Bus men spurn truce offer, union plea
Strike continues for sixth day
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47 vote replies given President
Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt, still nursing a slight cold, today studied replies from 47 state governors to his inquiry about use of the proposed federal war ballot.
Whether Mr. Roosevelt will sign or veto the bill for limited use of a federal war ballot for servicemen depends on what conclusions he reaches, from replies of the Governors, about whether more persons could vote under existing law or under the bill.
Only South Carolina has made no reply.
Of the five replies revealed today, only that of Texas Governor Coke Stevenson contained a flat assurance that his state would permit use of the proposed federal ballot.
A breakdown of the 47 replies showed this lineup:
- States definitely accepting: Seven.
- States which consider their own laws sufficient and will not accept: Seventeen.
- States which probably will not accept: Five.
- States which will make an effort to authorize use: Fourteen.
- Undecided: Three.
- States conditionally accepting: One.
Hannegan pleads for ‘solid front’
Hartford, Connecticut (UP) –
Democratic National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan appealed to party leaders in Connecticut last night to present a solid front “to see that the present administration and Franklin D. Roosevelt are continued in office.”
He said:
No election since the birth of the Republic hinged on graver issues than are involved in what takes place next November. The problems of war and peace cannot be separated.
Mr. Hannegan charged that Republicans were “working in every state to capitalize on every complaint.” He had no assurance, he said, that Mr. Roosevelt would seek a fourth term, “but I have no doubt that if he runs, he’ll win.”
Campaign points listed by White
GOP candidate offers program
Joseph A. White of Brentwood, candidate for the Republican nomination for Congress in the 31st district, announced a platform in support of his candidacy.
Among points were:
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Tax measures must be written solely for the purpose of raising revenue “on the basis of ability to pay, and not used as punitive measures against any particular group.”
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Business must be “freed from so-called war restrictions as soon as possible.”
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“I do not subscribe to the theory that the American standard of living must come down to that of other countries, but rather that theirs should come up to ours.”
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Servicemen must be assured of “improved opportunities in their chosen fields of endeavor.”
Mr. White said all legislative problems must be judged for their effect on the war effort and he argued for foreign relief “only when used to relieve genuine need.”
Coloradoan splits with Roosevelt
Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Democratic Senator Edwin C. Johnson of Colorado formally parted company with President Roosevelt last night in a speech at North Park College in which he charged that:
History will name the fourth term, if it ever materializes, as “the term of defeat and frustration.”
In recent months, an increasingly open critic of the administration, Mr. Johnson said “the greatest tragedy of American history was the President’s decision four years ago to seek a third term.”
He said:
It launched the 1940 campaign by appeasing the internationalists with the appointment of two old-line Republicans [Frank Knox and Henry L. Stimson] as Secretaries of Navy and War. It appeased the nationalists by assuring them “again and again” that no mother’s son would “be sent to fight in a foreign war.”
The New Deal appeased Japan, he said, by selling her all the war material she could pay for.
It appeased China, with money and credit and, after the election, appeased Britain by going to war. It has been appeasing everyone everywhere ever since with Lend-Lease at a cost to the American taxpayers of billions. It appeased Russia by junking the Atlantic Charter. It appeased John L. Lewis, the railroad brotherhoods, at the back door of the White House, after scornfully turning them down at the front door with the beating of drums.
Senator Johnson said that “one-man control” has reduced the Democratic Party to hopeless impotency.
Willkie attacks America Firsters
Green Bay, Wisconsin (UP) –
Wendell L. Willkie, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination stumping Wisconsin for support for his slate of convention delegates in the April 4 primary, today predicted “overwhelming defeat” for the GOP “if the viewpoint represented by The Chicago Tribune is imposed upon the Republicans.”
He included Gerald L. K. Smith in the same category in which he placed the Tribune and said that:
Any candidate who does not repudiate the America First group and Gerald L. K. Smith and all they represent, cannot possibly be elected President of the United States.
Willkie beats clock; enters Maryland race
Annapolis, Maryland (UP) –
Maryland Republicans today faced the choice of voting in their May 1 primary for Wendell L. Willkie or an unrestricted delegation to the Republican National Convention.
At 11:45 p.m. ET yesterday, 15 minutes before the deadline, Mr. Willkie’s certificate of candidacy was handed to a clerk in the secretary of state’s office by Baltimore attorney Charles Ruzicka. Mr. Willkie will be the only presidential aspirant of either party on the primary ballots.
Soviet paper sure of 4th term try
Moscow, USSR (UP) –
The nomination of President Roosevelt for a fourth term is a virtual certainty, Maurice Mendelsohn, described as a specialist in American problems, said today in the Army newspaper Red Star.
Mendelsohn did not pick a victor in the November election, but said Republican strength was increasing as demonstrated by GOP victories in a number of mayoralty elections in large towns:
…for instance, Philadelphia where the candidacy of the famous reactionary Democrat [William C.] Bullitt fell through.
All of Philadelphia’s mayors have been Republicans since Samuel G. King, who served from 1881 to 1884.
The Red Star article named Wendell L. Willkie, Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Governor John W. Bricker and Gen. Douglas MacArthur as the leading Republican presidential candidates.
Poll: Oklahoma’s rank-and-file favors Dewey
MacArthur second, Willkie third
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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Editorial: It should become law
President Roosevelt, it seems to us, should sign the soldier vote bill – or at least permit it to become law without his signature, if his distaste for the strongly states’-rights character of the Congressional compromise is so strong as to deter him from an affirmative OK.
The results of his poll of the 48 governors are inconclusive. Some say their states will cooperate with the federal ballot bill. Some say they will not. Others are noncommittal or undecided.
The President has taken the position that the bill should be allowed to become law only if his survey indicates that more soldiers would be able to vote under the new measure than under the existing statute of 1942.
One trouble with this position is that the law of 1942 has been attacked as an unconstitutional infringement of states’ rights. If the constitutional challenge were pressed after a close election, the result might be a state of uncertainty that would be most awkward in the middle of a great war.
Since a truly adequate federal law is obviously impossible to obtain this session, would it not be wiser for the President to accept the compromise Congress has put together, and thus at least place squarely upon the states the responsibility for either facilitating or denying the vote to men overseas – the responsibility Congress evaded?
Pressure of public opinion might produce, before the July 15 deadline, more widespread cooperation by the states than the results of the President’s telegraphic poll indicate so far. Even if not, at least the troops from some states would have a better chance to vote – without constitutional doubts – and those from others would know where to put the blame for their inability to vote.
Ferguson: Future of WAVES and WACs
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Washington is inundated by WAVES. WACs are also numerous. Military women are as much a part of the local scene now as the Capitol dome.
I wonder how many of these feminine soldiers and sailors will desire to stay in the military profession after the ware Will all of them be as eager to get out of uniform as many were to get in? Will the experiences of military life change their perspectives and objectives? What would men say if the WACs and WAVES asked to become a permanent part of the military?
One Army officer who had argued eloquently that women wanting equality with men must share with them the duties of war, said he hadn’t given these questions a thought. He said:
However, it’s possible that women may wish to share military jobs in the post-war era, since they seem to be doing such a swell job at them now.
If we move into another economic decline, it is not unlikely that women who have earned their stripes during wartime will decide to remain in the same positions afterward. Many may prefer to stick rather than get out and buck the civilian world again.
Congress and the War Department, of course, have the power to usher them out of service. But what kind of treatment would that be? If it is the duty of women to join the Armed Forces in order to help save the nation, it may also be the duty of men to allow them to share its military peacetime projects and pay.
And what about a feminine West Point and Annapolis for training women soldiers for the next war?