America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

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The Pittsburgh Press (July 20, 1944)

Hitler, 13 aides injured by assassination bomb

Adolf burned, bruised in headquarters blast; believed ‘inside job’

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Adolf Hitler, escapes assassin’s blast

Bulletin

London, England –
A German broadcast at 7:00 p.m. CET repeated the announcement of the attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life and followed through with martial music in place of a previously scheduled discourse on “The Extermination of Rats.”

London, England (UP) –
The official German news agency DNB announced that Adolf Hitler and 13 of his top military and naval collaborators were injured today in an attempt on the Führer’s life when a bomb exploded during a conference at the Führer’s headquarters.

DNB listed Hitler’s injuries as slight burns, bruises and a light concussion of the brain.

The weight of the blast fell upon a cluster of gold-braided Nazis around him. They included seven generals and two admirals. Three were seriously wounded and 10 others, among them Gen. Alfred Jodl, chief of Hitler’s personal military staff and an ardent Nazi, escaped with minor injuries.

Radio Berlin subsequently charged the Allies with the attempt on Hitler’s life, asserting:

Fate protected the Führer’s life from an attempt by the enemy, who has so often worked with murderous methods and who once again tried to achieve with murder what he couldn’t achieve by fair methods.

Benito Mussolini, “Premier” of the Republican Fascist state in northern Italy, appeared to have escaped the bombing by a few minutes.

DNB said Hitler was about to confer with Mussolini when the explosion occurred and that after the debris had been cleared and the wounded cared for, the Führer “resumed his work and conferred with Mussolini as intended.”

Göring, Goebbels nearby

The Nazi propagandists also recorded that Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring – whom Hitler had picked at the outset of the war as the heir to his leadership – arrived shortly after the explosion and conferred with Hitler. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels also arrived afterwards.

One of the four seriously injured was Lt. Gen. Schmundt, chief adjutant of the German Army since 1938 and described by the German Transocean News Agency as “belonging to the closest following of Hitler.”

The DNB dispatch indicated that the blast in Hitler’s headquarters – one of the most closely guarded places in the world – was intended to include Mussolini among the victims, as well as Hitler and his top commanders.

Officers clustered around Hitler apparently received the full strength of the blast, shielding Hitler himself. The Führer’s wounds were described as slight. Those listed as seriously injured were: Lt. Gen. Schmundt, Col. Brandt, Lt. Col. Borgmann, and Borgmann’s aide Berger.

The following were listed as receiving minor injuries: Gen. Alfred Jodl (chief of Hitler’s personal staff), Maj. Gen. Günther Korten (Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe), Gen. Buhle, Gen. Karl Bodenschatz (liaison officer between Hitler and the Air Marshal’s office), Gen. Heusinger, Gen. Scherff, Adm. von Puttkamer, Adm. Voss.

Details not given

DNB did not specify whether the explosion was caused by a bomb planted inside the room in which Hitler and his commanders were conferring or whether the explosion might have been from a bomb launched from an Allied plane and pinpointed as in recent attacks on German headquarters in Holland and France. The second possibility was regarded as unlikely.

The fact that the attempt evidently occurred inside Hitler’s personal headquarters – as difficult to penetrate as the White House or No. 10 Downing Street – raised speculation in London that it might have been an “inside job” by Germans disgruntled with the conduct of the war and hopeful for a negotiated peace if the leader of Nazism were removed.

This is the first assassination attempt, so far as is known, in which Hitler was injured. The only previous publicized attempt was Nov. 8, 1939, when a bomb exploded in a Munich beer hall shortly after the Führer appeared at a Nazi Party meeting there. This was regarded at the time as a Gestapo trick to strengthen the German home front.

It was considered possible that Hitler’s injuries were more serious than was broadcast to the world by DNB and that the agency’s careful statement that the Führer resumed his work and received Mussolini and Göring was a coverup.

Observers believed the attempt on Hitler’s life was in some way connected with a 14-hour interruption of communications between Germany and neutral countries yesterday and today.

Blast probably yesterday

Although DNB said the explosion occurred “today,” it was considered possible that it occurred yesterday and that communications with Sweden and Switzerland were cut to permit the German propagandists to get their stories in order.

London observers believed there was at least an outside chance that the explosion was the work of the European underground, which has been growing increasingly bold and adept at sabotage and killing. Some analysts also expressed interest in a possible connection with the recent reported estrangement between the conservative Prussian generals and the Nazi hierarchy.

Recalling “the Reichstag fire” plant which enabled the Nazis to seize power by blaming the Communists, they believed some Nazi, possibly Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler, might have concocted this as a plot which could be blamed on the anti-Nazi generals, who now recognize that the war is lost.

Lean to ‘inside job’

Most authorities familiar with the Nazis leaned to the theory that it was an “inside job.”

Allied psychological warfare experts were surprised only that the attempt had not occurred earlier. They said that all the conditions prerequisite for some such drastic occurrence in Germany had long been bubbling beneath the surface. The sequence included the dismissal of the old and trusted Field Marshal Karl Gerd von Rundstedt from command of the defenses in France, the sacrifice of more than 500,000 men in an effort to hold untenable positions in Russia, failure to write off the Baltic States which now imperil defense of the Reich itself, the growing army of discontented slave labor which is frightening the German home front, and inability to halt or even ameliorate the Allied bombings.

Hitler once escaped by only 11 minutes

By the United Press

Adolf Hitler escaped assassination Nov. 8, 1939, when a bomb exploded in the historic Bürgerbräu Hall in Munich only 11 minutes after the German dictator had left the building. The explosion killed eight persons and injured more than 60.

