U.S. agency explains how it’s done
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent
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State police watch for violence at mill
By Edward W. Goss, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Group appointed to prepare plan
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Governor Edward Martin today had unanimous backing of both Republican and Democratic leaders in his plan for a quick special legislature session to assure about one million servicemen and members of allied war agencies a chance to vote this year.
Chieftains of the two major parties decided at a conference with Governor Martin here late yesterday to delegate to a subcommittee the job of working out details of the plans.
The leaders will meet here again April 20 to study results of the subcommittee’s work and suggest possible changes. The Governor then will summon the Legislature to convene May 1 – the Monday after the primary election – for a meeting he now believes will last only a week.
Points proposed
Governor Martin said the subcommittee’s job will be to draw up measures embodying these points:
Elimination of the party or non-partisan registration requirement for voting by persons affected.
Revision of the election calendar to allow the absentee voters as much time as possible in which to cast ballots.
Provisions for mailing ballots automatically to all servicemen and members of allied groups who are 21 years of age or older.
Governor Martin emphasized, however, that the committee must decide whether the last point would be “practicable” before making it part of the proposals. Such a provisions would eliminate necessity for those wishing to vote to request ballots from county election boards.
CD block canvass
Governor Martin confirmed reports that Civilian Defense block leaders would be authorized under the prospective legislation to gather names and addresses of servicemen and women and members of the Red Cross, United Service Organizations, Committee of Friends and similar organizations to facilitate mailing of ballots – but he disclosed that civic and fraternal organizations and individuals will also be invited to help in the task.
Members of the group drafting the measures are Attorney General James H. Duff, Commonwealth Secretary Charles M. Morrison, Deputy Highways Secretary Ray F. Smock, Senators Weldon B. Heyburn and Bernard B. McGinnis (majority and minority leaders, respectively, of the State Senate), and Reps. Franklin H. Lichtenwalter and Reuben E. Cohen (majority and minority leaders of the House).
Washington (UP) –
The armed services and the War Shipping Administration were taking steps today to provide voting opportunities under the new soldier vote law for servicemen, merchant seamen, Red Cross and USO workers overseas to the fullest extent consistent with “waging a victorious war.”
The War Department said it was sending to commanders in all areas circulars explaining the new law and instructing them to provide every possible chance for their men to vote.
The Navy announced that it had made plans for rapid transmission of both state and federal ballots.
The WSA said ballots will be sent by air if shipping schedules do not permit overseas delivery in time.
Former Senator stresses essential points he regards as vital to nation’s security
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
McCook, Nebraska –
Looking to the future, the venerable statesman, former Senator George W. Norris, outlined in an interview at his home here some things he regards as essential.
I am for a fourth term for the President principally on that it would be a mistake to change before we have a peace treaty made. I believe if President Roosevelt were defeated it would hurt the morale of our Army and increase the morale of Hitler and his armies. Hitler is just holding on now, hoping there will be a change, hoping thus that he can get better peace terms.
Senator Norris added:
I don’t like some things that are going on. I don’t like our dealings with Badoglio. Russia is being criticized for recognizing Badoglio, but I don’t think Russia would have recognized him if we hadn’t set him up. I think we’ve been too lenient with the Vichy government.
But I think to take Roosevelt out now and put someone else in would hurt what has been achieved. There’s no prominent man in the United States who seems to measure up to the task of the Presidency in the immediate future. I hate to say that.
I believe we will have some sort of organization among nations to keep the peace, and I am for it, though I was against the League of Nations. I think we ought to disarm completely Germany, Japan and Italy, and perhaps Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. All their munitions factories should be destroyed and they should not be allowed to build more.
We must not leave any humiliation in the hearts of the Germans. It passed from father to son, and then Hitler came along and capitalized it, and we had another war.
I think our own country has got to be careful lest monopolies and combinations get control of our country after the war. There’s always danger of that after a war. The fellows who are making large profits in the war want to keep on.
I want to see everything done that can be done to help the returning soldiers.
I was concerned when Congress refused President Roosevelt’s plan for limiting salaries to $25,000 a year. We may have to go even lower.
