America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

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americavotes1944

Bricker plans major speech here Tuesday

Both parties schedule series of rallies

Leading off with the appearance here Tuesday of Governor John W. Bricker, Republican candidate for Vice President, local politicians have planned a series of public campaign rallies for the next two weeks.

Mr. Bricker will deliver a major campaign address, with nationwide radio hookup, from Syria Mosque at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday ET.

This is one of four principal stops the Ohio Governor will make in Pennsylvania this week. He will be in Erie Tuesday noon, in Harrisburg Wednesday noon and in Wilkes-Barre Wednesday night.

Three other major events

Three other major campaign events coming up include:

  • The American Slav Congress, at Carnegie Music Hall Saturday and Sunday, at which President Roosevelt is expected to win a fourth-term endorsement.

  • Local Democrats will open their campaign Sept. 25 in North Side Carnegie Hall with statewide candidates heading the program.

  • Vice President Henry A. Wallace will speak in Carnegie Music Hall Sept. 30 under the auspices of an independent committee supporting the President for reelection.

Davis to speak

The Syria Mosque Republican meeting will start at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, with U.S. Senator James J. Davis (candidate for reelection), Superior Court Judge Arthur H. James, County Court Judge Blair F. Gunther and Rev. Cornell E. Talley of the Central Baptist Church, listed as preliminary speakers.

Judge Gunther, incidentally, recently resigned as chairman of the board of the American Slav Congress, charging the organization was being converted into a “political instrument by extreme leftists.”

Governor Edward Martin, who will accompany Governor Bricker throughout his Pennsylvania tour, will introduce the vice-presidential nominee to the Syria Mosque audience. Mrs. Bricker and Mrs. Martin will be in the party.

Conference planned

Mr. Bricker will arrive here at 6:30 p.m. Prior to his speech, he will confer with local Republican leaders. His Harrisburg speech will be delivered from the steps of the State Capitol. The address in Wilkes-Barre will be broadcast over a statewide radio network.

Congressman Francis J. Myers of Philadelphia, candidate for U.S. Senator, will be the chief speaker at the Democratic rally Sept. 25. Others expected to appear include Auditor General F. Clair Ross (candidate for the Superior Court), State Treasurer G. Harold Wagner (candidate for Auditor General) and Ramsay S. Black of Harrisburg (who is the Democratic candidate for State Treasurer).

Federal Judge Charles Alvin Jones (nominee for the State Supreme Court) and Superior Court Judge Chester H. Rhodes may appear.

Movie to be shown

One of the features of the Democratic rally, over which City Treasurer James P. Kirk will preside, will be the showing of a motion picture, Lest We Forget. The picture is a review of the Roosevelt administration.

Otherwise, the political front was marked yesterday by continued charges and counter-charges exchanged by spokesmen of the rival parties.

In a speech to the Westmoreland County Republican Committee at Greensburg, Governor Martin said:

We are up against strong opposition. The New Deal is powerful. We face a federal payroll of more than 200,000 here in Pennsylvania. The corrupt political machines of the Hagues, the Kellys, the Pendergasts and the Hannegans dominate the big cities. Every Communist in America will vote for Roosevelt. Every other anti-American group is solidly against Dewey and Bricker. The Hillman-Browder axis has taken over the Democratic Party.

Myers assails Dewey

Speaking to the Fayette County Democratic Committee in Uniontown yesterday, Mr. Myers charged Governor Dewey with “spreading the seed of disunity and deliberately violating a pledge not to inject issues into the campaign which would interfere with the war effort.”

He scored Mr. Dewey for an implication that the Roosevelt administration had let down Gen. Douglas MacArthur, for charging that the administration “is afraid” to release men from the Armed Forces and for allegedly claiming that meat rationing is “unnecessary.”

Democratic State Chairman David L. Lawrence renewed his charge that Senator Davis “is an isolationist,” an allegation Mr. Davis said is “unfounded.”

Davis’ record cited

Mr. Lawrence said:

He opposed Lend-Lease as a step toward “dictatorship;” he opposed conscription, believing this nation was in no danger; he condemned reciprocal trade treaties; he exhibited a complete lack of foresight in his failure to recognize that the Allies before Pearl Harbor were fighting our battle as well as their own.

