America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

[NormanStewart]

Germans sobered by Allied blows

Triumphs in France, Russia and Italy bring warnings of serious dangers
By Raymond Daniell

London, England – (June 27)
The Allied triumphs in Italy, Russia and the Cherbourg Peninsula are having a sobering effect on German propagandists who only a few days ago were vaunting the rather apocryphal success of their “secret weapon.”

Now their tune is that Germany’s plight is grave indeed and that the time has come for every German to shed his last drop of blood that “Europe may live” and escape that chaos that awaits it if Russia and the Western Allies smash Germany’s “protective wall.”

German spokesmen seemed to agree today that, with the fall of Cherbourg, the Allies’ rapid advance northward in Italy and the Russians’ great westward drive, the war had entered the decisive phase. That view is shared here, where it is believed that the Red Army’s summer offensive has as its purpose a complete breakthrough of the German defenses. Now that the Allies have a firm foothold in the west, British as well as German military experts feel that the final phase of the war is beginning.

Soon after Cherbourg’s fall, a German Foreign Office spokesman was quoted as saying that the time had come when it would be seen whether “this is the last hour for Germany or her big chance.” He predicted that the decision would be reached quickly. Germany, he said would adopt defensive measures everywhere except in the south, where, he pointed out, her allies are “threatened.”

Lt. Gen. Kurt Dietmar gave cold comfort to German radio listeners tonight. He said that, despite heavy attacks by a superior enemy on three fronts, Germany could hold her own “because we have to.”

Capt. Ludwig Sertorius took a less gloomy view. He said that, now that Cherbourg had fallen, more landings were to be expected. Events, he predicted, will justify the German commanders’ judgment in holding back their operational reserves instead of “frittering them away” in an attempt to reinforce Cherbourg.

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Berne, Switzerland – (June 27)
The breakdown of relations between the German Army and the Propaganda Ministry was further accentuated today by the surprise and fear with which the announcement of the loss of Cherbourg was greeted by the German people, neutral dispatches from Berlin said tonight.

The Propaganda Ministry is solely responsible for this state of affairs, the Tribune de Genève said.

For, during two whole years, it insisted to the public that the Atlantic Wall was invincible. Today the man in the street recalls yet another slogan that it issued at the beginning of the invasion: If the Allied soldiers could not seize a large port [the reference at the time was apparently to Le Havre], their men would be thrown back into the sea. Today the man in the street in Germany is told that the Allies have that large port – Cherbourg – and he does not pass that fact over lightly.

The Propaganda Ministry has given undue prominence to German war correspondents’ dispatches from the Normandy beachhead, all emphasizing the “technical superiority of the Allies’ High Command.” Today one reads that:

The Allies have superiority in manpower, in the air, on the sea and in matériel, as against which we are pitting only our fanatic ardor in an effort to compensate our present status.

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More Canadians volunteer

Ottawa, Canada – (June 27)
Since the invasion of France, it is reported, there has been a big rise in the number of volunteers for overseas service. All men overseas are volunteers.

[NormanStewart]

Poletti arrests 198, ousts 3,750 as purge of Rome Fascists begins

Lists disqualifications for officeholders and sets up appeal commission of two Italians from each of six parties
By Herbert L. Matthews

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[NormanStewart]

Allied bombs hit all over Europe

U.S. and RAF ‘heavies’ strike in Pas-de-Calais and Poland, Italy, Reich and Balkans
By David Anderson

SHAEF, England –
Clearing weather late yesterday enabled formations of both U.S. and British heavy bombers to resume their attacks on the Nazis’ flying bomb bases in Pas-de-Calais while missions against enemy military objectives near the Normandy front were carried out by the lighter planes of the U.S. 9th Air Force.

Solid accomplishments of Allied airpower were effected over Hungary, Yugoslavia and Poland.

Several hundred Royal Air Force bombers flew out soon after last midnight in the direction of France.

The RAF struck “in great strength” at targets in France, said a British announcement early Wednesday.

The lull in activity of the air forces based in Britain, due entirely to poor flying conditions, did not affect the Mediterranean Theater, whence the U.S. 15th Air Force sent 500-700 Flying Fortresses and Liberators for attacks on targets in the Budapest area and at Brod, a key railway town in Yugoslavia.

Stiff Luftwaffe opposition was reported in the Budapest area.

Monday night, British Halifaxes and Wellingtons of the Italy-based forces bombed the Aquila oil refinery at Trieste, the largest refinery in Italy.