I think everybody will be happier that way. There’s a limit to an income that will bring enjoyment or pleasure to the man who gets it. We’ll have a happier world, with less poverty and less riches in it.
New York (UP) –
Warning against “blatant rabble-rousers or worse,” Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York said last night that the U.S. government must be kept “strong and clean within” so that the nation can fulfill its post-war world responsibilities.
He said at the opening of the United Jewish Appeal campaign:
The Gerald L. K. Smiths and their ilk must not for one moment be permitted to pollute the stream of American life.
Such would be a betrayal of the sacrifice now being made on the battlefields by millions of Americans who fight for their county and for the basic principles of freedom these rodents would undermine.
Governor Dewey also urged a post-war system of “international cooperation based on justice.”
St. Louis, Missouri (UP) –
Four delegates from two Missouri Congressional districts were elected yesterday to support Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York as Republican candidate for President.
The endorsements came during GOP convention within the 11th and 13th districts. A convention of the 12th district failed to enter a Dewey-for-President resolution.
All three conventions endorsed Barak T. Mattingly for reelection as national Republican committeeman from Missouri. Mr. Mattingly is considered to be a Dewey backer.
Portland, Oregon (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York has once more declared he is not a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and has refused to authorize use of his name on the Oregon May 19 primary election ballot, according to word received here today from an Oregonian who flew to New York State to confer with Governor Dewey.
Thus, petitions bearing more than 1,000 names seeking Governor Dewey’s name on the ballot will be consigned to the waste basket, said Frank S. Senn, chairman of the Dewey Committee in Oregon.
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Attempt to cover OPA failure charged; Senator cites white-collar position
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Strategy follows high court ruling
Washington (UP) –
Tradition voting procedures in the South, already threatened by a Supreme Court ruling permitting Negro voting in primaries, faced still another threat today in a promised court test on legality of poll taxes as prerequisites to voting.
The new challenge of the poll tax was voiced by Arthur Dunn, New York attorney, in announcing formation of a new organization called Parents and Wives of Fighting Americans.
Suit to be filed
He said a test suit challenging the Virginia poll tax soon will be filed in federal court at Roanoke, Virginia.
He added:
And we’ll take it to the Supreme Court if necessary.
In the light of Monday’s Supreme Court decision that Negroes cannot be excluded from state primary elections, some Southern Senators conceded that they feared a court test more than the forthcoming Senate debate on a House-approved poll tax repealer.
Sees no sense
Senator John H. Overton (D-LA) said:
I don’t see any sense in a poll tax fight in the Senate when the opponents of the poll tax apparently could get the same result in the seclusion and cloister of the Supreme Court.
There was a possibility that the Supreme Court decision will influence Southern Democrats to reject a proposed agreement under which the Southerners would move to invoke the cloture (debate limitation) rule and, if the motion failed, proponents would concede defeat.
Program hinges in victory in elections
Washington (UP) –
Republican leaders in the Senate are now working on plans to tighten up the Senate committee system in event they gain control of the upper house in the November elections.
The plans, being prepared by the Republican steering committee under the chairmanship of Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH), include tentatively the following reforms:
Reduce the number of committees. At present, there are 33 standing committees and 11 special committees.
Restrict the number of committee memberships that one Senator may hold.
Require formal committee quorums. Sometimes only one Senator is present at a committee hearing, which means that absent members are unable to follow the course of developing legislation.
Do away with proxy voting, which is used at present to report out bills which many of the men recorded as voting have not had a chance to study.
Increase the number of technical experts assigned to a few of the more technical committees, such as Appropriations and Finance.
After committees have been reduced and members have been given a little more time to become specialists in their fields, there should be joint hearings with correspondent House committees, thereby doing away with duplicating testimony and an unnecessary waste of time for both Congress and witnesses.
Other suggestions for Senate reform which have been before the Rules Committee since last November have been made by Senators Francis Maloney (D-CT), Robert M. La Follette Jr. (PR-WI) and Guy M. Gillette (D-IA).
Throughout the debate over the soldier vote issue in Congress, and at many times while other issues were in dispute the last few years, the states’ rights cry repeatedly has been raised.
