Lawyer to go to prison in draft case
Last escape barred by Supreme Court
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Statement of Wendell Willkie Withdrawing from the Presidential Race
April 5, 1944
Broadcast audio (WOR):
If in our foreign policy we deny any worthy aspirations of those who want to be free, as secret power politics inevitably tends to deny them, we shall be laying the groundwork for the third world war.
The American people have faith, infinite faith, in the process of democracy. They want – they demand – a foreign policy that will affirm that faith.
Now my fellow Americans, I have something quite personal that I want to say on this occasion – something that perhaps is of not much importance, but it involves what I have been trying to do, the things I have been fighting for.
As perhaps some of you know from the public press, it is my conviction, and it has been my conviction, that no Republican could be nominated for President of the United States unless he received at the convention the votes of some of the major Midwestern states. For it is in this section of the country that the Republican Party has had its greatest resurgence. Therefore, I quite deliberately entered the Wisconsin primary to test whether the Republican voters of that state would support me in the advocacy of every sacrifice and every cost necessary to winning and shortening the war and in the advocacy of tangible, effective economic and political cooperation among the nations of the world for the preservation of the peace and the rebuilding of humanity.
The result of the primary yesterday is naturally disappointing to me and doubly so since the delegate who led at the poll is known as one active in organizations such as the America First, opposed to the beliefs which I entertain, which I deeply believe.
Now, as I have said on many occasions of late, this country desperately needs new leadership. It is obvious now in view of the results yesterday that I cannot be nominated. I therefore am asking my friends to desist from any activity toward that end and not to present my name at the convention. I earnestly hope that the Republican convention will nominate a candidate and write a platform which really represents the views which I have advocated and which I believe are shared by millions – millions of Americans. I shall continue to work for these principles and policies for which I have been fighting during the last five years.
Thank you very much.
Völkischer Beobachter (April 6, 1944)
44 US-Terrorbomber über Bukarest abgeschossen –
Erfolgreiche Gegenangriffe zwischen Stanislau und Tarnopol
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U.S. Navy Department (April 6, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 341
For Immediate Release
April 6, 1944
Four enemy‑held atolls in the Marshall Islands were bombed and strafed by Dauntless dive bombers and Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, Mitchell bombers of the 7th Army Air Force, and Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing, Two on April 4 (West Longitude Date). A Corsair fighter was shot down near one of the objectives, Wotje Atoll, and its pilot rescued by a destroyer. Shore batteries opened fire on the destroyer, scoring two hits which did minor damage. The destroyer returned the fire.
Moen and Dublon Islands in the Truk Atoll were bombed on the night of April 3‑4 (West Longitude Date) by 7th Army Air Force Liberators. On Dublon bombs were dropped on oil storage tanks, and several fires were started between the seaplane base and Dublon town. Smaller fires were set on Moen Island. One of six enemy fighters which attempted interception was shot down, and one was probably shot down. Two of our planes are missing.
A Liberator search plane of Fleet Air Wing Two bombed and probably sank a tanker near Moen Island.
Ponape Island was raided by Mitchell bombers of the 7th Army Air Force escorted by Marine Corsair fighters. An airfield and adjacent buildings were hit. Moderate anti-aircraft fire was encountered.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 6, 1944)
BOMBERS BATTER SOUTHEAST GERMANY
U.S. Liberators pound French invasion coast
RAF hits plane plants; Ploești also raided
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer
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WILLKIE ABANDONS NOMINATION RACE
Withdrawal laid to defeat in Wisconsin
Spectacular move ends stump speech
By Gaylord P. Godwin, United Press staff writer
Omaha, Nebraska –
His “One World” crumbled by an overwhelming defeat in the Wisconsin primary election Tuesday, Wendell L. Willkie headed East today after a dramatic withdrawal from the race for the Republican presidential nomination last night.
The 1940 GOP nominee, who polled more than 20 million votes when he ran against President Roosevelt four years ago, made his exit at the conclusion of a 45-minute speech in which he bitterly attacked the administration’s foreign policy.
‘It is obvious’
“It is obvious now that I cannot be nominated,” he said, and with the promise to “continue to work for these principles and policies for which I have fought during the last five years,” he threw in the towel.
Only the reporters in the audience of 4,000 persons knew that Mr. Willkie was to make his farewell address as he walked onto the stage of the Omaha City Auditorium. He had summoned them to his hotel room yesterday afternoon and casually told them of his decision.
The Wisconsin vote was so decisive, he said, that he had decided to withdraw, but he requested that they withhold the announcement until after his speech.
Blows kiss to crowd
He walked onto the stage a half hour late and blew a kiss to the crowd in response to the cheers.
He said:
I wish I could speak to you from my heart tonight. But if I spoke of what’s on my mind, I would make too great a castigation of American politics.
He then began his prepared address.
