Biting bear just snoozes as curious crowd looks on
Central Park animal to remain in zoo; Soc healthy, docile temper back
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Pyle gets strange requests – from buttons to camels
Letters galore also pile in on Ernie who reads, but can’t answer, them
By Henry T. Gorrell, United Press staff writer
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Allen: Wallace shouldn’t run with weak supporters
George once did and he almost got caught with – well, anyway, it’s dangerous
By Gracie Allen
Chicago, Illinois –
In my first column from the Democratic Convention, I more or less challenged the Democrats to send as many handsome men to Chicago as the Republicans had. Well – we’re now going into the second day of the convention and I don’t think they’ve quite met the test. Of course, I guess the Democrats don’t need good looks – they have careers.
Also, my husband George is with me this time and I automatically compare every man to him. It’s pretty hard for a man to stand next to George Burns and look handsome… George moves away.
But don’t get the impression that there aren’t any handsome Democrats… There are plenty of them… and what charming men! Especially those Southerners. Most Democrats seem to come from the South. I mentioned this to a Republican and he said:
Don’t let ‘em fool you, Gracie. In July, you think they all come from the South, but in November they come from every direction.
Secedes from conversation
Speaking of charming Southerners, I met Senator Claude Pepper of Florida. With an accent that simply dripped honey, he flattered me almost out of my wits. Well, naturally, I wanted to say something nice right back to the Senator from Florida so I said:
“What a lovely sun tan, Senator – when did you find time to get to California?” Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say because he seceded from the conversation.
Wallace’s handicap
The big question at the convention continued to be – “Who will be nominated Vice President?” They tell me there’s going to be a terrific race between Wallace and Truman and that Wallace’s supporters seem to be weakening. My goodness, he shouldn’t try to run a race with weak supporters. George did that once and got caught with his – well, anyway, it’s dangerous.
One thing, the Democrats are getting much cooler weather than the Republicans had. Those poor Republicans really got a roasting at their convention. Come to think of it, they’re getting quite a roasting at this convention, too.
That’s all for now – more political news tomorrow.
1944 Democratic Party Platform
Introduction
The Democratic Party stands on its record in peace and in war.
To speed victory, establish and maintain peace, guarantee full employment and provide prosperity – this is its platform.
We do not here detail scores of planks. We cite action.
Domestic Policy
Beginning March 1933, the Democratic administration took a series of actions which saved our system of free enterprise.
It brought that system out of collapse and thereafter eliminated abuses which had imperiled it.
It used the powers of government to provide employment in industry and to save agriculture.
It wrote a new Magna Carta for labor.
It provided social security, including old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, security for crippled and dependent children and the blind. It established employment offices. It provided federal bank deposit insurance, flood prevention, soil conservation, and prevented abuses in the security markets. It saved farms and homes from foreclosure, and secured profitable prices for farm products.
It adopted an effective program of reclamation, hydroelectric power, and mineral development.
It found the road to prosperity through production and employment.
We pledge the continuance and improvement of these programs.
War Policy
Before war came, the Democratic administration awakened the nation, in time, to the dangers that threatened its very existence.
It succeeded in building, in time, the best-trained and equipped army in the world, the most powerful navy in the world, the greatest air force in the world, and the largest merchant marine in the world.
It gained for our country, and it saved for our country, powerful allies.
When war came, it succeeded in working out with those allies an effective grand strategy against the enemy.
It set that strategy in motion, and the tide of battle was turned.
It held the line against wartime inflation.
It ensured a fair share-and-share-alike distribution of food and other essentials.
It is leading our country to certain victory.
The primary and imperative duty of the United States is to wage the war with every resource available to final triumph over our enemies, and we pledge that we will continue to fight side by side with the United Nations until this supreme objective shall have been attained and thereafter to secure a just and lasting peace.
International Peace
That the world may not again be drenched in blood by international outlaws and criminals, we pledge:
To join with the other United Nations in the establishment of an international organization based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states, open to membership by all such states, large and small, for the prevention of aggression and the maintenance of international peace and security.
To make all necessary and effective agreements and arrangements through which the nations would maintain adequate forces to meet the needs of preventing war and of making impossible the preparation for war and which would have such forces available for joint action when necessary.
Such organization must be endowed with power to employ armed forces when necessary to prevent aggression and preserve peace.
We favor the maintenance of an international court of justice of which the United States shall be a member and the employment of diplomacy, conciliation, arbitration and other like methods where appropriate in the settlement of international disputes.
World peace is of transcendent importance. Our gallant sons are dying on land, on sea, and in the air. They do not die as Republicans. They do not die as Democrats. They die as Americans. We pledge that their blood shall not have been shed in vain. America has the opportunity to lead the world in this great service to mankind. The United States must meet the challenge. Under Divine Providence, she must move forward to her high destiny.
Foreign Relations
We pledge our support to the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms and the application of the principles enunciated therein to the United Nations and other peace-loving nations, large and small.
We shall uphold the Good-Neighbor Policy, and extend the trade policies initiated by the present administration.
We favor the opening of Palestine to unrestricted Jewish immigration and colonization, and such a policy as to result in the establishment there of a free and democratic Jewish commonwealth.
Equal Rights for Women
We favor legislation assuring equal pay for equal work, regardless of sex.
We recommend to Congress the submission of a constitutional amendment on equal rights for women.
Education and Industry
We favor federal aid to education administered by the states without interference by the federal government.
We favor federal legislation to assure stability of products, employment, distribution and prices in the bituminous coal industry, to create a proper balance between consumer, producer and mine worker.
We endorse the President’s statement recognizing the importance of the use of water in arid land states for domestic and irrigation purposes.
We favor non-discriminatory transportation charges and declare for the early correction of inequalities in such charges.
Territories
We favor enactment of legislation granting the fullest measure of self-government for Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and eventual statehood for Alaska and Hawaii.
We favor the extension of the right of suffrage to the people of the District of Columbia.
Post-War Programs
We offer these postwar programs:
A continuation of our policy of full benefits for ex-servicemen and women with special consideration for the disabled. We make it our first duty to assure employment and economic security to all who have served in the defense of our country.
Price guarantees and crop insurance to farmers with all practical steps:
To keep agriculture on a parity with industry and labor.
To foster the success of the small independent farmer.
To aid the home ownership of family-sized farms.
To extend rural electrification and develop broader domestic and foreign markets for agricultural products.
Adequate compensation for workers during demobilization.
The enactment of such additional humanitarian, labor, social and farm legislation as time and experience may require, including the amendment or repeal of any law enacted in recent years which has failed to accomplish its purpose.
Promotion of the success of small business. Earliest possible release of wartime controls.
Adaptation of tax laws to an expanding peacetime economy, with simplified structure and wartime taxes reduced or repealed as soon as possible.
Encouragement of risk capital, new enterprise, development of natural resources in the West and other parts of the country, and the immediate reopening of the gold and silver mines of the West as soon as manpower is available.
We reassert our faith in competitive private enterprise, free from control by monopolies, cartels, or any arbitrary private or public authority.
The Four Freedoms
We assert that mankind believes in the Four Freedoms.
We believe that the country which has the greatest measure of social justice is capable of the greatest achievements.
We believe that racial and religious minorities have the right to live, develop and vote equally with all citizens and share the rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. Congress should exert its full constitutional powers to protect those rights.
We believe that without loss of sovereignty, world development and lasting peace are within humanity’s grasp. They will come with the greater enjoyment of those freedoms by the peoples of the world, and with the freer flow among them of ideas and goods.
We believe in the world right of all men to write, send and publish news at uniform communication rates and without interference by governmental or private monopoly and that right should be protected by treaty.
To these beliefs the Democratic Party subscribes.
These principles the Democratic Party pledges itself in solemn sincerity to maintain.
Vote of Confidence in the President
Finally, this Convention sends its affectionate greetings to our beloved and matchless leader and President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
He stands before the nation and the world, the champion of human liberty and dignity. He has rescued our people from the ravages of economic disaster. His rare foresight and magnificent courage have saved our nation from the assault of international brigands and dictators. Fulfilling the ardent hope of his life, he has already laid the foundation of enduring peace for a troubled world and the wellbeing of our nation. All mankind is his debtor. His life and services have been a great blessing to humanity.
That God may keep him strong in body and in spirit to carry on his yet unfinished work is our hope and our prayer.
Address by Helen Gahagan Douglas, National Committeewoman from California
July 20, 1944
We the people are engaged in an enterprise of freedom. We turn our attention in the midst of a global war to a national election. No nation that had lost any part of freedom could engage in an election No nation, not free, would be having this convention, oh could have held the convention which took place here three weeks ago.
We the people know tonight, proudly and triumphantly, that ours is a free land, and no motivated part of us can tell us otherwise. At this hour our freedom brings high responsibility. The people of America cannot afford to make, a mistake. We cannot afford to endanger our future by: muddy thinking or limited vision.
We are a free people. But freedom is not something that can be inherited – taken from the shoulders of one generation and placed on the shoulders of another. We must earn freedom so that we may prize it – know when it is in jeopardy, for we can lose our freedom not only from without our shores but from within ourselves.
Freedom demands self-discipline, sacrifices and a high choice of leadership. Freedom demands daily intelligence and moral tests of people who would enjoy its glorious blessings. The two-party system is the American device by which those tests are posed most severely for us. We cherish that system. In this year of years, we welcome that test.
Tonight, we will select the man who as President of these United States for the next four years will have greater responsibilities than any other man has ever had.
As Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces the next President will have enormous influence in bringing the war to complete victory. As the head of the nation, charged by the Constitution with the conduct of foreign affairs, he will have more influence on the peace terms than any other person in this world. As Chief Executive he will be required to take the lead in shaping domestic affairs during the period of demobilization and after.
