Louis Riel, a fugitive under Canadian law, nonetheless was sworn in as a Member of Parliament for Provencher and signed the rolls, after which he slipped out of the city.
Last prior edition:
Saturday, March 30, 2024
Tuesday, March 30, 1824. Tariffs and Resettlement.
On this day, Henry Clay argued for a protective tariff and in support of the American System in the House.
James Monroe argued on the same day, before Congress, for the resettlement of Native Americans on the Western Frontier, with the thought being they could continue their way of life there.
Last Prior Edition:
Thursday, March 25, 1824. Banning open carry
Wednesday, March 30, 1774. Inquiry.
Ordered, That all the Lords who have been present this day, be appointed a Committee to inquire into the several Proceedings in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, in opposition to the sovereignty of his Majesty, in his Parliament of Great Britain, over that Province; and also what has passed in this House relative thereto, from the 1st of January, 1764.
Ordered, That the several Papers laid before this House relating to Disturbances in the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, be referred to the said Committee; and the said Committee is hereby empowered to send for Persons, Papers, and Records.
Their Lordships, or any five of them, to meet to-morrow, in the Prince' s lodgings, near the House of Peers; and to adjourn as they please.
The Lords present, who formed the Committee, were:
The Duke of Gloucester; Lord Apsley, Lord High Chancellor; Earl of Gower, Lord President; Earl of Hertford, Lord Chamberlain.
Dukes: Beafort, Ancaster, Chandos, Montagu.
Earls: Suffolk, Denbigh, Westmoreland, Stanford, Sandwich, Doncaster, Rochford, Abercorn, Loudon, March, Marchmont, Stair, Roseberry, Dartmouth, Macclesfield, Waldegrave, Asburnham, Bucks, Hardwicke, Fauconberg, Ilchester, Northington, Spencer, Hillsborough.
Viscounts: Montague, Townshend, Falmouth.
Hon: Frederick Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury; Richard Terrick, Bishop of London; Edmund Keene, Bishop of Ely; Sir William Asburnham, Bart˙, Bishop of Chichester; John Hume, Bishop of Salisbury; John Green, Bishop of Lincoln; Charles Moss, Bishop of St˙ Davids; Edmund Law, Bishop of Carlisle; John Hinchcliffe, Bishop of Peterborough; William Markham, Bishop of Chester.
Lords: Abergavenny, Willoughby, Br˙, Cathcart, Cadogan, King, Godolphin, Montfort, Edgcumbe, Sandys, Bruce, Walpole, Mansfield, Lyttelton, Wycombe, Scarsdale, Boston, Pelham, Camden, Sundridge.
Last prior edition:
Friday, March 25, 1774. The Boston Port Act passes the House of Lords.
Blog Mirror: Science in Pre-school
It also demonstrates the Populist use of the word "elite" as a slur, which in fact, it is not.
Science in Pre-school
Elements of the 101st Airborne have received the XM7 and the XM250
It's not clear to me, however, why the new 6.8mm weapons still carry an "X" designation, indicating they are not fully accepted yet.
Friday, March 29, 2024
Friday, March 29, 1974. Kent State Indictments
Eight members of the Ohio National Guard were indicted by a Federal Grand Jury for violation of civil rights due to the shooting of thirteen students at Ken State in 1970. Five of the charges were felonies.
All the charges would be dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence on November 8.
The Chinese Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang was discovered. The massive statuary army was built to protect the Emperor, who was interred around 210 BC to 209 BC in the afterlife.
Speed limits on British highways, which had been reduced due to the Oil Embargo, were restored.
The Volkswagen Golf was introduced as the replacement for the Beetle.
Related threads:
The Tragedy At Kent State
1970, 1970s, Cambodia, Cambodian Civil War, Civil Unrest, Disaster, National Guard, Ohio, Vietnam, Vietnam War
Last prior edition:
Monday, March 18, 1974. Embargo lifted.
Wednesday, March 29, 1944 Cutting off Imphal.
The Japanese 31st (Sato) Division cut the road between Imphal and Kohima. Gen. Slim, British 14th Army, decides to supply Imphal by air.
The Red Army took Kolomya, which was in Poland prior to 1939, but which is now in Ukraine.
The Royal Navy sank the U-961.
Lithuanian pilot Romualdas Marcinkus, part of the Great Escape, was executed by the Gestapo.
The Columbian Navy destroyer ARC Caldas engaged and damaged the U-154 while escorting the MC Cabimas.
Task Force 31.6 off New Ireland to Emirau Island in the Bismark Arch. Photographed by a plane from USS Manila Bay (CVE-61), March 29, 1944.
The first award of the Expert Infantryman Badge was made.
Last prior edition:
Tuesday, March 28, 1944. Another day in the war.
Saturday, March 29, 1924. Yesterday's news, or not. Morning mail.
Well, it was the "Night Mail" edition. You'd get it Saturday morning.
The local paper was a day behind on Daugherty, but only to the extent that you got this edition first thing in the morning, or in Saturday's morning mail.
Morning mail?
Yes, morning mail. Mail was delivered twice per day until 1950. It varied a bit by city, however, with some cities restricting that to businesses, and some covering everyone. Some cities had business delivery more than once per day, with some delivering to businesses up to seven times per day.
Twice per day home delivery ended on April 17, 1950. For businesses, that ended in 1969.
The same issue had a tragic story of a love gone lethally wrong, and a shooting at the Lavoye.
The final addition, from the next day, followed up on that last story.