A Senator who was willing to see Great Britain go down to defeat in March of 1941 when he voted against the Lend-Lease bill will have a hard time convincing the voters of Pennsylvania that he is not an isolationist.

1508

americavotes1944

Perkins: Selling Dewey to miners next job for John L.

Convention’s policy will need propaganda
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Cincinnati, Ohio –
The next political task of John L. Lewis and others of the United Mine Workers leadership, following adoption of an anti-Roosevelt and pro-Dewey statement in the convention here, will be to propagandize this policy down through the rank and file of the union’s membership.

The importance of this from the political standpoint is that the miners’ union has large memberships in several key states whose electoral votes may decide the presidential contest. For instance, in Pennsylvania, with 36 electoral votes, which most polls have been giving to Mr. Roosevelt on a narrow division, the Mine Workers have 230,000 members.

Could swing election

Mr. Roosevelt won Pennsylvania in 1940 by approximately 280,000, so the Democratic margin could be reversed if all the other sections of the electorate cast their ballots as in 1940, and if the miners follow the advice of their national convention.

The same applies to West Virginia, with only eight electoral votes, but with 115,000 coal miners. It is true to a lesser extent in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois – where the miner vote is less important but where Republican claims are more confident than they are in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The convention proceedings have shown that it will not be easy for John Lewis to get anything like a unanimous anti-Roosevelt vote from coal miners in the November election. The proportion of miners who do not believe in swinging away from the Roosevelt allegiance is believed to be greater than the size of the convention minority when the anti-Roosevelt statement was adopted.

Speakers favor Roosevelt

Before debate was cut off, most of the rank-and-file speakers were pro-Roosevelt. There were only a few anti-Roosevelt speakers, but when the standing vote came the majority on the anti-Roosevelt side was tremendous – some observers said 3–1, and others as high as 20–1.

The Mine Workers’ convention has been adjourned for a weekend recess.

The statement on which the convention approved charged a number of sins to President Roosevelt against the United Mine Workers and labor in general, and concluded:

Governor Dewey, the Republican nominee, during his two-year incumbency as Governor of New York, has worked in complete harmony with the legitimate trade unions of his state. Dewey has not met the expectations of the betrayers of labor, the misleaders of labor, or the Communists who dominate the CIO and the Political Actionites… in the election to come the Mine Workers will know their enemy and can be relied upon to protect their home, their country, and their union.

Lewis: UMW to go all out to help veterans regain old jobs

Union will do it with ‘enthusiasm,’ says miners’ chief, scorning CIO and AFL stand

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1509

Boston transit union votes strike over pay dispute

But company doubts men will walk out because of action by War Labor Board

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1510

Shoemaker: Jap snipers slow Marines but not for very long

Enemy troops move out of Peleliu caves to seek to disrupt U.S. landings
By Lisle Shoemaker, United Press staff writer

In a foxhole on Peleliu Island, with Marine assault forces (UP) – (Sept. 16)
Jap snipers, emerging from their caves, infiltrated the left flank of our newly-won beachhead and kept the Marines here discouragingly pinned down last night. Today the snipers are being mopped up, slowly.

Bill Hipple of Newsweek and I spent the night in this hastily-dug two-man foxhole and throughout the hours of darkness tracers and bullets whined overhead.

The enemy, blasted but unbroken by our tremendous pre-invasion bombardment, came out of hiding places in a small, wooded section.

The Marines assaulted and won this beach by sprinting directly toward a blanket of Jap mortar fire. Now advance units are clamping a three-way pincer on the airfield, sole invasion objective on this island.

75 men wounded

It was mortars yesterday, and last night it was small-arms fire. A Marine doctor told us 75 men out of one company had been wounded. Nobody reached the wounded during the night.

“I would hate to talk about what happened to them if the Japs got to them,” the doctor said.

The front along the left flank of our beachhead was 250 yards long. A colonel, who arrived hastily in a foxhole near ours, said an amphibious vehicle blew up along the flank, giving the Jap snipers an opportunity to sneak toward this spot during the night.