We must not commit the lives and the future of the American people to inexperience and negation.
We must have a man – broad visioned – one who is wholly capable and entirely familiar with the intricate and multitudinous problems that must be met and solved in wartime. We must have a man of high ability to deal with the great problems of diplomacy – to sit with the representatives of the nations of the world on familiar and confident terms. We must choose a humanitarian with practical and proven plans, for insuring a post-war period of high production and equitable distribution.
We the people want no bread lines as a result of the peace we all long for.
We want the man whose every act over twelve years shows that he hates and loathes bread lines with every fiber of his being. We want the man who has taken more concentrated abuse from the few than any other man in American history, because he has refused to consign any part of the American people to poverty.
Here, tonight, we are keenly aware of our men and women on battlefronts all over the world. We have in our hearts the deepest gratitude for their sacrifices.
We are of stern determination to give each and every one of them not just lip service but full opportunity for rehabilitation, for education, for jobs, for advancement, in a full and happy life when this war is over.
We each see our own, you and I, the ones we love best, in relation to this war. There is scarcely a home across the length and breadth of this country that has not been touched by it. But you belittle your son, your daughter, your husband and I belittle my husband and we imperil our children unless’ we see our dear ones now serving overseas in relation to their country, their world, their future.
It is with this future in mind that this convention makes its choice tonight.
We know that this country, mindful of the quickening pulse of social change the world over, will choose a President who will lead us to a fuller and richer life.
We know this because we are the party of the people. The Democratic Party has no interests apart from the interests of the American people. It has no interests apart from the interests of the American soldiers – the millions of American workers – and of American business.
There is no conflict between what the Democratic Party wants and what the majority of the people of America want, for they want the same.
America wanted an efficient army. Ours is the best equipped army ever sent into battle; ours is the best clothed army ever sent into battle; ours is the best cared for army ever sent into battle. The reason is short, simple and clear. This administration has no interests apart from the fighting sons, daughters, fathers and mothers of America.
This is the first of America’s wars in which there has not been a scandalous inflation. This administration has no interest in runaway prices, because the Democratic Party has no interest apart from the people who must pay the prices for food, clothing and shelter.
This administration is the instrument of the people. It has been forged by them in three successive campaigns, as their tool for obtaining what they want – what they need – what they must have in order to live.
The people of America have made the Democratic Party as they have made the railroads and the highways, the bridges and the tall buildings of America. They have made the Democratic Party to conserve their heritage.
The Democratic Party is the true conservative party. We have conserved hope and ambition in the hearts of our people. We are the conservative party. We have conserved the skills of their hands. We have husbanded our natural resources. We have saved millions of homes and farms from foreclosure and conserved the family stake in democracy.
We have rescued banks and trust companies, insured crops and people’s savings. We have built schools. We have checked the flooding rivers and turned them into power.
We have begun a program to free men and women from the constant nagging fear of unemployment, sickness, accident – and the dread of insecure old age.
We have turned a once isolated, flood-ravished, poverty-stricken valley, the home of four and a half million people, into what is now a productive, happy place to live – the Tennessee River Valley.
We have replanted the forest, re-fertilized the soil. Ours is the conservative party.
We have guarded children, protected them by labor laws, planned school-lunch programs, provided clinics. Our is the conservative party.
Ours is the party that has created laws which have given dignity and protection to the working men and women of this country.
Ours is the party that has made the individual aware of the need for his participation in a true democracy. We are the conservative party.
We have conserved the people’s faith in a people’s government – democracy.
Because we are the conservative party, we reject the hazy Republican dream that this country can get along with its government dismantled, its housing programs destroyed, its wage and price controls thrown out the window. The Republican leaders are the dreamers. They have no contact with the people or with the realities of their wants and needs.
Their program is a dream, a nightmare of muddle and confusion. In their bankruptcy they have turned to this dream because they have nothing to offer in their platform except a series of contradictions, and what the Bible calls “wicked imaginations.” What interests us are the dreams of the young men and women of America for jobs, for homes, for families – and we are determined to make these dreams a reality.
It is because the Democratic Party has no ambitions apart from the ambitions of the American people that we disdain to talk to you in contradictory terms or what is known as double-talk.
The Republican candidate has pledged himself to carry to Japan a defeat so crushing and complete that every last man among them will know that he has been beaten.
And at the same time the Republican platform does not indicate by a single line or a single word that there is any need for further war sacrifice.
That is double-talk.
The Republican Party has pledged itself to reduce taxes to the normal expenditures of government as soon as the war ends and also has pledged itself to reduce the national debt. It has not explained how taxes and debt can be so reduced at the same time. That is double-talk.
The Republican Party has pledged itself to support farm prices, but in the same breath tells the farmers that federal subsidies are un-American. That is double-talk. The Republican leadership demands that barriers to world trade be reduced, and also that foreign goods be kept out of this country. And that is double-talk.
The Republican leadership declares that we need vigorous young men in Washington, because of the hard jobs that lie ahead, and it also declares that Washington is going to have nothing to do when this war is over. All government will be returned to the States. And that is double-talk.
The Republican Party declares that it is the party of the Constitution, but its nominee declares that he will not participate in the active management of the war.
This thoughtless and inept argument ignores the fact that our Founding Fathers carefully provided for civilian control of the military as the only possible safeguard of democratic life. The Constitution gave the people the right to elect a civilian Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
Yet the Republican nominee runs for the office of Commander-in-Chief on the solemn pledge that if elected he will not fulfill his duties. That is double-talk.
In the early days of the war, when the choice of the top positions of the Armed Forces had to be made, when the choice of theaters in which to concentrate our effectiveness had to be made, the Republican leaders complained that the war was being managed poorly by our Commander-in-Chief.
Now that we are on the threshold of victory, now that every military fact in the world testifies to the magnificence with which President Roosevelt has performed his duties as Commander-in-Chief, the Republicans have changed their arguments, and their tune is now that the American armies and navies need no Commander-in-Chief and that the war will run itself. And that is more double-talk.
The leadership of the Republican Party, lacking sufficient vision and stature, has made a miserable attempt to discredit President Roosevelt’s work in flying personally to the far places of the world… to sit down with the heads of the British, Chinese and Russian states. These conferences, which have built mutual respect and confidence between our President and other leaders of the United Nations have been the greatest demonstration in history of working unity on the part of the peoples of this world – a unity and understanding that will prove to be the foundation for action to prevent future wars.
The Republican nominee implies that he will participate in no such conferences. He declares that he will delegate the conduct of foreign policy to a secretary whose name we do not even know. It is the President, however, under the American Constitution, who is responsible for foreign policy. He is responsible to the people. Once again, the Republican candidate seeks to divest himself of a duty.
The reason, of course, for the Republican attempt to divest the office of the Presidency of these vital constitutional duties is clear. The Republican leaders realize that the people of America suspect that the Republican candidate is not properly equipped for the tremendous tasks ahead.
The Republican leaders realize that the people of America know that President Roosevelt has shown himself to be equal to such tasks and all emergencies.
The powers of leadership, vision and statesmanship of President Roosevelt are universally recognized.
Whoever becomes President succeeds in doing so because he has won the confidence of a majority of the voters regardless of party. There aren’t enough Democrats to elect a President – nor are there enough Republicans to do so. Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been elected President for three successive terms – and each time the Republicans have helped to put him in office.
The last three elections have shown that the Democratic Party has been the best friend the Republican rank and file voter has ever had: He knows it and he has voted accordingly.
And that, again, is because he knows that the Democratic Party has no secret aspirations of its own – it has no private goals which are different from the goals of the American people.
Every program of our administration has been one for all of America; every bit of social legislation we have favored has been designed to help Americans on the basis of their need.
Never before in American history have the people of both parties been so long united on one man. They have been united in support of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who believes the wealth of a nation is its people; and the people will elect him again because they know that he has no ambition that is not for all of America.
Address by Senator Alben W. Barkley (D-KY)
July 20, 1944
Mr. Chairman, members and guests of the convention:
It has been my privilege to serve you in responsible capacities in three preceding national conventions.
To none of these did I bring a deeper sense of personal pleasure or public duty than that which actuates me on this occasion.
I come to the fulfillment of this assignment not simply a Democrat, but as an American, seeking to promote the welfare of my country and the enduring happiness of her people.
As we assemble here, evil forces stalk across the stage of human affairs whose power must be annihilated lest the whole course of civilization be reversed and mankind be reconsigned to the miseries of total slavery.
In such a posture we must rise above the level of the petty and the inconsequential.
We must look beyond the horizon of temporary expedients and contemplate the larger opportunity and the larger challenge.
Eleven years ago, standing before an eager and distraught multitude, a new President of this republic was heard to say: “This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”
Some of those who listened looked upon it as a handsome figure of speech uttered in the course of an inaugural address.
The speaker perhaps was thinking of our domestic problems chiefly, then in utter chaos and disorder; thinking of the sixteen millions whose feet were treading upon the unresponsive pavements in town and city, seeking work; thinking of the anxious eyes and hungry mouths of women and children; thinking of the toilers in the fields who dare to cope with nature and her seasons to feed and clothe the world; thinking of the incomparably low prices marking the reward of the nation’s farmers; of burned crops and mounting debts and unpaid mortgages, and dried-up credit and broken promises quadrennially made by those who had the power but not the will to keep them.
Perhaps he thought also of the smokeless smokestacks and the silent wheels of industry; of our lost traffic with the nations of the world; of the motionless turbines of out merchant marine, tied up in harbors for lack of cargoes; of the billions lost by innocent investors in the speculative orgy fostered and inspired from the portals of the Treasury by “the greatest Secretary since Alexander Hamilton;” of the collapse of our financial institutions, the loss of other billions of the people’s deposits and the loss of their faith and confidence in these institutions.
