America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

1632

From private to general – that’s Courtney Hodges

Mystery man of Western Front flunked out of West Point, then rose through ranks
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer

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Air invasion greater than D-Day attack

Paratroop landing in Reich possible

1st Allied Army HQ (UP) –
Allied spokesmen today hailed the great airborne landing behind the German lines in Holland as a sweeping success that exposes the Nazi homeland itself to invasion from the sky.

“The Allies can drop behind the Siegfried Line, across the Rhine, or anywhere else they want,” senior staff officers of Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton’s 1st Airborne Army declared.

Two invasion waves have dropped through the rood of Holland twice in the past 48 hours at a cost in men and equipment far lower than even the most optimistic generals anticipated. Already the scope of the operation has dwarfed that of the landing in Normandy on D-Day, and Gen. Brereton’s sky army has not finished.

Other landings possible

The timing and direction of the air army’s next blow were closely-guarded secrets, but official spokesmen made it clear that the size of the two-day landings in Holland has not ruled out the possibility of further operations.

Thousands of planes and gliders swarmed across Holland yesterday to supply and reinforce the first invasion wave of paratroops and airborne infantrymen who landed Sunday afternoon. Field dispatches indicated the second contingent was fully as large as the first.

The element of tactical surprise was gone and the Germans threw up flak and fighter planes in an effort to turn back the air fleets but they got through with surprisingly small losses.

Covered by 600 fighters

More than 600 U.S. 8th Air Force fighters covered the armada.

Twenty-three fighters were lost, but they knocked out 74 gun posts and damaged almost a score of others, and destroyed 36 planes.

The big glider trains that ferried in the troops and supplies formed up over England in two great columns that stretched out over 285 miles. One struck across the continent behind the British lines, crossing the Gheel bridgehead over the Escaut Canal and then heading for the jump area, while the second approached directly from the Channel, flying for 85 miles across a thick belt of German flak.

A force of 250 Liberator bombers, transformed into cargo planes for the occasion, joined the fleet to ferry supplies to the first wave.

11 big bombers lost

The big bombers flew through the flak with their bellies skimming the treetops, and 11 of them were knocked down by enemy fire.

Maj. William Cameron of Hanford, California, copilot of one Liberator, said he and his crew saw gliders and jeeps on the ground with Allied troops all around them.

Other crewmen said they passed over flooded areas where practically no movement could be observed except a few cattle on the high roads, and, in a churchyard, three priests kneeling in prayer.

One Dutch fireman jubilantly tossed his helmet into the air when the Allied planes flew over and in some towns the people waved red, white and blue flags.

1633

Susan Hayward leaves her husband of month

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1634

americavotes1944

Browder: Lots of ‘Commies’

Washington (UP) –
Earl Browder, president of the Communist Political Association, asserted today that his organization has members not only in the AFL and CIO but also “in the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, Farmer-Labor Party, Chambers of Commerce, Elks, Kiwanis and ministerial associations.”

“And,” he told the House committee investigating campaign expenditures, “someday we hope to have members in Congress.”

Rep. Clarence Brown (R-OH) asked Browder if he “could” give the names of Communists active in the CIO Political Action Committee. Browder’s reply was: “I would not.”

Asked whether Joseph Curran, president of the National Maritime Union (CIO) were a Communist, Browder said:

Why don’t you ask him? Every citizen of the United States has a right to stand on his own feet in political life. No man should speak for another man’s politics.

1635

americavotes1944

Editorial: Dewey tells labor’s side

It has been assumed that the rank and file of labor is Mr. Roosevelt’s great and untappable reservoir of political strength – that however large the defections in other circles, nearly all members of organized labor could be counted on to mark the ballot in the same place a fourth time.

We’re not at all sure that will happen on Nov. 7.

Governor Dewey at Seattle last night gave some stout arguments why it should not happen.

Working men and women, looking to the post-war future, have a right to expect something better than what they’ve had. Something better than paternalistic benefactions passed down to them to buy their political loyalty. Something better than administration-sponsored strife between rival union leaders, and administration-sponsored class warfare between workers and employers. Something better than the chaos, delays and confusion of having their wages, working conditions and collective-bargaining processes tampered with and pulled and hauled about by 25 competing government agencies, bureaus, boards and commissions.

They are entitled to the full fruits of their labor, a full sharing of higher living standards which their productivity will make possible. They are entitled to gain it by free bargaining, under a government by law, administered speedily and evenhandedly, where rights are treated as legal rights and not as political favors.

