Churches protest draft ruling
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Yanks stage rodeo on beachhead
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‘Ike’ swears it’s tough going –
Wildcat blocker shifts to skies and hurls Nips for big losses
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Marines to shift limited reserve men
Will reexamine them for general service
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Wife of No. 1 U.S. ace in Europe works as usual
Mrs. Johnson, 21, reports at 8:00 a.m. at drug store ‘proud as she can be’
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U.S. asked to eat its way out of current meat crisis
176 million pounds of bacon constitute greatest oversupply on list today
By Gaynor Maddox
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Address by DNC Chairman Robert E. Hannegan
May 8, 1944
Delivered at the Democratic Jefferson Day Dinner, New York City
Since accepting the assignment as chairman of the Democratic National Committee last January, I have visited twenty states and talked with hundreds of American citizens in every walk of life.
Tonight, I want to report to the Democrats of New York that it is my firm conviction that the Democratic Party will win the national elections in November and that our standard-bearer will be New York’s greatest son – Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Everywhere I have been, I find that there is in the hearts and minds of the American people the resolute determination that our great President must lead us to the conclusion of the relentless war against the enemies of liberty and then utilize his leadership and vision to establish a just and lasting peace.
There is also among our people a firm conviction that the Republican Party, irrespective of the promises and the utterances of its leaders, cannot be given another opportunity to destroy or confuse the hope of mankind that we will have both victory and peace in the great war that is now reaching its climax. Yes, I am certain that the American people have learned the lesson of history. They are determined that the vision and idealism of Woodrow Wilson shall not again be submerged by the cynicism and the opportunism of another Harding.
The people of the United States are determined that Franklin D. Roosevelt shall complete the assignment which destiny has given him, and I can say to his fellow Democrats of New York that, whatever might be the purely personal desires of the President, the Democrats of the United States and millions of other Americans will demand that a great historical process be completed without interruption. And despite the malicious whispers to the contrary, I can assure you that the President is fit and ready for the fight.
I wish to make it clear that I have not discussed with the President the question of his own desires or intentions with respect to these demands of the people that he again become a candidate. I am only reporting to you my personal opinion and the conclusions which I have reached after discussions with hundreds of persons throughout the nation.
It is my personal opinion that the people of America, always the masters of their nation’s destiny, want to finish the job now on hand with the same leadership that has taken them so far towards ultimate victory.
It it my personal opinion that our people have adjudged the life-and-death risks of total war too great to entrust the responsibility of waging it from here on, to a novice or a lesser soldier of freedom.
It is my personal opinion that the mothers and fathers, the wives and sweethearts of the men serving in the Armed Forces, the workers in our factories and shipyards, the owners of farms and the enlightened leaders of our great industries, alike are coming to a single great realization: That the future, not only of their own private interests but of their country, is at stake, and that the stakes are too large, the penalty of inexperience too heavy, to shift the tasks that lie ahead to an unpracticed hand.
And it is my personal opinion, ladies and gentlemen, that we must and shall, over the next four years, retain our great leader who is able to tackle those jobs with the practiced hand – Franklin D. Roosevelt.
I wish I could tell you more. I wish I could have come to you tonight with something more to report than the will of the people, for it is true that any man, no matter how vital his services may be to his country, must himself give the final answer to the call of his party and his country.
I can say to you, and certainly I shall say to him, that both his party and his country are making the demand that there shall be continuity of leadership in this crisis. And for myself, I am convinced that whatever his judgment in the matter may be, the good of his country will come first, the safety of our people will dictate the decision that he makes.
I can go further with you tonight. I can give you an idea of the case that we, the Democratic Party organization, are preparing to lay before the President. I shall be pleased to know whether it convinces you.
We shall state at the outset our candid opinion that, through service rendered, President Roosevelt, more than any other man in America today, has earned the confidence of the American people.
I have the best reason in the world for believing that the people are ready to express that confidence overwhelmingly at the polls next November. I have talked to a considerable and representative sample of them and they have told me so.
It follows, therefore, that our President, better than any other man in America today, stands as the bulwark against opposition views which, if put into practice, would endanger our country both in war and in peace.
