WMC places new cushion district hiring
Some firms forbidden to employ more men
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Suit to test poll tax laws is promised
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.
In Washington –
GOP Senators plan reforms in committees
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:
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Reduce the number of committees. At present, there are 33 standing committees and 11 special committees.
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Restrict the number of committee memberships that one Senator may hold.
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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.
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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.
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Increase the number of technical experts assigned to a few of the more technical committees, such as Appropriations and Finance.
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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).
Editorial: Chance for states’ rights
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.
Editorial: Willkie goes down
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.
Japs still able to attack U.S., general says
West urged to keep Civilian Defense
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Wounded Yank keeps going, receives Medal of Honor
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With 5th Army beachhead forces, Italy – (by wireless)
One day I was driving on a muddy lane alongside a woods, with an officer friend who has been wounded twice and who has been at war a long time.
On both sides of the lane were soldier walking, returning to the rear. It was the typical movement of troops being relieved after a siege in the front line. Their clothes were muddy, and they were heavily laden. They looked rough, and any parade ground officer would have been shocked by their appearance. And yet I said:
I’ll bet those troops haven’t been in the line three days.
My friend thought a minute, looked more closely as they passed, and then said:
I’ll bet they haven’t been in the line at all. I’ll bet they’ve just been up in reserve and weren’t used, and now they’re being pulled back for a while.
How can you tell things like that? Well, I made my deduction on the fact that their beards weren’t very long, and although they were tired and dirty, they didn’t look tired and dirty enough.
My friend based his on that, too, but more so on the look in their eyes.
“They don’t have that stare,” he said.
A soldier who has been a long time in the line does have a “look” in his eyes that anyone with practice can discern.
Eyes that see not
It’s a look of dullness, eyes that look without seeing, eyes that see without transferring any response to the mind. It’s a look that is the display room for the thoughts that lie behind it – exhaustion, lack of sleep, tension for too long, weariness that is too great, fear beyond fear, misery to the point of numbness, a look of surpassing indifference to anything anybody can do to you. It’s a look I dread to see on men.
And yet it’s one of the perpetual astonishments of a war life to me, that humans recover as quickly as they do. you can take a unit that is pretty well exhausted, and if they are lucky enough to be blessed with some sunshine and warmth, they’ll begin to be normal after two days out of the line. The human spirit is just like a cork.
When companies like this are pulled out for a rest, they spend the first day getting dug into their new position, for safety against occasional shellings or bombings. Usually, they’ve slept little during their time in the line, so on their first night they’re asleep early, and boy, how they sleep.
Next day they get themselves cleaned up as best they can. They shave, and wash, and get on some fresh clothes if their barracks bags have been brought up. They get mail and they write letters, and they just loaf around most of the day.
Take on replacement
On both the second and third days, they take on replacements and begin getting acquainted with them. All over the bushy slope where they’re bivouacked, you see little groups of men squatting in tight circles. These are machine-gun classes. The classes are for the new men, to make sure they haven’t forgotten what they learned in training, and to get them accustomed to the great necessity of knowing their guns and depending on them.
Replacements arrive in many different stages of warfare. The best method is for replacements to come when a whole regiment is out of the line for a long rest. Then the new men can get acquainted with the older ones, they can form their natural friendships, and go into their first battle with a feeling of comradeship.
Others arrive during these very short rest periods, and have only a day or so to fit themselves into the unit before going on into the great adventure.
The worst of all is when men have to join an outfit while it’s right in the line. That has happened here on the 5th Army beachhead.
There have been cases here where a company had to have replacements immediately. It was in circumstances where no frontline movement whatever in daytime was possible. Hence the new men would have to be guided up at night, establish themselves in their foxholes in darkness, and inhabit that foxhole until it was all over.
I feel sorry for men who have to do that. It must be an awful thing to go up to the brink of possible death in the night time in a faraway land, puzzled and afraid, knowing no one and facing the worst moment of your life totally alone. That takes strength.
All that glitters isn’t gold?
Miscasting and tough life at the front make flops of biggest film stars
Minor players are greater hits with G.I.s
By John Lardner, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Unfit for fighting –
Home ties cause more breakdowns of soldiers than battlefield
Too many are tied to apron strings; others see themselves as unwanted
By Marjorie Van de Water
Clinging-vine and hateful relatives in the home are bad for a soldier’s morale, and Marjorie Van de Water points out in her third article on the Army’s neuropsychiatric cases, cause more breakdowns than the battlefields.
The home, not the battlefield, is the cause of breakdown for most of the men discharged from the Army as neurotic.
Combat can and does cause men to crack up. But the great majority of the men so far discharged have had their difficulties right here in this country, in the training camps.
The trouble with most of these men is that, although their birth certificates indicate they are of “military age,” their behavior shows they are boys not yet grown up emotionally.
Many are tied to the apron strings of mother, sister, wife or perhaps father. They are affectionate boys dependent upon some loved one and literally cannot get along without her.
So homesick they’re ill
Nearly all normal boys need the love and care of someone. Most boys who go into the Army are homesick now and then and long with a wistful pain for Main Street and the old back porch, or a certain flight of stone steps in the city. Nearly all are delighted with a letter from home or a snapshot. But the pain of separation from home and family is so intense for a few that it is impossible for them to put heart into their military duties. They sit and brood. They are actually ill. Finally, they have to be sent home.
It may not be the boy himself who is the dependent one. It may be the mother or the wife who is utterly helpless when the draft takes away the man of the house. If there is serious illness, or the roof leaks, the only solution seems to be to send posthaste for the man who is now in uniform. If he is not able to drop Uncle Sam’s affairs immediately and go to the rescue of those at home, he feels guilty and worried and the home folks feel deserted and sunk.
Blind leading blind
And sometimes the man in uniform not only is held back by the stranglehold of a clinging vine at home, but he is also helplessly dependent on the same persons who must lean on him. It seems a little like the blind leading the blind, but it often happens that the mother-son or husband-wife ties are so intimate and tight that neither can get along without the companionship and help of the other.
But not all the soldiers discharged for mental or emotional unfitness have such indulgent mothers or wives and happy, comfortable homes. Contrasted with this type are the men who never get mail from home, nor do they want it. They have no home worthy of the name – no place or person to look back on with loving memory or to look forward to with longing. They see themselves as unwanted children, resented by unwilling parents or hated by jealous brothers and sisters.
4 in 10 from broken homes
Anticipation of return to such a hateful spot may be harder for a soldier to face than are the hand grenades and rifle fire of the enemy. When the going gets extremely tough, he has less need to cling to life than has the man with affection awaiting him after victory.
And so it is the home – with demanding and dependent love, or with rejecting and embittering hate – that may out too much burden on the soldier and cause his breakdown.
NEXT: Soldier with NP discharge makes excellent worker.