In all likelihood he saw the insecurity of old age, the hazards of sickness and unemployment, the sordid record of financial exploitation among our neighbors in the Western world under the alliterative aegis of dollar diplomacy, and the fear and suspicion and hatred that policy had inspired.
He saw the wasting soil reserves washing to the sea; the idle natural resources of the nation unharnessed for the use of man; the devastating floods destroying life and property and uprooting the happiness of whole communities and valleys.
Looking across two oceans, proclaimed by some as the unassailable fortresses of our protection and security, he beheld the beginnings of Japanese aggression in Asia and the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Europe.
Surveying these national and world perplexities, is it strange that this dauntless man uttered the prophetic sentence, “This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny? What a destiny! What a rendezvous!”
Centering his searching mind and great abilities upon our own domestic problems, he restored our financial institutions; strengthened them beyond any previous stability; and rekindled the people’s confidence in them to the end that today they hold larger deposits of their funds than at any other time in their history.
He built anew the basis of agricultural prosperity, restored the farmer’s credit, lowered his interest rates, electrified his homes, lifted a portion of the drudgery from the backs of housewives, organized a program of soil conservation, expanded the field for the use of agricultural products, increased the annual income of farmers by more than 300 per cent, and contributed more to the stability of farm life in America than was ever before accomplished in three times the length of time, if ever at all.
While the war has brought hardships to farm life, those strides made by agriculture under the guidance of this man of whom I speak laid the foundations for the magnificent contributions being made by the farmers and their families to the victory we shall ere long achieve against our enemies and the enemies of all freedom.
In his address from this platform three weeks ago, the Governor of California asserted that under this administration the farmer works all day and keeps books all night.
He paid to this administration an unintentional compliment. For under the administration of its predecessor the farmer worked all day and worked all night and had no books to keep; or, if he kept any at all he made his entries in the crimson liquid of bankruptcy and despair.
Truly enough, he keeps books now, and he makes his entries in the jet-black liquid of cancelled mortgages and saving deposits and improved farms and war bonds.
The man of whom I speak set in motion the machinery for the employment of the idle. In four years, he reduced unemployment from 16 millions to less than ten. And in four more years to less than six millions.
Three weeks ago, from this platform, the nominee of the Republican Convention complained with glee that this administration had not solved completely the unemployment problem.
He should have said with greater frankness that this administration did not create but inherited that problem from the administration of his own political mentor, guide and counselor; that neither that administration nor any of its apologists then or since have ever offered a sane or understandable remedy for the chronic malady which they bequeathed to the American economic system.
In addition to the reduction of unemployment, this Democratic administration gave to labor the boon of collective bargaining, the reassuring balance wheel of minimum wages and maximum hours, the stimulating guarantee of unemployment insurance and compensation, the tardy inauguration of old-age subsistence and the abolition of child labor.
Under the driving power of the head of this administration, the market for securities was made a safe and honest place for the transaction of business, and the small home owner was saved from eviction and enabled to preserve the tradition of his vine and fig tree.
For the sordid emblem of the dollar on the escutcheon of our diplomatic relations he substituted the symbol of the good neighbor.
For the log-rolling, corrupt methods of tariff legislation he substituted mutual trade agreements, restoring to a material extent the natural flow of commerce with other nations.
By these and other great measures of similar importance the American people, the American economic system and the American conception and way of life were fortified for the impact of war and the defense of our land.
What will our opponents do with this modern vehicle we have created? They have not said. Having neither the foresight nor the creative genius to conceive or construct it, they now admit the virtue of most of it, but say they could have done it better if they had thought of it and known how.
Their platform looks in all directions and sees nothing. It is like the exhortation of the devout minister who concluded as follows a sermon on “sin”: “I say unto you, brethren, repent of your sins, more or less. Ask forgiveness, in a measure; or you will be damned, to some extent.”
Before this gloomy prospect the baffled intellect must pause and kneel for guidance and direction.
To one intelligent observer it is “the pattern for chaos.” To another it is “the tired old platform.” To nobody is it either the “substance of things hoped for, or the evidence of things unseen.”
Against this nebulous Milky Way, we shall present a record of constructive accomplishment unique in American history.
We shall present a candidate who inspired and guided and drove that record to certain consummation.
We shall present a candidate who not only traveled but constructed the highway which leads to a fuller and happier life.
When the new foundations for this sounder American economy were advancing toward completion, disorder was on its way in other parts oi the world. Fear began to grip the hearts of millions who remembered or learned the tragic horrors of the last world conflict.
The cloud which at first seemed but a fleck upon the rim of heaven grew until it covered the earth with its fore bodings and obscured the sun of man’s hopes for peace and life.
The past rose before us like a nightmare. We heard the sound of preparation and the noise of boisterous drums. We saw hundreds of assemblages and heard the raucous voice of the diabolical agitator across the sea.
In all of this, though the domestic task was yet unfinished, the President of the United States saw the import of the gathering storm and sought to avert it.
Through every channel of diplomacy, every weapon of official and personal persuasion, every resort to logic and reason, he appealed to egocentric and distorted minds to forego the butchery oi another world war, another selfish and ambitious design upon the peace of nations, another reversion to the barbarism of the dark ages, multiplied a thousand times.
And he appealed to his own country not to dwell too, long in a fool’s paradise; not to indulge the fancy that we could be safe from the fires that might consume other peoples. For this foresight and forthrightness, he was denounced as a warmonger, and assailed as the friend of the war profiteer; and he became the object of partisan and personal vilification like unto that from which Washington suffered and which Lincoln endured.
Whose was the voice then that cried from the wilderness? Who became the major prophet – the man who saw and warned the people against approaching danger, or those who fulminated their jeremiads against him because he had the clarity of vision to see and the courage to proclaim our profound interest in the world’s developments?
When the treachery of Pearl Harbor came, we were not ready. The shock of it blasted us from our complacency, as the previous shock of Hitler’s attack on Europe blasted his neighbors out of theirs.
No democracy is ever ready for war at the drop of a hat. That is true of Europe and Asia, no less than of America. And because the people themselves who live in those democracies have not wanted war, because they believed in the good faith of treaties made to prevent war, they were unwilling to believe that war would come or to be ready for it.
Thus happened the world’s narrow escape from complete and bitter subjugation.
But war came nevertheless to Asia, to Europe and to America. And though unready for it when it came, we have gone farther and faster, and with more profound temporary readjustments in our lives than was ever true of any others nation in the whole history of nations.
Our industry, our labor, our agriculture, our finances, our manpower, our homes, yea, the moral and spiritual fiber of a mighty people have all been fused into an irresistible stream whose momentum will drive the war lords of the Nazi and the Nipponese back into the war hatchery from which they were spewed to become the world’s supreme scourge.
We have raised and trained, and through these agencies; have equipped, the ablest fighting force that ever flew the sky, sailed the sea or marched beneath a banner.
In order to pay in part for this titanic effort the American people are paying in taxes into the Treasury of the United States annually six billion dollars more than their total income from all sources in 1932, and have left in their pockets more than a hundred billion dollars with which to buy the bonds of their government and meet the other obligations of a nation and a people.
On all of the battlefronts these efforts, these gifts of blood and treasure, are being justified and sanctified by the incomparable bravery which brings glory everywhere and victory ever nearer to our cause.
But we are told by the nominee of our opponents that those in charge of our government have grown old and tired in office and that they are young and fresh. Life is not measured by figures on a dial. This administration and the Democratic Party have done more for the youth of America than was ever done before by any combination of administrations or political parties.
In this struggle to emancipate humanity, men and women of all ages, political beliefs, religions, races, colors and conditions have the power and the obligation to serve, and they are serving in every imaginable capacity.
None of those who are in charge of the government of the United States are as old as the Old Guard which dominated the convention which met in this place three weeks ago.
The President of the United States has not been the head of this government as long as the Generalissimo has been head of the Chinese government, or as long as Joseph Stalin has been head of the Russian government, or as long as Winston Churchill has held high office in the British government.
Yet with what dismay and consternation would the people of America receive news that any or all of these had been banished from office by the people of their respective countries!
In this hour of tragedy, when the lives of innocent men, women and children all over the world hang in the balance; when blood and treasure beyond calculation are being poured out to save civilization; when hearts and minds and tongues that think and feel and speak in every language cry out for peace and deliverance and the leadership of experience in war and in its aftermath, no birth certificate, whether inscribed on the crisp new page of the latest volume of vital statistics, or whether it is slightly faded from longer use and service, can or will constitute the prime qualification for the Presidency of these United States.
Shakespeare must have had our opponents in mind when he said: “Heat not a furnace for thy foe that it do not singe thyself.”
In their platform, and thus far in their public statements, they have attempted to compromise the convictions of Willkie with the underground of isolationism. They neither take the ground nor abandon it. They neither fly nor light. They hover.
The Democratic Party goes before the American people on its record, and it will not become a fugitive from the truth.
It has pushed outward the frontiers of enterprise, enlarged the boundaries of human endeavor, quickened the spirit of the man who earns his bread by the sweat of his face and opened new routes to the hopes of mankind.
Democracy knows that in a free land there are some things never to be tolerated, and one of them is intolerance.
Democracy must make mistakes. Ours has been no exception to this rule, and we freely admit that we have made them.
But all progress among men is a residuum of a multitude of mistakes. Only through error does man or nation come to know the truth. And how often have we come to realize in this administration that questions once objects of great debate and controversy are now accepted as indisputable facts. We must preserve the continuity of democracy by bringing together the experiences of yesterday and tasks of today and the aspirations of tomorrow.
We know that in our struggle as a people through the years we have kept this ideal before us, and it is our beacon light today.
