Heavy snows borne to East by cold gales
Heaviest storm of season threatens to block New England
By the United Press
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Cheaper train meals urged for soldiers
Congress offered measure by sponsor of plan for free furlough rides
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Editorial: Mr. Hearst goes too far!
Publication of the shocking story of Japanese atrocities against American and Filipino prisoners of war naturally caused untold anguish and concern in the homes of every American listed as captured or missing in the Pacific area. Their cup of grief and worry is already running over.
But as if their burden were not great enough, certain newspaper strategists are trying to convince the American people that our national leaders are not trying to help them – this in the face of Secretary Hull’s disclosure that more than 80 protests have been made to the Japanese government on behalf of the captives and that a long struggle has been waged through every diplomatic source to relieve their plight. This in the face of the speeding up of the Pacific War, the capture of Kwajalein Atoll, the shelling of Paramushiru, the efforts of our fleet to lure the Japanese Navy into battle and all the other evidence of more vigorous and successful prosecution of the Pacific War.
William Randolph Hearst writes:
One would naturally expect that the administration and Congress would immediately formulate a plan to get our men out of the clutches of Japan.
But at this writing, Congress and the administration remain as inactive before this heartbreaking question as if it had never arisen.
Nothing could be more false, and we are certain that most people will realize this. But there may be some who, in their anguish, in their hoping against hope, in their prayers that something, somehow, may happen to save their loved ones, will be influenced by the widespread publication of such charges to believe that they are being ignored.
There are only two ways to relieve the plight of the American prisoners of Japan. One is by diplomacy, the other by force. The State Department, the Red Cross and other agencies of mercy have done everything within their power to get Japan to observe the rules of the Geneva Covenant governing the treatment of war prisoners, but in vain. The Army and Navy and Marines are applying force – but the struggle is terrific and the obstacles enormous.
Can it be said that America remains “inactive” when our soldiers and Marines and fliers and sailors are daily shedding their blood to defeat Japan and rescue their captured comrades?
But Mr. Hearst does say it. He continues:
What is being done by the rulers of our government to prevent a repetition of these ghastly outrages?
The answer is: NOTHING.
This amounts to a charge of treason against the President and the other responsible leaders of the war. It is a deliberate, definite statement that they are not making an effort to save and protect American soldiers and sailors captured by the enemy. If true, it would mean that our war is a phony war; that our leadership is faithless; that the captives in the Pacific have been betrayed.
This is not true; and even the bitterest critics of our national leadership will generally admit it.
To try to convince the American people of such things; to publish them for the men in our Armed Forces to read; to proclaim them to the tortured and sorrowing families of the men in captivity, is an unpardonable assault on national unity, on the faith of our people in their military leaders and on the integrity and patriotism of our American commanders.
Editorial: Bricker goes to Washington
Governor Bricker of Ohio went to Washington last night to make a campaign speech. His indictment of bureaucracy and of concentration of power in the President was effective.
He read the record: Relegating Congress to an inferior position, attempting to pack the Supreme Court, moving into fields of state and local administration, expanding authority of the White House at the expense of coordinate branches of government. This process, he said, operates on pap and patronage – particularly the deficit financing of spend-waste-borrow-tax. Unless checked, it can destroy the autonomy of state governments, the federal system, and free enterprise.
Apparently, the President himself is aware of the public reaction on this subject, or he would not be so anxious to bury the New Deal label, which now evokes more moans than cheers.
Governor Bricker, for his domestic policy would eliminate overlapping boards and bureaus. He favors “a sound constructive post-war tax policy,” including simplification of returns stabilization, taxation for revenue rather than for social changes, adequate revenue sources for the states, encouragement of venture capital and private enterprise, and reduction of federal taxes “as soon as possible after victory.”
His foreign policy was hardly mentioned. To say that “we want no super-government,” but membership in a cooperative organization among sovereign nations, is clear so far as it goes.
But to say “an international cooperative organization, whatever precise form it may take, can solve the problems which lead to war and fulfill the hopes of our people for a peaceful and better world” means little or nothing. If he has knowledge of foreign affairs or conviction on foreign policy, he is keeping it quiet. Maybe he will speak out as the campaign progresses.
Editorial: A clean fight won’t hurt
Republican manipulators whose money and activity have out them in positions of party leadership have decided against risking a primary fight in a year when they think they have a chance to carry Pennsylvania.
Specifically, they have decided against opposing U.S. Senator James J. Davis, who will be a candidate for renomination in the April primary, although they have consistently been against Mr. Davis in former elections.
Credit for this development must go to Governor Edward Martin and, from the standpoint of party interest and discipline, it was a magnanimous and intelligent decision. Mr. Martin has now love for Senator Davis, whom he fought for the governorship nomination in 1942.
The other two manipulators, Joseph R. Grundy, who symbolizes and directs the bulk of the so-called Old Guard faction of the party, and Joseph N. Pew of Philadelphia, who has contributed a disproportionate share of campaign expenses in recent years, also sacrificed some pride on coming to this conclusion – because they likewise haven’t had much time for Mr. Davis.
But the whole maneuver, despite the mutual buttering-up, was founded on expediency. It didn’t stem from any respect for Senator Davis’ statesmanship, but from fears that a vigorous primary battle might so cleave the party as to imperil success in the November election.
This type of thinking, which also characterizes the leadership in the Democratic Party, probably takes its roots from the 1938 primary when the Democrats, riding high up to that time, split in a bitter campaign and subsequently were decisively beaten in the November election.
But it wasn’t the mere fact that the Democrats disagreed over candidates in the primary which led to their downfall in Pennsylvania. Not even the vindictive mudslinging in which they engaged could be held solely accountable.
