America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

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americavotes1944

Dewey praises teamwork in home state

Governor attacks Roosevelt ‘liberalism’

Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, making his second report to the people, said last night that the “cobwebs” of past Democratic regimes in New York State had been wiped out, and that the present state government is “infused with new blood and new energy, filled with a spirit of teamwork between the legislative and executive branches.”

While devoting most of his address to a review of accomplishments by his administration during the last year, Governor Dewey indirectly attacked the Roosevelt administration.

Roosevelt ‘liberalism’ attacked

He criticized:

…that type of personal government which talks fine phrases of liberalism while seeking to impose its will and whims upon the people through centralized bureaucracies issuing from directives from a distance.

Governor Dewey, the leading possibility for the 1944 Republican presidential nomination, said his state administration was attempting to “establish and maintain a genuinely competent and progressive government.”

He continued:

Three immediate and fundamental purposes have guided our work to strength the state government. First, to win the war; second, to prepare for a rapid and smooth readjustment to peaceful pursuits, once complete victory is won; third, to preserve and develop that freedom at home for which your men are fighting abroad.

Workable soldier ballot

Anti-discrimination legislation, drastic revision of the Workmen’s Compensation Administration, new health bills, streamlining of various departments and bureaus, veterans’ legislation and greater aid to the New York farmer were other accomplishments cited by Governor Dewey.

He continued:

Your state administration also took the lead in proposing a simple, workable formula for soldier voting. This soldier ballot will… give every man and woman in the armed services by the simple act of signing his name once, a valid note for every candidate from President to the local officers in his hometown.

Formula for freedom

Governor Dewey said the day would come:

…when free men everywhere, regardless of race, color or creed, can live in freedom, can work at occupations of their own choosing, can raise their children in the traditions of their parents, can worship God in the manner of their own choosing.

He said:

We can, and we must, keep out own society clean of those within who would lead us into paths of narrow or bigoted selfishness.

5631

americavotes1944

Merger convention

Minneapolis, Minnesota (UP) –
The Farmer-Labor Party, once spoken of as the “core of revolution in the Midwest,” met in state convention today to vote itself out of existence so its remnants can merge with Minnesota Democrats to reelect President Roosevelt.

Both the Farmer-Labor Party and the state Democratic Party opened simultaneous conventions in different hotels for the purpose of joining forces under a new hyphenated organization to be known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

Permanent convention officers were named and the nearly 400 delegates began caucusing for district committeemen. The Democrats expect to complete merger arrangements today.

Elmer Benson of Appleton, former U.S. Senator and last Farmer-Labor governor, pleaded for fusion of the two groups and attacked former Governor Harold E. Stassen and Senator Joseph H. Ball as “plain American Fascists.”

He said:

The Stassen-Ball crowd was largely responsible for the defeat of Wendell Willkie in Wisconsin. That means they are tied up with the Hoover-McCormick crowd, that they are agents of the capitalistic group that wants to destroy our present national administration. These people are plain American Fascists.

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americavotes1944

Stassen support reiterated

New York (UP) –
Senator Joseph H. Ball (R-MN) reiterated his support of LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen for the 1944 Republican presidential nomination last night and asserted that President Roosevelt and Congress “are not longer working as a team to solve the serious problems facing our country.”

Before the New York Young Republican Club, Senator Ball criticized the asserted lack of teamwork and said:

There is controversy, and often deadlock, on almost every major issue outside the actual prosecution of the war, on which there is unity.

Mr. Ball also criticized the administration for “the present jungle of overlapping bureaus and agencies.”

He said:

I have been on the Truman Investigating Committee for three years and it is a continual miracle to mw how American industry and labor continue to produce the huge volume of war materiel they are producing in the face of bureaucratic red tape and confusing and contradictory regulations emanating from Washington.

Urging the nation to ace speedily in “working out a just peace and the machinery to maintain it,” Senator Ball said:

Let our Republican Party and our nominee for President stand unequivocally for an international organization with the authority and the power to shape the peace now and to maintain it in the future.

5633

Coffee is ‘home’ to U.S. troops

It substitutes for English tea

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5634

Sweden to reject Allied demands

But Turkey pledges all possible aid

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americavotes1944

Editorial: The phony issue

With each passing week those fourth-termers who hope to make a campaign issue of an imaginary isolationism look sillier and sillier.

Last week, the Wisconsin primary exploded the myth that Midwest Republicans oppose world cooperation. For the international collaborationist Thomas E. Dewey won without running, and the superstater Harold E. Stassen placed second over Gen. MacArthur and Wendell L. Willkie. Now the Nebraska primary – with Mr. Stassen winning easily and an unexpectedly large write-in vote for Mfr. Dewey – underlines the obvious.

