‚Der Deutsche kämpft als überzeugter Nationalsozialist‘
…
Hinter den Kulissen einer ‚Freundschaft‘ –
Churchill kontra US-Imperialismus
Stockholm, 19. September –
Das Bemühen Churchills, England am pazifischen Krieg mehr zu beteiligen, wird in Washington mit geteilten Gefühlen aufgenommen, wie aus einer Meldung von Nya Dagligt Allehanda zu schließen ist. Danach hatte London Mühe, die USA zu überreden, daß England am Krieg gegen Japan beteiligt sein müsse, aber jetzt verlaute, daß Großbritanniens Rolle am Krieg im Fernen Osten bedeutend sein werde.
Afton Tidningen berichtet, die Briten hätten wenigstens für die Flotte einen größeren Anteil im Stillen Ozean gefordert. Das schwedische Blatt zitiert den US-Journalisten Ernst Lindley, der glaube, es sei besser, wenn die Japaner hauptsächlich von den USA vernichtet würden. Lindley weise darauf hin, daß auch Frankreich, im Hinblick auf Indochina, am Kriege gegen Japan teilnehmen wolle, ebenso Australien, Neuseeland, Kanada und nicht zuletzt die Holländer.
Dieses Kulissenspiel um das stärkere Verhältnis England und der USA ist ein Beispiel für die englisch-amerikanische Rivalität. Indem Churchill dem englischen Volk neue Blutopfer im Femen Osten zumutet, hofft er durch stärkere Beteiligung am Kampf gegen Japan die Verluste an britischen Stützpunkten und an britischem Prestige wettmachen zu können. Daran hat aber der US-Imperialismus kein Interesse. Den USA ist es nur darum zu tun, das Empire von den amerikanischen Interessensphären fernzuhalten. Es bedient sich daher im Kriege mit Japan Lieber der zentrifugalen Kräfte des Empire; Kanada, Neuseeland usw., um auf diese Weise die Position Englands weiter zu schwächen.
Führer HQ (September 20, 1944)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
In Mittelholland wurde der aus der Luft gelandete Feind im Raum Arnheim durch konzentrische Angriffe weiter eingeengt. Gut unterstützt durch eigene Jagdverbände fügten unsere Truppen dem Gegner schwere Verluste an Menschen und Material zu. Bisher wurden über 1700 Gefangene eingebracht. Aus dem Raum Eindhoven stieß der Feind mit Panzern nach Nordosten vor. Eigene Truppen traten auch hier zum Gegenangriff an.
Nordwestlich Aachen konnte der Gegner unter starkem Panzereinsatz seinen Einbruch erweitern. Südwestlich der Stadt wurden alle feindlichen Angriffe zum Teil unter hohen Verlusten für den Gegner abgewiesen. Der eigene Gegenangriff gewinnt langsam Boden.
Im Raum Nancy–Lunéville halten die schweren und unübersichtlichen Kämpfe an. Nancy ging verloren. In Lunéville wird erbittert gekämpft. An den übrigen Frontabschnitten nur örtliche Kampfhandlungen.
Die fortgesetzten Angriffe des Feindes auf die Festung Calais, St. Nazaire und Boulogne wurden abgewiesen. Nach der Beendigung des Kampfes im völlig zerstörten Stadt- und Hafenbereich der Festung Brest hielten gestern noch einzelne Kampfgruppen in erbittertem Kampf die letzten Stützpunkte auf der Halbinsel Le Crozon.
Das „V1“-Störfeuer auf London dauert an.
In Italien erreichten im Raum an der Adria die schweren Abwehrschlachten ihren Höhepunkt. Es gelang hier auch gestern den heldenhaft kämpfenden eigenen Truppen, zum Teil in neuen Stellungen, den feindlichen Durchbruch zu verhindern. Nördlich und nordöstlich Florenz wurden feindliche Angriffe abgewiesen, örtliche Einbrüche im Gegenstoß bereinigt.
In Südsiebenbürgen und im Szekler Zipfel scheiterten Angriffe der Bolschewisten. Ebenso wiesen unsere Truppen im Abschnitt Sanok–Krosno heftige Angriffe der Sowjets zurück, riegelten einzelne Einbrüche ab und vernichteten 27 Panzer.
Bei Warschau versuchte der Feind im Schutz künstlichen Nebels die Weichsel an mehreren Stellen zu überschreiten. Die Übersetzversuche wurden vereitelt, einzelne auf das Westufer vorgedrungene Kampfgruppen abgeschnitten. Auch nordöstlich der Stadt blieben wiederholte Angriffe der Bolschewisten in unserem Feuer liegen.
Angriffe südwestlich Mitau brachten nach Abwehr feindlicher Gegenangriffe Stellungsverbesserungen.
In Lettland und Estland wurden die von zahlreichen Panzern und Schlachtfliegern unterstützten Angriffe der Bolschewisten abgewiesen oder aufgefangen und zahlreiche Panzer vernichtet.
