America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

2617

americavotes1944

In Washington –
GOP is hit by fact that soldier vote embarrasses ‘em

Taft and Brewster blame administrations for delay
By John L. Cutter, United Press staff writer

Washington –
Senators Robert A. Taft (R-OH) and Owen Brewster (R-ME) today blamed the administration for the delay in passage of soldier vote legislation.

They accused proponents of the compromise Green-Lucas Bill of prolonging debate by seeking passage of a substitute for legislation already approved by the Senate. The charge was voiced in reply to a plea by Senate Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY) that the Senate complete action today or tomorrow on the substitute – the Green-Lucas measure.

Pointing out that the Senate has debated the new bill more than a week, Senator Barkley protested that:

If it takes these soldiers and sailors as long to win… as it takes the Senate to provide them with a vote, the war will last until the presidential election of 1972.

Senator Taft charged that “all the delay is caused by the insistence of the administration that the Senate reverse its action of Dec. 3.” The Senate on that date passed a bill which recommended that the various states amend their absentee voting laws if necessary to facilitate soldier voting by state ballot.

Senator Brewster recalled that after President Roosevelt demanded speed, House Republican Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. (R-MA) requested unanimous consent to take up the pending soldier-vote bill immediately, but Speaker Sam Rayburn refused to recognize him for such a purpose.

Democratic maneuver may force record vote on issue

By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
House Republican leaders acknowledged today, by calling a party conference, that their membership had been maneuvered into an embarrassing position on the soldier-vote bill.

On the eve of consideration of the issue, they called the conference to try to ease the fears of some members that support of the Rankin “states’-rights” bill, which President Roosevelt has called a “fraud,” might endanger them politically.

They are also worried about the refusal of the House Rules Committee, dominated by a coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats, to provide for a separate record vote on the federal-ballot bill of Rep. Worley (D-TX) backed by the President.

On today’s schedule

Mr. Roosevelt’s demanded that members “stand up and be counted” on this measure so their constituents could know how they voted.

Republicans must face this issue squarely when the House takes up the Rankin bill, scheduled for today.

For a group of Democrats, led by Rep. Anderson (D-NM), have worked a maneuver of their own to force the Republicans into the open. They have pledged more than enough members to require a record vote at the outset on their question whether there should be a record vote on the Worley bill, which will be offered as a substitute.

This motion may fail, but at least there will be a yea-and-nay vote on the question of secret voting, and administration leaders will interpret votes against a record vote as against the Worley bill. They will have this available for the fall campaign.

Republicans have become uneasy over their alliance with Southern Democrats behind the Rankin bill, which would leave voting to the diverse state laws, and which Secretaries Stimson and Knox have said could not be administered effectively.

Since President Roosevelt in his message tried to make support of the federal-ballot bill a party measure, there has been a softening in Southern Democratic ranks. Republicans were perturbed today by reports that some Southern Democrats might desert them in the question of keeping the vote secret, although most Southern Democrats will still back the Rankin bill.

White supremacy issue

Likewise, Republicans have been embarrassed by the motives behind Southern support of the “states’-rights” bill. Southerners are being accused of wanting to maintain state restrictions – poll-tax requirements, etc. – so that Negro soldiers cannot vote, and this does not fit well with Republican hopes to win back the Negro vote in Northern cities.

Senator Eastland (D-MA), co-sponsor with Rep. Rankin (D-MS) of the “states’-rights” bill, blurted this into the open in the Senate yesterday. He said Southern soldiers did not want the Green-Lucas bill – the Senate counterpart of the Worley federal-ballot bill – because it would threaten state control of election machinery.

He said:

They are fighting to maintain white supremacy and state control of election machinery.

2618

americavotes1944

Guffey promises statement after soldier vote passes

By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent

Washington –
U.S. Senator Joseph F. Guffey (D-PA), unceremoniously dropped as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, will have more to say about that later – but not until the Senate has disposed of the soldier-vote bill.

Meanwhile, prominent Democratic leaders are predicting that Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney (D-WY) will have been appointed to succeed him.

Mr. O’Mahoney said today that he was “definitely not a candidate,” but few believed he would turn down the offer if it came through a unanimous vote of the Democratic steering committee.

Fourth term is issue

The Wyoming Senator has not yet committed himself on the fourth-term question, and it is pointed out by some that he has not been extremely close to the administration since the Supreme Court revision fight in 1937.

Should he become chairman of the campaign committee, he would be placed in the position of fighting for President Roosevelt’s reelection should the President decide to run again.

Mr. Guffey said today he doesn’t want to jeopardize action on the soldier-vote measure by continuing, just now, either of two current arguments revolving around his activities.

But after the soldier-vote bill has passed the Senate, he said:

I intend to issue a full and complete statement concerning these matters, about which there has been so much confusion and misinformation.

The matters he will answer are as follows:

  • Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley’s action in removing Mr. Guffey as campaign chairman for the Senate Democrats.

  • Senator Harry F. Byrd’s assertion that Mr. Guffey’s action in trying to force District of Columbia officials to give an appointment to his personal physician was a “contemptible act.”

