Mindanao called start of drive to China
Palau may be first on invasion list
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‘Happy days are here again’ –
UMW isn’t ‘pantywaist;’ fist fight opens convention
Fracas breaks up meeting of Lewis insurgents; Yablonsky accused of brawling
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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UAW ‘bad boys’ stir up fight at convention
One faction opposes R. J. Thomas, president
By Ray Decrane, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Editorial: Québec problems
International and European political questions doubtless will be dealt with by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill before their Québec Conference closes. There are plenty such hanging fire. Some, including the German and Polish problems, are of great urgency. But the early sessions of the conference are to be almost exclusively military.
European military decisions related to the approaching victory over Germany cannot be reached without Marshal Stalin, who has his hands too full on the Eastern Front to travel to Canada. Tentative Anglo-American agreements will be passed on to Moscow in preparation for the earliest possible meeting with Marshal Stalin. The weakness of this plan, however, is that smaller nations are still excluded. Unless they are called in noon, most of the basic questions will have been decided by the Big Three or by the swift passage of events – which would be neither fair nor effective.
Apparently Pacific military problems are first on the Québec agenda. Most of those boil down to the matter of British participation. Hitherto Britain has been too busy at home and in the Mediterranean to help much in the Far East. Most of her forces there are Indian and immobilized in India.
Lord Louis Mountbatten’s Southeast Asia Command, which was set up and over-advertised at a similar conference a year ago, has achieved little. The British have pushed back the Japs who slopped over the Indian border, and Gen. Stilwell’s American-Chinese forces have reclaimed much of northern Burma under hard conditions.
But Lord Mountbatten’s attack on South Burma, and his naval-air end run for Singapore and the South China sea, have not materialized. He, according to reports, is not to blame. London and New Delhi never felt they could give him the required equipment and forces.
Now the question is how much aid Britain will give in the Pacific War, and how long it will take after Hitler’s defeat. Officially the London government has given plenty of promises publicly of all-out war against Japan. But at the same time, Mr. Churchill has promised England large-scale demobilization of troops and reconversion of industry as soon as the European conflict ends. This policy is popular in England, where there is inevitable war weariness after five years and much less feeling than here about the Jap menace.
To a lesser extent the American policy of partial demobilization and reconversion after Hitler’s fall also influences Pacific war plans. Though our government says it will not permit the Army cutback or the changeover to peace production to interfere with Pacific requirements, there is hope in Tokyo and fear in Washington that there will be an American letdown.
Actually, most of our naval and air forces and many of our technical ground forces – along with increased war production in some lines – will be required for the big and bloody Pacific job ahead. Devoting one hand to military and industrial reconversion to peace, while using the other hand for so-called all-out war against Japan, calls for a near-miracle of coordination.
But a Québec agreement for a fair sharing of effort in the Pacific War can hasten Jap defeat.
Allen: Patton’s men need pretzels to go with German beer
By Gracie Allen
Los Angeles, California – (Sept. 11)
Don’t forget to mail those Christmas presents to boys overseas between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15.
One woman I know, whose boy is with Gen. Patton, is sending her son a box of pretzels.
She figures by the time he gets the pretzels, he’ll be where there’s plenty of beer.
Sometimes I wonder if this wave of optimism that’s sweeping the country is good or bad.
For example, one California plant has already started reconversion to peacetime industry. They’re making electric irons – 20,000 a week.
It’s true the country’s pants need pressing, but it’s also a perfect time to be caught with them down.
In Washington –
Nazi cartels feared as possible spark for new world war
Major economic conflict forecast as end of fighting; Germans’ Argentine links cited
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Kaiser pledges support of war plant conversion
Absolutely essential to keep factories going to create needed jobs, he says
By Robert C. Elliott, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Nye charges plot to ‘buy’ defeat
Veteran sought as foe, he says
Washington (UP) –
Senator Gerald P. Nye (R-ND) charged today that Joseph B. Keenan, former Assistant Attorney General, offered a disabled veteran of World War I $110,000 to run against him for the Republican senatorial nomination this year.
The offer, Mr. Nye charged in a Senate speech, was made in the presence of another North Dakota Senator whom he did not identify.
North Dakota’s other Senator is Republican William Langer, long a bitter foe of Me. Nye in North Dakota politics.
