Poll: Governor Dewey retains lead in Midwest
Candidate to confer with party leaders
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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Doomed miner’s log tells how 65 waited for death
Step-by-step loss of oxygen recorded on scrap of paper found near man’s body
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Nazi ‘baby factories’ found in Belgium
Eupen, Belgium (UP) –
A number of elaborate German “baby factories” – nursing homes for children born out of wedlock to French, Belgian and German women and SS officers and men – have been found evacuated in this area.
The homes were provided by Minister of the Interior Heinrich Himmler and the practice of having children out of wedlock was encouraged, particularly in the case of SS regiments which were considered the finest in the German Army.
After birth, mothers were given a choice of keeping the babies or turning them over as wards of the Third Reich.
Was Pat patted?
Dorsey, wife to surrender on assault charges today
And long about Christmas the hilarious details of party will be told
By Frederick C. Othman, United Press staff writer
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Army officials disavow questionnaire given G.I.’s
Check on soldiers’ attitudes called ‘amateurish’ and without authority
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Perkins: Lewis vs. Roosevelt debate touched off at UMW’s convention
Routine program disrupted as fiery words fly thick and fast and pro and con
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
Cincinnati, Ohio –
John Mascaro, a delegate to the United Mine Workers Convention from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, touched off a hot floor debate today on the outstanding issue of whether the union’s rank-and-file should follow John L. Lewis in opposing a fourth term for President Roosevelt.
The Canonsburg delegate objected to repeated criticisms by the leadership of the Roosevelt administration.
Mr. Mascaro said:
We lost President Lewis for his courageous leadership, but we will not turn down the savior of humanity – the man who opened the gates to union organization and allowed us to build this great union.
The boys fighting this war want him, and the rank-and-file of miners want him.
Tom Farmer, Negro delegate from Morgantown, West Virginia, took the opposite side, saying: “We’ll follow Lewis, not Roosevelt.”
‘No bread under GOP’
Another Pennsylvania delegate, George Gernot, from Adah Local 6548, declared:
We are 100 percent behind John L. Lewis, but the people in our state haven’t forgotten how they couldn’t get a piece of bread under the last Republican administration.
Ralph Bartimioli, also from the Adah local, wanted to know, “What is this – a political convention or a United Mine Worker convention?”
Discussions was finally stopped by a motion to resume regular business. Applause for the two points of view seemed about equal.
Officers’ report adopted
A heated debate followed a charge by Frank Hefferly, president of UMW District 13, that the government had exceeded its authority “by permitting the War Manpower Commission to regiment United Mine Workers and the people of this country when Congress refused to give that authority to the President.”
Mr. Hefferly said:
You go to the polls next November and apply the real remedy by voting this administration out of power.
After the debate subsided the delegates unanimously adopted the officers’ report.
Meanwhile, it was learned that the leadership of the United Mine Workers is preparing a blast against President Roosevelt that will be even more startling than the charge of John L. Lewis yesterday that the President is a party to efforts to “dethrone” him.
The new attack, according to men close to Mr. Lewis, will be cut loose during the convention here of 2,500 delegates, before whom Mr. Lewis yesterday demonstrated that he is still an effective orator.
‘Rebels’ assailed
In this speech, the self-called “old man” – he is 63 – used all the stops of his pipe-organ voice in his old-time form. He skillfully placed himself on a par with the man in the mines, drew ovation after ovation, and apparently killed off any chance of success of efforts within his union to challenge his leadership of his policies.
Under one of these policies, now under attack, the district officers in more than half of the mine worker empire are appointed by Mr. Lewis and are not voted upon by the rank-and-file.
Ray Edmundson, former president of the Illinois District (there is a disagreement as to whether he resigned or was ousted) is the spearhead of the home-rule forces here.
And it was obvious to Mr. Edmundson, sitting in the back of the crowded hall, that Mr. Lewis was speaking of him when he said “no lace-pantied gigolo is going to dethrone John L., in his own organization.”
Nobody seems to know why Mr. Lewis chose this way of referring to Mr. Edmundson, who is a big, handsome fellow, fairly young, whose he-man belligerency doesn’t check with that description.
Just before that, Mr. Lewis had confided to the delegates in a tone that taxed the loudspeaker system:
Browder, Hillman and Roosevelt hired a man to come down here and throw out the old man. They gave him some money and he put out some pamphlets and he had himself interviewed by the newspapers.
Mr. Lewis referred to Sidney Hillman, head of the CIO Political Action Committee, as “a Russian pants maker,” and included him and Mr. Roosevelt among the owners of “smug faces” he would like to confound with a recital of the coal miners’ production and military performances in this war.
