Colored infantry units out
93rd Division and 24th Regiment withdrawn
By Vincent Tubbs
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GIs sore about Wall Street rumors of war’s end
By Ollie Stewart, AFRO war correspondent
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U.S. Army bans Jim Crow in PXs, buses and theaters
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Editorial: Republicans and Army segregation
The Republican Party enters the campaign with a decided advantage because of its pledge to investigate and take whatever legislative action is necessary to correct race discrimination in the Armed Forces.
Strong executive action, as well as legislation, is needed and is overdue since the widespread dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war is the mistreatment of colored troops.
This mistreatment includes:
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Compulsory training in the Jim Crow South where the Army has been unable to protect its men in uniform from civilian abuse and humiliating segregation;
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Exclusion of colored men and women from voluntary enlistment from service on the Navy’s fighting ships and with WAVES, SPARS, nurses and special services (only token enlistments have been accepted as Navy chaplains and surgeons);
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Promotions so restricted that with nearly a million colored men in the service, commissioned officers number only a few thousand;
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Separation of white and colored troops without legal sanction, in fact in violation of the Constitution. Even those who wish to fraternize are forbidden to do so under pain of punishment.
In the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, colored and white served together in regiments and on fighting ships. Rigid segregation appeared first in the Civil War, but even then, there was no Navy funny business and colored men fought as Marines, gunners and seamen on Union ships.
Colored servicemen today have no objection to fighting in colored units, but they do object to the prohibition which bars them from other units and bans whites from their outfits.
Some white soldiers do not wish to serve with colored. Some colored prefer not to serve with white. But why should any government prevent them from doing so if they want to and why should promotions be denied competent officers merely because they are colored?
The situation is so bad at present that white enlisted men are welcomed in mess halls and clubs from which colored commissioned officers are excluded.
Governor Dewey, the GOP candidate for President, we hope, will have a word to say about this during the campaign. Long suffering G.I.’s and their folks back home will be all ears.
Matthews: Straws in the wind
By Ralph Matthews
Although the defeat of Vice President Wallace, a known liberal, is regretted by many, there are other rays of hope which prove that the reactionaries are not having things all their own way.
That even the Deep South is trying hard to lift itself from the depths is seen in the long-overdue defeat of Senator Ellison “Cotton Ed” Smith in South Carolina.
We are not certain whether his successor, Governor Olin D. Johnston, is a rip-roaring liberal, but we are certain that anybody would be an improvement on Cotton Ed. The mere fact that South Carolina has had sufficient change of heart to keep him home is a healthy sign.
Ex-Senator Smith has little to his credit in the Senate beyond his championship of white supremacy, his protection of the big cotton planters, who wax fat off of the South’s miserable sharecrop slave trade, and his dramatic gesture in walking out of the Democratic National Convention because a colored minister, the Rev. Marshall Shepard of Philadelphia, was invited to pray.
We cannot help but speculate that Cotton Ed would have welcomed even the prayers of Parson Shepard as the votes were counted Tuesday night returning him to private life.
One bright spot on the Democratic Party front was the fact that Governor Ellis Arnall of Georgia stood before the Democratic Convention in Chicago and praised Henry Wallace after he had made his speech predicting the destruction of all the things the South holds dear.
Another was the speech of Senator Claude Pepper of Florida, who declared he would be ashamed if the Democrats told the world by their actions that Wallace “was too democratic for a Democratic convention.”
Another healthy sign is the rumpus raised in Texas and other Southern states over the seating of delegations at the Democratic Convention. This is not a “revolt” in the sense that some try to pretend, but a sign that the South is stewing in its own juice of the one-party system which is too cramped for the incompatible elements to operate.
If the Roosevelt administration stays in long enough, and the anti-Roosevelt Southerners stay out long enough, they might eventually awake to the realization that two strong parties are as necessary to the South as to the rest of the country. Minorities always stand to profit when they can play one party against another. The South may yet give stillbirth to democracy.
Harlemites sparkle ETO bands
Groovy outfits captured England
By Trezzvant W. Anderson
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Troops boycott Jim Crow theater, officers slip in
White officials: Discrimination at Walterboro Air Base follows state policy
By Ernest E. Johnson
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Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (August 6, 1944)
Communiqué No. 120
In BRITTANY, an Allied armored force has driven to REDON. Another force has continued its attack northwest of DOL. VITRE and PONTIVY have been cleared of the enemy.
RENNES, PONTORSON and AVRANCHES were bombed by the enemy early yesterday. Damage was slight.