What are those views?
First, on the matter of winning the war. Looking back today, every American knows how dangerous were the views, when war threatened us, of certain Republican leaders in the Congress, who opposed preparing the island of Guam for use by our Navy, who were against changing the Neutrality Act, who opposed appropriations for fighting planes, who were against Lend-Lease, and in most cases opposed Selective Service.
No one can predict what the world situation would be today if the views of these obstructionists prevailed. The American people not only have the right, but the duty to inquire into their records before political decisions are made. The electorate knows that, instead of marching to ultimate victory, we should be facing the possible humiliation of a shameless deal with the Fascist oppressors if the nation had not had leadership with the courage to prepare swiftly to meet the forces of aggression.
Looking ahead today, nobody knows better than does President Roosevelt how dangerous to the peace are the views of those Republican leaders who run with the hares and bark with the hounds, who cry out between elections against the other great powers that are fighting this war side by side with us, and who smoothly declare, as election time draws near, their newly inflamed passion for the principle of international cooperation.
Nobody knows better than does President Roosevelt how dangerous to the world of tomorrow it would be to entrust the peace of that world to men who learn their lessons late. And such lessons as these Republican leaders have learned, at all they have learned very late indeed.
The Governor of this state, the Hon. Thomas E. Dewey, who copies down the answers on his little slate after the examination is all over, gravely told the people of America on January 20, 1940:
Insofar as the present administration has adhered to the policies of its predecessors, it has met with the general approval of the American people. But it has occasionally strayed from the path. A conspicuous and most unfortunate departure was the recognition by the New Deal of Soviet Russia.
You folks in the audience cannot see the underlining of that last sentence in the notes I have here, but the italics are mine.
It was “most unfortunate,” said the Governor of New York, that our President recognized Soviet Russia. Of course, he said that four years ago. And at that time, unless a person was gifted with a rare insight into the play of great forces in the world, unless he had in him the quality of statesmanship which would enable him to judge accurately of the pull and direction of those forces, he could not have known, could not have realized the great peril in which our country stood in 1940, he could not have recognized the heroic roles which the people of Great Britain, the people of China and the people of Russia were to play, he could not have foreseen how, in fulfilling their own destinies, they were to halt the menace that threatened us.
Our President, by his actions before and since that time, move by move, play by play in this grim game of checkmating a worldwide aggression, has shown that insight, that quality of statesmanship. And those characteristics go far toward explaining today the steady march of the United Nations toward final victory.
By the same contrast between the abilities of men, the minds of men, we may explain many a similar masterpiece of miscalculation which can be credited to the present Governor of New York. They bejewel his utterances in those reckless days when he forgot to wait for the teacher to give out the answers before copying them down on his own little slate.
“At last,” he said, again in 1940, and again I am quoting, “at last I think our administration will stop trying to make deals with Russia. We need no such partnerships.”
A few days ago, speaking his piece this time after the answers had been given out and the examination was all over, Governor Dewey said:
No initial measures against Germany and Japan, however drastic, will have permanent value unless they fall within the setting of a durable cohesion between Great Britain and ourselves, together, I hope, with Russia and China.
Now, perhaps I do not have a proper understanding of what a “durable cohesion” is. Perhaps a “durable cohesion” is not a “deal” or a partnership.
But I do know the historical fact that the government of Russia with which Governor Dewey wanted to have no truck in 1940 is the same government with which he hopes we shall have a durable cohesion in 1944. The only major change pertinent to this question that has taken place inside Russia since that time is the elimination of somewhere around eight million Germans.
To borrow from the Governor’s bright lexicon, I, for one, would be better able to understand these gems of statesmanship that he is scattering among us plain Americans if they fell within the setting of a durable cohesion between one phase of this crisis and the next.
But perhaps this uncohesive record is a part of the Governor’s studied technique. Perhaps he considers it good politics. You know, in modern warfare, the strategists strive to maintain a “fluid front.” Well, the Governor was plenty fluid when he analyzed the question of national defense four years ago. Perhaps some of you will remember his brilliant exposition proving that we could not possibly produce 50,000 airplanes. He had all the figures to show how and why it could not be done and how even the plant to build that many airplanes would take us at least four years to construct.