Blow from bases in Russia

The blow in Poland was by daylight Monday, when our “heavies” from the bases in Russia of the Eastern Command, U.S. Strategic Air Forces, blasted a Nazi synthetic oil plant at Drohobych in the Galician region. U.S. and Soviet fighters flew as escort.

One clearly defined objective of the 9th Air Force planes operating on the periphery of the Normandy battle zone is the Nazi system of filling stations. Our medium bombers and fighter-bombers methodically search out and destroy enemy fuel dumps.

Two Thunderbolts failed to return from missions that included attacks on railroads, rolling stock and Nazi road transport near Alençon, Laval and Rennes in an area some 120 miles from east of the Normandy front to Nantes on the estuary of the Loire River.

The 8th Air Force employed up to 250 Fortresses and Liberators that pounded the enemy’s pilotless plane emplacements in the Pas-de-Calais area, using both visual and instrument bombing. Five heavy bombers and three fighters were lost.

Defense against the flying bombs has been a preoccupation of the Air Defense of Great Britain and the 2nd Tactical Air Force, two RAF commands. Their efforts were supplemented by the Bombed command, which sent out Halifaxes with a strong fighter escort yesterday afternoon on an attack in northern France.

[NormanStewart]

CHIUSI RECAPTURED BY BRITISH FORCES
Eighth Army drives nine miles to Castiglione – gains on east shore of lake

Americans push ahead; battle enemy below Siena and drive up west coast as opposition stiffens

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[NormanStewart]

Asks more U.S. newsmen

London paper wants increase in those with British troops

London, England – (June 27)
Commenting on the grumbling over the lack of publicity in American newspapers for the part British and Canadian troops have played in the battle for Normandy, Lord Beaverbrook’s Daily Express said today:

Now, why not have a few more American newspaper correspondents accredited to the British fighting forces in France? At present there are only three. These few bear witness faithfully to the quality and valor of the British, but many more Americans await the chance.

[NormanStewart]

De Gaulle’s visit set early in July

President approves the dates selected by general; French optimistic

Washington – (June 27)
Gen. Charles de Gaulle, head of the French Committee of National Liberation, is expected to visit Washington between July 5 and 9. President Roosevelt said today that the general had suggested these dates and that he was informing him that the time was satisfactory.

When the President pleaded ignorance of the effectiveness of the French resistance movement in Normandy because he had not yet been there for first-hand observation, he was asked whether he was contemplating such a trip. The President laughingly replied that he was not talking in terms of implication.

[NormanStewart]

Stalin lauds U.S. for aid to Soviet Union

Cites ‘remarkable’ production job in long interview with Johnston and Harriman
By W. H. Lawrence

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U.S. honors heroic cities

Scrolls to Leningrad and Stalingrad presented by Roosevelt

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[NormanStewart]

Japanese stiffen all across Saipan

Bypassed pockets in mountain caves harass U.S. soldiers and Marines
By Howard Handleman, International News Service

Aboard joint expeditionary force flagship, Saipan, Mariana Islands – (June 27)
Japanese infantry resistance stiffened all along the island-wide front this morning as Marine and Army forces reached a sector possibly chosen for the beginning of Japan’s last-ditch defense of Saipan.

Five heavily defended Japanese pockets have already been bypassed on Mount Tapochau, from whose peak the American line pivots to the beaches on the eastern and western sides of the island. The pocketed Japanese are defending caves from which they harass and slow the U.S. advance.

U.S. Marines and soldiers have destroyed 36 Japanese tanks and captured 40, the United Press said. Though the Japanese are employing mobile artillery and tanks in numbers never seen before in the Central Pacific, there has not yet been an actual tank battle.

The Japanese defense line bends from the north slopes of Tapochau down into Garapan on the west and through Donnay Village on the east shore. Snipers and machine-gunners hiding in Garapan houses and cellars fought patrols venturing beyond U.S. lines into the southern outskirts of the town.

The U.S. advance was spilling over lightly defended areas and slowing against the heavily resisting sectors to conform to enemy defense lines.

This line roughly cuts inland to the center, indicting a Japanese defense in depth and possibly presaging a battle phase even more bloody than that of the first two weeks of the Saipan invasion, during which the Japanese retreated, avoiding infantry clashes, but pounding the Americans with mortars and artillery.

