2 union heads open attack on New Deal
Spokesmen for independent group, AFL carpenters charge partiality
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Fingerprinting first –
Chaplin starts long trip, surrenders to marshal
White-haired comedian and codefendants will be arraigned in court week from today
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Raymond Clapper memorial is planned by his friends
Famous columnist extolled at services as bulwark of free press, articulator of democracy
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Democrats face convention fight on Wallace vote
Vice President actively campaigning for renomination; conservatives want party stalwart on ticket
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace’s active campaigning for renomination on his transcontinental tour foreshadows a bitter contest at the forthcoming Democratic National Convention.
Conservative Democrats, finding themselves unable even to impede momentarily the fourth-term nomination of President Roosevelt, may attempt to wreak their vengeance on Mr. Wallace – if they can. They want a party stalwart on the ticket.
Whether the question of Mr. Wallace’s renomination reaches a convention floor showdown will depend on Mr. Roosevelt. If Mr. Roosevelt wants him again, he will have to lick the party regulars to put Mr. Wallace over.
Many observers here believe the President decided last summer to discard his 1940 running mate.
Clashed with Jones
That was when Secretary of Commerce Jesse H. Jones and Mr. Wallace disputed conduct of foreign economic policy. Mr. Wallace then was head of the Board of Economic Warfare and an important figure in Mr. Roosevelt’s war councils.
The President adjusted the dispute by relieving Mr. Jones of certain duties under circumstances entirely satisfactory to Mr. Jones and by stripping Mr. Wallace of every shred of power and authority except his elective office and the trivial ex officio duties pertaining to it.
But Mr. Wallace came up smiling and undertook a series of speaking engagements, frequently before labor or left-wing audiences, in which he has undoubtedly made himself solid politically with the New Deal wing of the political coalition which put Mr. Roosevelt in office in 1932 and has kept him there since.
Talks fourth term
Meanwhile, Mr. Roosevelt has been under occasional and scattered fire from the left. It is reasonable to believe that Mr. Wallace is attempting to establish his own political prestige with the left-wingers sufficiently to persuade Mr. Roosevelt to keep him on the 1944 ticket.
Mr. Wallace is making his own campaign almost synonymous with the movement to draft Mr. Roosevelt for a fourth term. On the West Coast and now on his return journey, Mr. Wallace is telling questioners that Mr. Roosevelt should be renominated.
There is no hint of White House displeasure over the persistent draft-Roosevelt campaign of which Mr. Wallace now seems to be the principal spokesman.
Farley, Garner put heads together
San Antonio, Texas (UP) –
Former Postmaster General James A. Farley visited former Vice President John Garner at Uvalde yesterday.
Mr. Farley said that they had talked of politics “past, present, and future,” but that none of their conversation was for publication.
Willkie outlines Far Eastern trade
San Francisco, California (UP) –
Immediate establishment of trade ties with Russia, China and other transpacific countries “without waiting for any post-war golden age” was advocated by Wendell Willkie last night.
In a radio address devoted largely to the industrial prospects of the Pacific Coast, Mr. Willkie said:
Narrow nationalism, domestic economic ineffectiveness and feeble leadership may well cause these hungry markets of the East to seek other sources of provisioning; for if we do not meet their needs, others will, and this section of the United States will be unimportant in the new economic pattern.”
Mr. Willkie spent yesterday afternoon in Sacramento with Governor and Mrs. Earl Warren, but refused to say whether they discussed political questions.
Browder: Retain Roosevelt
Boston, Massachusetts (UP) –
Earl Browder, Secretary of the Communist Party, said yesterday that the reelection of President Roosevelt in November and the strict enactment of the Tehran program are the only ways the world can reach security through victory and
Speaking at Symphony Hall, Browder said that:
Patriotic men and women of all parties must unite to convince Roosevelt that the country demands his continued leadership.
He said the Tehran program can be summed up in one word: “Security.”
And that means not only physical security which provides safety from attacks by aggressors. It also means economic security, social security, moral security – in a family of nations.