Late yesterday, 12 Jap tanks attempted to fight their way to the beach from the air field. Objective of this armored column was to drive the Marines from their sandy beachhead back into the surf.

Three of the tanks actually broke through our lines, but they were knocked out by bazookas, rifle and grenade fire, and our Sherman tanks.

It is now 9:00 a.m. and sorely-needed artillery is whooshing big shells into the hill on the left, while assault troops inch their way forward, still subjected to sniper fire.

Corpsmen praised

The corpsmen and litter bearers have performed magnificently under fire. One corpsman was warned not to expose himself too much.

“To hell with the snipers.” he said. “I’ve got to take care of six wounded men up there.”

Yesterday some of the amphibious vehicles were left blazing on the beach by the initial salvos of fire from the Jap defenders.

The alligator in which I came ashore crawled and crashed over a 350-yard reef to the shoreline after a thundering bombardment of shells, rockets and bombs halted temporarily to permit the Leathernecks to storm the beach.

Wave after wave of alligators, following the amphibious tanks, crept crablike up the shore, bumping and grinding into a shambles of jungle vegetation only 10 yards from the waterline.

It seemed impossible there could still be Japs close enough to man weapons after that torrent of bombs and shells from our ships and planes had done its work.

But our burning vehicles are proof enough that the Japs were able to crawl out of their caves and put up a fight against the invading Marines.

1511

In Washington –
War surplus sales placed in board of 3

Compromise reached by Congress group

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1512

americavotes1944

Radio probe ‘gag’ assailed by GOP

President’s ban on testimony hit

Washington (UP) –
Republican members of the House committee investigating the Federal Communications Commission today threatened to make a “cause celebre” out of the President’s refusal to permit testimony of military personnel, despite FCC Chairman James Lawrence Fly’s accusation that they had resorted to “cheap political trickery.”

Reps. Louis E. Miller (R-MO) and Richard B. Wigglesworth (R-MA) referred to a 15-month-old White House order restricting any members of the Army or Navy from giving information to the committee as “comparable to the suppression of facts surrounding responsibility for the disaster at Pearl Harbor.”

‘Gag rule’ discussed

Earlier, Mr. Miller said he had discussed the “gag rule” with other House Republicans and would make other measures to obtain military information on FCC “interference” with the war effort which he called “one of the most sordid and offensive records in the annals of government.”

The two Congressmen failed to obtain committee consent to request President Roosevelt to lift the ban now but were assured by Democratic members that it would probably be asked when the committee reconvenes, probably after the election.

Both Congressmen said the “suppression of facts” by the President “leads to the inescapable conclusion that their revelation would result in public condemnation which the administration is unwilling to face.”

Assailed by Fly

The statement was characterized by Mr. Fly, who has long been a target of committee criticism, as following “the same pattern of unfairness and cheap political trickery” he said had been established earlier.

Mr. Fly called Mr. Miller’s refusal to inquire yesterday into an undisclosed matter based on the testimony of a high-ranking Navy official a “runout.” Mr. Miller said he was abandoning the inquiry to protect the officer’s career.

1513

Socialite heiress overcome by gas

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11 girls, boys named in murder, robbery

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1514

UAW faces factional fight in election of officers

Convention rejects ‘unity’ proposal of naming three vice presidents

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Murder charge faced by Army captain

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1515

Fliers strafe rail lines on way to Berlin

56 engines wrecked, 73 tank cars fired

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1516

Poll: Roosevelt increases his vote in California as Dewey nears there

GOP candidate’s visit to San Francisco and Los Angeles may halt trend
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

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1517

americavotes1944

New Deal ‘deserts’ West, Dewey charges in Idaho

Ickes and Perkins first to be dropped if he’s elected, GOP nominee says

Coeur d’Alene, Idaho (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey charged today that the New Deal has “deserted” the western section of the country and promised that if he is elected President the region will be represented in his Cabinet.

The GOP presidential nominee said his trip from Nebraska’s west had disclosed a “universal feeling” that this section of the country has “no one in Washington that even understands their problems.”

He added:

This part of the country holds unlimited promise and opportunity beyond belief.

