Editorial: How did the tax get this way?
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Editorial: A ‘simple, uniform’ ballot
Secretary Stimson gives every evidence of being sincerely concerned about the problem of providing members of the Armed Forces with a vote in the 1944 elections.
He also gives every evidence of being wholly non-political in his interest.
Mr. Stimson, along with Secretary of the Navy Knox, has presented to Congress a specific outline of the problems involved in the job of getting ballots to the Armed Forces and back to the proper election boards for counting.
The two secretaries have pledged the Army and Navy to exert every effort to do the job as speedily and efficiently as circumstances permit.
But Mr. Stimson says the so-called “states’ rights” compromise bill which is now before the House will “interfere with the prosecution of the war” and he requests Congress to provide a “simple, uniform” ballot.
And that is exactly what Congress ought to do.
And the states ought to cooperate with it, even to the extent of calling special sessions of their legislatures if necessary.
The sooner Congress acts, the sooner the states will know what changes in procedure, if any are necessary, and the sooner they will be able to make them.
Obviously, there are some complex problems, legal and mechanical, in providing the Armed Forces with a vote. But they are not problems which cannot be surmounted if Congress, the Army and the Navy and state administrations will put their brains to them.
Any failure in giving the Armed Forces the utmost opportunity to vote is a breach of the right to suffrage – the highest privilege of an American citizen. That is like saying to the Armed Forces:
You may fight and die, if need be, for the right to vote; but you may not participate in that right.
Ferguson: The wounded
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
In a press conference, Mrs. Roosevelt proposed an educational campaign to prepare American families for war’s sharpest blow – mutilation of their boys in battle.
At last, the people of the United States are face to face with war. When the wounded come home, as they are coming, and the hospitals begin to fill, we shall touch grim reality.
The parting of wives from husbands, of children from fathers, of parents from sons and daughters, is a kind of death – so much so that when the little yellow telegrams come, bearing their sorrowful tidings – “Dead,” or “Missing” – the bereaved have already experienced that awful moment in imagination.
Many of our dead are buried overseas. Thus, relatives can reject the fact that they are gone forever. It takes a long time to adjust ourselves to believe that the one who went away in the full flush of health will not come back. And if his body does not come back, somehow it’s easy to think he is alive somewhere.
But when the men return with bodies maimed and minds affected, our courage must match theirs on the battlefield. For the blinded, the crippled and the mentally exhausted must be taken back into civilian life as quickly as possible. They must be made to feel useful.
In order to build up their self-esteem, the families and friends to these men will be required to use tact, understanding and love, and the communities in which they live should begin making plans for taking them into industry and the professions.
To them we owe an everlasting debt. May we pay it better than we paid a similar debt to wounded veterans of the last war. Thousands of them are shut away in hospitals, cared for according to the letter of the law but abandoned in spirit, forgotten by those who once sang their praises.
Background of news –
The South and the Democrats
By Bertram Benedict, editorial research reports
Talk of a Southern anti-New Deal candidate – like Senator Byrd of Virginia – for the 1944 presidential nomination got exactly nowhere at Saturday’s Democratic National Committee gathering in Washington, at which President Roosevelt was endorsed for a fourth term.
The Civil War and secession may have died out as political issues, but the Negro question has not, and the Democratic Party will need to retain in 1944 as many Negro votes as it can. Also, the party will need to retain as much of the labor vote as possible, and most Southern Democrats have records which do not sit well with the trade unions.
Also, the party can count upon the South without nominating a Southerner. Only when it named Al Smith in 1928 did the party lose states in the “Solid South” – Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Texas. And only in out-and-out Republican landslides do the Democrats lose Southern states outside of the Solid South – Kentucky in 1924 and 1928, Oklahoma and Tennessee in 1920 and 1928.
No Southerners since Civil War
The Democrats have not nominated a Southerner for President since the Civil War, although Woodrow Wilson was born in Virginia. In fact, even before the Civil War, the party had deemed it best, to minimize sectional feeling, to name a non-Southerner – in 1860 Douglas of Illinois (a rump convention named Breckinridge of Kentucky), in 1856 Buchanan of Pennsylvania, in 1852 Pierce of New Hampshire, in 1848 Cass of Michigan.