SS Panzer troops were captured at DINAN, RENNES and VITRE. An Allied task force has engaged the enemy near SAINT-MALO.
In NORMANDY, we have moved through the FORET DE SAINT-SEVER. The forest is not entirely clear of the enemy, and in approaching LA CHAMP DU BOULT, our troops are encountering pockets of machine guns and small arms resistance. Enemy Panzer units and paratroops are opposing our advance in the town LE MESNIL–GILBERT.
Near VIRE, our forces are encountering enemy artillery fire. We are 1,500 yards from the center of the town.
Further north, enemy pockets of resistance left behind by our advance have now been eliminated. Leading troops have entered AUNAY-SUR-ODON.
On the west bank of the ORNE, our advance southwards has continued. All the high ground as far south as the village of LE HOMS, a mile north of THURY-HARCOURT, is in our hands.
At midday yesterday, heavy bombers attacked a railway bridge at ÉTAPLES and submarine pens at BREST. Hits were scored on the pens with 12,000-pound bombs. In the evening oil storage depots at BASSENS and BLAYE near BORDEAUX, and at PAUILLAC, were attacked by other heavy bombers. Two heavy bombers are missing.
Eight railway bridges and embankments on an arc extending from ELBEUF on the SEINE to BRIOLLAY near ANGERS, were attacked by medium and light bombers. Other medium bombers attacked railway yards at COMPIEGNS, SERQUEX and VERNEUIL, and flak barges in the harbor at SAINT-MALO.
Locomotives and rolling stock in the CHARTRES–ORLÉANS area and motor transport were targets for fighter-bombers. Direct support was given our ground forces by fighter-bombers. Fighters provided bomber escort.
Two enemy aircraft were destroyed over northern FRANCE during the night.
U.S. Navy Department (August 6, 1944)
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 107
Further gains were made during August 5 (West Longitude Date) by U.S. troops driving northward on Guam Island. On the left flank our troops moved ahead more than two miles almost to Haputo Point. There was no substantial change in our line on the right flank and our positions there remain near Lumuna Point. In the day’s gains the towns of Ukudu and Liguan were occupied. Strong defensive positions along roads paralleling the western shore were wiped out by our advancing ground forces, and nine field guns and two tanks were destroyed. Artillery destroyed several trucks laden with enemy troops.
Fighters of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing are now operating from the airfield on Orote Peninsula.
Corsair fighters and Dauntless dive bombers of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing and Catalina search planes of Group One, Fleet Air Wing Two, bombed remaining enemy positions in the Marshall Islands on August 4. Mitchells of the 7th Army Air Force hit Ponape and a Navy Liberator attacked Wake Island on the same day. In these attacks, moderate anti-aircraft fire was encountered but all of our aircraft returned.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 6, 1944)
Yanks smash into Brest
Drive to Loire cuts off Brittany; fall of Nantes, Saint-Nazaire due
By Edward W. Beattie, United Press staff writer
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Yanks continue advance on Guam
Jap troops fail in counterattacks
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer
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Leaders taken into custody –
Philadelphia strikers get Army ultimatum to go back tonight
Troops will operate transit lines if workers don’t resume jobs, general says
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McDonald left high and dry –
Hillman pipes down a bit on big PAC election fund
State leader not authorized to speak, CIO political boss says in New York
By Fred Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
New York – (Aug. 5)
Expressing concern at reports that the CIO and its political associates aim to spend a huge slush fund in efforts to elect President Roosevelt for a fourth term, Sidney Hillman announced tonight that the CIO-sponsored National Citizens Political Action Committee had set a ceiling of a million and a half dollars on the funds it will attempt to collect.
Mr. Hillman, however, said that a decision on the amount to be raised by the CIO-PAC – he is the active chairman of both bodies – had not yet been made.
He declared that David J. McDonald, secretary-treasurer of the CIO United Steel Workers, was not authorized to speak for CIO-PAC when he said last Saturday in Harrisburg that the intention was to raise $5 million in Pennsylvania, and that he hoped $25 million could be raised.
Mr. McDonald said:
The more we get the more we can spend. The more we spend the better Congress we can have. The more we spend in Pennsylvania, the better State Legislature we can have. It’s as simple as that.
‘Put your arms around me, honey’ –
Jon Hall, Tommy Dorsey wage a free-for-all
Male sarong-wearer ‘gets it in neck’ after party at trombone tootler’s apartment
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Dewey hits Roosevelt’s post-war plans
Reconversion job ‘not a single task’
Pawling, New York (UP) – (Aug. 5)
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, completing a 2,350-mile trip through pivotal Midwestern states, returned to his Pawling farm tonight after charging the Roosevelt administration has “failed to show a degree of competence” necessary to prepare the nation’s war industries for peacetime production.