Saipan, already ranking with the roughest Pacific battles, threatens to develop into a terrible campaign of bloodletting, with fighting in streets, houses, mountains, forests and cane fields, combining the worst terrain features of all the Pacific battlefronts. The Japanese still hold about half the island, giving both forces room for maneuvering, although U.S. Marines and soldiers hold every speed advantage because of superior mechanization. Their roadways are greatly improved over the Japanese-held roads.

The Americans continue to hold complete sea and air superiority. The enemy is still making light night raids.

Japanese ground opposition is a different thing. Mountain pockets are holding up the advance in spots that are almost impregnable. One was a blind ravine, a huge hole in the mountain, lined with caves, each of which carried a death threat for Marines probing cautiously over the ravine floor. Litter evidenced recent occupation of the ravine by the Japanese, who left clothing, rations, cigarettes and ammunition.

It was this kind of pockets behind and the mountain and mortar and small-arms fire ahead that slowed the progress. Pocketed caves had to be hit head-on by guns exposed to counterfire from the caves. Each pocket became a deadly small-scale battlefield for the men assigned to clean out the caves with small artillery and flamethrowers.

[NormanStewart]

Liberators attack airdromes in Pacific

New Guinea and Carolines hit – four cargo ships struck

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[NormanStewart]

FALL OF MOGAUNG A DOUBLE VICTORY
Capture by Allies cuts off Japanese pockets and eases overland communications

Myitkyina’s end near; Americans gain inside city as the Chinese cut flanks to complete foe’s isolation
By Tillman Durdin

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[NormanStewart]

NOMINATION TODAY SOUGHT FOR DEWEY
Sponsors of draft movement accelerate convention to permit Albany-Chicago trip

Vice Presidency an issue; new national committee is expected to meet tomorrow to elect chairman
By James A. Hagerty

Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
Supporters of Governor Dewey took steps today to accelerate the Republican convention by nominating the candidates for President and Vice President tomorrow afternoon with both nominees accepting tomorrow night.

Sponsors of the movement to draft Governor Dewey for the presidential nomination expect this to be done unless there are unexpected difficulties in the selection of a vice-presidential candidate.

The Dewey supporters hope to make the nominations for President and Vice President tomorrow afternoon. This will permit Governor Dewey to leave Albany by plane in time to accept the nomination at an evening session.

Under the convention rules, seconding speeches will be limited to four for each candidate. With Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio and LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, the only other candidates to be presented, it is hoped that the nominating and seconding speeches will not take more than three hours and that the roll may be called on the first ballot immediately afterward without recess.

Nomination time is estimated

This would permit the nomination for President to be made by 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon, which would give ample time for Governor Dewey to reach Chicago.

Governor Dwight H. Green of Illinois will meet Governor and Mrs. Dewey and his party on arrival at the Chicago Airport and escort him to the Stadium.

Governor Dwight Griswold of Nebraska is scheduled to nominate Governor Dewey. Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin of Baltimore and Rep. Leonard W. Hall of New York have been selected to make seconding speeches.

Other seconds of Governor Dewey’s name will be made by a Midwestern and a woman delegate from the Midwest or Far West yet to be selected. Sponsors of the Dewey candidacy have been somewhat embarrassed by the number of requests from delegates for permission to make seconding speeches but have been obliged by the rules to restrict themselves to four.

Leaders in the campaign to nominate Governor Dewey estimated that he had in sight about 900 votes of the 1,057 total. J. Russell Sprague, New York National Committeeman, was informed today that the Kentucky delegation would not present Governor Simeon S. Willis for the presidential nomination and that the 22 votes of that state would be cast for Mr. Dewey.

Committee to meet tomorrow

If the program of the Dewey group is followed, there will be a meeting of the new national committee Thursday at which a new chairman will be elected. If Mr. Sprague had not declared himself unavailable because of the restrictions imposed by the Nassau County Charter upon his continuing as county executive, a post which he does not want to resign, he would be chosen, it is stated.

With Mr. Sprague unavailable, speculation centers on Herbert Brownell Jr., close friend of Governor Dewey and chairman of the law committee of the New York State Republican Committee, or State Chairman Edwin F. Jaeckle.

Selection of a national chairman from the Midwest would be gratifying to that section, and the name of Rep. Charles A. Halleck, who placed Wendell L. Willkie in nomination at the Philadelphia convention four years ago, has been mentioned. By party custom, the nominee is entitled to name the national chairman. The New York Governor, however, has let his sponsors know that he intends to consult members of the National Committee and other party leaders before making his suggestion.

