Naples, Italy –
A partial lifting of restrictions against troops entering Naples while off duty was announced by officials today because of “spring weather and improvement in the typhus situation.” A center will be opened for soldiers arriving in organized groups, but the men must leave by 6:00 p.m. CET.
U.S. airborne force finishes job quickly
By George Palmer, United Press staff writer
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Japanese see ‘lull before the storm’
By the United Press
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Doubt expressed on Capt. Don Gentile’s 27 since policy counts only planes shot down
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Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt recently made a gesture of good will toward one of his strongest Democratic critics – Senator Guy M. Gillette (D-IA).
In a letter dated March 10, when Mr. Gillette was determined not to seek reelection this year, the President urged him to reconsider. He asked Mr. Gillette to run again the grounds that men like him are urgently needed in the Senate.
Mr. Gillette subsequently said he had been advised by the Iowa Democratic state organization that thousands of names had been obtained on petitions on behalf of his candidacy. For that reason, he said he would run again if the people insisted.
Mr. Gillette has been antagonistic toward the administration since 1938 when Harry L. Hopkins, the President’s adviser, tried to prevent his reelection.
Recently, Mr. Gillette said he does not favor a fourth term. He has been a frequent critic of “New Dealers.”
U.S. guns stilled in Garigliano area as chaplains hold services near no man’s land
By James E. Roper, United Press staff writer
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He would have been on exhibit, Duce says
By Henry P. McNulty, United Press staff writer
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Family life of five heroes is dramatized in film at Fulton
By Lenore Brundige
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May limit talks to GOP platform
By Lyle C. Wilson
New York –
Wendell L. Willkie was reported today by his closest associates to believe that it is best for him to take no part in the selection of a Republican presidential nominee either before or during the party’s national convention in Chicago in June.
But he is determined to measure carefully the men, their records and the platform which emerge from that gathering. Prior to the convention, however, he probably will speak clearly on the type of platform he believes should be adopted.
To speak more freely
On the first weekend after his spectacular withdrawal from the presidential contest, associates described Mr. Willkie as feeling that he has recaptured his independence. Henceforth, he is expected to speak his mind even more freely than prior to last week’s Wisconsin primary which swamped his 1944 presidential aspirations.
Some weeks probably will pass before Mr. Willkie resumes discussion of political issues. His plans are understood to be to so a great deal of listening – especially to the men most prominently mentioned for the Republican nomination – and to undertake to measure them and their records against the issues of the day as he sees them.
Shuns ‘stop’ campaign
Mr. Willkie has told his friends that he does not intend to participate in any “stop” movements directed against any candidate nor to promote the candidacy of any man. but repeatedly in conversations with his friends, Willkie has said he intends to “say what I think.”
His friends were hopeful, but Mr. Willkie had few illusions during the latter weeks of his pre-convention campaign. Associates explained that Mr. Willkie had recognized for months that powerful forces in the Republican organization hoped to repudiate his candidacy.
Local organizations were generally uneasy over Willkie’s stand on post-war international affairs. But the Willkie camp feels that this doubt was stimulated to outright opposition by the organized effort of a group of powerful party leaders including Joseph N. Pew Jr. and Ernest T. Weir of Pennsylvania and the New York State and Illinois party organizations.
Dewey, Stassen backed
They say this opposition backed delegates pledged to New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey and delegates pledged to LtCdr. Harold Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, particularly in those Wisconsin districts in which no Dewey delegates were entered.
Wisconsin returns were so overwhelmingly against Mr. Willkie’s candidacy that no single issue could be cited as the central factor. But the Madison, Wisconsin, speech of Senator Joseph H. Ball (R-MN) is counted by Willkie adherents among the hardest blows struck in that campaign.
Mr. Ball was Cdr. Stassen’s manager and chief campaigner. He is reported to have told a Madison audience that his man was committed to the post-war territorial integrity of Germany – that there should be no post-war political dismemberment of that country.
Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
The Chicago Tribune today endorsed Gen. Douglas MacArthur as Republican candidate for the Presidency.
Gen. MacArthur, one of the two Republican candidates entered in the Illinois presidential preference primary Tuesday, was entered in the Illinois primary by the MacArthur-for-President Club. Gen. MacArthur did not indicate his desire to be a candidate.
Gen. MacArthur’s opponent is Riley A. Bender, former Illinois state prison warden.
Talking tour through Midwest to coast has been exuberant but unimpressive
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Columbus, Ohio –
Governor John W. Bricker has become almost a stranger in this capital city.
He’s away a good deal of the time in his quest of the Republican presidential nomination. He’s just dashed off on a two-week tour that took him first to Indianapolis, then to Chicago and the West Coast.
The big, handsome fellow is working hard. He is doing on the national circuit what Wendell Willkie tried to do in Wisconsin. Thus far – and it is getting late – there is little indication that Governor Bricker is doing any better.
The Bricker campaign has all the exuberance of a campaign conducted by amateurs, which it is largely.
This is manifest, not only in their methods, but in their current reaction – or professed reaction – that the withdrawal of Wendell Willkie has helped the cause of Governor Bricker. Practical political considerations would, it seems, point in the opposite direction.