The Republican presidential nominee said he planned to get his first real test since he gena the trip which took him through Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri and Indiana. The Governor retired to the seclusion of his Quaker Hill farm immediately after stepping rom his special car at 7:37 p.m. ET.
Mr. Dewey’s latest attack on the New Deal came at a press conference, which was held aboard the train en route from St. Louis. He told newspapermen that to bring about orderly reconversion there must be extensive planning, and challenged “the ability of the present Democratic administration to prepare post-war blueprints.”
‘Must do many things’
He said:
There is nothing that can be done to speed reconversion. You could do one thing well and still the whole thing can break down. For example, a large auto company may have a hundred companies that manufacture parts to be fed into the main plant. If so much as one of those companies is not handled with equal speed, the other 99 and the main company and all the employees of all of them will be idle.
It requires a degree of competence never yet shown by the present national administration in anything.
The Republican standard-bearer said he believed reconversion would probably start first in the East, but no matter where the reconversion takes place virtually all the same problems are involved.
‘Big reduction coming’
He said:
I think everyone recognizes there will be a very substantial reduction in production when the war in Europe is over. The reduction will be very substantial. Of course, that will differ in different states very sharply. There may be an increase in some items, but the overall picture will decline, and decline very substantially.
Mr. Dewey slept late on his train, explaining that it was the first time he had more than six hours rest since leaving New York City last Sunday for a trip which was planned primarily for the Republican Governors Conference at St. Louis. He said he would remain at his farm in Pawling until Monday morning when he will return to the State Capitol at Albany.
Directly at Roosevelt
The Governor made it plain that during his campaign for the Presidency, which is expected to include a coast-to-coast trip, he will point his attacks directly at President Roosevelt. He told a group of soldiers from Massachusetts that he also expected to appear in New England, “but no definite dates for any speeches have been made,” he said. “There are no definite details at this time.”
Mr. Dewey spent most of his press conference talking about reconversion policies, which were outlined by the 26 governors who met at St. Louis.
Mr. Dewey turned aside a question about reports that Wendell L. Willkie would be nominated U.S. Senator from New York. “Mr. Willkie isn’t a candidate, is he?” the Governor asked.
The Republican State committee meets in Albany Tuesday to nominate an opponent for Democratic U.S. Senator Robert F. Wagner, ardent supporter of Mr. Roosevelt.
Stokes: Old states’ rights buried by Dewey
Brand use of federal power expounded
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
With Governor Dewey’s party – (Aug. 5)
Governor Thomas E. Dewey emerged from his conference with the 25 other Republican governors at St. Louis as the exponent of a broad use of federal power, in cooperation with the states, to promote the economic and social welfare of the people.
He buried, once and for all, the ghost of old-fashioned states’ rights.
In only one case did he make a concession, an important one, by insisting upon exclusive state regulation of insurance, with application of interstate commerce laws barred.
Realities faced
Otherwise, the program adopted here calls for a continuation of federal supervision or assistance in the services to which the people have become accustomed under the New Deal.
The Republican nominee and the governors faced the realities. Western governors want a continuation of federal financial aid and supervision in developing litigation, reclamation and power projects.
The governors also reflected the desire of their people for continuation and expansion of social security, of labor statutes enacted by the New Deal guaranteeing collective bargaining, minimum wages and maximum hours of work, of protection for the farmer, all of which were embodied in the program approved here.
New definition of ‘economy’
The conference devised a new definition of “economy” so as not to frighten away voters as some Republicans have done with their strident demands for retrenchment.
The statement said:
Economy in government means the wise and efficient expenditure of public funds collected from all the people as taxes. It does not mean the indiscriminate slashing and cutting of governmental budgets.
Two main issues
From the conference here, the Republicans derive two issues.
The first is the promise to continue the services adopted by the New Deal, without sharp cuts in appropriations by which such services could be nullified in the name of “economy.” This will be emphasized to attract voters who have flocked
The second is the promise of better and less costly administration, less duplication, less wasted effort.
The New Deal is vulnerable in administration. The Republican program struck at this repeatedly, and promised efficient consolidation of the manifold bureaus scattered over Washington.
Governor Dewey expects to link this “loose administration” up with the war, by contending that this confusion of agencies hundreds the war effort by cutting down efficiency.