A Danzig fête draws disguised visitors. Nazis and Poles gather in the city. Nazi minister Joseph Goebbels reiterates that the territory is German. Danzig is German and “no amount of diplomacy or power politics can change this fact,” the German Propaganda Minister, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, told a cheering audience today in this Nazi-dominated Free City.
The road from Zoppot to Danzig for a distance of some ten miles was lined with police and Elite Guards this morning when Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, the honor guest of Danzig Nazis for “German Cultural Week,” drove to the Danzig theatre to deliver his speech. Ordinary traffic was halted for two hours. Contrary to expectations, his speech to a filled house of enthusiastic supporters contained but few pointed references to Danzig. It was a eulogy of German culture and almost entirely devoted to that subject. Some 1,500 listened to the speech in the square in front of the theatre, but the day was clear, sunny, and hot, and many Danzigers preferred the Baltic beaches and the countryside to the stuffy cafes and restaurants in town where they were told to listen to the speech.
Nazi extremists again were disappointed. The Goebbels visit, which brought to a climax a week of festivities for which thousands of Storm Troopers, Elite Guards and members of the Labor Service were brought from East Prussia, not in the least seemingly increased the Free City’s chances for a speedy return to the Reich.
The city was full of “tourists” in uniform and plain clothes. The Nazis invited several thousand guests from East Prussia, but the number of Polish “tourists” was also considerable. Had the German “tourists” shown an inclination to do anything other than attend Nazi meetings the Polish “tourists” would have certainly manifested interest in their German opposite numbers. Around the Danzig frontiers there was increased activity among the Polish troops massed there since the end of March. Moreover, thousands of members of Polish sporting and semi-military organizations were brought from all over Poland for a mass convention-a replica of the Danzig show.
Joseph Buerckel, Reich Commissioner for Austria, told a Nazi party meeting today that “the time of debating civilians is over and the time of hard soldiers has come.” “The Führer has proclaimed peace with guns,” he said in a speech that stressed the need for preparedness and national unity. “Germans have had the experience that being human translated into British means hunger. If other States are willing to shed their blood for England it is their business. “Our military power is the best contribution to peace. The time of Prussians, Bavarians, and Austrians belongs definitely to the past. Here stands one nation, one Reich, one Führer — and may the whole world hear it.”
Britain combats Germany’s encirclement charge. Extensive propaganda is planned.
Czechs are deeply aggrieved. Bitterness and contempt mark their attitude toward Germany.
Reich troop movements continue in Slovakia. Soldiers are sent to secret camps on the Polish border. Germans are diligently surveying the area around the Polish border. German troops who poured into Slovak towns in March have been moved to secret camps closer to the border. A highway is now under construction from Zilina to Cadca, frontier springboard on the route to Polish-held Teschen. Other highway projects have been announced by the Slovak Government to be financed with “frozen” marks held by Slovak exporters in Germany. All these roads lead northward toward the frontier. Slovakia’s little army of 30,000 virtually has been ignored by the German military command. Slovak officers say they have not been consulted. Four airports of the old Czecho-Slovak Republic in the Vag Valley have been shuttered and are semi-deserted. Iron doors at the Zilina airdrome have been removed and sent to Germany for scrap.
A large arms factory at Dubnika is working day and night, with most of its production going direct to Germany. A handful of Slovak soldiers at Bratislava, the Slovak capital, drill publicly without rifles. Over the week-end a German division general in civilian clothes held staff conferences here with a uniformed general from Prague.”
A campaign is underway, meanwhile, to crush anti-German propaganda among the Slovak population. There have been scores of arrests. Leaflets described as “revolutionary” were seized here.
A bomb explodes in a Jewish café in Prague, injuring 39 people.
Attempts at anti-Semitic demonstrations over the arrival of the refugee liner MS St. Louis occurred in Antwerp today but they were quickly quelled! by the police. Handbills distributed outside the berth occupied by the St. Louis by the Nazi-inspired National Youth Organization protested against the hospitality offered to the refugees and said: “We too want to help the Jews. If they call at our offices each will receive gratis, a piece of rope and a strong nail.” The tracts were confiscated and their distributors dispersed. At noon a Rexist [Fascist] parade of youths dressed in black shirts passed through the main streets. Although the parade was not prompted by the arrival of the St. Louis, it was considered provocative, but the police did not intervene.
The non-Jewish wife of a refugee traveling first class on the St. Louis arrived from Berlin by plane to visit her husband. Captain Gustav Schroeder made a special dispensation in allowing her to board the ship, where she was allowed to have a half-hour talk with her husband before witnesses. This was the only exception to the iron rule barring all outside communication with the refugees.