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Mother awaits Dewey

Arrives in Chicago to join son on his great day

Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
Mrs. George M. Dewey of Owosso, Michigan, who has never witnessed a political convention, will be on hand tomorrow morning when the roll call of states begins for nominees for the Presidency. The mother of the outstanding candidate, Governor Dewey, motored here today with friends from home.

Confronting reporters and photographers in a suite at the Stevens Hotel, Mrs. Dewey answered many questions about her own life as a homemaker and Red Cross worker at Owosso and about the past, present and probable future of her son, whose great day she will share tomorrow.

If he won the election, she was asked, would she live in the White House? She gasped a bit and retorted, “Well, I might not be invited. But I suppose I’d be there at least part of the time.”

Owosso, a town of 16,000, was rather agitated at the prospect of a hometown boy as a presidential nominee, Mrs. Dewey admitted. Her telephone had been ringing without cessation up the time she departed this morning, she said.

[NormanStewart]

NEW DEAL LABELED ‘FASCISM’ BY MARTIN
Tells convention people must give Republicans more help in fight on regimentation

To ‘free Democrats, too; House leader denies charge his party has no program, lists its main points
By James B. Reston

Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
The Republican Party is fighting the arrogant and bureaucratic dictatorship which is leading the people to national bankruptcy and complete regimentation, but the Republicans must have more help from the people if they are to hold the lines of constitutional government, Joseph W. Martin Jr., House Minority Leader, told the Republican National Convention today.

Mr. Martin, who was elected permanent chairman of the convention, emphasized that the Republicans had a constructive policy, based on the Constitution, private enterprise and collaboration with the other countries of the world, to lead the United States back to a “sound, prosperous peacetime basis.”

He said:

We are in more than one war. In one of those wars, our sons and daughters are against the German and the Jap. But there is another war here at home. It is a war between two eternally hostile ideologies. One idea is that of a free society – the society of free men creating their wealth with the instrumentalities of free enterprise under the protection of a representative republic.

The other is the conception of the regimented and planned society living upon vast streams of government debt and taking its shape and destiny from the directives from a bureaucratic elite under the command of a self-inspired leader. You may call it anything you wish. In Europe, they call it Fascism. Here we call it the New Deal.

Fight to ‘free’ Democrats

Mr. Martin sought to distinguish between the New Deal and the Democratic Party.

Mr. Martin said:

The Democratic Party which we have known and with which we have honorably struggled on so many fields. But which was a party of Americans, who believed in the American system, has lost its own powers over its own destiny. The Democratic Party has been captured by a minority, whose philosophy it despises. It has become a prisoner of the New Deal.

Thank God some of its leaders realize this and have had the courage to revolt. This election, curiously, is not merely a fight to put the Republicans into office, but, by a strange twist of fate, it is also a fight to emancipate the Democrats.

After repeating the policy of the Republican Party as defined by the Republican members of Congress in September 1942, Mr. Martin said that whenever criticism was leveled at the New Deal administration, the reply invariably was that the Republicans had no program. He insisted that the Republicans had carefully thought out what they would do when they were elected, and this program could be summed up in part by the following points. The Republicans would, he said:

• Restore to Congress its responsibility and function as the people’s special instrument of control over their government and their public officials.

• Restore responsibilities in matters of local concern to the state and local governmental subdivisions.

• Produce “genuine economy” in government. Mr. Martin said:

To achieve that we will eliminate administrative non-essentials. No one can pretend that under the New Deal there will ever be retrenchment in governmental costs. The New Dealers just don’t believe in it.

• Establish a taxation system that would not only be as simple and equitable as possible but a system designed to “stimulate industry and create jobs for the people,” a system of taxation “on a revenue basis and not for punitive purposes.”

• Under a Republican administration, “labor will retain all the essential rights and just privileges it has gained.”

• Make it possible for private capital to be permitted and encouraged to venture in the post-war period into renewed and expanded production.

• Continue humane and beneficial economic and social advantages.

• Provide “adequate benefits” for the men and women of our military services and make certain they are promptly available.

The House leader indicated that the Republicans would attempt to make the Communists’ support for a “fourth term” an issue in the presidential election. The “coalition” of the Communists with the CIO Political Action Committee in favor of another term for Mr. Roosevelt was, Mr. Martin said, “an insolent challenge” to the people of the United States.

He said:

This challenge has been insolently and boldly issued to the people of America. It presents a vital issue of this campaign.

[NormanStewart]

Democrats deride opponents’ planks

Congressmen in Washington call them an avalanche of words

Washington (AP) – (June 27)
Democratic Congressmen derided, today, Republican Party platform proposals with expressions such as “an avalanche of words” and “a straddle,” while their Republican colleagues applauded the planks as “dandy.”

