Pegler: Robert Stroud
By Westbrook Pegler
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Clapper: Premonition
By Raymond Clapper
The poignant story below, written by Mr. Clapper shortly before his death in the battle of the Marshall Islands, seems almost to indicate a premonition of his own fate.
Aboard an aircraft carrier, somewhere in the Pacific –
To the men aboard a warship in a combat zone, religion becomes a far more important thing than you might suppose if you judged by civilian standards at home. You can get some idea of the reason why from the story of a flier who became afraid. I have his name, but I shall not use it now.
One of the chaplains was telling about it because it was a strange and puzzling experience. Chaplains have many unusual experiences with the men, because, as this one said, bluejackets are not as irreligious as they seem or want to appear.
This particular chaplain, a young man, has been with the Navy seven years. Before that, he was pastor of a Lutheran church at a West Coast port. There is also a priest aboard. And the gunnery officer, who once studied to be a rabbi, conducts Jewish services each Friday night, with a usual attendance of about 30. The several Mormons aboard attend the Protestant services.
Masses held daily
Sixty percent of the crew are Catholic. Mass is held daily. Protestants and Catholics each have a devotional service every evening. There are two masses on Sundays. Christian Science readings are given by a lay reader for a group of about 15.
That suggests the religious activity and interest among the 3,000 men aboard this carrier out here in the Pacific, where they are facing some pretty serious business for men of their years, or for men of any years for that matter. They want communion service before they go into combat. Before each action, prayers are always said over the loudspeaker system.
It was on Christmas Eve that the young man who was afraid, a radio gunner, came to the Protestant chaplain after communion and asked to see him privately. They were going to strike at Kavieng on Christmas morning, and this was the communion service the night before the dangerous mission.
We will just call this young man the unknown flier, for I suppose he was something like all of these men and like all the rest of us. Formerly he had been doing quiet patrol work in the Caribbean, and he asked for more active duty aboard a carrier. He was transferred to Norfolk for carrier training. There he met a girl and they were married, and some months later he came out here. Their baby is to be born this month, or it may have come into the world by now.
The young airman had been on five attacks during the softening up of Tarawa, on two against Nauru, and on the first very tough blow at Rabaul. So he had been through some of it.
Afraid to go up
On Christmas Eve, the chaplain sat down with him. The boy said his baby was to be born soon and he was afraid to go up the next day. The chaplain asked if he had ever been scared before. He said he had, but never like this. He said:
I have been sick to my stomach. I am so scared.
The chaplain said he thought he could get the boy excused from the Christmas Day raid. The boy wouldn’t hear of that. He said:
I am not yellow. I have to fly tomorrow. If I don’t, I will never fly again. I want you to help me.
The chaplain was silent for a moment before he went on. He told me:
I tried to assure him of the Lord’s care and that He would watch over him.
He said the boy was more afraid of being afraid than he was afraid of flying.
Early Christmas morning, the planes went out. When they came back, the young airman was dead in the rear cockpit. He was the only one hit among those who came back. There were only two small machine-gun bullet holes on the underside of the plane. Both these bullets hit him.
Because this carrier was operating under battle conditions, no regular services could be held Christmas Day. All hands were at battle stations all day. But a few minutes were taken out to hold services for burial at sea.
Three of us were in the room talking, and it was a long time before we looked up at each other.
The chaplain said at last:
I have heard of such things. But that was my first contact with it. It is one of those mysteries for which I can find no explanation. I don’t suppose anyone has found an explanation.
I don’t know exactly why I should feel the story of this young man so far down in my throat even now as I write it.
Old minstrel headliners made fortunes on road and Primrose saved his
By Douglas Gilbert, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Last of a series.
Lew Dockstader, one of the last great minstrel comics. His monologues were topical kidding and among those he ribbed, and impersonated, was Teddy Roosevelt, who enjoyed Lew’s characterization.
