Allies land near Rome
Yanks, Tommies establish miles-long beachhead in dawn assault
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
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Arms center hit by RAF in 2,240-ton raid
Magdeburg ripped; Berlin, French invasion coast also hammered
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer
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In Washington –
Soldier vote scheduled for House debate
Rules committee approves controversial states’ rights measure
Washington (UP) –
The House Rules Committee today gave the go-ahead for floor consideration next week of controversial legislation that would leave control of soldier voting with the states, and the Senate arranged to decide Monday whether it will act then on a compromise version of its previously-approved state’s rights measure.
The prospect that the Senate will vote twice on the same subject before the House even takes initial action drew a protest from Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH), who said he considered it “an extraordinary parliamentary procedure.” Senate Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY) said it was not at all unusual.
This was the situation:
Last December, the Senate approved a substitute measure giving states control over soldier voting. The measure was sent to the House, but the Christmas recess blocked House consideration. Now, the Senate is preparing to act on a compromise which calls for federal distribution and collection of the ballots and leaves with local election boards the counting of the ballots and determination of their validity.
This week, a Republican-Democrat coalition forced House Elections Committee approval of a bill similar to the original Senate state’s rights measure, Committee chairman Eugene Worley (D-TX) was in the minority. He backed a bill similar to the compromise measure now pending in the Senate.
Hannegan made new chairman of Democrats
Unanimously elected to succeed Walker as head of party
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
The Democratic National Committee today unanimously elected Robert E. Hannegan of St. Louis as the party’s new chairman to lead the anticipated fourth-term campaign for President Roosevelt.
Mr. Hannegan, now Commissioner of Internal Revenue, was chosen by acclamation after James P. Aylward, Democratic national committeeman from Missouri, had placed him in nomination in a speech which roused the committee to a burst of applause when he referred to Mr. Roosevelt’s election to a fourth term.
Mr. Hannegan succeeds Postmaster General Frank C. Walker in the national chairmanship.
Resigns revenue post
Mr. Aylward began:
When the history of the next campaign is written and we win another presidential election with President Roosevelt for a fourth term–
…when he was interrupted by the committee’s enthusiastic response.
In a brief talk following his election, Mr. Hannegan did not mention the fourth term, but said the party could win this year if members all pulled together.
Hannegan continued:
I am a plain, ordinary, everyday, 100%, straight organization Democrat. I’m not angry at any Democrat. I am very proud to have worked under Jim Farley for years and I don’t think we will ever had another chairman as able as he.
I’m frightened up here, this is the big league for me. I am used to the bush leagues out in the Ozarks.
Immediately after his election, the White House announced Mr. Hannegan’s resignation as Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
Practiced law 15 years
Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. appointed Assistant Commissioner Harold N. Groves as acting chief of the Internal Revenue Bureau.
Mr. Aylward, in proposing Mr. Hannegan as Mr. Walker’s successor, said that Mr. Hannegan said practiced law for 15 years in St. Louis, had served as chairman of the Democratic City Committee in that city for four years and “under his leadership the Democrats regained control of the city.”
He described Mr. Hannegan as an active, aggressive and progressive” man who “knows politics from the bottom up.”
Tribute paid Walker
Mr. Aylward told fellow committeemen:
You may be sure that he will deal with your problems with honesty and in a very practical way.
While a committee sought Mr. Hannegan to escort him to the platform, members paid tribute to Mr. Walker’s service. Mayor Edward Kelly of Chicago said that he was regretful that Mr. Walker was leaving his post because “I think he is perfectly competent to again lead this party to victory.”
Mrs. Mary T. Norton of New Jersey said that no man was more loyal, patriotic and sincere than Mr. Walker.
Calling the New Deal administration period the “glorious decade,” Mr. Walker said the future demanded the election in 1944 of a President and a Congress who will fearlessly lead the country to victory in war and victory in peace.
Resigning with regret
Democratic leaders here for the meeting generally agreed on making President Roosevelt their nominee again.
Mr. Walker told the committee he was resigning the chairmanship “with genuine regret.” War, he said, had brought fresh problems and a constantly growing volume to the Post Office Department which now requires “the full attention and energy of the Postmaster General.” He asked that there be “no misunderstanding” as to his attitude.
GOP gains send Democrats rushing back to Roosevelt
Willing to forgive and forget, they concede President is only hope of November success
Washington –
The effect of a fear psychosis is illustrated in the attitude of Democratic leaders who have gathered here to plan their National Convention and to celebrate Jackson Day at dinner tonight.
They are somberly reflecting the constant succession of Republican by-election victories. Gone is the buoyancy of old.
In their fear they are rushing pell-mell to President Roosevelt as their only possible hope of success in November, with a “Save u “ gesture. They are ready to forget and forgive.
Glibly they predict that the President will run again.
‘Revolution’ fizzles
The lion-to-lamb transformation was symbolized in the fizzle of the one-man revolution plotted by National Committeeman James C. Quigley when he faced reporters who had listened to him blowing hot and heavy for several days about the revolt he was engineering among Midwestern members – about Secretary of Agriculture Wickard and farm policy, about lack of recognition in patronage for the regular organization.
He sat at the head of the table, among the remains of the luncheon consumed by the supposed “revolters” from a dozen Midwestern and Northwestern states. Chagrin overspread his round face. The fire was gone from his eyes.
Meeting in complete unity
This committee, Mr. Quigley said, had been delegated to–
Eyes were alert. Pencils poised.