Though we do not know the day or the hour when it will come, we know that the sum total of all our past and present devotions will bring success to the cause of justice in the war and peace and healing to the souls of men when it is over.
Already we are preparing for the return of our national economy to the practices and conditions of peace.
Already we are laying the solid groundwork for the demobilization of men and materials and plants and for their gainful employment in private enterprise.
Already we have provided for the just and helpful transition of men and women in the service; for the education, rehabilitation and compensation of those who bear the heat of battle and for their dependents; for the reintegration of men and women and industrial and agricultural enterprises into the jobs and activities of post-war readjustments.
We propose to create no economic stalemate which will make it necessary for men and women in the service to march on Washington to petition the government under the Constitution, only to be driven out with the very instruments with which they have saved the nation.
Already the foundations for victory; for a just, honorable and durable peace, and for the organization of the world for peace when its organization for war is no longer needed, have (been set deep m the soil of the United Nations.
Already the American people have made up their minds that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; that it will not seek to avoid its solemn responsibilities in the family of nations, and that it shall pledge its experience, influence, and cooperation to the end that no other generation shall be driven through the slaughterhouse through which this one is passing in order that human liberty may be preserved.
Under whose leadership have these things moved forward to accomplishment?
Under whose leadership? Have we as a nation marched from the valley of depression to the peak of national well-being?
Under whose guiding hand have we made the long journey from military impotence to power unrivalled in human history?
Whose hand has moved the throttle of our productive engine?
Whose touch at the pilot’s wheel has steered our stately ship through the treacherous waters of international controversy and intrigue, and brings us now within sight of the harbor and its impregnable shores?
Whose name among all the millions of dejected and disheartened men and women stands today as the symbol of freedom and deliverance?
I have not always agreed with this man who has been honored beyond his fellows. Though recognizing his more intimate knowledge and greater responsibility, I have on occasion found myself in disagreement with him over the substance or the method of some course of action in which we were concerned. Under similar conditions again I would not feel at liberty to pursue a different course.
But it is one thing to differ from a friend, though he be President, on some course of action that seems fundamental.
It is quite another thing to discard, or seem to discard, a leadership unsurpassed if ever equaled in the annals of American history, or to repudiate a record of achievement in national and international affairs so amazing and successful that his friends proclaim it and his enemies dare not threaten it with destruction.
Like all true believers in liberty, the President fights, and has always fought, not doggedly for opinions but for the right to entertain and express them.
From time to time my views may change. In the light of broader knowledge or modified conditions my opinions may be altered. So may his. We both fight now and have all our lives fought for the right to harbor our opinions, to express and defend them and to change them when convinced of error.
This is the essence of democracy. It was this conception of democracy which made Jefferson the premier among the defenders of freedom of thought, of the press, of education, of speech and religion.
It is this atmosphere of freedom that gives validity to the immortal words of Voltaire to Helvetius: “I wholly disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Because I believe in these eternal truths, and because they have been the sheet anchor of his faith and the guideposts of his conduct in public and in private station, I present to this assembly for the office of President of these United States the name of one who is endowed with the intellectual boldness of Thomas Jefferson, the indomitable courage of Andrew Jackson, the faith and patience of Abraham Lincoln, the rugged integrity of Grover Cleveland, and the scholarly vision of Woodrow Wilson – Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Address by Vice President Wallace
July 20, 1944
As chairman of the Iowa delegation, I am deeply honored to second the nomination of the greatest living American – Franklin D. Roosevelt. The strength of the Democratic Party has always been the people – plain people like so many of those here in this convention – ordinary folks, farmers, workers and businessmen along main street. Jefferson, Jackson and Woodrow Wilson knew the power of the plain people. All three laid down the thesis that the Democratic Party can win only if and when it is the liberal party.
Now we have come to the most extraordinary election in the history of our country. Three times the Democratic Party has been led to victory by the greatest liberal in the history of the United States. The name Roosevelt is revered in the remotest corners of this earth. The name Roosevelt is cursed only by Germans, Japs and certain American troglodytes.
The first issue which transcends all others is that complete victory be won quickly. Roosevelt, in a world sense, is the most experienced military strategist who has ever been President of the United States. Roosevelt is the only person in the United States who can meet on even terms the other great leaders in discussions of war and peace. The voice of our new world liberalism must carry on.
It is appropriate that Roosevelt should run on the basis of his record as a war leader. He is successfully conducting a war bigger than all the rest of our wars put together. He must finish this job before the nation can breathe in safety. The boys at the front know this better than anyone else.
The future belongs to those who go down the line unswervingly for the liberal principles of both political democracy and economic democracy regardless of race, color or religion. In a political, educational and economic sense there must be no inferior races. The poll tax must go. Equal educational opportunities must come. The future must bring equal wages for equal work regardless of sex or race.
Roosevelt stands for all this. That is why certain people hate him so. That also is one of the outstanding reasons why Roosevelt will be elected for a fourth time.
President Roosevelt has long known that the Democratic Party in order to survive must serve men first and dollars second. That does not mean that the Democratic Party is against business – quite the contrary. But if we want more small businessmen, as the Democratic Party undoubtedly does, we must modify our taxation system to encourage risk capital to invest in all rapidly growing small business.
We want both a taxation system and a railroad rate structure which will encourage new business and the development of the newer industrial regions of the South and West. Rate discrimination must go.
The Democratic Party in convention assembled is about to demonstrate that it is not only a free party but a liberal party. The Democratic Party cannot long survive as a conservative party. The Republican Party has a monopoly on the conservative brains and the conservative dollars. Democrats who try to play the Republican game inside the Democratic Party always find that it just can’t work on a national scale.
In like manner Republicans who try to play the Democratic game inside the Republican Party find that while it may work on a state basis it can never work nationally. I know because my own father tried it. Perhaps Wendell Willkie may have learned in 1944 a little of that which my own father learned in 1924. The old elephant never changes and never forgives.
By nominating Franklin Roosevelt, the Democratic Party is again declaring its faith in liberalism. Roosevelt is a greater liberal today than he has ever been. His soul is pure. The high quality of Roosevelt liberalism will become more apparent as the war emergency passes. The only question ever in Roosevelt’s mind is how best to serve the cause of liberalism in the long run. He thinks big. He sees far.
There is no question about the renomination of President Roosevelt by this convention. The only question is whether the convention and the party workers believe wholeheartedly in the liberal policies for which Roosevelt has always stood.
Our problem is not to sell Roosevelt to the Democratic Convention but to sell the Democratic Party and the Democratic Convention to the people of the United States.
The world is peculiarly fortunate that in times like these the United States should be blessed with a leader of the caliber of Roosevelt. With the spirit of Woodrow Wilson, but avoiding the pitfalls which beset that great statesman, Roosevelt can and will lead the United States in cooperation with the rest of the world toward that type of peace which will prevent World War III. It is this peace for which the mothers and fathers of America hope and work.
Issues that will be with us for a generation – perhaps even for a hundred years – will take form at this convention and at the November election. The Democratic Party and the independent voters will give Roosevelt their wholehearted support because of his record in peace and war.
As head of the Iowa delegation, in the cause of liberalism, and with a prayer for prompt victory in this war, permanent peace and full employment, I give you Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Address by President Roosevelt Accepting the Democratic Nomination
July 20, 1944, 8:20 p.m. PWT
Delivered from a Pacific Coast naval base
Broadcast audio:
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen of the Convention, my friends:
I have already indicated to you why I accept the nomination that you have offered me – in spite of my desire to retire to the quiet of private life.
You in this Convention are aware of what I have sought to gain for the nation, and you have asked me to continue.
It seems wholly likely that within the next four years our Armed Forces, and those of our allies, will have gained a complete victory over Germany and Japan, sooner or later, and that the world once more will be at peace – under a system, we hope that will prevent a new world war. In an event, whenever that time comes, new hands will then have full opportunity to realize the ideals which we seek.
In the last three elections, the people of the United States have transcended party affiliation. Not only Democrats but also forward-looking Republicans and millions of independent voters have turned to progressive leadership – a leadership which has sought consistently – and with fair success – to advance the lot of the average American citizen who had been so forgotten during the period after the last war. I am confident that they will continue to look to that same kind of liberalism to build our safer economy for the future.
I am sure that you will understand me when I say that my decision, expressed to you formally tonight, is based solely on a sense of obligation to serve if called upon to do so by the people of the United States.
I shall not campaign, in the usual sense, for the office. In these days of tragic sorrow, I do not consider it fitting. And besides, in these days of global warfare, I shall not be able to find the time. I shall, however, feel free to report to the people the facts about matters of concern to them and especially to correct any misrepresentations.
During the past few days, I have been coming across the whole width of the continent, to a naval base where I am speaking to you now from the train.
As I was crossing the fertile lands and the wide plains and the Great Divide, I could not fail to think of the new relationship between the people of our farms and cities and villages and the people of the rest of the world overseas – on the islands of the Pacific, in the Far East, and in the other Americas, in Britain and Normandy and Germany and Poland and Russia itself.
For Oklahoma and California, for example, are becoming a part of all these distant spots as greatly as Massachusetts and Virginia were a part of the European picture in 1778. Today, Oklahoma and California are being defended in Normandy and on Saipan; and they must be defended there – for what happens in Normandy and Saipan vitally affects the security and wellbeing of every human being in Oklahoma and California.
Mankind changes the scope and the breadth of its thought and vision slowly indeed. In the days of the Roman Empire eyes were focused on Europe and the Mediterranean area. The civilization in the Far East was barely known. The American continents were unheard of.
And even after the people of Europe began to spill over to other continents, the people of North America in Colonial days knew only their Atlantic seaboard and a tiny portion of the other Americas, and they turned mostly for trade and international relationship to Europe. Africa, at that time, was considered only as the provider of human chattels. Asia was essentially unknown to our ancestors.