I am convinced that the West is entitled to a Cabinet post. It is also entitled to have people in Washington who understand the problems of the West.

Would ‘drop’ Ickes

A reporter asked whether there was any feeling toward Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, and he replied:

At one conference I was asked to promise that if I am elected, one of my first acts would be to get rid of Ickes. And I replied, “He will be high on the list.”

A reporter interrupted to ask about Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins.

“That’s why I said Ickes would be high on the list,” Mr. Dewey said. “I don’t know whether he would be first or second.”

People want voice

The Governor said there was a feeling throughout the country to let the people help solve their own problems, whereas the New Deal policy has been to make decisions “in an ivory tower” and then issue orders to the people.

He said:

The people want to share in the solving of their own problems. They want people in Washington who have some knowledge of their problems. I am entirely convinced that they should be given full representation in Washington.

Mr. Dewey was asked whether he welcomed the support of John L. Lewis.

“I think the paper said that he was not endorsing any candidate,” Mr. Dewey replied. “I can’t indulge in mind reading.”

‘Teamwork’ urged

Mr. Dewey said one of the most important things needed at Washington is “teamwork” between the executive branch and the various departments and agencies. He said he had already prepared the tentative draft of a speech on that subject to be delivered later in the campaign.

Mr. Dewey repeated his arguments that President Roosevelt’s administration has a policy of “defeatism” and “is afraid to let men out of the Army when the fighting is done.”

“We can be wholly confident in a new administration which believes in this country,” Mr. Dewey said.

Mr. Dewey was introduced on the rear platform of his special train by Idaho Governor C. A. Bottolfsen.

Dewey ignorant, Pinchot charges

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – (special)
In a statement issued through Democratic state headquarters, former Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot today charged Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican presidential candidate, with “sheer ignorance of national affairs.”

Mr. Pinchot’s charge resulted from Mr. Dewey’s statement implying that Gen. Douglas MacArthur had been neglected by the Roosevelt administration.

Mr. Pinchot said:

Political complaints against the conduct of the war by the candidate as spokesman for a great political party in the eyes of our enemies can mean only one thing. That one thing is disunity among us. And that is Hitler’s line.

I do not, of course, charge Mr. Dewey with any deliberate desire to help Hitler. But I do charge him with unbelievable ignorance and blind carelessness and with playing politics with the war… No man who can trifle with this tremendous situation, as Mr. Dewey has done, would be anything but a liability to America if he should ever come to the White House.

Martin agrees to speak on behalf of Dewey

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Governor Edward Martin’s office said today he has accepted an invitation from the Republican National Committee headquarters to deliver speeches on behalf of the candidacy of New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, GOP nominee for President.

Mr. Martin agreed to fill speaking engagements wherever he was needed, it was learned, but requested that bookings be limited, if possible, to points which would not necessitate the governor’s being away from his Capitol officers more than a day and a night for each campaign address.

1518

Wolfert: Doughboys walking on two feet battle through West Wall

Fellows carrying bayonets use mostly hand grenades to crack West Wall
By Ira Wolfert

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1519

Not beautiful, just dumb –
Strayer: This war’s Mata Haris a sad, stupid lot

Alert FBI ended their spying careers quickly
By Martha Strayer, Scripps-Howard staff writer

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1520

Allies advance within three miles of Po Valley

Greek troops battle for Rimini Airfield

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1521

americavotes1944

Racial prejudice denied by GOP

New York (UP) –
Republicans today denied that they attempted to stir racial prejudice into the campaign by criticizing the association of the Democratic Party with Sidney Hillman, president of the CIO Political Action Committee, and Communist leader Earl Browder.

Republican National Chairman Herbert Brownell Jr. said:

The attempt to make it appear that the issue of Hillman-Browder control of the New Deal is a race hatred issue is an unwarranted interpretation. It is designed to get the New Deal off the spot on which it has been placed squarely by Mr. Sidney Hillman.

Democratic National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan had charged racial prejudice on the grounds that Republican speakers constantly referred to Mr. Hillman as “foreign-born.”

1522

Editorial: What are we celebrating?