Close quarters fighting marks Cassino battle
Tired Yanks moving into town – this time to stay
By James E. Roper, United Press staff writer
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Allies blast French coast, Dutch air base
Attacks follow Nazi night raid on London at cost of six planes
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Simplified tax to be too late for ‘March 15’
House group starts effort to make Form 1040 explicable
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In Washington –
Deadlock bogs soldiers’ vote in conference
Taft compromise for count by states given new consideration
Washington (UP) –
Prospects of a hopeless deadlock between House-Senate conferees on the soldier vote issue today revived interest in a compromise plan – already rejected three times by the Senate – placing the emphasis on state absentee ballots.
The conferees were expected to begin Wednesday their attempts at a compromise, but a stalemate appeared in the making because five of the 10 conferees were string supporters of the state ballot while the other five were equal ardent backers of the federal plan.
Plan another look
The conferees indicated that they would take another look at the thrice-rejected plan of Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH), allowing use of a federal ballot by overseas service personnel only if they are unable to get their own state voting blanks.
Senator Taft’s plan was in the form of middle ground between the House-approved plan, which calls for use only of state ballots; and the Senate’s Green-Lucas bill, which provides that federal ballots for President, Vice President and members of Congress be used generally overseas.
Martin’s challenge
Meanwhile, House Republican Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. (R-MA) challenged President Roosevelt to make the soldier vote fight an issue in the coming presidential election. Recalling that the President had denounced the states’ rights bill as a fraud, Mr. Martin said:
The Republicans will meet the issue head-on. We won’t run away – and we don’t fear the result.
Raiders wreck 4 Jap airfields around Rabaul
Allied bombers drop 134 more tons, down eight enemy planes
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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CIO will send its own paper to servicemen
Union leaders show concern over troops’ attitude toward labor
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Editorial: An issue for the campaign
While the contest for the Republican nomination for President, and the ensuing battle for the presidential election in November will attract the headlines and the popular interest, this is also a year in which the full membership of the national House of Representatives and one-third the membership of the U.S. Senate will be at stake.
In the Congressional elections, equally important with the presidential contest, the principal issue will be the soldier-vote issue.
The Congressmen who have opposed a simple, uniform method of enabling the members of the Armed Forces to cast a ballot must be held accountable to their constituents, in the primaries and in the general election.
Pennsylvania’s primary will be held April 25. The campaign is already underway. Most of Pennsylvania’s Congressmen are already on record on the soldier-vote issue. Those who oppose them in the primary or in the general election should be required to announce their position on this issue.
Unfortunately for the Republican Party in this state, the majority Congressional delegation has voted solidly against a reasonable, effective plan for giving the Armed Forces a maximum opportunity to vote.
To make their position even worse, the Republican Congressmen from this state voted solidly against a “stand-up-and-be-counted” roll call on this issue.
In this district, the Congressmen who voted in this manner were D. Emmert Brumbaugh of Claysburg, Leon H. Gavin of Oil City, Louis E. Graham of Beaver, Robert L. Rodgers of Erie and Harve Tibbott of Ebensburg.
Congressional elections should be settled on issues, and independent of the presidential or any other contest. Here, then, is a basic issue, an issue which should be thoroughly exploited in the coming primary campaign – and again in the November campaign.
It transcends other issues because it involves a fundamental privilege of hundreds of thousands of free citizens who have demonstrated their willingness to make the supreme sacrifice for their country.
Editorial: Dewey speaks out
Whether Governor Dewey will or will not be a presidential candidate, his Lincoln Day address stated the issue of the coming campaign.
That is restoration of the spirit of constitutional government, which preserves separation of powers of the coordinate branches of the federal government and reserves the function of the states.
We cannot return to horse-and-buggy administration in an air age. But not even the most efficient and honest national administration could solve our problems without virile local government and self-reliant citizens. Rule from the top is not representative government. There is either democracy at the bottom, or there is no democracy.
The dangerous trend of the past 11 years has been the near-abdication of the states, and the willingness of the people to look to Washington instead of to themselves for solutions. The great promise of the future is that Americans are now turning away from that reliance upon an all-powerful Washington run by one man.