The hall was ringing with the cheers of Hitler’s 500 “Old Veterans” celebrating the anniversary of their unsuccessful “March on Berlin” with the Führer in 1923, when an explosion from an attic room showered the ceiling upon the Nazis below.

Goebbels blamed British

Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels blamed the British for “an obvious attempt on Hitler’s life,” and by Nov. 22, the Gestapo had arrested two British agents: Sigismund Payne Best, 54, and Capt. Richard Henry Stevens, 46.

The agents were kidnapped from Venlo, Holland, where they had gone to investigate a fake German peace proposal. British authorities believed that Best and Stevens were later killed by the Gestapo.

Georg Elser, 36, a mild-mannered Munich workman, was charged with placing the bomb in the attic and allegedly confessed, linking Otto Strasser, leader of the “Black Front” in Paris, with the plan. Elser, it was said, intended that the bomb explode while Hitler was speaking.

Many rumored attempts

There have been other rumored attempts on Hitler’s life but not verified by Nazi sources. They included:

A plot to kill Hitler while he was touring the Polish battlefront in 1939; a foiled shooting at the Kroll Opera House in the same year; a shooting in Vienna in 1938 in which a Stormtrooper was killed by mistake, and another in which Hitler’s chauffeur was reported killed when he exchanged places with the dictator.

Many persons were arrested in Copenhagen in March 1935, when a widespread plot to assassinate Hitler and other Nazi leaders was reported uncovered; and Jan. 10, Ernst Niekisch, a German writer, was sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting with 20 others in another attempt to kill Hitler.

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TŌJŌ CABINET OUT, ‘MODERATES’ IN
We can’t win, warmonger’s bloc admits

First step in move for peace hinted
By the United Press

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British storm two more cities in Normandy

Tanks smash forward down Paris road

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Battling into two towns, British armored forces had thrust eight miles beyond Caen today. Street battles were being fought in Vimont and Troarn and the British were reported massing forces for a drive toward Falaise. On the American sector of the front (inset map), the Yanks were mopping up in the Saint-Lô area.

SHAEF, London, England (UP) –
The British 2nd Army, hammering out a steadily expanding Normandy breakthrough arc, drove through nine more towns today, stormed into the streets of Troarn and Bourguébus, and sent a spearhead down the Paris road to Vimont, eight miles southeast of Caen.

Many scores of Allied Sherman tanks were smashing through the network of German fortifications on the Caen plain in wild battles of armor against the Nazis who had now massed at least five and a half divisions in a frantic effort to stem the march inland.

Allies smash on

United Press writer Richard D. McMillan reported that British and Canadian assault forces stormed six more villages in the area of the breakthrough. Whether they supplemented or duplicated the nine announced at Supreme Headquarters was not certain.

The German Transocean News Agency said U.S. and Canadian Army forces under Lt. Gen. George S. Patton had gone into action on the Normandy front. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s headquarters had no comment.

Inside the battle arc, lying an average of four miles from Caen – with advanced positions at Troarn, seven miles to the east, and Vimont, eight miles to the southeast – the British and Canadian troops captured Ifs, Cormelles, Bras, Hubert-Folie, Soliers, Four, Le Poirier, Cagny and Grentheville.

Stiff fight at Troarn

Allied infantry and tanks consolidated their grip on the nine villages while Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery’s armor wove through the no-man’s-land blasting out German strongpoints and turning back enemy thrusts.

The easternmost point of the Allied advance was within 1,000 yards of the river Muance, which flows east of Troarn and forms the first appreciable water obstacle east of the Orne.

The Germans were putting up a stiff fight at Troarn, but the British were bartering in from the west.

On American front

Meager reports from the American front said the 1st Army had completed the mop-up of the Vire River bend northwest of Saint-Lô and established outposts a few hundred yards southwest and southeast of the captured fortress city.

Between Saint-Lô and Caen, the Germans had been forced back below the Caumont–Tilly-sur-Seulles road to a general line about 2,000 yards – more than a mile – beyond it.

Mr. McMillan reported from the Caen front:

Stubborn fighting went on all day, and saw our troops pushing forward into some villages while German long-range batteries lobbed shells over to try to stem the impetus of our infiltrations over the bridges into the slowly widening sector of our advance.

Loop closed on Nazis

British troops bolstering the right wing beat the Germans back steadily in the Noyers sector southwest of Caen, overrunning strategic positions including valuable high ground and capturing the village of Landelles, a mile west of Noyers which was still in German hands.

On the American front, Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley’s 1st Army advanced west of Saint-Lô and swung southeast from points northwest of the captured town, closing a loop in which a few German rearguards remained.

Above Saint-Lô, just west of Remilly-sur-Lozon, the doughboys pushed along a tiny stream and captured three villages.

“The battle south and east of Caen continues,” Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s communiqué said.

Rubble-strewn villages

The maximum advance down the trunk highway to Paris carried to Vimont, eight miles below Caen and five miles south of Troarn. Behind the British lay the rubble-strewn ruins of a dozen villages and strongpoints almost blasted out of existence by the impact

The battlefield within the breakthrough area “looks like nothing any soldier ever saw,” Mr. McMillan reported. He quoted a tank crewman as saying:

It seems to us more like a battlefield amidst the craters of the moon. It is really eerie, with its bomb craters, empty villages and pockets of German dead.

Chain of cemeteries

An earlier dispatch from Mr. McMillan said there was still fighting around the villages of Cumerille, Bigerville, Saunderville, Banneville, Campagne and Cagny, because “these places themselves are mortuaries. These villages are like a chain of cemeteries. Happily, it is mainly German dead.”

