U.S. priest and Stalin confer in Kremlin on Polish situation
Unprecedented parley lasts for two hours
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Poll: Governor Dewey increases lead; Gen. MacArthur trails in second
New Yorker popular choice of 55%
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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German people believe they’ll beat invasion
But they’re worrying just the same
By Philip Whitcomb, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Editorial: ‘Life up to the hilt’
Theodore Roosevelt often said a man should “live life up to the hilt.”
Frank Knox, who followed TR up San Juan Hill, and followed him in politics from then on, was never short in observing that maxim.
As a youth he was poor – in language popular in recent years he could almost be said to have been underprivileged. But Frank Know was not a fellow to waste time sympathizing with himself. By working hard and making good on his opportunities he achieved wealth and influence. A small-town newspaperman, he became general manager of a chain of metropolitan dailies, and crowned his business and professional career by becoming owner and shirtsleeve publisher of the great Chicago Daily News.
He was a Bull Moose leader, a Republican nominee for Vice President, but gained his only public office – and that a high one – as an appointee under a Democratic administration. And he took time off from journalism and politics to be a combat soldier in two wars and Secretary of the Navy in a third.
A stout partisan in peacetime – there was no more vigorous critic of the New Deal in the balmy ‘30s – he forgot politics when war clouds gathered.
It must have been a source of great satisfaction to Frank Knox that, at the age of 70, he could take an active and important part in this war. One of his last acts was to urge on business and labor leaders the need of compulsory service in war industries to provide for the impending Battle of Europe. Another was to attend the funeral of a former business partner – and there he was stricken.
Frank Knox’s life was rich in rewards. It was a “life up to the hilt.”
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Taylor: A lone lame duck
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent
Washington –
Last Tuesday’s apathetic Pennsylvania primary created three lame ducks in the House of Representatives, but two of them are voluntary lame ducks who are running with formidable backing for other jobs.
The sole Congressman who was involuntarily eliminated is Democratic Rep. Robert Grant Furlong, Donora physician and first victim of the 1943 reapportionment of Pennsylvania Congressional districts. Mr. Furlong is a first-termer, elected in 1942 from the patchwork 25th district, composed of Washington County and part of Allegheny County, which was a feature of the compromise 1942 apportionment.
The district reverted to its former boundaries when the present Republican Legislature reapportioned for the second time, and became the Washington-Greene district. Mr. Furlong won in his home country; was defeated in Greene.
Two years ago, Mr. Furlong was strongly backed by the United Mine Workers and the Democratic organization. He was elected by the slender margin of 413 votes out of a total of 76,219. His voting record has been consistently pro-labor and in support of administration policies.
Republican Rep. William I. Troutman of Shamokin, elected as Congressman-at-Large under the makeshift 1942 apportionment, couldn’t run again for the same job because the at-large post was eliminated in the new apportionment.
To remain in Congress, Mr. Troutman would have had to run against Rep. Ivor D. Fenton, Schuylkill County Republican. Instead, he ran for nomination to the State Senate against Republican Senator George A. Dietrick in the 27th district (Northumberland County), and eliminated Mr. Dietrick from the running.
Mr. Troutman, an attorney, became Congressman-at-Large with the support of his brother-in-law, Henry Lark, Northumberland County Republican leader. Mr. Dietrick, a member of the Senate for eight years, fought consistently with Mr. Lark’s organization and will be replaced with a more friendly member.
Two in one district
The third lame duck in the House is Rep. Francis J. Myers, Philadelphia Democrat, who didn’t run for renomination because of his designation as the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate against the veteran Senator James J. Davis. Both were unopposed in the primary.
The new reapportionment caused the unusual situation of pitting two members of Congress against each other in the November election in Philadelphia’s new 3rd district.
Republican Rep. Joseph M. Pratt, who was elected only three months ago to replace Democrat James P. McGranery in the former 2nd district, is now in the 3rd district, represented by Democratic Rep. Michael J. Bradley.
Mr. Bradley, with some labor backing, was a strong contender for the Democratic endorsement for U.S. Senator, withdrawing only at the last moment in favor of Rep. Myers. He now must campaign against an opponent who turned a normally-Democratic district Republican.
Only four of the 19 Republican Congressmen from Pennsylvania who sought renomination had any opposition in the primary and all of them came through unscathed.
Party regularity
The renomination of 19 Republican Congressmen and 11 Democratic members and the loss of only one incumbent candidate is a sort of testimonial to the party regularity among Pennsylvania Congressmen.
The state’s delegation here splits along party lines in the voting in the House with such monotonous regularity that nobody has to wait for the official count to find out how his Congressman voted. If he’s Republican, he supports the party policy; if he’s a Democrat, his vote is for the administration.
There will be more – perhaps many more – Congressional lame ducks from Pennsylvania after Nov. 7. By common agreement, the most important factor, and the question Congressmen would like to have answered, is: How well will President Roosevelt run in Pennsylvania this time?