Rep. Robert Ramspeck (D-GA), House Majority Whip, said that the Republican proposals as approved by the Platform Committee “sound like the same old Republican runaround.” The platform, he said, “is full of ambiguous words from which it is possible to construe almost any meaning desired.”

Rep. Walt Horan (R-WA) expressed approval of the platform throughout. He said:

I think it is a dandy and one of which the party can be proud. It increases my confidence in the Republican leadership.

Rep. Clarence Cannon (D-MO), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, described the foreign policy declaration as “merely an avalanche of words, so stated that anyone could read into it anything they cared to believe.”

Opposing his view, Rep. Marion T. Bennett (R-MO) analyzed the statement on foreign policy as being “as specific and as well outlined as is possible at this stage of our relations with other nations.” He said that it was “a much better plan than as yet advocated by any of the opposition.”

Senator Lister Hill (D-AL) called the foreign policy statement “a straddle to catch both isolationists and internationalists.”

Senator Elbert D. Thomas (D-UT) said he believed that the platform was written “in a spirit of wishful thinking.”

He stated:

The plank on veterans covers ground that already is law. I am glad the Republican Party has made declarations that are very close to the aims of the present administration in regard to peace. That indicates the Republicans in Congress will be helpful in bringing about a fair peace.

The plank calling for an end of rationing and price-fixing was described by Rep. Brent Spence (D-KY), chairman of the House Banking Committee, as “designed to gain a few votes, and it means nothing.”

Mr. Spence said:

Anybody knows that the program is only temporary and will be discontinued as soon as the emergency is over.

[NormanStewart]

Platform praised by party leaders

Some want Dewey to clarify it as Senators, Governors voice general satisfaction

Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
The reaction here to the Republican platform was favorable.

Criticism about the “ambiguity” of the party’s declaration on foreign policy was prevalent earlier, but after the platform was approved, Governors, Senators and other delegates said they were satisfied with the main features of the declarations.

Governors of some Eastern states, who had been expected to be critical of what Wendell Willkie has termed the “ambiguity” of the foreign policy pronouncement, were unanimous in declaring that they would “go along” with the committee’s final report.

Governor Edge of New Jersey, who had threatened a floor fight on the plank said he would not raise his voice against it. He decided to rely upon the interpretation which Governor Dewey would put upon the declaration.

Senator Reed (R-KS), while abiding by the party declaration, said he thought that the statement on foreign policy might have “contained fewer words” and expressed the wish that the party had adopted the Mackinac statement as “far more succinct and expressing Republican feelings better.”

Framers voice satisfaction

Senator Taft, chairman of the Resolutions Committee, which has labored since Wednesday to draft the platform, declared himself “well satisfied” with it and added:

The declarations presented to this convention have been framed with more care and greater seriousness than ever were devoted to the platforms of any previous conventions.

Senator Austin (R-VT), head of the group which shaped the foreign policy plank, said that the platform would “represent a marked advance in both domestic and foreign policy toward the establishment of security, peace and prosperity.”

Senator Danaher (R-CT), commending “the mutuality we seek among nations,” said:

The platform is a remarkable achievement and presents sound and cogent American doctrine. The people will support us, as our views are their views.

Senator White (R-ME) praised the platform as “dealing soundly and effectively with the problems of America and the world.”

Senator Ball (R-MN) said the foreign policy plank was not in terminology which he would have chosen, but that he considered it a strong statement, particularly if the candidate endorsed “the positive and not the negative implications.”

Senator Hawkes (R-NJ) maintained that the party’s expression on foreign policy was in line with the sentiments of most Americans.

Rep. Hamilton Fish (R-NY) approved the foreign policy plank as reflecting the determination of the American people “to win the war and go a long way to preserve the peace through international cooperation.”

Edge cites Dewey’s approval

Governor Edge of New Jersey made no secret of his disapproval of the foreign policy plank, but expressed his faith in Governor Dewey’s interpretation of it.

He said:

From a layman’s standpoint the platform, especially on foreign policy, could be clearer. However, I am informed that Governor Dewey has accepted this text, and further I am quite positive that our nominee-to-be will carry out the pledges made in his speech on foreign relations to the newspaper publishers two months ago.

I have every confidence that Governor Dewey will enlarge and amplify the party’s position on this foreign policy plank, just as other nominees have done in the past with involved platform expressions.