Once the British capture Troarn and secure the left flank, Gen. Montgomery will be in position to wheel inland to excellent tank country stretching south and southeast as far as Falaise, 20 miles southeast of Caen.

The Normandy weather yesterday and today was described officially as “miserable,” denying the ground forces any big-scale air support. It was better in other parts of France, and Allied planes shot up 27 locomotives and about 200 freight cars in operations extending from Bordeaux to Paris.

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8,500 U.S. planes hammer Germany in four days

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Yanks drive on –
Nazis fall back before Pisa

By James E. Roper, United Press staff writer

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Casualties in Italy now total 73,166

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Thursday, July 20
Call to order at 11:30 a.m. CWT by Temporary Chairman Governor Kerr of Oklahoma
Invocation by Rabbi Louis Binstock of Chicago
National anthem by Lucy Monroe
Report of committee on permanent organization
Resolution to confirm committees selected by the several states
Address by Permanent Chairman Senator Jackson (D-IN)
Report of committee on platform and resolutions and its adoption
Reports of other committees and their adoption
Recess until 8:15 p.m.
Call to order at 8:15 p.m. by Permanent Chairman Jackson
Invocation by the Rev. Joshua Oder of Chicago
National anthem by Danny O’Neill, USS Lexington
Address by Mrs. Helen Gahagan Douglas, vice chairman, California State Committee
Address by war correspondent Quentin Reynolds
Roll call for presidential nominations
Appointment of committee to notify successful candidate

Wallace and Truman camps spar to land knockout punch

Bitter behind-the-scenes battles split convention; Senator’s supporters waver
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Bulletin

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Mayor Edward J. Kelly of Chicago said today he had “changed my mind” about Senator Harry S. Truman for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination because the Missourian “doesn’t want the job.” Senator Truman later today told the United Press, “I am not a candidate, but will accept the nomination if the delegates want me.”

Chicago, Illinois –
The Democratic National Convention nominates President Franklin D. Roosevelt for a fourth term today with both Wallace and Truman forces claiming Mr. Roosevelt’s blessing in the bitterly-contested vice-presidential nomination.

As the convention entered its third session, with presidential and vice-presidential balloting scheduled for late today and tonight, Edwin Pauley of California publicly claimed President Roosevelt’s support for Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO).

Mr. Pauley, National Democratic Committee Treasurer and newly-elected California National Committeeman, told his state delegation that Mr. Roosevelt is convinced Senator Truman will cost him fewer votes than any other candidate for Vice President.

“And I could not make such a statement,” he added, “if I didn’t have the approval of the President!”

Wallace forces confident

Wallace forces, contending they had more than 400 first ballot votes, presented an equally confident claim of Roosevelt support. Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall, a Wallace leader, said his side would go on assuming that Mr. Roosevelt still favored Mr. Wallace’s renomination until the President told the convention “in writing” that he had changed his mind.

The Wallace people said the balloting couldn’t come too soon to suit them.

National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan, who has been plugging Senator Truman, still refused to comment on the so-called “Truman letter” in which the President was reported to have stated that he would be happy to have the Missourian for his 1944 running mate.

Hannegan is challenged

Wallace supporters had challenged Mr. Hannegan to produce such a letter. Governor Arnall, expressing skepticism, said he did not believe Mr. Roosevelt would “permit himself to be ‘used’ by those who would misquote him.”

The Credentials Committee of the convention, by a vote of 18–6, today recommended the seating of both delegations from Texas. The Texas “Regular,” or anti-New Deal, delegation threatened to walk out of the convention when this word was received.

Meanwhile, members of the Illinois delegation disclosed after a lengthy caucus that they had decided to cast their 58 votes for Senator Scott W. Lucas (D-IL) for Vice President until Senator Lucas releases them.

A spokesman for the Alabama delegation said it would vote for Senator John H. Bankhead on the first ballot and then decide what to do on the next.

May postpone vote

Mr. Hannegan, in the meantime, said that while there was “always the possibility” that vice-presidential balloting would start as soon as President Roosevelt is renominated, such a schedule had not been officially decided.

This meant the vice-presidential vote might be put off until tomorrow.

The delegates in their third session installed Senator Samuel D. Jackson (D-IN) as permanent chairman and heard him declare that a change of administration in these critical times would be “frightening to contemplate” and “dangerous to make.”

Hits at Dewey

Hitting at 42-year-old Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican candidate for President, Mr. Jackson asserted:

What the Presidency demands now is not so much a bright young man as a man of wisdom and breadth of vision.

Mr. Roosevelt will accept the nomination in a radio address tonight. His voice may calm the storm which threatens to weaken the New Deal-Democratic coalition of 1936 and 1940 in this campaign year.

Some of the President’s closest political associates here have fallen out and are beginning to call each other names. Southern leaders met in rebellious conferences last night and broke up, apparently frustrated both as to their objectives and methods of achieving them. Principally they wanted to scuttle Vice President Henry A. Wallace and put up a Southerner for his $15,000-a-year job.

Mr. Wallace is still likely to be scuttled in his contest with Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO), who has some kind of White House acceptance and the support of some of the big party bosses here, but putting a Southerner on the ticket this year does not seem likely at the moment.

Senator Alben W. Barkley (D-KY), who feels along with some others here that he has been maneuvered out of his chance at the vice-presidential nomination, jarred convention managers with a surprise request that they hold up release of his speech placing Mr. Roosevelt in fourth term renomination. That was a bald threat to run out on the assignment to propose the President’s name, but it lasted only a few hours.