Mr. Nye said the offer was made Sept. 14, 1943, when the disabled veteran, Fay Dewitt of Minot, North Dakota, was in Washington en route to a national convention of disabled American war veterans.
Mr. Langer told the Senate, however, that:
The statement that J. B. Keenan ever offered anyone a single dollar to defeat the Senator from North Dakota is completely false.
Visited with Senator
Mr. Nye said Mr. Dewitt and Charles Gray of Bismarck, North Dakota, visited that day with “one of their Senators in his office.” During the conversation, Mr. Nye continued, if was said that Mr. Dewitt was affiliated, with the Masons, Elks, American Legions, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled War Veterans.
The Senator, Mr. Nye said, requested that he be permitted to hold Mr. Dewitt’s membership cards for a few hours, promising to return them that evening to Mr. Dewitt’s rooms.
That evening, according to Mr. Nye, the Senator went to the hotel bringing with him a “Mr. McSheehan” or a “Mr. Keenan” who, Mr. Nye said, was “Joseph B. Keenan, native of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, resident of Cleveland, Ohio, who under Attorney General Cummings [former Attorney General Homer S. Cummings] became first Assistant Attorney General.”
‘White House connections’
Mr. Nye said Mr. Keenan, when asked his interest as a Democrat in the Republican senatorial race, said he was “a Democrat with White House connections interested in seeing Senator Nye’s defeat.”
Mr. Keenan, Mr. Nye said, offered to finance the Dewitt campaign to the extent of $110,000, of which $10,000 was to be paid on the spot.
Mr. Dewitt and his companions – who, besides Mr. Gray, included Neal E. Williams (a special Assistant Attorney General of North Dakota), Andy Nomland, Oscar Winters, and Howard Shirley (all of Grand Forks) – “administered a verbal lashing to the proposition to buy a candidate for the Senate,” Mr. Nye said.
Millett: Modernized kitchens are menace to traditions
Miss Millett begs designers to be thoughtful of family memories
By Ruth Millett
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Networks harvest millions in campaign time
Political figures are staggering
By Si Steinhauser
Some years ago, a Pittsburgh man set aside a fund of $11 million to be spent in philanthropic endeavors while he is still alive. He is still living and seeing his money at work. The boss assigned me to ask him why he gave his millions away. His answer was quite simple:
I made that money selling dehydrated potatoes to the government for shipment overseas. It doesn’t belong to me, so I’m giving it back to the people to whom it belongs.
Yesterday we asked one of the nice young women in our office to tabulate the cost of an all-network political broadcast by President Roosevelt or Governor Dewey from Standard Rate and Data, the Bible or cost book of radio. She added up the cost of a single half hour at $50,781. Since they usually talk longer, the rate may double. If each candidate spoke only a half hour on 10 broadcasts someone would pay the networks a minimum of $1 million for radio time. That figure may be doubled by talks by vice-presidential and other candidates and single station broadcasts by state, county and municipal candidates across the country will probably add another million to network and local station treasuries.
We couldn’t ask all of the people who contribute this money to campaign treasuries why they so it so we asked our associate editor and political authority, Kermit McFarland, and he gave us quite as simple an answer as the philanthropist: “Because they want to see the man to whose campaign fund they contribute elected.”
We’re naïve about politics but there must be more than that to it. Spending $2 million to get a man a $75,000 (Mr. Roosevelt cut his pay to $25,000) job doesn’t add up.
If you like comparative figures, NBC charges $15,646 for a half hour of night time, CBS asks $15,225, the Blue Network $11,869 and Mutual $8,041.
Suppose Mr. Roosevelt were to speak on all networks and a single local station decided not to carry his talk but to substitute a local candidate’s talk or even a talk by say, Mr. Dewey, who might be in town that night.
“You go ahead and suppose Steinhauser,” said a station manager. “We could do a thing like that but we wouldn’t dare.”
Stations discussed editorial and political policies last year and decided to keep hands off because the present outmoded radio law provides that if a station gives time to one side of a controversy it must give equal time and facilities to the other side.
So say the broadcasters, according to the law, if we took time to say “We’re for Roosevelt” we would have to add “And we’re also for Dewey.”