The appearance of the Governors of many of the leading Republican states before the foreign policy subcommittee last night apparently resulted in helpful changes. Certainly, there can be no question that by an adequate force Governor Dewey means a military force when necessary.

Governor Saltonstall of Massachusetts expressed satisfaction with the platform in its entirely but added that he would be interested in hearing Governor Dewey’s interpretations of one or two of the planks, including that on foreign policy.

Governor Martin of Pennsylvania said that the platform was “all right” and that the foreign policy plank “embodied the Mackinac Charter.”

Governor Sewall of Maine termed the platform “a good document, the best statement you can reasonably expect in view of the conflicting opinions” and Governor Blood of New Hampshire declared that it was “one of which the Governors can unite and elect Dewey.”

[NormanStewart]

Predicts Dewey victory

Arthur T. Vanderbilt sees ‘handsome majority’ in November

Chicago, Illinois (AP) – (June 27)
Arthur T. Vanderbilt of New Jersey, delegate-at-large and dean of the New York University Law School, one of the men behind the campaign to make Governor Dewey the Republican presidential nominee, predicted today that he would win by a “handsome majority” in November.

Mr. Vanderbilt said:

Our best friends smiled three months ago when we said Dewey would be nominated on the first ballot, but everybody concedes it today. They will probably smile when we say he will be elected in November, but personally I haven’t the slightest doubt.

[NormanStewart]

MRS. LUCE ASSAILS ‘BUMBLEDOM’ TREND
She says women no less than men resent practices ‘distorting our democracy’

Hails ‘G.I. Joe and G.I. Jim;’ declares party best fitted to serve men who return and vindicate men who die
By Kathleen McLaughlin

Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
Once again, a woman had the last word, and Rep. Clare Boothe Luce, who spoke it, also made it the most effective of the evening at the Republican National Convention. Her ringing address was undeniably the peak of the program as she arraigned the Democratic Party and warned her own party to prepare for the homecoming of the G.I. Joes.

Spotlighted by many kliegs, the playwright and legislator was a cynosure of attention from every corner of the crowded hall. She was simply clad in a short-sleeved, navy dinner dress, with a crisp white plastron caught at the throat into a narrow white bow.

Her voice, clear and penetrating, reached every point in the hall and the close of her speech found the crowd on its feet acclaiming her with shouts and waving banners while Chairman Martin summoned a mixed chorus to serenade her with “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

Theme of war and peace

Addressed to the convention but aimed beyond the tiers of delegates and visitors at all the women of the country whose hears and thoughts are with their men in uniform, her speech carried an indirect plea for support of the man the Republicans will nominate as the man best fitted to insure a quick homecoming and a secure future for those in the Armed Forces.

Proclaiming her credo that “American women do not wish their praises sung as women any more than they wish political pleas made to them as women,” Mrs. Luce asserted that women “feel no differently from men about the ever-growing threats to good government.”

She declared:

They feel no differently about the inefficiency, abusiveness, evasion, self-seeking, and personal whim in the management of the nation’s business, which are little by little distorting our democracy into a dictatorial bumbledom.

And certainly, they feel no differently about pressing this war to the enemy’s innermost gates, or creating from the sick havocs of war itself, a fair and healthy peace.

The G.I. Joes, she insisted, wanted the country to be secure from here out, not only because, no matter how confused people at home were, he knew what he was fighting for, but to vindicate and avenge G.I. Jim, his pal who was “immobilized by enemy gunfire – immobilized for all eternity.”

Memorial for ‘G.I. Jim’

Of G.I. Jim, she said:

His young bones bleach on the tropical roads of Bataan. white cross marks his narrow grave on some Pacific island. His dust dulls the crimson of the roses that bloom in the ruins of an Italian village. The deserts of Africa, the jungles of Burma, the rice fields of China, the plains of Assam, the jagged hills of Attu, the cold depths of the Seven Seas, the very snows of the Arctic, are the richer for mingling with the mortal part of him.

The objective of the convention, she went on, was to nominated a candidate for President “who will make sure that Jim’s sacrifice shall not prove useless in the years that lie ahead.

She added:

For a fighting man dies for the future as well as the past; to keep all that was fine of his country’s yesterday, and to give it a chance for a finer tomorrow.

She flung a direct challenge at the Roosevelt administration by questioning whether the war might not have been averted or whether, once proved inevitable, it might not have been lessened in horror by better preparation.

She noted that Republican Presidents had been “overconfident” during the 1920s that sanity would prevail abroad.

