Draft dodger Bergdoll let out of prison
Government closes books on wealthy fugitive of World War I
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Appropriation bill reduced by $23 million
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U.S. fliers downed in Yugoslavia rescued
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British occupy Burmese town
RAF, U.S. planes attack Jap positions, river craft
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Senator Vandenberg supports MacArthur
Washington (UP) –
Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-MI) said today that he favored Gen. Douglas MacArthur for President because he would be a “better commander-in-chief” than President Roosevelt – particularly “if by next November, we are concentrating on wiping Japan from the Pacific map.”
Explaining his support of Gen. MacArthur, Mr. Vandenberg opposed nominating a civilian on the Republican ticket on the ground that he would not be impressive against “Roosevelt’s ‘win-the-war’ appeal, and against ‘swapping horses,’ etc.”
Germans kill medic despite Red Cross sign
Yank machine-gunned as he tries to assist wounded men
By Robert Vermillion, United Press staff writer
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Democrats saved nation, new chairman asserts
Birmingham, Alabama (UP) –
The Democratic administration, “which has piloted us through the perils of the past decade, saved the nation and then gave it the strength and determination to defeat its enemies,” Robert E. Hannegan, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in a prepared address read here last night.
The speech, delivered at a Jackson Day dinner, was read by Edward W. Pauley, party treasurer, who earlier told newsmen that if President Roosevelt wants the nomination for a fourth term, “he’ll get it.”
Both Mr. Hannegan and Postmaster General Frank C. Walker, who was originally scheduled to make the address, were prevented from appearing, Mr. Hannegan because weather conditions grounded his plane in Washington and Mr. Walker because of a death in his family.
Roosevelt praises ‘nerve’ of Willkie
Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt admitted today that Wendell L. Willkie had more nerve than he had when it came to calling for higher taxes.
Asked during his news conference for comment on Mr. Willkie’s recent speech calling for higher taxation, the President said that he did not have the nerve to ask for $16 billion in new taxes, as Mr. Willkie did. With a smile, the President remarked that he had asked only for $10 billion.
He added that as far as Mr. Willkie’s statement and his own position were concerned, he thought they were thinking a little bit more about the next generation and not just this one.
Wallace on West Coast
Los Angeles, California –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace will arrive here today for a three-day tour of war industries and a series of speeches.
Lodge quits Senate to enter service
Washington (UP) –
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA) today submitted his resignation from the Senate so that he may enter active military service.
Mr. Lodge is expected to become a lieutenant colonel. He has been a reserve officer and in 1942 had a tour of duty as a major with U.S. forces in the East Libyan desert – before President Roosevelt ruled that Congressmen could not serve in the armed services while still retaining their Congressional seats.
One report from Boston said Governor Leverett Saltonstall, a Republican, would resign and be succeeded by Lieutenant Governor Horace T. Cahill, a Republican, who then would appoint Mr. Saltonstall as Senator to succeed Mr. Lodge, whose term does not expire until 1949.
Mr. Saltonstall, here for an American Legion meeting, said he had known nothing about Mr. Lodge’s plan to resign and that he would consider the appointment “if and when” he resigns. Mr. Cahill described the report as “fiction and a fine fairy tale.”
Army commanders want more WACs
Washington (UP) –
Col. Oveta Culp Hobby, Women’s Army Corps director, says that “every commanding officer of every installation” she visited in England, North Africa, and Italy requested more WACs.
Col. Hobby and Lt. Col. Betty Bandel, senior air WAC officer, recently returned from an inspection of WAC overseas installations.
Col. Hobby predicted that WACs might follow invading armies once the lines and field headquarters are established, as they have in Italy. Of the approximately 3,000 WACs serving overseas, 350 are in Italy and about 2,000 in Africa, she said.
Even the sight of horrifying destruction in Italy failed to swerve the WACs from their duty, she said.
She said:
I didn’t see a WAC who wanted to come home.
Editorial: Two months late
It would be a fine thing if every person of voting age in the United States could vote this year at his home polling place.
It would be a fine thing if everybody could vote both in the primaries, which are straggled out from April to September, according to varying state laws, and in the November general election.
But the country is at war, and this isn’t possible.
It isn’t possible because millions of voters are fighting that war. Some of them are still in the United States, either in training or providing behind-the-gun service but they are scattered through hundreds of camps, depots, bases, stations and headquarters.
Millions of them are overseas, not only in Italy, England and New Britain, where the main fighting is going on, but at Pearl Harbor, in New Guinea, Algeria, Cairo, Iran, China, Burma, Australia, Bermuda, Panama, Brazil, Liberia, Tarawa, Alaska, Guadalcanal and hundreds of other places.
These men and women are not assigned their foreign stations, or their domestic bases, by geographical origin.
Members of the Armed Forces from Pittsburgh, as from every city, hamlet and township in the country, are distributed all over the world.
There are 48 states and 48 sets of election laws, widely different. To make it possible for each member of the Armed Forces to vote in strict compliance with the laws of his own state it would be necessary for the Army and Navy to suspend many other pressing war matters and detour an inconceivable amount of personnel and equipment to the job of distributing and collecting ballots from the thousand and one spots where American voters are stationed around the world.
Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Knox have said this is not possible. They have said the only way the Army and Navy can handle this problem is by making use of a “simple, uniform” ballot.
Some Congressmen and Senators dispute this. They say the whole matter can easily be handled by the Army and Navy despite the different systems, or by routine mail without any special help from the Army and Navy.
They could be right. But Mr. Knox and Mr. Stimson are in a better position to know. They have at their fingertips authoritative information from competent Army and Navy officers, at home and afield. They are familiar with the overall picture. And they have demonstrated a sincere interest in this problem.
How can we do else than accept their advice?
We have a letter from a Wilkinsburg naval officer, now overseas, who attempted to vote in the 1943 local election. Here is what he said:
My ballot for Nov. 2 election arrived Jan. 2. I didn’t even bother to fill it out. Personally, I’m quite disgusted. It was mailed Oct. 18. Whether it was the Navy’s fault or the fault of the Board of Education, I don’t know. But I do know that if ballots are held up for the presidential election, there’s going to be an awful howl raised by the men overseas. I wish something could be done about it.
Something can be done about it. Congress can do something about it. And Congress had better do it soon.
Editorial: Straight thinking from Willkie
Wendell L. Willkie’s views of fiscal policy, as set forth in his New York speech, are thoroughly sound. Unless we maintain vigorous economic health, we can neither play a successful major part in world affairs after the war nor realize our hopes for social gains and higher living standards here at home.
An economic bloodstream composed largely of debt will eventually starve all the cells in the body.
It has been said before that our standard of living will have to come down during the war. Mr. Willkie proposes to force it down by tax increases that would net twice the amount asked by the Treasury, about six times the amount voted by Congress.
We wish Mr. Willkie had been more specific as to what taxes he would lay. But he was thinking straight when he advocated, in general, ruthless levies on every dollar in every income group, leaving the American people only the actual necessities of life, in order to pay the costs of war while the war is being fought, to the limit of our ability.
This, he says, is only simple justice to the men who are doing the fighting; it is the way to save our standard of living in the future.
Expressing greater faith in the people than some others have shown, he predicts they would bear the burden willingly if given a clear understanding of the issues involved, and if assured that their money would not be wasted.
He recognizes, also, that the post-war period will present an entirely different problem. Then our desired objective will be to stimulate the flow of goods and services, the taking of risks, the creation of millions of peacetime jobs. Then will come the time for minimum rather than maximum taxes. And then the fiscal policy should be, not to impose the highest possible tax rates, but to provide the highest possible income so that relatively modest rates can provide necessary revenue.