Then he cinched the argument and boxed it in an ironbound coffin of defeatism by warning us that, “To use airplanes you have to have an air force. To maintain and fly 50,000 planes, an air force of about 750,000 men is necessary.”
These, the Governor continued, “are sobering facts.” Today the present Governor of New York must be very sober indeed. Today, four years after he showed us how 50,000 planes could not be built, how an air force to man them could not be trained, America has produced for the Armed Forces 184,000 planes, and we have an air force of 2,385,000 fighting men.
Again, the difference between men’s abilities, men’s minds. And I suspect, too, a little of the difference between men who have vision and set their sights high and men who lack this quality and keep them low.
Let us remember that difference. To the people of this country, it is something more than a casual observation on the human species. To our children and our children’s children, that difference will mean something more than a paragraph or a chapter in their history books. If we, the electorate of 1944, are not sufficiently aware of this difference, the history that will interest our children could be tragically different.
What new dangers are there going to be, what pitfalls shall we be threading our way through, after the last shot is fired on the battlefield of World War II? And in dealing with the delicate problems that will arise among nations, the dangers that may threaten our own and all other free peoples, in anticipating the world of 1948, will the Governor of New York show the same great lack of comprehension that he has exhibited for the four-year stretch since 1940?
In calling on President Roosevelt once again to lead his party and his country, we shall continue to review this record of defeatism of the opposition.
We shall point out to him the distaste of the people for campaign tactics which, even at this early stage, the Republican opposition has already adopted. We shall point out to him the recklessness, the desperation, of a political party so utterly bereft of an issue that it must comb through the newspapers from day to day and catch as catch can their issues out of the emergencies of this war.
We shall call attention to the character of a so-called “loyal opposition” which lashes out blindly at its Commander-in-Chief in time of war and prejudges any measure he may take to save the home front from weakness or from chaos.
In only one respect have I been able to observe any improvement in the intemperate character of recent utterances of the various elements opposed to the President and his policies.
We have recently been provided with certain very vital statistics, politically speaking, from the states of Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Florida and Alabama. And since that time, I have not heard repeated the prediction that the Republican Party could win with anybody.
The victories of our two valiant warriors, Senators Claude Pepper and Lister Hill, appear to have silenced the Republican talk of a “trend.” They had been talking for a long time about a “trend.”
I think the publishers of Webster might well point out, under the definitions of that word, that a “trend” is something the Republicans see only when the Democrats don’t get out and vote.
If there is any trend running through the months and years that lie ahead of us, it will be the trend to victory, and may that trend reach upward, sharp and high.
It will be the trend to a peace that will prevail over a world of free peoples.
It will be a trend to a better life for our people, a trend to those freedoms for which one man, Franklin D. Roosevelt, has worked so long and fought so wisely and so well.
Address by Senator Alben Barkley (D-KY)
May 8, 1944
Delivered at the Democratic Jefferson Day Dinner, New York City
Mr. Toastmaster: It is fortunate that in these tragic days of struggle and sacrifice we can meet in the name and under the continuing inspiration of Thomas Jefferson.
The struggle of which I speak is one that is being waged not only for the preservation of the human rights which Jefferson did so much to establish, but also the right to assemble as we are assembled here, to discuss and debate them.
No such right exists now anywhere in that part of the world controlled by our enemies; and no such right will exist here if our enemies should triumph in this war. We meet, therefore, with a background of a century and a half of political, economic and social development for which Jefferson’s philosophy prepared the way.
Faced as we are with the most stupendous and world-embracing battle to preserve a world in which the mind and soul of man may flourish and be free, poised for the impending stroke which may determine its length and final issue, we confront three problems, none of which can be separated from the others.
First, we must win this war so crushingly and overwhelmingly that no class or clique in any part of the Axis nations may again delude their people with the claim that they had not been defeated.
Second, we must work for and help to secure a peace which will be just; a peace that may be durable because it is just.
Third, we must organize the world for peace, so that the peace which we shall earn and set up may be preserved by the united and cooperative activities of those who have brought the enemies of peace to their knees and ushered in some form of world order in which the arts of peace and the will for peace may flourish.
