Hollywood’s Half Century
Movies, 50 years old, had an inauspicious if immodest beginning
By Douglas Gilbert
…
Air writers see Vultee’s 400-passenger dummy plane
By Henry Ward, Pittsburgh Press aviation writer
…
In husband’s footsteps –
Mrs. Clapper to become radio commentator
Will make debut at conventions
By Si Steinhauser
…
Some ex-sailors may exchange discharges
Mustering-out aid extended by Navy
…
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Italy – (by wireless)
One of our diversions while at the Anzio beachhead was listening to “Axis Sally” on the radio.
Doubtless you’ve heard of her back home. Hers is one of several German propaganda programs in English directed at the morale of our troops. The thing is wonderful but, as far as I can see, a complete failure, because:
-
Only a tiny few of our troops ever hear the radio.
-
For those who do, Sally’s music is so good and her jokes so pathetically corny that we listen just to be entertained. We feel like cads for enjoying Sally’s music while being unconvinced by her words.
Sally comes on the air five or six times a day, starting around 6:00 a.m. and lasting until 2:00 a.m. A guy named George serves as Sally’s end man. Some of the programs are directed at the British troops, some at ours.
Actually, it isn’t the same girl on all the programs, although they all call themselves Sally. The program is entitled Jerry’s Front.
German song adopted
Early in each program they sing the great German war song, “Lilli Marlene,” which we all love and which we’ve practically taken away from the Germans as our national overseas song.
Then Sally reads a list of prisoners’ names, and just as she finishes, a female quartet swings off into a snappy version of “Happy Days Are Here Again.” The idea being, you see, that it’s all over now for these prisoners and they’re safe and happy, so why don’t we all come and surrender and be happy too.
The rest of the program is divided up between the byplay of Sally and George and the playing of German and American music, including such things as “Star Dust” and all of Bing Crosby’s records.
The news is actually funny. For example, they would tell us of ships sunk at Anzio that day. From where we sat, we could spit into the waters of Anzio, and we knew that what Sally said was not true.
Both Sally and George speak good English and claim to be Americans. But they do make odd mistakes. They pronounce Houston, Texas, as though it were “House-ton,” and they speak of Columbus Square in New York when they mean Columbus Circle. It’s tiny little mistakes like that which nullify a propaganda program.
‘Hello, Mom,’ by request
I get lots of letters from soldiers mentioning their little grievances and desires. Here are just a few:
An ack-ack gunner writes that he has just listened to a BBC program in which parents in England send messages to their men overseas. He continues:
As far as I know, our boys have no program like that, and while I was listening, I thought how wonderful it would be if I could turn a dial and listen to my mom say hello.
The 5th Army has created a “Fifth Army Plaque,” which is an award to non-combatant units that have done meritorious service. Now the boys of one outfit are hurt because they are included in this plaque. They are a chemical mortar outfit (combatant), but they come under the Chemical Warfare Service (usually non-combatant). Being included in this plaque makes these boys look like non-combatant troops when they are actually frontline troops, and, as they say themselves, “have been in there punching.”
An Air Corps captain writes:
Along with thousands of others, I’ve learned the inexpressible value of letters from home. Don’t you think a good slogan to pass on to your readers would be, “A letter is like a five-minute furlough”?
Another boy wants me to use some influence in the matter of servicemen getting first chance at the gear and clothing the Army will dispose of after the war.
And, he concludes:
What is most likely to happen, we will be left holding the bag while some moneymaking fool will get control.
PROCLAMATION 2614
Flag Day, 1944
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 3, 1944
For many years June 14 has been set aside as Flag Day, observed throughout the Nation as a day of earnest rededication to those high principles of humanity and civilization which constitute the foundations of the Republic.
It is not necessary to recite that the stars and stripes of our flag symbolize the patriotic and loyal unity of one hundred and thirty-five million people in a widely diversified land. Nor is it necessary to dwell on the struggles through which we have marched, under that flag, to our present great part in the world’s affairs. What we are, and what we do, speak of these things far more eloquently than any words.
Ours is a flag of battles. On the ships of our Navy, in the vanguard of our soldiers and marines, it is carrying liberation and succor into stricken lands. It is carrying our message of promise and freedom into all corners of the world.
Ours is also a flag of peace. Under its protection, men have found refuge from oppression. Under its promise, men have found release from hatreds and prejudice, from exploitation and persecution. It is the flag under which men and women of varied heritage, creed, and race may work and live or, if need be, fight and die together as only free men and women can.