Foes of no-strike pledge boo Murray’s plea to UAW
‘Antis’ stage demonstration after CIO chief warns war workers against complacency
By Ray de Crane, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Grand Rapids, Michigan –
Continued adherence to the “no strike” pledge by the biggest labor union in the world was still in doubt here today as the CIO United Auto Workers convention entered its third day.
In what is believed to be the first time since he became president of the CIO, Philip Murray was booed as he spoke from the convention platform. The boos, outweighed by the applause, came as Mr. Murray made his first reference to the pledge, given President Roosevelt 10 days after Pearl Harbor.
‘Still lives to be lost’
Mr. Murray made an impassioned plea for continuation of the pledge. “Let’s not be overly complacent about the war,” he warned as he pointed out that “had the war been lost, you would have had no union today.”
“There is still blood to be spilled; still some lives to be lost,” he reminded delegates, many of whom wore the slogan “smash the pledge” on the backs of their shirts.
Nevertheless, as soon as Mr. Murray sat down, a demonstration was set off and advocates of rescinding the promise waved placards and started marching.
Apparently fearing the effect of Mr. Murray’s remarks, the “antis” deferred debate on the question until today.
PAC defended
Devoting much of his address to the Political Action Committee, Mr. Murray asserted the unionists had been “castigated and scandalized in the public prints” since establishment of the committee.
He declared:
It’s all right for Hearst and Scripps-Howard to convert their papers into veritable scandal sheets disseminating vicious lies. There’s not a group in the country that doesn’t have its own PAC. There never has been a time when your organization has been subject to more malicious deviltry, more diabolical abuse. There are some intrenched interests in the United States hellbent on your destruction.
Unveiling for the first time the CIO’s post-war program “to provide work for millions for generations to come,” Mr. Murray called for:
An expanded aircraft industry, greater development of the auto industry, thorough modernization of the railroad systems and elimination of all grade crossings, a network of superhighways to be supported by federal assistance, reinstitution of a slum clearance program to eliminate all slums within 10 years after the war, replacement of obsolete industrial plants with modern buildings, an integrated system of dams and hydroelectric power plants to provide cheap electric rates and to control floods, and extension of foreign trade so that standards of living both at home and abroad can be raised.
Seniority for servicemen
Earlier, the convention ordered incorporated into all its future UAW-CIO contracts seniority guarantees for returning servicemen.
The program provides that persons employed before entering military service not only retain seniority but accumulate seniority while in service.
A resolution endorsing the Roosevelt-Truman candidacy was passed unanimously.
Ickes likens Dewey to Goebbels
Grand Rapids, Michigan (UP) –
Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, ripping into recent Republican campaign utterances, said last night that Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s charge that the administration plans to keep soldiers in the Army longer than necessary “is as false as any ever promulgated by Goebbels.”
He accused the GOP presidential nominee of “deceitful doubletalk indulged in recklessly in the hope of deceiving the voters.”
Addressing the convention of the International Union of United Auto, Aircraft & Agricultural Implement Workers of America (CIO), Mr. Ickes also assailed the Republican attitude on campaign contributions by organized labor.
He said:
The right to contribute seems to be regarded by the Deweyites as the exclusive right of the rich.
Millett: Smug advertisements of ‘our niceness’ thing
Reach millennium when landlords rent only to families with children
By Ruth Millett
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Background of news –
Wage decision coming up
By Blair Moody
Washington –
The proposal of War Mobilization Director James F. Byrnes that labor return to a 40-hour week in civilian plants after the defeat of Germany adds another difficult factor to the wage issues which confront President Roosevelt in the midst of the presidential campaign.
With the question of breaking the “Little Steel” formula and thus shifting the base of his whole stabilization program shortly coming up before the War Labor Board, Mr. Byrnes’ suggestion that hours must be reemployment in the reconversion period would on the basis of present hourly rates involves a 30 percent reduction in “take-home” pay for hundreds of thousands of workers.
One of the principal reasons no action has been taken so far to increase the “15 percent over 1941” maximum hourly raise allowed by the “Little Steel” formula, despite the fact that the cost of living has admittedly gone up at least 25 percent, officials say, is that the actual earnings of most workers, when overtime is included, have risen much more than living costs.
Let workers take the loss?
But if eight “overtime hours” are chopped off, many workers will go back to 40 hours’ pay instead of receiving the equivalent of 52. The issue, officials point out, then will be whether to let the workers absorb this loss, or to raise their hourly pay to compensate for it.
The matter of costs and prices of products sold to the public, which Mr. Byrnes says will in many cases have to be higher, and other inflationary factors, will be involved in this decision.