“– meet the press.”
Anti-climax.
The meeting, he said, was “in complete unity.”
Pencils dropped.
They had adopted a resolution unanimously.
Once more attention.
Mr. Quigley read it.
It declared for a fourth term for President Roosevelt and for the election of Robert E. Hannegan of Missouri as new national chairman to succeed Frank C. Walker, who is retiring.
Still against Wickard
Several questions were popped at once. All right, but what had happened to the advertised revolt? How about Secretary Wickard?
Lamely, Mr. Quigley said he was still against him personally, wanted his ousted from the Cabinet, but this question was not before the conference. It was learned later that Mr. Wickard had not even been mentioned at the closed luncheon session.
Chief’s firing of committee splits union
Mueller dismisses those who settled utility sit-down strike
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Allied planes rip Jap barges
Torpedo boats also attack enemy off New Guinea
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Hotel slaying clue sought in 2 safety deposit boxes
Family intimates important papers may be found there in missing purse
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Editorial: Still on guard
From the Philadelphia Bulletin
Republican National Committeeman G. Mason Owlett, in a letter to The Evening Bulletin, insists his warning against the “post-war return of American-made, government-owned war merchandise to this country at bargain prices and duty free” has nothing to do with the repayment of war debts, our gold supply or Lend-Lease. It is Mr. Owlett’s opinion that the influx of such distressed merchandise after the last war “helped create a depression which ran six years.”
But Mr. Owlett himself in his letter worries about:
…the amount of goods and material of foreign origin which is apt to find its way into this market following the close of the war.
In capital letter phrases, he warns against such economic cooperation with the rest of the world as may make “American enterprise a decadent, retrogressive victim of low-cost foreign competition.”
It is clear that Mr. Owlett looks upon the import of foreign goods into this country with an unfriendly eye, as though they were a menace to be guarded against and not an asset.
Such an attitude does concern the repayment of Lend-Lease and the future of our foreign trade markets. For we cannot be repaid or expand our sales abroad unless we are willing to accept the goods of other nations in greater volume than before the war. Foreign trade is not a one-way street.
OPA will clamp maximum lid on vegetables
Consumers to benefit next month when local units set prices
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
If you hang around a fighter or dive-bomber airdrome for a while, you will constantly hear about low-flying missions.
That means jobs on which you fly so low you are practically on the ground. Often you are so low you would hit a man standing on the ground.
On such a mission a pilot goes out “looking for things.” He will shoot at practically anything he sees. He’ll come whipping up over a slight rise, then zip down the other side, and in his gunsights, there may be a gun, a truck, a train, a whole line of German soldiers, a supply dump. Whatever he finds he shoots up.
The squadron of A-36 Invader dive bombers that I’m with has had some freakish happenings on these missions.
For example, Lt. Miles C. Wood of Dade City, Florida, almost shot himself down the other day. He was strafing, and he flew so low that his bullets kicked up rocks and he flew into the rocks. They dented his propeller and punched holes in his wings. He was lucky to get home at all. Even a hunk of mud will dent a wing at that speed.
Flies through eight-strand cable
Another pilot flew right through an eight-strand steel cable the Germans had stretched on poles above some treetops. This is one of their many tricks, and this one almost worked. The pilot landed at his home field with the cable still trailing from his wing.
My friend Maj. Ed Bland, the squadron leader, is so interested in his strafing one day that he didn’t notice a high-tension line just ahead. When he did see it, it was too late to pull over it. So, he flew under it – at about 300 miles an hour.
And since I’ve been on this field one of the pilots was diving on a truck and got so interested in what he was doing that he ran into a tree. The plane somehow stayed in the air, although the leading edge of the wing was pushed up about eight inches and was crumpled like an accordion.
He got the plane back over our lines, but finally it went into a spin and he had to bail out. He broke his leg getting out of the cockpit, hit his head on the tail as he went past, and then smashed his leg further when he hit the ground.
Apologizes for losing plane
He is the luckiest man the squadron has had yet. Everybody was concerned about him, and grateful that he lived. Yet when his squadron commander went to see him in the hospital, the first thing the injured pilot did was to start apologizing for losing the plane.
Dive-bomber pilots fly so low that they even have German tracer bullets coming down at them, from the hillsides, instead of coming up as they usually do. They fly so low that Italians behind the German lines come running to their doors and wave, while now and then some dirty guy who has different sentiments will run out and take a shot at them.
As I have said, the Germans are full of tricks. They send up all kinds of weird things from their ack-ack guns. They have one shell that looks, when it explodes, as if you’d emptied a wastebasket full of turpentine. They shoot all kinds of wire and link “daisy chains” into the air to snag our propellers.
Bullets ricochet off haystack
But the weirdest one I’ve heard of was described by a pilot who was on the tail of a Messerschmitt one day. Just as he was pulling the trigger, the fleeing German released out of the tail of his plane a parachute with a long steel cable attached to it. The American pilot by fast maneuvering got out of its way, but he did lose his German.
On a low-flying mission you’re justified in shooting at anything. One day, one of our pilots, after a boring mission in which he saw nothing worth destroying, decided to set a haystack afire. He came diving down on it, pouring in bullets, when suddenly he saw his tracers ricocheting off the haystack. Now you know bullets don’t ricochet off ordinary haystacks, so our pilot gave it the works – and thus destroyed a brand-new pillbox.