During the 19th century, during that era of development and expansion on this continent, we felt a natural isolation – geographic, economic, and political – an isolation from the vast world which lay overseas.
Not until this generation – roughly this century – have people here and elsewhere been compelled more and more to widen the orbit of their vision to include every part of the world. Yes, it has been a wrench perhaps – but a very necessary one.
It is good that we are all getting that broader vision. For we shall need it after the war. The isolationists and the ostriches who plagued our thinking before Pearl Harbor are becoming slowly extinct. The American people now know that all nations of the world – large and small – will have to play their appropriate part in keeping the peace by force, and in deciding peacefully the disputes which might lead to war.
We all know how truly the world has become one – that if Germany and Japan, for example, were to come through this war with their philosophies established and their armies intact, our own grandchildren would again have to be fighting in their day for their liberties and their lives.
Someday soon we shall all be able to fly to any other part of the world within 24 hours. Oceans will no longer figure as greatly in our physical defense as they have in the past. For our own safety and for our own economic good, therefore – if for no other reason – we must take a leading part in the maintenance of peace and in the increase of trade among all the nations of the world.
And that is why your government for many, many months has been laying plans, and studying the problems of the near future – preparing itself to act so that the people of the United States may not suffer hardships after the war, may continue constantly to improve their standards, and may join with other nations in doing the same. There are even now working toward that end, the best staff in all our history – men and women of all parties and from every part of the nation. I realize that planning is a word which in some places brings forth sneers. But, for example, before our entry into the war it was planning, which made possible the magnificent organization and equipment of the Army and Navy of the United States which are fighting for us and for our civilization today.
Improvement through planning is the order of the day. Even military affairs, things do not stand still. An army or a navy trained and equipped and fighting according to a 1932 model would not have been a safe reliance in 1944. And if we are to progress in our civilization, improvement is necessary in other fields – in the physical things that are a part of our daily lives, and also in the concepts of social justice at home and abroad.
I am now at this naval base in the performance of my duties under the Constitution. The war waits for no elections. Decisions must be made – plans must be laid – strategy must be carried out. They do not concern merely a party or a group. They will affect the daily lives of Americans for generations to come.
What is the job before us in 1944? First, to win the war – to win the war fast, to win it overpoweringly. Second, to form worldwide international organizations, and to arrange to use the armed forces of the sovereign nations of the world to make another war impossible within the foreseeable future. And third, to build an economy for our returning veterans and for all Americans – which will provide employment and provide decent standards of living.
The people of the United States will decide this fall whether they wish to turn over this 1944 job – this worldwide job – to inexperienced or immature hands, to those who opposed Lend-Lease and international cooperation against the forces of aggression and tyranny, until they could read the polls of popular sentiment; or whether they wish to leave it to those who saw the danger from abroad, who met it head-on, and who now have seized the offensive and carried the war to its present stages of success – to those who, by international conferences and united actions have begun to build that kind of common understanding and cooperative experience which will be so necessary in the world to come.
They will also decide, these people of ours, whether they will entrust the task of postwar reconversion to those who offered the veterans of the last war breadlines and apple-selling and who finally led the American people down to the abyss of 1932; or whether they will leave it to those who rescued American business, agriculture, industry, finance, and labor in 1933, and who have already planned and put through much legislation to help our veterans resume their normal occupations in a well-ordered reconversion process.
They will not decide these questions by reading glowing words or platform pledges – the mouthings of those who are willing to promise anything and everything – contradictions, inconsistencies, impossibilities – anything which might snare a few votes here and a few votes there.
They will decide on the record – the record written on the seas, on the land, and in the skies.
They will decide on the record of our domestic accomplishments in recovery and reform since March 4, 1933.
And they will decide on the record of our war production and food production – unparalleled in all history, in spite of the doubts and sneers of those in high places who said it cannot be done.
They will decide on the record of the International Food Conference, of UNRRA, of the International Labor Conference, of the International Education Conference, of the International Monetary Conference.
And they will decide on the record written in the Atlantic Charter, at Casablanca, at Cairo, at Moscow, and at Tehran.
We have made mistakes. Who has not?
Things will not always be perfect. Are they ever perfect, in human affairs?
But the objective at home and abroad has always been clear before us. Constantly, we have made steady, sure progress toward that objective. The record is plain and unmistakable as to that – a record for everyone to read.
The greatest wartime President in our history, after a wartime election which he called the “most reliable indication of public purpose in this country,” set the goal for the United States, a goal in terms as applicable today as they were in 1865 – terms which the human mind cannot improve “with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”
Völkischer Beobachter (July 21, 1944)
Die neue Feldschlacht im Westen:
Beginn des zweiten Invasionsabschnittes
Feindliche Generaloffensive an allen Fronten
vb. Wien, 20. Juli –
Seit 48 Stunden tobt im Raume von Caen eine Feldschlacht, die trotz ihrer vorläufigen örtlichen Begrenzung als der Beginn des zweiten großen Abschnittes der Invasion betrachtet werden darf.
Der Feind hat am 18. Juli – genau sechs Wochen nach seiner Landung auf französischem Boden – zum Durchbruch aus der Enge des Landekopfes in der Normandie angesetzt. Damit ist auch die Schlacht im Westen in das Stadium wichtiger Entscheidungen gerückt und die Generaloffensive der Feinde Europas auf allen vier Fronten entbrannt. Dafür zeugen nicht nur die militärischen Vorgänge im Westen, Osten und Süden, sondern auch die neue weiträumige Bomberoffensive, die am gestrigen Mittwoch große Gebiete Süddeutschlands heimgesucht hat.
Tage und Wochen höchster Spannung, größter Anstrengungen und ernstester Bewährung stehen Front und Heimat bevor. Wehrmacht und Volk sehen ihnen mit eiserner Entschlossenheit und unbeirrbarer Zuversicht entgegen. Alle Anstrengungen, die der westliche Feind seit dem 6. Juni in seinem normannischen Landekopf unternommen hatte, gehorchten zwei einander ablösenden Gesetzen: Nach dem ursprünglichen Invasionsplane sollten schon in den ersten Tagen des gewaltigen, seit zwei Jahren mit Hilfe der gesamten plutokratischen Kriegsindustrie vorbereiteten Angriffes die Häfen Cherbourg und Le Havre genommen und mit Hilfe starker Luftlandeverbände eine breite und tiefe Ausfallstellung in der Normandie gewonnen werden.
Dieses Programm, für das die riesigen Luftflotten und Seestreitkräfte der USA und Britanniens zur Verfügung standen, ist sowohl an der Widerstandskraft der örtlichen Befestigungen des Atlantikwalls wie an der Zähigkeit der im Landeraum stehenden schwachen deutschen Verbände gescheitert.
Sobald diese Tatsache feststand, entschloss sich die feindliche Führung unter Verzicht auf eine Änderung ihres taktischen Planes, durch sture und mühselige Kleinarbeit das zu erreichen, was im ersten großen Wurf nicht gelungen war: Sie pumpte den Landekopf unaufhörlich mit Truppen und Material voll, säuberte in wochenlangem Ringen unter schweren Verlusten die Halbinsel von Cherbourg und drang ohne Rücksicht auf die Opfer bis zu den immer noch küstennahen Städten Saint-Lô und Caen durch, um halbwegs brauchbare Ausgangsstellungen für die eigentliche Offensive zu gewinnen. Was nach dem ursprünglichen Plan in drei Tagen geschafft werden sollte, ist nun in sechs Wochen notdürftig bewältigt worden. Und nicht einmal das mit taktischer Geschicklichkeit, sondern ausschließlich durch• den Einsatz immer neuer Materialmassen. Bombengeschwader, Schiffsgeschütze und Artilleriemassen waren das Kennzeichen dieser ganzen ersten Phase der Schlacht um Frankreich.
Am Dienstag, den 18. Juli, fühlten sich nun Eisenhower und Montgomery endlich stark genug, den deutschen Verteidigern der Normandie die Feldschlacht anzubieten: Während die Amerikaner im Westabschnitt des Schlachtfeldes gegen den Trümmerhaufen von Saint-Lô antraten, brachen die Briten – wie gewöhnlich mit Kanadiern in vorderster Linie – aus ihrem kleinen Brückenkopf östlich der Orne, nach stundenlangem Trommelfeuer von Bomben und Granaten, wiederum von der schwersten Schiffsartillerie unterstützt, heraus, um in südlicher Richtung die von Caen nach Westen und Südwesten, das heißt nach Lisieux und Falaise führenden Straßen zu gewinnen. Neben dem Durchbruch „ins Freie“ verbanden sie damit augenscheinlich die taktische Absicht, die noch im Südteil von Caen stehenden, an das Ufer der Orne angelehnten deutschen Verbände abzuschneiden, nachdem sie in den Vortagen das Dorf Maltot am Westufer der Orne besetzt und damit die Flanke jener deutschen Verbände gewonnen hatten.
Schon heute, 48 Stunden nach Beginn der Operation, kann festgestellt werden, daß dieser taktische Nebenzweck nicht erreicht worden ist: die bis Cagny, an der Straße Caen–Lisieux durchgebrochenen britischen Panzerkräfte fanden bei ihrem Versuch, nach Westen einzuschwenken und das Orneufer gegenüber von Maltot zu erreichen, schon in den Orten Grentheville und Soliers entschlossenen Widerstand. Auch die auf den östlichen Flügel des Angriffsraumes angesetzten Feindstöße gegen Sannerville und Troarn blieben ergebnislos. Desgleichen ließ sich die deutsche Führung durch feindliche Ablenkungsmanöver östlich der Orne im alten Kampfraum von Tilly und Juvigny nicht beirren.