Informed officials predict that the entire wage issue will be given a thorough public airing before the War Labor Board before Nov. 7. When the tensely awaited panel report in the steel case formally gets to the WLB it will take its place beside previous panel reports “finding facts” on requests for more money for auto and packing house workers of the CIO and several cases from the AFL.
In all of these, the fact-finding bodies point out that no substantial blanket raises can be granted now without changing the whole wage stabilization policy.
Decision up to Roosevelt
The steel panel’s report will set up clearly the fact that a discrepancy of approximately 15 percent exists between wage and price movements, and the President is the only man who can settle it.
Before the WLB decides to recommend a change in the wage formula, if it does, it will call a public hearing, where all the big guns of both unions and industry certainly would be aligned in a memorable economic debate with sharp political overtones. Of course, the WLB could decide to quash the whole idea, and hold no hearing. But in that case, a parade of union officials to the White House would be likely.
If it holds a public hearing and decides the “Little Steel” rate is no longer fair to labor, the WLB then will make a recommendation to the President. This procedure will take some weeks, but whether the board’s action, if any, reaches the President’s desk before election in the end may depend on whether it is planned that way.
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Like all presidential candidates –
Stokes: Dewey visits Wild West and meets an Indian chief
But he scorns Coolidge, Smith precedent and passes up chance to don war bonnet
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Valentine, Nebraska –
Every presidential candidate must have his day or two in a Wild West atmosphere.
He must mingle with Indians adorned in headdress and painted faces, with cowboys in gay silk shorts, with ranchers stiff and uncomfortable in store clothes which last from year to year with only occasional wear, for they do not deign to replenish them, even though in this neighborhood they now casually flash great rolls of folding money.
The Indians were on hand to welcome Governor Dewey when his train rolled into this little town in Nebraska’s sand hills. A solemn rank of Sioux on horseback, looking ghastly and fierce from the colors splashed across their wizened faces, for most of them were old. The cowboys were there, too, to escort the Republican candidate and his wife in a parade through the center of town.
He plays it straight
Then his car and those of his party were turned across the rolling plains to the ranch of former Governor Sam McKelvie 20 miles away, where the Governor and Mrs. Dewey were guests overnight.
Governor Dewey took it all straight like a New Yorker and a gentleman, with none of the pretensions of the dude rancher. And he took it all smiling, amiable and properly inquisitive.
He did not don Indian headdress, as another New Yorker, Al Smith, once did, in mingling with the Blackfeet in Montana. He did not put on a cowboy hat or get into chaps and spurs as Cal Coolidge did some years ago in South Dakota, making a sight in the moving pictures, mincing anxiously down the steps, that was better for laughs than anything Charlie Chaplin ever did.
Meets Indian chief
Governor Dewey, of course, being a politician, could not avoid a chat with an Indian chieftain. Spotted Crow was supplied for this purpose by local Republicans. He pledged his support to the Republican candidate, as some chief always does for one candidate or the other every four years.
Spotted Crow expressed the opinion that Republicans would treat the Indians better than the Democrats, for all that Secretary Harold Ickes and Indian Commissioner John Collier have been able to do.
The Governor took part in the ceremony of digging up the barbecued beef, which had been cooking for hours underground, but he refused to pose for photographers in this role.
No points needed
He stood in line afterward with Mrs. Dewey, in a big tent to have his plate filled with the succulent meat, potato salad, coleslaw and potato chips. It was utility beef no ration points – it was explained.
Even miles away from the big world outside, the Governor gave careful attention to politics, conferring by the hour with delegations from Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming, listening to complaints against the New Deal on behalf of the cattlemen who, from evidence of those there, are doing nicely and achieving rotund figures.
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Close contest in presidential race foreseen
Both parties feel trend is favorable
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington (UP) –
The best bet as the political campaign accelerates today is that the presidential election will be a close contest for popular votes.
Political events in Maine, Texas and Ohio variously comforted Democrats and Republicans but without producing conclusive evidence of a national trend either way.
Maine’s jump-the-gun state election yesterday gave the Republican gubernatorial candidate 73 percent of the vote and a plurality of 80,000, the largest in recent state records. Democrats will find some offset in the fact that only 185,000 or so voters of approximately 350,000 registrants went to the polls. But the returns seem to make the state safe for Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the GOP presidential candidate.
If these indications of a close contest are accurate, Mr. Dewey should run better this year than Wendell L. Willkie ran in 1940. Mr. Roosevelt beat Mr. Willkie by 27,243,000 votes to 22,304,000. In 1936, he took GOP candidate Alf M. Landon, 27,576,000 to 16,679,000 votes. Mr. Hoover lost to Mr. Roosevelt in 1932 by 15,761,000 to 22,821,000.