She added:

But it was not a Republican President who dealt with the visibly rising menaces of Hitler and Mussolini and Hirohito. Ours was not the administration that promised young Jim’s mother and father and neighbors and friends economic security and peace. No Republican President gave these promises which were kept to their ears, but broken to their hearts.

[NormanStewart]

President laughs again when asked ‘the’ question

Washington – (June 27)
President Roosevelt laughed off the fourth term question again today.

A reporter asked at his news conference if there was anything he could say today on the Democratic candidate for President.

The President threw his head back and laughed, then turned to the questioner and said, “So they saddled that one on you today.”

It had been some time since “the” question had been asked. Some correspondents, knowing the President’s way of sometimes blanketing Republican convention news with major news of his own, had thought that the eve of Governor Dewey’s nomination might strike him as an opportune time to make his announcement.

But Mr. Roosevelt apparently thought otherwise.

[NormanStewart]

Spellman wrote verse quoted by Mrs. Luce

Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
Archbishop Francis J. Spellman of New York was the author of the four stanzas of blank verse which Mrs. Clare Boothe Luce quoted in her address to the Republican convention tonight.

Written by the prelate on his return to this country after his tour of battlefields and war areas abroad, to express his impressions of the supreme sacrifice made by so many young Americans, the lines were sent by him to Mrs. Luce on the occasion of the death of her daughter, Miss Anne Brokaw, in an automobile accident in January.

In quoting them, Mrs. Luce did not indicate their origin.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: The Republican platform

The two-party system under which American democracy operates requires compromise. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are in fact coalitions to many minor parties. If they are to avoid being pulverized into fractions, their right wings and their left wings must somehow get together. The extreme position is not practicable and cannot be expected. But this does not mean that a party platform ought to be a mere bundle of promises to catch votes. There are certain broad principles and major issues on which the electorate is entitled to expect clear and unequivocal declarations, and that is particularly true in times like these. It is in the light of its positions on such principles and issues that a platform should be judged.

Foreign policy

The Republican Party pledges (1) “prosecution of the war to total victory,” (2) “full cooperation with the United Nations,” (3) “Pan-American solidarity,” (4) “maintenance of post-war military forces and establishments of ample strength” (but without mention of a system of compulsory military service for this purpose), (5) restoration to “sovereignty and self-government” of the victims of aggression, (6) treaties for our enemies “based on justice and security,” (7) no American membership in “a world state,” but instead (8) “responsible participation by the United States in post-war cooperative organization among sovereign nations” which “should develop effective cooperative means to direct peace forces to prevent or repel military aggression.” To this, the party adds a demand that all treaties and commitments be ratified under the present constitutional requirement for a two-thirds vote of the Senate.

There are two points here which we find disappointing. We are sorry that the Republican Party did not take this excellent opportunity to propose a constitutional amendment for the ratification of treaties by plain majority vote, so as to put an end to the evils of minority obstruction which have bedeviled American foreign policy for a generation. And we are sorry that the party lacked either the foresight or the courage to propose a democratic system of post-wat compulsory military service; for without the aid of such a system, it is simply not going to be possible for the United States to maintain military forces “of ample strength” for its post-war responsibilities. But considering the program as a whole it seems clear that the action proposed is about what the American people expect and will approve. Certainly, this country is not ready now (nor is any other major power) either for membership in a “world state” or for an “international police force” in the sense of a military establishment independent of existing sovereign governments. There is no issue here between Republicans and Democrats. President Roosevelt has already taken the same position, regarding the fundamentals of organizing peace, which the Republicans now take.

It is true that the formula in which the Republican Party has stated its own method of organized peace – “responsible participation in post-war cooperative organization among sovereign nations to… develop effective means to direct peace forces” – is a jumble of words into which it is impossible to read any concrete meaning. It is also true that there are holes in this pledge as wide as several barn doors, through which Mr. Dewey, if elected, could make an easy exit if he chose to make an exit. But there are three things to be said here. First, it is difficult for a minority party, out of power and lacking a benefit of conferences with the governments of other nations, to write a very concrete plan for so large and complex a problem as the organization of world peace. Second, no platform pledge, in any case, can be made so tight as to leave no loophole if the party does not really mean to keep its word. And third, the real meaning and degree of integrity of this particular pledge can only be gauged by the interpretation and the emphasis which Mr. Dewey gives it.