But there still are some who think return to more representative government should be postponed until after the war, and until after the peace is made. Governor Dewey answered that argument. He showed how the recent strengthening of state government in New York and elsewhere has advanced the war effort and prepared for the post-war period.
In the field of foreign affairs, a return to balanced representative government is essential. Even if President Roosevelt were the sole source of wisdom and leadership – and he is hardly that, or he would not have left leadership for post-war international cooperation to the Republican Mackinac conference – there could be no effective American foreign policy without Congressional participation and ratification.
Mr. Roosevelt has not been able to provide that cooperation with Congress. Americans are aware of the cost of that failure. As Mr. Dewey put it:
They know that with a self-willed executive who wars at every turn with Congress, they will have a repetition of the same catastrophe which happened in 1919.
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
Here’s that man again, for better or for worse.
It’s a good thing the winning of the war doesn’t depend on me. If my business were shooting Germans, I’d never get the trigger pulled for sneezing. Each zero hour would have to be postponed until I found my liniment and hot-water bottle.
I am the chief depository overseas of the common American cold. One cold at a time is not good enough for me, nor even two. In the past five weeks I’ve piled three colds one on top of the other.
The main trouble is that I’m allergic to the remedies that benefit other people. Things work backwards on me.
Codeine and aspirin make me much worse. Sleeping tablets keep me awake. Stimulating doses put me to sleep. It’s been proved that I cannot take vitamins. Tonics destroy my appetite. Cough sirup throws me into convulsions of whooping. I would suggest that an efficient hanging from the nearest olive tree is my only panacea.
Please try to forgive me for this recent absenteeism, and I pray that it doesn’t happen too often. I don’t want you to find out how well the war can get along without me.
Tribute to Clapper
Late though it is I can’t pass back to the war without a last word for Ray Clapper, who went to his death in the Pacific. His passing hit us hard over here.
He had many friends in this war theater, as he had in the others. He traveled to all the wars because he felt it his duty to inform himself, and everywhere he went he was liked for himself and respected for his find mind.
We had known each other for 20 years. Time and again he went out of his way to do little things that would help me, and to say nice things about me in his column, and I cannot remember that I ever did one thing for him. Those accusing regrets come when it is too late.
War correspondents try not to think of how high their ratio of casualties has been in this war. At least they try not to think of it in terms of themselves, but Ray Clapper’s death sort of set us back on our heels, Somehow it always seemed impossible that anything could ever happen to him. It made us wonder who is next.
When The Stars and Stripes announced Ray Clapper’s death, I think the most frequent comment in this area was one that would have made Ray proud. People said:
The old story again. It’s always the best ones that get it.
Climax in Coca-Cola
Here is our final report on that bottle of Coca-Cola that was raffled off last month in a field-artillery brigade.
It all started in November when a former member of this brigade, now back in the States – Pvt. Frederick Williams of Daytona Beach, Florida – sent two bottes of coke to two of his buddies still over here – Cpl. Victor Glover of Daytona Beach and Sgt. Woodrow Daniels of Jacksonville, Florida.
Nobody in the outfit had seen a Coca-Cola in more than a year, so they drank one and then began having ideas about the other. At last, they decided to put it up in a raffle, and use the proceeds to care for children whose fathers had been killed in this brigade.
The lottery was announced in the brigade’s little mimeographed newspaper, and chances on the coke were put on sale at 25¢ apiece. Before the first week was up, the cash box had more than $1,000 in it.
The money came in quarters, dollars, shillings, pounds, francs and lire. They had to appoint a committee to administer the affair. At the end of the third week, the fund exceeded $3,000. Then Pvt. Lamyl Yancey of Harlan, Kentucky, got a miniature bottle of Coca-Cola and he put it up as second prize.
Just before the grand drawing, the fund reached $4,000. Then the slips were put in a German shell case, and the brigade commander drew out two numbers.
The winnah and new champion was Sgt. William de Schneider of Hackensack, New Jersey. The little bottle went to Sgt. Lawrence Presnell of Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Sgt. Schneider was appalled by what had happened to him. That one coke was the equivalent in value of 80,000 bottles back home. He said:
I don’t think I care to drink a $4,000 bottle. I think I’ll sent it home and keep it a few years.