Background of news –
Universal service
By Bertram Benedict, editorial research reports
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Reporters are dizzy viewing style parade
Top-flight designers show dazzling array of new fashions
By Lenore Brundige, Press staff writer
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I know that no one at the time knew how sick he truly was, but he is trying to lead a nation at war. He might be a little bit busy lol.
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
The Stars and Stripes in the last war had many men on its staff who later broke into great prominence in the literary and magazine world. It is too early yet to tell what the various Army newspapers throughout the world in this war will produce, but we have a couple of likely candidates over here.
Soldiers and correspondents both would cast a willing vote for them right now. One is a reporter, the other a cartoonist. The reporter is Sgt. Jack Foisie of Berkeley, California; the cartoonist is Sgt. Bill Mauldin of Phoenix, Arizona.
Both are very young, both are quiet and earnest, both have native talent, and both have that ephemeral and uncultivated ability to express the soldiers’ viewpoint.
Sgt. Foisie has been on the staff of Stars and Stripes only since the invasion of Italy last July, yet he is already the man for whom the paper gets the most requests from units that want somebody to write about them.
Foisie has been overseas almost 15 months. Before transferring to the Stars and Stripes, he was in a tank-destroyer unit. He drove a half-track and ran a .50-caliber machine gun.
He fought all through Tunisia. He was never wounded, but in the Battle of Sidi Bouzid last February, he lost his half-track by a hit from an 88mm cannon. Along with it he lost everything he had, including his portable typewriter.
Before the war, Foisie was a reporter on The San Francisco Chronicle. When he went into the Army, he was determined not to lose the writing touch, so he brought his typewriter with him and wrote scads of letters to the folks back home, just to keep his hand in.
Doesn’t need practice now
He says his folks can’t understand how he could write them so often when he was in combat and is so bad about writing now that he has a quieter job. The answer is, of course, that he doesn’t have to write letters for practice anymore.
Toward the end of the Tunisian campaign, Jack wrote to Stars and Stripes and asked if there were any chance of getting on the staff. Capt. Boo Neville, the editor, wrote back a two-word letter:
Why not?
Jack thought he was being facetious and supposed that was the end of it. But 10 days later, here came official transfer papers with travel orders calling for transportation by airplane.
This airplane business so astounded and impressed Jack’s company commander that he cleaned up, put on his dress blouse for the first time in Africa, and personally drove Jack the 50 miles to the nearest airdrome to see him off.
Among correspondents Foisie has a reputation of always being willing to go anywhere and do anything. But he is shy, and for months kept in the background, just filling his job and saying nothing. Now that he knows everybody he jokes and kids as much as the rest.
When I first knew him, last summer in Sicily, he had a fairly marked hesitation in his speech. But on rejoining him in Italy, I noticed that it was gone. I spoke to him about it and he said he thought it was because he had gained more confidence in himself.
Although he is a good soldier, Foisie went up and down in rank six or eight times before joining Stars and Stripes, due largely to the whims of various commanders.
Loses regard for rank
His ups and downs destroyed all his regard for rank and now he truly doesn’t care whether he’s private, sergeant or lieutenant. He actually argued against it when they made him a sergeant on Stars and Stripes, and wouldn’t wear his chevrons until forced to.
Jack Foisie is 24. He is a darkish blond, with hair starting to thin in spots. He has a big chin, and his eyes are set back in his head, giving him the appearance of looking out of two narrow slits. He is left-handed, does not smoke, and is of French extraction but speaks little French.
He was born and raised in Seattle and went to the University of Washington for two years – until his folks moved to Berkeley. His father is Frank P. Foisie, head of the waterfront employers of the Pacific Coast, which means he’s the man who sits across the table and argues with Harry Bridges.
After the war, Jack has two ambitions – to finish school and to get married. The marriage business comes first. Her name is Florence McTighe and she lives in Trenton, New Jersey. The big question will be how to make a Californian out of her.
Foisie has lived a rugged life both as a combat soldier and as a reporter. Recently he has been on special assessment, living in town and making trips out to the airfield by jeep. He has found it interesting but is beginning to be a little frightened.
He said:
I’m getting soft. The life is too nice. It would be better to be back at the front living with doughboys and writing about them.
Tomorrow we’ll tell about Bill Mauldin, the cartoonist.
Pegler: On the recent New York Legislature bill
By Westbrook Pegler
New York –
A bill has been introduced in the New York Legislature to punish individuals who promote racial and religious hatred. A bill of similar intent is pending in Congress.
