America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

Air-sea attack on Philippines rips 91 ships

Yanks blast 68 Jap planes at Mindanao
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer

Madame hates the Nazis for what they did to world

She’s legless and one arm’s crippled, but the Germans seared her soul
By Robert J. Casey

americavotes1944

1943 strike recalled –
Lewis: Roosevelt ‘kicks’ UMW

Cincinnati, Ohio (UP) –
United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis, charging that President Roosevelt once had “publicly kicked every miner in the face,” today called for the President’s defeat in the November elections.

Speaking before delegates at the opening of the UMW’s 10-day biennial convention, Mr. Lewis said that if the miners vote for Mr. Roosevelt in November they will receive “the same kind of treatment” in their contract negotiations as they received in 1943 and 1944.

Mr. Lewis traced last year’s contract negotiations with mine operators and the strike throughout the nation’s coal fields.

‘Kicked in face’

He said Mr. Roosevelt “publicly had kicked every miner in the face by asking us to call off the strike… after… the Policy Committee had called off the stoppage.”

“How did you like that?” he shouted to the 2,700 delegates.

Mr. Lewis added:

Well, vote him into office next November and I think you will have some more of it in April.

The present contract between the miners and operators expires April 1, 1945.

Insurgents attacked

In an attack upon an insurgent group of delegates seeking autonomy for 21 of the 31 UMW districts, Mr. Lewis charged that “Roosevelt, [Earl] Browder and [Sidney] Hillman had hired themselves a man to dethrone the ‘old man.’”

Mr. Lewis said:

Yes, they furnished him with some money to publish some smear literature and get some interviews in the press. Well, while all that’s going on, just what in the hell am I supposed to be doing?

The attack was aimed at Ray Edmundson of Springfield, Illinois, a candidate for international president opposing Mr. Lewis.

Meeting broken up

A meeting held by a group of atonomists led by Mr. Edmundson was broken up yesterday by a number of Lewis supporters.

Mr. Lewis reviewed the accomplishments of the UMW in the last year and said the union was never in “better financial condition” to negotiate a new contract next year, but added that he did not know with whom the union would negotiate. He referred to the action of the government in seizing coal mines in Pennsylvania and West Virginia where supervisors had voted to call a strike.

Mr. Lewis said:

Under the infamous Smith-Connally Harness Slave Act, they have a right to strike after they vote affirmatively on the question.

Some back fourth term

Although Mr. Lewis’ attack on Mr. Roosevelt was anticipated by some leaders at the convention, a number of resolutions endorsing the President for a fourth term were submitted yesterday to the Resolutions Committee.

Mr. Lewis made no reference to whether he would actively support Governor Thomas E. Dewey but he intimated he would back the GOP when he referred to Cincinnati Mayor James Garfield Stewart, Republican gubernatorial nominee, as “Governor Stewart.”

Mr. Lewis expressed the hope that the next time the UMW meets in Columbus, “you [Stewart] will greet us from your executive offices.”

Mr. Lewis said that despite “shabby treatment handed out by the President and his advisers,” 1944 production of anthracite and bituminous coal will be about 700 million tons, 45 million “more than in the war year 1918.”

I DARE SAY —
This, too, will happen

By Florence Fisher Parry

Supreme Court faces bar attack


‘Finishing school failure’ blamed by jewel thief

Bishop’s socialite daughter says she was unprepared to face world without money

americavotes1944

New Hoover era forecast by Hillman if Dewey wins

PAC chairman, here to address union group, also warns of loss of U.S. world prestige

Election of New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey to the Presidency would be “a reckless act inspiring lack of confidence among other nations and another Hoover era on the home front,” CIO Political Action Committee chairman Sidney Hillman declared here today.

Mr. Hillman asserted:

Mr. Dewey has been on all sides of foreign policy. In 1940, he favored breaking relations with Russia, and was against Lend-Lease for Britain. Now he apparently favors an alliance with Britain, and cohesion with Russia, whatever that means.

