America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

americavotes1944

pegler

Pegler: Union menace

By Westbrook Pegler

New York –
Up to date in this campaign for the Presidency, neither candidate has expressed any intention to work for legal reforms which would free the American worker from the oppression of the union movement. It has been a long time since Tom Dewey signified that he was even aware of the unions’ menace to individual, human freedom and, thus, to the collective freedom of us all, within our own country.

It may be taken for granted that Mr. Roosevelt will not even mention the subject, for he successfully has ignored it for years and has actively thwarted several attempts by Congress to establish legal standards and restraints with which the unions would have had to comply for the protection of the whole people.

Mr. Dewey operates under a handicap, because the Roosevelt propaganda has created a thoughtless belief, or superstition, among millions of voters, that he is pro-labor, whereas, in fact, he is free labor’s worst enemy. Therefore, Mr. Dewey, or anyone else who would impose on unions fair obligations to the whole community, would be falsely depicted as a man hostile to labor.

That, however, is Mr. Dewey hard luck. It sets for him a test of debate and statesmanship in the campaign which, however, for expediency and votes, he may decide to ignore with a mental reservation that, if elected, he would take it up later in recommendations to Congress.

Immune to legal restraints

Whatever candidates may say, the fact remains that the unions are out of control of their members and immune to legal restraints. They are a powerful anti-labor movement with absolutely no obligation to hold free elections of their officers, or any elections at all, to account for their funds, to limit the salaries and graft of their officials, to admit qualified workers to membership, to limit their activities to collective bargaining or to exclude criminals and alien Communists from official position in their councils.

They have forced unwilling workers to accept representation by henchmen of President Roosevelt’s own political machine in contempt of the Wagner Act, the very law which they hailed as labor’s Magna Carta. By this process, workers by millions have been forced to contribute to the Roosevelt campaign funds through collections taken up by his own political agents under compulsion and threat.

This method is almost identical with that of Benito Mussolini in Italy, and it may be that the workers are too stupid and too emotional in their politics to care even though this is demonstrated to be so.

Mussolini won the Italian workers with the same bait that Mr. Roosevelt has used in chumming up the suckers of American labor, and up to this time the American worker has not shown himself to be any more intelligent or careful of his liberties than his Italian brother who sold out for a little more cheap, paper money and the promise of an old-age pension which is now still pie in the sky.

Right to commit robbery upheld

Roosevelt’s Supreme Court has established for union bosses the right to commit highway robbery in the guise of soliciting employment for their subjects. Highway robbery is a crime which calls for a low, criminal character and it was shown in the Supreme Court case that most of the defendant union men were not workers or chosen labor agents but common, underworld jailbirds.

If a union boss will rob an employer on the highway, he will have no compunction to rob his own subjects in the union through shakedowns or theft of their money from the treasury. Yet, Mr. Roosevelt prevented the adoption of a law to forbid highway robbery in the name of unionism.

Just how far gone is the American worker in his cynicism, political emotion, prejudice, docility and ignorance of his actual condition one can only estimate. At times, he seems to be hopelessly persuaded to Fascism because it doesn’t hurt much, yet. Mr. Roosevelt won’t try to arouse him, for it was he who put the spell on him.

Mr. Dewey might try, but if so he would run the risk of losing the faceless American’s vote and all chance to save him from his own greedy, selfish immediate delight in war wages and the right to tell the boss, but never the union agent, to go to hell.

Maj. de Seversky: Complex warfare

By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky

4-year battle against Nazi slave-masters told in dispatch secreted from Belgium

Resourceful Belgians find ways to escape Germany’s labor draft
By a Belgian journalist

Need for strict censorship cited

americavotes1944

Soldier Voting Act broken, Navy officials admit

Marked federal ballots received in violation of Oct. 2 deadline set by Congress

Washington (UP) –
The Navy Department acknowledged today that a few marked federal ballots have been received from naval personnel overseas in violation of the Oct. 2 deadline set forth in the Soldier Voting Act.

The Navy said it has mailed some sealed federal ballots overseas but that no ballots have been distributed within the United States. Those shipped overseas, it said, were plainly marked “not to be opened until or after Oct. 2.” These instructions were apparently ignored, it added, and a few ballots opened and returned to home states.

Probe demanded

The Navy statement was issued after California Secretary of State Frank M. Jordan charged that some California servicemen overseas had been issued federal ballots for the November election without being given an opportunity to use state ballots.