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1523

Editorial: Will Russia fight Japan?

Will Russia help us lick Japan when the time comes? The question pops up again because of Marshal Stalin’s failure to attend the Québec Conference. His letter, explaining that he was busy with the offensives against Germany, is interpreted by some as needlessly abrupt and lacking in any cordial greeting to the conference.

If there is a cooling off in the relations of the Big Three, that is big news. It is important not only to Tokyo but also to Berlin, which still hopes somehow to wangle a separate peace and thus divide the grand alliance. But we have no knowledge of a serious rift, or of any reason strong enough to cause Marshal Stalin to boycott the Québec meeting if he were free to attend.

On the contrary, Marshal Stalin should set a higher value on Allied cooperation now than ever before. It is paying off for Russia. He would have to be stupid indeed to upset it.

What he wanted most was a “second front,” by which he meant a Western European invasion. For a long time, he – or at least his propaganda agencies – seemed to doubt the often-repeated promises of the Western Allies, particularly because the invasion was not launched as early as he understood from the Molotov meeting in Washington. But since the Moscow and Tehran conferences last fall, there has been a clear agreement on the time and coordination of the western and eastern offensives. Now that the agreement is being carried out so successfully, and with such mutual profit, there is less excuse for misunderstanding.

Likewise, Marshal Stalin has received in abundant measure the American supplies and equipment needed for his summer and fall campaigns. He has spoken enthusiastically of this.

There is difference of policy between Moscow and Washington regarding Eastern Europe. The United States objects to Russia dictating territorial and governmental changes. We have the same objection to a British sphere of influence in Western Europe. Our government and people believe that such a British-Russian domination of Europe would play into the hands of defeated Germany and Fascism, and that it would produce another war. But there is nothing new about this American policy, and it has restrained neither Marshal Stalin nor Mr. Churchill.

This does not change Russia’s stake in the Far East, which is even greater than our own. Japan is a closer and worse menace to Russia than to the United States. Marshal Stalin knows that our Pacific offensive saved him from attack by Japan and allowed him to concentrate on defeating the Nazi invader. Marshal Stalin also knows that Russia, unless she joins in the defeat of Japan, will have Jess voice in the Far Eastern settlement so vital to her.

On the basis of self-interest, which has determined Marshal Stalin’s foreign policy hitherto, it is highly probable that he will join in the war against Jap aggression when Germany is defeated. For him to do so before that time would prolong the European war and sacrifice the best Siberian bases to Japan. That would help the Axis, not the Allies.

1524

Editorial: Twins in the Pacific

Gen. MacArthur says the twin landings in the Palau and Halmahera island groups are the beginning of the Philippine recovery campaign. There was never much doubt about that. Palau is 550 miles east, and Morotai at the Halmahera tip is only 250 miles from the southern Philippines.

But the value of these two new bases, when secure, will not be limited to the Philippine campaign, important as that is. They are keys to a larger Far Pacific strategy, the chief aim of which is to knock out Japan rather than take any particular territory as such.

Control of the Halmahera area can isolate enemy armies in the East Indies estimated at about 200,000 men. That will make the mopping-up operations much easier.

Palau is even more important. The Japs have used it as the administrative and strategic center of all the mandated islands. It – rather than the great Truk stronghold, as first supposed – has been the main outer enemy naval base, his “Pearl Harbor.” Unlike Truk, it cannot be bypassed safely. It must be taken and converted to American use, especially for naval purposes.

This was so obvious to the enemy that no real surprise attack on Palau was possible. Gen. MacArthur in the Halmahera drive could fool the enemy by landing on the relatively undefended Morotai Island, rather than on the larger islands of the group where the Japs expected him. As a result, his victory was swift and cheap. But there was no such soft spot in the Palau group, where the fighting is described as bitter.

The two-pronged thrust in the Southwest Pacific, timed almost to the minute, is new evidence of the high degree of cooperation achieved by Gen. MacArthur and Adm. Nimitz in an area where their commands overlap and in which each is using all types of fighting services.

Though Mindanao in the Philippines is indicated as the next step, the enemy cannot be certain, Maybe at the same time, or sooner, we shall strike north at the Bonin Islands off Japan – or even at Formosa. The Japs would like to know.