Last prior edition:
Sunday, March 29, 1874. Birth of a Great American, Lou Hoover.
Lou Hoover, Herbert Hoover's wife, and a great American in her own right, was born on this day in 1874.
Born in Waterloo, Iowa, just down the highway from Dyersville, where my paternal ancestors were then living, she became fascinated with geology (as I did at a similar age) and attended Standford, where she met geology student Herbert Hoover. After she graduated, they married in 1899 and then departed for China, after having honeymooned at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, which I first saw as a child, as I had relatives native to that state.
She refused to leave her husband, and hence China, during the Boxer Rebellion. She acted as a nurse, on the front lines, during the incident, surviving direct fire incidents.
She was a substantial human being, the equal of her husband, who was also.
Related threads:
Friday, January 7, 1944. Lou Henry Hoover passes away.
Last prior edition:
Thursday, March 28, 2024
The Annual Protestant Meatless Friday Freak Out, Inconveniently Moving Easter for Convenience, and Oliver Cromwell, fun sucker.
I started this post right at the start of Lent, didn't finish it, and was going to trash it, but due to a late Lent event, I'm picking it back up.
The United States and Canada are Protestant nations. They don't really notice it as a rule, and quite a few cultural Protestants like to deny it, but if you are an adherent member of an Apostolic Christian religion, or for that matter probably if you are Jewish or Muslim, you'll definitely notice it.
One of the ways that it oddly comes up is the annual "it doesn't say anywhere in the Bible that you can't eat meat on Fridays" discussion that Protestants in particular, and some very weakly evangelized lapsed Catholics, like to have. It's ironic as some of the same people will insist that grape juice was served at The Last Supper (nope, definitely wine) or that the Bible says once you accept Jesus into your heart you can go back to sinning (nope, St. Paul in particular warns you can do that and still go to Hell).
Of course, it doesn't say that you must abstain from meat on Fridays. It's a law of the Church, not biblically imposed. The Bible discusses fasting and gives lots of examples, and it left the office of Bishops to bind and loose. This is a rule of the Church, which has been bound.
It only applies to members of individual Churches. I.e, Catholics are bound, not Lutherans, or members of make it up as you go Christian churches. Moral laws bind everyone. Church laws bind the members of the church.
Also, FWIW, fasting and abstention from meat go way back in Church history and used to be much stricter as a practice than it is now. It's still much stricter in the Eastern churches. In the East, fasting involves abstention from alcohol, eggs, dairy, fish, meat, and olive oil for the 40 days of Great Lent and Holy Week. So the Orthodox, for example, are really down to a very bland menu at this point.
That group of people who like to claim that the Latin Rite practice was made up to support the fishing industry are really out to lunch on this one, particularly as the claim is based on a grossly misconstrued concept of what the food economy was like in the ancient world. If you lived, for example, in a Sardinian fishing town in the Middle Ages, fish is what was for dinner every night. The fishing industry didn't really need anyone's help to be economically viable. And at one time the Latin Rite fast more closely resembled the Eastern one. Claims like that are generally myths of the Reformation, created in jolly old England to justify carrying on with the Reformation when they couldn't come up with any actual good reasons to do so.
For most non-Catholics and non-Orthodox, however, this isn't in the forefront of people's minds. Restaurants get it, as there are a lot of us, which is why fish based fare shows up this time of year darned near everywhere. But rank and file Protestants, particularly of the Christmas/Easter variety, really don't ponder this much. If you live in a state like Wyoming, that's really obvious, as we have very low religious observation here anyhow. There are a lot of Catholics, but we're a minority. Protestants who don't go to church often are no doubt the majority, followed by Protestants who go to the new "non-denominational" churches, which is to say the quasi Baptist, churches (there are no "non-denominational" churches). They can't be expected to know Canon Law.
When you go to a function of any kind during Lent, this becomes pretty obvious. "Here's your entrée". . will say the server, serving the beef sandwich between two slabs of beef served with beef fries. "Would you like gravy with that?"
Oh, well.
That you can't suspend this and just go to meatless on Saturday is something people don't grasp. "You can skip it this time". No, you can't. Violation of the rule is a mortal sin. That seems extreme to non-Catholics, and probably has for a long time, but by the same token we live in an era when a host of other mortal sins, the sexual and marital ones in particular, are ignored by even devout church going Protestants. If you can convince yourself, getting married for the third or fourth time doesn't mean that you are an adulterer, you can pretty easily convince yourself that eating a hamburger on Fridays in Lent is okay this one time. Indeed, in some odd ways, the logic isn't that much different. They both involve appetites and excuses.
This does make Catholics stick out, and the Orthodox even more, maybe. In some ways, as the Catholic Church has suspended so many of these rules, the fact that there are some remaining makes Catholics stick out all the more and, in turn, the few remaining rules offend people all the more. And that is in a way part of the point in the modern world. It sets us apart, and it should. Like those who appear with ashes on their forehead on Ash Wednesday, it's going to mark you.
This came to mind as when I got home last night, Long Suffering Spouse announced, "my mother proposed to have Easter Dinner this Friday. . ."
Eh?
Now, by way of an obvious point, we're clearly a "mixed" family. My side of the family is all Catholic. LSS's is all non-Catholic.
I don't know where the dinner suggestion stands right now, as LSS isn't saying, which means it must be in the air. She protested this as we have "town jobs" which means that a Friday gathering really isn't a viable option anyhow. And one of the things about being married to a Catholic means is that the Catholicism will start to be picked up by the non-Catholic party, no matter what.
