Hull reiterates warning to Finns
Approves Britain’s curb on Ireland
…
Suicidal Bougainville drive costs the Japs 1,000 men
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
…
New U.S. sub presumed lost
…
Senate passes soldier vote bill
House expected to okay compromise
Washington (UP) –
The Senate today approved the compromise soldier vote bill 47–31, despite the opposition of Democratic Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY). Twenty-three Democrats joined with 24 Republicans to pass the bill. Twenty-four Democrats, six Republicans and one Progressive opposed it.
The vote came after two days of debate on the controversial measure. House approval of the bill was considered assured. It then would go to President Roosevelt for veto or signature.
Denounced by Barkley
Just before the veto, Mr. Barkley denounced the measure as a restrictive bill which would deny the vote to many servicemen.
Mr. Barkley said the bill would repeal, “not directly but by implication and necessary interpretation.” The waiver in the 1942 law of poll taxes and registration for servicemen voting in federal elections.
He said:
Under this conference report, no serviceman or woman would be allowed to vote unless registered according to the requirements of state law and unless he or she had paid a poll tax if state law requires.
Obligation cited
He added that he thought Congress has an obligation as well as the power to make it easy for members of the Armed Forces to vote for President, Vice President and members of Congress despite the challenges of states’ rights advocates.
Senator Styles Bridges (R-NH) said that if President Roosevelt vetoes the bill:
He and he alone must assume full responsibility for the disfranchisement of millions of our soldiers, sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen.
The approved bill provides that a federal war ballot will be sent only to servicemen overseas whose state legislatures and governors have certified by July 15 that they will accept the federal ballots for counting. The servicemen would also be required to certify that by Sept. 1 they had applied for a state absentee ballot, but by Oct. 1 had not received it.
To name commission
Servicemen within the country would be required to use state absentee ballots.
A War Ballot Commission composed of the Secretary of War, Secretary of the Navy and War Shipping Administrator would distribute the federal ballots overseas, collect them and send them to the states.
The President “cannot shirk his responsibility,” Mr. Bridges said.
The boys in the foxholes of Italy, in the swamps of the South Pacific, on the ships plowing the seven seas, in planes in the air, will demand an accounting – and get one!
Senator Bridges claimed the pending bill “will enable every member of the Armed Forces, who is otherwise eligible, to cast a ballot in the November elections.” He added:
A barrage of misrepresentation has been leveled at opponents of the federal ballot.
Fourth term fear
Administration supporters such as Chairman Theodore F. Green (D-RI) of the Senate Elections Committee, and Senators Carl A. Hatch (D-NM), Scott Lucas (D-IL) and Joseph f. Guffey (D-PA) shared the belief the new measure would reduce the soldier vote.
Senator Guffey, the Senate’s most outspoken advocate of a fourth term for President Roosevelt, declared that fear of a fourth term and opposition to Negro voting were behind much of the opposition to a simplified federal ballot proposal.
Guffey calls it steal
Senator Guffey said:
Between those who are afraid to let our colored citizens and poor white citizens vote at all, and those who are afraid to let the soldiers vote for fear they will vote for Roosevelt, the Congress, if this bill becomes a law, is perpetrating the greatest organized election steal since 1876, when the Republican Party were the beneficiaries of the presidential election which was stolen from Samuel J. Tilden.
In the 1876 election, Tilden apparently had won, but the electoral votes of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Oregon were contested. An electoral commission of five Senators, five House members and five Supreme Court justices decided, 8–7, that the electoral votes of these states should go to Rutherford B. Hayes, and Hayes was elected.
Senator Guffey said members of the Armed Forces would be entitled to:
…resent strongly and to combat the policies which may be adopted as a result of this outrageous fraud and deliberate betrayal of democracy.
Another march on Washington
Recalling the 1932 Bonus March on Washington, Senator Guffey predicted that veterans of World War II:
…may come to Washington and demand an accounting from a Congress which refused to allow them to exercise the right to vote and denied them a voice in the selection of federal officers who will adopt the policies which will govern the veterans of this war on their return to civil life.
