Cleveland, Ohio (UP) –
Earl Browder, general secretary of the Communist Party USA, called upon Democratic and Republican leaders last night to “explore the possibility” of a single 1944 presidential candidate.
Browder, in a speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Daily Worker, the party’s official organ, urged the “unprecedented measure to meet an unprecedented emergency.”
New York (UP) –
Edward V. Loughlin, taking office today as the new leader of Tammany Hall, pledged “unswerving allegiance to our Commander-in-Chief,” but refused to say whether he would instruct the Tammany delegation to the Democratic National Convention to support a fourth term for President Roosevelt.
Mr. Loughlin said:
In times such as these, we are all Americans before we are partisans and accordingly owe unswerving allegiance to our Commander-in-Chief.
Washington (UP) –
George N. Briggs, suspended aide to Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, pleaded not guilty today to indictments charging him with being the forger of the “Harry Hopkins” letter.
Briggs was arraigned before Chief Justice Edward E. Eicher in District Court and denied all charges, which include alleged use of the mails to defraud.
The court granted three weeks for filing of motions to change the pleas at the discretion of Briggs’ counsel.
The letter, purportedly written to Dr. Umphrey Lee, president of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, concerned the presidential nomination chance of Wendell Willkie. It was first made public by C. Nelson Sparks, former Mayor of Akron, Ohio, who referred to it in a book, One Man – Wendell Willkie.
If convicted on all counts, Briggs would face a maximum penalty of 53 years’ imprisonment and $8,000 fines.
Torpedo, dive-bombers make 26th attack on base in month
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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But they can detect political buncombe expounded in their name much quicker
By Henry J. Taylor, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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New setup designed to keep government informed of developments in other countries
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Hollywood, California (UP) –
Lt. Col. William E. Dyess, who survived “the march of death” as a Jap captive in the Philippines only to die in the flaming crash of his plane here months later rather than endanger the life of a motorist, was acclaimed a hero at a party he planned three days before his death.
‘Exploits are legend’
The Hollywood Masquers Club staged the party, for 300 officers and men from March Field Air Base, as Lt. Col. Dyess had planned, but instead of a greeting from their host, the guests heard Lt. Col. Dyess’ widow read the following letter from Gen. H. H. Arnold, head of the Army Air Forces:
His exploits are legend. Courage like his helped this country face extreme adversity in the Philippines campaign. We will never forget his heroism, which with his splendid character and personality won him a high place in the Air Forces.
He was decorated many times, in comparison with which words seem of little consequence. We are proud of have had him in our organization.
Accompanied by Capt. Samuel C. Grashio, who only last night related the horrible tortures, he and Lt. Col. Dyess were subjected to before the Jap prison camp, Mrs. Dyess told how the party came to be.
Go on with party
She said:
Col. Dyess and I were guests of the Masquers one Saturday night last fall soon after he came back to this country. It was the most memorable event in his life in more than a year. He wanted some of the other boys in the Air Corps to share in his enjoyment and arranged this party. The following Tuesday, he was killed. We decided to go on with the party as he had wished.
Movie actor Edward Arnold, president of the Masquers, who with Charles Coburn delivered a eulogy at funeral services for Col. Dyess, presided at the memorial.
Washington (UP) –
Chairman Tom Connally (D-TX) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said today that all Jap elements, “from the Emperor to the soldier,” must be made to pay for the treachery at Pearl Harbor and the mass murder of war prisoners in the Philippines.
Deploring what he called a tendency in Washington to say, “oh, well, the Emperor’s all right – it’s the military clique that’s to blame,” Mr. Connally asserted that Hirohito “must bear his responsibility for the cruelties and outrages and the war itself.”
Aroused over the Army-Navy disclosure of Jap prison camp atrocities, which have already cost the lives of more than 7,700 American and 14,000 Filipino heroes of Bataan and Corregidor, Mr. Connally continued:
The Emperor, the military group and the people of Japan are all our enemies. They are all fighting us savagely with instruments of death and torture.
We can’t discriminate among internal groups. Our sword is drawn and every one from the Emperor to the soldier shall feel its edge.
Senator Styles Bridges (R-NH) said Americans must translate their anger over the Jap atrocities into “redoubled effort on the home front.”
He said:
No more strikes – striking at this time is unthinkable, unforgivable, and un-American. Supplies, equipment and men must go forward to Adm. William E. Halsey Jr., Gen. Douglas MacArthur and their associates to speed them on their way to Tokyo.
Hollywood, California (UP) –
The writing staff at Republic Studio has started work on a script based upon the “March of Death” inflicted upon the defenders of Bataan by the Japanese, a spokesman reported today.
The picture probably will be ready for production in about three weeks and “will pull no punches,” the spokesman said.
President concerned over measure, calls leaders to conference
Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt, concerned over the fate of legislation to provide for federal soldier-vote ballots, conferred with Democratic Congressional leaders today as the Senate approached a showdown vote on the issue.
House Democratic Leader John W. McCormack (D-MA), one of those to see Mr. Roosevelt, said the President had expressed “considerable concern” lest soldiers not be given a chance to cast their ballots.
Asked if the President might veto a “state-ballot” bill if Congress passes such as administration-opposed plan, Mr. McCormack said only: “What do you think?”
Senate approval predicted
Senator Scott W. Lucas (D-IL), co-author of the Lucas-Green federal ballot bill, stood by his prediction that the measure would receive Senate approval, but conceded the showdown might be delayed by promised Republican amendments.
The federal bill was intended as a substitute for the state vote measure which the Senate passed on to the House in December.
Senator Lucas again accused his Republican opponents of injecting their fourth-term fears into the dispute after Senator Styles Bridges (R-NH) proposed an amendment under which the federal ballot would carry the full names of presidential and vice-presidential nominees, instead of mere blank write-in spaces. This would mean the ballots could not be shipped to overseas servicemen until after the Democratic nomination convention to be held sometime in July. The Republicans will name their candidate in June.
Bridges answers Roosevelt
Senator Bridges said the Democrats could make sure the ballots reached servicemen in ample time if they would agree to hold their convention in June. Replying to President Roosevelt’s charge that the opposition was blocking the passage of an adequate soldier-vote bill, Senator Bridges said:
If the President thinks we are stalling, this is one way he can prove that he isn’t.
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
“Keep that Middle-Aged Look at Bay,” says a headline on my favorite woman’s page today, and I admire the timeliness of the military phraseology. Just the same, it put me in the dumps. For sometimes, in morbid moments, it seems to me too much is expected of the American woman.
She is now engaged in a fight against fascism, yet there is no letup in her eternal fight against gray hair and wrinkles.
Middle age must also be kept at bay. Hitler is on one side, the Japs on the other; our security, the lives of our children, everything is threatened. But the big battle with Father Time continues as usual on every feminine front.
Youth as well as Australia is to be held. Let us not become discouraged over minor military setbacks, say the authorities, yet, according to the beauticians, any victory of age over youth is a major and final defeat.
Moreover, the housewife is now ordered to toil in machine shops and fields and government offices; to volunteer for nursing, Motor Corps, target practice, air-raid warden duty and what have you. She must stretch her budget to cover doubled expenditures. And as for national morale – well, she is its chief custodian.
Religion, the home, the welfare of the community, the character of the young are in her hands. Yet, with all that, if she knows what’s good for her, she will remain a perennial 35 in appearance.
Now and then it strikes me that women past 40 may have to decide which job is the more important – winning a war against the Axis or a war against time. The day may come when we can’t do both – when we shall be forced to choose between beauty and democracy.