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Vol. 75/No. 15      April 18, 2011

 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
April 18, 1986
CHILLICOTHE, Mo.—Some 2,000 farmers jammed into the lot of the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) office here Monday, April 6, spilling onto the street and across it. The FmHA building has been the site of a tractor sit-in since March 17. The farmers are protesting FmHA lending policies and the farm crisis itself, which is deepening across Missouri and the Midwest.

Despite planting time being only a few weeks away, only 10 percent of the millions FmHA has for operating loans in Missouri has been disbursed. All lenders have tightened their loan requirements, and as a result, farmers across the Midwest are being kept from their fields.

Also attending the rally was a delegation of Hormel workers from Austin Minnesota; Ottumwa, Iowa; and Fremont, Nebraska.  
 
April 17, 1961
April 12—Rarely has a major world power planned naked aggression against a small country as openly and brazenly as Washington is preparing the projected invasion of Cuba.

As these lines are written, a well-armed mercenary force of pilots, naval units, paratroopers, guerrilla fighters and saboteurs—financed and trained by the government of the United States—stands poised for attack on Cuba. The counterrevolutionary troops are massed in two staging areas. One is in Louisiana, the other in Central America.

Only one thing is postponing the “D-Day” signal that was slated for last weekend—the fear that they can’t get away with it.

After a hard look at Cuba’s impressive defense preparations, the Kennedy administration and its Cuban hirelings apparently became fearful.  
 
April 18, 1936
With the capture of Dessye and the announcement by the Italian forces in Africa of plans of a three-day march at the end of which it is expected to take the capital city of Addis Ababa, the main immediate objective of the Fascist invasion of Ethiopia seems to be definitely assured.

The occupation of the capital which now appears inevitable will undoubtedly be a severe moral blow to the defenders, and little more will be left to the courageous Ethiopians save the continuance of sporadic guerrilla warfare to prevent the Italians from completing the subjugation of this last of the “independent” lands of Africa.

Meanwhile, the Italian representatives, haughtily exuberant with victory, have laid down the victor’s peace terms in accordance with the old Roman war-cry: “Woe to the vanquished!”  
 
 
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