Roper: Loudspeakers carry message of Easter to Nazis on Italian front
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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Marshall prays for freedom
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‘Benny the Bum’s’ own story –
Mussolini would have come to U.S. for war criminal trial, he thinks
He would have been on exhibit, Duce says
By Henry P. McNulty, United Press staff writer
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Sullivans bring lump to throat
Family life of five heroes is dramatized in film at Fulton
By Lenore Brundige
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Willkie likely to adopt passive role
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 Tribune backs Gen. MacArthur
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.
Stokes: Circuit-riding Bricker may be doing ‘a Willkie’
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.
Bricker pledges ‘needed platform’
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.”
Background of news –
Defeated candidates
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.
In Washington –
Dealer to post lightbulb tax and base price
Must be separated to pass on levy
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Free airmail for votes
Washington (UP) –
Postal officials said today that all post offices have been advised to be vigilant in honoring the free mailing privileges for ballots mailed to and from servicemen under the new soldier vote law.
The act provides that free airmail facilities will be used, wherever practical, for transportation of ballots to servicemen in this country and abroad, the first time such a privilege has been granted anyone. Even government agencies have to pay.
Alexander: ‘Black light’ will tell all
Peroxide blonds show up green
By Betty Alexander, United Press staff writer
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With 5th Army beachhead forces, Italy – (by wireless)
In our old gang of Tunisian tankmen of a year and more ago, there was Capt. Jed Dailey, who comes from Sharon, Massachusetts, near Boston.
Jed was through that battle at Sidi Bouzid, and it was he who was so furious about losing his camera and his bedroll and all his films to the Germans.
I wrote about him at the time, saying he bet the Germans would develop those films eagerly, thinking they’d reveal some military secrets, but all they’d find would be a picture of a man in a silly pose with Tunisian flowers stuck behind his ears.
Jed says that after that column he got dozens of letters kidding him about putting flowers behind his ears, but he didn’t care.
He has avenged the loss of his camera, too. Since then, he has personally captured from the Germans an even better one to replace it, and has added a Luger and a fine pair of binoculars for good measure.
Speaks with Harvard ‘A’
Jed Dailey is an unusual person. I think I like him about as much as anybody I know. He is a pure Bostonian. He talks with a Harvard broad “A.” He is a far cry from the farm boy of the Kentucky hills, yet he commands a company of such boys, and they love him.
Following the battle at Kasserine, Jed Dailey was switched from a desk job to the command of a company of tanks. The job of company commander whether it’s infantry or tanks or what, is the greatest job in the Army – the greatest and the toughest.
The boys themselves have told me what they think of Jed Dailey. When he first arrived, they were contemptuous of that cultured accent and had little faith in him. They laugh now and tell how he tries to speak in a flat accent whenever he gives them a talk, but without realizing it lapses back into his broad A.
But he has lived that down, and all their other jokes about him. They’d go anywhere with him now, or for him. He has proved himself in many ways.
Whenever there is a battle he is in his own tank, directing his company. I just had the pleasure of seeing him get the Silver Star for gallantry in action. He has been wounded twice since I saw him in Tunisia.
Whenever his company pulls back from battle, Jed Dailey throws the small details of Army discipline out the back door and the men really get a rest. As they say, “He fights hard and he rests hard.” That’s the way the boys get the most out of it, and they appreciate it.
Likes to go bareheaded
Capt. Dailey is tall and his black hair stands up and roaches back and you’d have to call him good-looking. He nearly always goes bareheaded even in the danger zone. It is not an affectation; he simply likes to go bareheaded. He usually wears an Air Corps fleece-lined leather jacket that he once haggled out of some flier friend.
At the left shoulder of the jacket are two holes – one in front of the shoulder, one in back. The first hole is where a piece of shell fragment went in. The back hole is where it came out after going through his arm. They took a piece out of his leg to patch up his wounded shoulder.
The other officers laugh and say, “Jed wouldn’t sew those holes up for $10,000.” And another one says, “Not only that, but you can see where he has taken his knife and made them bigger.” You don’t talk like that in front of a man when you mean it. Jed just grins and says, “Sure.”
Before that he was wounded in the face from an airburst. When he got out of the hospital from his second wound, he had a week’s leave at Sorrento, the beautiful resort city below Naples. He stayed one night and then returned to his company, everybody at the rest camp thought he was crazy.
Jed said:
It isn’t that I am anxious to fight, but when you are commanding a combat outfit your place is with your outfit. You feel like a heel if you are able to be there and aren’t. I feel lots better since I got back.