1525

americavotes1944

Editorial: Experience

A reader suggests that this is an appropriate time to reprint an editorial of four years ago, since it dealt with a theme that is likewise dominant in this political campaign. The editorial was published in The Pittsburgh Press Oct. 3, 1940 – more than a year before our country entered the war and the big spending began – under the title “Experience.” Here it is:

Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only living man who has had nearly eight years of experience as President of the United States, Therefore, we hear it argued, it is essential that he should have what no other President ever had – a third term.

This is, of course, an argument that will be even more forceful if Mr. Roosevelt, having had nearly 12 years of experience, decides to be drafted for a fourth term. But there’s no denying that, even now, Mr. Roosevelt has had vast experience, including:

  • The experience of spending more money than any other President.

  • The experience of incurring the biggest public debt in this country’s history.

  • The experience of keeping spending always ahead of income, although federal revenue has been almost trebled.

  • The experience of building the federal payroll to record size.

  • The experience of expanding bureaucracy to unprecedented proportions.

  • The experience of declaring more emergencies and exercising more power than any other peacetime President.

  • The experience of seeing new enterprise remain stagnant longer than ever before.

  • And the experience of seeing more Americans unemployed for more years than ever before.

1526

americavotes1944

Taylor: FDR and Philadelphia

By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania –
Republican state campaign planners view Philadelphia as the No. 1 battleground of the Dewey-Roosevelt campaign and a good part of their effort will be devoted to cutting down the Roosevelt majority of the last two campaigns.

Unlike Allegheny County, which gives Democrats local offices and votes Democratic in state elections, Philadelphia is Republican territory. The New Deal sweep never engulfed its city administration or its principal county offices. Philadelphia votes Republican, although by small margins, in state elections.

Of five million potential voters in Pennsylvania, about one million are in Philadelphia and any success in stemming the Roosevelt vote here will enhance the chances of the small but numerous up-state counties of producing enough Republican votes to put the slate in the Dewey column.

The city has a checkered political record. It missed the New Deal bandwagon when it started out in 1932 by giving Herbert Hoover 70,816 majority out of nearly 600,000 votes, while Allegheny County was giving Mr. Roosevelt a majority of 37,500.

City stays Republican otherwise

Philadelphia made up for it later, however, by giving Mr. Roosevelt a majority of 209,876 in 1936, when he carried the state by 663,483, and producing 177,271 votes of the 1940 Roosevelt majority in the state of 281,187.

Meanwhile, the city remained safely Republican for local offices and gave small majorities to Republican candidates for Governor in 1934 and 1938, Two years ago, it split its vote for Governor: 317,962 for Governor Martin and 317,805 for F. Clair Ross – a majority of 157 for Mr. Martin.

Philadelphia’s powerful Republican organization – fed on City Hall patronage, political favors and ample campaign funds – is still intact and unregenerate, despite its inability to stem the New Deal tide in presidential years. Even in depression years, the city administration never sponsored any WPA projects, and remained bitterly anti-New Deal.

The organization’s job will be to counteract, if possible, the demonstrated appeal of the President for the city’s huge total of industrial workers, who are willing enough to go along with the organization in off years, but swing to FDR when his name appears on the ballot.

Pew still putting up money

Against this effort will be a determined campaign by the CIO Political Action Committee to marshal its members and their one-dollar contributions to put the state’s largest city, and fattest vote source, once again in the bag for the President.

The PAC campaign is a new wrinkle for the old organization to cope with, but Republicans are confident of putting as many workers into the battle for votes as the PAC and the Democratic organization combined – and of having as much cash as both of them.

The GOP’s open-handed Joseph N. Pew Jr., oil company executive who lives in suburban Montgomery County, has contributed heavily to past campaigns and, in the last financial reports, the Republican City Committee was heavily in debt to him.

Philadelphia’s vote will be crucial in this campaign, and may decide whether pivotal Pennsylvania swings for Mr. Dewey or Mr. Roosevelt. Political campaigns here, by custom, are organization fights, and this year’s fight promises to be a stiff one.