This week, the American Federation of Labor urged American participation in world organization for peace and security. The AFL post-war reconstruction committee reported:

The conflicts of today have proved that we can no longer rely on our favored geographical position to maintain our national safety.

It approved an international police force or any necessary means to prevent war, and modification of trade barriers to facilitate exchange of good and services between all nations. It opposed expansionism and imperialism, as well as isolationism, and rejected attempts by any nation to force unilateral solutions to territorial and other problems affecting peace. It stressed the need for international organization to handle health and welfare problems, and to control epidemics and drug traffic.

Of course, the fourth-termers have had no chance of fooling the people with a fake crusade against GOP isolationism since the Mackinac Declaration, and the Republican votes for the Fulbright and Connally resolutions.

All but an insignificant number of Democrats and Republicans support the bipartisan Congressional commitment to a democratic international; organization. The real issue is whether President Roosevelt can deliver on the American mandate and the Allied pledges, or whether European powers will put another league front on the old balance-of-power system.

About the only bright part of this picture is that there is no party division here on the need for effective and democratic world organization. This American unity in foreign policy is a source of great national strength and of world hope in this crisis. For fourth-termers, or any other group, to insist on seeing disunity where unity exists is exceedingly shortsighted partisanship.

5636

Edson: Whew! Can you figure excess profits tax?

By Peter Edson

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5637

Ferguson: Courtesy pays

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

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5638

americavotes1944

Background of news –
Wallace’s trip to China

By Jay G. Harden

Washington –
Rarely have home politics and the war abroad been so tangled up as they are in speculations relating to the trip of vice President Henry A. Wallace to China, cryptically announced to occur “sometime in the late spring or early summer.”

The political implication, which diligent inquiry in Democratic Party circles so far has failed either to remove or amplify, is self-evident. It arises from the circumstance that the vice-presidential nomination has been boiling up as the chief point of contention in the Democratic National Convention July 19, and Mr. Wallace’s prospective tour would seem to synchronize exactly with the time when he should be making his bid for delegate support.

Proceeding from the assumption that Mr. Wallace must be going abroad at President Roosevelt’s request, two diametrically opposite theories as to the latter’s political purpose are advanced.

One of these is that Mr. Roosevelt, desiring to be rid of Mr. Wallace as a 1944 running mate, is providing him with a graceful exit. The counter-conjecture holds that the President, having decided in favor of Mr. Wallace’s renomination, is seeking to build him up as a second horse that, in interest of winning the war, it is imperative not to change in midstream.

Chinese attitude important

A serious feature of this political speculation is the foreign skepticism as to Mr. Wallace’s official standing which it has aroused. For example, a leading spokesman for the Chungking government commented that:

If Mr. Wallace is being sent to China merely to shunt him off, it is an insult to the Chinese people.

From the standpoint of foreign opinion alone, it would seem necessary that Mr. Wallace’s political status be clarified before he embarks on his mission.

There is plenty of reason, entirely unrelated to Democratic politics, why an outstanding American envoy just now should be sent to China. Due to rapidly mounting currency inflation, coupled with severe shortage of food, the domestic economy of that country has been reported very near the point of total breakdown.

Coincidentally, it is said, Soviet Russian encouragement of rebel elements has placed the Kuomintang government of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in serious danger of disruption and that there have long been serious differences between Allied military authorities in the Chinese-Indian theater is well known.

At a meeting of the Kuomintang Central Committee last September Generalissimo Chiang publicly recognized an existing state of armed revolution by calling on the “Chinese Communist Party” to:

…abandon its policy of forcefully occupying our national territory and give up their past tactics of assaulting national government troops in various sectors.

Prestige feared slipping

The subsequent meeting of Generalissimo Chiang with President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill at Cairo, coupled with the naming of Chinese at Moscow as one of the “Big Four,” helped the Chungking government greatly, but latterly its prestige again has been slipping away.

One cause for this decline, State Department authorities say, was the seeming Soviet support of the Chinese Communists, contained in the issuance from Moscow of a blast against the Chiang-sponsored government of the Chinese-Russian border province of Sinkiang.

The report that, after Chungking, Mr. Wallace may go to Moscow suggests that he is being sent to mediate between the Chinese and Russians.

The main American military dissatisfaction arises from the distaste which both British and Chinese have shown for fighting in Burma.

5639

Chaplains will remain abroad

Southern Baptists plan missions

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5640

Millett: Sordid Hollywood stories build up phony idols

Miss Millett scores movie magazines for ‘junk’ and celebrity worship
By Ruth Millett

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5641

Pirate-Tigers contest rained out

Briggs Stadium debut postponed; York’s two homers beat Roe
By Dick Fortune

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Yankees pound Davis to whip Dodgers, 7–5, in 10-inning struggle

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5642

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

With 5th Army beachhead forces, Italy – (by wireless)
The other day Wick Fowler, war correspondent of The Dallas News, and I were walking along the road in Nettuno. I saw a jeep coming with a one-star plate on the front bumper, indicating that the occupant was a brigadier general. I peered intently, trying to make out who the general was.