Beyond that, however, under the current rules for Latin Rite Catholics, (and I'm sure for Eastern Rite Christians as well) on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, the fasting rules allow Catholics to eat only one full meal and two smaller meals which, combined, would not equal a single normal meal. We've already seen that the Eastern Rite is fasting by this point every day. Catholics may not eat meat on these two days, or on any Friday during Lent.
Now, I'm over 60 years old, which means the fasting rules no longer apply to me. As it is, however, that's my normal daily routine anyhow. I never eat big breakfasts or lunch. I used to often skip both, but thanks to my thyroid medication, I'm hungrier than I used to be. Be that as it may, I'm not comfortable with a feast on Good Friday. That's weird, from an Apostolic Christian prospective. "This is the day our savior was murdered. . . let's just skip ahead to the day he was raised".
You can't really do that.
Of course, in Cromwellian influenced Protestant America, you probably can. He wouldn't, as he didn't approve of observing things anyhow, but he so messed stuff up it's never recovered in the English speaking, non-Catholic, world. Another reason that they've had to hide his head.
Anyhow, I love my in-laws, who are great, but this is pretty much something I'm not going to be able to do. I can't go to a big Easter dinner on Good Friday and do something like, "wow, that ham looks great. . . I'll just have the mashed potatoes. . . thanks". The meatless rule still applies to me, and there's probably not going to be a giant cod for an "early" Easter dinner.
That would be weird.
Also weird is that on Good Friday, I have people trying to make appointments. Most law offices are closed on Good Friday. I guess there were enough old Irish and German Catholic lawyers, even here, to make that impact. But most Americans work as Oliver Cromwell was a theologically deficient fun sucker and our Puritan heritage is ruining everything. Working to the grave is one thing that our Protestant founders in this country really gave to us, and it's one of the things that's really wrong with the culture. Now, I usually do work, but I've long looked forward to most of the office being out, and only working a partial day. And it gives me a chance to take Holy Saturday off.
I'm going to have to handle this today. In prior years I think I would have just said yes, to somebody wanting in, or "the office is closed". But instead I'm going to just say, the "office is closed for Good Friday".
I'll let the Puritans ponder it.
Tuesday, March 28, 1944. Another day in the war.
Mexican National Mercy Martinez harvesting carrots in the field in El Centro, Imperial County, California on March 28, 1944.
The British Parliament voted to give female teachers the same pay as men.
The Italian Communist Party declared cooperation with "bourgeois" parties.
The Red Army took Nikolaev.
Fighting carried on in the CBI.
"Infantrymen of the 66th Regt, 2nd Bn, 22nd Chinese Division advancing upon a group of tanks upon which a Jap Magnetic anti tank mine has been set off by remote control ordnance Intelligence purposes.
These tanks had burnt out. They belong to the First Provisional Tank Group and maintenance men of that outfit will salvage the salvageable parts left on these tanks. They met action against the Japs in the area a few miles north of the village of Shadeazup, Northern Burma. This photo demonstrated though, how the Chinese troops had actually fought with the tank group. This tank group is an American trained Chinese outfit, they having received their training at Ramgarh, India from U.S. Army Armoured Corps instructors. These infantrymen are also American trained. 28 March, 1944."
Ships were inspected:
USS Cleveland (CL-55) during a Captain's inspection, March 28, 1944.
Combat runs were made.
Corsairs on a mission over the Solomons.
Training was ongoing.
M4 Shermans at Camp San Luis Obispo, California, March 28, 1944.
The final game of the 1944 NCAA Men's Division Tournament saw Utah beat Dartmouth.
For distinguished conduct in battle, engagements of Vera Cruz, 21 and 22 April 1914. Lt. Wainwright was eminent and conspicuous in command of his battalion; was in the fighting of both days, and exhibited courage and skill in leading his men through action. In seizing the customhouse, he encountered for many hours the heaviest and most pernicious concealed fire of the entire day, but his courage and coolness under trying conditions were marked.
Last prior edition:
Monday, March 27, 1944. Knock Out Dropper.
Friday, March 28, 1924. Daugherty resigns.
Harry Micajah Daugherty resigned as U.S. Attorney General due to the Teapot Dome Scandal.
He returned to private practice, authored a book about the Harding Administration from an insider's protective, and died in 1941 at age 81.
Total, the French petroleum company, was founded.
Coolidge delivered a Press Conference:
Press Conference, March 28, 1924
Last Prior Edition:
Tuesday, March 25, 1924. Casper goes blue.
Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Movies In History: Paper Moon
Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Movies In History: Paper Moon: I know that I wasn't the only one. Lex Anteinternet: Movies In History: Paper Moon : Movies In History: Paper Moon Paper Moon This 197...
Flipping through the channels last night, this movie was actually on.
I wonder if it was suddenly added?
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Lex Anteinternet: Movies In History: Paper Moon
I know that I wasn't the only one.
Lex Anteinternet: Movies In History: Paper Moon:Movies In History: Paper Moon
Paper MoonThis 1973 film came about some decades prior to Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? but it also really has the feel of the Depression right, in this case in the Missouri Kansas border region. The film surrounds the story of a con artist who arrives in the story just in time for the funeral of a woman with whom, the film strongly suggests, he has, unbeknownst to him, had a child. The association with the deceased mother, we understand, was illicit in nature, and he never acknowledges at any point in the film that he's the child's father. He does accept, however, a charge to take the child to an aunt. From there, a series of adventures ensues.
