Army gives some advice on gifts for soldiers
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent
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Background of news –
New York and the election
By Bertram Benedict
In the election in November, the state of New York will have 47 (17%) of the 266 electoral votes necessary to elect a President. This is more than the combined electoral vote of 12 other states. No wonder, then, that most of those who expect the election to be close are prophesying: “The man who carries New York will win,” nor that the Governor of New York now seems about to walk away with the Republican nomination.
For Mr. Dewey looks like a remarkably good vote-getter in New York, even if he was born and reared in Michigan. In 1938, he ran against Governor Lehman for the New York governorship and came within a hair’s breadth of winning. Mr. Lehman received 1,971,000 votes on the Democratic ticket and 420,000 on the American Labor Party ticket, for a total of 2,391,000. Mr. Dewey, receiving 2,327,000, was defeated by only 64,000 votes out of more than 4,700,000 cast.
In the same year, the two Republican candidates for U.S. Senator from New York (one for an unexpired term) lost by 438,000 votes and 355,000 votes, respectively. Two years before, the Republican gubernatorial candidate had lost by 521,000 votes. And in 1942, Mr. Dewey defeated the Democratic candidate and the American Labor Party candidate by a clear majority of 245,000.
Opposed by Willkie in 1942
Mr. Dewey received the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1942 over the ill-disguised opposition of Wendell L. Willkie. When the state Republican leaders were obviously about to swing the party nominating convention over to Mr. Dewey, Mr. Willkie came out for a free-for-all nomination race, although disclaiming any ambitions for himself and any participation in a Stop-Dewey movement.
Mr. Willkie was understood to have warned the party leaders privately that Mr. Dewey would be defeated because of his alleged isolationism prior to Pearl Harbor. But Mr. Dewey got the nomination hands down.
Mr. Willkie himself had run well in New York against President Roosevelt in 1940. There Mr. Willkie had 48% of the major party vote, as against 45% in the nation as a whole. If one in every 25 New Yorkers who voted for Mr. Roosevelt in 1940 should vote for the Republican candidate this year, the Republicans will carry the state.
However, the fact that Mr. Dewey ran well for Governor does not necessarily mean that he will run as well for President in the Empire State. Alfred E. Smith was also a great gubernatorial vote-getter, but the state which sent him to the Governor’s Mansion in Albany four times (once in a Republican landslide year, 1924), would not vote to send him to the White House in 1928.
Yet while New York was voting against Mr. Smith as the Democratic presidential candidate, it was voting for Franklin D. Roosevelt as the Democratic gubernatorial candidate.
Hughes wins – but loses
In 1916, the Republicans nominated for the Presidency Justice Charles E. Hughes of New York, largely because he was expected to carry, in what looked like a close election, the state in which he had been elected Governor in 1906 and 1908. The expectation was realized, for Mr. Hughes carried New York by a substantial margin, but he lost the election by 23 electoral votes (Woodrow Wilson, the winner, lost his state, New Jersey).
That was really the only time since the Civil War in which the country did not vote as New York voted. True, in 1876, New York voted for its governor, Samuel J. Tilden, only to see Hayes elected, but probably Tilden was unfairly counted out; as it was, he had a popular majority.
If it is Dewey vs. Roosevelt in November, it will be the first time since 1904 (Theodore Roosevelt vs. Alton B. Parker) that both major party candidates have been New Yorkers. In the year 1884, Governor Grover Cleveland of New York carried the state and was elected President; in 1888, he lost the state and the Presidency; in 1892, he carried the state and the nation again.
Soldier ‘Bill of Rights’ measure nears passage
Extensive benefits provided, with only educational provisions questioned
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Waste of money, paper stressed
Bill would abolish numerous reports
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Bullet-pierced helmets – Yank and Nazi – mark battle
By Clinton B. Conger, United Press staff writer
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Chaplin must face paternity charge
Supreme Court wants jury to decide
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An about face –
Hollywood film companies but network time
Star own talent on airwaves
By Si Steinhauser
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
London, England – (by wireless)
More on how we eat in London…
In addition to the huge “Willow Run” mess I told about yesterday, there are a number of smaller messes and clubs, all run by the Army. They get more exclusive as they get smaller. Prices go up as you advance to the higher echelons, although the food is about the same.
The highest mess I’m allowed in charges $1.20 for dinner.
There is a junior officers’ mess which serves about 600 meals a day. The officers can bring guests, and you are served by British waitresses. You are supposed to eat everything on your plate here too, but they’re not quite so strict about it as at “Willow Run.”
Then there is the senior officers’ club. It’s about the same size and on the same principle as the junior officers’ club, only you have to be a major or above to get in. We call this the “Old Men’s Club.”
You can take female guests here, and most everybody does. The place is full of big stomachs and bald heads and service stripes from the last war.
Next up in the scale is the mess for full colonels and generals only, and no guests are allowed. Needless to say, I’ve never been in this mess.
One solely for generals
But we haven’t reached the top yet. The zenith is called the “Yankee Doodle Club,” and it is open only to major generals and up, either American or British. It’s a joke around town about the poor brigadier generals being so low and common they can’t even get into the generals’ mess.
We correspondents and many of the other civilian workers over here, such as Red Cross people and aircraft technical men, are allowed membership in both Willow Run and the junior officers’ club. In addition, a handful of old correspondents like me are allowed in the senior officers’ club.
So, all this gives us a very fine choice in eating. Just for diversity we sort of rotate among the three, and probably four times a week we eat at British restaurants, just because we happen to be in a different part of town or are invited out.
The only one of these many messes that serves breakfast is Willow Run. But now that I’m a city man, I can’t get myself up in time to make Willow Run. So I’m caught in the English custom of eating breakfast in your room. And what a concoction the English hotel breakfast is!
But Pyle eats eggs
It consists of porridge, toast, some coal-black mushrooms (which no self-respecting Englishman would have breakfast without) and a small slice of ham – which the British for some reason call bacon.
Being an old Army scrounger, I’ve found a way out of this. The floor waitress, although daily appalled by the suggestion, does bring me each morning one big beautiful American shredded-wheat biscuit. From the Army I got enough extra sugar to make it palatable. Also from the Army I got a can of condensed milk to add to my small hotel portion.
But best of all I have eggs, this enviable acquisition came through the big heart of correspondent Gordon Gammack of The Des Moines Register and Tribune. “Gamm” came back from Ireland the other day bearing five dozen duck eggs, and he gave me two dozen of them. A duck egg, my friends, is a big egg. One of them gives you all you can hold for breakfast.
So, all in all, we expatriates over here bleeding out the war in London do manage to suffer along and gain a little weight now and then.
All messes have bars
Every one of the messes has a bar.
At peak hours you can’t get within yelling distance of the bar at Willow Run.
But don’t worry, you folks at home, about our officers drinking themselves to death over here. Liquor is very, very short in London.
Each mess has a definite ration each day. It isn’t very much. Every person who goes to the bar is on his honor not to drink more than two drinks. In addition to that, the bar has a unique rationing system of its own.
It will sell whisky and gin for about 15 minutes and then hang up the “all out” sign, leaving only beer and wine. The dense crowd at the bar gradually drifts away, and a new crowd forms. Then they start selling whisky and gin again for about 15 minutes.
It seems to work out to everybody’s satisfaction. There is only one drawback. The shock of drinking good liquor after a winter of poisonous bootleg cognac is almost too much for soldiers up from Italy.