Regarding the first of these three tasks, there is no important or substantial disagreement among the American people.
And there is no substantial disagreement that in the two and a half years since Pearl Harbor the United States, as a government and as a people, have gone farther and faster in getting ready to fight than any nation ever went in the whole history of nations.
That we were not wholly prepared for this war when the Japanese treachery of December 7, 1941 broke upon us, there is no point in denying.
That we were as well prepared as we were is due to the foresight, the warnings, and the insistence of the Democratic Party and the Democratic administration presided over by President Franklin Roosevelt.
I do not like to become partisan in the midst of war, even at a Democratic gathering like this. But a few days ago, I read a speech by a prominent candidate for a presidential nomination on the other side of the political fence in which he claimed that our military and naval weakness were due to the negligence of the present administration.
It is necessary to refute this only by recalling that from 1921 to 1933, twelve years, during which the Democratic Party was not in power, not a single battleship was laid down for construction in the American Navy.
It might be well for some of these ambitious governors to do a little cramming on American history between now and next November.
But while we were not prepared for all-out war when war was forced upon us, the same can be said of every war in which we ever engaged, beginning with the Revolutionary War itself.
The same can be said of every democracy in the world, including those which lay all around Germany and could look over the back fence and see what was going on under Hitler.
Democracies are never prepared for war at the drop of a hat. If they were, they would not be democracies, but would be the kind of autocracy against which we are fighting to protect ourselves and the world.
Under these circumstances, we, as well as our friends among the United Nations, have been compelled to fight the enemy back and hold him off with one hand, while preparing with feverish intensity with the other to forge the instruments with which to drive him back and crush him utterly and fatally.
In this process, we have transformed our nation from a peace to a war economy. We had done some things before we were drawn into the war. But in the war effort itself we have exceeded in many respects what we hoped to accomplish in the training and equipment of the largest army and navy that ever fought under a single banner. And the quality of this army and navy is in every way commensurate with their numbers.
Now in the performance of this task, and in the incredible progress we have made toward victory, there has been no distinction of politics, religion, race or color. Industry, labor, agriculture and finance have put on the uniform and shouldered a gun, and turned out the instruments with which men must fight.
This program required organization and concentration of energy. It required the delegation of power to somebody who could use it. For democracies cannot fight against aggression with a sprawling, disjointed, heterogeneous outfit without form and void.
I presume that even our opponents, those who are most critical and most partisan, will concede that this organization, this concentration, this transformation and the magnificent results which have flowed from them took place under the guidance of a Democratic administration, headed by a Democratic President, chosen for the task by the people in a free election.
Again let me say that I prefer not to speak in a partisan vein even at a partisan assembly. But I do not propose that those whose chief business at present is the fomentation of partisan hatred shall fill our backyard with political hand grenades, even though none of them explodes. I shall at least contend for the right to call attention to their presence and their intent.
Some of these things have made it necessary to put into effect restrictions and regulations which have been irksome and irritating. Politicians bent on office and disunity, will undertake to magnify and capitalize these disarrangements.
But the American people know what is involved in this war. They are not children. But even if they were, as some loquacious and mendacious persons seem to think, they would still know that the inconveniences and hardships being experienced by those of us who still live in comparative comfort are not to be mentioned in the same breath with those being endured by the fighting men and women who are honoring the name of America all over the world.
Through all these energies and these efforts, we shall win this war. We shall win it so completely along with our friends of Great Britain, Russia, China, and other peoples who are fighting by our side, that the world will not be bothered by another debate as to who won the war.
We cannot afford to allow the controversies and disunity growing out of a nationwide election to retard by a single item or moment the momentum which we are gathering and shall soon display.
There are some among us who deplore the fact that in the midst of war we must undergo a campaign and an election.
I am not one of them. The people have a right to pass judgment on their government, in war as in peace. We welcome the people’s judgment upon our record, in peace and war alike. We entertain no fears upon that score.
The only thing we ask is that the American people search and assess that record for themselves, without prejudice, without malice, without heat, but with all the light they need to enable them to see, keeping in their memories the conditions we inherited, what we have done to alleviate those conditions, and keeping in mind our present task and its final and glorious consummation.