The gritty nature of the film, filmed entirely in black and white, and the desperation of the protagonist, even though it's a comedy, really come through. The lack of, or failure of, the social structure also shines through, with it not seeming all that odd, by the end of the film, that a little girl has been essentially been adopted, outside the law, by a man who was in the end a kindhearted stranger, or who may be that.
Filmed in black and white, as noted, even though well within the color film era, the cinematography and the excellent cast give it the right feel.
The protagonists are portrayed by actual father and child Ryan and Tatum O'Neal. This is Ryan O'Neal's best film, to the extent I've seen his films, and he acts in it quite well. Tatum O'Neal was brilliant in the film.
In terms of material details, the film is excellent, with the portrayal of Dust Bowl Kansas significantly added to by the use of black and white cinematography.
I love the movie Paper Moon, which I reviewed here all the way back in 2014. Ryan O'Neal's character, Moses Pray, is a charming grifter who makes a living selling Bibles to widows he read about in the local paper. That is, he reads their names, embosses the names of the decadent and widow in the Bible, and then makes a call on the window as if he's delivering the unpaid for expensive Bible.
His conduct is reprehensible.
I couldn't help but reminded of Moses Pray after this:
Reprehensible.
At least Moses Pray was charming.
"It's a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me"
The country is really off the rails right now.
Industrial History: 1977-2024 I-695 Lost Francis Scott Key Bridge over...
Industrial History: 1977-2024 I-695 Lost Francis Scott Key Bridge over...: ( Archived Bridge Hunter ; no Historic Bridges; Satellite ) A ship alliding with this bridge and causing a catastrophic failure has upped ...
A good account of actual events in this matter.
I have to say that this disasters demonstrates how truly moronic social media has become. Within mere minutes of the disaster, some people who really need to go to some sort of Moron Reeducation Camp were spinning wild conspiracy theories about this disaster.1
The ship lost power. The pilot, who is a licensed pilot for the harbor, did everything he could to address the situation. The crew immediately radioed, which kept this from being a much worse disaster than it turned out to be.
Footnotes:
1. The absolute stupidity of the conspiracy theories should cast a little light on how people have spun moronic conspiracy theories about all sorts of things, from Pearl Harbor to the assassination of JFK, in the past. People like to imagine that things have to be intentional, or it could happen to anyone.
Monday, March 27, 1944. Knock Out Dropper.
The B-17 "Knock Out Dropper" flew its 75th mission, the first American bomber to reach that mark. It would have had multiple crews in reaching that goal.
Negotiations between the USSR and Finland resumed.
The Marine Corps completed its unopposed landings on Emirau.
The Red Army captured Kamenets-Podolski, on the Dnestr River and Gorodenka. The German 1st Panzer Army is ordered to break out.
The British regroup in India, with reinforcements brought in by air.
Life magazine, which was heavy on photos, featured a Landing Ship, Infantry, on the cover. In the pages it had an article on the best techniques for pin-ups.
Last prior edition:
Sunday, March 26, 1944. Unaddressed lynching and The Road To Victory.
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Sunday, March 26, 1944. Unaddressed lynching and The Road To Victory.
Black minister and farmer, Rev. Isaac Simmons, was lynched in Amite County, Mississippi by a party of six seeking to take his land, which they in fact did. They were not convicted for their crimes, and his terrorized family fled the area.
Winston Churchill delivered his Road To Victory speech:
I HOPE you will not imagine that I am going to try co make some extraordinary pronouncement tonight and tell you exactly how all the problems of mankind in the war and in peace are going to be solved.
I only thought you would like me to have a short talk with you about how we are getting on and to thank you for all the kindness with which you have treated me in spite of my many shortcomings.
It is a year almost to the day since I spoke to you on a broadcast here at home. This has been a time of disappointments as well as successes, but there is no doubt that the good news has far outweighed the bad, and that the progress of the United Nations toward their goal has been solid, continual and growing quicker.
The long and terrible march which the rescuing powers are making is being accomplished stage by stage, and we can now say not only with hope but with reason that we shall reach the end of our journey in good order, and that tragedy which threatened the whole world and might have put out all its lights and left our children and descendants in darkness and bondage perhaps for centuries—that tragedy will not come to pass.
He is a rash man who tries to prophesy when or how or under what conditions victory will come.
But come it will—that at least is sure.
It is also certain that unity of aims and actions and singleness of purpose among us all—Britons at home and our Allies abroad—will make it come sooner.
A year ago the Eighth Army which had marched 1,500 miles across the desert from Alamein was in battle for the Mareth Line and the First British Army and American Army were beating their way forward to Tunisia. We were all confident of victory but we did not know that in less than two months the enemy would be driven with heavy slaughter from the African continent, leaving at one stroke 335,000prisoners and dead in our hands.
Since then the successful campaign in Sicily brought about the fall of Mussolini and the heartfelt repudiation by the Italian people of the Fascist creed.
Mussolini indeed escaped to eat the bread of affliction at Hitler's table, to shoot his son-in-law and help the Germans wreak vengeance among the Italian masses whom he had professed to love and over whom he had ruled for more than twenty years.
This fate and judgment more terrible than death has overtaken the vainglorious dictator who stabbed France in the back and thought his crime had gained him an empire of the Mediterranean.
The conquest of Sicily and Naples brought in their train the surrender of Sardinia and the liberation of Corsica, islands which had been expected to require for themselves a serious expedition and a hard campaign.
