British push close to Po Valley
Drive within mile of Rimini Airfield
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Confident Dewey pledges first-class election fight
There’ll be a change, he tells Montanans with better prosecution of the war
Billings, Montana (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey carried his presidential campaign into Montana today, pledging a first-class election fight which will not interfere with the war effort, but which will result in a change of administrations and more effective prosecution of the war after next January.
Mr. Dewey gave that pledge in an impromptu address to the crowd getting him at the Billings station last night upon his arrival for conferences today with agricultural, labor, veteran and political leaders.
First-class fight
Reminding his audience he was en route to the West Coast to make four major campaign speeches next week, Governor Dewey declared:
We will have a first-class fight from now until election. It will not be a campaign in the slightest degree to interfere with the war effort. This campaign will prove to all the world that we in America love our freedom so much that we can fight a total war harder because we are exercising the rights of free men as we do it.
By holding this campaign at a time when our enemies are collapsing and as we are making gigantic strides toward Berlin and Tokyo, we are demonstrating… that free men can wage a war, and the reason we are fighting so well is because we have something they haven’t.
We have a system that permits us to keep our shoulders to the wheel and to get every man and woman devoted to the cause, not deviating one moment.
As a result, I am confident we will change administrations and fight the war more effectively because we did so.
Mr. Dewey said he was confident that:
The American people will be convinced there is no indispensable man out of our 130 million, that there is a better way of life than either the creeping collectivism of the New Deal or the reaction they claim is the only alternative to their weaknesses and their spendthrift policy.
New Deal unemployed
He said:
There is a straight, out and out, American road in which government can do its part, which can encourage free men in business and labor and agriculture to do their part, by which we need never return to those seven straight years of the New Deal when the country ended up with 10 million unemployed.
Governor Dewey repeated his contention that this issue in the coming election is one of New Deal defeatism versus a progressive national economy.
He said:
The question before the American people is whether we shall continue downward, sliding slowly on the greased New Deal skids, toward total government control of business, of labor, of agriculture, of what we can buy and sell and what we can eat and wear, or whether… we shall start back once more on the American road toward a free economy, a free people, with full employment and with a great and growing country once more on the forward road. I am sure we will take the latter approach.
At the small town of Hardin during a brief operational stop for his special train, en route from Sheridan, Wyoming, he stepped to the rear platform and told a small audience that returning war veterans are “entitled to something better than the New Deal dole.”
He appealed for their help toward a Republican victory, which he pledged would assure “security and opportunity for all.”
It was one of the few rear platform appearances he has made, except at officially scheduled stops, since his special train left New York City Sept. 7.
Bricker assails New Deal ‘Nazism’
Urges fight against regimentation
Columbus, Ohio (UP) –
Republican vice-presidential nominee Governor John W. Bricker last night charged that the New Deal has adopted “the basic doctrines” of Nazism against which U.S. men are fighting and asserted that the issue of the 1944 election is whether these doctrines or “the fundamentals of Americanism” shall prevail.
Speaking at the Ohio State Republican Convention in Memorial Hall here, he asserted that the administration for “12 long years” has applied a pattern which would “control, direct and manage the economic lives of all our people.”
He said:
The issue today is not between the historic Democratic and Republican parties. It is between New Deal collectivism and the fundamentals of Americanism to which Democrats and Republicans each hold allegiance.
The question confronting every American citizen in this campaign may be simply stated: Shall government direct the lives of our people or shall it create conditions which will enable them, individually and hopefully, to find their own way? Shall we continue to march toward absolutism, or shall we preserve the free atmosphere which our people have breathed since our country was founded?
Mr. Bricker cited the switch to support of the Republican Party by “many Democratic newspapers and some of the country’s great independent dailies like the Baltimore Sun and the Cleveland Plain Dealer.”
States rights threatened
Mr. Bricker also charged the administration with attempting to destroy state and local governments by making them financially dependent upon a centralized government.
Mr. Bricker said Republican presidential nominee Governor Thomas E. Dewey “has already demonstrated his intention to consult with and to work with the governors of the states.” Not once in the last 10 years, he said, has President Roosevelt “invited the governors to exchange views with him.”
Poll: Two Western states swing to Roosevelt
Washington, Idaho show recent trend
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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Senator charges Dewey ‘distortion’
New York (UP) –
Senator Robert F. Wagner (D-NY) charged last night that statements by Governor Thomas E. Dewey, GOP candidate for the Presidency, that the “Hoover depression continued into the Roosevelt administration and it took a war to get us out” were a “blatant distortion of the facts.”