Governor Bricker was never more than a dark horse chance, in a deadlocked convention, judging from the analysis of expert politicians. The only chance for a deadlocked convention was a contest between Mr. Willkie and Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York. But Wisconsin ended Mr. Willkie’s candidacy.
Dewey, the unknown
This is not to deny that there are not still, among the GOP leaders, some who are not quite sure of young Governor Dewey. Some would like to have a nominee perhaps a little more tractable, a little less of an unknown quantity. But Governor Dewey has stepped so far out in front, not only in popularity polls but in his showing as a vote-getter in Wisconsin, that these people are hesitant to start anything.
If they were still determined to try to stop Governor Dewey, they would have to find someone to do it.
Governor Bricker doesn’t seem to have the necessary spark to set off public enthusiasm.
Taft is more likely
If the opportunity offered itself where there might be a chance to stop Governor Dewey, the candidate selected to try to job rather would be Senator Taft, runner-up to Mr. Willkie in the 1940 convention, than Governor Bricker, it is believed. He is much better grounded in national and international affairs than is Governor Bricker and enjoys more confidence for this reason.
Governor Bricker is put forward as a Midwest candidate and his appeal would be expected to lie there, to start. But in a tour which covered Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Nebraska, this writer failed to discover, either among the politicians, or among the rank and file, any noticeable enthusiasm for him.
Good governor, but…
In Ohio, his home state, he is well regarded as a governor, but most people here find it hard to consider him as a possible President in these times.
There’s been some talk of him getting the Willkie strength, whatever that is. But it is difficult to see how Governor Bricker would fall heir to any of whatever it is, considering the divergent views of the two men on almost every subject.
Deer Lodge, Montana (UP) –
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker, campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, says he will “proceed to build a platform and conduct a campaign that will meet the need of America” because the American people “are determined to remain free and self-governing.”
Governor Bricker, who passed through here yesterday en route to Spokane and a campaign tour of the West, said Wendell L. Willkie’s withdrawal from the race for the GOP nomination, had not changed his plans or those of the Republican Party.
He criticized the administration for its “encroachment of government on private lives.”
By Bertram Benedict
Speculation is rife on Wendell Willkie’s future course in the Republican Party, now that he has withdrawn from the 1944 presidential nomination race. Despite his decisive repudiation by Wisconsin voters last Tuesday, Mr. Willkie still has backing from a considerable number of individuals influential in the GOP.
Sometimes a defeated presidential candidate continues to dominate party affairs, sometimes he drops out of the party picture. A President defeated for reelection is more apt to steer his party’s course than is a candidate nominated only once, for the former has had more chance than the latter to build up an organization owing him personal allegiance.
In 1936, Governor Alf Landon after his defeat withdrew for a time from politics, although later he opposed publicly some of President Roosevelt’s foreign policy, and in 1944 has done some maneuvering in regard to the Republican presidential nomination.
For a time after Mr. Hoover left the White House in 1933, the Republican Party really was without definite national leadership until the 1936 Republican Convention fell under the domination of John D. M. Hamilton, Mr. Landon’s manager.
Smith-Raskob control ousted
In 1928, the Democratic Party after its disastrous defeat under Alfred E. Smith largely repudiated his leadership, except in the East. It is true that John J. Raskob, a Smith man, continued to be head of the Democratic National Committee, but as 1932 rolled around, James A. Farley and the Rooseveltians had little trouble in putting the Raskob group to rout in most states.
In 1924, John W. Davis let his party leadership go by default after his defeat. James M. Cox was also inactive after 1920, with most Democrats recognizing ex-President Wilson as their leader until his death.
In 1916, Charles Evans Hughes made no attempt to keep a grip upon the party helm, nor did William Howard Taft after 1912.
But Theodore Roosevelt, after seceding from the Republican Party in 1912 and running for the Presidency on a third-party ticket, resumed his active interest in Republican affairs. He really dominated the GOP on the eve of the 1916 convention, and might well have been the Republican nominee again in 1920 had he lived.
William J. Bryan continued to rule the Democratic Party after his defeat in 1896, the first year he was nominated, and he easily got the nomination again in 1900. Then he lost control, anxious as he was to retain it, but he regained it before 1908, the year of his third nomination.
Bryan promoted Wilson
Even after his third defeat, he was influential in Democratic affairs, and was largely responsible for the nomination of Mr. Wilson in 1912.
On the other hand. Alton B. Parker completely surrender his leadership of the Democrats after his defeat in 1904.
Farther back, the record continues mixed. Grover Cleveland stayed in the saddle after coming out second best in 1888, and he got his third nomination – and reelection – four years later. But ex-President Benjamin Harrison gave up leadership of the Republicans on his defeat in 1892. Gen. Hancock for the Democrats did the same thing after 1880.
Blaine (Republican) and Tilden (Democrat) continued to be the outstanding leaders of their parties after their defeats in 1884 and 1876, respectively; and in each case they probably could have had renomination if they had wanted it.
In trying to get the Republican presidential nomination in 1944, Mr. Willkie no doubt kept in mind the fact that the GOP has never renominated a defeated candidate for the Presidency.