We now hold one-third of the mainland of Italy. Our progress has not been as rapid or decisive as we had hoped. I do not doubt we shall be victors both at the Anzio bridgehead and on the main front to the southward and that Rome will be rescued.
Meanwhile, we have swept out of the struggle sixty-six Italian divisions and we are holding in Italy, for most part in close action, nearly twenty-five divisions and a noteworthy part of the German Air Force, all of whom can bleed and burn in the land of their former ally while other and even more important events which might require their presence are impending elsewhere.
We have been disappointed in the Aegean Sea and its many islands which we have not yet succeeded in dominating.
But these setbacks in the eastern Mediterranean are offset, and more than offset, by the panic and frenzy which prevailin Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria, by the continued activities of Greek guerrillas and above all by the heroic struggle of the Partisans of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Marshal Tito.
In the Near and Middle East we have certainly traveled a long way forward from those autumn days in 1940 when we stood all alone—when Mussolini was invading Egypt, when we were driven out of British Somaliland, when all Ethiopia was in Italian chains and we wondered whether we could defend the Suez Canal, the Nile Valley, the Sudan and British East Africa.
There is much still to be done in the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean. But here again I do not doubt the task will be finished in a workmanlike manner.
We who dwell in the British Isles must celebrate with joy and thankfulness our deliverance from the mortal U-boat peril—which deliverance lighted the year which has ended.
When I look back upon the fifty-five months of this hard and obstinate war, which makes ever more exacting demands upon our life-springs of energy and contrivance, I still rate highest among the dangers we have overcome the U-boat attacks upon our shipping, without which we cannot live or even receive the help which our dominions and our grand and generous American ally have sent us.
But there are other deliverances which we should never forget. There was the sea mining peril which loomed so large in 1939 and which has been mastered by superior science, ingenuity and by the often-forgotten but almost-unsurpassed devotion to duty of our minesweepers' crews and the thousand ships they work and man that we may eat and live and thus fight for the good cause.
We have been delivered from the horrors of invasion at a time when we were almost unarmed. We have endured without swerving or failing the utmost fury Hitler could cast upon us from the air, and now the tables are turned and those who sought to destroy their enemies by the most fearful form of warfare are themselves reeling and writhing under the prodigious blows of British and American air power.
We had ourselves a large air force in this island this time last year. We have a larger one today, but besides all that our American Allies have now definitely overtaken and outnumbered us in the mighty air force they have established here. The combination in true brotherhood of these two air forces-either of which is nearly as large in numbers and in power much greater than the whole air force of Germany-aided as it will be by another Allied air force in Italy almost as large which is now established there, these together will produce results in these coming months which I shall not attempt to measure in advance but which will certainly be of enormous advantage to the cause of the Allies.
Not only have the British and Americans this great preponderance in numbers which enables them to send out a thousand bombers as often as the enemy is able to send a hundred against us, but also by sharing all our secrets with one another we have won leadership in the marvels of radar, both for attack and defense.
Surveying these famous and massive events on land, sea and air in the war waged by the two western Allies—Britain and the United States—against Hitlerism, we are entitled, nay bound, to be encouraged and be thankful and resolve to do better than we ever have done before.
It would be quite natural if our Soviet friends and allies did not appreciate the complications and difficulties which attend all sea crossings—amphibious is the word—operations on a large scale. They are the people of great land spaces and when foes threaten the sacred soil, Russia, it is by land that they march out to meet and attack them.
Our tasks are difficult and different, but the British and American peoples are filled with genuine admiration for the military triumphs of the Russian Army.
I have paid repeated tributes to their splendid deeds, and now I must tell you that the advance of their armies from Stalingrad to the Dniester River, with vanguards reaching out toward the Prut—a distance of 900 miles—accomplished in a single year constitutes the greatest cause of Hitler's undoing.
Since I spoke to you last, not only have the Hun invaders been driven from the land they have ravaged but the guts of the German Army have been largely torn out by Russian valor and generalship.
The peoples of all the Russias have been fortunate in rinding in their supreme ordeal of agony a warrior leader, Marshal Stalin, whose authority enables him to combine and control the movements of armies numbered by many millions upon a front of nearly 2,000 miles and to impart a unity and concert to the war direction in the east which has been very good for Soviet Russia and very good for all her allies.
When a moment ago I spoke of the improvements for the Allied cause which are taking place in Hungary and in the satellites in the Balkans, I was reserving the acknowledgment that the victorious advance of the Soviet Army has been the main cause of Hitler's approaching downfall in those regions.
I have now dwelt with the progress of the war against Hitler Germany. But I must also speak of the other gigantic war which is proceeding against the equally barbarous and brutal Japanese. This war is waged in vast preponderance by the fleets, air forces and armies of the United States. We have accepted their leadership in the Pacific Ocean just as they accepted our leadership in the Indian theatre.
We are proud of the contributions made by Australia and New Zealand against Japan. The debt which the British and the Commonwealth of Nations owe to the United States for the fact that their operations against the Japanese shielded Australia and New Zealand from Japanese aggression and from mortal peril during the period when the mother country was at full stretch in the struggle against Germany and Italy. That debt is one which will never be forgotten in any land where the Union Jack is flown.
Remarkable success has attended the work of the American Navy and American, Australian and New Zealand troops. The progress in New Guinea is constant American victories in the Pacific and, in particular their latest conquest and liberation of the Marshall Islands, constitute a superb example of a combination naval, air and military force.
