NO LONGER ENEMIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 October 1942, Page 4

NO LONGER ENEMIES

ITALIANS IN UNITED STATES

APPROVAL OF ACTION BY GOVERNMENT.

GOOD MOVE IN GRAND STRATEGY.

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.5 p.m.) NEW YORK, October 14.

Six hundred thousand Italians living in the United States and six million Americans of Italian parentage found the speech of Mr Biddle the biggest story of years, says the “New York Times,” commenting on the Federal Attorney-General’s announcement that from October 19 Italian aliens would no longer be classed as enemy aliens. The newspaper says: “The Government's decision was made on statistical and not on sentimental grounds. As 99.8 per cent of the Italian immigrants are behind our war effort, Mi’ Biddle’s action is not merely justice—it is grand strategy worth quite a number of divisions of troops, cruisers and plane-car-riers. It tells the people of Italy, over the heads of their Government, that we don’t consider them our enemies. The news won't be broadcast in Italy, but it will reach Italy and the acceptance of 600,000 legal enemies as friends and fellow-workers is a deed calculated to weaken the Italian people's will to fight.”