Plan seeks end to Texas revolt
Dallas, Texas (UP) –
Pro-Roosevelt forces turned today to the legal aspects of a plan under which normally Democratic Texas would be assured that presidential electors on the November ballot will cast the state’s 23 votes for President Roosevelt and his vice-presidential running mate, Harry S. Truman.
A three-point plan, advanced by Democratic National Committeeman Myron Blalock of Marshall, was still in the committee rooms as fourth-term backers called to order the Texas State Convention over which they had gained complete control in a stormy session last night.
The Blalock plan, drawn up in anticipation of a lawsuit to be filed by anti-Roosevelt forces within the party, called for:
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The resolutions committee to have the convention revoke the instructions of the May 23 Texas Convention and instruct party electors to vote for the Democratic nominees for President and Vice President.
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Place the names of Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Truman on the ballot instead of the names of electors. This is permissible under Texas law.
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Prepare an amended list of electors for filing in case it is needed.
Overton wins easily in Louisiana election
New Orleans, Louisiana (UP) –
U.S. Senator John H. Overton of Alexandria won renomination in yesterday’s Louisiana Democratic primary election, unofficial returns showed today.
Mr. Overton was conceded election when New Orleans radio station owner E. A. Stephens, who had been Mr. Overton’s chief opponent, admitted defeat.
Latest figures gave Mr. Overton a total of 134,953 votes, Mr. Stephens 57,427, Lake Charles attorney Griffin T. Hawkins 14,836, and New Orleans businessman Charles S. Gerth 6,582.
Holding a clear majority of more than 56,000, Mr. Overton won his renomination without a runoff.
Dewey hails vote in Maine as trend
Valentine, Nebraska (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey relaxed today at the halfway mark on his transcontinental campaign tour, exuding the most confidence since his nomination in June that he will win the presidential election in November.
There were two major encouraging factors:
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Optimistic reports from Midwestern Republican leaders on the outlook in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota.
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Returns from Maine’s state election showing what Mr. Dewey described as “the greatest Republican landslide in the history of the state.”
Enjoys news and rest
Mr. Dewey obviously enjoyed the encouraging news, as well as his period of relaxation at the 12,000-acre by-the-way ranch of former Governor Samuel R. McKelvie, Western manager of the New York Governor’s presidential campaign.
It was evident when he walked briskly out on the lawn late yesterday afternoon and announced to the assembled correspondents: “Gentlemen, I have a story for you.”
He had just finished a long telephone conversation with Republican National Chairman Herbert Brownell Jr., during which he received the results of the Maine election in which the Republican Party won the gubernatorial and Congressional races.
Pointing out that Republican candidates polled more than 70 percent of the total vote, an increase of seven percent over 1940, Mr. Dewey said it was proof that “the marked Republican trend is continuing at an accelerating pace.”
Foresees GOP Congress
Mr. Dewey said:
The people of Maine have demonstrated the rising confidence in the leadership of the Republican Party which I have found evidenced every place as I came across the country.
It is becoming clear that the people have decided, not only for their states but in the national government as well, that the peace and prosperity of the United States and the world will be better served by the election of a new and competent administration and that they propose to elect a Republican Congress to work with the new administration.
That will being a new and refreshing harmony between the executive and legislature branches of government which we so long have needed and which is so essential to the solution of the problems we will face next January.
Plan to keep men in service denied
Washington (UP) –
An administration spokesman and an official of the Selective Service System today denied charges by Thomas E. Dewey that the administration planned to keep men in the armed services after the war until they could find jobs.
House Democratic Leader John W. McCormack (D-MA) said the Republican presidential candidate’s charges were “ridiculous and untrue” and were made for “political advantage.”
Col. Francis B. Keesling of Selective Service told a House Military Affairs subcommittee yesterday that there is no intention of keeping men in the Armed Forces longer than military necessity requires. He added the hope that Selective Service could be kept out of politics.
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Los Angeles, California –
These presidential election polls certainly are confusing.
First a poll comes out that says Mr. Dewey will absolutely win. Then they bring out a poll that says Mr. Roosevelt will absolutely win.
My goodness, what if we wind up with the Roosevelts and Deweys both in the White House?
On second thought, that’s a very nice picture – the two families sitting around the fireside and chatting.
No, I guess the Deweys don’t exactly care for fireside chats. But it might work out, anyway. The men folks could take turns running the country and the women folks could take turns running the house.
Of course, Mrs. Dewey might get a little upset the first time Mrs. Roosevelt telephoned to say she would be three months late for dinner.