Both are unwise and more likely to provoke than to abate such propaganda because an attempt to enforce them would surely raise important questions of freedom of speech and of the press. Truth is a good defense and if a propagandist should present truths about individuals in a hateful way artfully calculated to arouse hatred of a whole group, we would simply have to acquit him.
Opinion is also privileged, so such efforts seem not only futile, but dangerous to their own purpose.
The better approach is that of Joseph M. Proskauer, who has proposed a pledge for all Americans to refrain from spreading rumors or slanders against any sect, and to condemn no whole element of the population for offensive conduct of individuals. Archbishop Spellman has endorsed Mr. Proskauer’s effort as all real Christians should.
Negro press arouses hatred
To my mind there is more talk of antisemitism than antisemitic talk and the most disturbing propaganda as between the white and Negro Americans is found in the Negro press, which may honestly believe that it is promoting interracial amity but goes much too far and succeeds in arousing hatred of the whites among the Negroes.
The communists, always on the prowl for issues which can be fanned into devouring fires, also have had a part in these hate campaigns. And no estimate of the provocations could eliminate Marshall Field and his New York journalistic “whatizzit” which gives an impression that in New York and Boston horrible persecutions are being inflicted on the Jews. The Christians of New York and Boston are doing nothing of the kind.
I think the whole effect of Mr. Field’s material is to aggravate relations. But done by his method, whatever his motive may be, it certainly could not be made the basis for prosecution under any law, however wisely drawn.
This is not to contend that there is no prejudice against Jews among persons who call themselves Christians and honestly believe themselves to be respectable and right-minded.
There are some who smirk and say that “the Chosen People” have taken over this or that neighborhood or club, forgetting that it was the chosen people of the master race of Hitler who frankly did put forth the proposition that they were chosen to rule the world and employed in their relations with other countries every foul and treacherous device and deceit in the long catalog of sins which they had charged against the Jews.
Within the law
No law can touch any such persons for remarks of this kind, but he might be reached by the pledge of Mr. Proskauer; for many who speak so are not really hateful, but only carelessly prejudiced and unconscious of the hurt they do.
To those who are fighting antisemitism, too, a word of admonition seems due.
There is altogether too free use of the term “antisemite” or “Jew-hater” and decent men have been persecuted and put under boycotts for ulterior motives who have been scrupulously fair in speech and conduct. A man so victimized is sorely tried and only his true Christianity and his horror of Hitlerism keeps his steady.
It is not antisemitism to resist and criticize certain individuals in public office or other influential position, or union officials or communists who happen to be obviously Jews. To call this antisemitism is to abandon the principle of Mr. Proskauer’s pledge, for thereby all Jews are lumped together and placed under condemnation when the critic’s intent is to deal with the individual as such and not as a representative Jew or even a Jew at all.
Errol Flynn’s lawyer takes charge of Chaplin’s case
Attorney tells comics to quit worrying about Joan Barry and grand jury
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Hitler and Göring ‘eat’ 1943 broadcasts
Yanks, Britons and Russians shatter Axis pledges
By Si Steinhauser
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The media and his administration certainly hid the true extent of his health issues, but by this point, it was pretty much an open secret.
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Völkischer Beobachter (January 15, 1944)
Ein neues Betrugsmanöver des USA-Präsidenten
Roosevelt verspricht, was er seit zehn Jahren nicht gehalten hat
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U.S. Navy Department (January 15, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 227
For Immediate Release
January 15, 1944
Seventh Army Air Force planes attacked Mille Atoll in the Marshall islands in daylight January 13 (West Longitude Date). Buildings in the cantonment were set afire and planes on the ground were damaged by machine-gun fire.
Wotje Atoll was raided by 7th Army Air Force bombers in the evening of January 13. Hits were made on shore facilities and several small craft were damaged.
In the early morning of January 14, our bombers attacked Namur and Roi Islands in the Kwajalein Atoll, setting fire to several installations ashore.
Later in the morning of January 14, Army bombers made a low-altitude attack on shipping at Wotje, sinking one medium cargo ship.
No enemy fighter opposition was encountered in these strikes and all of our planes returned safely.
The Pittsburgh Press (January 15, 1944)
FRENCH CAPTURE ITALIAN TOWN
Allies drive to outflank Nazi bastion
Yank Fortresses and Liberators pound Axis air base in Yugoslavia
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
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Nazi plane center blasted
2,240 tons of bombs, 150 a minute, plaster Brunswick
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer
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