Republican National Committeeman Raymond Haight of Los Angeles called for a Congressional investigation. He said:

On the basis of the facts available, it is too early to conclude how much is fraud and how much is stupidity. In any event, our Armed Forces are the victims.

The War Department said ballots have been received prematurely in Iowa, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and California. Investigation, however, showed that none was marked by Army personnel, he said.

To get another chance

The Navy Judge Advocate General’s Office said an inquiry had determined that the men who had mailed ballots prematurely may be given another chance to vote, since the ballots already received cannot be counted.

A total of 7,600,000 federal ballots were printed, of which 3,800,000 are for the Army, 3,400,000 for the Navy and 400,000 for the War Shipping Administration. The Soldier Voting Act provides that they are to be distributed only to servicemen unable to obtain ballots from their home states. In no case are they to be distributed prior to Oct. 2.

americavotes1944

Stokes: Party heads fear Willkie and Wallace

Both may influence independent voters
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
Two gentlemen who have been kicked and cuffed by the regular politicians of their parties are likely to have more to do with the November election than some practical politicians seem to suspect.

One is Wendell L. Willkie; the other, Vice President Henry A. Wallace.

Both have an appeal for the independent vote which, as of today, seems unusually large. A recent Gallup Poll estimates that about 25% of the voters have not decided yet whether they will vote Democratic or Republican.

Their doings important

This element probably comprises representatives of all classes and categories. In such an independent group, you are likely to find political and economic progressivism, with a strain of idealism, and considerable concern for a forward-looking program, both domestic and international. Sensible and sound argument, coupled with vision, will be needed here, not partisan denunciation and political hogwash.

What Messrs. Willkie and Wallace do and say will be important with this independent element. Each man is ahead of his party and its platform on both domestic and international issues, and each speaks plainly.

Vice President Wallace will support the Democratic ticket. There is no question about that.

Willkie delaying decision

Mr. Willkie has not indicated what he will do about the Dewey-Bricker ticket and, it is understood, will not until he finds out how Governor Dewey stands on several major issues, which probably will not be until the Republican candidate’s main campaign speeches some weeks hence.

Incidentally, such forthrightness as Governor Dewey’s flat repudiation of Rep. Ham Fish is the sort of thing that impresses Mr. Willkie, and a continuation of such straight talking might be persuasive with the 1940 Republican candidate.

While Vice President Wallace will support the Roosevelt-Truman ticket, the caliber and tone of his support may become important. He said in his convention speech that the party could continue only as a progressive party.

Wallace ousting raises question

Mr. Wallace has a large following, because he stands for something which appeals to so many ordinary folks. This was attested by his rank-and-file support for the nomination, as revealed in a Gallup Poll prior to the convention, by his showing in the convention when you consider that the game was stacked against him, and by reactions since. His ousting by President Roosevelt and the party bosses has raised a question in the minds of many voters.

To one who has watched the cold-blooded operations of the party bosses against both the Vice President and Mr. Willkie, and who has heard the bosses’ private cynical remarks about the two men, it seems the politicians have not yet caught on to what is going on in the country, have not caught the note of yearning among the people for a different order of things out of the suffering of this war, both in this country and all over the world.

Both stand as symbols

The people are ahead of the politicians. So are Messrs. Wallace and Willkie. That’s why both men have become symbols.

Republicans try to dismiss Mr. Willkie as of little influence, but they don’t seem to believe it even as they say it. Publicly, they express confidence he will come along, but they really don’t know, and they seem embarrassed that they can’t tell for sure.

Their attitude indicates they are afraid of Mr. Willkie. They would like so much to have him in their side. His word that the Republican ticket is OK might help a lot with the independent vote.

Reporters in robot’s path tell of escape from death

By Collie Smith and J. Edward Murray, United Press staff writers

Doll-doings letter reveals ship moves, attorney says

Espionage charge on customer is dropped

G.I. barracks bags to go to prisoners of Nazis

Hitler speaks to help rally home front

Talk is scheduled for next Thursday
By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer

2,000 Jap bodies litter route of infiltration

Marines on Guam hurl back pre-dawn charge by several thousand on Guam
By Percy Finch, representing combined Allied press


Guam Japs waging fight to death

Cliff-to-cliff battle much like Saipan
By Keith Wheeler, North American Newspaper Alliance

Shapiro: Fanatical Nazi resistance below Caen puzzles Allies

British and Canadians stopped cold by fiercest enemy opposition since D-Day
By L. S. B. Shapiro, North American Newspaper Alliance

With British and Canadian forces below Caen, France – (July 27, delayed)
Out of the tortured, rubble-strewn terrain that marks the rolling battlefield between the Orne River and the town of Bourguébus, one dominating fact emerges. It is that the German formations opposing the British and Canadian troops are fighting more effectively now than at any other time since D-Day.