Senator Wagner said in an address before the International Ladies Garments Workers Union that Dewey “being a young man, has somehow forgotten to remember the Hoover depression,” and “what a change took place” when President Roosevelt took over.
He described Mr. Roosevelt as a great President before the war and a great Commander-in-Chief during the war and said that it was a “sham and delusion to try – as the Republicans are trying – to separate Mr. Roosevelt’s domestic record from his war record.”
He urged that all “work vigorously” to “get out every possible vote for President Roosevelt… as the least we can do to fulfill our obligations to our fighting men.”
Like others Yanks took, Palaus are Coral Islands
Principal products are shells and Japanese is taught in all the schools
Washington (UP) –
U.S. troops now fighting in the Palau Islands will encounter thick tropical forests of ironwood and ebony trees and a few crocodiles as they battle inland from coralline coasts.
The islands, which extend some 77 miles in a north-northeasterly direction, lie some 560 miles east of Mindanao in the southern Philippines and 1,980 miles south of Tokyo.
Most of the islands, with the exception of Angaur at the southern tip, lie on and are surrounded by coral reefs.
Some, including Babelthuap, Arakabesan and Malakal, appear to be of volcanic origin with hills rising to a height of 641 feet.
Some are of coral
Others, consisting mostly of coral, are either flat or composed of long narrow hills with steep slopes on the seaward sides.
The natives speak a Malayan dialect and are the majority of the inhabitants. Out of a population of 10,632 in 1934, however, 4,842 were Japanese. Japanese is taught in the schools.
The principal products are shells, copra and pearls.
Has four peninsulas
Halmahera is an extremely irregular island consisting of four peninsulas enclosing four great bays opening toward the east.
The four peninsulas are traversed lengthwise by mountain chains 3,000 to 4,000 feet high, covered with forests rich in a great variety of trees.
The mountain chains from which spurs extend to the coast are frequently interrupted by plains.
The northern part of the mountain chain of the northern peninsula is volcanic. Along the western coast are volcanic mountains, at least one of which is active.
USS Nevada’s home from war without scratch, casualty
Fired first shell into Normandy in D-Day; saw action at Cherbourg
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‘Final stage’ is foreseen by MacArthur
Says ‘defeat stares Japan in the face’
Adv Allied HQ, Southwest Pacific (UP) –
In a statement issued on the Morotai Beachhead today, Gen. Douglas MacArthur declared that the Allied campaign is entering upon its decisive stage and “defeat now stares Japan in the face.”
Gen. MacArthur said:
Our position here is now secure and the immediate operation has achieved its purpose.
We now dominate the Moluccas. I rejoice that it has been done with so little loss. Our campaign is now entering upon its decisive stage.
Jap officers inferior
Gen. MacArthur declared:
The Japanese ground troops still fight with the greatest tenacity. The military quality of the rank and file remains of the highest.
Their officer corps, however, deteriorates as you go up the scale. It is fundamentally based upon caste and the feudal system and does not represent strict professional merit.
Therein lies Japan’s weakness. Her sons are strong of limb and stout of heart but weak in leadership.
Sees Jap ‘revulsion’
Gripped inexorably by military hierarchy, that hierarchy is now failing the nation. It has had neither the imagination nor foresighted ability to organize Japanese resources for total war. Defeat now stares Japan in the face.
Its barbaric codes and creeds dominated the Japanese character and culture for centuries and have produced a type of national savagery at strange variance with many basic impulses of the Japanese people.
Its successful domination has been based largely upon the people’s belief in its own infallibility. When public opinion realizes that its generals and admirals have failed in the field of actual combat and campaign, the revulsion in Japanese thought will be terrific.
‘Military failed Japs’
Therein lies the basis for the ultimate hope that the Japanese citizen will cease his almost idolatrous worship of the military and readjust his thoughts along more rational lines.
No sophistry can disguise the fact from him that the military has failed him in this, his greatest hour of need.
That failure may mark the beginning of a new and ultimately happier era for him. His hour of decision is close at hand.
Jap armies drive toward U.S. base
Kweilin Airfield object of advance
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Superliberator attack on North Kuril Islands reported by Japanese
But enemy’s designation of planes as B-34s indicates Tokyo had information mixed
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Are they going someplace else?