By this, we do not merely mean what Mr. Dewey says when he goes to Chicago to accept the nomination. We mean what Mr. Dewey continues to say, in speech after speech, as the campaign develops. For it is clear that there are sections of the country in which strongly isolationist Republican newspapers and Republican Senators with monumentally isolationist records will attempt to whittle away the platform pledge until it means nothing. They will dwell long and lovingly on such words as “sovereignty,” “no world state” and “looking out for American interests and resources.” And they will

Mr. Dewey will have no alternative but go into these newspapers and Senators on their home ground, if he wishes either to give real meaning to his party’s pledge or to obtain a mandate from the electorate for position action in the event of his election.

Domestic policy

On the domestic side, the best sections of the platform are those which deal with the question of post-war reconversion and which put their emphasis on the necessity of encouraging a revival of the private enterprise system which has always provided the great bulk of employment in this country and for which government-sponsored projects can never provide a satisfactory substitute.

For the rest it must be said that the domestic platform consists largely of special inducements to special groups, plus a liberal borrowing of planks from the New Deal itself. Prominent among the former group, and presumably designed to win the support of American farmers and some American industrialists, is a proposal which would seem to jeopardize the whole structure of Secretary Hull’s tariff agreements, since it implies that in future such agreements should be restricted only to those directly “approved by Congress” – which would mean, as experience has proved, no agreements at all. Among the issues borrowed from the New Deal are practically all of the major legislative enactments of the last ten years, plus a plentiful sprinkling of new subsidies and public works. At the same time, though the government’s responsibilities and activities would be larger than ever, if this program were adopted in its entirety, expenditures are to be cut, taxes reduced as soon as the war ends and the “sprawling, overlapping bureaucracy” somehow diminished.

All this is disappointing because, instead of sharpening differences between present administration policies and proposed Republican policies and proposed Republican policies, its net effect is to blur them. the section on labor is an outstanding illustration of this. The administration’s labor policy is extremely vulnerable and the Republican platform is thoroughly justified in criticizing the conflicting jurisdictions of federal labor agencies. But the Republicans show no courage whatever in dealing with basic issues of policy. There is no demand for union responsibility, for example, commensurate with union privileges. So far from any demand for amendment of the Wagner Act, the platform “accepts the purposes” of that act by name, together with the Wage and Hour Act. It appears that it is the “perversion of the Wagner Act by the New Deal” that is the evil. Rather than any unbalance in the act itself. Going further, the platform demands that the Secretary of Labor “should be a representative of labor” – that is, a union leader, presumably named by the unions themselves. On the same pressure theory of government, the Secretary of Agriculture should be named by the farm organizations, and the Secretary of Commerce should be a representative of business named by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the National Association of Manufacturers.

But in the scramble for the “labor vote” the worst declaration of all is this: “We condemn the freezing of wage rates at arbitrary levels and the binding of men to their jobs as destructive to the advancement of a free people.” This is written as if there were no such thing as a total war going on, no such thing as an inflation danger, and no such thing as a price-control policy. To remove the wage controls would blow off the price ceilings. The greatest danger to the anti-inflation program at this time is that the administration may be tempted for political reasons this fall to break the Little Steel formula. Instead of standing firmly against such a step, the Republicans in this declaration actually put pressure or the President to take it. What will the Republican Party itself have left to say if he does it?

We have become accustomed to national platforms intended as a catch-all for votes. The present one is unfortunately typical of these. But as the nominee of his party, Mr. Dewey will still have the opportunity to improve the platform by a sensible interpretation of ambiguous pronouncements and by courageous supplement of his own.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Mr. Willkie’s two campaigns

Mr. Willkie’s final effort to obtain what he believes to be a necessary clarification of the foreign policy plank of the Republican platform failed, but he went down fighting. Mr. Willkie is a good soldier in any cause in which he believes.

Four years ago, Wendell Willkie polled 22,304,765 votes, not quite 5,000,000 short of the number that went to President Roosevelt. This year his campaign for the nomination failed, and there was evidence that much of his regular, dyed-in-the-wool Republican following had dwindled away.

Nevertheless, Mr. Willkie may feel that he stands high in the respect of his countrymen. He always had courage and sincerity. Four years of world tragedy taught him much and deepened his convictions as they broadened his sympathies. During the pre-nomination campaign he did all that a man could do, bravely and unselfishly, to awaken his countrymen to the desperate need of a decline plan to maintain a just peace after this war is over. More than any other individual he is responsible for such progress in this direction ads the Republican Party has made. Whatever his future career, public or private, he has deserved well of the American people.