Toward 2:00 a.m. today, one of Mr. Barkley’s aides said the Senator had sent a note to National Committee publicity headquarters authorizing release of the speech on schedule today.

Meanwhile, it was learned that Mr. Wallace will deliver a speech seconding Mr. Roosevelt’s nomination for the Presidency.

‘Big Four’ runs show

The presidential nomination was scheduled for midafternoon, following the address of Permanent Chairman Samuel Jackson, disposition of credentials and rules disputes, and adoption of the platform.

Mr. Barkley was evidently resentful of the smooth operations here of the Big Four – National Committee Chairman Robert E. Hannegan, who was handpicked last winter to handle Mr. Roosevelt’s reelection campaign; Chicago Mayor Edward J. Kelly, who bosses the Democratic Party in Illinois; Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, who rules the organization in New Jersey; and Edward J. Flynn, leader of the Democratic Party in the Bronx and the manager of the President’s successful third-term campaign.

The center ring battle is over the vice-presidential nomination for which Mr. Roosevelt personally endorsed Mr. Wallace but for which Mr. Hannegan now says the President would be happy to have Mr. Truman.

Guffey gets angry

The fact that Mr. Truman and Mr. Hannegan are fellow Missourians and that Mr. Hannegan owes some of his rise to political heights to Mr. Truman makes the Wallace men more than a little suspicious that something is wrong. But there is supporting evidence that Mr. Hannegan does have a go-ahead for Mr. Truman and directly from the President.

Persuasive reports persisted that he had received a letter to that effect. Mr. Hannegan denied it. Others said that it was received and that it suggested either Mr. Truman or Associate Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas if Mr. Wallace were not acceptable to the convention.

Senator Joseph F. Guffey (D-PA) shouted what other Wallace supporters had been whispering when he said:

I doubt very much if Mr. Hannegan quoted all of the letter the President is supposed to have written. It is time that Mr. Hannegan remembers that he was elected chairman of the National Committee to serve all the members of our party, to give some of his time to the party and not all of it entirely to the candidate [Truman] of Hannegan, Kelly, Hague and Flynn.

CIO spokesmen echoed Mr. Guffey’s charge that these four men who are bulwarks of the New Deal-Democratic coalition are unfairly bossing the convention.

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Race issue dispute holds up platform

Southerners term outline ‘too strong’

Bulletin

Chicago, Illinois –
The Democratic Platform Committee completed its declaration of party policy today after defeating a Southern effort to exclude state voting regulations from federal control.

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Approval of the Democratic Party platform was held up temporarily today as members of the Platform and Resolutions Committee debated the controversial plank on racial equality.

The racial plank approved by the Drafting Committee was reported to be too strong for Southern state members of the full platform committee who wanted a declaration similar to that in the 1940 platform which simply assured equal rights under the law to all minority groups.

The drafters’ proposal was said to read:

We believe that racial and religious minorities have the rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. Congress should exert its full constitutional power to protest these rights.

The foreign policy plank was also under discussion by the full committee, still in session only a few hours before the platform was scheduled to be offered to the convention.

New emphasis was placed on the racial issue which has divided the party by announcement that the Tennessee delegation had rescinded its decision to cast its 26 votes for President Roosevelt pending the time when it learns the content of the platform’s racial plank.

Tennessee Governor Prentice Cooper, a member of the platform committee, warned that if certain proposals should be written into the platform over Southern opposition, there would be a strong protest on the floor from Southern delegations.

A group of rebellious Southerners had previously met to adopt a resolution opposing any pledges to support anti-poll tax or anti-lynching legislation and declaring opposition to any proposal calling for “social equality” between races.

Foreign plank prepared

Senator Kenneth D. McKellar, chairman of the Tennessee delegation, said it wanted to be “free,” but that “if the platform is reasonable and has nothing out of the ordinary in it, there won’t be any trouble.”

Senator Tom Connally (D-TX), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, met with the drafting subcommittee last night to discuss his proposed draft of a foreign plank providing for American participation in an international organization to maintain peace.

There appeared little likelihood of a contest over the foreign policy plank, although some of the committee members had expressed themselves in favor of an international police force.

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CIO pressures delegates with Back-Wallace wires

Bundles of telegrams sent by local unions urge renomination of Vice President
By Robert Taylor, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
Pennsylvania’s CIO unions, backing their leaders in a last-minute drive for Vice President Henry A. Wallace for renomination, have showered the state delegation to the Democratic National Convention with telegrams.

“Don’t let Wallace down,” was the gist of most of the messages.

The wires arrived yesterday for each of the 72 delegates, in batches of half a dozen at a time, while CIO leaders at the convention were rallying their forces in support of the Wallace candidacy.

One delegate counted 62 messages. They poured in, even to U.S. Senator Joseph F. Guffey, who was acting as unofficial manager of the Wallace campaign and who spent most of the day in conference with the Vice President.

Most of the messages to Pittsburgh delegates came from United Steelworkers locals, while others came from units of the United Railroad Workers, United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers, Allied Stone and Clay Products Workers and others.

The telegram blitz featured a day in which CIO leaders poured on steam in the push to whoop up the Wallace campaign.

Some 125 delegates, most of them delegates or alternates, but some of them regional directors of the CIO-sponsored Political Action Committee, attended a special caucus of CIO delegates devoted chiefly to Mr. Wallace.

Cheering delegates behind closed doors – reporters were barred – were urged to go back and contact their state delegates on behalf of the Vice President’s campaign.