U.S. State Department (September 12, 1944)
Tripartite dinner meeting, 8:00 p.m.
| Present | ||
|---|---|---|
| United States | United Kingdom | Canada |
| President Roosevelt | The Earl of Athlone | Prime Minister Mackenzie King |
| Mrs. Roosevelt | Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone | |
| Admiral Leahy | Prime Minister Churchill | |
| General Marshall | Mrs. Churchill | |
| Admiral King | Field Marshal Brooke | |
| General Arnold | Marshal of the Royal Air Force Portal | |
| Admiral of the Fleet Cunningham | ||
| Field Marshal Dill |
Arnold gives the following information which apparently pertains to the dinner meeting on September 12:
That night, at a dinner with the Governor General, the question of aid to Poland came up. Several messages [had] arrived from the Russians and from Harriman relating to Polish patriots in Warsaw. General Marshall and I talked this over at length. For some time, it had been apparent that if some help was not given to the Polish patriots in Warsaw, they would be exterminated…
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It gave the Combined Chiefs of Staff, Mr. Churchill, and the President something serious to think about. Could we help the Poles in Warsaw, even though we wanted to? That rather large problem was never completely solved…
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
During that dinner the Prime Minister came out with new ideas about winning the war. At that particular moment he thought it a matter of vital British interest that we (including the RAF) get more planes, ships, and soldiers into the final battle of Japan as soon as we could. I told him the question of putting planes in there wasn’t quite that simple. There were not enough land masses in the Pacific Ocean to use the heavy bombers we would have available from Europe when that phase of the war was over. As a matter of fact, if we could use 1500 out of the 3500 we had in the ETO, we would be very, very lucky. Certainly, we would much rather have the B-29s, with their longer range and their heavier bomb load than we would the B-17, the B-24, the Lancaster, or the Halifax…
Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt
Quebec, September 12, 1944
My Dear Friend, Would it be agreeable to you to discuss with me sometime today our Italian policy? I must fill up the Chairmanship of the Allied Control Commission, and I feel the great need of a competent politician and Minister there, like Macmillan, rather than a General. I was distressed and disquieted by the tales I heard of serious food shortages in some parts of Rome and other great towns. Unemployment looms big in Italy. We may also soon have the populous North flowing on to our hands. I was hoping we might together make up an agreeable programme for Italy, which could be announced, comprising resumption of their export trade, interchange of diplomatic representatives à la Russe, and bringing them into the area of UNRRA as co-belligerents if that can be managed. If not, some other scheme of effective relief. You spoke of La Guardia having a Mission. This also I should like to discuss with you.
The Staffs are forming their contacts this morning and browsing over the Agenda on general lines. But would it not be well to have a plenary session tomorrow where you and I can put forward the fundamentals of our future war policy. This will enable them to go ahead much more rapidly and easily.
A small point. Leathers is longing for Admiral Land. You said you were keeping him handy; but if he could come up soon, these two would be together working out their complicated affairs, while we are busy with other things, and have results ready for us at each stage.
Some of the Boniface I sent you this morning appeared to me to be of profound significance. Alexander’s battle is a hard one, but now that Clark has crashed into the centre I am hopeful of speedy results.
Yours always,
W
Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt
Quebec, September 12, 1944
My Dear Friend, Would you let me have your views on the following suggested time-table:
- Wednesday, 13th – Plenary Meeting with Chiefs of Staff.
- Thursday, 14th, and Friday, 15th – their further discussions.
- They should report to us the evening of Friday, 15th, enabling a final Plenary to take place on Saturday, 16th.
It would probably be in conformity with, your wishes to return to Hyde Park on Saturday. If agreeable to you I would follow by Air with Clemmie early on Monday, 18th, and stay with you Monday and Tuesday. We could then have anyone necessary to wind up outstanding points. I must depart on Wednesday, 20th.
I have asked Eden to come over if possible tomorrow, so he should be here on Thursday or Friday. There are several important things to discuss with him including recognition of the French Provisional Government, as to which I am by no means convinced, I do not know whether you would require to have Hull or Stettinius for Friday, 15th.
One of the most important things I have to discuss with you is Stage II. Would Thursday, 14th, do for that? – in which case I hope you could have Morgenthau present. This matter is considered of extreme and vital importance by the British Government, for reasons which are only too painfully apparent.
Yours always,
W