America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

1730

americavotes1944

Truman belittles ‘indispensable’ talk

New York (UP) –
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Harry S. Truman said today he agreed with Republican presidential nominee Governor Thomas E. Dewey that no man was an “indispensable man” for President.

Republicans – not the Democrats – Senator Truman said, originated the “indispensable” argument. He said:

We never said there was an indispensable man. We say we believe a man of experience should be in the White House.

Senator Truman charged that Governor Dewey in his “interesting pictures of a President and Congress of the same political faith,” had exceeded the “limits of veracity.”

He said that Governor Dewey knows that election of a Republican Senate this year “is a mathematical impossibility,” and “the boast that the Republicans can win control of the House is almost as baseless.”

1731

Simms: Palau called key to Japan’s defense line

Foe soon may risk all to stop Yanks
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

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1732

Sumatra pounded by Allied planes’

Large fires started in railroad center

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1733

Yanks close on key pass in Apennines

Fifth Army drives on Bologna, Italy

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Death demanded for two Fascists

Ex-Rome police chief and aide on trial

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1734

Report of warning denied by Stimson

Washington –
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson today denied Republican assertions in Congress that the War Department received a warning from the Australian government prior to Dec. 7, 1941, that a Jap task force was headed for Hawaii.

He added, at his news conference, that he would answer no further questions about the Pearl Harbor attack until the Army’s current investigation is finished.

1735

Nazi bombers rain death on Dutch fete; 65 killed

Raid stops Eindhoven liberation celebration; resident says freedom’s price not too high
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer

Eindhoven, Holland – (Sept. 20, delayed)
This debris-littered town of 100,000, whose celebration of liberation by the Allies was cut short by a German air raid, dug out today after its worst beating of the war – but still believing the price of freedom was not too high.

Sixty-five of the inhabitants were killed, 150 wounded seriously and damage was estimated in millions of dollars.

Site of an important radio works, Eindhoven had known air raids before, both German and Allied. None matched the one last night for suddenness and savagery.

Thirty minutes before the raid, crowds were cheering American and British soldiers who entered the town Monday.

Flags, bunting shredded

Dutch flags, which had been brought out of hiding after four years to fly for 24 carefree hours with bunting in bedecked streets, hung in burned shreds today from charred poles.

Streets where children had danced to accordion music, where crowds jammed around American vehicles so thickly that traffic was halted, were strewn with glass, brick, stone and cherished possessions.

The anti-climax to the celebration came between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. A rumor spread through the crowds that 117 German tanks were counterattacking the town.

Some tanks did get within shelling distance of the main British armored corridor and dropped a few rounds near a road north of here before they were eliminated.

As the rumors mounted, part of the troops were evacuated.

I was dining with Bill Downs of CBS at a hotel near the center of the city when I first noted panicky civilians outside running out and we started for headquarters.

Queen’s pictures hidden

From some of the windows the Dutch, fearful of German return, had removed flags and pictures of Queen Wilhelmina. Most of the American and British troops seemed to be gone. A few civilians stood wonderingly before houses.

Just before we reached headquarters, a lone German, twin-engined bomber swept over and dropped orange, yellow and green flares.

The town was without air-raid shelters so we sped toward the open country. We got only as far as the town park before the first bombers arrived.

Eindhoven pays fiddler

We lay on the ground while bombs ringed us and explosions within 100 feet showered us with twigs, branches and dirt. Shrapnel clipped through the leaves above. Ammunition exploded in deafening bursts.

Eindhoven was paying the fiddler.

Today cheerfulness was returning to the town. As the Allies pushed on toward the front, the inhabitants took time to look up from their rooms and shovels, smile and shout “hello.”

1736

Editorial: Big stick, loud words

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1737

americavotes1944

Editorial: Stalin electioneers for FDR

One of the current mysteries is how such busy men as Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin find time to mix in American politics for the reelection of President Roosevelt. Even harder to understand is how such intelligent men can fail to see that these efforts are self-defeating, that they boomerang in favor of Governor Dewey.

Nothing causes deeper resentment in Americans than attempts by foreign governments to influence elections here. That always has been so, and it is even truer today because of greater emotional tension.

Though Mr. Churchill had been warned by earlier hostile American reaction to such blunders by the British press and officials, he could not resist the temptation in his Québec statement last week to put in a few personal plugs for the fourth term candidate – without specifically mentioning the election.

Marshal Stalin is less subtle. He simply takes one of his Moscow party-line magazines, and a stooge writer, and cuts loose against Mr. Dewey and the Republicans. He has the GOP candidate and party smeared with all the lies and insults which pass for clever propaganda in a dictatorship, but which informed readers in a democracy find revolting.