Let us then display our flag proudly, knowing that it symbolizes the strong and constructive ideals – the democratic ideals – which we oppose to the evil of our enemies. Let us display our flag, and the flags of all the United Nations which fight beside us, to symbolize our joint brotherhood, our joint dedication, under God, to the cause of unity and the freedom of men.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, President of the United States of America, do hereby ask that on Flag Day, June 14, 1944, the people of our Nation honor especially the members of the Armed Forces – men and women equally – whose unfaltering devotion to our national ideals has given the Nation’s flag a new and hopeful meaning for those struggling against oppression in lands still held by our enemies.
I direct the officials of the Federal Government and I request the officials of the State and local governments to have our colors displayed on all public buildings on Flag Day, and I urge the people of the United States on that day to fly the American flag from their homes, and to arrange, where feasible, for joint displays of the emblems of the freedom-loving United Nations without whose staunch collaboration we could not have hoped for victory.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.
DONE at the city of Washington this third day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-eighth.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
CORDELL HULL
Secretary of State
Völkischer Beobachter (May 3, 1944)
‚Geeinte Kräfte des Reiches noch stärker geworden‘ –
Japan: Deutsche Siegessicherheit beispielhaft
…
The Pittsburgh Press (May 3, 1944)
AIR BLITZ CRIPPLES NAZI RAIL LINES
U.S. Liberators rock Calais area on 17th straight day of raids
Bombings smash transport system
By John A. Parris, United Press staff writer
…
Attacks continue without letup
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer
…
All meats go ration free except beefsteak, roasts
Order made effective at midnight tonight; red points to be cut
…
Bags 126 Jap planes –
U.S. Fleet blasts Truk, outposts
Hits Carolines on way back from Hollandia
By William F. Tyree, United Press staff writer
…
‘Smelled my hair, kissed my cheek’ –
Paulette tells, amid tears, of visit to Burma and India
Yanks dubbed her Madama Cheese-Cake
By Joan Younger, United Press staff writer
…
CIO calls NLRB hostile –
Ward union loses plea for vote delay
7 days not enough, spokesman complains
…
I DARE SAY —
It does them no harm
By Florence Fisher Parry
This young mother said to me:
I dread taking my little girl to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs because I just know she’ll have nightmares.
“What makes you think so?” I asked.
Well, you know the witch is so scary. After she saw Bambi she had nightmares, and when she saw Dumbo, her heart fairly broke.
I asked her:
Well, would you deny her these Disney pictures? Would you deprive her of the joy they gave her just because of a couple of childish dreams and a few hours’ lost sleep? Which do you think is more important – having her keep her schedule or giving her wonderful little imagination a chance to exercise?
Heaven knows I do not regard myself as an exemplary parent. I made an awful lot of mistakes in the bringing up of my children; but there’s one, thank God, I never made. I did not put them in cotton batting when they were little children. I exposed them to the normal winds and weathers of childhood and did not hesitate to sacrifice their “schedule” to an occasional dislocation, if the occasion warranted it.
The other evening, I stopped in at Loew’s Penn to take another look at Snow White. I was surrounded by little children.
Yes, they were frightened with the woodsman almost killed Snow White. Yes, they were anguished when Snow White was lost in the menacing forest. Yes, they were terrified at the witch and shuddered at the horrible vulture. Yes, they sobbed when Snow White died and mourned with the dwarfs at her bier. And I have no doubt that the excitement carried over into the next day, and that they missed their naps and that their eating and sleeping schedules were shot to pieces.
Well, what of it?
The alternative
Living is a choice. It’s an alternative. Stack a few hours of lost sleep and a few childish nightmares against the richness and beauty and imaginativeness and poetry of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and what have you? Why, there’s no choice! There’s no alternative!
What are you bringing up your child to be? A mollycoddle? A hot house bloom? Or are you bringing him up to be human being, sensitive to the magic and beauty and drama of his life?
I am thankful that when my children were little the arbitrary urgencies of my own life requested me sometimes to take them with me to the theater and the movies, and on trips which for the moment changed the ordered pattern of their lives and dislocated the deadly routine of their schedule. I am glad for the evenings when I took them to the circus or to Twelfth Night or Showboat or a lovely Mickey Mouse cartoon.
I’m glad that I didn’t chase them off to the kitchen to eat their porridge when company came, but let them sit, starched and partyfied, at the tabled with the grownups, and occasionally risk their tender digestions to the mercies of a rich desert.