Governor Dewey’s speech on labor was a good speech because it approached problems from the point of view of those who work for a living, especially union members. It spelled out why unions should not be blamed for all that has happened. It told their side of the story of troubled industrial relations, a side which needed to be told – of how just settlements of disputes have been delayed and prevented by bungling bureaucrats administering conflicting government policies.

Mr. Dewey asked:

Who gains by this planned confusion? The workers don’t gain. The public is always in the middle. The war effort has been constantly hampered. Who does gain? There can be no doubt of the answer. This policy of delay, delay and more delay, serves only the New Deal and its political ends. It puts the leaders of labor on the spot. It makes them come hat in hand to the White House. It makes political loyalty the test of a man getting his rights. Personal government instead of government by law, politics instead of justice prevails in the labor field in this country and I am against that kind of administration and always will be.

And Mr. Dewey told what he will do about it, if elected. Appoint an active and able Secretary of Labor. Build a real Department of Labor, with all the functions that belong in that department. Abolish the multitude of wasteful and competing bureaus now operating outside that department.

We shall see that every working man and woman stands equally in that department created to serve him, not to rule him. And there will be no backdoor entrance to special privilege by one group over any other group of Americans.

Our guess is that Mr. Dewey won some votes by that speech.

1636

Editorial: Another scalp

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1637

Editorial: Eisenhower’s strategy

There is no longer any doubt that Allied strategy aims to force a decision in Germany before snow flies. For Gen. Eisenhower now has thrown in his major reserves, or at least a considerable part of them. He had saved his airborne army and the new 9th Army for this big push.

Landing of the airborne army behind the enemy lines in Holland is accepted by most of the armchair experts as proof that the main drive is to be in the north. It is the shortest route to Berlin, It is also the easiest terrain, once our forces get out of the partially-flooded Lowlands.

There are other advantages in a northern campaign. We still need ports, especially close to England. Success in the present Holland operation will give us the great ports of that country and also facilitate the use of Antwerp. Also, it will eliminate the remaining robot platforms, which still are hurling death into London and Southern England. Moreover, a drive across Northwest Germany, with the capture of Bremen and Hamburg, would make it difficult for Hitler to pull back reserves from Norway – his best, and probably, only, source of major reinforcements.

Though this is all very logical, it is not necessarily Gen. Eisenhower’s strategy. He has a way of fooling the enemy. In the invasion they expected him to strike at one or more ports – Calais, Le Havre, Cherbourg; instead, he landed on the open beaches. In the Battle of Normandy, they expected him to batter through left or center; instead, he sent Gen. Patton wide around right end. Again, he outguessed them by repeating the Patton play, running right around Paris.

So, it is possible that this surprise left end run through Holland is to secure that country and its ports and to make a feint into Germany, rather than attempt the main Berlin drive from that direction. That is something neither Hitler nor our homegrown kibitzers can be sure of until the play is completed.

But the significant aspect of the situation is not where Gen. Eisenhower will deliver his biggest blow. It is his ability to strike anywhere from the North Sea to Switzerland. With Gen. Montgomery’s British 2nd Army and the airborne army meeting, Gen. Eisenhower has strong forces along or well inside the entire German frontier. Whether the main breakthrough will come in the north, or around Cologne, or up the Mosel corridor to Koblenz, or in the south at the Belfort Gap, Gen. Eisenhower has succeeded in placing his forces so he can take advantage of any soft spot wherever it shows under pressure.

That is why there is a good chance of winning the Battle of Western Germany before winter. It does not depend on any one operation or any one sector. Gen. Eisenhower is covering the entire Western Front but the enemy, presumably, is not strong enough to do so – not with Gens. Alexander and Clark pressing on the Italian front, and with the Russians closing in from the southeast and the east.

1638

Edson: Political honesty and plain honesty are different

By Peter Edson

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1639

Ferguson: Equal rights

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

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1640

americavotes1944

Background of news –
Dewey and the labor vote

By Jay G. Hayden

Seattle, Washington –
Sidney Hillman’s CIO Political Action Committee is both the main organizational bulwark and the greatest single threat to President Roosevelt’s fourth-term candidacy.

Due partly to its own aggressiveness, but more to division of the Democratic Party, the PAC has assumed pro-Roosevelt leadership in nearly all the dozen states that Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s campaign train has traversed in the last 10 days.

With only two or three exceptions, the basic pattern in these states, stretching from New York and Pennsylvania to Montana and Washington, is the same.