The meeting was hardly over before it was reported that President Roosevelt, in communication with National Chairman Robert Hannegan, had given his approval to the candidacy of Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO), on whom the opposition to Mr. Wallace has settled.

Definitely want Wallace

CIO leaders were reported not averse to Mr. Truman, in the event of his nomination, but they held out stoutly for Mr. Wallace as the only candidate they were willing to discuss for second place on the ticket.

“We want Wallace,” Sidney Hillman, chairman of the Political Action Committee, said as he entered the CIO caucus. “That’s the only statement there is to make.”

Mr. Hillman, CIO President and delegate-at-large from Pennsylvania Philip Murray, and president of the United Auto Workers R. J. Thomas addressed the CIO delegates, who comprised less than five percent of the total delegates and alternates.

Among CIO delegates

Pennsylvania had one of the largest state delegates in the CIO group, with 11 of the 144 delegates and alternates listed as CIO members, relatives of members or officers or employees of CIO organizations.

In addition to Mr. Murray, they included Joseph A. Donoghu of Pittsburgh (alternate delegate-at-large, chairman of Pennsylvania Political Action Committee), John T. Akinson of Aliquippa (alternate), and State Senator John H. Dent of Jeannette (former Rubber Workers official).

Others were Angelo Pasquarella of Philadelphia (Amalgamated Clothing Workers, alternate), Joseph Kane (employee in Philadelphia of the Political Action Committee, delegate), Ernest Palmer Jr, of Delaware County (delegate), John J. Malick of Delaware Country (alternate), Irene A Stackhouse of Bucks County (alternate and wife of a CIO member), James W. Batz of Berks County (member of the Hosiery Workers Union, alternate).

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I DARE SAY —
Nellie Bly

By Florence Fisher Parry

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Navy to begin explosion inquiry

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Much too trivial, Hull laments

Washington (UP) –
Secretary of State Cordell Hull said today he would have been glad to offer ample comment on the explosion that endangered Adolf Hitler’s life if the Nazi Führer’s injuries had been serious enough.

As it was, Mr. Hull told his press conference, the report does not offer any substantial basis for comment.

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Guffey-Lawrence factions sidestep VP showdown

Delegates at breakfast meeting hear state chairman try to minimize party split
By Kermit McFarland

Chicago, Illinois –
The rival Lawrence and Guffey factions in the Pennsylvania delegation to the Democratic convention, battling each other in a new outbreak of a six-year feud, today sought to postpone until the last possible moment feud, today sought to postpone until the last possible moment a showdown of their respective strength in the delegation.

At a breakfast tendered the delegates – ironically – by Democratic State Chairman David L. Lawrence and U.S. Senator Joseph F. Guffey, jointly, both sides succeeded in avoiding a second caucus on vice-presidential preferences – the cause of the latest split between these two who are Damon and Pythias turned Hatfield and McCoy.

Senator Guffey, in fact, didn’t even attend his own affair. He was 20 stories up in the same hotel, conferring with CIO and Wallace leaders.

Differences minimized

Mr. Lawrence, who informed the 200 delegates and friends, all from Pennsylvania, that despite his absence Senator Guffey would “split the check,” went out of his way to describe the affair as a “social gathering.”

The state chairman also made an attempt to minimize, publicly, the differences between himself and Mr. Guffey over the vice-presidential nominee.

He said:

Not even the vice-presidential nomination or anything else is going to split the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania. The Senator and myself have gone up and down the state since November trying to out the Democratic Party back where it was before 1938.

Charges continue

But the charges and countercharges which have been developing in the split Pennsylvania delegation since the battle for the vice-presidential nomination began to shape up between Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO), supported by Mr. Lawrence, and Vice President Henry A. Wallace, backed by Senator Guffey, continued on their way.

Senator Guffey’s blast at the Truman forces, which he implied were being “bossed by the well-known machine leaders, Kelly, Hague and Flynn,” aroused resentment among the Allegheny County leaders and others favorable to Senator Truman.

Caucus is opposed

When the breakfast invitations were first extended, Mr. Lawrence indicated it would e converted into a caucus. But today, both he and Senator Guffey said they thought a caucus unnecessary.

If the convention follows its tentative schedule and hears nominating speeches for Vice President tonight, a caucus before the first roll call is inevitable.

Mr. Guffey claims “55 to 60” of the 72 Pennsylvania votes. Mr. Lawrence isn’t claiming.

Wallace’s best 35 votes

The best estimates indicated Mr. Wallace’s best poll probably would be 35 votes, with 26 likely to go for Mr. Truman and eight or nine in doubt.

Among the doubtful delegates could be listed Pittsburgh’s Mayor Scully and Edward D. Johnson, chief clerk of the Public Safety Department. Both voted for Mr. Wallace at the Tuesday caucus, but they are politically beholden to Mr. Lawrence. Mr. Johnson was elected as an alternate, but has taken the place of Delegate Robert C. Malcolm of Curtisville, who is not here.

Attorney General Francis Biddle, who, as a delegate-at-large has only a half vote, also plumped for Mr. Wallace Tuesday, but if President Roosevelt, as indicated, goes for Mr. Truman, he probably will switch.

Others may switch

The tipoff on this is the attitude of Postmaster General Frank C. Walker of Scranton, who voted against Mr. Wallace at the Tuesday caucus. He told other delegates he did not wish to “vote against the Chief” – Mr. Roosevelt.

Other delegates who may switch to Senator Truman includes Clerk of Courts John J. McClean and Mayor Frank Buchanan of McKeesport. But still sticking firmly to Mr. Wallace is Irwin D. Wolf of Fox Chapel.