Minstrel entertainment was juvenile, yet its bucolic tomfoolery developed a number of eminent actors and vaudeville comics, all of whom began their careers in blackface. Among them were Joe Jefferson, Francis Wilson, Honey Boy Evans, Chauncey Olcott, Eddie Leonard and a score of others.
Few stuck strictly to minstrelsy, and these – Jack Haverly, George Thatcher, George Primrose, Billy West, Lew Dockstader and Neil O’Brien were some – prospered greatly in the heydays of trouping (in passing, Joe White, who became the Silver Masked Tenor of radio, sang for Neil O’Brien a number of seasons).
George Primrose, whose specialty was soft-shoe dancing, was one of the most popular minstrels throughout the ‘90s, with Dockstader, with whom he later teamed, a runner-up. Each made fortunes, and the thrifty Primrose saved his. He settled in Mount Vernon, New York, in a gingerbread mansion and the grateful town named a street after him.
It is generally believed that Primrose began his career with McFarland’s Minstrels in Detroit in 1868, but his widow, the former Katherine Trueblood, says he teamed up with Billy West and danced in a Chicago free-and-easy, as low dives were then called.
George Primrose and Billy West, regarded by some old-timers as the greatest team in minstrelsy. Primrose was tops as a soft-shoe dancer, now largely a lost art.
Later they formed their own company and, as Primrose & West, achieved astonishing success. In 1893, celebrating their 25th anniversary in Madison Square Garden (then in Madison Square), they put on perhaps the largest minstrel show of all time – 300 performers. Primrose asserted that one day’s receipts totaled $12,000 which is more like a fight gate.
A sob in a song
It was through the medium of Primrose & West that Edward B. Marks, the music publisher, exploited “The Little Lost Child” or “A Passing Policeman.” This was the first of the illustrated slide songs which Marks wrote to the music of his then partner, Joseph W. Stern. It was a sobber about a girl whose finding by a policeman led to the policeman’s reunion with his estranged wife.
Marks asked Primrose if he would permit the minstrel tenor, Allan May, to sing the song to illustrations that he (Marks) would provide. Primrose was indifferent, but West said definitely no, held that such monkey business didn’t belong in minstrels.
Can’t say no
You just don’t say no to Ed Marks, and he finally gained grudging consent to put it on his way at a Wednesday matinee in the Grand Opera House, 8th Avenue and 23rd Street. The slides had been made from photographs by George H. Thomas, a competent photographer when working with a Niagara Falls backdrop, but completely lost in this new medium.
The original shots were authentic. Marks brought Thomas out to the Lee Avenue (Brooklyn) police station, and with the cajolery characteristic of all music publishers induced a real cop and an equally real urchin to pose in the setting of a bona fide precinct house.
Thomas transferred his negatives to slides and Marks, elated at the chance and feeling sure it would go over, awaited the forthcoming matinee. It came soon enough. At the Olio, Allan May stepped out on the stage as Thomas took his post in the balcony at the sputtering stereopticon machine.
Now Jim Fisk had owned the Grand Opera House (it still stands) and the admiral of the Fall River and Bristol lines always did everything in spades, doubled, with Technicolor. His Grand Opera House had two of everything and twice as big.
Thomas flashed his first slide. It pictured a policeman 15 feet tall standing on his head, and West, incensed, chased Marks and Thomas out of the theater. Undaunted, Marks rehearsed Thomas, who eventually got the knack. Then, with Primrose’s aid, Marks got West to consent to one more performance at the Saturday matinee.
It not only stopped the show – it started exploitation that sold more than a million copies of “Little Lost Child.” It also influenced others to make slide songs, among them Joe Howard, who similarly presented Marks’ song, “My Mother Was a Lady.”
Before she went trouping with her husband, Mrs. Primrose operated a stenographic office in a St. Louis hotel. In the early 1900s, when Primrose was playing that city, his box-office girl and bookkeeper fell ill. Miss Trueblood was recommended and she got the job for the St. Louis engagement.
