Navy prevents escape of Japs
Transport, destroyer sunk in Bismarck Sea
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Nazis prepare Anzio attack
Germans reinforce troops; artillery battles rage
By Robert Vermillion, United Press staff writer
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Latest from inside Europe –
Defeatism spreading throughout Germany
Interned U.S. correspondent warns that enemy has not reached state of 1918 military collapse
By Ralph E. Heinzen, United Press staff writer
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By jet propulsion?
Snyder uses Army airplane to bring sustaining vote
Perryopolis Democrat crosses nation in 13 hours; won’t reveal type of craft he used
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Prize fight picture today (adv.) –
Naughty Nora, Bali belles are arrested in last reel
State censor board agent waits ‘til final night of 6-week run to stop Art Cinema
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I DARE SAY —
‘Needy and greedy’
By Florence Fisher Parry
Relief for the greedy instead of the needy.
That’s what did it. That’s what ran the cup over. Just one trick phrase too much. Just one neatest-trick-of-the-week too many. Just a little overuse of the old thesaurus.
It’s wonderful, the power of a word! Alliteration, it seems, can be enough to turn the course of Empire!
It dates back pretty far, now we come to think of it – this era of word spellbinding. It dates back to a day almost 11 years ago when the people of our Republic were gathered around their radios to hear the inaugural address of their new President.
The golden voice cast a spell. Clear and strong and confident, it rang a new bell. The people gathered closer, subtly electrified. Then, suddenly, the air became surcharged with a cold and withering current. “These economic royalists! These princes of privilege!” These words clove a rift between the people whom Lincoln had warned: United we stand, divided we fall.
Oh, words have been used before by Presidents to rouse the people to new consciousnesses. But never until that speech 12 years ago had they been chosen with such relish for their slick slogan value. Other Presidents had exhorted the people, but always to UNITE them; and although most of their speeches were written for them (as must be, for Presidents are busy men), they took care not to let their ghostwriters inflame, by catchphrases, the passions of the people.
The ghostwriters
Few Presidents have attempted their own composition. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson – these three are best known among those who reserved for themselves alone this solemn task. And it has long been known that our present President, in love with the slick alliterative slogan, is careful to surround himself with gifted scribes whose genius lies along the lines of his own rhetorical and dramatic tastes in phraseology.
There has been a trek of these ghostwriters scurrying in and out of the White House with their red-hot writings. Many of them are avowed leftists. Some are practiced politicians. A few feel themselves to be messiahs of a new order which has commissioned them to be its eloquent stooges.
More than one gifted playwright and poet has been glad to accept anonymity in order to fashion pronouncements that will go down in history under the President’s signature and, “more clever than honest,” a few closer advisers have lent their own oblique technique to the phraseology of Rooseveltian utterances.
Alas, alack!
Our President now finds himself in a most critical position because of his relish for the alliterative phrase. He doubtless smacked his lips over the slick wording of “relief for the greedy instead of the needy.” It took him back to his triumphant “princes of privilege” days; it was too tempting to resist.
It so carried him away that he forgot for the moment its dangerous effect upon those staunch friends of his in the Senate who had stood by him through think and thin and upon whom he must rely in the campaign ahead. It made him even forget his good old Dear Alben.
He could not have dreamed that Dear Alben would kick over the traces at last. Why, it had never failed to work, that Dear Alben technique! My friends, Dear Wendell, Dear Winston, why it was foolproof! Hadn’t William Allen White himself said, after he had met him, that his charm was positively dangerous it was so overwhelming> And if Dear Alben WOULD balk, couldn’t he Dear Alben him back into the fold again?
Greedy and needy. Princes of privilege. Alliteration did it, Mr. President. It’s been the death of writers before this, but I never knew it to beset a President before.
Independents aim for WLB representation
Matthew Smith, MESA leader, spearheads drive at convention
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Too much ‘Dear Alben’ –
Barkley almost balks at last-minute plea
Leader feared people would think he and Roosevelt were ‘like that’ again
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Marcantonio has his joke –
Fourth-term decision awaits further tests
Jittery House thrown into a political dither at rumor of Roosevelt withdrawal
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Washington –
Much of the talk about Senate Democratic Leader Barkley’s defiance of President Roosevelt over the tax bill veto, and the resultant stiffened backbone of Democrats in Congress, concerns the possible effect on a fourth-term nomination for the President.
Nobody can tell now, of course.
No great activity developed immediately, however, among those Democrats in Congress who would like to stop renomination.
The practical situation in the party is well illustrated by a little incident in the House. Rep. Vito Marcantonio (AL-NY) sidled up to a group of Democrats and remarked that news had just come over the wires that President Roosevelt had announced he would not run for a fourth term.
It was like a bombshell. Their faces fell several feet. The New Yorker walked away. Later he went into the cloakroom. Members asked for more details. He thought he had carried this joke far enough and said:
He also named his successor – Joe Martin.
Time alone can tell
But still it wasn’t such a funny joke.
The consensus about the Capitol is that the effect on the Democratic Party and on renomination of the President depends on whether the conflict develops further to the stage of bitterness and no retreat, or whether it is adjusted amicably.
This, of course, must await the raising of another issue to see how both sides react. It might come if Congress sent to the President a soldier-vote bill that eliminated the short federal ballot and left only state ballots. A conference of House and Senate is still debating this issue.
Benefits are expected
Mr. Roosevelt previously characterized the state ballot bill passed by the House “a fraud,” which incensed Republicans and Southern Democrats – the incipiently explosive wings of the party – who sponsored it.
After Senator Barkley had been vindicated by his colleagues by unanimous reelection as leader, there was a feeling that the eventual result might be beneficial to the party now that Congress had had its say through the Kentucky Senator.
There was a feeling that President Roosevelt hereafter might be more conciliatory, which he seemed to indicate in the letter to the Senator, and that he might be more considerate of Congress.
Orders FOR the White House
The Senator, himself, in his reply to the President, opened the way for future cooperation by saying he hoped his resignation and reelection would work toward closer harmony between the White House and Congress. But he emphasized that he had retained his leadership only at the insistence of the Senate.
Senator Barkley has at least for the time being, shifted his role. He is now responsible to the Senate rather than to the White House, and henceforth would be expected to speak up for the Senate at the White House, rather than acting merely as the bearer of presidential orders from the White House to the Senate.
Reports from Kentucky, which went Republican in November in the Governor’s race, are that the Senator is facing an uphill fight, and the view about the Senate is that his show of independence may help in his race for reelection.
In Washington –
Hershey tells need to take some farmers
Aide says one of every 10 fathers 3-A Feb. 1 face call
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Poll: 43% of people fail to join in paper salvage
9 million still uninformed on drive despite wide newspaper publicity
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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Radio ownership by newspapers faces new fight
‘Equality for all groups’ asked by publishers but Congress may have to decide issue based on policies of FCC
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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The people must know –
Americans should get all of the war news, the good and the bad
By Palmer Hoyt, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Terror over Germany –
Rossi: ‘Never was so scared, but I kept on firing’
By 2nd Lt. Antonio M. Rossi, as told to the United Press
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Baruch Report simplified –
War contracts must be ended fast and fairly
Reconversion depends on government’s getting out of business
By Arthur F. Degreve, United Press staff writer
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Communists lose their ballot plea
San Francisco, California (UP) –
The State Supreme Court today denied an application brought by the Communist Party which sought to restrain Secretary of State Frank M. Jordan from removing the party from the California state primary ballot May 16.
The court’s ruling upheld the constitutionality of the election code which provides that whenever the registration of any political party falls below one-tenth of one percent of the total state registration, that party shall not be qualified to participate in the next primary election.