Brig. Gen. Wilbur: Infantry still decisive factor in winning war
By Brig. Gen. William H. Wilbur, Assistant Commander, 36th Infantry
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Chief Justice Holmes biography is human and ‘impressionistic’
No attempt made at dramatizing
By Harry Hansen
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Life in Europe for decade before Hitler’s march on Poland told by world traveler
Author made study of Nazi methods; served as reporter in Paris for NBC
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Paulus: Book mirror for author
Eric Johnston asks for cooperation
By John D. Paulus
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Greene: Cornelia is busy woman!
Writing, acting engulf her time
By Mabel Greene
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New plays fail to register
Recent exhibits of poor quality
By Howard Barnes
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Ninth victory dispelled –
Chisox end Browns’ long streak in ninth inning
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Three share honors –
Blunder robs Michigan of top relay honors
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U.S. Navy Department (May 1, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 384
For Immediate Release
May 1, 1944
Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Four bombed Paramushiru in the Kuril Islands before dawn on April 29 (West Longitude Date). Light anti-aircraft fire did no damage to our planes. All of our planes returned.
A single search plane of Fleet Air Wing Two bombed and damaged a ship at anchor in the Truk Lagoon and strafed airstrips on Moen and Eten Islands on April 29.
Ponape Island was bombed by 7th Army Air Force Mitchell bombers on April 29. Runways and adjacent installations were hit. A large explosion was observed near one airfield. Moderate anti-aircraft fire was encountered.
Thirty‑five tons of bombs were dropped on remaining enemy objectives in the Marshalls on April 29 by Mitchell and Liberator bombers of the 7th Army Air Force, Dauntless dive bombers and Corsair fighters of the Fourth Marine Aircraft Wing, and Navy Hellcat fighters.
The Pittsburgh Press (May 1, 1944)
498 LOST IN SINKING OF U.S. SHIP
Troop carrier sent down by enemy action
Army announces Mediterranean loss
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2 U.S. air fleets hit Nazis
3,000 planes hammer invasion coast and vital railway yards
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer
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Eisenhower to give signal for uprising
He’ll broadcast as invasion begins
By Robert Dowson, United Press staff writer
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Two-way assault asked by Stalin
Calls for Allied push to tie with Red drive
By Harrison Salisbury, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
Premier Marshal Joseph Stalin, in a May Day order of the day, called today for joint blows from the east and west to crush Germany “in its own lair” as Soviet planes softened the enemy’s Central Front for what may be the next Red Army offensive.
He said:
To rid our country and the countries allied with us from the danger of enslavement the wounded, German beast must be pursued close on its heels and finished off in its own lair…
This task… can be accomplished only on the basis of joint efforts of the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States of North America – by joint blows from the east dealt by our troops and from the west dealt by the troops of our allies.
Underlying Stalin’s words, the third major Russian air attack on a German base on the Central Front within 72 hours indicated that the Red Army shortly may break the stalemate on the approaches to the Baltic States, perhaps coincidentally with the Allies’ opening of a Western Front.
Long-range Russian bombers smashed at Idritsa, gateway to central Latvia, Saturday night, concentrating on railway targets and nearby airfields. Several military trains and a number of aircraft were destroyed. Large fires were observed.
Earlier, Soviet planes hit the big German airfield at Orsha in White Russia and another field in the same area, where 21 planes were destroyed.
Front dispatches reported the weather was steadily improving on the Central Front, drying out passes traversing the great marshlands barring the approaches to Latvia, Lithuania, and East Prussia.
In old Poland, the Soviet midnight communiqué announced, the Russians seized two villages southeast of Stanisławów in a flanking attack. Some 150 Hungarians were captured. Three hundred Germans were killed in futile attempts to dent the Soviet line in an adjoining sector.
Enemy attacks were also repulsed north of Iasi on the Romanian front, where 33 German planes were shot down.
Ships of the Black Sea Fleet sank two of three transports in an attack on an enemy convoy west of besieged Sevastopol, Crimean naval base, the communiqué said.
Appeals to people
Stalin, in his order of the day, said the Red Army, in cooperation with the Allies, “must deliver from German bondage our brothers, Poles, Czechoslovaks and other Allied peoples of Western Europe which are under the heel of Hitlerite people.”
He called on the people of Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland “to take the cause of their liberation from the German yoke into their own hands,” overthrow their governments and make peace with the Allies.
He said:
Under the blows of the Red Army, the bloc of Fascist states is cracking and falling into pieces. Fear and confusion now reign among Hitler’s Romanian, Hungarian, Finnish and Bulgarian “allies…”
These Hitler’s underlings cannot fail to see that Germany has lost the war. Romania, Hungary, Finland and Bulgaria have only one possibility for escaping disaster – to break with the Germans and withdraw from the war.
Praises U.S., Britain
Stalin said the United States and Britain had made a “considerable contribution” to the Red Army’s success in liberating more than three-quarters of its territory overrun by Germany.
The two Western Allies, he said:
…hold a front in Italy against the Germans and divert a considerable part of German troops from us, supply us with very valuable strategical raw materials and armaments, subject to systematic bombardments of military objectives in Germany ad this undermine the latter’s military might.
Stalin ordered a May Day salute of 20-gun salvoes in Moscow and others of the principal cities in Russia.