The Democrats were beaten in 1938 because they tried to scuttle the grand jury system. They were beaten because they abused and wasted the WPA. They were beaten because they became unreasonable and arrogant.
They would have been beaten, under these circumstances, even if their preceding primary had been a model of harmony and unity.
They beat themselves, but not because they indulged in a primary contest. That’s what primaries are for.
There is just as much reason for a party to get licked if it doesn’t put up its best candidates. And when the so-called party bosses grease the machinery so that all opposition is skidded out the door, the best candidates are seldom nominated.
A primary contest is a healthy thing. No party can long maintain virility without differences of opinion. And the place to settle those differences is in a free and open primary, not among a few self-constructed leaders in a backroom.
The primary need not degenerate into a mudslinging contest. Issues can be debated, constructively and informatively, as well as in a general election campaign.
The candidates who are nominated by the Republican Party in Pennsylvania – and the Democratic Party, too – should be nominated by the registered voters in that party, not by two or three scrapping leaders who get together and make a deal.
Ferguson: Women and home
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Observers report that feminine workers in England will never go back to the old-fashioned idea that “woman’s place is in the home.”
It would not sound so severe and would be nearer truth to say “home is woman’s destiny; she cannot escape it.”
It is unlikely that the majority of women will remain in industry after the war. Economic conditions will not permit it, unless the millennium is just around the corner, which I doubt. Millions of soldiers will be back demanding their old jobs; women will be asked to retire to the “sanctity of the kitchen,” and whether they like it or not they’ll be compelled to do so.
I dare say our standards of service will also rise. Because of manpower shortages, many inefficient and lazy people are now overpaid. That will pass. In the post-war world many women will find it difficult to keep pace with men, and by the same token many men will find that they are not as good at the job as some women. It should be the quality of the work that determines its awards, and on that ground, women can demand fair treatment.
The equal rights movement is sure to spread. There are no longer any reasonable arguments against it, now that women have proved their equality, ingenuity and efficiency during the war effort.
But as for saying that most of them will refuse to go home – that, too, is nonsense. We aren’t quite so dumb. We know that if all women hate the restriction of home and let their children be cared for by the community, the Americanism for which we are fighting will be dead.
Delay at Anzio laid to supply
Rommel got material there, Allies did not
By Col. Frederick Palmer, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Nazis flew in range of U.S. in 1943, officer discloses
Col. Balchen: Western Hemisphere invasion force prepared in Greenland
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Aussies reach U.S. beachhead in New Guinea
Junction opens way for attack on last three Japanese bases
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Fleet shells enemy atolls in Marshalls
Navy cleaning up remnants; Wake raided again by Coronados
By William F. Tyree, United Press staff writer
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Clapper: Striking force
By Raymond Clapper
A series of dispatches written by Mr. Clapper during the battle of the Marshall Islands, where he lost his life, has just arrived from the Pacific by wireless. The first follows.
With the Pacific Fleet, in the Marshall Islands – (by wireless)
We hit the Marshalls with so much that I hope the Navy at Washington breaks down and lets us tell all about it.
I hope the Navy tells how many battleships are in this fleet, because it’s more than you probably thought we had out here, I hope they tell you how many carriers are involved, because it’s more than you thought we had out here. And how many cruisers and destroyers – running into a list like a page out of the telephone book, and more than Japan has in her whole navy.
I hope the Navy for once breaks down and gives out the news, because I think that when the people of Japan and of Germany know what we are hitting with out here – just with one hand, while we haul back with our big haymaker in Europe – they will begin to sober up and think about where they are coming out of this war.
No kidding, this is the biggest amount of force that was ever assembled to strike on the seas of the earth. It makes the Battle of Jutland seem like a small exercise.
Too big for mind to grasp
I have been living with the fleet at sea for days now. But no one person can take it in. There are things that the human mind cannot really grasp. They say the human mind can just about comprehend the fact that the speed of light is seven and a half times around the earth in one second. But you can’t grasp the size of a star which is 200 times the diameter of our sun. Likewise, if the Navy gave you the statistics on this battle of the Marshalls, it might not mean much to you or me.
One of the gun turrets on one of the many battleships in this fight weighs almost as much as a whole destroyer. The tonnage of metal and explosives that this great fleet throws is something that can be expressed in figures but not really grasped.
This battle of the Marshall Islands is important not alone because we need the islands. This battle also tells Japan and Germany that America is now in there swinging as a heavyweight. Probably there is more Navy out here in the Marshalls than we had altogether before Pearl Harbor.
Japan may have been master of the Pacific for a time after our opening disaster. But she knows now that domination of the Pacific is being taken into our hands. It was no idle boast when Secretary of the Navy Knox said recently that he hoped the Japanese fleet would come out for a showdown. All of our Navy men out here have hoped for that, although none of them have expected Japan to take the risk.
Weapon for victory
The sea and airpower that we have sent into the Marshalls is the weapon by which we shall spearhead across the Pacific. It is the weapon by which we shall drive the aggressors back into complete defeat. And this fleet should be the means of making known that we are ready and able to take the responsibility for keeping peace and security in the Pacific – peace for all nations, and security for ourselves.
We need no territory, in the sense of real estate, for expansion. Yet we must retain these islands for which American blood has been shed. We must retain all the islands necessary for the security of the Pacific, which means islands close enough together to provide land-based air cover all around and across, such as Japan has maintained as far east as the Marshalls.
That is just a thought I throw in at this time for future development.
This is our first big battle. This is the first territory we have taken out of the Japanese Empire; previous victories were only recoveries of points seized by Japan in this war. Now we are biting into Japanese territory, breaking through Japan’s east wall.