States’ rights was and is an issue. And while, in these modern days, it is hard for statesmen, or others, to draw the line where the issue begins, the line needs to be drawn in the interest of home rule.
In the soldier vote issue, however, an even more fundamental question was involved: The right of free American citizens, dispersed to the far corners of the globe, to cast a ballot in a free American election.
This right, it seems to us, transcends all other matters, political or mechanical, in resolving the issue.
Congress didn’t resolve it on that basis.
Now it is up to the states.
It is up to the states to demonstrate, now that the so-called states’ rights phase of this dispute seemingly has been turned in the states’ favor, to show that they are capable of meeting the problem.
Obviously, it will not be as simple, or as effective, for 48 states to devise anything resembling a uniform system of voting for the Armed Forces.
But the Congressmen from many of these states, including a solid Republican bloc from Pennsylvania, and many governors, maintained throughout the debate that the states could handle the problem, and handle it efficiently.
They now have that opportunity. And if they stumble, they will do much to discredit the states’ rights argument on some future issues when it may be far more applicable.
And, more serious, they will be shown deficient in their unquestioned obligation to make it possible for the members of the Armed Forces to vote in an important American election.
So far as Pennsylvania is concerned, the state government has approached this task auspiciously.
This state already has on its statute books an absentee voting law for members of the military services. True, it is a cumbersome measure and the deadlines it imposes on the fighting men in far regions of the world are almost impossible.
But the law is on the books and some simple amendments can easily weed out the red tape and simplify the procedure.
To that task, Governor Martin already has assigned a responsible committee, sympathetic to the problem.
Mr. Martin has also taken into consultation the legislative leaders of both parties, a move which ought to smooth the way for prompt agreement and action when the Legislature convenes in special session.
The Governor has announced that it is his aim to make Pennsylvania’s soldier vote law the “most liberal” in the country. In that purpose, he deserves the utmost cooperation from both Democratic and Republican leaders.
Republican leaders in this state have been among the most industrious in raising the states’ rights issue. Now it is up to them to make that position stand up, to exert their influence and efforts on behalf of a “most liberal” soldier vote law, to demonstrate that the state is fully capable of handling the problem.
And, having done their best to write a simple statute, easy of compliance, they will have put on the Army and Navy the obligation of providing a maximum of assistance in making the plan work.
Mr. Willkie is washed up, if the Wisconsin primary means anything. He said he would stand or fall by the results. The voters let him fall.
Even if he had won most of the delegates, that would not have proved him the favorite in Wisconsin. For he was the only active candidate. The others were not campaigning. LtCdr. Stassen was willing but absent. Gen. MacArthur had not committed himself as a candidate. Governor Dewey not only declined to enter the primary, but requested his enthusiastic supporters to desist.
That, of course, is what makes the result so significant. Mr. Willkie appeared to have all the breaks. His stumping was probably the hottest in the history of presidential primaries. Moreover, under Wisconsin law the Democrats could vote for Republican delegates – and doubtless many went for Mr. Willkie.
The reason Mr. Willkie tried so hard in this primary is no mystery. Unless he got a big popular vote, there was little or no chance of the national convention nominating him, because the party politicians by and large were and are against him. He had to show that he was a far better vote-getter than they rated him. That is why his Wisconsin failure seems so conclusive in terms of the Chicago convention next June.
There appears to be no doubt that the New York governor, though not a candidate, is at present the national favorite – among the Republican leaders, and also among the people, as indicated by unofficial polls. But there were good reasons, in addition to his refusal to run in Wisconsin, why he might have trailed the field in that state. Apart from Mr. Willkie’s active campaigning, Gen. MacArthur was believed to have the support of ex-Governor La Follette, now serving under the general in the Southwest Pacific. And Mr. Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota and glamorous young naval officer on combat duty, was almost a native son.
If Mr. Dewey can run so well against such a strong local field, and without even trying, he must have more Midwest and national vote-pulling power than even his most optimistic friends supposed. Add to that the New York Governor’s obvious superior strength in his own state, whose vote the politicians consider virtually decisive in a presidential election, and Mr. Dewey looks like the national convention winner.