Primrose’s Minstrels went on to Nashville and there the sick girl died. Primrose promptly wired Miss Trueblood to come on and join the troupe. She did, and finished out the season – the first of many for her.
Primrose married at 65
Long a widower, Primrose one day said to her:
I am growing old and I need a companion. I don’t know anybody I’d rather leave my name with than you. I don’t expect you to love me. I just want kindness.
They were married to Rochester, New York, when Primrose was 65.
Mrs. Primrose has devoted her life to keeping her husband’s memory alive. In 1918, she put on a blackface act, a sort of miniature minstrel show, and took it out on the Loew circuit. In white face and evening gown, she acted as interlocutor, probably the only woman ever to assume the role in the history of minstrelsy.
Primrose was an ardent poker player, but his wife would only allow him $10 a week for the game. One midnight in Knoxville, Tennessee, Primrose (with George Thatcher, Billy West and some others) entered their private car and started a game.
As Primrose dealt, a policeman, under a magistrate’s orders, arrested the players and subsequently they were fined a total of $100. Seems they were violating an ordinance against gambling. Earlier in the day, Primrose, grateful for the support of Knoxville patrons (the troupe had played to standing room) had taken out a large “thank you” ad in the local papers.
Arrest called an insult
Recalling the incident years later, Primrose observed:
And the advertisement ran the next day right alongside of the story of our ignominious arrest.
The Mayor was so indignant at what he termed “an insult to a great performer and friend of Knoxville,” he ordered the fine remitted and sent the money to Primrose, then playing Louisville. Primrose promptly returned the sum, asking that it be credited to some local charity.
Minstrelsy was never an art. It was a rowdy-dowdy, lampblacked harlequinade with music and song, awkward, yet genial, a sort of bucolic friendliness reflecting the spirit of homespun days that, in the speed and madness of contemporary times, is as fated as a comic valentine.
Bricker favors Army vote by states
Ohio Governor tells capital questioners he’s for more federal economy; thinks GOP will surely win
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio, bringing to the capital his campaign for the 1944 Republican presidential nomination, today put himself on record as favoring regular state ballots for service personnel and called for drastic reduction in federal payrolls.
Displaying his political wares to a press conference shortly after arriving here, he described the soldier vote controversy as strictly a political issue which he thought should be solved by using regular state ballots rather than the federal ballots advocated by President Roosevelt.
Wants no outside help
He also took occasion to protest against interference with the coming presidential campaign by foreign sources. One of the 50-odd political writers present asked what he thought of recent comment in the British press that Mr. Roosevelt should be reelected.
Mr. Bricker replied:
I think we ought to elect our own President. It is none of their business. We can take care of our own affairs.
Governor Bricker declined to say how much taxes he thought Congress should impose at this time, saying only that he hoped the measure recently approved by Congress a few days ago would be adequate. The need, he added, is not now so much for additional taxes as it is for effecting a drastic saving in government.
Federal payroll too big
“Where would you cut first?” he was asked.
He replied that there are roughly 3.5 million employees of the federal government, and hundreds of thousands of them could be dispensed with.
Governor Bricker said he was also opposed to federal housing, declaring that he saw no reason why the government should go in competition with private builders. Asked if he believed that there could be effective slum clearance under the direction of private enterprise, Governor Bricker replied:
Yes. If there can’t be, then the country is hopeless. We would have to change our system of government. and I certainly don’t want to do that.
‘Any Republican can win’
On other subjects, Governor Bricker:
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Saw no reason for a federal work program to absorb unemployment after the war.
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Was supremely confident that the Republicans would win the Presidency in November regardless of who the nominee may be.
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Thought the Republicans were better equipped than the Democrats to handle post-war problems.
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Said the Republican Party foreign policy plank – would probably be formulated along the lines of the policy drafted by GOP leaders last year at Mackinac Island.
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Denounced the administration’s food subsidy play as “unsound.”
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Described the winning of the war as the most important single issue in the coming political campaign, and said the war is being conducted in a way which all Americans can be proud.