Das Scheitern dieses Einschließungsmanövers beweist aufs Neue die geringen taktischen Fähigkeiten der anglo-amerikanischen Führung, selbst in Stellen, wo ihr eine gewaltige materielle Überlegenheit Hilfe leistet und vielleicht sogar das Überraschungsmoment zugutegekommen ist, denn der Entschluss Montgomerys, östlich der Orne anzugreifen, nachdem er sich in den Vorwochen unablässig und unter größtem Aufwand bemüht hatte, südwestlich Caen die deutsche Verteidigung zu durchstoßen, kam mindestens für die anglo-amerikanische Presse ganz unerwartet. Es bleibt abzuwarten, ob und in welcher Grade sich nun deren rosige Hoffnungen auf einen geradlinigen Vormarsch der motorisierten Feindverbände erfüllen werden.
Die Kriegsberichterstattung des Gegners tut sich viel darauf zugute, daß die beiden oben genannten, nach Südwesten und Westen führenden Heerstraßen durch „offenes Gelände“ und „freie Ebenen“ liefen und der Panzerkrieg damit endlich aus dem tückischen Hecken- und Gartengelände herauskäme, das durch die glänzenden Eigenschaften des deutschen Einzelkämpfers einem wahren Todesfalle für Briten und Yankees geworden ist.
Die Wirklichkeit sieht etwas anders aus. Es ist zwar richtig, daß die genannten Straßen teilweise durch etwas offeneres, welliges Gelände führen, wie es auch an anderen Stellen der Normandie mitunter angetroffen werden kann. Dazwischen befinden sich aber immer wieder Gebiete mit jenem für die dortige Landschaft typischen Gemisch kleiner Weiler, Dörfer und Einzelhöfe, mit unzähligen dicht umbuchten Garten- und Feldstücken, bewachsenen Hohlwegen und kleinen Bachläufen, das dem Panzerkrieg viel geringere Möglichkeiten bietet, als sie die Briten und US-Amerikaner aus ihren bisherigen Kriegserfahrungen in Afrika und Italien gewohnt waren. Dieser Umstand hemmt in einem gewissen Grad auch die Wirksamkeit der zahlenmäßig weit überlegenen feindlichen Luftwaffe, da er ausgezeichnete Möglichkeiten Zur Deckung gegen Fliegersicht bietet.
Es ist kaum anzunehmen, daß der Durchbruchsversuch östlich der Orne die gesamte im Landekopf aufgestaute Offensivkraft des Feindes zur Geltung bringen wird. Allein schon der Wunsch, die Bildung eines deutschen Gegenschwerpunkts in diesem Raum zu verhindern, dürfte die feindliche Führung veranlassen, noch/an anderen Stellen den „Weg ins Freie“ zu suchen. Ob solche weiteren Stöße westlich des Flusses, wo die seit Wochen heiß umkämpfte Höhe 112 bei Gavrus-Baron immer noch in deutscher Hand ist, oder bei Caumont oder bei Saint-Lô erfolgen werden, wissen wir nicht. Auch das strategische Ziel der Offensive im Westen ist noch nicht sichtbar.
Man muß auch mit der Möglichkeit, daß der Feind einen neuen Einbruch in den Atlantikwall versuchen wird, sei es, um die Halbinsel der Bretagne von Westen und von der Normandie her abzuschneiden, sei es, um das Tal der Seine von Westen und Norden her gleichzeitig zu erreichen und damit Paris in Reichweite zu bringen. Es ist aber auch müssig, sich heute über solche Möglichkeiten den Kopf zu zerbrechen.
Versinkende Hoffnungen in England
Es ist außerordentlich lehrreich, sich den Grund eines in England aufkommenden Pessimismus, nämlich die Widersprüche der englisch-amerikanischen Publizistik über den Stand der Invasionsschlacht und über die allgemeine Kriegslage vor Augen zu halten.
Während beispielsweise die New York Times versichert: „Jedes Wort, das aus Deutschland herauskommt, zeigt den sich vollziehenden Zusammenbruch des deutschen Volkes,“ veröffentlicht die konservative Daily Mail an der Spitze ihrer Ausgabe eine Meldung ihres Genfer Korrespondenten, in der es heißt: Obgleich das deutsche Volk unter größter Anspannung stehe, mache das Reich in seiner Gesamtheit den Eindruck, als ob der Führer noch Trümpfe ausspielen werde. Einige seien der Ansicht, daß eine weitere Geheimwaffe in Vorbereitung sei. Andere wiederum neigten zu dem Glauben, daß Deutschland völlig neuartige Kriegsmethoden anwenden werde.
Was auch immer der Grund des deutschen Optimismus sein möge, schreibt Daily Mail im offenen Gegensatz zu der zitierten amerikanischen Zeitung, bestehe der Gesamteindruck, daß Deutschland noch etwas Ungewöhnliches unternehmen könne.
Hatte der amerikanische Luftgeneral Arnold schon im Jänner versichert, Deutschlands Kriegsindustrien seien ausradiert und produktionsunfähig und damit die Deutschen weit unterlegen, so können heute die erstaunten Anglo-Amerikaner in fast allen Normandie Reportagen ihrer Kriegsberichter lesen, daß die deutschen Waffen besser als die anglo-amerikanischen sind.
Daily Sketch unterstreicht in einem langen Artikel die überlegene Qualität des sogenannten kleinen Kriegsgeräts der deutschen Wehrmacht, wie Maschinengewehre, Minenwerfer, Maschinenpistolen, Handgranaten und panzerbrechende Mittel. Über unsere Panzer und Panzerabwehrkanonen schreibt der englische Kriegsberichter Buckly im Daily Telegraph:
Die deutsche Abwehrkanone ist das beste existierende Antitankgeschütz der Welt. Selbst unser 17-Pfünder ist kein geeigneter Gegner. Der „Panther“ ist ebenfalls der beste und vielseitigste Panzer, der heute in Westeuropa kämpft. Der „Tiger“ mit einem noch schwereren Geschütz und seiner Panzerung bildet auch ein tödliches Hindernis für unsere leichter gepanzerten und weniger schwer bestückten Tanks. Von Alamein bis Italien bewahrten wir im „General-Sherman-Panzer“ den wahrscheinlich besten und vielseitigsten Kampfwagen in der Schlacht. Nun ist die Lage eine andere.
Ähnliche Superlative finden wir in der Beurteilung der deutschen Artillerie in den Frontberichten der Daily Mail und im News Chronicle, der den Feuervorhang der deutschen Mörser „tödlich und undurchdringlich und von erschreckender Genauigkeit“ findet, über die deutsche Luftwaffe aber urteilt der US-Kriegsberichter Reynold, die Alliierten besäßen nicht ein einziges Flugzeug, das sich qualitativ mit der deutschen „Focke-Wulff 200“ und den meisten deutschen Jägern vergleichen ließe.
Auch ohne „V1“ und das neue Kampfmittel der Kriegsmarine, über. welches in England ein so gewaltiges Rätselraten entstanden war, besteht also effektiv eine qualitative deutsche Waffenüberlegenheit, die selbst vom Gegner eingestanden werden muß. Dies widerspricht aber völlig allen Behauptungen über die Wirkung der Bombenteppiche der Terrorflieger auf das deutsche Erzeugungspotential und bedeutet für die englischen Massen das Hinschwinden ihrer größten Illusionen.
Das gleiche gilt von der Einschätzung des deutschen Soldaten durch den Feind. Das mokante Lächeln über „Hitlers Kriegsbaby“ ist den Anglo-Amerikanern völlig vergangen. Nun unterstreichen sie den Fanatismus, die Härte und Kampfgeübtheit und die für sie geradezu unwahrscheinliche Tapferkeit der Soldatengeneration, die durch die Reihen der HJ ging. Auch die Hoffnung auf eine überlegene Strategie der Alliierten verschwindet bereits, da es Eisenhower, Bradley und Montgomery selbst nach wochenlangen Kämpfen noch immer nicht gelungen ist, aus dem Brückenkopf herauszukommen.
Nachdem der bekannte amerikanische Militärschriftsteller Hanson Baldwin nach einem Besuch in der Normandie Bedenken über die alliierte Strategie geäußert hat, erklärt nun der Kriegsberichter Buckly im Daily Telegraph:
Vielleicht steckt hinter all diesem Treiben ein Meisterplan unserer Generale. Ich vermag jedoch beim besten Willen nicht die geringsten Anzeichen dafür zu sehen.
Ist es ein Wunder, daß angesichts derartiger Widersprüche, torpedierter Hoffnungen und der späten Anerkennung der Überlegenheit des deutschen Soldaten, seiner Waffen und seiner Führung die Briten sich über die Lage an der Invasionsfront keinerlei Illusionen mehr hingeben, sich fragen, wozu sie dem zweiten Blitz ausgesetzt werden müssen und Stimmungen verfallen, die alles andere, nur keine Siegeszuversicht bedeuten.
Innsbrucker Nachrichten (July 21, 1944)
Die harten kämpfe an der Ostfront
In der Normandie 200 Feindpanzer in zwei Tagen vernichtet – 84 viermotorige Bomber beim Einstiegen ins Reich abgeschossen
dnb. Aus dem Führerhauptquartier, 21. Juli –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Südöstlich und südlich Caen setzte der Feind seine Angriffe mit stärkeren Infanterie- und Panzerkräften fort, ohne daß er wesentlichen Geländegewinn erzielen konnte. Auch im Raum nordwestlich Saint-Lô zerschlugen unsere Truppen alle feindlichen Angriffsgruppen. Bei den Kämpfen am 18. und 19. Juli wurden in der Normandie 200 feindliche Panzer abgeschossen.