In dreitägigen Waldkämpfen zerschlugen unsere Grenadiere im Kandalakscha-Abschnitt in schwungvollen Gegenangriffen zwei feindliche Brückenköpfe.
In den gestrigen Mittagsstunden führten nordamerikanische Bomber Angriffe gegen mehrere Orte in Nord- und Nordwestdeutschland. Im Stadtgebiet von Koblenz entstanden Gebäudeschäden und Personenverluste.
In der vergangenen Nacht richteten sich feindliche Terrorangriffe gegen München-Gladbach und Budapest. Luftverteidigungskräfte schossen 37 feindliche Flugzeuge ab.
Im Kanal und im Indischen Ozean versenkten Unterseeboote vier Schiffe mit 26.000 BRT und zwei Fregatten. Drei weitere Schiffe wurden durch Torpedotreffer schwer beschädigt.
In den Ostkarpaten zeichneten sich das schwäbisch-bayerische 1. Bataillon des Gebirgsjägerregiments 13 unter Führung von Hauptmann Ploder und das schwäbisch-bayerische Feldersatzbataillon 94 unter Führung von Hauptmann Kresse durch hervorragende Tapferkeit aus.
In den schweren Abwehrkämpfen in Lettland haben sich die schwäbische 205. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Generalleutnant von Mellenthin, die bayerisch-pfälzische 132. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Generalleutnant Wagner, und die sächsische 24. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Oberst Schultz durch Angriffsschwung und Standfestigkeit hervorragend bewährt.
Leutnant Sauer in einer Sturmgeschützbrigade schoss mit seinem Sturmgeschütz in zwei Tagen 14 Panzer ab.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (September 20, 1944)
Communiqué No. 165
The advance of the Allied forces in HOLLAND has continued rapidly. Ground troops made contact yesterday with more airborne formations. EINDHOVEN is in our hands and our armored units have advanced nearly 40 miles to the area of NIJMEGEN. Strong enemy counterattacks were beaten off near BEST and in our bridgehead north of GHEEL.
Fighters and fighter-bombers again supported and covered airborne operations and attacked road and rail transport over a wide area of HOLLAND. According to reports so far received, 26 enemy aircraft were shot down for the loss of nine of our fighters.
To the west, the enemy is still resisting stubbornly south of the SCHELDT, but our troops made progress in the area of the AXEL-HULST CANAL. On the coast we have captured the CITADEL and MONT LAMBERT in BOULOGNE.
In southern HOLLAND, our troops have liberated SITTARD and AMSTENRADE, northeast of MAASTRICHT, meeting moderate opposition.
East of AACHEN, fighting is in progress in the factory area of STOLBERG, and enemy pressure is being met near BÜSBACH. Operating in advance of our ground forces, medium and light bombers hit railway yards at ESCHWEILER, DÜREN and MERZENICH in the AACHEN–COLOGNE Line.
Mopping-up of enemy pillboxes and pockets of resistance continues east of ROETGEN and in the HÖFEN and ALZEN areas, south of MONSCHAU. Enemy counterattacks in this area were unsuccessful.
Heavy and determined resistance has been encountered east of the GERMAN-LUXEMBOURG border. East of BLEIALF, an enemy pocket was wiped out.
In the MOSELLE Valley, we have made gains south of METZ against stubborn resistance. Mopping-up is in progress six miles northeast of PONT-À-MOUSSON. Further south, our forces have liberated GERBÉVILLER, 14 miles northeast of CHARMES.
In BRITTANY, all organized resistance has ceased in BREST and RECOUVRANCE, and our troops have cleared the enemy from the CROZON Peninsula.
U.S. Navy Department (September 20, 1944)
Press Release
For Immediate Release
September 20, 1944
USS YMS‑409 presumed lost in hurricane
The minesweeper USS YMS‑409, which was at sea during the hurricane last week, has not been heard from and is presumed to be lost. The area through which this vessel was passing has been under constant search since the day of the storm, and the search is still continuing. The next of kin of those aboard are being notified.
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 124
During the afternoon of September 19 (West Longitude Date), organized enemy resistance ceased on Angaur Island. The 81st Infantry Division is proceeding with mopping‑up operations.
Shore installations and bivouac areas at Chichijima in the Bonin Islands were bombed by 7th Army Air Force Liberators on September 18. A direct hit and two near misses were obtained in attacking a medium cargo vessel at anchor in Futami Harbor, and numerous barges were bombed. The cargo ship was left burning and eight to 10 barges were destroyed. Anti-aircraft fire was meager.
Pagan Island in the Marianas was bombed and strafed by Thunderbolts of the 7th Army Air Force on September 18. Anti-aircraft emplacements and storage facilities were the principal targets, and several fires were started.
Marcus Island was attacked by 7th Army Air Force Liberators on the same day, and 7th Army Air Force Mitchells bombed Ponape Island, hitting gun positions and the airstrip in the latter attack.