Defends role in politics

The PAC chairman, in Pittsburgh today to address the annual convention of the CIO Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, was sharp in his defense of labor’s right to play a part in a political campaign.

The issue of “Communism” in the PAC drew a particularly quick retort.

He said:

When the Republicans label PAC Communistic, they know they are repeating a lie. They dare not face a discussion of the real issues. Why, in Philadelphia, Mr. Dewey started to discuss issues and got so mixed up he forgot that the depression started in the Hoover era.

That is because they can offer us no constructive opposition ever since they eliminated Wendell Willkie.

‘Few’ Communists admitted

But is it not true that there are Communists in the PAC? Mr. Hillman was blunt in his reply.

He answered:

Certainly, there are, just as there are in any labor or political movement. But as the percentage of Communists in PAC is just about the same as the percentage in the country, possibly a little higher. To say that PAC is dominated by them is a lie.

Proud of own record

As for the Republican billboards and advertising slogan “Don’t let Sidney Hillman run your country,” it drew a shrug of the shoulders and this answer:

They can’t find anything else to talk about. My record is in the open. I am proud of it. Just another falsehood, that charge.

But what about the statements that the PAC is trying to take over, or has taken over, the Democratic Party?

Mr. Hillman snapped:

The record shows that we have already supported a half dozen Republicans. We are supporting President Roosevelt, of course, and we will back any liberal and progressive candidate.

It all amounts to this, the CIO official asserted:

One would think it almost a crime for labor to enter politics. There would be more clamor raised over a single dollar paid to the CIO under pressure than about a great donation made by an industrial to the Republicans.

‘Pressure’ for funds

On the matter of “pressure” for contributions, he broke in quickly:

I challenge anyone to produce a single case where pressure has been applied against any person for a contribution to PAC. That is an open challenge.

Mr. Hillman ticked off Governor Dewey’s record as New York’s governor with a brief resume of the “record of omission” which he said had been compiled, and asked:

Can you imagine turning over the destiny of the country to such an ineffective and incompetent person?

Links Bricker to Smith

Of Ohio Governor Bricker, Mr. Dewey’s running mate, he said:

I do not need to read his speeches. I merely recall those of Gerald L. K. Smith, with whom he parted company only recently, and not on major issues.

In his address to the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, Mr. Hillman said:

We cannot demobilize our minds after victory is won. We must be convinced that we can beat unemployment as we were convinced that we could beat the enemy.

He assailed the Republican administration after the last war, and urged reelection of President Roosevelt because:

We need an administration in Washington which wants to recreate full employment and is willing to use the resources and machinery of the government to create it.

Other speakers heard

Earlier speakers at the convention, held in the Fort Pitt Hotel, had assailed Governor Dewey as representing “a return to the Hoover normalcy days.” Senator Harley Kilgore (D-WV) said:

It took 50 years of struggle, climaxed by President Roosevelt’s election 1932, to give labor legislative protection of its right to organize. A reactionary president and Congress could pass a bill repealing that legislation in five days.

Allan Haywood, CIO organization director, referred to Governor Dewey as “Hoover’s dole.”

Others to speak were: Reid Robinson (president of the union), Nicholas Evans (president of the Universal Cement Workers, No. 309, Universal), Gen. Jerry V. Matejka (U.S. Army Signal Corps) and Martin Wagner (head of the CIO United Gas Coke, and Chemical Workers).

U.S. sub Gudgeon, 66 men lost

Québec maps direct attack against Japs

Roosevelt, Churchill hold formal session

Québec, Canada (UP) –
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill held their first formal business session today on new plans for the final destruction of the Axis.

The basic subject was the Pacific War. Plans are expected to be made for a direct assault on the Jap homeland.

White House Secretary Stephen T. Early said that although the conferences were pointed primarily at the Pacific, he did not know whether Chinese representation here had been sought. He added, however, that the Chinese government would be kept informed of the proceedings.