Ever since 1938, Republicans have been winning state and local elections, until today they all but monopolize the non-federal public payrolls. Old-line Democrats not only have lost incentive (private jobs pay better, anyhow, these days) but a great many of them blame Mr. Roosevelt for their fall from political power. In most of the states visited, the PAC took over the New Deal driver’s seat because no one else seemed to want it.

There are notable exceptions to the latter rule, as in Montana, where the bitterest sort of struggle for control of the Democratic Party is being waged. The principal contestants in Montana are now the veteran Senator Burton K. Wheeler, notoriously anti-Roosevelt, and former Congressman Jerry J. O’Connell, now state director of the PAC.

CIO leader currently on top

Mr. O’Connell presently is on too, to the extent that the Democratic nominee for governor, Leif Erickson, is his man.

Mr. Wheeler, in 1940, engineered the defeat of the O’Connellite Democratic Governor Ayres by the simple process of backing his Republican opponent, Sam C. Ford.

The point of the matter is that Mr. Wheeler must face the voters himself in 1946 and hence his political life is more than ever at stake. He certainly is supporting Governor Ford again this year and the hope of Mr. Dewey’s managers in Montana rests largely on the calculation that Mr. Wheeler especially cannot afford to permit President Roosevelt to carry his state, if it is within his power to prevent it.

Similarly in Idaho, the CIO sored a signal victory when the conservative Democratic Senator, D. Worth Clark, was defeated for renomination by the cowboy crooner, Glenn Taylor. All straw votes taken in Idaho have placed it in the Republican column this year, both for President and Senator, a condition attributed in large part to dissatisfaction of Senator Clark and other old-school Democrats because of the rising power of the CIO in their party.

Union rivalry a factor

In Washington, likewise the intra-Democratic ferment is working, but in somewhat different fashion. The friction here is not so much between the Hillmanites and the old-school Democrats as it is among rival factions of organized labor.

Dave Beck, West Coast head of the AFL Teamsters, seemed well on his way toward running everything in this state until one Arthur B. Langlie arose to put him in his place, first as Mayor of Seattle and then as Governor.

The rising power of the CIO within the Democratic Party now has faced Mr. Beck with a new threat.

This intraunion strife is illustrated in the Seattle Congressional district, where Rep. Warren G. Magnuson stepped out to run for Senator. The Democratic nominee for Mr. Magnuson’s seat is Hugh De Lacy, a college professor, who was backed by the CIO. Against him, the Republicans have nominated Robert Harlan, who was state president of John L. Lewis’ United Mine Workers until he was named state director of labor.

The effectiveness of the attempt Mr. Dewey is preparing to make to coin this labor division into votes for himself is likely to prove the most interesting phase of his drive all the way from Seattle to Los Angeles this week.

1641

British enter tiny republic near Adriatic

Battle Germans who invaded San Marino

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1642

Inquiry slated in Rome lynching of Fascist

By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer

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1643

Cables from prisoners

New York –
Red Cross officials have been notified that American prisoners of war and civilian internees in the Far East will be permitted by the Jap government to send 10-word cable messages collect to their families in the United States.

1644

In Washington –
Senate yields to House on reconversion

Drops demand for more benefits

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americavotes1944

No Pearl Harbor action expected

Washington (UP) –
Rep. Forest A. Harness (R-IN) said today he would press for prompt consideration of his resolution for a special investigation of the Pearl Harbor disaster, but all indications pointed toward a delay until at least after the November elections.

Mr. Harness said a principal obstacle was that of getting the resolution cleared by the House Rules Committee, since Committee Chairman Adolph Smith (D-IL) is not in the Capital.

Another obstacle, however, is the fact that leaders do not want to consider new legislation before an election recess.

This virtually destroys Mr. Harness’ purpose of having the investigation before the election. He told the House that if President Roosevelt was “not responsible for the Pearl Harbor disaster, he could be cleared promptly of such grave and serious charges.”

He said:

On the other hand, if, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, he has been culpable in directing our military activities in Hawaii, the American people should have the facts before they are called upon to pass judgment on his fitness for reelection to a fourth term as President.

The Harness Resolution followed several days of Republican speechmaking blaming Mr. Roosevelt for American unpreparedness at Pearl Harbor when the Japs made their surprise attack.

1645

New superfuel plant placed in production

Unit to cost $100,000 a year to operate

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Dinah Shore returns

New York –
Singer Dinah Shore arrived at LaGuardia Field today aboard an Air Transport Command plane after a six-week tour of Britain and France. Other members of the USO camp shows unit returning with Miss Shore were comedian Sammy Walsh, pianist Picket Freeman and magician Harry Mendoza.