When the war shall end, our task will not be over. In some respects, it will have just begun.
We shall reconvert our war economy hack to a peace economy. We shall re-transform our factories, our farms, our financial institutions, our manpower, back to the pursuits of peace.
We shall undertake to do this with speed and care.
We are already beginning this process so far as possible without impeding the war effort.
We shall bring back to their homes and families eleven or twelve million men and women. We shall be confronted with the duty of seeing that these men and women obtain work at fair wages. We shall see to it that they are reintegrated into the social and economic life from which they departed to serve their country. We must make sure that they do not return to an economic situation which requires them to sell apples and lead pencils on the streets in order to eat and sleep and support their families in a land that they have saved.
This great cause cannot be served by a resort to political heroics. It cannot be solved by appeals to ignorance or prejudice.
The kind of life to which our nation and the world will return will be determined by the degree of cooperation, tolerance, patience and understanding that may be brought about between government and business, agriculture, finance, labor, and all other elements of our wonderful people.
None of these can do the job alone. All of them, working together with the same unity and determination which has characterized the war effort, can and will accomplish it.
Along with these national and economic readjustments, the peace itself poses a question of major consideration. Indeed, the kind of peace which will follow this war may determine not only the real outcome and effectiveness of this war, but whether another is to follow soon upon its heels.
Already the groundwork is being laid in a most nonpartisan atmosphere, for our return to economic stability and for our return to peace.
In both houses of the Congress men of all political parties are serving upon Committees to look in advance at the postwar probabilities, and be prepared to meet them. We have made much progress in preparing for peace. In the international field, conferences have been and are being constantly held, that much of the underbrush in the thickets and jungles and forests of international relationships may be cleared away.
In this undertaking the heads of our government are utilizing the ability, experience and patriotism of men of all political persuasions.
Under our Constitution our President is charged with the conduct of our foreign relations. This is true no matter who is President or to what party he belongs.
President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull have worked together in not only conducting our relations with other nations, but in the formation of the consistent policy of our government.
Sometimes they have conferred separately with the representatives of other governments, as at Moscow, Québec, Casablanca, Tehran, and in the Atlantic, as well as in London and Washington.
To say that they have worked at cross purposes, or that their right hands are ignorant of what their left hands are doing is a preposterous and fantastic misrepresentation.
It was disappointing, and somewhat disillusioning to hear such a claim come from one who became dry behind the ears on any kind of foreign policy after he had perceptibly slowed down his own synthetic flight from a presidential nomination.
Out of this war must come a peace that is just and honorable. A peace to which all fair-minded men and men of good will can subscribe.
In order that such a peace may be ordained, the economic problems of impoverished and overrun nations cannot be Ignored. Chaos and disorder cannot be the breeding ground of a durable peace. Hunger, starvation and disease cannot constitute the fertilizer for a healthy growth of peaceful restoration.
It will not be necessary to set up an international WPA as some prominent political candidates now pretend to fear. Nor is it necessary for our own salvation, nor will it shorten the war or hasten the peace, nor make a better peace, for such candidates to seek to destroy the confidence of our people in our allies for some local and temporary purpose.
When peace comes it must come as the result of confidence among the peoples who must win this war.
No blueprint of a peace treaty can now be exhibited. But we are looking and preparing for the day when the peoples of the earth may throw from their backs the burdens of war, stand erect again, and demand that all peoples and all nations that now assert their desire and intention to pursue the arts of peace shall do so in good faith.
When that peace shall come, it must be preserved.
Whether any discussed or projected organization to preserve world peace shall be launched before any treaty of peace is concluded, or shall become a part of it, or shall come afterwards and separately, is a question of details and mechanics. Many nations will have to be consulted and will have to agree.
But the substance is what will count ultimately in determining the value of any organized effort to preserve world peace.
We have learned now that when storm clouds gather over the world, threatening our own and the security of all peace-loving nations, we cannot rush into a storm cellar thinking that when the storm subsides and passes, we may emerge to find our homes and institutions and our traditions untouched.
