In Washington –
War profiteer on the loose, public warned
Scandals predicted by Treasury official
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Editorial: Oklahoma’s byelection
Having lost an uncomfortable number of byelections in the last year, the Democrats have wheeled in their heavy artillery to win the contest in the 2nd Oklahoma Congressional district tomorrow. They have sent no less a personage than Senate Leader Alben W. Barkley to sing the administration’s song at Muskogee tonight.
On the record, the Democrats should win. If they can’t carry that gerrymandered district they might as well quit. In its 30 years of existence the district has gone Republican only one – in the Harding landslide of 1920.
In the last election, 1942, the Democratic nominee for Congress won by only 385 votes. But there were special circumstances which made the Republican vote so large. An unpopular Democratic Senator – Josh Lee – was being voted out of office; and a full Republican slate of candidates for Senator, Governor, other state offices and county and township offices, was on the ticket.
In tomorrow’s contest there are only the candidates for the Congress seat, and Democrat Bill Stigler is better and more favorably known than the Republican, E. O. Clark. There is no such thing in that district as a Republican organization, while the Democrats have state, county and township machines working together.
In good years, the Democrats carry this district by 2–1; in normal years, their majority is about 15,000. If the Democrat wins tomorrow, it will be only what is expected. If the Republican wins, it will be an upset that will reflect more than just a trend.
Effort to tax farm co-ops is predicted
Organizations must file 1944 reports
By John W. Love, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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GM to spend $500 million on expansion
Sloan voices ‘faith in future’
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Aides insist Dewey to stay on sidelines
Willkie blasts foes who keep silent
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
Associates of Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York are convinced that prior to the nomination of this year’s presidential candidate he will make no further statement regarding the widespread discussion of the possibility of his own selection.
As some observers see it, demands or entreaties for an amplification of Mr. Dewey’s announcement that he would not seek the nomination come for the most past from three sources:
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Wendell L. Willkie, the most active Republican aspirant, has recently been assailing “candidates who refuse to discuss the issues.” Dispatches from Wisconsin, where Mr. Willkie is presently making a pre-primary campaign, suggest that he meant Mr. Dewey, although Mr. Willkie has also said the governor’s statements to date have definitely taken him out of the contest.
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Democrats seeking President Roosevelt’s fourth-term renomination are also raising the issue of Mr. Dewey’s silence. Chairman Robert E. Hannegan of the Democratic National Committee did not name Mr. Dewey before a weekend Boston audience, but evidently had him in mind in an attack on a man prominently mentioned for the GOP nomination who is smirking and lurking and dodging behind the pretense that he is not a candidate for the Presidency.”
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Some of those Republicans who would like to help nominate Mr. Dewey also wish the Governor would give a green light to a national pre-convention campaign. At least as many however are probably content with things as they are.
But the apparent certainty among the Governor’s associates that he has said all he intends to on the subject is generally accepted here as accurately foreshadowing Mr. Dewey’s intentions.
Officials of war bureaus to probe coercion charges
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Man admits killing ex-wife, friend
Victims stabbed to death in auto
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With the Allied beachhead forces in Italy – (by wireless)
It was after dark when we finally backed away from the dock. We nosed out to sea for a mile or so, then dropped anchor for a couple of hours waiting on other ships to finish loading and join us.
There is an ever-present danger of submarines, and once off the beachhead the ships are frequent targets for aerial bombing and shelling from the land. Quite a few have been hit by all three methods, yet the supplies keep going through, and are often piled on the beachhead a day ahead of what was planned.
One night recently the Germans hit one of our gasoline dumps and burned up some 5,000 gallons of gasoline. One officer said:
At home, where gas is rationed, that would seem like an awful lot, but up here it’s just a drop in the bucket and makes no difference at all.
Our fleet of supply ships is manned by Americans, British and Greeks. As we lay at the dock before sailing, a British LST was on one side of us and a Greek on the other.
When we finally got underway for good, I went up to the open-air deck just above the bridge to see how a convoy forms up at night.
On these LSTs, the bridge is completely enclosed with heavy armor plating, which has little slits of thick bulletproof glass to look through. Since visibility is thus limited, the officer in charge stays on the open-air deck above and calls his instructions down to the bridge through a tube.
Moon gives faint light
The moon was swathed in clouds, but it gave a faint light. You could see landmarks, silhouetted against the horizon, but not much more.
The captain asked:
Have you ever looked through night binoculars? Try these.
The view was astonishing. Those binoculars seemed to take 25% of the darkness out of the night. With them you could see several ships in line, where you could see none before.
Far ahead of us, directly out to sea, we could see occasional flashes of gunfire. I asked what that could be, but no one knew. It seemed unlikely that a naval battle could be going on out there, and yet there were the flashes.
Capt. Joseph Kahrs said:
That’s one of the things I’ve found out about the sea. You’re always seeing and hearing things which are completely mysterious and unexplainable. You go on your way, and never do find out the answer.
The wind began to come up and the night to grow chill. It was straight sailing for the rest of the night, so I went to bed.
Ship rolls violently
The night passed with nothing more exciting than the ship doing some violent rolling. I could hear some sliding and breaking in the kitchen, and out on deck several halftracks broke their moorings and charged back and forth across the deck with a frightening sound of steel scraping on steel. We landlubbers aboard slept rather fitfully.