Gives Roosevelt credit
“Do you give Roosevelt any credit for that?” he was asked.
He replied:
Certainly. And I believed the armed services should be allowed to continue to wage the war as they are doing now.
Governor Bricker will speak tonight at the first of some 2,000 Lincoln Day celebrations scheduled throughout the nation by Republicans to spark their effort to regain control of the White House and Congress.
The Ohio Governor goes to the National Press Club tomorrow for a luncheon speaking engagement.
Tonight’s appearance is in effect a trial run for Governor Bricker before the appraising eyes of top drawer party leaders, some of whom have other favorites but are willing to be convinced. He will speak at a $5-a-plate dinner which, the GOP emphasizes, is not a money-raising affair.
KDKA will broadcast the address at 10:30 ET tonight.
Wallace standards are 40% higher
Seattle, Washington (UP) –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace said last night America’s biggest job after the war will be to supply a standard of living at least 40% higher than ever before.
This can be done only through full employment of resources, manpower and skills, Mr. Wallace said in an address in the civic auditorium in which he denounced the “scarcity economics” of “the American fascists of Wall Street.”
American fascists, he added, are those “who believe that Wall Street comes first and the country second.”
He cited Russia as a country where nearly everyone feels:
He is directly working for the welfare of the whole nation.
Mr. Wallace said post-war taxation should be aimed more skillfully at economic objectives and implied that heavy taxes should be applied to large corporate reserves.
He said:
By our taxation system, we must encourage the small and rapidly growing enterprise because such enterprises are the seedbed of the employment of the future.
In an impromptu address to the Washington Press Club earlier in the day, Mr. Wallace predicted further development of Alaska after the war and advocated the construction of another Alaska highway.
He said:
Our transportation routes to Alaska should be continued across the Bering Sea to Russia and the Orient.
Willkie outlines his farm program
Boise, Idaho (UP) –
Wendell L. Willkie today took President Roosevelt has not made known his plans for a possible fourth term.
Mr. Willkie told Idaho Republican leaders at a meeting here:
The President in press conferences kids, dodges and laughs. About what? On a question involving your future happiness, your life, your wellbeing.
The 1940 Republican presidential nominee who is aspiring for the GOP bid again this year said that:
If I have the power – and perhaps I won’t – I am going to force a discussion in America of the questions America had to decide in 1944.
I find some people talking about evading the issues, when what America does at this time will determine not only her future, but the future of mankind.
Many of the Idaho Republican Party officers to whom Mr. Willkie spoke have already gone on record as favoring New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey for this year’s GOP nomination. However, after the meeting, Governor C. A. Bottolfsen praised Willkie’s “fine, straight-forward talk” and said he thought Mr. Willkie “made many friends.”
Writing in the March issue of Successful Farming, Mr. Willkie outlined his own farm program for the first time in the 1944 campaign.
Briefly, it is:
First, correct the glaring administrative weaknesses in the war effort on the farm front.
Then move onward to a program based on expanding markets.
Drop production control and produce to the limit.
Develop a sound national conservation program.
Support farm prices at a fair level and maintain basic-commodity loans.
Pursue every scientific possibility to expand the farmers’ market.
Finally, cooperate with the world to make a prosperous agriculture at home.
Dewey petitions started
Morristown, New Jersey –
Petitions were being circulated today to enter the name of Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York in the New Jersey presidential preference primary on May 16. Petitions must have 1,500 signatures.
Völkischer Beobachter (February 11, 1944)
U-Boote versenkten 62.000 BRT im Nordatlantik und im Indischen Ozean
Erneute sowjetische Durchbruchsversuche gescheitert
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U.S. Navy Department (February 11, 1944)
Communiqué No. 505
Pacific and Far East.
U.S. submarines have reported the following results of operations against the enemy in these waters:
SUNK:
- 1 large auxiliary.
- 2 medium transports.
- 1 medium cargo transport.
- 2 large tankers.
- 5 medium freighters.
- 1 small freighter.
These actions have not been announced in any previous Navy Department communiqué.