Corsair fighters and Dauntless dive bombers of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing bombed Wotje Atoll in the Marshalls on September 18, dropping 27 tons on barracks areas.
All of our aircraft returned from the foregoing missions.
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 125
During September 19 (West Longitude Date), the 1st Marine Division continued to apply heavy pressure on the left flank of our front on Peleliu Island, seeking to dislodge the enemy from strong defensive positions in the rough terrain which parallels the western shore. The enemy resistance is bitter, but slow progress is being made, and in one sector 11 field guns, 70 machine guns, and 23 mortars have been captured by our forces. Small local advances were made on the left during September 19, but there was no appreciable change in our line. On the right flank, along the eastern shore, additional gains were scored and virtually all enemy resistance has been mopped up. The small unnamed island below Ngabad Island was occupied by our forces during the day.
Mopping up on Angaur Island by troops of the 81st Infantry Division continues. Our forces have killed an estimated 7,045 enemy troops on Peleliu and 600 on Angaur. Enemy aircraft dropped two bombs near positions occupied by our forces during the night of September 18‑19, but caused no damage.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 20, 1944)
Hitler in command at front; British drive 40 miles to Rhine
Allied invasion thrust into Germany from Netherlands indicated
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Bulletin
SHAEF, London, England –
U.S. and German tanks were locked in battle on 1st Army and 3rd Army fronts in France and Germany today. At least 71 German tanks were knocked out in two sectors alone, first reports said.A dispatch from the 3rd Army said tanks were slugging it out 16 miles northeast of Nancy and that Gen. Patton’s armor knocked out 40 German Tiger tanks near Athienville yesterday. Artillery bagged three more. A First Army dispatch said 28 of 41 attacking German tanks were knocked southwest of Bitburg, German town 16 miles north of Trier.
Violent fighting of the “Cassino” type was raging in Stolberg, industrial city five miles east of Aachen, with the Americans advancing from house-to-house. Some counterattacking Nazis were using flamethrowers.
Turning the Siegfried Line, British 2nd Army troops and Allied air-borne forces drove into Nijmegen, on the south bank of the Rhine three miles from the German border, while airborne troops to the north were at Arnhem. The U.S. 1st Army smashed beyond Aachen to the Duren area and strengthened its positions across the German border north and south of Aachen. The U.S. 3rd Army closed on Metz and advanced from the Nancy area to within 45 miles of Strasbourg. French troops of the Allied 6th Army Group closed on Belfort and captured Fougerolles, 25 miles to the north.
SHAEF, London, England –
Lt. Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey’s patrols. were believed to have scored the first British thrust into Germany east of the embattled Dutch stronghold of Nijmegen today, coincident with disclosure that Adolf Hitler had taken direct command of the defense of the Reich.
Gen. Dempsey’s British 2nd Army troops fought a violent battle through the streets of Nijmegen after a 40-mile dash across the Netherlands to that ancient Dutch city perched on the high south bank of the Rhine River. Meanwhile, his advanced elements and troops of the 1st Allied Airborne Army were swinging around the northern end of the Siegfried Line.
Airborne headquarters in Britain reported authorities well satisfied with the progress of the aerial invasion of Holland which had already opened the way for a drive into northwestern Germany and on to Berlin.
Lt. Gen. Frederick A. M. Browning’s sky troopers were supplied again, today for the fourth straight day by aerial trains which sped across the North Sea despite rain and mist.
While the street battle went on in Nijmegen, British forces were believed to have struck the three miles eastward to the German frontier. Any such limited operation was regarded at headquarters, however, as of little tactical significance for the moment.
Germans hurl suicidal attacks
Hitler’s generalship was already in evidence all along the blazing battlefront from northern Holland to the edge of the Saar Valley. Front dispatches said crack German troops and panzer units were being hurled into reckless counterattacks that slowed the Allied advance in some sectors at a frightful cost in Nazi lives. In others, they resulted only in a slaughter of Germans without stemming the Berlin-bound Allies.
The Führer’s hand was also seen in the appearance of Nazi robot bombs on the fighting front for the first time. Field dispatches said two flying bombs crashed into U.S. positions along the Meuse River, exploding with terrific force but apparently causing few casualties among the well-dispersed troops.
First official word of the Führer’s new role, similar to that which he assumed with disastrous results on the Russian front, came from Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery at his forward command in Belgium.
Marshal Montgomery told officers and men of a Scottish division:
** The Allies have a lot to be thankful for in that Hitler has taken charge of operations. It means the enemy is commanded by a lunatic. In that respect, I’m glad the German generals failed in their bomb attempt against the Führer.**
Hitler’s decision to lead the defense of the Reich, he added, strengthened his (Marshal Montgomery’s) belief that the war in Europe would end before the close of 1944.
One major triumph was confirmed by Allied headquarters today – the capture of the great Atlantic port of Brest and the elimination of the Germans from the neighboring Crozon Peninsula, ending a month-old siege that virtually wrecked the harbor.