Roosevelt-Churchill war talks in Québec are in closing stages
Spokesman indicates parley may continue elsewhere; Eden joins discussions
Québec, Canada (UP) –
Official spokesmen of the Roosevelt-Churchill war talks said today the conference here has moved into its closing stages, but indicated the President and the Prime Minister might continue their discussions elsewhere.
White House Press Secretary Stephen T. Early said the President and the Prime Minister will finish their work by noon tomorrow, then added this would “conclude their conferences in Québec.”
Reports leaped at this indication of another meeting as contained in Mr. Early’s emphasis of the words “in Québec.”
“Does this mean,” one reporter asked, “the Prime Minister will go to Washington for further conferences?”
“I can’t answer that,” Mr. Early replied.
Eden joins parley
Robin Cruikshank, British spokesman, was similarly reticent about discussing Mr. Churchill’s plans beyond noon tomorrow.
Anthony Eden, British Foreign Secretary, and Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, were at the Citadel today to talk primarily with Mr. Churchill. They were with Mr. Churchill and the President last night until a late hour.
Plans for Germany
Peace terms for Germany obviously were the most pressing problem in which Mr., Eden was involved in talks with Mr. Churchill and the President. But a backlog of other problems was building up.
Mr. Eden was believed to have brought with him a new summary of activities of the European Advisory Commission which is dealing with the detailed planning for post-war Germany.
Following his talks here with Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill, Mr. Eden is expected to hurry back to London with their latest views – and orders.
Command setup set for Pacific
Québec, Canada (UP) –
A new U.S. command setup, dominantly Navy and geared to the Pacific war plans being formulated at the Churchill-Roosevelt conferences here, is expected to be announced soon.
Decisions on the command setup have already been made, White House Secretary Stephen T. Early said, but what the command setup will be has not been revealed. Nor is there any official information as to the British part in it, if any.
More integration seen
Recent developments, together with information from usually reliable sources, permits this picture to be drawn:
The present likelihood is that there will be no super-command of all Allied forces for the whole Pacific and Asiatic theaters. Rather the outlook is for more efficient integration of certain of the present command areas.
Adm. Ernest J. King, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet, one of the President’s advisers here, is expected to relinquish his other post of Chief of Naval Operations and to move to a Pacific base for a more active role as fleet commander. Adm. King had been assigned the dual jobs shortly after the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor. But many functions of the Naval Operations office were subsequently transferred to the jurisdiction of the fleet commander’s organization.
The information here is that the Naval Operations post will be turned over to Adm. Frederick J. Horne, now Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
Use of British units seen
Adm. Nimitz, Pacific Fleet commander, may move to an advanced Pacific base, closer to the scene of operations, moving ever nearer the Japanese homeland.
Since the British Navy is expected to take a part in the Pacific campaign, its fleet units may be attached to Adm. Nimitz’s fleet, rather than operate as an independent force.
Some British units have operated with the U.S. Pacific Fleet in the past as integral elements of the American force. But this was done largely for training and indoctrination in U.S. naval tactics adapted to the special needs of the Pacific.
Simms: Polish-Soviet settlement hinted in Eden’s arrival
With impending collapse of Germany, ticklish issue can’t be avoided longer
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
Québec, Canada –
With the arrival here of British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, there is talk of a settlement of the ticklish, if not dangerous, quarrel between Poland and Russia.
With the impending collapse of Germany, European boundary problems become acute, especially in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Russia has staked out expansive territorial and political claims. Thus far, Britain and America have shied away from such questions, preferring to cross those bridges as they come.
But the Polish issue can no longer be avoided. She is an ally. If she is to lose half her territory and her political independence to appease an ally, it may knock post-war world collaboration into a cocked hat.
In Washington recently, I learned that the Polish government in London was willing to meet Moscow more than halfway.
Up to the present, Moscow’s attitude toward Warsaw has been frigid.
Russia ever refused aid to Gen. Bor’s Polish Patriots, fighting in Warsaw. The British and Poles had to fly all the way from Britain to drop supplies for Gen. Bor. Russia, with airfields 10 minutes from Warsaw, refused to do anything.
It is a reasonable assumption that Mr. Eden came to give Mr. Churchill and the President a fill-in on important developments since Mr. Churchill’s departure. He may have brought news that the end of the war in Europe is nearer than was thought, and perhaps to urge upon the “Big Two” a new and early meeting of the “Big Three” – a meeting with Marshal Stalin.