Sure Truman backers include County Commissioner John J. Kane and Mr. Lawrence (both half-vote delegates), Register of Wills John M. Houston, City Treasurer James P. Kirk, Coroner William D. McClelland, Mrs. Marguerite Naughton and County Commissioner George Rankin.

New letter ‘the bunk’

Leaders of the Lawrence faction swore that Democratic National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan, Truman promoter, has a new letter from President Roosevelt saying the Missouri Senator is “acceptable” to him as a running mate.

Senator Guffey said that was “the bunk.” He declined to say whether he had been in touch with Mr. Roosevelt, but Lawrence forces claimed he tried unsuccessfully all day yesterday to reach the President by telephone.

Congressman Francis J. Myers, nominee for the U.S. Senate, was the only speaker at today’s breakfast, aside from Mr. Lawrence.

Lawrence, Guffey praised

As a candidate whose chances might be endangered by a split in the party organization, he praised Senator Guffey and Mr. Lawrence for “walking throughout the state arm in arm” building up the Democratic machine.

He said:

Unless the vote is heavy, we may not carry Pennsylvania, regardless of how beloved the President is by the people. But if we get out the vote, victory is sure.

Mr. Lawrence pleaded for “strong” finance, labor and women’s campaign committees in each county and said it was “amazing” how many members of organized labor are not registered to vote.

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americavotes1944

Nye is victor for renomination

Bismarck, North Dakota (UP) –
North Dakota Secretary of State Thomas Hall said today that Senator Gerald P. Nye was virtually assured of renomination in the June 27 primary election in North Dakota.

Unofficial figures from canvassing boards in 32 counties plus previous totals gave Mr. Nye a lead of 956 votes over Lynn U. Stambaugh, former national commander of the American Legion.

All figures will remain unofficial until the state canvassing board meets July 27. Latest tabulations gave Mr. Nye 38,169 votes, comparted to 37,213 for Mr. Stambaugh and 35,680 for Rep. Usher L. Burdick.

Incumbents win in three primaries

By the United Press

Late returns from Tuesday’s primary elections in three states decided all contests today, with all incumbents renominated in Arizona and Lief Erickson, 38-year-old State Supreme Court Justice, conceded the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Montana. In Wyoming, Charles E. Norris of Laramie won the Democratic nomination for Congress.

Senator Carl Hayden, who has served in Congress ever since Arizona became a state, polled 29,327 votes to win the renomination by a 2-to-1 margin and Reps. John Murdock and Richard Harless received 29,414 and 26,910 votes respectively to win by a wide margin. Governor Sidney P. Osborn polled 34,797 votes to win renomination by a 3-to-1 margin over his nearest opponent. Jerrie Lee won the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

Both Austin Middleton and former governor Roy E. Ayers conceded the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Montana to Mr. Erickson, who held a lead of more than 6,000 over Mr. Middleton. Republican Governor Sam C. Ford won renomination by a 6-to-1 margin.

Montana had no senatorial contest this year and both incumbent Democratic Congressmen were unopposed for renomination.

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Caesar’s citadel now scene of hand-to-hand fighting

Yanks and Nazis use rifles, hand grenades in thickets filled with German dead
By Thomas R. Henry, North American Newspaper Alliance

With U.S. forces in Normandy, France – (July 16, by wireless, delayed)
The Belleau Wood of the present war is represented in the defense of the White Birch, scrub Chestnut and red-berried Mountain Ash tangle covering the 2,000-year-old Roman fortifications on the slopes of Mont Castre where the Yanks and Germans battled three days last week with rifle and hand grenades for vantage points controlling the marshes and rolling wooded country miles to the southward.

Texans and Oklahomans have now secured a high hilltop overlooking the Bay of Biscay westward of the English Channel, from which the Germans had been using field glasses. Atop the Roman walls they undoubtedly watched the landing of the invasion forces and every major move of the Allied troops.

Paratroopers with green capes

Some of the bitterest fighting of the war and also some of the heaviest losses occurred in this area. The thickets are being cleared today of the German dead, in some places piled in heaps, where they were mowed down by machine-gun crews. In a tangle of second-growth trees on land detimbered a few years ago, crawling at night silently through the brush the troops were invisible to one another.

Crack German paratroopers with green camouflage capes blended into the foliage. The prisoners said their orders were never to fire until the Americans were within ten yards, to conserve their ammunition. The fighting closely resembled Pacific jungle warfare. The hill ascent into the forest at times was very steep, through thick waist-high ferns and over sharp rocks. Germans with machine pistols were hidden in the treetops in clumps of mistletoe.

The successful assault on the north slope of Mont Castre was led by Lt. Col. Jacob W. Belke of Boonville, Missouri. At the highest ruins, cementless walls still strong after centuries. But beyond this place, he encountered mostly tunnels and trenches, built by the Germans themselves, honeycombing the mountaintops and overgrown with bushes.

“Grenades fell like hailstones,” says the company commander. At one point, a soldier was sent forward to ask a surrounded machine-gun nest to surrender. The Germans offered to negotiate. When the soldier appeared in the open, they killed him. This so enraged Sgt. Theodore Wagner of Mason, Texas, that he killed 11 Germans, captured three machine guns, using his own machine gun held against his shoulders like a rifle.