Troops hold path across Rhine
A second and greater victory was in the making in northern Holland where the armored might of the British 2nd Army reached the Rhine Line and threatened to break across the barrier momentarily into the open country before Berlin.
U.S. and Allied airborne troops joined the British around Eindhoven, 32 miles southwest of Nijmegen, and formed up in their rear as infantrymen, while others held open a path ahead of the Tommies as far as Arnhem, on the north bank of the Rhine 11 miles beyond Nijmegen.
First reports indicated the vital bridge across the Rhine on the road to Arnhem still was standing when the Allies broke into Nijmegen. An unconfirmed Radio Paris broadcast said British armored forces drove five miles beyond Nijmegen and effected a juncture with airborne troops moving down from Arnhem.
United Press writer Walter Cronkite, with the sky troops in Holland, said the airborne army, now equipped with light tanks and big field guns, could beat off anything the Germans might try to throw against them.
He reported that the Germans were counterattacking desperately but ineffectually with shock troops and heavy artillery, and the fighting was within sound of the German border.
At Nijmegen, the Allies were about 12 miles north-northwest of Kleve, where the Nazi West Wall reputedly ends. At Arnhem, they were less than 10 miles from the Reich, and, if the British armor can be brought up in force, in position for a smash across excellent tank country all the way to Berlin, some 260 miles to the east.
The Germans appeared to have rallied somewhat from the initial shock of the Allied airborne invasion and were fighting fanatically even when bypassed by the British armor.
They hit back with particular ferocity around Best, on the Wilhelmina Canal, six miles northwest of Eindhoven, and won back the town, but were stopped before they could cut dangerously into the Allied flank. Other Nazi units counterattacked repeatedly against the base of the Allied spearhead along the Belgian-Dutch border, but without success. Troops, tanks and guns were still pouring across the frontier to join in the big push for the Reich.
Some 80 miles southeast of Nijmegen, the U.S. 1st Army completed the encirclement of Aachen and sent armored spearheads eastward toward Cologne in a bitterly-opposed drive that had already forced the evacuation of German civilians from the Rhineland.
American 155mm Long Toms shelled Duren, 16 miles east of Aachen and 19 miles from Cologne.
Southwest of Cologne, U.S. and German troops locked in savage street battles for Stolberg and the nearby village of Büsbach. Still farther south, 1st Army troops and tanks widened their salients inside Germany in the Monschau, Prüm, Echternach and Trier areas, knocking out pillboxes on each side of their spearheads but making only yard-by-yard progress forward.
Capture many Nazis
Despite the stubbornness of the German resistance on the 1st Army front, United Press writer Henry T. Gorrell reported that prisoners were still coming in at the rate of 2,000 a day and that the 1st Army bag now totaled 180,000 men.
On Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s U.S. 3rd Army front to the south, United Press writer Robert Richards said French Forces of the Interior had joined the Americans in a two-pronged drive for the Saar Valley that made good progress in the face of heavy opposition.
One column advanced 23 miles northeast of Épinal to the Baccarat area, while a second moved 20 miles northeast of Nancy, to the vicinity of Marsal and Dieuze.
Use tanks, minefields
German panzer grenadiers, many of them veterans of the Italian and North African campaigns, opposed the 3rd Army drive and Mr. Richards reported they were using tanks, minefields and roadblocks in a stubborn fighting retreat through the forests east of the Moselle River.
At least 14 enemy tanks were destroyed in the Dieuze sector yesterday, Mr. Richards said.
Battle hard for Metz
Fighting in the Metz area to the north was still “very stiff,” with the Americans gaining ground slowly and painfully, he added.
Far to the west, all organized resistance was ended in Brest and U.S. infantrymen probed through the wreckage of the port mopping up isolated Nazi snipers. The battle for the Channel port of Boulogne was also about ended, despite bitter resistance met by Canadian troops in some parts of the town. Almost 3,000 Germans, it was disclosed, have been captured in Boulogne.
Marines mop up on Palau Islands
Half of Peleliu held after heavy fighting
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii –
Marines holding almost the entire east side of Peleliu Island in the Palau group began the final phase of their campaign today by digging out stubborn Japs from ridge pillboxes while Army troops nearly completed the occupation of nearby Angaur Island.
A Tokyo broadcast said about 200 U.S. bomber and fighter planes “fiercely” raided Koror Island in the Central Palaus for the second successive day yesterday. The broadcast said 30 Liberator bombers attacked Chichijima in the Bonin Islands.
Front dispatches said 1st Division Marines, veterans of Guadalcanal, had battered through viciously-defended Jap positions to seize all primary objectives, including Peleliu Airdrome and the town of Ngardololok.
On Angaur, Army forces swept through the town of Saipan, site of a phosphate works and Middle Village to take control of four-fifths of the island. The Japs offered little resistance and their remaining forces were hopelessly trapped on the northwest and southeast corners.