Mrs. Willkie sat in the audience and hardly took her eyes from her husband as he made his farewell.
Wife is relieved
“Are you relieved?” a reporter asked afterward.
She replied softly:
Yes, I am if Wendell is. Whatever he does is 1000% all right with me.
Mr. Willkie made his decision to quit about midnight Tuesday while listening to the results of the Wisconsin primary. He and Mrs. Willkie were sitting in their hotel room at Norfolk, Nebraska, when he told her of his decision, a friend and political adviser reported.
Task to be great
He then went to bed and slept soundly, rising the next day to go to West Point where he told his audience:
I hope America unites behind the next President, whoever he may be, for his task will be greater than that of the first President of the United States.
He spoke again at Fremont and then returned to Omaha yesterday afternoon to tell news reporters of his decision.
Gardner Cowles, one of Mr. Willkie’s closest friends, said he appeared “more jovial yesterday than he had been in the last two weeks. He seemed relieved.”
Dewey supporters are jubilant
Milwaukee, Wisconsin (UP) –
The forces of Governor Thomas E. Dewey were jubilant today as they counted 15 and possibly 17 of the state’s 24 delegates to the Republican National Convention bagged in Tuesday’s primary election.
Wisconsin Secretary of State Fred Zimmerman said:
It’s no longer a question of whether Dewey will be drafted [at the national convention]. He already has been drafted by the voters of Wisconsin.
Mr. Zimmerman, head of the state’s Dewey organization, polled 112,737 votes to lead the delegate-at-large candidates.
Returns from 80% of the state’s 3,074 precincts assured the New York Governor of 15 of the state’s delegates, with two uninstructed delegates described as “leaning toward” Governor Dewey.
LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, ran second with four delegates and Gen. Douglas MacArthur was in third place with three.
Wendell L. Willkie, the only candidate to have a full slate of 24 delegate candidates, failed to grab a single delegate, despite his active 13-day campaign in the state.
Cavendish sees Dewey victory
Fred T. Cavendish, the 1940 pre-convention campaign manager in Allegheny County for Thomas E. Dewey, today said he saw in the Wisconsin primary results evidence of a nationwide sweep for Mr. Dewey.
He said:
The unusually large number of voters taking part in the primary in Wisconsin is an indication of the sentiment for Governor Dewey and I believe this sentiment prevails throughout the nation.
London hears Willkie to back fourth term
London, England (UP) –
The Evening Standard said in its Londoner’s Diary column today that Wendell L. Willkie, as a result of his defeat in Wisconsin, was expected to advocate a fourth term for President Roosevelt.
Bolt by Willkie is possibility
Republican chiefs shed few tears
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington (UP) –
Wendell L. Willkie’s withdrawal from the contest for the Republican presidential nomination projected him today into a new role as freelance political adviser with a mission to commit the party to significant post-war cooperation in international affairs.
He withdrew last night in a statement that challenged the party with the possibility that he may bolt the ticket this year if he regards the candidates or the platform to be against the principles he has espoused.
There was recognition of the possibility that Mr. Willkie might take a walk is the comment of most party members on his retirement from office-seeking politics. They generally expressed the hope that he would remain on the anti-New Deal firing line through the presidential campaign.
He retired when Wisconsin Republican preferential primary voters accorded Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York a vote of confidence despite the fact that Governor Dewey repudiated his backers there and Mr. Willkie made a vigorous campaign. The slate of Willkie delegates not only trailed Governor Dewey’s men, but ran behind those committed to LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Mr. Willkie was blanked.
But Mr. Willkie’s acknowledgment of the futility of his own presidential ambitions was accompanied by an aggressive insistence that he would continue to speak his mind. He aimed at Governor Dewey, too, an indirect charge of accepting so-called America First support.
It is assumed that Mr. Willkie intends to continue the America First line of criticism wherever he deems it to be justified and that he will make himself notable in this political year by asking most of the embarrassing questions.
Criticized Dewey
Mr. Willkie has criticized and resented Governor Dewey’s unruffled insistence that he is not a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and that he will not campaign for it. In his new role, Mr. Willkie inevitably will undertake to smoke the Governor out.
But organization and Congressional Republicans generally waived him out of the contest with some cheers and few misgivings. The consensus seemed to be that Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s chances of being drafted for the nomination steadily were improving.
Rep. Joseph W. Martin Jr. (R-MA), House Republican Leader, said he was confident Mr. Willkie would stand by the Republican Party, to which he went from the Democrats after President Roosevelt’s first election in 1932 to help lick the Roosevelt administration this year.