Whether or not this is merely a coincidence, they have retaliated with a new degree of frenzied violence since the attempted coup within Germany. They have, temporarily at least, stopped our advance and there was only one reply when an Allied officer in the line was asked for an explanation.

“Jerry is throwing everything he’s got into this fight,” he said, “and that’s plenty.”

Fighting like madmen

There is no tendency to blame the weather or the artillery fire or the air support or any of the many facets of a modern battle that can be used to concoct an excuse for failure to move forward. The only possible story is that the Germans are fighting like madmen and are using superbly the weapons they have at their disposal.

Sullen, exhausted prisoners coming into our lines can give few clues to explain this development, but several explanations are put forward. One is that, since last Friday, young, fanatical Nazi officers have been promoted to take charge of formations on this front and have imbued their men with or bullied them into new powers of resistance.

Another is that they have a special plea from Hitler to hold on pending the arrival at the front of so-called new victory weapons. A third explanation is that the full extent of the German crisis has been revealed to the troops and they have been exhorted to make the supreme effort to stabilize the front on the theory that retreat means collapse everywhere.

Poles, Russians fight well

Any one or all of these explanations may fit the situation, but none explains the sturdy resistance of Russian, Yugoslav and Polish elements which form probably 20 percent of the German formations.

Whatever form of bribery or compulsion has been practiced on them, they are fighting effectively enough to point up the power of discipline and training upon the peasant mind. They desert when they have the opportunity, but their German noncoms see to it that they have precious little opportunity, and so long as they are in the line, they do their work like automatons.

Whether this is the beginning of unforeseen German strength on this front or a last superhuman effort before they collapse remains a very lively question.

The Afro-American (July 29, 1944)

ARTILLERYMEN IN FRANCE CORRECT OFFICER WHO THOUGHT THEM QUARTERMASTERS
Tan gun crew stuns Germans; Nazis call artillery ‘whispering death’

Part of mixed unit; boys with long toms called Army’s best
By Ollie Stewart, AFRO war correspondent

With advanced U.S. forces, France –
We were about three miles from the German lines. Heavy gunfire was continuous and German ack-ack was spattering mushroom bursts of flak as our planes dived over their lines and our observation grasshopper planes sailed placidly along, spotting the German guns and radioing back their positions.

When a white colonel saw colored troops in the midst of all this, he said: “This is the first time that I have ever seen quartermasters up so close to the front line.”

Staff Sgt. Eugene W. Jones of 1611 W Butler St., Philadelphia, replied:

Sir, we are not quartermasters, we are field artillery and we have just been given a firing mission. Want to watch us lay one on the target?

One of best in Army

That was my introduction to the first colored 155mm howitzer outfit in France, one of the best groups of artillerymen in the Army, white or colored. Two battalions have been in action for weeks and had a big part in the taking of La Haye-du-Puits. Another unit operating 155mm Long Toms has just arrived.

These hardworking gunners will tell you frankly that they know they are good. Their officers told me that they are good. White infantrymen who won’t budge unless these guys are laying down a barrage say that they are good and German prisoners ask to see our automatic artillery that comes so fast and so accurate.

Late in the afternoon, I was conducted to a cleverly concealed gun of one battery engaged in shelling a target miles away by 1st Sgt. John Clay of Louise, Mississippi.

As we arrived, Staff Sgt. W. G. Gaiter of Seaside Heights, New Jersey, had a field phone in his hand and said quietly “fire mission” and all twelve men jumped to alert. “Base deflection so and so,” said Gaiter, and the men automatically twisted dials causing the big gun to swerve to the described position. “Load with charge so and so and fire.” Gaiter snapped.

It happened so quickly that I had no time to put my fingers to my ears. Boom, went the gun, and you could hear the heavy projectile whispering on its way. “Cease firing, end of mission,” said Gaiter, and the men had the gun open and clean even as he spoke. End of mission means that the target has been demolished, which usually comes after one shot from these boys.