It is possible that the war in the Pacific may progress more rapidly than was formerly thought possible. The Japanese are showing signs of great weakness. Attrition of their shipping, especially their oil tankers, and their air forces on all of which President Roosevelt dwelt with sure foresight a year ago, has become not merely evident but obvious. The Japanese have not felt strong enough to risk .their fleets, in general engagements for the sake of their outer defense lines. In this they have been prudent, considering the immense expansion of United States naval power since the Japanese' treacherous assault at Pearl Harbor.
What fools the Japanese ruling caste were to bringagainst themselves the might and latent war energy of the great Republic all for the sake of carrying out a base and squalid ambuscade.
The British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations have pledged themselves to right side by side with the United States against Japan no matter what it costs or how long it lasts.
Actually we have suffered from Japanese injuries even greater than those which have roused the armed wrath of the American Union. In our theatre of war, in Burma and the Bay of Bengal, we shall strive our utmost to aid the Americans in their contacts with China and to add to our own.
The more we can fight and engage the Japanese and especially wear down their air power the greater the diversion we make from the Pacific theatre and the more help we give to the operations of the United States.
In Burma those plans which were prepared last August at Quebec are now being put into practice. Young men are at the helm. Admiral Mountbatten infused the spirit of energy and confidence into the heavy forces gathered to recover Burma and by that means to defend the frontiers of India and reopen the road to China.
Our airborne operations enable us to attack the Japanese rear. They, for their part, have got behind our front by infiltration at various places and fierce fighting is going on at many points. It is too soon to proclaim the results in this vast area of mountain and jungle, but in nearly every combat we are able to count three or four times more Japanese dead —and that is what matters—than we have ourselves suffered in killed, wounded and missing.
Individual fighting superiority in the jungle has definitely passed to the British and Indian soldiers as compared with the Japanese. Farther to the north an American column of experienced jungle fighters and a considerable Chinese army under General Stilwell of the United States service are progressing with equal mastery.
Later on I shall make to you or Parliament a further report on all this hard fighting which, mind you, is not by any means decided yet.
Meanwhile, we have placed a powerful battle fleet under Admiral Somerville in Indian waters in order to face the main part of the Japanese fleet should it turn westward after having declined battle against the Americans.
When I spoke a year ago I drew attention to the possibility that there would be a prolonged interval between the collapse of Hitler and the downfall of Japan. I still think there will be an interval, but I do not consider it will be as long an interval as I thought a year ago. But be it long or be it short, we shall go through with our American brothers with our utmost strength to the very end.
I have now tried to carry you, as if in Mosquito aircraft, on a reconnoitering duty over the world-wide expanse of this sterile and ferocious war. And I trust you have gained not only some glimpse of the particular scenes, but also have the feeling of the relative size and urgency of the various things that are going on. There are, as you see, quite a lot of things going on.
Still, I remember when I spoke to you on March 21 of last year I gave up the main part of what I said to what we were planning to do to make our island a better place for all its people after the war was over, whenever that should be. I told you there would have to be a general election and a new House of Commons, and, if I was still thought fit to be of any further use, I should put to the country a four-year plan to cover the transition period between war and peace and bring the soldiers, sailors and airmen back to a land where there would be food, work and homes for all.
I dwelt on how wrong it would be to make promises which could not be fulfilled and for one set of politicians to try to outbid another in visionary scheming and dreaming. But I mentioned five or six large fields in which practical action would have to be taken.
Let me remind you of them—a reform on a great scale of the education of the people, a nation-wide uplifting of their physical health. I spoke of the encouragement of agriculture and food production and of vigorous revival of healthy village life. I dwelt upon the importance of a national compulsory insurance scheme for all classes, for all purposes from the cradle to the grave, and of the sound scheme of demobilization which would not delay the rebuilding of industry and not seem unfair to the fighting men. I also spoke about the maintenance of full employment and about the rebuilding of our cities and the housing of the people, and I made a few tentative suggestions about the economic and financial policy and what one might call the importance of making both ends meet.
All this was to happen after the war was over. No promises were to be made beforehand but every preparation that was possible without impeding war effort, including legislative preparation, was to be set on foot.
Now, my friends—as your unfailing kindness encourages me to call you—I am a man who has no unsatisfied ambitions except to beat the enemy and to help you in any way I think right, and, therefore, I hope you will not suppose that in what I am going to say I am looking for votes or trying to glorify this party or that. But I do feel that I may draw your attention to the fact that several of these large matters, which a year ago I told you might be accomplished after war was over, have already been shaped and framed and presented to Parliament and the public.
For instance, you have the greatest scheme of improved education that has ever been attempted by a responsible government. This will soon be on the statute book. It involves a heavy cost upon the State, but I do not think we can maintain our position in the post-war world unless we are an exceptionally well-educated people and unless we can handle easily and with comprehension the problems and inventions of the new scientific age.
Then there is the very far-reaching policy of a National Health Service, which already has been laid before Parliament in outline and received with a considerable measure of acceptance.
Before this session is out we shall lay before you our proposals about the extensions of national insurance, upon which a vast amount of patient work has been done.
So here you have, or will have very shortly, three of the important measures, which I thought would be put off until after the war already, fashioned and proclaimed at a time when no one can tell when the war can end, and all this has been done without relaxing the war effort or causing any party strife to mar the national unity. But there are several other large problems upon which the Ministers and their assistants have toiled and wrought and which are far advanced.
And, indeed, if this process continues and war goes on long enough a greater part of my four-year plan of a year ago may very well be perfected and largely in operation before we reach a general election and give the people a chance to say what they think about it.
b. Now I must say that one might have expected His Majesty's Government would receive many compliments upon the remarkable progress they have made not only with the war but with the preparation for the social and domestic welfare at the armistice or peace.