Willkie’s statement
Mr. Willkie’s statement in Omaha last night follows:
It has been my conviction that no Republican could be nominated for President unless he received at the convention the votes of some of the major Midwestern states. For it is in this section of the country that the Republican Party has had its greatest resurgence. Therefore, I quite deliberately entered the Wisconsin primary to test whether the Republican voters of that state would support me in the advocacy of every sacrifice and cost necessary to winning and shortening the war and in the advocacy of tangible, effective economic and political cooperation among the nations of the world for the preservation of the peace and the rebuilding of humanity.
The result of the primary is naturally disappointing and doubly so since the candidate who led the poll for delegates is known as one active in organizations such as the America First, opposed to the beliefs which I entertain.
As I have said many times, this country desperately needs new leadership. It is obvious now that I cannot be nominated. I therefore am asking my friends to desist from any activity toward that end and not to present my name at the convention. I earnestly hope that the Republicans will nominate a candidate and write a platform which really represents the views which I have advocated and which I believe are shared by millions of Americans. I shall continue to work for the principles and policies for which I have fought during the last five years.
Dewey backer hit
The reference to the former America First adherent was evidently to Wisconsin Secretary of State Fred R. Zimmerman, who organized the Dewey-for-President movement in Wisconsin and got more votes than any other delegate-at-large candidate.
Mr. Zimmerman retorted today in Milwaukee:
We’re all 100% for America around here. Regardless of what contributed to my vote, if Willkie thinks I’m for America second or third or fourth, he’s crazy. Maybe that’s why he got the licking he did at the polls. Maybe the voters feel that he’s for Russia, or England, or France first. If anybody else feels as he did let ‘em line up with that young man and they’ll get the same licking he did.
Smith sees victory
This charge followed shortly upon a statement by Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith, one-time Louisiana minister who variously attached himself to the late Huey P. Long, the Townsend Old-Age Pension movement, Father Charles E. Coughlin and others, that Mr. Willkie’s defeat in Wisconsin was a great victory for America First.
He added that he was communicating with Governor Dewey who, in a New York speech this week, said “the Gerald L. K. Smiths and their ilk must not be permitted to pollute the stream of American life.” Rev. Smith said he was writing to Governor Dewey that he was not at all offended by the remark and that he was “confident you have been misinformed concerning my activities.”
Two third parties
There have been two recent third-party movements of consequence. Theodore Roosevelt, a national hero, wrecked the Republican Party in 1912 by organizing the Progressive Party and becoming its presidential nominee. The late Robert M. La Follette, a great political figure in his own right, organized a Progressive Party in 1924. He carried Wisconsin and the city of Cleveland, Ohio.
There was scant support for speculation that Mr. Willkie would attempt a third party. But as a free agent – a rover in the political croquet game – he may prove now to be in a position to exert more influence than as a candidate for the presidential nomination. His opposition to Governor Dewey’s nomination generally is conceded. He now is in a position to ask embarrassing questions. That Mr. Willkie will continue the “America First” theme of attack is almost inevitable and he is expected to bombard the Governor with questions about his availability for the Republican nomination in view of Governor Dewey’s repeated statements that he wants to complete his four-year term in Albany.
Stop-Dewey drive
Another development foreseen today was a “Stop-Dewey” movement which should attract Cdr. Stassen, Gen. MacArthur’s supporters and Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio. It is the custom of presidential aspirations to mow down the frontrunner. That may explain in part what happened to Mr. Willkie in Wisconsin.
Some Republicans expressed regret that Mr. Willkie attacked Governor Dewey as being supported by “America Firsters.” Among them Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH), who said:
It is unfortunate that Willkie allowed his natural disappointments to lead him to attack Republicans who disagree with him on foreign policy. Nevertheless, his withdrawal will lead to greater unity of all Republicans behind the principles declared at Mackinac.
Other Republican comments:
- Senator Gerald P. Nye (R-ND):
I am surprised at Willkie would allude to the America First backing… which seems to be an acknowledgment that the America First thought is still prominent in this country.
- Senator John A. Danaher (R-CT):
If Mr. Roosevelt would only do the same thing, I think our people would have a great deal more confidence in the general scene.
- Rep. Hamilton Fish (R-NY):
The withdrawal of Mr. Willkie is an unselfish and patriotic act in order to promote unity in the Republican Party and assure the Republican Party and assure the defeat of the New Deal, the fourth term and the bureaucratic administration.
Landon surprised
Alf M. Landon, 1936 Republican nominee, said he was surprised by Mr. Willkie’s action and added:
Last December, I predicted that Dewey would be the nominee and that Willkie would not be much of a factor at the convention. The results in Wisconsin speak for themselves.
Representative Democratic command came from Herman P. Eberharter (D-Philadelphia):
Willkie had no chance from the beginning because the bosses had greased the Republican machinery for their favorite boy – Dewey. We’ll take Dewey without even breathing.