1646

Post-war planners urge overhauling of U.S. tax system

Elimination of levy on corporation income and curb on excise charges suggested
By Beardsley Ruml, written for United Press

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1647

americavotes1944

Stokes: Dewey on labor

By Thomas L. Stokes

With Dewey party, Seattle, Washington –
Governor Dewey made a bold bid in his Seattle speech for labor votes, a major factor in the election, on the theory that enough of labor, particularly of the conservative type undoubtedly enlarged by war prosperity, is ready to break away from the New Deal if approached with a sound progressive program.

That is what he offered. He talked in New Deal accents. Right-wingers could get no comfort from his speech, nor could extreme left-wingers.

He proposed to take nothing from labor that it now has in guarantees written in law by the New Deal. He promised better and more direct administration of these laws. He offered labor higher wages in an expanding economy, which has become his major theme.

Two aspects of New Deal labor administration and policy are vulnerable for indictment. The Republican presidential candidate seized them and made a bill of particulars to which realistic New Dealers themselves must subscribe privately.

One is the multiplicity of agencies through which labor cases have to go, often, as Governor Dewey so strikingly illustrated, creating confusion doubly confounded, and causing delay from which labor groups suffer.

Favoritism for CIO

The other is the obviously political complexion of some New Deal labor decisions, with favoritism for the CIO, illustrated by the CIO plump for President Roosevelt, taken so far in advance that that section of labor lost some of its political effectiveness.

This was shown by two defeats – the dumping of Vice President Wallace at Chicago, and the passage of a reconversion bill in Congress which it finds most unsatisfactory.

Very cleverly the Republican candidate exploited the controversy and delay in the steel case before the War Labor Board, centering about the attempt to break down the “Little Steel” formula.

“The strategy of delay,” he said, “sets the stage for a great gesture – a big favor to labor before Election Day,” but he added pointedly this is something to which “labor is justly entitled” without representing it as “a special gift from on high from the New Deal.”

When he went on record against the Smith-Connally Act, which labor so detests, he neglected to mention that President Roosevelt had vetoed it, only to have Congress pass it over his veto.

The difficulty that Governor Dewey faces in trying to win labor over to the Republican side was revealed in his speech. All he could find of labor reforms in the last 30 years which he could credit to Republicans was President Taft’s creation of a Cabinet post for labor and the Railway Mediation Act of 1926.

Filibuster recalled

And the latter was sponsored first by Alben Barkley, present Senate Democratic leader, then a House member. The Republican leadership of the House fought it.

The writer recalls sitting in the House Press Gallery through one night when a Republican filibuster, engineered by then Speaker Longworth, scuttled that measure for the time being.

Republican difficulties have been further emphasized on this transcontinental tour. To his labor conferences held at every stop, the Republican candidate has been able to attract only small-fry figures. Everywhere, too, his aides have received reports of effective registration by CIO’s PAC in the cities.

It was significant that Governor Dewey did not even mention the PAC. Lesser Republican lights will do that job.

The Republican Party was once the party of labor. The exodus to the Democratic Party began in 1916.

After that, the Democrats slowly improved their standing with labor and it was ready for its big parade to the Democrats when President Roosevelt capitalized the lack of attention to labor by Republicans during the ‘20s and created the New Deal party.

Governor Dewey thus has a handicap in party heritage. But he could not have gone much further in trying to overcome it.

1648

Maj. de Seversky: Air vs. sea

By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky

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1649

What will Johnny be like when he comes home?
Wecter: ‘Love’ is returning soldier’s prime need

Understanding and encouragement needed to help him readjust his life
By Dixon Wecter

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1650

‘Seeing Paris burn really got me,’ says Ernie Pyle on return to U.S.

Perfect physically, ‘inside I feel awful’

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1651

americavotes1944

Allen: Cousin unwanted at White House – if it’s Dewey

By Gracie Allen

Hollywood, California –
Well now I’ve heard everything: Some expert has figured out that President Roosevelt and Governor Dewey are related. No fooling.

He has traced their families back to common ancestors – Richard Lyman of Northampton, Massachusetts, and his wife, Hepzibah Ford Lyman, who came to this country in 1630. This makes Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Dewey seventh cousins once removed.

My goodness, Mr. Roosevelt doesn’t want Mr. Dewey to come and live in the White House as it is, without making him a relative to boot.

I can just imagine a scene that might take place at the White House.

The phone rings and Eleanor answers it. Then she says: “Oh, Franklin, it’s that Republican cousin of yours from New York. He wants to come and stay four years.” …you take it from there.

Well, anyway, for once it won’t be the wife’s relatives who cause all the trouble.