The British and French contingents will sail tomorrow for Boulogne and Southampton, thus taking care of the entire “refugee cargo” of the St. Louis. The Netherlands contingent left this morning.
Eleven new destroyers and one submarine entered the Italian Navy today in a ceremony at Leghorn. Recently launched, they have now been fully equipped and pronounced seaworthy. Like everything else these days, this is considered another answer to the “democratic encirclers.”
Negotiations for a British-French-Soviet mutual assistance pact halted today while statesmen of the three powers watched developments at Tientsin and Danzig. Some argued that the Japanese threat to British interests in China was likely to force London to pay any price necessary for Moscow’s cooperation, both in the East and West.
The Soviet Government showed no sign of eagerness to conclude a pact immediately. The Soviet press ignored the negotiations. There has been no hint of their possible trend since the Soviet communiqué last Friday that the latest British-French proposals were “not entirely satisfactory.” The declaration of the German Propaganda Minister, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, in Danzig, that the Free City is German and “no amount of diplomacy or power politics can change this fact,” caused some diplomats in Moscow to expect a rapidly approaching showdown there.
Daily arrests and prosecutions, by the hundreds, of persons accused of complicity in the killing of Rightists, clergymen and nuns continue. Since the detention of Edmundo Rodriguez, police say that he has confessed to assisting in the shooting of more than 225 persons in a prison in San Bernardo Street where he acted as militia guard.
Rodriguez is said to have added that more than 20,000 were killed in this particular prison to his knowledge. Five women, alleged to have served in the same prison and who have just been arrested, confessed, it is claimed, that they knew of at least 5,000 assassinations there. Two brothers arrested in Valencia are accused of murdering 192 persons. The auditor of the military courts in session here says that he has the names and detailed information concerning the killing of 236 priests in Madrid alone.
Scores of Arabs were killed and wounded in Palestine early today when two bombs exploded in a Haifa marketplace. Troops and policemen immediately threw a cordon about the area and began transporting the dead and wounded to hospitals.
Fiscal policies of the Roosevelt Administration will be under fire in the Senate tomorrow when the bill to extend for two years from June 30 the stabilization fund and the power of the President to devalue the dollar is debated. Senator Glass, a skilled sharpshooter at monetary policies of which he disapproves, will direct the attacking forces; and one of the liveliest skirmishes of the present session is in prospect. Senator Wagner is scheduled to make the chief defense of the measure, which the Administration regards as one of its most important weapons to protect the dollar from adverse factors in the international money market.
While the Senate is debating this bill the House will take up the Tax Bill, reported favorably on Saturday by its Ways and Means Committee. The bill provides for certain changes in the corporate tax structure and for continuation of the so-called nuisance taxes, and involves an annual estimated revenue yield of about $1,600,000,000. With no organized opposition in evidence, and under a three-hour limitation of debate, the Tax Bill is expected to have a somewhat perfunctory journey through the House and be on its way to the Senate before adjournment tomorrow.
The longest step ever taken toward coordination of the activities of Federal, State and city agencies dealing with unemployment has been agreed upon by officials here to speed the return of relief recipients to private jobs and to eliminate “chiselers” from the public-assistance rolls. The plan, to be put into operation next month, calls for the registration with the State Employment Service of all WPA workers and all employable persons on home relief in communities throughout the State. In New York City alone the plan would add 250,000 names to the active files of the public employment offices.
Home relief recipients will be required to report for an employment interview each month on pain of dismissal from the relief rolls. An alternative method of reporting is under consideration for WPA workers; details of this part of the plan are still incomplete. As soon as a job is found for a person from the home or work relief lists, the Division of Placement and Unemployment Insurance of the State Labor Department, which administers the State Employment Service, will notify the relief agency.
The country, instead of paying attention to Secretary Ickes’s “senseless third-term propaganda,” should call upon President Roosevelt to resign, Frank Gannett, newspaper publisher, declared in a statement issued here today. “The sooner he resigns, the better,” Mr. Gannett went on, adding that if the resignation came at once “tomorrow we can begin to rebuild a dynamic surging America.” Mr. Gannett said that he made the suggestion “with regret, for along with many others I tried wholeheartedly to help his Administration when he went into office.”
“But,” he proceeded, “his Administration has proved a failure. It began with one hundred days of recovery and stimulation of private enterprise. Then it turned to a program of scarcity, to restriction of production, to regimentation, to control of everything and everybody from Washington, and finally it destroyed incentive and began a spending program that now endangers our country.
“No President ever had so great an opportunity. Congress, at the peril of undermining our democracy, granted him the almost unlimited emergency powers and money which he demanded. He promised to use these delegated powers to bring recovery, but he used that power and money and patronage to get more power and to build up a great self-perpetuating nationwide political machine.