New Jersey lad ace gunner

Gunner at this post was baby-faced Donald Morre, 21, of New Brunswick, New Jersey. He was at Rutgers when drafted. The kid is known as one of the best gunners in the Army. The boys tell a story of another outfit firing at a German observation post in a church steeple during the fight for La Haye-du-Puits. They missed several rounds, but Moore and his gang blasted the steeple at first shot. I saw what was left of the church.

Others in the gun crew are: Cpl. Ozzie Jones of Birmingham, Alabama; Cpl. George Hood, Pvt. Perry Cockrell and Pvt. Eseasy Redmand, all of Lexington, Mississippi; Pvt. Willie Allison of Columbus, Georgia; Pvt. Isaac Rolle of West Palm Beach, Florida; Pfc. Lester Dobson of Patterson, Georgia; Pfc. Allan Davis of New York City; and Pvts. Jefferson Stockard of Oxford, Mississippi; Nathaniel Davis of Chula, Mississippi; and Eddie Scott of Reddick, Mississippi.

Artillery whispering death

The Germans call our artillery whispering death because the shells don’t whine and the lads sit at the guns day and night, ready for the phone to ring. Before arrival of the Long Tom the group had two white and two colored battalions, but now it has three colored and one white battalion, with white officers except two chaplains, Capt. H. C. Terrel of Birmingham, and Lt. Carranza Holliday of Longview, Texas.

On the roads nearby and all around the gun crews are signs of bitter fighting. Our boys entered the area before the mine detector crews and found dead Germans and Yanks and many cattle. I saw dead swollen livestock all around that perfumed the neighborhood; also much discarded equipment, German and American. I saw one American helmet, still full of clotted blood, where a sniper had scored a direct hit on the helmet.

Snipers were still around and I approached each hedgerow cautiously. That first night, I wrapped a blanket around me and slept in a foxhole without undressing. The gun crews had their shoes on for five days. There was no laughter or loud talk as every man realized that this is serious business, with death stalking all day and hovering in the air at night.

Save thousands of lives

Unmindful of this, however, these men take pride in taking the lead in every big push and they will have performed a memorable service for the Allied cause. Their accurate fire preceding advancing infantry columns has saved thousands of lives and softened many targets the gunners never see.

As I crawled through the brush to a camouflaged position, a message came over the field phone that enemy planes were approaching the area. I was already nervous and dived into a foxhole dug by the Germans, but these men stayed at their posts, some manning machine guns, others cursing Jerry as they calmly scanned the sky overhead.


Stewart describes work of artillery unit in Normandy

By Ollie Stewart, AFRO war correspondent

With advanced U.S. forces, France – (by cable)
Every member of our field artillery unit that I have talked to in this sector has expressed nothing but contempt for the German 88s when compared to the 155mm howitzers they operate.

This unit, a part of a four-unit artillery group including a battalion of 105’s and two 155mm Long Toms, has been termed “one of our best units” by the colonel at corps headquarters.

All are specialists

Every man in the unit is a specialist with a definite job to do for which he has had intensive training. To fire one shell requires the use of precision instruments and the latest equipment known to modern warfare.

The headquarters or command post is the nerve center which directs the fire of all battalions under its command. The battalion headquarters likewise has a fire direction network of phones to direct the fire of three firing batteries under its control, and finally the battery commander directs the fire of his four guns.

Experts in unit

All along the line are radio experts, observation post experts, surveyors, computors, gun crew chiefs, machine-gunners, recorders and dispatchers. Dug in the ground, the draftsmen chart the exact position and elevation of the gun necessary to score a hit on the target, and also the power charge to be used.

The guns are dispersed but the fire of all of them can be directed on any given area.

When the big push begins and a heavy barrage is called for, the corps commander may order “serenade,” which means that perhaps the battalion will aim to fire all guns simultaneously so that the target is completed blanketed by fire. The effect is frightfully devastating and a wide area is pulverized.

Usually, however, the artillery is used to knock out gun positions, tanks, or ammunition dumps. The muzzle of the howitzer is covered except when firing to keep the enemy from spotting the position. After firing, the barrel is lowered and hidden.

The battalions have their own mine detector squads and signal section for stringing wires.


Our troops 9% of invasion force

SHAEF, England –
Colored soldiers, now constituting nine percent of U.S. troops in Normandy, are contributing generously to the Allied effort, the War Department recently announced.

Maj. Gen. Cecil R. Moore, chief engineer, in this theater, recently praised their accomplishment of engineer tasks. He said that one battalion volunteered its free time for six weeks to expedite special programs of construction.