He said:
This measure is not a service voting bill. It is a bill to disenfranchise 12 million American citizens in the Armed Forces.
Weekly gas supply –
OPA puts nation on 2-gallon limit
…
Bond seller, 11, rewarded with ride in Fortress
…
Drive is started for fourth term
County organization hears war pleas
Urging the reelection of President Roosevelt for a fourth term, the Allegheny County Democratic organization formally launched its Congressional campaign last night at a dinner rally in the Alpine Hotel, East McKeesport.
The keynote of the rally was sounded by Auditor General F. Clair Moss, candidate for Superior Court, who declared that the progress of the war hinges on November’s election.
Bitter campaign deplored
Mr. Ross said in part:
The election next November will determine whether the progress of this war will continue or whether there will be an interruption. It will also determine if a lasting peace will be written. A lasting peace can be written only under the guidance of President Roosevelt.
Rep. Francis J. Myers, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, told his audience that Nazi and Jap warlords are encouraged by bitter political campaigns and disputes in this country.
Other speakers were State Chairman David L. Lawrence, G. Harold Wagner (candidate for Auditor General), Ramsay S. Black (candidate for State Treasurer), and Mayor Frank Buchanan of McKeesport County Commissioner John J. Kane was toastmaster.
Soldier is guest
Congressman Samuel A. Weiss, who represents the 33rd district where the rally was held, had as guest a wounded soldier, Stephen Timco of Duquesne. Mr. Weiss urged proper provisions for disabled soldiers. He also declared that servicemen should be given a federal ballot so that they may vote in this year’s elections.
The 33rd district, created by the last session of the Legislature, comprises the three third-class cities, McKeesport, Clairton and Duquesne, plus 21 boroughs and eight townships. Republicans are expected to wage an intensive campaign to unseat Mr. Weiss.
Navy gives up plan to rule plant guards
Unions win point after strike series
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
…
Dispute over $3.51 closes Cleveland steel plant
1,100 men made idle while nine others walk out for failure to get paid for ‘standing time’
…
Commons invites U.S. Congressmen
…
Presidential primary vote opens in East
New Hampshire first to cast ballots
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
New Hampshire today opens the presidential preference primary season which will extend through May 19.
During that period, a maximum of 18 states, including New Hampshire, could give their voters an opportunity in one form or another of indicating their preference among Republican and Democratic candidates for 1944 presidential nomination.
In three states, Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia, State Executive Committees determine whether there shall be a preferential vote. Among the other states, some enable voters to express a preference among potential presidential nominees listed on the ballot and others provide a choice among National Convention delegates who pledge themselves or express a preference for certain individual candidates.
Next primaries April 4
After New Hampshire’s vote today for delegates to the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, there will be a lull until after March 28 when New York holds its primary. Wisconsin’s primary is on April 4. Thereafter the primaries come in this order:
APRIL 11: Illinois, Nebraska
APRIL 25: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania
MAY 1: Maryland
MAY 2: Alabama, California, Florida, South Dakota
MAY 9: Ohio, West Virginia
MAY 16: New Jersey
MAY 19: Oregon
Primary preliminaries so far have been notable for activity by Wendell L. Willkie, the most aggressive campaigner for Republican presidential nomination, and apparent agreement by a preponderance of Democratic organizations in primary states that President Roosevelt will have a fourth-term nomination.
Roosevelt challenged
Only in Massachusetts is there any formal challenge so far to the accumulation of delegates by the Roosevelt-for-President forces.
In Massachusetts, the former Governor Joseph B. Ely has authorized the use of his name as an aspirant to the Democratic nomination, but there is no chance of a contest between delegates pledged to Mr. Ely and a slate pledged to the President because Massachusetts statutes require that a presidential candidate must file written assent to the use of his name. So far, Mr. Roosevelt is following the strategy of 1940 when he refused to reveal his political intentions.