Kampfflugzeuge versenkten im Seegebiet westlich Brest einen feindlichen Zerstörer und beschädigten zwei weitere schwer.
Bei Säuberungsunternehmen im französischen Raum wurden wiederum 285 Terroristen im Kampf niedergemacht.
Schweres „V1“-Vergeltungsfeuer liegt weiterhin auf dem Großraum von London.
In Italien fanden gestern größere Kampfhandlungen nur im adriatischen Küstenabschnitt statt, wo der Feind geringfügige Bodengewinne erzielen konnte. An der übrigen Front führte der Gegner an vielen Stellen örtliche Angriffe, die erfolglos blieben.
Die 16. SS-Panzergrenadierdivision „Reichsführer-SS“ hat sich unter Führung des SS-Gruppenführers und Generalleutnants der Waffen-SS Simon bei den schweren Kämpfen an der Ligurischen Küste durch besondere Standhaftigkeit und Tapferkeit ausgezeichnet.
Torpedoboote beschädigten im Golf von Genua zwei britische Schnellboote.
Im Osten dauern die Kämpfe im Raum von Lemberg und am oberen Bug mit unverminderter Heftigkeit an. Unsere Divisionen leisteten den Sowjets weiterhin zähen Widerstand und fügten ihnen hohe Verluste zu. Allein eine Panzergrenadierdivision schoss dort in den letzten Tagen 101 feindliche Panzer ab.
Nördlich Brest-Litowsk warfen Truppen des Heeres und der Waffen-SS die Bolschewisten im Gegenangriff zurück. Mehrere Angriffsspitzen des Feindes wurden eingeschlossen und vernichtet, östlich Bialystok brach der Gegner in unsere Stellungen ein. Erbitterte Kämpfe sind hier im Gange. Nordwestlich Grodno wurden sowjetische Kampfgruppen im Gegenangriff geworfen.
An der Straße Kauen–Dünaburg sowie zwischen Dünaburg und Peipussee griffen die Bolschewisten mit starker Panzer- und Schlachtfliegerunterstützung an zahlreichen Stellen an. Sie wurden unter Abschuß einer großen Anzahl von Panzern abgewiesen oder aufgefangen.
Im Nordabschnitt haben sich die schlesische 255. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Generalleutnant Melzer und das Grenadierregiment 32 unter Oberst von Werder durch besondere Tapferkeit ausgezeichnet.
Schlachtfliegergeschwader versprengten sowjetische Panzerverbände und Nachschubkolonnen. 58 feindliche Panzer und über 500 Fahrzeuge wurden vernichtet. In Luftkämpfen verlor der Feind 55 Flugzeuge.
Wachfahrzeuge der Kriegsmarine schossen über dem Finnischen Meerbusen 5 sowjetische Bomber ab.
Starke deutsche Kampffliegerverbände führten auch in der vergangenen Nacht schwere Angriffe gegen die Nachschubbahnhöfe Minsk und Molodetschno.
Nordamerikanische Bomberverbände griffen von Süden und Westen Orte in West-, Südwest- und Mitteldeutschland an. Besonders in Friedrichshafen, Wetzlar und Leipzig entstanden Schäden und Personenverluste. Durch Luftverteidigungskräfte wurden 47 feindliche Flugzeuge, darunter 45 viermotorige Bomber, abgeschossen.
In der Nacht griff ein britischer Verband Orte im rheinisch-westfälischen Gebiet an. Störflugzeuge warfen außerdem Bomben auf das Stadtgebiet von Hamburg. 39 viermotorige Bomber wurden dabei zum Absturz gebracht.
Schnelle deutsche Kampfflugzeuge griffen Ziele in Südostengland an.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (July 21, 1944)
Communiqué No. 91
Attacking from the ridge north of SAINT-ANDRÉ-SUR-ORNE, Allied infantry have captured the village. Between there and BOURGUÉBUS we have extended our hold on the high ground from the river ORNE to the vicinity of VERRIERS.
Air operations over the immediate battle area yesterday were limited by poor visibility.
A strong force of heavy bombers, nine of which are missing, made an accurate and concentrated attack last night on the railway yards at COURTRAI, in BELGIUM.
Communiqué No. 92
Allied troops yesterday continued the advance south of SAINT-ANDRÉ-SUR-ORNE against heavy enemy resistance, which developed into an enemy counterattack near SAINT-MARTIN-DE-FONTENAY. This counterattack, which was supported by armor, was repulsed with loss to the enemy.
In the area east of CAUMONT, our troops have made a slight advance.
Allied forces in the western sector have made small local gains north of PÉRIERS and along the PÉRIERS–SAINT-LÔ road south of REMILLY-SUR-LOZON. An enemy counterattack near RAIDS was repulsed.
Bad weather severely restricted air activity this morning.
Communiqué No. 93
THERE IS NOTHING TO REPORT
U.S. Navy Department (July 21, 1944)
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 82
U.S. Marines and Army assault troops established beachheads on Guam Island on July 20 (West Longitude Date) with the support of carrier aircraft and surface combat units of the Fifth Fleet. Enemy defenses are being heavily bombed and shelled at close range.
Amphibious operations against Guam Island are being directed by RAdm. Richard L. Conolly, USN.
Expeditionary troops are commanded by Maj. Gen. Roy S. Geiger, USMC, Commanding General, Third Amphibious Corps.
The landings on Guam are continuing against moderate ground opposition.
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 83
Good beachheads have been secured on Guam Island by Marines and Army troops. Additional troops are being landed against light initial enemy resistance. The troops advancing inland are meeting increasing resistance in some sectors.
On July 19 (West Longitude Date), 627 tons of bombs and 147 rockets were expended in attacks on Guam by carrier aircraft. Naval gunfire and aerial bombing were employed in support of the assault troops up to the moment of landing, and remaining enemy artillery batteries are being neutralized by shelling and bombing. Preliminary estimates indicate that our casualties are moderate.
Liberator search planes of Group One, Fleet Air Wing Two, bombed Hahajima and Chichijima in the Bonin Islands and Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands on July 19 (West Longitude Date). At Iwo Jima, the airfield and adjacent installations were hit. At Chichijima, an enemy destroyer was bombed. Anti‑aircraft fire ranged from moderate to intense. One of our planes was damaged but all returned.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 21, 1944)
YANKS ASHORE ON GUAM
Marines, Army storm 1st U.S. island seized by Japs in this war
Invaders meet moderate opposition after 17-day air and sea bombardment of foe
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer
…
Rommel’s tanks fall back as Allies seize six towns
Rain stops big-scale action in Normandy; foe retreats to escape encirclement
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
SHAEF, London, England –
British and U.S. troops plunged ahead through six villages today despite a downpour which drowned out big-scale action on the Normandy front, and German armor was reported pulling back from the nose of the breakthrough salient southeast of Caen under an encirclement threat.
Canadian troops drove forward a few hundred years from Saint-André-sur-Odon to capture the neighboring village of Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay a little over four miles south of Caen. Five villages scattered along the British and American fronts had been taken earlier.
Both Allied and German troops soaked miserably in their slit trenches while a 36-hour downpour continued.
Canadians stop attack
The Germans threw in a sharp counterthrust against the Canadian front below Caen, but were turned back.
To the west, British forces slogged ahead 1,000 yards south of the Caumont–Tilly-sur-Seulles road.
A United Press dispatch from the Caen front reported that the battle “is still going well” with the definite failure of the German counterattack, and “it is now safe to say that the Allied offensive is over the hump.”
As Rommel pulled back his armor from the plains southeast of Caen to avoid the threat from strengthened British positions on either side, the Germans depended mainly on their anti-tank and other fortifications to stem the British push, and only short-lived clashes of armor were reported.
The battle of Troarn on the left flank of the Caen pocket continued into its second day, with British assault forces fighting ahead from the captured rail station on the edge of the town.
On the left flank, other British forces were fighting street battles in Évrecy, southwest of Caen, and the village of Bougy, a mile and a half to the northwest. Saint-André-sur-Orne was captured yesterday, clearing the bank of the river four miles due south of Caen, and to the west a drive more than four miles below Tilly-sur-Seulles overran the village of Monts.
U.S. forces closing in on Périers, central base of the German defenses on the 1st Army front, captured Sèves (two and a half miles north of Périers), Raids (on the Carentan–Périers highway four miles to the north), and Le Mesnil-Eury (eight miles southeast of Périers on the Saint-Lô highway).
Altogether the Allied armies scored gains or pinched off German pockets in 13 sectors, most of them line-straightening operations along a 90-mile fighting front.
The new advances carried British troops five miles due south of Caen along both banks of the Orne, and at most places they were less than a mile apart on either side of the river.
The Channel was lashed by a storm, which, with the rain in the fighting areas, almost completely halted aerial support for the British and U.S. troops.
Friday, July 21 12:30 p.m.: Selection of vice-presidential candidate 9:15 p.m.: Final session – Adoption of resolutions of thanks to the host city
Wallace-Truman race a tossup as dozen hopefuls are named
Missouri Senator claims 600 first-ballot votes as New York swings to him
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Chicago Stadium, Chicago, Illinois –
Strong-lunged party orators placed a dozen or so vice-presidential candidates in nomination at the Democratic National Convention today while friends of Henry A. Wallace and Senator Harry S. Truman hastily canvassed delegations for first-ballot votes.
The fight for a place on the ticket as President Roosevelt’s 1944 running mate centered around the larger delegations as the New York group, with 96 votes to cast adopted a resolution favoring the Missouri Senator.
By midday, several names had been placed in nomination. The first was Senator John H. Bankhead (D-AL), who was named by Senator Lister Hill a few minutes after the roll call started. The second was Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO) whose name was placed in nomination by Senator Bennett C. Clark when Arizona yielded to Missouri amid a chorus of boos from Wallace supporters.
