In Washington –
Draft, ration threat by AAA is charged
Membership forced, Republicans say
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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?
Anti-inflation campaign held successful
Rise in prices believed checked for duration
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New induction rules may hit steel output
5-10% of younger workers face call
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
NOTE: Mr. Pyle wrote this column for use following a previous article on Lt. von Ripper, which appeared Saturday, March 18. In the meantime, however, Ernie’s report of the bombing in which he suffered a slight personal injury was received and because of its timeliness published ahead of the Von Ripper story, which is concluded herewith.
In Italy – (by wireless)
You know Lt. Rudolf C. von Ripper, the soldier-artist about whom we were writing yesterday. Well, we’ll finish him up today.
Von Ripper is a soldier of fortune, in a way, yet he doesn’t look or act like one. He is intelligent, and his approach is simple rather than adventurous. He is 39, but seems younger.
He is medium tall, slightly stooped, and one eye has a cast that makes it appear to be looking beyond you. His face is long and thin, and his teeth are prominent. His knowledge of the English language is profound and his grammar perfect, but he still pronounced his words with a hissing imperfection. He swears lustily in English.
Von Ripper is as much at home discussing philosophy or political idealism as he is in describing the best way to take cover from a machine gun.
He is meticulous in his personal appearance, yet doesn’t seem to care whether he sleeps between satin sheets or in the freezing mud of the battlefield.
It is hard to reconcile the artist with the soldier in Von Ripper, yet he is obviously professional at both. It may be that being a fine soldier makes him a better artist.
His long experience at warfare has made him as cunning as a fox. You can’t conceive of his being rattled in a tight spot, and he seems to have been born without the normal sense of fear that inhabits most of mankind.
Has become legend at front
Von Ripper is so calm and so bold in battle that he has become a legend at the front. High officers ask his advice in planning attack. He will volunteer for anything.
Being wounded four times hasn’t touched his nerve in the slightest. In fact, he became so notorious as an audacious patrol leader that his division finally forbade his going on patrol unless by specific permission.
One night Von Ripper was returning from patrol and was stopped by an itchy-fingered sentry who called, “Who goes there?” The answer came back in a heavily German accent, “Lt. von Ripper.” He was wearing lieutenant bars, but his dog tag showed him to be a sergeant. It took an hour to get it straightened out.
Some sentries would have shot first and then investigated.
Out of this background as a proven fighting man, Von Ripper is painting the war. He has produced more than a hundred pictures already. His work goes to the War Department in Washington, but he hopes an arrangement might be made whereby a book of his war drawings could be published.
I believe that Von Ripper, like most of us over here, has finally become more interested in the personal, human side of war than in the abstract ideals for which wars are fought.
Trying to take heroics out of war
He says that in his paintings he is trying to take the applesauce out of war, trying to eliminate the heroics with which war is too often presented. From what I’ve seen of the work of other artists, Von Ripper is not alone in this sincerity. It’s hard to be close enough to war to paint it, and still consider it heroic.
Von Ripper’s dead men look awful, as dead men do. Live soldiers in foxholes have that spooky stare of exhaustion. His landscapes are sad and pitifully torn.
His sketches aren’t photographic at all. They are sometimes distorted and grotesque, and often he goes into pen-and-ink fantasy.
He has given me one of these, labeled “Self-Portrait in Italy,” which shows himself and another wounded man, against a background of wrecked walls and starving children, being led downhill by the bony arms of a chortling skeleton representing ultimate and inevitable death.
You get used to seeing things like that when you’re a soldier for a long time.
Stokes: Phantom foes
By Thomas L. Stokes
With Willkie in Wisconsin –
The intriguing psychological case of a young man’s political ambitions which blow now cold now hit, has intruded itself into the Wisconsin presidential primary to confuse further the situation of Wendell Willkie who is stumping this state in the interest of renomination as Republican presidential candidate.
The young man is 36-year-old Harold Stassen, three times governor of neighboring Minnesota, now flag officer of Adm. Halsey in the South Pacific. LtCdr. Stassen is having a hard time deciding whether he should be a naval officer or a candidate for President, just as another young man, a few years older, is having trouble deciding whether he wants to keep on being governor of New York or wants to run for President, meaning Thomas E. Dewey.
Wendell Willkie has no doubts. He wants to be President and he is out here weaving up and down and across this state, and weaving and shouting in his characteristic oratorical manner from every platform he can find vacant for a few minutes, to that end.
But the young men who are undecided keep bobbing up.
Both of them have been entered in the Wisconsin primary April 4 by their friends, as has Gen. MacArthur, to make this a four-man contest. Governor Dewey tried to pull his delegates out, but a majority of them wouldn’t be pulled. Publicly he has said he is not a candidate.
Dictates statement in street
Now comes Cdr. Stassen who says in a letter to Secretary of the Navy Knox made public in Washington, that he is not a candidate, but would accept the nomination by the Republican convention. He thus takes a position in a category a degree above Governor Dewey in the strange and mystifying categories which are developing in this political campaign. It would take more than a soothsayer to explain just where some of the candidates stand, including, of course, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Cdr. Stassen’s letter was one of those minor political bombshells when it was dumped, without warning, into Mr. Willkie’s caravan as it hurried from hither to thither. It caught him at Appleton, as he was leaving the college chapel where he had spoken to the students. He was obviously surprised, but it didn’t take him long to come back.
He hopped out of his auto when it got to the hotel a few blocks away, called reporters about him. And there, in the middle of the street, while the citizens stood gaping, he dictated a statement.
He said he couldn’t tell whether “Governor” Stassen was a candidate or not. Anybody who is a candidate should discuss the issues and if he is not in a position to do so – as Cdr. Stassen obviously is not – then he should withdraw from the race. It was blunt, and no mistake.
Common ambition divides them
Just before that, in the college chapel, Mr. Willkie had told off both Gen. MacArthur and Cdr. Stassen by saying that when he, himself, went to war in 1917, he devoted himself “entirely to that cause, knowing I could not possibly understand or do anything about outside issues until the war was over.”
Harold Stassen was Mr. Willkie’s floor manager at the 1940 convention. He advocates, both domestically and internationally, a program similar to Mr. Willkie. The two cooled off in their relations when both became ambitious for the 1944 nomination.
Logically, the two belong on the same side in the brewing fight within the Republican Party. But a common ambition divides them.
The young men are causing Mr. Willkie lots of trouble while they make up their minds.