There is no such thing as individual freedom from flames when the world is on fire. We know that now, and only folly could dictate that we seek to shirk our share of responsibility for the peace of mankind.
I do not wish to disinter the bones of the Versailles Treaty or the League of Nations.
But a coy, demure, unannounced, but palpitating candidate for President a few days ago startled the world by revealing that the defects of the Treaty of Versailles grew out of the fact it was written by a group of tired old men who had enough life left in them to win a war but were too feeble to write a treaty of peace.
The petty implications in this observation are too obvious to need photographic exhibition or blueprint delineation.
That the Treaty of Versailles had defects no one will deny. So have all treaties contained defects and many of them contained the seeds of future wars.
The Treaty of Versailles failed not because it was written by tired old men who had won a war, but it failed because a group of men, some of them malicious, some of them old, and some of them young, destroyed it before it had a fair chance to work or to have its defects cured.
In our own country it became the football of partisan politics and as a result we got nothing but a separate peace with Germany.
It does not serve our present generation, nor compensate for the enormous sacrifice which we are suffering in this war to reflect either upon those who wrote that treaty or those who opposed it. Our task now is to avoid such mistakes as were then made, if we can detect them.
It is our duty to protect future generations from the necessity of going through another slaughterhouse in order to preserve a decent civilization, elevate the ideals of the world in general, develop the resources with which God has endowed the earth, give remunerative labor to all who are able and desire to work, provide an opportunity for profitable investment by those who are able and willing to invest, lay the groundwork for a higher and more universal education, and cultivate the moral and spiritual values which exalt a nation in its own eyes and in the eyes of the world.
In behalf of such a concept of life the Democratic Party has fought for a hundred and fifty years. In behalf of such a concept it calls now for the earnest and devoted aid and cooperation of men and women of all ages, religions, colors, conditions and political persuasions.
A few local or temporary political victories or defeats may inflate or depress minds which look upon them as the supreme object of all life.
But–
Truth crushed to earth
Shall rise again.
The eternal years of
God are hers.
But error, wounded,
Writhes in pain
And dies amid its worshipers.
Schwere Kämpfe vor Sewastopol –
Abwehrschlacht zwischen Pruth und Moldau beendet
Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 8. Mai –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Vor Sewastopol griff der Feind auch gestern unter heftigem Artilleriefeuer mit starken Kräften an. Während ihm im Südabschnitt nach erbitterten Kämpfen ein Einbruch gelang, zerschlugen unsere Truppen im Nordabschnitt alle feindlichen Angriffe. Bei der Abwehr starker Angriffe feindlicher Schlacht- und Kampfflieger vernichteten unsere Jagd- und Schlachtfliegerverbände sowie Flakartillerie der Luftwaffe 130 sowjetische Flugzeuge. Leutnant Lambert erzielte in Luftkämpfen allein 14 Abschüsse.
Die 9. Flakdivision unter Führung von Generalleutnant Pickert hat sich bei den schweren Abwehrkämpfen auf der Krim erneut besonders ausgezeichnet. Sie konnte am gestrigen Tage ihren 1400. Flugzeugabschuß melden.
**Östlich des rumänischen Sereth nahmen Panzergrenadiere in harten Kämpfen ein beherrschendes Höhengelände. 15 feindliche Panzer und 41 Geschütze wurden vernichtet, zahlreiche Gefangene eingebracht. **
Zwischen Pruth und Moldau hat die am 26. April begonnene Abwehrschlacht ihren vorläufigen Abschluß gefunden. Der mit 20 Schützen- und mehreren Panzerdivisionen angestrebte Durchbruch der Bolschewisten scheiterte an der zähen und verbissenen Abwehr der unter Führung des Generals der Infanterie Wöhler stehenden deutschen und rumänischen Truppen, die von Verbänden der deutschen und rumänischen Luftwaffe in vorbildlicher Kameradschaft hervorragend unterstützt wurden. Der Feind verlor neben hohen blutigen Verlusten 386 Panzer, 92 Geschütze und 100 Flugzeuge. In diesen Kämpfen hat sich die Panzergrenadierdivision „Großdeutschland“ unter Generalleutnant von Manteuffel besonders ausgezeichnet.