Looking back over those undisciplined years, I cannot remember the very occasional stomach aches and nightmares. I cannot remember the just average report cards. I cannot remember the little brashes and temperatures.
But oh, how I remember when we went to the circus together, the movies and the plays!
Gives them the sun
What? Take the children to the theater on Monday night – a school night? What? Let them see anything as cruel as a rodeo? What? Waste a ticket on a child to see Hamlet?
Why, yes – why not? I am only sorry now that I didn’t do it more often. Give children love, sun, air, simple foods, happy bedtimes and happy wakenings in the morning, and they grow like sturdy plants and put out branches that lift to the wonder and beauty of life.
Whenever I see a child who isn’t allowed to go to the movies, who isn’t allowed ever, ever to break the deadly routine of his schedule; whenever I see a child who dreads bedtime, or who is forced to eat his gruel although he gags; whenever I see a child that is deprived of the beautiful adventures that dreams and even nightmares bring, I say: Something is being left out that will deprive him forever of awareness and sensitivity.
Living is an exciting business and drama is everywhere about. Danger lurks in every footfall; but right alongside there are miracles to uncover! In pity’s name, then, prepare them for the capricious adventure. If you do not give them arms, if you do not give them armor, if you do not let them know that the sun can both heal and burn, then how, unequipped, can they meet what’s ahead?
The circus often ends in a stomach ache and the witch of Snow White may bring a childish nightmare, but which is more important – the circus or the passing stomach ache? – Snow White or a passing broken slumber?
Pepper, Hill triumph in Senate races
New Deal supported in Southern primaries
By the United Press
Four states gave a stamp of approval to the wartime conduct of their Congressmen today as Alabama, Florida, Indiana and South Dakota tabulated the results of their primary elections.
Senators Claude Pepper of Florida and Lister Hill of Alabama, strong supporters of the Roosevelt administration, were returned to their seats by wide margins.
Tantamount to election
Democratic nomination is equal to election in the South.
The primaries showed, state by state.
ALABAMA: State Senator James A. Simpson conceded his defeat by Senator Hill who was leading 100,318 to 80,919 on the basis from return from 1,748 of the state’s 2,500 boxes. Rep. Joe Starnes, a member of the Dies Committee, lost a nip-and-tuck race to Albert Rains, with 12,003 votes to Rains’ 13,118. He was the only Congressman unseated thus far.
Other Alabama Congressmen were having minor trouble. Rep. Carter Manasco was forced into a runoff against J. H. Deason when he failed to obtain a majority in a three-man race. Rep. John P. Newsome failed to pick up a majority in the 9th district and probably will face former Congressman Luther Patrick in a runoff.
FLORIDA: Pepper had 132,000 votes to 86,375 for his nearest opponent, Judge Ollie Edmunds of Jacksonville in a five-man race, for a clean-cut majority and avoided a runoff. Meager returns showed 10 residential delegates pledged to President Roosevelt and seven pledged to Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia leading,
INDIANA: Rep. Charles M. La Follette, defeated Maj. Chester V. Lorch of the Army Air Forces in the 9th district Republican race, the only close Congressional contest. The remaining incumbents (eight Republicans, two Democrats) were unopposed or renominated by wide margins.
SOUTH DAKOTA: A Dewey slate of 11 delegates to the Republican convention was leading a slate pledged to LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen (former Governor of Minnesota) 27,999 to 18,869. Both Democratic slates, one entered in opposition to that chosen by the state party leaders, were pledged to President Roosevelt. Senator Chan Gurney led Lieutenant Governor A. C. Miller 35,106 to 27,021, for the Republican senatorial nomination on the basis of returns from 1,407 of the state’s 1,963 precincts.
Pepper secures majority
In the Florida majority, the three other candidates – Millard Conklin of Daytona Beach, Alston Cockrell of Jacksonville, and Finley Moore of Lake City – apparently failed to obtain even enough votes to check Senator Pepper’s majority and force him into a runoff with Edmunds. Negroes cast their ballots in the Florida primary for the first time. Senator Pepper campaigned on a platform of solid support for the national administration and contended that his opponents attacked him only to stab President Roosevelt in the back.
Senator Hill was also a setback to hopes of anti-administration leaders of a revolt in the Democratic South. He hailed his victory as “a verdict for America’s war effort.” Senator Hill, who nominated President Roosevelt for a third term, based his entire campaign on his support of the administration while Simpson pleaded for “less bureaucracy and more states’ rights.”