Yank lay four days alone

Yesterday, Sgt. George Parker of Tucson, Arizona, on a cleanup mission, found an American soldier with his right foot shot off who had lain four days in the brush without food. His only water was rain caught in his hand. It had rained most of the time. Shortly after the injury a tourniquet and sulfa powder had been applied by a medic who was driven off by enemy fire before he could complete the job, but promised to return later. That night the wounded man heard his comrades calling but he was too weak to reply. He felt better as the days passed, and Sgt, Parker found him cleaning his gun. He is now doing well at an evacuation hospital.

The hardest fighting was descending the southern slope where the Roman fortifications, built under the personal supervision of Julius Caesar, were more elaborate and had been greatly enlarged by the Germans. They were so perfectly concealed that tanks were driven over their tops without jarring them.

Battle over caves

Caesar had planned the mountain stronghold against attack from the south. The company emerging from the forest with its tanks, was cut off when the Germans knocked out the tanks. The remnants of the company were reorganized with parts of other decimated units under command of Lt. Hubert Miller of Syracuse, New York, who advanced over an open field after other units had captured points protecting the flanks.

8914

English say Roosevelt will visit continent

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Nazi super-robots to hit U.S., Japs hint

By the United Press

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8915

conv.dem.top.banner

Keynoter’s speech starts demonstration

Magic word ‘Roosevelt’ sets mob to whooping

Chicago Stadium, Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Democrats went whooping into the aisles for the first big demonstration of their convention last night when Oklahoma Governor Robert S. Kerr made a keynoted speech calling for the reelection of President Roosevelt and denouncing Republican administrations under which American “hardened under Harding, cooled under Coolidge, and hungered under Hoover.”

The speech was interrupted by a 12-minute demonstration during which state standards were paraded down the aisles to the platform where Governor Kerr put on a 10-gallon white hate while the band blared, “You’re Doin’ Fine, Oklahoma.”

Governor Kerr’s reply to the Republican Party’s “accent on youth” was the declaration that such “tired old men” as President Roosevelt, Adm. Ernest J. King, Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Gen. George C. Marshall “are winning this war.”

Repeating the refrain, “Shall we discard as a ‘tired old man,’” he alluded in staccato succession to 59-year-old Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, 62-year-old Adm. William F. Halsey Jr., 64-year-old Gen. MacArthur, 66-year-old Adm. King, and 64-year-old Gen. Marshall.

Then he added the paragraph which stopped his speech and produced the most deafening demonstration which this convention had seen thus far.

The keynoter said:

No, Mr. Dewey. We know we are winning this war with these “tired old men,” including the 62-year-old Roosevelt as their Commander-in-Chief.

The words “Commander-in-Chief” were almost drowned out by the burst of applause which greeted the word “Roosevelt.”

Governor Kerr himself was caught off guard. He had expected applause, but he hadn’t expected bedlam. He quickly sensed the situation, however, spread his arms like a cheerleader, and urged them on.

8916

conv.dem.top.banner

Democratic Convention hopefuls must be received by ‘Big Four’

Bosses hold court, decide what’s what
By Sandor S. Klein, United Press staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
Those in the know here say the men to “see” in the Democratic Convention are the “Big Four” – National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan, Former National Chairman Ed Flynn of New York, Chicago Mayor Edward J. Kelly and Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague.

These big city bosses are working frantically behind the scenes to untangle the vice-presidential scramble. They are not actually dominating the convention – yet – but their influence is great. They may be the men who will decide who is to be the vice-presidential nominee if it appears that Henry A. Wallace has definitely lost his chance for the necessary majority.

Hopefuls see bosses

Some vice-presidential hopefuls – not all of them – have been received by the quarter. A number of them, favorite-son candidates, are being ignored.

One of the candidates most prominently mentioned in the vice-presidential sweepstakes was almost distraught his first day here when not one of the “Big Four” called on him. His managers felt convinced that this meant their candidate was “out.” But the next day, two of the bosses invited him over to their rooms and the candidates hopes were revived.

The “Big Four” was said to be in touch with the White House. For the present, they are not doing any “dictating.” They discuss with various candidates their chances and convey to them the latest “dope.”

Keep in touch

And, of course, they keep in constant touch with the leaders of the key state delegations.

Three of the “Big Four” have their quarters in the Blackstone Hotel, across the street from the Stevens Hotel, which is convention headquarters. Mr. Hannegan has a corner suite on the seventh floor. Right next door is Mr. Flynn’s room. Mr. Hague has a corner suite on the fifth floor. Mr. Kelly operates from his spacious six-room apartment overlooking Lake Michigan.

There are frequent conferences among the four in Mr. Hannegan’s suite, where the transoms over the doors are kept tightly locked.

Of the four, Mr. Flynn is believed to be closest to the President.

Another former National Committee Chairman in the same hotel is James A. Farley. He doesn’t get invited to the conferences. He isn’t close to Mr. Roosevelt anymore.

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Stokes: Corcoran pulls strings to get Douglas named

Plots Truman-Wallace tie to achieve goal
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
Intrigue of the devious and deep-dyed variety, such as never has been practiced in a vice-presidential nomination, is going on here, in hotel room conferences and by long-distance telephone, over the nomination of a running mate for President Roosevelt this year.

A vice-presidential candidate is usually picked by the leaders, at the last minute, as sort of an afterthought. But it is different this year. The stakes are high. The vice-presidential nomination, the only contest this year, has become the center of a struggle for party control between the conservatives and New Dealers on the broad scale, and a prize over which various factions among New Dealers are tugging for supremacy.

The whole story in detail must await the memoirs and subsequent scrappy revelations by the principals. But more than enough leaks out to prove that New Dealers, when they take up politicking, can be just as tricky as those who make it a profession, and with refinements to which the professional would not resort.

