Fortress explodes as two attempt to save 8 in Channel
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Background of news –
Political repercussions of priest’s trip
By Jay G. Hayden
Washington –
The part foreign events may play in the approaching American presidential election is strikingly exemplified in the storm now going on among Polish-Americans over the visit to Moscow of Rev. Stanislaus Orlemanski and Prof. Oscar Lange.
The vital political circumstance is that news of this pilgrimage arrived just when Catholic and Polish-American Democrats had joined in a warning to President Roosevelt that the worst mistake he could make was to give countenance to these and other pro-Soviet Poles in the United States.
It is doubtful if the discontent of anti-Russian Poles or Catholics was much assuaged by the recent letter of Secretary of State Cordell Hull, which explained that Father Orlemanski and Prof. Lange “are making this trip as private American citizens… They have no official status, and, therefore, are not, in any sense, representatives or spokesmen of the United States government.”
Mr. Hull said the Soviet government furnished their transportation to Moscow.
Big vote in nine states
The Polish-American vote is large concentrated in nine states, all extremely close in 1940. If these states all had gone for Wendell L. Willkie, he would have had 259 electoral votes, just seven short of a winning majority.
As shown by the census, the largest Polish-American population is in New York, which Mr. Roosevelt carried in 1940 by the slim margin of 1.8%.
The other states in order of Polish-American population, each with its percentage margin of victory at the 1940 polls, are as follows:
| Illinois | Roosevelt | 1.2% |
| Pennsylvania | Roosevelt | 3.5% |
| Michigan | Willkie | 0.1% |
| New Jersey | Roosevelt | 1.8% |
| Massachusetts | Roosevelt | 2.4% |
| Ohio | Roosevelt | 2.2% |
| Connecticut | Roosevelt | 3.7% |
| Wisconsin | Roosevelt | 0.9% |
Now strongly Democratic
Of all Congressional districts the one with the largest preponderance of Polish-American voters is the 1st Michigan. This district elected Republicans from 1924 to 1930. In 1932, it went Democratic, 51,620 to 21,764, and it has remained so by even greater margins since that time. In 1942, its present Democratic Representative, George G. Sadowski, received 48,620 votes, as against 13,691 for his Republican opponent.
The change in Polish vote undoubtedly accounted for the fact that Michigan had Democratic governors for six of the 10 years between 1932 and 1942.
Alignment of Polish-American voters on the Democratic side was similarly responsible in large degree for the huge majorities candidates of that party rolled up in the same decade in such previously-Republican cities as Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Hartford, all vital to Democratic victory in their states.
Transit strike is threatened in Cleveland
By the United Press
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Non-war-essential ruling on Sears falls in WLB lap
Decision by regional board on Montgomery Ward rival is appeal by CIO union
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Politicos fret over upsets in Dies ranks
But whether CIO is factor is undecided
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Washington –
In the ominous “one-two-three” order of Count-of-Monte-Cristo vengeance members of the dies Committee have fallen before the voters, creating a new political superstition in the House of Representatives.
Defeat of a third member – Rep. John M. Costello (D-CA) – of the investigating body which has become so obnoxious to the CIO and the New Dealers was the subject of speculation and barbed raillery about the House lobby.
A favorite wisecracking greeting of one Congressman to another was, “Don’t you want to go on the Dies Committee? There’s be a few vacancies.”
Was CIO a factor?
Just how much the CIO had to do with Rep. Costello’s defeat in Los Angeles has not yet been made clear, if it was even a substantial factor. The CIO has been taking credit for defeat of another Dies Committee member, Rep. Joe Starnes, in the recent Alabama primary, and for the withdrawal of the head man himself, Rep. Martin Dies, from the Texas primary.
The regularity of the defeats is getting on the nerves of House members still to face primaries. This is not so much from the Dies Committee angle, for there are only five members of that body, but from the appearance of new and unpredictable influences seemingly at work among the voters, of which the CIO is the most clearly recognizable.
Another angle seen
Rep. Costello’s district is described as a conservative one. It takes in part of Hollywood, where there is anti-Dies Committee sentiment prevalent, but the larger part of the district is outside Hollywood and a substantial-type community.
Rather than the Dies Committee angle which, it was reported, was not stressed, some Californians here ascribed Mr. Costello’s defeat to his opposition to the administration on numerous votes in the House. As they saw it, Democrats were rising up against a member who had failed to follow the administration.
Taken with other recent developments, it begins to appear that a voluntary “purge” is going on here and there by Democrats against those who have been bold in opposing the administration. This is borne out, contrariwise, in the success of those New Dealers who have made so much of their support of the administration – Senators Pepper in Florida, Hill in Alabama, Downey in California.
Conservative Democrats, who though they sensed a conservative swing, are having a rough time of it.
In Washington –
CIO attacks House version of ‘G.I. Bill of Rights’
Job compensation hit as union asks return to Senate version of measure
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Two more resign from OWI in huff
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Navy does ‘about face’ on Communist personnel
Investigating unit is being broken up
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A guy named Stein wins $25,000 beer contest
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