Im Landekopf von Nettuno führte der Gegner örtliche Vorstöße, die abgewiesen wurden. Fernkampfartillerie bekämpfte mit guter Wirkung Betriebsstoff- und Munitionslager des Feindes.
Britisch-nordamerikanische Bomberverbände richteten am gestrigen Tage und in der letzten Nacht Terrorangriffe gegen das Stadtgebiet von Bukarest, wo sie Schäden und Verluste unter der Bevölkerung verursachten. Deutsche und rumänische Luftverteidigungskräfte schossen 14 feindliche Flugzeuge ab.
Bei geschlossener Wolkendecke führten zahlreiche nordamerikanische Bomber einen Terrorangriff auf die Reichshauptstadt und gegen mehrere Orte in Westdeutschland. Besonders im Stadtgebiet von Berlin entstanden Schäden an Wohngebäuden und Kultureinrichtungen sowie Personenverluste.
In der vergangenen Nacht warfen einzelne britische Flugzeuge Bomben im Raum von Köln und Düsseldorf. Durch Luftverteidigungskräfte wurden bei diesen Angriffen sowie über den besetzten Westgebieten 26 feindliche Flugzeuge, darunter 17 viermotorige Bomber, zum Absturz gebracht.
Scharfe Kritik an Washington –
Roosevelts Bolschewistenpolitik
Lissabon, 8. Mai –
„Die Tendenz unserer Politik und aller öffentlichen Erklärungen der Regierung, nach denen man die Sowjets um jeden Preis verehren müsse, geht dahin, daß jeder, der sich nicht zu ihnen bekennt, ein Faschist und ein Verräter an den USA ist.“ Mit diesen Worten kennzeichnet im San Francisco Examiner der bekannte US-Journalist Paul Mallon die Bolschewisierungspolitik der Washingtoner Regierung. Die US-Regierung und ihre Propaganda, so führt er weiter aus, habe dem amerikanischen Volk die Sowjetunion nicht als das vorgeführt, was sie wirklich ist, und stets vermieden, dem Amerikaner eine realistische Beurteilung der Sowjetunion zu ermöglichen. Bei einer Beurteilung der Sowjets müsse man von vornherein überzeugt sein, daß sie niemals das meinen, was sie erklären. Die Grundlage der ganzen Sowjetpolitik sei es, die Gemüter um Moskau zu verwirren und aus jedem eine Stellungnahme herauszulocken, ohne sich selbst jemals irgendwie festzulegen.
Stalin würde es, so wie er geartet sei, als eine Schwäche betrachten, wenn er jemals seine wirklichen Absichten vor die Öffentlichkeit brächte. Es habe auch wenig Zweck, den Versuch zu unternehmen, diese Methoden Moskaus zu kritisieren oder beeinflussen zu wollen, denn erreichen könne man dagegen nichts.
Klarer und eindeutiger kann die Politik Washingtons und Moskaus kaum gekennzeichnet werden. Hier wird von amerikanischer Seite unzweideutig das Zusammenspiel des bolschewistischen und des plutokratischen Diktators aufgezeigt. Der US-Journalist, der mit seinen Veröffentlichungen im feindlichen Blätterwald wie ein weißer Rabe wirkt, hat nur vergessen, das Bild des ewigen Juden als den wahren Motor der beiden Imperialismen zu zeichnen.
U.S. Navy Department (May 9, 1944)
Joint Statement
For Immediate Release
May 9, 1944
The following joint Anglo‑American statement on submarine and antisubmarine operations is issued under the authority of the President and the Prime Minister:
In April 1944, the United Nations anti‑submarine activity continued at a highly satisfactory level. Again for another month the extraordinary fact continues that the number of enemy submarines sunk exceeds the number of Allied merchant ships sunk by submarines.
CINCPAC Press Release No. 393
For Immediate Release
May 9, 1944
Airfields at Ponape Island were bombed by 7th Army Air Force Liberators and Mitchells on May 7 (West Longitude Date). Anti-aircraft fire was moderate.