Adm. Chester W. Nimitz disclosed that 117 damaged enemy aircraft were found at Peleliu Airfield which U.S. planes will use to neutralize the northern Palau Islands, such as Koror and Babelthuap. The Japs are believed to have approximately 30,000 troops on those islands.
The damaged planes included 77 single-engine fighters, 28 medium bombers, eight light bombers and four transports. They raised to 703, the toll of enemy aircraft destroyed or damaged in Palau and Philippines attacks.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, collaborating with Adm. Nimitz in the Philippines offensive, announced that Mitchell medium bombers again hit southern Mindanao Sunday. concentrating on Buayan Airdrome and harbor installations in Sarangani Bay.
Battle from pillboxes
The Southwest Pacific commander for the second successive day failed to report on operations of ground forces which occupied Morotai Island, in the Halmaheras, 250 miles south of the Philippines.
On Peleliu, the Japs, despite the loss of more than half their forces, continued fighting bitterly from pillboxes, trenches and other prepared defenses, from where they hurled intermittent artillery and mortar fire in the Marine ranks.
The Leathernecks, who cleared “Bloody Nose” Ridge in one of the most vicious battles of the Pacific, continued their advance about one mile northeastward, to gain almost full control of the eastern side of Peleliu. There was little chance, however, in their positions on the west coast or in the center.
Adm. Nimitz, meanwhile, disclosed new aerial attacks on Iwo Jima in the Volcanos last Saturday; Marcus Island on Sunday, and, Shumushu and Paramushiru in the Kurils on Saturday and Tuesday.
Gen. MacArthur’s bombers carried out new strikes in the Dutch East Indies, centering the raids with a 145-ton assault on Celebes, just west of Halmahera.
‘Do we get a fair deal, Harold?’
Lewis and Ickes trade tongue lashes in row over coal production
‘You’ve grown fat in office… while our men die in pits,’ UMW head charges
…
Dewey: ‘Indispensable man’ a myth
GOP leader demands a ‘peoples’ peace’
Portland, Oregon (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey turned south to California today for more campaign speeches following last night’s appeal to voters in the November election to reject the theory of an indispensable man” and the argument that future peace and prosperity depend upon the reelection of President Roosevelt.
The Republican presidential nominee made his challenge of the “indispensable man” issue before an overflow audience of more than 7,000 persons in the Portland Ice Coliseum and over a nationwide radio hookup.
‘No indispensable men’
Governor Dewey opened his blast by declaring flatly that: “There are no indispensable men.”
He said:
If our republic, after 150 years of self-government, is dependent up the endless continuance of one man in office, then the hopes which animated the men who fought for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution have indeed come to nothing.
“The peace and prosperity of America and of the world can never depend on one man,” the GOP candidate added.
Threefold requirements
The essential requirements for peace and prosperity, he countered, are threefold:
- “Unity in our government and strength and unity among our people.”
- “Harmonious action between the President and Congress.”
- “A strong and vigorous America with jobs for all.”
None of them, he added, have been evidence in 12 years of the Roosevelt administration. All of them can be realized, he promised, by a change in administrations next January.
‘A people’s peace’
Governor Dewey argued that President Roosevelt will not be indispensable to writing or preserving of the peace terms either.
He insisted:
The peace we seek must not hang by the slender thread of personal acquaintance of any two or three men. The pages of history are littered with treaties proclaiming permanent peace made privately by rulers of nations and quickly and publicly broken…
I want to see a people’s peace come at the end of this war. I want to see a peace which has been worked out in the full light of day before all the world.
To speak in California
Governor Dewey will speak tomorrow night at San Francisco, and at Los Angeles the following night.
Governor Dewey’s address tomorrow night will be broadcast at 11:00 p.m. ET, over KDKA.
House members aim of Browder
Communists now in other organizations
Washington (UP) –
Earl Browder, president of the Communist Political Association, told Congress yesterday that his organization has members not only in the AFL and CIO but also in the Republican, Democratic and the Farmer-Labor parties, the Elks, Kiwanis and local chambers of commerce, and even in ministerial societies.
“And some day,” he added, “we hope to have members in Congress.”
His statement was made before the House Committee investigating campaign expenditures when Republican members questioned him closely about the part played by Communists in the CIO Political Action Committee’s campaign for President Roosevelt’s reelection.
Favors socialistic system
Mr. Browder doubted if the Communists would ever try to reestablish their party, dissolved last May, but said they instead would “try to show that America would strengthen itself through a socialistic system.”
Association members are supporting the President for reelection on a “nonpartisan basis,” he said. “If we wanted the quickest turn to communism in this country, we would support reactionary candidates who would leads us quickly back to the days of apple-selling and revolution.”
Doesn’t speak for others
Rep. Clarence Brown (R-OH) asked Mr. Browder if he “could” give the names of Communists active in the PAC.
Asked whether Joseph Curran, president of the CIO’s National Maritime Union is a Communist, MR. Browder replied:
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.