Last Oct. 1 I thought the time had come to ask the King to appoint Lord Woolton to be Minister of Reconstruction, with a seat in the War Cabinet. His was a record which rightly commanded respect. However, there is a large number of respectable and even eminent people who are not at all burdened with responsibility who have a lot of leisure on their hands and who feel quite most sincerely that the best work they can do at this present time of hard effort and anxiety is to belabor the Government with criticism and condemn them as unprofitable servants because they are not, in the midst of this deadly struggle, ready at any moment to produce fool-proof solutions for the whole future world as between nation and nation, as between victors and vanquished, as between man and man, as between capital and labor, as between the state and individual, and so forth and so on.
The harshest language is used, and this national Government, which has led the nation and the empire and, as I hold, a large part of the world, out of mortal danger, through the dark valleys into which they had wandered, largely through their own folly, back onto the broad uplands where the stars of peace and freedom shine, is reviled as a set of dawdlers and muddlers unable to frame a policy or take a decision or make a plan and act upon it.
I know you will not forget that this Administration, formed in an hour of disaster by the leaders of the Conservative, Labor and Liberal parties in good faith and good will, has brought Britain out of the jaws of death. Back from the mouth of hell, while all the world wondered. I know you will not forget that.
There are two subjects of domestic policy which I mentioned last year on which we have not produced an account of our course of action. This first is housing. We set before ourselves the provision of homes for all who need them with priority for service men, as and when they come home from the war. Let me first lay down an absolute rule—nothing can or must be done in housing or rehousing which by weakening or clogging the war effort prolongs the war. Neither labor not material can be diverted in any way which hampers the vast operations which are in progress or impending.
Subject to that there are three ways in which the business of housing and rehousing the people should be attacked.
Let me tell you about it. Now I do not take the view myself that we were a nation of slum dwellers before the war. Nearly 5,000,000 new approved houses or dwellings were built out of about 11,000,000 in this small island between the two wars, and the British people as a whole were better housed than almost any people on the Continent of Europe, or, I will add, in many parts of the United States of America. But now about 1,000,000 homes have been destroyed or grievously damaged by the fire of the enemy. This offers a magnificent opportunity for rebuilding and replanning, and while we are at it we had better make a clean sweep of all those areas of which our civilization should be ashamed.
However, I have given my word that, so far as it may lie in my power, the soldiers, when they return from the war, and those who have been bombed out and made to double up with other families, shall be restored to homes of their own at the earliest possible moment.
The first attack must evidently be made upon houses which are damaged, but which can be reconditioned into proper dwellings. This must go forward during the war. And we hope to have broken the back of it during this year. It is a war measure, for our allies are here among us in vast numbers and we must do our best for them.
The second attack on the housing problem will be made by what are called the prefabricated, or emergency, houses. On this the Minister of Works, Lord Portal, is working wonders. I hope we may make up to half a million of these, and for this purpose not only plans but actual preparations are being made during the war on a nation-wide scale. Factories have been assigned, the necessary set-up is being made ready, materials are being ear-marked as far as possible, the most convenient sites will be chosen, the whole business is to be treated as a military evolution handled by the government with private industry harnessed to its service.
And I have every hope and a firm resolve that several hundred thousand of our young men will be able to marry several hundred thousand of our young women and make their own four-year plan.
Now what about these emergency houses? I have seen the full-sized model myself and steps are being taken to make sure that a good number of housewives have a chance of expressing their views about it. These houses will make a heavy demand upon the steel industry and will absorb in a great measure its overflow and expansion for war purposes. They are, in my opinion, far superior to the ordinary cottage as it exists today. Not only have they excellent baths, gas or electric kitchenettes and refrigerators, but their walls carry fitted furniture—chests of drawers, hanging cupboards and tables which today it would cost eighty pounds to buy. Moreover, for the rest of the furniture standard articles will be provided and mass produced so that no heavy capital charge will fall upon the young couples or others who may become tenants of the houses.
Owing to the methods of mass production which will be used, I am assured that these houses, including the £80 worth of fitted furniture, will be available at a very moderate rent. All these emergency houses will be publicly owned and it will not rest with any individual tenant to keep them in being after they have served their purpose of tiding over the return of the fighting men and after permanent dwellings are available. As much thought has been and will be put into this plan as was put into the invasion of Africa, though I readily admit that it does not bear comparison in scale with the kind of things we are working at now.
The swift production of these temporary houses is the only way in which the immediate needs of our people can be met in the four or five years that follow the war. In addition to this and to the reconditioning of the damaged dwellings, we have the program of permanent rebuilding which the Minister of Health, Mr. Willink, has recently outlined and by which we shall have two or three hundred thousand permanent houses built or building by the end of the first two years after the defeat of Germany.
Side by side with this comes the question of the employment of the building trade. We do not want a frantic splurge of building, to be followed by a sharp contraction of the trade. I have a sympathy with the building trade, and with the bricklayers. For they are apt to be the first to be taken for the wars and in time of peace they all know if they work at their job, that when it is finished they may have to look for another. If we are to secure the best results, it will be necessary that our twelve-year plan for the building trade on which Mr. Bevin [Minister of Labor and National Service] and Lord Portal have spent so much time—a plan which will guarantee steady employment for long periods and increased reward for increased efforts or superior skill we have —it will be necessary to see that that plan is carried out.