General plan worked out

The President, the Prime Minister, Canadian Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King and their parties had dinner last night with the Canadian Governor-General, the Earl of Athlone.

Today in a face-to-face session, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill worked out a general plan for the discussions with their military, naval and air experts.

The new unified command for the Jap assault, to be headed by an American, raised many questions.

The proportions of U.S. and British forces to be transferred from Europe to the Fat East as soon as Germany’s defeat is complete must also be determined.

Many subjects faced

Mr. Roosevelt’s and Mr. Churchill’s talks were expected to cover a wide field, including many problems in Europe. But it was officially emphasized that the Pacific War was the No. 1 topic, and the absence of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin fits in with that program.

Converging drives on the Japs from the Central Pacific and the Southwest Pacific are forging ahead on schedule, but the enemy has recently made fresh progress in China. Those drives must be extended before a direct assault on Japan itself can be started.

But they are going so fast that now the top planners – who must work months in advance of the action – must begin to lay out the strategy of the final assaults.

Four commands active

There are now four commands fighting the Japs:

  • The U.S. Pacific forces under Adm. Chester W. Nimitz have struck swiftly across the Central Pacific and have penetrated Japan’s inner defense circle.

  • Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s forces have swept up from the south to place themselves in a position to invade the southern Philippines.

  • Forces in Lord Louis Mountbatten’s Southeast Asia Command – comprising Burma, Indochina, Malaya and Sumatra – succeeded in driving the Japs out of northern Burma. This will permit early reestablishment of a land supply route from India to China.

  • In China, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s troops have been waging a desperate but so far losing battle to prevent the Japs from cutting the country in half.

Coordination lacking

These commands have been operating under broad plans developed at the Roosevelt-Churchill-Chiang conference in Cairo. But they have not had the benefit of the coordination such as Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s campaign in Western Europe.

Already delicate questions have arisen involving the overlapping of some command areas. Unless a new command setup is achieved, these would multiply as the offensives progress.

Gen. MacArthur’s forces and the southern wing of Adm. Nimitz’s are both striking toward the Philippines. Gen. MacArthur’s and Lord Mountbatten’s sphere overlap in the Indies. Lord Mountbatten’s command was established at the first Québec Conference – in August 1943 – but results have not fulfilled expectations.

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Stokes: Farmers, sore at New Deal, hope Dewey will ‘free’ them

GOP candidate doesn’t have to sell them; they’re fed up with Washington policies
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

With Governor Dewey’s party –
Governor Dewey today took his presidential campaign cavalcade into Nebraska on what amounted to a carrying-coals-to-Newcastle expedition.

Both Iowa and Nebraska are staunchly Republican. There’s no doubt about that. The people decided some time ago.

Out here, Governor Dewey met an intriguing political paradox, best illustrated by the contrast between today and 1932.

Then there were poverty on the farms and hardship in the towns here. Angry farmers armed themselves with pitchforks to keep the sheriff from foreclosing their acres. The desperate farmers swept up behind Franklin D. Roosevelt as their deliverer, and admittedly his New Deal program helped put them back on their feet.

Farmers ‘rich and sore’

Today, the farmers are prosperous. The war is making many of them rich. They are paying off their mortgages. They are, in the local idiom, “rich and sore.” The majority has deserted President Roosevelt.

What has happened is that the farmer, an individualist by nature – except when he is desperate, as in the depression years – again has become a capitalist in psychology, now that he is again a capitalist in fact. He swings naturally back to political and economic conservatism.

The farmers wrap up all the evils, of which they see themselves victims, in OPA, although this is really just a general term for virtually every agency in Washington which issues regulations for them.

Hot about labor policies

They complain about price restrictions, although prices are good and they are making plenty of money. They have a problem in the shortage of labor, for which they blame the wages for labor at war plants and the draft. They resent gasoline rationing.