Cassino battles rage in Italy
Nazis hinted mapping new attacks
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
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I DARE SAY —
Anniversary
By Florence Fisher Parry
Three years ago today, Hitler marched into Greece. Yes, it has been three years since the great old names leaped back into the news – the Battle of Marathon, the Battle of Thermopylae. Then it was not long until we heard that the Swastika was flying over the Parthenon. And the Greeks in America, or indeed wherever they were – those who were not in their native land when the shameful blow struck – bowed their heads and wept for their conquered brothers and could not be comforted.
Since then, other proud cities have fallen; some have been burned away; but it seems to me that nothing carried the indignity of Athens fallen, that pure and classic monument to form and beauty!
The mind cannot face what must be the degradation which the people of Greece have suffered in the last three years. It was nothing to starve or suffer disease or be stretched on the rack of pain. But to bite the dust before a breed of inferior vandals, this was the gall that killed.
What of Rome?
Now it might be well on this third anniversary of Hitler’s march into Greece to think of what is to be the fate of that other seat of glory, the city of Rome, for the question now is agitated: Shall the Allies be driven into destroying Rome?
It might be in order for us to remind ourselves how long the Parthenon would have endured, how long the city of Athens, under German attack, if there could have been Allied resistance; if the Greeks had had arms.
Some time ago, one of our best radio commentators, Raymond Gram Swing, in one of his very finest broadcasts, discussed the Vera Brittain pronouncement on “massacre by bombing” and its endorsement by some American clergymen, and disposed of this question thus:
The bombing of Berlin, like the previous bombing of London, could have been avoided. The war against civilians, which the Nazis have known how to prosecute with ruthless barbarity, and which the Allies have resorted to with their own measures of blockade and bombing, could have been avoided. No one who gave a thought to this war as it was sure to be fought, in the heyday of industrial and scientific invention, had any doubt that it would be more terrible than any war ever waged before.
So, there was every humane prompting to stop it at the time it could have been stopped. Miss Brittain, and the clergymen around her, issue a call for repentance. They call only for repentance for the consequence of failure, not for the failure itself.
Is it not more to the point to think back to Munich where Czechoslovakia was mutilated on the altar of Hitler’s greed as a gift of appeasement, by honorable men who loathed war? One can go farther back to the day when Ethiopia in chains was given over to Italy, as a cheap way to avoid war with a bullying, belligerent Mussolini. Preceding that was the Japanese descent on Manchuria.
I do not know whether any of the signers of the call to repentance preached about the inevitable folly of giving way before the blusterings of Mussolini, or warned of approaching perils in Hitler’s reoccupation of the Rhineland, or his renunciation of the Treaty of Locarno. If they had a clear record of having opposed the inexorable sequence of events which produced the war with all its horrors, I imagine they would say so. But that is not their plea or their approach.
We know that Berlin is not being bombed so as to kill civilians. It is being bombed to weaken German industry, hence the Nazi ability to kill our soldiers. It is being bombed to reduce the Luftwaffe, so that when the invasion of Europe is ventured more of our soldiers will survive that essential campaign.
France, Britain helpless
It was the Germans who created the Luftwaffe. Violating their pledges under the peace treaty, they built this vast and unprecedented force, and invited chosen witnesses from abroad to open their astonished eyes to it.
With this force, the Nazis set out to make themselves dominant in the world. The accord of Munich was written under the shadow of the wings of the Luftwaffe. France and Britain wrung their hands as they sacrificed Czechoslovakia. We are helpless, their leaders said privately, for we cannot prevent the bombing of Paris and London.
There is only one way to avoid great wars, and that is to snuff them out when they are at their early and little beginnings, and to do it then with concerted vigor. So long as this resolve burns in all American minds, and no attempt is permitted to frustrate it, peace, if not pacifism, will have been served.
The lesson of this war, including the bombing of cities, is not that wars are brutal, and should be less brutal, but that wars are preventable and should be prevented.
First Lady rejects peace table post
Washington (UP) –
Although Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt “adores” the fact that she will be 60 on her next birthday (on Oct. 11), she said today she thought she was too old to learn the things that she would have to know to qualify for participation in international conferences.
She was asked at her news conference about the suggestion of a woman columnist that she wanted to sit at the peace conferences.
Mrs. Roosevelt replied:
Nothing on God’s green earth could make me take a public job of any kind.
She did not feel she had the necessary qualifications. She said there were other women, some 60 and over, who were qualified. She cited Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, New York Times writer Anna O’Hare McCormick and “some” Congresswomen.
She had no “comment” on the withdrawal of Wendell L. Willkie from the Republican presidential race.
Gen. Eaker: Nazi airpower is dwindling
But general also issues warning
By Edward P. Morgan
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Yank planes drop bombs on Venafro by mistake
By Clinton B. Conger, United Press staff writer
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Frenchman suggests Yanks stop using Poilu uniforms
By John Lardner, North American Newspaper Alliance
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