Then we are told by the busy wiseacres: How can you build houses without the land to put them on; when are you going to tell us your plans for this? But we have already declared in 1941 that all land needed for public purposes shall be taken at prices based on the standards of values of March 31, 1939. This was a formidable decision of state policy which selected property and land for a special, restricted imposition. Whereas stocks and shares and many classes of real property have gone up in value during the war, and when agricultural land, on account of the new proposals and new prospects opened to farmers, has also risen in value, the state has the power, which it will on no account surrender, to claim all land needed bona fid a for war industry or for public purposes at values fixed before wartime conditions supervened. There are certain hard cases which will best be adjusted by Parliamentary debate, but in the main you may be sure that ample land will be forthcoming when and where it is needed for all the houses, temporary or permanent, required to house our people far better than they have ever been housed before.
Nobody needs be deterred from planning for the future by the fear that they may not be able to obtain the necessary land. Legislation to enable the local authorities to secure any land required for the reconstruction of our towns has been promised and will be presented to Parliament this session. There are some comfortable people, of course, who want to put off everything until they have planned and got agreed to in every feature, a White Paper or a blueprint for the regeneration of the world, before, of course, asking the electors how they feel about it.
These people would rather postpone building the homes for the returning troops until they had planned out every acre in the country to make sure the landscape is not spoiled. In time of war we have to face immediate needs and stern realities, and it surely is better for us to do that than to do nothing whilst preparing to do everything.
Here is my difficulty. I put it frankly before you. I cannot take anything that will hinder the war. And no one-except the very clever ones—can tell when the war will end or whether it will end suddenly or peter out. Therefore, there must be an emergency plan, and that is what Ministers concerned have been working at for some time past. But in spite of this and of all I have said, I cannot guarantee that everything will be perfect or that if the end of the war came suddenly, as it might do, there will not be an interval when things will be pretty rough.
But it will not be a long interval, and it will be child's play compared to what we have already gone through. Nor need we be frightened about the scale of this task. It looks to me a small one—this housing—compared to some of those we have handled and are handling now.
The value of the land involved is between one-twentieth and one-thirtieth of the cost of the houses to be built upon it, and our population itself is unhappily about to enter upon a period of decline—numerical decline—which can only be checked by the most robust treatment of housing and of all its ancillaries.
There is one other question on which I should like to dwell tonight, but for a reason which I will mention later I only intend to utter a passing reassurance—I mean demobilization.
Now, I know about as much about this as most people, because I was Secretary of State for War and Air at the time of the great demobilization after the last war, when in about six months we brought home from abroad, released from military service and restored to their families nearly 3,000,000 men. Great plans had been prepared before the armistice by the planners to bring home all the key men first, and any soldier who could get a telegram from someone at home saying that he was wanted for a key job had priority over the men who had borne the burden and heat of the war. The troops did not think this was fair, and by the time I went to the War Office a convulsion of indiscipline shook the whole of our splendid army which had endured unmoved all danger, slaughter, privation.
I persuaded the Cabinet to reverse this foolish and inequitable plan and to substitute the simple rule—first out, first home—with the result that discipline was immediately restored and the process of demobilization went forward in a smooth and orderly fashion.
Now, my friend, Mr. Bevin, the Minister of Labor, for whose deep sagacity and knowledge of the wage-earning masses I have high admiration—Mr. Bevin has devised a very much less crude but equally fair and healthy scheme in which I have the greatest confidence, in which all concerned may have the greatest confidence.
Why am I not going to tell you all about it tonight? Or why will Mr. Bevin not tell you about it in the near future?
Here is the reason. This is not the time to talk about demobilization.
The hour of our greatest effort and action is approaching. We march with valiant Allies who count on us as we count on them. The flashing eyes of all our soldiers, sailors and airmen must be fixed upon the enemy on their front. The only homeward road for all of us lies through the arch of victory.
The magnificent armies of the United States are here, or are pouring in. Our own troops, the best trained and best equipped we have ever had, stand at their side in equal numbers and in true comradeship. Leaders are appointed in whom we all have faith. We shall require from our own people here, from Parliament, from the press, from all classes, the same cool, strong nerves, the same toughness of fiber which stood us in good stead in those days when we were all alone under the German blitz.
And here I must warn you, that in order to deceive and baffle the enemy as well as to exercise the forces, there will be many false alarms, many feints and many dress rehearsals. We may also ourselves be the object of new forms of attack from the enemy.
Britain can take it. She has never flinched or failed, and when the signal is given, the whole circle of avenging nations will hurl themselves upon the foe and batter out the life of the crudest tyranny which has ever sought to bar the progress of mankind.
The Battle of Sangshak ended with a Japanese tactical victory, but a British strategic one, as the British holding action had allowed them to send reinforcements to Kohima.
New Zealand Army sniper at Monte Cassino, March 26, 1944.
Reorganization of the 5th Army in Italy commences, with the French Corps and New Zealand Corps removed from the line in favor of units of the British 8th Army.
The fifteen captured OSS men of Operation Ginny II were summarily executed by the German under Hitler's Commando Order.
Large elements of the German 1st Panzer Army were cut off at Kamenets-Podolski
The USS Tullibee was sunk north of Palau due to a torpedo malfunction. Only 1 of its 60 man crew would survive. At the same time, Japanese observers again observe US naval forces and decide to disperse their own.
Combat damaged equipment being worked on, on Manus Island, March 26, 1944.
Last prior edition:
Saturday, March 25, 1944. Ioannina.
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