Recalling that the Communists ceased direct participation in political elections when the party was dissolved last May, Browder said that the association this year, instead of running its own presidential; candidate, is supporting the one "endorsed by the broad labor movement.” It is generally known, he added, that Mr. Roosevelt has its support.
‘Freedom of opportunity’ demanded by Bricker
Republicans convinced that U.S. must stay a republic, Syria Mosque audience told
By Kermit McFarland
Beginning a 40,000-mile campaign tour which will crisscross the country, Governor John W. Bricker, opened up here last night with a plea for “freedom of opportunity” in the American industrial system.
Speaking to an audience of 3,000 in Syria Mosque, Governor Bricker demanded a post-war America in which “creative genius has its reward, in which the inventive ability of our people is utilized and fully protected, where there will be work and the security of productive jobs.”
He said:
But America cannot be that kind of a land if selfish interest and the exercise of great power, be it the power of wealth or of government, is to replace the public interest. It cannot be that kind of America if we are to proceed on the New Deal theory that our nation is fully built and that government alone has the wisdom to plan.
Deviating momentarily from his main theme, the vice-presidential nominee lashed out anew at Sidney Hillman, chairman of the CIO Political Action Committee. He said:
It was a great disservice to the American people, to the Democratic Party and especially to free labor when the New Deal sold out to Sidney Hillman.
Mr. Bricker said the issues of the campaign “may be fairly summed up” in one question: “Shall America continue to be a republic?”
He said:
This party of ours [of the Republicans] is convinced that America shall continue as a republic.
‘Miracle despite meddling’
He asked:
Why is it that the United States, with only 10 percent of the population of the Allied nations, has performed this miracle [of war production] in spite of governmental opposition and bureaucratic meddling almost beyond belief?
It is because the American industrial system developed within an atmosphere of freedom which encouraged inventive and administrative genius. It is because the American workingman also has been free to work in an atmosphere of freedom, to own his own home, to start his own business if he wished.
There is more to freedom than security. It does mean that, of course. But freedom also means the opportunity to risk – to win or to lose.
New Deal ‘fallacy’ hit
He said the country must turn its back on what he called the New Deal theory that the nation is “fully built and that government also has the wisdom to plan.”
He said:
The New Deal idea of economic maturity the idea that there are no more frontiers to conquer – is an utter fallacy.
There is no reason for defeatism in the thinking of business, of labor or of government as they look forward toward production and employment after Germany and Japan shall have been defeated. There is no reason to fear that which shall come.
If we will use common sense, if we will have that faith, the stage is set for a great future… War has tremendously increased our capacity to make things. Jobs come from production. The larger our capacity to make useful things, the more jobs there will be.
Mr. Bricker said the government must restore the incentives that “bring public and business confidence.”
He said:
It can’t be done by more planned economy, or more collectivism, or more government control. It can’t be done by appeals to class consciousness and racial prejudices, or by favoritism to noisy minorities. It can’t be done by bigger debts and high taxes, and deficit financing after the war.
The fallacy of any idea that it can be done by such a course is demonstrated by the utter failure of the New Deal to break a decade of depression and unemployment. Under the New Deal, it took a war to put men back to work again.
New Deal ‘failure’ charged
Considering the background of New Deal failure, the American people have a right to ask these questions.
Is the New Deal planning to meet the post-war employment problem by keeping our boys in the Army and Navy?
Is it planning to meet the post-war employment problem by employing our workers in government-owned plants at the taxpayers’ expense?
Is it planning to meet the post-war employment problem on the basis of a worldwide WPA, for which the American people would supply the goods, the money and some of the men?
‘Let’s talk of jobs’
The New Deal talks of giving and unemployment. Let us for once talk of jobs and employment.
We can’t buy the goodwill of other countries, but we can gain it if we deserve it.
Governor Bricker came here after appearances at Erie and Meadville and left last night for his speech from the steps of the State Capitol in Harrisburg today. Tonight, he speaks in Wilkes-Barre.
Governor Bricker’s address tonight will be broadcast at 10:00 over WCAE.
Introduced by Martin
He was introduced to the Syria Mosque audience last night by Governor Edward Martin, who is accompanying the Ohio Governor on his Pennsylvania tour.
Governor Martin said:
We don’t want anything in Pennsylvania again like the four years of the Earle administration.
Governor Martin, introduced by Republican County Chairman James F. Malone, made a stage entrance at the close of the introduction and the band, missing a cue, played “Beautiful Ohio.” When Governor Bricker made a similar entrance, the musicians, unperturbed, played the Ohio song over again.
Others speak also
Mr. Malone said Governor Bricker and New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican presidential candidate, are running against Sidney Hillman of the CIO’s Political Action Committee, and Earl Browder, head of the Communist organization.
Mr. Malone said:
Mr. Hillman is the No. 1 lieutenant of the New Deal and Mr. Browder is No. 2. We don’t want anything to do with Communism in any form.
Governor Bricker was preceded by two other speakers, County Court Judge Blair F. Gunther and Hobson R. Reynolds (Philadelphia Negro police magistrate, ward leader and former legislator).