The third name placed in nomination was that of Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney (D-WY) who was named by Wyoming Governor Lester C. Hunt.
After Mr. Hunt’s speech, delegate Martin V. Coffey of Ohio made his seconding speech for Senator Truman, although the poll had shown more Wallace than Truman voted in the delegation.
Mitchell nominates Wallace
Iowa’s former Chief Justice, Richard F. Mitchell of Fort Dodge, made the nominating speech for Mr. Wallace.
Mrs. Emma Guffey Miller, Democratic committeewoman from Pennsylvania, saying. “I guess I’m what the Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey would call a tired old woman,” seconded the nomination of Mr. Wallace.
“Mr. Wallace made that office what the Founding Fathers intended, ‘First assistant to the President,’” Mr. Mitchell told the Convention today in his speech to renominate his fellow Iowan.
‘Did not sit by’
Mr. Wallace deserves renomination, he said, because “the Democratic Party does not give the Vice Presidency as a consolation prize,” but to a man who sees clearly his role as a leader and a man of action.
Mr. Mitchell said:
He [Wallace] did not sit idly by and let his Commander-in-Chief carry the whole burden of war forced upon us by a treacherous foe. No, instead he became the special messenger of the President, taking the American way of life to the peoples of other countries.
When the name of Vice President Wallace went into nomination, the convention raised its banners in a crazy dance and ignored Chairman Samuel Jackson. Three big white balloons carried aloft the sign, “the People Want Wallace.”
Band strikes up
Wallace signs blossomed all over the floor, in the balcony, and in the halls. The band struck up “Iowa, Where the Tall Corn Grows” and the marchers made more noise for Mr. Wallace than they did yesterday for President Roosevelt.
Four years ago, when Mr. Wallace was nominated at Mr. Roosevelt’s insistence, the angry convention gave him no chance to make the acceptance speech he had prepared. The demonstration lasted 11 minutes.
‘Not going to Munich’
Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall, seconding the nomination of Vice President Henry A. Wallace, declared today that this is not the time for compromise and that the Democratic Party is not going to Munich to appease those who abhor its policies.
Mr. Arnall said:
The enemies of Franklin Roosevelt, unable today to assail the President, have sought through vicious attacks upon his friend and comrade to weaken the forces of Democratic liberalism.
Mr. Wallace, he said, had been true to the policies and the ideals that saved America from chaos in 1933 and he has been faithful to the man whom Americans in three elections have chosen as President.
Defends farm policies
Mr. Arnall defended the Vice President against criticism that he is a dreamer, a visionary, an idealist. These are not damning words, he said, because “where there is no vision, the people perish.”
Mr. Arnall said Mr. Wallace’s farm policies had restored to usefulness 30 million acres of land, had doubled the cash income of farmers, and had provided the food and raw materials with which we are winning the war.
Repudiation of Mr. Wallace, Mr. Arnall said, would be a rejection of the party’s domestic policies which averted calamity in America and restored prosperity.
Mayor Edward J. Kelly, on behalf of the Illinois delegation, nominated Senator Scott W. Lucas (D-IL).
Truman claims 600 votes
Senator Truman’s aides said he had been promised Massachusetts’ 34 first-ballot votes, bringing to 600 the total they claim have been pledged to the Missourian. A “good chunk” of Illinois’ votes were also pledged for Truman, but on the second ballot.
With Mr. Roosevelt nominated for a fourth term, it remained for the delegates to settle a contest between the left and right wings of the New Deal-Democratic Party and either renominate Mr. Wallace or retire him to Iowa.
Wallace claims of strength were voiced by Harold Young, the Vice President’s secretary and campaign manager, who said that since yesterday, his man had increased his total of promised votes to 580, nine votes short of a majority.
The Massachusetts decision to go for Senator Truman on the first ballot was the best of news for the Missourian. This was one of the largest blocs of votes that had been uncommitted on the first ballot.
The President accepted his fourth-term renomination last night after a routine process of afternoon balloting. The score was:
| Roosevelt | 1086 |
| Byrd | 89 |
| Farley | 1 |
The surprised delegates learned, as the President talked, that his radio speech was being made from a West Coast naval station. They will be more surprised to read in the papers today that the President passed through Chicago last Saturday and conferred with Chairman Robert E. Hannegan of the National Committee.
The President directly answered the campaign charge of New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican presidential nominee, that he and his administration are tired and quarrelsome old men.
He told the jam-packed stadium crowd:
The people of the United States will decide this fall whether they wish to turn over this 1944 job – this worldwide job – to the inexperienced and immature hands, to those who opposed Lend-Lease and international cooperation against the forces of aggression and tyranny, until they could read the polls of popular sentiment; or whether they wish to leave it to those who saw the danger from abroad, who met it head-on, and who now have seized the offensive and carried the war to its present stages of success, to those who, by international conferences and united action have begun to build that kind of common understanding and cooperative experience which will be so necessary in the world to come.
Mr. Roosevelt said the “1944 job” was to win the war fast and overpoweringly, to form international worldwide organizations including provision for the use of armed force to prevent war, and to build an adequate national economy for returning veterans and all Americans. He said his administration had been working on all of those projects.
President is calm
Not long before he spoke, his great ideological adversary, Hitler, was telling a startled world that some of his army officers had been tossing bombs at him. The Hitler speech was a substantial background for the President’s sure confidence in victory.
But the President’s voice was the only calm note around this convention. The left-right wing contestants are set for battle and have begun to slug. Mr. Hannegan talked to President Roosevelt by telephone from the Blackstone Hotel in midafternoon yesterday and subsequently summoned an evening press conference at which he made public the document which has come to be known here as “The Letter.” It was short and to the point, dated from Washington on July 19:
Dear Bob:
You have written me about Harry Truman and Bill Douglas. I should, of course, be very glad to run with either of them and believe that either one of them would bring real strength to the ticket.
Always sincerely,
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Letters are a mystery
The letter raised a number of unanswered questions, principally as to the time and place it was written. Mr. Roosevelt was not in the White House in Washington on July 19, even though the letter as released by Mr. Hannegan was so dated. Actually, in the early morning of that day, the President was arriving at the West Coast naval station from which he addressed the convention last night.
The thought occurred to some here that he may have written the letter welcoming either Mr. Truman or Justice Douglas as a running mate at the same time and place that he composed another famous letter received here. This other letter was addressed to Senator Samuel D. Jackson (D-IN), permanent convention chairman, and was made public on July 18.
Race issue plank put in platform
Program also calls for ‘peace forces’
By Dean W. Dittmer, United Press staff writer
Chicago, Illinois –
A 1,200-word platform calling for an international alliance of nations “with power to employ armed forces when necessary” to preserve peace, and a mandate to Congress to exert its full powers to protect the right of minorities “to live, develop and vote equally with all citizens” was approved by the Democratic National Convention last night.
The racial equality plank, approved by the Platform and Resolutions Committee over the opposition of Southern states, declared:
We believe that racial and religious minorities have the right to live, develop and vote equally with all citizens and share the rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. Congress should exert its constitutional powers to protect those rights.
The foreign policy plank pledged this country to join “with the other United Nations in the establishment of an international organization based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states… for the prevention of aggression and the maintenance of international peace and security.”
To enforce the peace, “the nations would maintain adequate forces to meet the needs of preventing war and of making impossible the preparation for war,” and “with power to employ armed forces when necessary to prevent aggression and preserve peace.”
Other planks include:
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Maintenance of an international court for the settlement of disputes between nations.
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Support of the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms and the principles enunciated therein.
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Opening of Palestine to Jewish immigration and for “a free and democratic Jewish commonwealth.”
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Legislation to assure equal pay for equal work for women, and a recommendation for submission of a constitutional amendment on equal rights for women.
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Federal legislation to assure stability of production, employment, prices and distribution in the bituminous coal industry.
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Federal aid to education administered by the states.
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Endorsement of President Roosevelt’s use of water in arid land states for irrigation.
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Non-discriminatory transportation charges and a request for early correction of inequities.
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Enactment of legislation giving fullest self-government to Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and the eventual statehood of Alaska and Hawaii; and extension of the right of suffrage to residents of the Districts of Columbia.
Post-war program
For post-war programs, the committee recommended:
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Full benefits to servicemen and women with special consideration for disabled, to assure employment and economic security.
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Price guarantees and crop insurance to farmers; parity for agriculture with labor and industry, promotion of success of small independent farmers, aid to home-ownership of family-sized farms, and extension of rural electrification and broader domestic and foreign markets for agricultural products.
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Adequate compensation for workers during demobilization.
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Enactment of additional humanitarian, labor, social and farm legislation as may be needed and repeal of “any law enacted in recent years which has failed to accomplish its purpose.”
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Promotion of small business, and earliest possible release of business from wartime controls.
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Simplification of tax structure and reduction or repeal of wartime taxes as soon as possible.
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Encouragement of risk capital new enterprise and development of natural resources in the West and other parts of the country and reopening of Western gold and saver mines “as soon as manpower is available.”
Race issue raised
Also declaring for a free and untrammeled press, the committee expressed its belief “in the world right of all men to write, send and publish news at uniform communication rates and without interference by governmental or private monopoly and that right should be protected by treaty.”
At the Platform Committee meeting, Southern Democrats, led by former Texas Governor Dan Moody, sought to bring a minority report on the racial equality plank before the convention, but the plan was thwarted when only eight of the necessary 12 states signed the minority report. States signing the report were Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina.
The group sought to add to the committee language a clause reserving the authority to determine “qualifications of their voters and to regulate their public schools and attendance therein” solely in the states “in the absence of a constitutional amendment ceding such powers to the federal government.”