America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

Germans lose compromise peace hopes

Nazi anti-invasion force doubled

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

Scientists develop synthetic quinine

parry3

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?

americavotes1944

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.”

Steel company wins opening round in trial

Upheld by court in clash over records
By Dale McFeatters, Press business editor

Pay demands are linked with tax bill

House opens debate on simplification bill


Congress scores Polish partition

americavotes1944

Change of political pace –
Roosevelt keeps hands off as ‘purged’ Senators run

By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt has apparently changed his political tactics since 1938 when he undertook to purge from the Democratic Party a number of members of Congress whom he regarded as too conservative for the New Deal.

Regardless of fourth-term intentions, Mr. Roosevelt now appears to be willing to accept Democratic Congressional candidates as primary voters select them in this presidential election year.

This attitude is accepted by some persons here as further evidence that he is reconciled to the evident determination of most of his party colleagues to draft him for another term. A man who foresees himself about to begin a campaign is not likely to undertake to read anybody out of his own party.

Senator Millard E. Tydings (D-MD) was renominated this week in a moderately spirited primary and by an overwhelming margin over his several opponents. No word from the White House challenged Mr. Tydings’ fitness to remain in the Senate this time.

Conducted personal fight

Mr. Tydings was one of four members of Congress Mr. Roosevelt himself sought to defeat in primary contests in 1938. The President conducted the fight himself against renomination of Tydings, Senator Ellison D. “Cotton Ed” Smith (D-SC), Senator Walter F. George (D-GA) and Rep. John J. O’Connor (D-NY). Senators Tydings, Smith and George were triumphantly renominated and they are up again this year.

Another whom the White House sought to purge in 1938 was Senator Guy M. Gillette (D-IA). The job was handed to Harry L. Hopkins – then, as now, a close personal and political friend of Mr. Roosevelt’s. Mr. Hopkins was born in Iowa and he backed a candidate against Mr. Gillette in the Iowa Democratic primaries. But Mr. Gillette came through with votes to spare. This year, Mr. Gillette has received a presidential blessing.

Transcontinental journey

Mr. Gillette’s primary comes this year June 5. South Carolina votes Aug. 29 and Georgia’s primary comes July 4.

Mr. Roosevelt made his extraordinary incursion into Democratic primaries in July 1938 in a transcontinental journey which broke political seismographs throughout the country.

Mr. Roosevelt was greatly moved in his direct and indirect action against various Democrats in 1938 by resentment of their opposition to his attempt to reorganize the Supreme Court by legislative process. But after the coast-to-coast journey was completed, one of his closest associates explained that the long-range objective was “control of the Democratic Party by the liberal elements in preparation for the 1940 campaign.”

“That means, naturally,” he said, “reducing the strength of the conservatives.”

For whatever it is worth, some men regarded as too conservative for renomination in 1938 apparently will not be opposed on that or any other grounds this year.


‘Ham’ Fish cleared in Legion report

In Washington –
Army, Navy lift secrecy curb on war output

Aircraft program biggest by far


Davis defends OWI’s ‘history’

Eberharter told it’s a ‘supplement’

Poll: Bricker leads but Dewey gains in Ohio

MacArthur far behind in third place
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

Peewee and Helen return with 17 Jap prisoners

By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer


U.S. planes flown directly to Russia

Ford workers in Canada resume strike

‘Double-cross’ charged to agency

Allies repulse 3 Nazi attacks on beachhead

Infantry, artillery beat off thrusts
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer

British seize Jap positions in East India

Recapture Kohima’s water supply point


Japanese gain on 20-mile front in China

Reach outskirts on Honan Province city

Mississippi River still falling

Editorial: More Pacific victories

Editorial: Two G.I. Joes did their duty

Editorial: Poland fights on