CINCPAC Press Release No. 266
For Immediate Release
February 11, 1944
Wake Island was attacked by Coronado bombers of Fleet Air Wing Two on February 10 (West Longitude Date). This was the second attack on Wake within two days. We suffered no loss.
Seventh Army Air Force Liberators, Mitchells, Dauntless dive bombers and Warhawk fighters continued raids against enemy‑held Marshall Islands atolls during February 10. The Liberators dropped 72 tons of bombs in the target areas, the Mitchells 13 tons and the dive bombers and fighters more than 15 tons, in addition to their heavy strafing. No fighter opposition was encountered in any of these raids.
Our warships bombarded an important enemy‑held atoll in the Marshalls group without drawing return fire.
The Pittsburgh Press (February 11, 1944)
50,000 GERMANS ATTACK, BEACHHEAD DANGER GROWS
Bombers out in force trying to stem Nazis
Allies taking heavy toll of enemy
By Robert V. Vermillion, United Press staff writer
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Too unpleasant for public!
Army finally tells of plight at Anzio
Allied headquarters believes people at home must be shielded; peril of troops with backs to sea begins to come out
By Donald C. Coe, United Press staff writer
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U.S. protest to Japs list 18 atrocities
Government charges enemy with inhuman cruelty to Americans
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24 aboard believed dead –
Lost airliner found in river near Memphis
Rescuers using grappling hooks bring up part of plane
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Several indicted by U.S. –
Jury throws book at Charlie Chaplin
Miss Barry’s charges may mean prison for comedian
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But how to collect ‘em?
Union seeks to exact dues from German war prisoners
Closed shop contract with produce farm cited in AFL group’s demand for 25¢ a week
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Strike ban urged –
Bricker extends a friendly hand to Congressmen
Reversing Willkie’s tactics, Ohio Governor seeks to play legislators against a ‘weak’ executive
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
Governor John W. Bricker’s Lincoln Day speech proposal for absolute prohibition of wartime strikes aroused top interest here today among the issues discussed by the Ohioan in his pre-convention campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
But Governor Bricker’s bid for consideration in this political hotspot proved to be a combination of bitter denunciation of the Roosevelt administration and of significantly kind words for Congress. He pegged his appeal on domestic issues, but did propose that the United States “should take her place in a cooperative organization among sovereign nations after this war.”
Differs from Willkie
His tactics were in contrast with those of Wendell L. Willkie, the Ohio Governor’s most active opponent, who occasionally undertakes to shake Congress by the ears, losing more than a few friends thereby.
Governor Bricker challenged “weakness of the New Deal in handling labor relations” and said:
A law should be enacted by Congress laying down fundamental principles for the administration and adjudication of labor disputes and the prohibition of strikes in time of war.
He said it was too late now to consider a national service act as proposed by Mr. Roosevelt.
In a final major appearance here today, Governor Bricker told the National Press Club at a luncheon that he proposed that the term of the President be limited to one six-year term or two four-year terms. He preferred the latter, he said, but in any event believed that the tenure “must be restricted.”
Express Democratic help
Rep. Joseph W. Martin (R-MA), introducing Governor Bricker to the Mayflower Hotel audience, said it was the largest Republican gathering held here in a dozen years. He predicted victory in this year’s elections, but said it would not be Republican victory alone.
He said:
Victory will come because millions of honest, sincere, patriotic Jeffersonian Democrats will submerge part to the welfare of their country and because independent voters will unite with us.
He told last night’s audience that Mr. Roosevelt’s policies were leading the country to socialism, if not communism.
Proposes fiscal program
In his prepared text, he proposed a new fiscal program linked with early post-war balancing of the budget art a rate of spending approximating $15 billion a year. Here is Governor Bricker’s substitute for what he termed Mr. Roosevelt’s policy of “spend, waste, borrow and tax:”
- Simplify and stabilize the tax laws.
- Use the tax power to raise necessary revenue and not “as an undercover method of effecting social changes.”