Most of all, perhaps, they resent New Deal labor policies, complaining that the New Deal has been weighted heavily for labor and against the farmers. Today, the divisions between farmers and labor in this country is wide and deep and any attack on Sidney Hillman’s CIO and its Political Action Committee is relished.

So, Governor Dewey didn’t have to sell anything here. It was already sold.

But Governor Dewey kept busy consulting with representatives of farmers, business and labor, and politicians. He is making valuable political contacts in this section, not so necessary now, but which will be helpful if he is elected, and, perhaps, even if he is not. For there are some who think the young man, if he fails this time, will try to get control of the party organizations for four years hence.

Nobody has done that successfully in recent years, but he did it in New York, being the only defeated candidate for governor in our time who was renominated.

americavotes1944

Anti-Roosevelt Democrats in Texas stand ground

Pro-administration forces carry fight into convention as compromises fail

Dallas, Texas (UP) –
Pro-administration Democrats played for high stakes today, with possibly the November election in the balance, as they carried the fight for a complete slate of electors pledged to President Roosevelt and Senator Harry S. Truman to the floor of the Texas state convention.

Both factions offered compromises last night, but each rejected the other’s offer.

As the situation stands, fifteen of the state’s electors have announced they will follow instructions of the May convention and vote for some other Democrat, probably Senator Harry S. Byrd (D-VA), if Texas goes Democratic in November, as it usually does.

The loss of the 15 electoral votes in a close election might swing it in favor of Governor Thomas E. Dewey or throw it into the House of Representatives for a decision.

americavotes1944

Dewey’s Army charge denied

Washington (UP) –
House Democratic Leader John W. McCormack (D-MA) today accused Governor Thomas E. Dewey of making “ridiculous and untrue” charges of “political advantage” in suggesting that the administration wanted to retain soldiers in the Army until they were assured of employment.

Mr. McCormack told the House that the Republican presidential nominee made the charge at Philadelphia the day after the War Department announced its demobilization plans.

He recalled that Mr. Dewey attributed to Maj. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, Selective Service director, the statement that men could be kept “in the Army about as cheaply as we could create an agency for them when they are out.”

Mr. McCormack said the only bill he could find proposing the sort of provision Mr. Dewey attacked had been sponsored by a Republican, Senator James J. Davis (R-PA). He said both the War Department and Gen. Hershey had opposed Mr. Davis’ bill, which would have barred the discharge of men without their consent unless employment was available.


Indians, cowboys welcome Dewey

Valentine, Nebraska (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey was greeted by Indians in feathered headdress and cowboys on horseback when he arrived here today for conferences with Nebraska and South Dakota Republicans at the ranch of former Nebraska Governor Samuel R. McKelvie.

The GOP presidential nominee and Mrs. Dewey stepped from the train into an open auto for a parade led by about 50 Sioux Indians from the Rosebud Reservation of South Dakota, followed by sombrero-wearing cowboys from the Nebraska plains.

The parade lasted half an hour and then the Deweys were taken to the McKelvie ranch, 20 miles south of Valentine.

Shortly before the Dewey party arrived here, the Governor’s secretary, Paul E. Lockwood, announce that additional stops would be made at Sheridan, Wyoming, Sept. 14, and Billing, Montana, Sept. 15 so Mr. Dewey might have the opportunity to meet local political leaders in those two states. Governor Dewey had planned to spend three days at the McKelvie Ranch, but his stay here was cut to a day and a half to work the other stops into his itinerary to the West Coast.

americavotes1944

Hannegan denies Hillman order

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Chairman Robert E. Hannegan of the Democratic National Committee, denied today he had ever been instructed by President Roosevelt to “clear everything with Sidney [Hillman]” in behind-the-scenes maneuvering at the Democratic National Convention in July.