On the other hand, five of the seven Democratic nominees prior to 1848 had come from the South, and in 1824, John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts was a minority choice, with a majority of the Democratic electoral votes split among three Southerners, while Van Buren in 1836 and 1840 was the faithful lieutenant of Andrew Jackson of Tennessee.
Even the Democratic vice presidential nomination did not go to a Southerner until more than 60 years after the Civil War – Robinson in 1928, Garner in 1932 and 1936.
In 1936, the Democratic convention in Philadelphia abolished the two-thirds rule, which up to that time had governed all Democratic national conventions (the Republicans have never used it). The two-thirds rule had in effect given a veto power over the nominations to the 13 Southern states, which accounted, on the average, for about 25% of the delegates to the national conventions. In 1944, the 13 Southern states will have 27%.
Wouldn’t support Wallace
In 1940, most Southern delegates rebelled against the administration command to nominate Henry A. Wallace for Vice President, and got behind Speaker Bankhead. The Southern states gave 224 votes to Mr. Bankhead, 66 to Mr. Wallace, 8½ to other candidates. Mr. Wallace was nominated with 627 votes. If the two-thirds rule had been in effect, he would have needed 734.
In 1940, to compensate the South for the abrogation of the two-thirds rule, the Democratic convention voted to give two additional delegates to every state which went Democratic in the preceding elections. That will really decrease the proportionate Southern strength in the 1944 convention, because in 1940, Mr. Roosevelt carried 25 non-Southern states, 13 Southern ones. The new system will benefit the Southern states in conventions following Republican victories, when the Democratic ticket probably will do better in the South than elsewhere.
As a result of the midterm elections in 1942, the South held slightly less than half (25 out of 57) of the Democratic seats in the Senate, more than half (116 out of 219) of those in the House. The 13 Southern states have 28% of the votes in the Electoral College.
Fortune found in deposit box of slain woman
But clues are still lacking in death of diplomat’s wife
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Maj. de Seversky: Victory over Japan could be swift, losses light through air strategy
By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky
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Simms: Nazis will try hard to split Russia, Allies
Big chanced to come when U.S., Britain invade Western Europe
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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Post-war sale of U.S. owned goods urged
Government told to plan now for disposal of surplus material
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Cash dividends increase in 1943
Payments gain $12 million over 1942
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Inside story of ‘peace now’ –
Pacifists pick up many supporters of doubtful loyalty
Organization accepts former Bundists if they’re American citizens’ leaders identified
By Thomas M. Johnson
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Dunninger (isn’t) exposed by radio scribe
Professionals ‘in the know’ talk like Sphinx
By Si Steinhauser
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Völkischer Beobachter (January 26, 1944)
Von London und Washington aus –
Pressehetze gegen Spanien und Portugal
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U.S. Navy Department (January 26, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 239
For Immediate Release
January 26, 1944
Seventh Army Air Force and Fleet Air Wing Two aircraft attacked four Marshall Island atolls on January 24 (West Longitude Date). Three of the atolls were raided twice during the day.
Army fighters and dive-bombers made a low-altitude morning attack on Mille, striking shore installations with bombs and machine-gun fire. No enemy fighters were encountered, and we lost no aircraft. A small-scale attack was made on Mille in the evening by heavy bombers. We suffered no losses.
Wotje was attacked by Army Mitchell bombers in the afternoon, with bomb hits on gun emplacements, airfield facilities, and living areas. All planes returned to their base. There was no enemy fighter opposition. A small-scale heavy bomber attack was also made on Wotje in the evening, with no fighter opposition and no losses to our forces.
Army medium bombers attacked Taroa, in the Maloelap Atoll, bombing airdrome facilities and destroying one fighter on the ground. A total of thirty enemy fighters were encountered, of which at least one was shot down. All of our planes escaped. Army heavy bombers raided Taroa in the evening, dropping over 20 tons of bombs on shore installations. This time there was no fighter opposition, and none of our planes was lost.
A Navy search Liberator encountered three small enemy warships with air cover of five fighters near Ailinglapalap, and shot down three of the fighters.