Mr. Fixit for a price

This applies particularly to one who left the New Deal administration for the more lucrative practice of “influence,” a Mr. Fixit for a Price, but who still operates within it, sometimes just as if he still were in the government. this is Thomas G. Corcoran. He is up to his ears in this vice-presidential melee, manipulating by remote control from Washington, and the reports of his machinations are very fantastic, but most of them are probably true.

As the time for the nomination of a vice-presidential candidate approaches – it will follow the renomination of Mr. Roosevelt which occurs tonight – the two leading candidates were Vice President Wallace and Senator Harry S. Truman, chairman of the Senate Investigating Committee which bears his name. they have become the victims of the last-minute intriguing – there was plenty previously revolving about other figures.

Wallace amateur politician

Mr. Wallace is the rankest amateur as a politician, and without guile. Senator Truman honestly does not want the job. If you know him, you know this is true. Friends of each are pulling the wires and doing the tricks.

The infighting waxed hot last night when Senator Joe Guffey (D-PA), one of the vice President’s managers, got out a blistering statement denouncing National Chairman Hannegan for trying to influence the nomination of his fellow Missourian, Senator Truman. National party chairmen are supposed to be impartial, and the Pennsylvania Senator had a point there.

Guffey’s challenge

Mr. Guffey challenged the chairman to give out the complete text of a letter Mr. Hannegan was purported to have from the President listing the Missouri Senator as among those who would be acceptable to him.

Senator Guffey concluded with a reference to Senator Truman as “the candidate of Hannegan, Kelly, Hague and Flynn,” the last three the well-known Chicago, Jersey and New York bosses, in order to raise the issue of bossism against Senator Truman and to insinuate it, for those who know their political history, directly against the Senator from Missouri who started in politics as a young man with the once notorious Pendergast machine of Kansas City, though he has long outlived this.

Now Mr. Corcoran enters the plot, as reported here.

It’s an old feud

“Tommy the Cork,” as he is familiar known, has been working a long time to defeat Vice President Wallace for renomination. His hostility goes a long way back. It’s an old feud. His candidate, as it was in 1940, is 45-year-old Justice William O. Douglas of the Supreme Court, who has many attractions as a candidate, being a vigorous, scrappy fellow well identified with New Deal philosophy.

Now Mr. Corcoran has close affiliations with both Senator Joe Guffey and Senator Pepper (D-FL), also identified with the Wallace movement here, both state bosses of no mean pretensions. He also has considerable influence with Secretary of the Interior Ickes, who is here on the ground maneuvering around ostensibly against Vice President Wallace on behalf of Mr. Corcoran.

Wants a deadlock

The essence of the Corcoran “plot” as related is that he is pulling strings behind the scenes to incite the Wallace and Truman forces against each other, so that they will smear each other sufficiently to defeat each and cause a deadlock, out of which Justice Douglas would emerge as the winner.

Advanced as evidence is the Corcoran association with both Senators Guffey and Pepper, who has been busy in the intriguing, and with Mr. Ickes. The latter is known to have visited the Vice President in Washington not long ago ands asked him to withdraw. It was reported that last night he was trying to induce Vice President Wallace to take the floor and denounce boss Ed Kelly, Frank Hague, and Ed Flynn for trying to put over Senator Truman, which would, indeed, be a nice ruckus.

Sounds fantastic, to be true. It may be. But it fits in with the Corcoran technique.

Out of such intrigue, a vice-presidential candidate will emerge.

8918

Story behind Saint-Lô victory –
McGlincy: ‘God bless you, keep you,’ says letter beside a body

Also on the battlefield there is strewn other little things a man treasures
By James McGlincy, United Press staff writer

With U.S. forces in Normandy, France –
A photographer had just finished shooting a picture of it and there it lay – a helmet with a clip of cartridges next to it, and sticking out from under it a letter which ended, “God bless you and keep you until you are home in my arms again.”

This is the road to Saint-Lô, the road down which our task force stormed into the town. The helmet, the cartridges and the letter lie behind the hedgerow where the Americans had dug in for a while. On the other side of the hedgerow were German foxholes. On this side were ours.

Now all around them lies the debris of battle – yet it is more than that because the articles strewn about are such small, warm personal possessions. There are tubes of shaving cream, packs of cigarettes, razorblades, postcards of French towns, foot powder, newspaper clippings – and those letters.

One of the clippings is from a newspaper in Connecticut, a copy of a letter a boy had written while he was still in England. It wasn’t literary or flowery, just sincere. It read:

I’m tired of war and being away from hm. But we want to get it over with. I’ll be glad when we lick the Germans and the Japs.

Nearby is a letter from his wife. I shouldn’t read other people’s mail but somehow it seems that these letters ought to be told – plain, everyday letters that people write to the ones they love.

It’s one way of telling what happens here – of how bodies are mangled and lives are tangled so that the objective can be attained – a town like Saint-Lô.

That boy’s wife wrote:

I’m glad you like it, being you have to be there. I know it’s some pretty country over there and it will be quite an experience. You can tell me lots when you come home.

‘God bless you’

There is a writing pad with only a couple of lines scribbled on it in pencil: “Dear Julia: Here I am once more to say hello and let you know that I’m in the very best of health.” That was written before the deluge of fire.

But most pathetic of all was that letter under the helmet, which said:

Goodnight, Sweetheart. God bless you and keep you until you are home in my arms again. I love you more than anything or anyone in this world. Always, Lillian.

This is the story behind the headline, “Yanks Take Saint-Lô.”

8919

Chaplin’s first wife in critical condition

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