“He shackled private enterprise with political controls. Now he invades banking and credit fields with proposals which such advisers as Mr. Berle admit will give the government growing control of banking and private business. He saps the nation’s strength by over-taxation. While diverting the public mind with false promises of abundance and security, he has failed to bring re-employment to ten million. The great middle class which earns and pays its own way and pays the taxes that support government, now faces destruction.”
Paul V. McNutt said here he would be a candidate for the Presidential nomination if President Roosevelt did not run but would back the President if the latter sought a third term. Mr. McNutt, in an interview yesterday, confirmed a statement made in Washington last week by Senator Minton, Democrat of Indiana, who said the organization backing Mr. McNutt would “get behind President Roosevelt” if Roosevelt were a candidate.
“The entire McNutt campaign,” Mr. Minton had said, “is predicated on the assumption the President will not run.” Mr. McNutt, a former Democratic Governor of Indiana, is High Commissioner to the Philippines. He arrived on the liner President Coolidge en route to the United States from Manila. He declined comment on reports that he would resign his Philippine post.
A tornado in Minnesota in the Anoka District near Minneapolis killed at least 10 people. More than 60 people were injured and over 100 farm houses destroyed.
Marriage in the U.S. is not losing popularity, despite social changes. Although divorce is up, the majority stay wed.
Hank Greenberg drives in four runs with his 16th homer of the year and a double as the Detroit Tigers beat the New York Yankees, 8–5.
Dizzy Dean of the Cubs, trying to regain his old form, beats Brooklyn 1–0 on Gabby Hartnett’s home run. The Cubs sweep, winning the 2nd game, 9–1.
The Boston Red Sox trade minor leaguer shortstop Pee Wee Reese to the Brooklyn Dodgers in exchange for $35,000 and 3 players and a player to be named later (Red Evans).
Yankees’ baseball player Lou Gehrig leaves the Mayo Clinic, where he has been undergoing tests, for a weekend cruise on the Mississippi River. The Mayo Clinic refuses to discuss his test results.
Fire that had leveled dozens of buildings was raging early today in St. Pierre and threatening to wipe out a great section of the capital of the French possession of St. Pierre et Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland. Fanned by a high wind, the flames were raging through the business section of the old French town. Government buildings and many stores were wiped out and officials said “dozens” of homes had been burned to the ground. No official estimate of the number of buildings burned down, or the damage in dollars, was made immediately. First indications were that there was no loss of life. The fire started at about 11 PM in a moving-picture house. Its cause was not ascertained. Before the strong wind, it spread quickly to the Bank of Commerce building across the street, then to the adjoining buildings, quickly leveling them.
A constitutional referendum was held in Peru on 18 June 1939. The proposed changes were approved by 88% of voters. Following the referendum, Manuel Prado Ugarteche was elected President on 4 December. On 6 August 1945 the Congress passed a Law 10334, which declared the amendments unconstitutional, as they were not passed in line with Article 236 of the 1933 constitution.
An Italian naval ship is set to cruise to the Orient.
U.S. Admiral Harry Yarnell travels to Tientsin.
With fingers figuratively crossed, British officials held the impression yesterday that Japan would not after all seek a showdown at this time on all British rights in China. As they strove to narrow down the Tientsin incident they played upon Japanese apprehension over an Occidental united front by keeping in close touch with the dominions, France and the United States.
It was denied in Washington, however, that any plan for strengthening the powers’ naval forces in the Orient had been broached. Nevertheless, a statement that the powers were continuing to confer at Amoy showed that the United States was maintaining its stand on rights in China.
One reason for the relief felt in London was the fact that two British freighters had arrived at Tientsin unmolested. On the other hand, three Britons were reported maltreated as the Japanese blockade continued to pinch 1,500 in the British Concession.
Chiang Kai-shek has the remains of Genghis Khan taken to China to protect from Japanese seizure.
The wife of Chiang Kai-shek, the former Soong May-Ling, warns the United States on China’s woes, calling on the United States to take a stand against Japanese aggression.
Born:
Lou Brock, MLB outfielder (Hall of Fame, inducted 1985; All-Star, 1967, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1979; 8-time NL stolen base leader; Chicago Cubs, St Louis Cardinals), in El Dorado, Arkansas (d. 2020).
Jack Herer, cannabis activist, in Buffalo, New York (d. 2010).
Died:
Frans “Sas” van Aerschot, 73, Flemish operetta actor (“Paljas”).
Naval Construction:
The Regia Marina (Royal Italian Navy) improved Marcello-class submarine Comandante Faà di Bruno is launched by Odero Terni Orlando (OTO), Muggiano, La Spezia, Italy.
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