While I was absorbed in this endeavor, the jeep drew abreast and the general suddenly saluted us. I don’t know why he saluted – maybe he thought I was the Secretary of War. At any rate I was so startled, and so unaccustomed to being saluted by generals, that I fumbled a second and then returned the salute with my left hand.

Wick says he’ll be glad to appear at my court-martial and put in a plea of insanity for me. On the other hand, I did try, while Wick never raised an arm. So, I don’t think even a plea of insanity will save him. Wick was a nice fellow, too.

We still don’t know, incidentally, who the general was.

One in ten billion

You’ve read about the little Cub planes that fly slowly around over the frontlines, doing artillery spotting for us. They’re a wonderful little branch of the service, and the risks they take are tremendous.

The Germans try to shoot them down with ack-ack, and occasionally a German fighter will sneak in and take a pass at them. But the Cub is so slow that the fighters usually overshoot, and the Cub can drop down and land immediately.

The saddest story I’ve ever heard about a Cub happened here on the 5th Army beachhead. A “Long Tom” – or 155 rifle – was the unwitting villain in this case.

The certain gun fired only one shell that entire day – but that one shell, with all the sky to travel in, made a direct hit on one of our Cubs in the air and blew it to smithereens. It was one of those incredible one-in-ten-billion possibilities, but it happened.

Not nervous – much

In my column the other day about our experience when the war correspondents’ villa was bombed, I said that after it was over, I didn’t feel shaky or nervous.

Since then, little memories of the bombing have gradually come back into my consciousness. I recall now that I went to take my pocket comb out of my shirt pocket to comb my hair, but instead actually took my handkerchief out of my hip pocket and started combing my hair with the handkerchief.

And at noon I realized I had smoked a whole pack of cigarettes since 7:30 a.m.

Me nervous? Why, I should say not.

The day after the bombing, I got a little package of chewing gum and lifesavers and whatnot. I tore the return address off the package and put it on my table in order to write a note of thanks to the sender.

The package and address were both lost in the bombing. All I remember is that it was from Spencer, Iowa. So, will whoever sent it please accept my thanks?

Sergeant is mourned

I’ve spoken of soldiers’ wartime pets so many times that you’re probably bored with the subject. But here’s one more.

The headquarters of a certain tank regiment where I have many friends had a beautiful police dog named “Sergeant.” He belonged to everybody, was a lovable dog, liked to go through a whole repertoire of tricks, and was almost human in his sensitiveness.

He had even become plane-raid conscious, and when he heard planes in the sky would run and get in his own private foxhole – or any foxhole, if he were away from home.

“Sergeant” was dutifully in his foxhole yesterday when he died. Shrapnel from an airburst got him. He wasn’t killed instantly, and they had to destroy him.

The outfit lost two officers, four men and a dog in that raid. It is not belittling the men who died to say that “Sergeant’s” death shared a high place in the grief of those who were left.

5643

Maj. de Seversky: Preparedness

By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky

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5644

Simms: Armistice terms definition urged

By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

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5645

OWI’ll tell the world –
Lucey: Propaganda flood reaches crest in Sweden with no paper shortage

By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer

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5646

34 Yanks receive Soviet decorations

By the United Press

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5647

Völkischer Beobachter (April 16, 1944)

US-Gesandtschaften als Erpresser –
Drohungen mit der ‚Schwarzen Liste‘

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5648

Mountbatten ist bedrückt –
Die britischen Truppen ‚so gut wie abgeschnitten‘

Von unserer Stockholmer Schrittleitung

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5649

U.S. Navy Department (April 16, 1944)

CINCPAC Press Release No. 359

For Immediate Release
April 16, 1944

Liberators of the 11th Army Air Force raided Matsuwa in the Kurils on the night of April 14 (West Longitude Date).

Oroluk, Nauru, Pakin, and Ulul Islands were bombed by single search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two on April 14 (West Longitude Date).

Airfields on Ponape Island were bombed by 7th Army Air Force Mitchells on the same day. A small tanker and two escort vessels were bombed near Ant Island. The tanker was sunk and the escorts were beached on the island. Our planes pressed home their attack through heavy anti-aircraft fire.

Forty‑six tons of bombs were dropped on four objectives in the Marshalls by Liberators and Mitchells of the 7th Army Air Force, Dauntless dive bombers and Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two, and Navy Hellcat fighters. One of these objectives was severely strafed. Bomb hits were obtained on gun positions and barracks.