Republic MB. SOULE OPENS: A century ago economists believed that if governments did not. interfere with trade, each article would be produced where it could be made most efficiently. Competition would result in a world-wide division of labor which would benefit consumers and expand production.

But producers everywhere have induced governments to intervene in their behalf by protective tariffs, exchange control, barter agreements and other restrictions. There are also cartels and private monopolies to reduce production and maintain prices As long as wc have unregulated private capitalism it is hopeless to try to abolish these barriers. But the war has shown us that government control of foreign trade when employed in the public interest rather than for private profit can be used to increase production and distribute goods where they are most needed. Governments which arc dedicated to raising standards of living everywhere can and should control international cartels in the interest of consumers, stimulate world production by an international program of road construction, housing, public health and other projects. MR.

SITTERLY CHALLENGES: The perversion of international trade to national interests in last 25 years cannot be layed at the door of free enterprise. Ingenious world government control fashioned the channels of trade to exact economic servitude as the penalty of the vanquished. Tariffs for the protection of labor at home became retaliatory weapons exchange control added destructive force to the battle for economic supremacy. Barter agreements were the invention of totalitarian governments with complete export control, not the designs of private capitalism. MR.

SOULE REPLIES: How would Mr. Sittcrly deal with the cartels restricting international trade in rubber, tin, quinine and dozens of other commodities except by governmental control, applied internationally in the interest of consumers? How would he persuade Argentina, for instance, not to make barter deals with Great Britain unless some other way can be found of assuring Argentina a market for her beef? Tariffs "and exchange blocking are not the product of original Eln on the part of politicians, but are responses to economic pressure. the announced policy is to break up the Congress party which leads the Indian nationalist movement. Elmer Davis can ballyhoo the four freedoms in his foreign propaganda broadcasts but they get you to the whipping post in India. Yet India is the main base for the war in the east.

The United States is now considering recommendations of the Grady technical mission to spend $200,000,000 on lend-lease war aid for India. We have troops there. We have to use India to get into China, where fighting resistance Is going on, and to get into Burma, which must be retaken if we are to drive' Japan back to her main islands. We have seen native populations lie down or give aid to the Jap invader. A man will fight to protect a friend but will stand idly by when those whom he cares little about are in danger.

He will even find a grim satisfaction in seeing allies whom he dislikes getting the worst of it. That is an accepted rule in the east and one which Is preached but which is not being followed. The noble generalities of the Atlantic Charter subscribed to by Mr. Churchill have some real present use as weapons of war if our side has the right theory. We figure that Hitler and the Japs will lose because the conquered peoples will rise to reinforce allied blows once our military force begins to be felt.

We go on the belief that as soon as we are able to move in, the oppressed peoples will help our side. We have seen in Russia and China, in contrast to Malaya and Burma, that people fight desperately when their own freedom is in danger but don't care if it is just a change of masters that is involved. India has the third largest population in the world. Whether any more conciliatory policy would produce a fighting spirit such as the Chinese have Is undoubtedly a gamble. But the present policy is not doing it.

That is a certainty. It is disrupting war production, breeding saboteurs and making more difficult everything that American troops are in India to do. RAYMOND CLAPPER. WASHINGTON. Sept.

15. Lord Strabolgi has proposed in England that President Roosevelt be invited to arbitrate on India. It is hard to see how that would help. Arbitration, mediation or good offices would be out of the question while the Churchill government keeps its mind closed and hugs the illusion that India is still there just as Kipling left it. London's mind is closed in the same die-hard, bull-it-through attitude that has all but destroyed the white man in the east.

It is the same attitude that said the Atlantic Charter did not apply to India and thereby gave Gandhi his most inflammatory talking point. It is the same attitude that rejected Chinese offers to send troops in to help the British in Malava and also Burma until too late. The appalling fact is that this attitude could persist after it has had such devastating effects in contributing to allied defeat elsewhere in the east. Furthermore, the attitude of officials here is so critical of present British policy that they could scarcely be considered impartial arbiters. They have sought quietly to persuade London to take a more open-minded attitude toward India and have had no luck whatever.

In fact Churchill's stiff-necked speech the other day could be regarded as an attempt to end further meddling from Washington. He tries to make India a closed issue. The utterances of Mr. Churchill and of L. S.

Amery. secretary for India, reveal an attitude little different from that which Hitler displays toward his conquered peoples. It is the opposite of everything that we profess to hope for out of this tL'ar. But put aside such long-distance questions. Mr.

Churchill says Jap attack on India is imminent. We can hope he is wrong, for it would be a dismal prospect to try to fight the Japs in the midst of a sudden and embittered population in India which is now being given a dose of the old-fashioned whipping post. India's most popular leaders are in jail and verae is the fact. Producers have long used go ments to protect their markets or obtain new Protective tariffs are a familiar example. The sJ" true of exchange blocking measures, cartels and modity agreements.

Germany used such devices other nations to buy goods from her producers, so Britain. If this Is the cause of war. private enter? itself is responsible. The only solution is international control cxel not in the Interest of national profit-seekers, but ol sumerg everywhere. MR SITTERLY REPLIES: Condemning free prise as an exploiter of the consumer is a red herring.

-Mr. Soule seeks to compromise fancy and blame free enterprise for the destrw. acts of European government who sought to international trade by commodity agreements, can In the interest of economic nationalism. An official warning of hardships to come is a confession that officials are not yet doing all they can to harness our resources. Japan got metal by paying a good price.

We set the price of copper at eight cents, so scrap dealers can't afford to fool with It..