‘Roosevelt vs. Stalin?’
Mr. Reynolds charged that the Democrats “won’t give Negro troops a chance to fight.”
He said:
If they will turn the black troops loose in France and Germany for 30 days, we’ll have all the troops home in a short time.
Judge Gunther charged President Roosevelt “doesn’t have the moral courage to say ‘no’ to Joseph Stalin” in the dispute over the division of post-war Poland.
He said:
In spite of all the beautiful words, the Atlantic Charter is at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The administration is improvising our foreign policy.
He alleged that Mr. Roosevelt is “hanging on to the coattails of Mr. Browder and Mr. Sidney Hillman.”
Adams presides
District Attorney Russell H. Adams, presiding at the rally, said the nation still faces the “same problems” it faced when the Roosevelt administration took office in 1933.
In a press conference preceding the rally, Governor Bricker said President Roosevelt’s order to the Budget Bureau to start planning for reduction of wartime government agencies was “necessary” but had come “very late.”
He said:
It should have been started long ago. Many of these bureaus should never have been treated. Many, even those that are essential, are entirely overstaffed.
Candidates introduced
U.S. Senator James J. Davis, a scheduled speaker, sat on the platform but did not address the rally. Mr. Malone said he had asked to be “excused.” Superior Court Judge Arthur H. James, Mr. Malone said, was unable to appear because of court work.
Supreme Court Justice Howard W. Hughes (candidate for a 21-year term), Judge J. Frank Graff (candidate for the Superior Court), State Senator G. Harold Watkins (candidate for Auditor General) and Philadelphia City Treasurer Edgar W. Baird (candidate for State Treasurer) were introduced.
Mr. Malone also introduced three CIO representatives from McKeesport unions. He said they were “evidence that Sidney Hillman doesn’t boss all the CIO members.”
Bricker charges ‘broken promises’
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (UP) –
President Roosevelt has left in his three administrations a trail of “broken promises” of abundant life, economy, security and unhampered private enterprise which prove the New Deal “cannot be trusted,” Ohio Governor John W. Bricker charged here today.
The Republican vice-presidential nominee charged that Mr. Roosevelt had “broken up” the London International Economic Conference of 1933 which “aggravated the worldwide economic maladjustments which led to a second great world war.”
Under the New Deal’s promise of an “abundant life,” Governor Bricker said, the nation faced long before the war “restrictions, orders and taboos.”
Security, he said, brought the “CWA, the FERA, or the WPA with their doles and made-work.” The “economy” which President Roosevelt promised increased the national debt “by 100 percent” during the first seven years of his administration, he added.
Charging that the New Deal was not prepared when war broke out, Governor Bricker said that the President “frantically appealed” to capital and labor and agriculture, which pitched in and “are saving America in spite of the New Deal.”
I DARE SAY —
Recorded in blood
By Florence Fisher Parry
I saw a newsreel of the liberation of Paris. I heard on the radio the actual record of it. Shots upon Gen. de Gaulle at Notre-Dame; the hysteria of the people. And from day to day, I read small scattered inside-page items of how the Maquis of France, the French Forces of the Interior, are taking their own way of settling their score with the trapped Germans.
I read the lists of books that are published, dozens, hundreds of books about this war, first-hand reports, magnificent fiction, diaries, poems.
Suddenly there is a flood of newsreels at last released by the United States Army to the motion picture exhibitors who, all through this war, were not able to procure the news films that had been made and were still being held back. The Army and our government offered the excuse that it would be bad om the morale of trainees in the audience.
Now that the invasion of France is nearly over, now that the landings at Tarawa, Saipan are old stories, now with the end of the war imminent in Europe, suddenly we are seeing what we had a right to see months ago.
How much promotion money has been spent on our various War Bond drives? Millions, millions; and at the very time when the showing of realistic and timely newsreels of our boys as they fought in the Southwest Pacific, as they fought in Africa and Sicily and Italy and last Normandy, would have done more to storm our hearts and open our purses and crack our savings banks than all the Mardi Gras stunts and stump speeches and bands and movie appearances and lunches and banquets and benefits could ever have done!
The great performance
But what the newsreel failed to do; our reporters certainly made up for. Never have there been such magnificent dispatches from the combat areas.
As for the book publishers working under similar paper restrictions, they have put forth a produce of war literate that is simply magnificent. This is all the more remarkable because no one, so well as publishers, knows how quickly the reading public is through with war literature when war ends.
Yet on the very eve of Germany’s collapse, every major publisher in America is putting forth war books and still more war books! It is of some of these that I should like to speak now, for unless they are read now, they are likely to be missed and join the innumerable host of war books which came too late and missed their earned immortality.