An engineer firefighting company is credited with saving millions of dollars’ worth of such vital supplies as gasoline, paint, lumber, and other stocks in depot of the United Kingdom.

Two colored signal construction battalions in Normandy have earned praise for signal installations there. They rehabilitated German communication lines and instruments for our use and captured a number of prisoners.

SURVIVORS DESCRIBE HORROR OF BLAST
No buildings left standing; men knocked from beds mile away

AFRO at the scene; third blast Wednesday halts salvage
By Pauline A. Young and J. Robert Smith

FOUR NEW OFFICERS ARRIVE IN ITALY
2nd largest infantry group also lands; Brazil unit mixed

Joe Louis to begin tour of Italy
By Art Carter, AFRO war correspondent

Huachuca colonel defies War Department’s orders


War reporter in Middle East

By Frank E. Bolden, NNPA war correspondent

Race plank stalled Democrats two days

Convention deadlock broken by wire from FDR okaying compromise

Truman’s record

By John Jasper

americavotes1944

Dewey calls New York’s soldier ballot simplest of states’

New York –
Declaring New York soldier ballot the simplest of all the states, Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican presidential nominee, charged today that “a group has been playing partisan politics with the right of the state’s fighting men to vote;” declaring, “it is time that this campaign of deceit backed by unlimited financial resources, was labeled and exposed,” he issued a prepared statement at his press conference.

It says:

Instead of helping soldiers to vote, they have distributed millions of misleading circulars designed to confuse both the public mind and the mind of soldiers.

Asks families’ aid

Accordingly, I urged all families and friends of members of the Armed Forces immediately to write to them telling them the truth about their right to vote in the state of New York.

The New York Soldier Vote Law is drawn to fit precisely Title II of the federal law. Every member of the Armed Forces will be handed a postcard. This is required of the Army and Navy by federal law.

All a soldier has to do is to sign his name and his home and service address on that postcard and mail it to the War Ballot Commission at Albany.

Indirect application

Even a letter or card to the soldier’s friends or parents will serve the purpose if sent in to Albany. The soldier will receive a full ballot with the name of every candidate for every office printed on it.

This is the simplest application form of any state in the Union and yet it meets the requirement of the State Constitution so every ballot will be both complete and valid.

130,000 received

Even before the government postcards have been placed in the hands of the men and women in the Armed Forces and almost four months before election, the New York State War Ballot Commission has already received more than 130,000 applications.

I have been urged, in addition, to approve the federal supplementary ballot for use in New York State. This is only a partial ballot for four offices and would be void and worthless under the Constitution of this state.

americavotes1944

Colored vote in Texas primary

Houston, Texas –
Colored citizens all over the state voted, Saturday, in the Texas Democratic primary, the first since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April that these primaries should be open to colored Texans.

No violence was reported as election officials obeyed orders of state and county officials to permit colored persons to vote if they had qualified by poll tax payments.

One precinct refuses

Dr. Lonnie Smith, a local dentist on whose case the 1944 Supreme Court decision was based, cast the first ballot in his precinct.

Only one precinct here was known to have refused to permit colored persons to vote, and affidavits are being taken preparatory to fighting this case.

Formed precinct convention

Colored voters here not only went to the polls Saturday but also organized a precinct convention, and at another were elected delegates to the Democratic county convention on July 29.

In Precinct 25, which is predominantly colored, 50-60 colored and three white persons attended the convention called by E. H. Harrison, union officials and 3rd Ward Civic Club vice president, who was elected temporary chairman.

Miss Lottie Wallis, white precinct election judge, was elected county convention delegate.

Mr. Harrison said that Miss Wallis was named because it was a precinct custom that the election judge be elected the first delegate and that the district was entitled to only one representative.

Heaviest vote in history

Miss Wallis said that in Precinct 25, which has 25-50 qualified white and about 1,000 colored voters, 400 votes were tallies as compared with 16 cast by white voters in the 1942 primary. This was its heaviest vote in history.

At the Precinct 48 convention, ten colored and ten white persons were elected delegates to the county convention.

2,627 vote in one county

M. L. O. Andrews, chairman of the Harris County Democratic Committee, said on Monday that colored persons cast 2,627 of the approximately 55,000 votes tallied in that county.

Mr. Harrison estimated that 9,000 colored persons in the county paid poll taxes this year.