Remaining enemy positions in the Marshalls were bombed and strafed on May 7 by Mitchell bombers of the 7th Army Air Force, Dauntless dive bombers and Corsair fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, and Navy Hellcat fighters. Coastal guns, anti-aircraft batteries, and a power station were hit.
The Pittsburgh Press (May 9, 1944)
GERMANS DRIVEN BACK IN ITALY
Nazis retreat 10 miles on central front
Give up villages 30 miles from Adriatic
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
…
Air blitz reaches new high
2,000 planes pummel Nazi air, rail bases along ‘Atlantic Wall’
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer
…
Wants $60,000 back –
Lewis drops his wooing of AFL
UMW leader is bitter in denunciation
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
…
I DARE SAY —
It isn’t brotherly love
By Florence Fisher Parry
The other night on the radio, I heard one of the most depressing prophecies I ever heard uttered in regard to post-war Europe. The commentator offered the horrifying speculation that Hitler and his gang realize that their only hope lies in the complete and utter demoralization of Germany and that the only way they can hope to survive is to bring about complete collapse of the German people. That is why they are prepared to fight until they are indeed destroyed.
They see that the German people must be reduced to such a state of abject despair, hopelessness and demoralization that in their desperation they will be willing to turn again to another false prophet, to another diabolical Hitler. Thus do they hope to perpetuate their evil power; for they know that when human beings are desperate enough, they will turn to anything.
Cynical and sinister as is this theory, it is a reasonable possibility. The iconoclasts in history always fed and fattened upon the failure of beaten men. The beaten man, bereft of strength and sanity, no longer able to discriminate between the spurious and the gentle, invariably turns to a false prophet for his redemption.
These false prophets invariably have adopted the same sinister plan by which to conquer and enthrall. They have immediately set about innovating a system of petty authorities giving into the hands of their disciples some semblance of power, setting them up over each other in an intricate system of policing, giving them rank and title and office; and thereby investing them with a sense of importance so that each man sees himself lording it over someone else still lower on the scale of human importance.
Paternalism
It would be well, I think, for us to examine some of the measures we are ourselves now employing, lest this war, too, prove a boomerang, and we find ourselves at its end imprisoned within another immortal nightmare.
For in our own country the shadow of this same sinister philosophy has been working under the guise of a benign largesse. The same dangerous exploitation of man’s defeat and despair has been subtly encouraged. The same artful system of erecting myriad petty authorities has been taking covert root. The same system of elaborate bureaucracies with their petty appointments and abnormal authorities has become woven into the fabric of our government.
A vast paternalism has extended its all-enveloping warm blanket of benefits over the failure segment of our population, until today our own federal government, outside its frank handouts, has a payroll of $522 million a month. For every three men now in our Armed Forces, there is one employed by the government in a federal job.
Never in the history of any one nation has there been such a wasting and hoarding of manpower specifically for the business of running the government. The number of bureaus now sapping the manpower strength of our nation is practically uncountable.
It is more than overstaffing. It is overstuffing. And by the report of our Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, who headed the inquiry into non-essential federal expenses, at least one-third of the civilian personnel of the federal government could be dismissed and absorbed immediately into the war or essential industry.
Assumption of power
The OPA is typical. When it began in April 1941, it had a staff of 84. A year ago, it had 90,000. I have not at hand the figures on its expansion in the last momentous year.
You will say that this is a far cry from the methods used by other tyrannies who increase their powers and perpetuate themselves by setting up arbitrary bureaus authorized to rule by executive order. Examine, then, The Congressional Record, which will reveal to him who chooses to investigate, that almost one-half of our federal laws today are being created by the administrative and not the legislative branch of the federal government.
Those who originate executive orders are not elected by the people. They are appointed by the administration. They do not represent anybody. They stand for their own personal, peculiar ideas. They are free to promote their own philosophies and enhance their own powers.
The assumption of such administrative power is a snowball which gathers momentum, size and destructive menace as it rolls down the slopes of history. It always starts with a snowflake – a soft, white, gentle snowflake. A snowflake of brotherly love.
This is to help you, brother. This is to lift you up from slavery.
That’s how tyranny begins, with a snowflake.
But as history has proved and will until the end of time – it isn’t, it isn’t, brotherly love.