- Limit federal taxation so that adequate revenue sources will remain to the states and local governments.
- Adhere to fiscal and tax policies which will stimulate private enterprise and venture capital.
- Reduce federal taxes as soon as possible after victory.
We’re all in the war
Charging that the Roosevelt administration has “bewildered and oppressed” the people, Governor Bricker said:
The New Deal is the American counterpart of the sweep of absolutism which has destroyed so much liberty around the world.
He sought to rebuke Mr. Roosevelt for personifying his administration as “Dr. Win-the-War.”
Mr. Bricker said:
Winning the war is not a partisan opportunity. It is an American responsibility.
Governor Bricker’s bid for Congressional friendship and support was direct and full of sympathy. He said:
The time has come to take the policymaking of government out of the hands of the arrogant bureaucrats and return it to the hands of the elected representatives of the people.
Willkie wants party to look forward
Seattle, Washington (UP) –
Wendell L. Willkie, 1940 Republican presidential candidate, accused the administration of “fighting a soft war” last night and said the people would willingly bear an increased tax burden if the government made an effort to halt the “reckless expenditure of their money.”
Mr. Willkie told a Lincoln Day audience of 2,500 persons:
After the war, we should reverse our taxation system in order to stimulate our economy and prove the largest possible national income.
If the Republican nominee is a forward-looking leader, the rank and file of the party will rally as a unit in his support.
Statement is explained
He confirmed a statement attributed to him at Baker, Oregon, earlier in the day in which he was quoted:
I’m going to be nominated for the Presidency on the Republican ticket.
He smilingly recounted the incident, saying about 300 persons gathered at his train when it stopped in Baker briefly.
He said:
I made a few remarks and among other things said, “I’m going to take you into my confidence – I’m going to be the Republican nominee for President.” You wouldn’t expect me to tell them I was not going to be the nominee, would you?
Program outlined
Mr. Willkie revealed that following an address in Tacoma today and an appearance in Portland, he would fly to Sacramento Sunday and have lunch with Governor and Mrs. Earl Warren and make a radio address there Sunday afternoon. Mr. Willkie has agreed not to enter the California primary, in favor of Warren.
Denying to reporters that the Republican Party is divided, Mr. Willkie said it was natural for the party out of power to have leaders with diverse ideas, and added that the election of 26 governors and additional members of both houses of Congress had given the party “new vigor.”
Sees Roosevelt handicap
In support of his charge that the Democratic Party is divided, he cited refusal of “a committee of Democrats” to support the Treasury Department’s tax program, which he said was itself “wholly inadequate,” and the fact that the states’-rights soldier vote bill was prepared “by members of the President’s own party in opposition to the administration-supported federal ballot bill.”
The Democratic Party is “decadent and falling apart” and President Roosevelt, if reelected, would be frustrated by the division in its ranks, he insisted.
He said:
I am going to break this power in Washington if I can, for if I don’t, everything I hold precious will disappear.
Wallace puzzled by Johnston plaint
Minneapolis, Minnesota (UP) –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace said today that he had not talked to President Roosevelt regarding his candidacy for Vice President in the November elections.
Mr. Wallace, who stopped in the Twin-Cities for several hours when his Seattle to Chicago plane was grounded by storms southeast of here, said:
But then I did not consult with him in 1940 either.
Mr. Wallace said that he had found “an unusual sentiment in the West for a fourth term for Roosevelt.”
When informed that Eric A. Johnston, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was critical of his speech at Seattle last night. Mr. Wallace said he could not “see any reason for that.” Mr. Wallace had labeled certain business interests as fascist in tendency.
In Washington, Mr. Johnston said Mr. Wallace was sowing “seeds of disunity… on the event of an invasion which will bring our most crucial military test.”
Mr. Johnston said:
Name calling by the Vice President of the United States is the wrong way to get national unity in this hour of crisis…
American business despises fascism. If there is a threat of it in this country, it is not to be found in big business, but in big government.