The officer of the deck sent a sailor to awaken me just at dawn. I got up sleepily and went back to the deck above the bridge. Anzio and Nettuno were in sight off to our right. We could see an occasional golden flash of artillery fire on shore.
The day was gray. Heavy clouds covered the sky, and rain occasionally drenched the landscape. That meant another day our troops on the beachhead would have to go without air support, but it also meant the Germans would be grounded too and our ships could land without being bombed. And for that we were selfishly glad.
Our convoy eased along until we were just off Anzio harbor. Everything was as peaceful as could be. I was walking along the deck just looking at the shore, when suddenly a shell smacked the water about a hundred yards away. It was so close we heard the whine after the blast.
At that the captain moved us farther out. The shells continued to come at about 10-minute intervals, none quite so close as the first. We all wore our steel helmets now.
Shells sing through air
Finally the signal came to enter to harbor. Capt. Kahrs stood on a little platform on the open deck, steering the ship to its moorings. I stood just behind him to watch.
The morning was raw and chilly. Yet Capt. Kahrs wore only summer khaki trousers, a light Army field jacket and, of all things, tennis shoes. He was shivering.
Shells continued to sing through the air, some hitting ahead of us, some behind. One hit the end of the stone mole just before we got to it. Another one screamed right over our heads and hit behind the mole.
At each sound we’d all duck instinctively. And the captain laughed and said:
We sure get a lot of knee-bending exercise on these trips.
We were all pretty silent and tense during those last few minutes of entering the harbor. The captain had to maneuver the ship into a tiny space just barely the width of the ship. Yet he put it in there as though he were using a pointer, and he put it in fast, too, and no monkeying around.
As you remember, the captain is a Newark lawyer in peacetime. I couldn’t help but admire this new skill of a man whose profession was so alien to the sea.
Here he stood in tennis shoes, far from home, worming his ship into a half-wrecked harbor with shells passing a few feet over his head. And he did it with complete absorption and confidence. Men can do strange and great things when they have to do them.
Stokes: Dewey’s chance
By Thomas L. Stokes
Milwaukee, Wisconsin –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York is seemingly missing a big opportunity out this way.
He appears strong in this state and you get the impression that if he were an out-and-out candidate for the Republican presidential nomination he would be very hard to beat in the April 4 presidential primary here, even though he has three rivals – Wendell L. Willkie, LtCdr. Harold Stassen and Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Chunky, vigorous little Ben Gettelman said:
If he would only just say that he would accept the nomination there would be no question whatever of winning easily.
Mr. Gettelman (a state senator) shares with Fred Zimmerman (secretary of state, ex-governor, and outspoken isolationist) the direction of the Dewey campaign here.
He is still confident that the Dewey delegates here will win despite the New York Governor’s message to every delegate a few weeks ago, saying flatly he was not a candidate and demanding that all withdraw their names. Nine complied with his request. But 15 others, including Mr. Gettelman and Mr. Zimmerman, refused to withdraw. Four other delegates who are running uninstructed are for Governor Dewey, Mr. Gettelman said, making a total of 19 in the race.
Dewey’s stand causes resentment
Wendell Willkie has a full slate of 24; Gen. MacArthur, 22, and ex-Governor of Minnesota Cdr. Stassen, 19.
Eight of the 15 pledged Dewey delegates were delegates on the Dewey slate four years ago when he made a clean sweep against Senator Vandenberg in the Wisconsin primary.
Governor Dewey still seems to benefit from the impression he made in his personal campaign four years ago, as well as from his increased political stature since as a result of his election as Governor of New York and his administration in that office.
His flat announcement that he is not a candidate and his demand that his delegates withdraw has caused resentment among some of his delegate candidates, who felt he was letting them down. It is reported also that it affected his rank-and-file support. They are uncertain about his status.
Mr. Willkie is capitalizing upon this confusion by insisting that candidates should discuss the issues here. The MacArthur spokesmen are pushing their campaign among isolationists by classing Governor Dewey as “an internationalist” because of his advocacy of a British-American alliance at Mackinac.
Dewey stronger than Willkie
But Mr. Gettelman is still optimistic and does not concede that Governor Dewey’s uncertain position has hurt him.
He said:
Governor Dewey is stronger today than when Willkie came into the state. I feel he is going to elect all his delegates.
Why is Governor Dewey stronger today?
He replied:
Because the people here believe he is the only one who can cut out those 421 bureaus down in Washington.
Mr. Gettelman’s second choice for the nomination is Governor Bricker of Ohio.
Mr. Gettelman conducts his part of the Dewey campaign here in a small, bare office he shares with his brother, which carries on the door “National Soap and Products Company.” He has a telephone on his desk and a picture of his boy who is serving with Gen. MacArthur. Over his head, on the wall, is a pay telephone stand and roosting on that, a picture of Tom Dewey.
“How’re you doing for dough?” he was asked.
He is the sort of realistic, amiable politician whom you can address that frankly. He grinned.
He answered:
I’m glad you asked me that. I don’t think money will win the campaign this time. I’d rather take out a few cards and make a few radio speeches. This is a shoestring campaign.
Is there any money being provided from New York?
“If there’s any money coming from New York they forgot Wisconsin,” he said, grinning.