Mr. Guffey was apparently nettled by the outcome of his feud with the Southern wing of the Senate Democrats which brought demands from Senator Byrd for his replacement as campaign chairman, even though he had planned to relinquish the job long ago.

Mr. Byrd and other Southerners began demanding Mr. Guffey’s scalp after the Pennsylvania Senator charged the federal soldier-vote bill was killed by amendment by an “unholy alliance” of Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans.

At the time, Mr. Guffey let it be known that he had been trying to get rid of the job to which he was twice appointed, and expected to be replaced because one of Pennsylvania’s Senate seats is involved in this year’s election.

It was also reported at the time that Mr. Guffey had handed his resignation to Senator Barkley about Dec. 1. Several weeks ago, there were indications that administration forces, in a move to appease Southern Democrats, would dump Mr. Guffey. Mr. Barkley, who appoints the campaign chairman, wouldn’t comment.

A new rule is found

When he announced the forthcoming change, however, Mr. Barkley said Mr. Guffey had resigned, and promised a further statement in a few days. Mr. Guffey promptly said he had been removed, and said he would make his statement later.

In the delicate maneuvering to avoid hurting anybody’s feelings, a brand-new Senate precedent was discovered – that a campaign chairman can’t serve when an election is underway in his own state. Previously, the practice was to replace the campaign chairman only when his own seat was up for election, some Senators contended, and that was why Mr. Guffey stepped out of the post in 1940 when he was reelected.

2619

Editorial: Another prediction

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2620

Editorial: Conventions resume

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2621

Editorial: Hitler’s last mile?

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2622

americavotes1944

Editorial: The party line

Earl Browder, America’s No. 1 Communist, is urging the Republican and Democratic parties to “explore the possibility” of a single presidential candidate in 1944.

Mr. Browder says thus “unprecedented measure” should be taken to “meet an unprecedented emergency.”

Being unlike any other, this war, of course, is posing unprecedented problems for Americans which they are meeting with unprecedented measures.

But even these unprecedented measures must lie within the basic framework of democracy or we should be guilty of scuttling the very thing we fight to preserve.

There is never – and can never be – such an unprecedented emergency that the people of a democracy must yield the fundamental right to choose their representative and, above all, their chief representative – the President.

Whether Mr. Roosevelt is to receive a fourth term, or whether some Republican or some other Democrat is to be entrusted with the Presidency, is for the people to decide.

An election campaign which would present but one candidate to the people would be a denial of the democratic concept of freedom of choice.

It would, in fact, constitute a scrapping of democracy for the “one-party line” of the Communists.

Editorial: An insult to whom?

Senator Taft calls President Roosevelt’s soldier-vote message an “insult to Congress.”

Maybe so. But what would you call Congress’ mismanagement of this issue?

It will be an insult, and more, to the Armed Forces if they are deprived in the least degree of an opportunity to vote.

2623

Edson: Labor adjustment biggest post-war problem we face

By Peter Edson

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2624

Ferguson: Postcard miracle

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

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2625

americavotes1944

Background of news –
New Dealers woo Farley

By George Van Slyke, North American Newspaper Alliance

New York –
President Roosevelt’s bid for a truce with the conservative branch of the Democratic Party marks a complete reversal of the politics of his two preceding national campaigns and is accepted today by leaders in both the New Deal and right-wing camps as confession of concern over the fourth-term candidacy.

If the White House were not alarmed over the deep split in the party ranks, it is regarded as certain that the national committee dominated completely by the President would not have about-faced in its sessions Jan. 22 in Washington and made its amazing appeal to James A. Farley to forget the past and come back home.

For the first time since the long battle was waged through the President’s second term to purge the Supreme Court and old-line Democratic Senators and Congressmen has Mr. Roosevelt made such a move for harmony.

Party unity deemed essential

Second only in political importance to the formal launching of the fourth-term campaign six months in advance of the original White House schedule, the overture to Mr. Farley as head and front of the anti-fourth-term candidacy is the most significant move so far made by the New Dealers.

Following Mr. Farley’s battle against the third term in the 1940 convention, he fell into disfavor with the President and New Deal politicians and was dropped without ceremony or apology.

It has been an open secret for the last year that Mr. Farley was the driving power behind the anti-New Deal campaign against a fourth term. Now that the campaign is actually underway, the fourth-term managers have recognized that Mr. Roosevelt must have a unanimous party behind him in the 1944 election if he is to overcome the losses he had sustained on the home front in the last four years.

This is the first definite move initiated by New Dealers in more than six years to bridge the old party split, most serious in the Democratic ranks since the Prohibition fight in the 1928 campaign with Al Smith as the nominee.

Post-election brushoff expected

Judging from all surface indications, the old party chiefs with the exception of the Hague-Flynn-Kelly combination are distinctly cool to the New Deal overture. Evidently, they regard it as a mere gesture which would hold through the campaign this year by […] Mr. Roosevelt’s candidacy and the New Deal bosses and then collapse and […] further assurance on that subject.

Mr. Farley has made no comment on the action of the Democrats in lauding him to the skies as their greatest leader. It has not been possible to reach him for comment which in itself is unusual as he is as a rule approachable on any political subject.