Mr. Hannegan said the charge was made by Governor John Bricker of Ohio, GOP vice-presidential nominee, in a speech last Saturday, but he said:

The fact is that President Roosevelt, with whom I conferred along on hat occasion [the President’s trip to Chicago prior to the convention], did not say that.

Nor did he say anything else which could have been tortur3d to convey that meaning. That story is absolutely untrue. I don’t know who invented it. I presume that Republican orators will keep repeating this favorite fiction until Election Day in the forlorn hope that some people will believe it is true. I want to get the record straight and identify this one as fabricated out of whole cloth.

Mr. Hannegan was asked if Sidney Hillman, chairman of the CIO Political Action Committee, has anything to do with the convention’s vote, and replied: “If he was a delegate, then he had a vote.”

Mr. Hannegan told a news conference he did not sidetrack Vice President Henry A. Wallace and put in Senator Harry S. Truman, although “I was for Truman.”

Mr. Hannegan was here to confer with Democratic leaders from 22 Midwestern and Southern states on campaign strategy and finances.

americavotes1944

Maine election is landslide favoring GOP

Four PAC candidates are overwhelmed

Portland, Oregon (UP) –
A Republican landslide in the Maine “barometer” elections returned three GOP Congressmen to office and elected State Senate President Horace A. Hildreth governor, complete unofficial returns showed today.

It was the largest GOP victory margin ever scored in the traditionally Republican state, assistant National Republican chairman Marion Martin said. The Republican gubernatorial candidate received approximately 75 percent of the votes cast.

The voting proved a blow to the CIO Political Action Committee, which had campaigned actively for the election of two Democratic candidates for Congress.

Margins three to one

Returned to office were Reps. Robert Hale in the 1st district, Margaret C. Smith in the 2nd district, and Frank Fellows in the 3rd district. Mr. Hale’s margin was a little better than two-to-one. The others won by approximately three-to-one.

The election has been called a national barometer for the November presidential elections – “as Maine goes, so goes the nation” has been the saying – despite the 1940 balloting which saw the Republicans win overwhelmingly in Maine in September only to lose the presidential race in November.

Complete unofficial returns gave:

governorvote1944

Race Status Candidate Vote Vote %
Maine Governor icon.lg.pro.winner Republican Hildreth 131,989 75%
Democratic Jullien 51,107 25%

Complete unofficial returns for Congressional contests gave:

housevote1944

Race Status Candidate Vote Vote %
Maine 01 icon.lg.pro.winner Republican Hale (incumbent) 47,580 69%
Democratic Pettis 21,634 31%
Maine 02 icon.lg.pro.winner Republican Smith (incumbent) 45,101 69%
Democratic Staples 20,321 31%
Maine 03 icon.lg.pro.winner Republican Fellows (incumbent) 36,486 77%
Democratic Graham 11,145 23%

CIO opposition bitter

Congressmen Hale and Smith had been opposed bitterly by the CIO-PAC, Mr. Pettis, president of the shipbuilders union in Portland and a Republican-turned-Democrat, had been expected to give Mr. Hale more of a race.

Regardless have long claimed that when the September Maine vote was 60 percent or more in their favor, they won the presidential election. This held true from the Civil War until the second Roosevelt term in 1936. That year, the Republicans won in Maine by approximately 60 percent. Again in 1940, the barometer failed when Maine went 65 percent Republican.

Eisenhower warns Rhineland, Ruhr

Phantom madman suspects held

Nazi oil plants hammered by 3,500 planes

Allies crush fierce Luftwaffe resistance

Yanks pierce outer points of Gothic Line

Now 34 miles from key Po Valley city

Maginot Line forts intact after four years in Nazi hands

Massive machinery in working order; guns might be used on retreating Germans
By Robert Richards, United Press staff writer


De Gaulle promises election when conditions permit

General says women of France will vote; demands voice in world discussions

Mindanao called start of drive to China

Palau may be first on invasion list

7th Army gains 22 miles; joins northern forces

By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer