Perilous Weekend

The knowledge that it was later than men thought came last week to the U.S. and its President:

In the Atlantic a U.S. destroyer was torpedoed by an enemy submarine (see p. 28).

In Europe one of the two nations which the U.S. is supporting to beat Hitler fought desperately to save its capital (see p. 24).

In the Orient Japan installed a new Cabinet, whose apparent aim would swiftly bring war to the Pacific (see p. 30).

Taking a four-day (Friday to Tuesday) weekend at Hyde Park, Franklin Roosevelt had more than the color of autumn leaves on his mind. He had to con his timetable and Adolf Hitler's. He could guess at Hitler's from the week's events. The U.S. could guess at the President's timetable from three items of news which told what time it is in the U.S.

> To replace the old, merely enormous, daily outmoded scheme of defense and supplies to U.S. Allies, the President readied a Brobdingnagian new program: to turn out by 1944, 125,000 airplanes, tens of thousands of tanks and guns of all kinds (cost: more than $100,000,000,000)--to double not merely present production but plans for future production. The brave new word for the scheme, the Victory Program. > The President declared that real aid to Hitler's enemies is really on the way: shipments of Lend-Lease supplies in September amounted to $155,000,000--no more than WPA once disposed of, but three times the average Lend-Lease aid for the previous six months. Since World War II began, Britain has received about $5,000,000,000 worth of U.S. arms and food--most of it paid for in cash on the barrel head. But Lend-Lease materials are gradually replacing cash orders, may supplant them entirely by next year's end.

> U.S. defense expenditures reached a new peak, passed $50,000,000 a day. At this figure, the U.S. is now spending $6,000,000 more a day for defense than Great Britain is spending daily for war.

Also under the President's eye and hand were enormous domestic problems which will inevitably affect the war effort: 1) labor strikes, on which he was readying a statement this week; 2) defense growing pains, which were changing the map of the U.S., creating great cities yet making ghost towns, too; 3) inflation, which still zoomed on.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.