He is leaving in a few days for a six weeks’ business trip across the country and his office has stated it was to be strictly a business tour. However, it will not be surprising if the Democrats flock around to see him in every state he enters.

2626

Reports of steel plant closing to be probed

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3-point plan advanced for Nazi economy

Allied control over German fiscal policy urged after war

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2627

Millett: Baby has right to mothering

Substitute caretaker is unfair to infant who must come first
By Ruth Millett

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2628

CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
Hard-boiled!

By Maxine Garrison

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2629

americavotes1944

pegler

Pegler: Dewey campaign

By Westbrook Pegler

Albany, New York –
Quite a lot of trained observers, as reporters are sometimes called, will be dropping into Albany between now and June to take looks at Tom Dewey in the role of governor because it looks as though he will be the Republican nominee against his predecessor in the little office on the second floor of the great monstrous heap of a building called the State Capitol of New York. In some ways the situation resembles that of 1932 when Mr. Roosevelt was beginning to get hot and so many of us thought that if we could just have legalized light wine and beer most of our troubles would be solved. Governor Dewey hasn’t said he wants the nomination but neither has he said he will not accept it and you can sure he will because he will have to. How could he refuse?

Suppose then that in the election he wins and Mr. Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt pack up and move back to New York or Hyde Park and the New Deal crowds go swarming out of town in a great exodus. That is not an easy supposition because even Mr. Dewey’s best friends won’t claim that against the Roosevelt organization and the soldier vote which would go to the C-in-C. Mr. Dewey has an even chance.

Something of a job

However, it might happen and in that case, a hard-working, conscientious ambitious young fellow of 42 would be pitched into a career of terrible responsibility, work, worry and heartache.

He would have to take over the presidency of an enormous nation in this awful war and replace thousands of New Deal people with his own, keep the war running to victory, get acquainted with Churchill, or Eden and Stalin, clean up the labor mess, stand off inflation, and finally, make a beginning at least in the appalling problem of bringing the fighters home from Europe, if not from Asia, India and the South Pacific, and easing them back into jobs, not on public payrolls but in private industry in such a way as to stand off commotions.

It is not a job that any honest man would court out of vanity or an ambition to be historic or for any other motive but a deep desire to serve his country and his people.

A gleaming, black eye

Mr. Dewey is campaigning, if you care to say so, by keeping right on top of his job as governor and turning in a remarkably fine performance, getting along well with politicians and others, running a good state and just doing his work. He always ran a good office as District Attorney in New York where he and his staff were an enthusiastic team very little bothered by jealously or friction and the only had press he received was traceable to personal dislike of him because he has a way of putting the eye on you with those gleaming back orbs which seem almost to pop when he gets enthusiastic or mad, or because he was inclined to be cocky as, indeed, he was, being a young fellow and very smart and full of success.

He is less cocky now and thoroughly mature and he offers remarks that government is a profession requiring experience and great, constant application, which hasn’t meant to me he was trying to improve himself in the art of government for the purpose of returning to private law practice. Young fellows who come in from the country and make good spectacularly in New York are inclined to throw weight about but if that was one of Mr. Dewey’s faults when he was throwing the New York racketeers and some of the toughest of the lowdown politicians into Sing Sing, he is grown up now.

It’s different now

I believe he would have been mangled if he, instead of Willkie, had been nominated in 1940 not only because he was still a little green but because the people would have shied away from the idea of a 40-year-old President, with the war turning up our street.

But at 42, Mr. Dewey has served a trick as governor of a state of tremendous interests and problems and all with a sure, confident hand and no faltering and has shown a disposition and the ability to reduce taxes and prevent squandering and to treat the people as citizens, not wards of the state or subjects of a ruler.

That soldier vote will be a great handicap, though. They don’t know him, they live from day to day in misery and doubt and it is natural to suppose that they will vote for the commander-in-chief, even for a fourth term, provided by November the war still goes as well as it does.

2630

Clapper: 164 to 4

By Raymond Clapper

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2631

Maj. de Seversky: Thunderbolt’s use as bomber indicates engine changes increased horsepower

By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky

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2632

Networks set stage for staticless shows

NBC and CBS offer programs without cost
By Si Steinhauser

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2633

Discrimination barred

Trenton, New Jersey –
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Negro children cannot be assigned to schools exclusively for Negro students when there are other public schools offering similar class work nearer their homes.

2634

Völkischer Beobachter (February 2, 1944)

So stellen sich die US-Gangster den ‚Frieden‘ vor –
Sie wollen auch Japan auslöschen

100 Millionen Japaner sollen in einer ‚Volksrepublik‘ ohne Industrie und Handelsflotte verhungern

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2635

Folgen der Liebedienerei –
Juden in USA immer frecher

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2636

Die Kulturbringer sind da!
Negerdivision in Italien

dnb. Stockholm, 1. Februar –
Von einem vorgeschobenen Flugstützpunkt in Italien teilt ein amerikanischer Korrespondent mit, daß die 99. Luftdivision, die ausschließlich aus Negern besteht, einen Bestandteil des 12. Luftkorps bildet, das für den Brückenkopf südlich von Rom den Luftschutz ausübt.