Already World War II has given us a few really distinctive books: Limit of Darkness by Howard Hunt – just a story of one day in the lives of a group of American fliers at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal is one. Another is A Walk in the Sun by Harry Brown. It, too, is a report, in fiction form, of a torturous landing of a leaderless platoon and its making its way six miles inshore to a farmhouse. Both of these are small books. Each can be read in an hour. They have in them the elements of lasting literature. Others are A Bell for Adano, by John Hersey, and The Moon Is Down, by John Steinbeck.
The moving finger writes
Too, there have been some of the columns of Ernie Pyle which have in them the sudden impact of reality that makes you know, as you read them, that you cannot forget, not ever, what they have written.
But really great novel about this war has not been written.
Kay Boyle has written some good short stories about this war. Rebecca West, too, has managed to set down a very live record of a dangerous day, and even Katherine Anne Porter, in her new collection of stories The Leaning Tower, tells a story about Germany that will keep haunting the reader years after it is read.
I have just read a book, Still Time to Die, by Jack Belden – horrific, burning, alive with death and menace.
I want to live long enough to read what some of these survivors, now 20, 22, will write at 40, at 50, about World War II, unless, of course, they are too busy writing letters to their sons in World War III.
Government takes over 44 West Virginia mines
SFA moves swiftly to halt stoppages
By the United Press
…
Fascist policeman on trial in Rome
Rome, Italy (UP) –
Pietro Caruso, chief of police in Rome during the last few months of the German occupation, who was sought by a mob which lynched a prison official last Monday, was brought peaceably to trial as a Fascist criminal today.
The trial was opened in Lincei Academy in a tense atmosphere as hundreds of armed police and mounted carabinieri guarded all approaches for blocks around. It had been kept fairly secret, however, and there was no public demonstration such as that which ended in the lynching of Donato Caretta, a chief prosecution witness.
The Academy was chosen because it is near the Regina Coeli Prison, making it easier to transport Caruso to the courtroom from his cell.
Caruso and his secretary, Roberto Occhetto, who is being tried with him, were impassive when they were brought into the courtroom. They are the first of the alleged Fascist criminals to be brought to trial.
Mrs. Bricker: Women’s political interest growing
GOP leader’s wife urges all to vote
By Betty Jo Daniels
After traveling more than 40,000 miles with her husband during his pre-convention tour, and with thousands of miles more ahead of her during his campaign tour, Mrs. Harriet Bricker, wife of the Republican candidate for Vice President, said last night she is convinced that women are more interested than ever before in politics.
Addressing members of the press, Mrs. Bricker said:
Everywhere, I think, women really are extremely interested in politics this year and are finding it quite challenge to become active in this campaign.
‘Important to vote’
She added:
I’m sure they will realize the significance and importance of voting now, during wartime.
Affirming her comment made during her husband’s first tour that she would make few public appearances “and no speeches,” Mrs. Bricker said her only comment is voiced in her hope that every American woman qualified to vote will do so in the coming election.
She likes people
She was attired in a two-piece black crepe suit, and a small, veiled black hat. She wore gold earrings and bracelet, which matched the buttons on her dress, and an orchid was pinned to her black faille purse.
She likes traveling with her husband, Ohio Governor John W. Bricker, but finds it quite tiring sometimes when their schedule is particularly full and allows her little time for relaxation. But she likes people and receptions, she said.
Has several hobbies
Mrs. Bricker has several hobbies, among which are collecting glassware, victory gardening, and playing the piano. She has a light tan and a sprinkling of freckles on her nose from working in her garden.
Mrs. Bricker, accompanied by Mrs. Edward Martin, wide of the Pennsylvania Governor and Mrs. Margery Scranton, Republican National Committeewoman, attended the Republican rally in Syria Mosque.
She sat on the platform between Governor and Mrs. Martin while her husband delivered his address and at the conclusion of the speech was introduced to the audience by James F. Malone, Republican County chairman.
Dewey and wife in narrow escapes
Fateful No. 13 plays big role
Portland, Oregon (UP) –
The wreck of the Dewey campaign train yesterday offered some examples of the fateful number 13.It was the 13th day since the special pulled out of Pennsylvania Station in New York. There were 13 cars in the train, with the baggage car, most seriously smashed, No. 13 on the train.
Portland, Oregon (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, dogged by disaster – including two train wrecks and a narrow escape during an auto trip, arrived here last night only a few hours before time for his nationwide broadcast.
On the wheels of a freight train wreck that delayed his departure from Seattle, Governor Dewey’s train rammed into the rear of a passenger train stalled at Castle Rock, Washington, because of obstruction from the first wreck.
Governor Dewey and his wife were badly shaken but not injured in the wreck, which brought injuries to more than a score of persons.
The Deweys proceeded to Portland in a private car provided by an auto dealer and, while making the trip, were nearly parties to another disastrous crash when a furniture truck turned sharply ahead of the Dewey car. Only skillful driving saved the nominee’s car from plunging off the highway.
The Deweys were in their separate bedrooms when the two trains smashed at 11:50 a.m. (2:50 p.m. ET). the impact hurtled the passengers from their seats and shattered glass in the trains.