According to War and the Working Class, the Republican Party “always has been a citadel of isolationism.” But the article slips in its list of alleged isolationists by including prominent Democrats and by admitting that Mr. Dewey “has attempted to shake off diehard isolationists like Hamilton Fish and… Gerald Smith.”

Extreme reactionaries, Fascist elements, and even Hitlerite agents are trying to use the Republican Party, it charges, which is supported by the National Association of Manufacturers, DuPont, Ford, General Motors. These firms are said to be trying to preserve their interests in Germany, Italy and Japan.

Of course, this poison pen stuff is not much different from that of Marshal Stalin’s Communist organization in this country, which is working so hard to reelect Mr. Roosevelt.

We do not suggest that Candidate Roosevelt approves of such blundering tactics by his Stalinite supporters in Russia and in this country. As a smart politician, he knows that the loving Red buss bestowed upon him is apt to be politically a kiss of death. And the Republicans know that many voters will judge Mr. Dewey by his enemies.

1738

americavotes1944

Editorial: Dewey and MacArthur

Candidate Dewey probably did no good either to himself or Gen. MacArthur by his remark at a press conference that Gen. MacArthur’s genius should get more recognition through appointment to a post of higher responsibility. Gen. MacArthur pleads his own cause more effectively by brilliant actions like the landing on Morotai Island, 300 miles from the Philippines.

Asked whether Gen. MacArthur should be given supreme command in the Pacific, Mr. Dewey retreated to the position that this should be decided by the chiefs of staff. This is in line with Mr. Dewey’s earlier declarations that he would let the generals and admirals run the war. But the question of higher responsibility for Gen. MacArthur, in general terms, might be reserved for the general staff quite as appropriately as the question of higher responsibility in the specific role as supreme commander in the Pacific.

Mr. Dewey wishes to make it appear that if elected President he will not, in the constitutional role of Commander-in-Chief, seek to supersede the judgment of our real military chiefs. He does not strengthen that position by intimating that he would supersede their judgment in one particular only – namely, the promotion of Gen. MacArthur to higher authority.

It does a general no good to become the subject of political controversy. Leonard Wood, a Republican, and a candidate after World War I for the presidential nomination, undoubtedly suffered from political discrimination during World War I, when he was not permitted to go overseas.

Yet the close connections between him and Theodore Roosevelt, his known political ambitions and the ambitions his friends cherished for him, undoubtedly contributed to this result. The more the Republicans complained about the injustice done to Gen. Wood, the more difficult it became for the administration to use him in a place worthy of his talents.

President Roosevelt spoke in affectionate terms at Seattle of “my old friend, Gen. Douglas MacArthur,” but the eagerness of some of MacArthur’s other old friends to make a presidential candidate of him and the publication of his private letter attacking the administration, have tended to make a military problem child out of the general. Now Mr. Dewey, in the midst of his campaign, drags Gen. MacArthur deeper into politics and makes the problem more difficult.

1739

Editorial: Reportorial instinct

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1740

americavotes1944

Edson: Roosevelt to get ‘hottest potato’ about Oct. 14

By Peter Edson

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1741

Ferguson: Home front attitude

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

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1742

americavotes1944

Background of news –
Midwest conservatism

By Bertram Benedict

Governor Dewey in the Far West is admittedly fighting an uphill battle.

In 1940, Colorado was the only one of the 11 Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast states to vote for Wendell Willkie. Arizona, Nevada and Utah each gave 60 percent or more of their vote to President Roosevelt, Montana 59 percent, Washington 58 percent, California and New Mexico 57 percent, Idaho and Oregon 54 percent, Wyoming 53 percent.

On the other hand, political observers agree that the Midwest west of the Mississippi seems safely in the bag for the 1944 Republican presidential nominee, with the exception of Missouri, usually classified as a border state. In 1940, Mr. Willkie carried the states in this area except Minnesota. Mr. Willkie got 57 percent of the vote in Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota, 55 percent in North Dakota, 52 percent in Iowa.

La Follette strength in this section

This reaction of the Midwest west of the Mississippi against the so-called “liberalism” of the New Deal is in sharp contrast with what used to be the comparative radicalism of that section. There the elder La Follette, branded as a radical in the East, ran well in his third-party campaign in 1924. Minnesota and North Dakota gave him almost as many votes as they gave Calvin Coolidge. South Dakota gave him almost three times as many votes as to John W. Davis, the Democratic nominee. Iowa and Kansas gave Mr. La Follette almost twice the vote for Mr. Davis and Nebraska almost the vote it gave Mr. Davis.

And this period of Bob La Follette in the western part of the Midwest was achieved although he was the candidate of organized labor, sponsored by the AFL, the railroad brotherhoods and the Socialist Party. Today this section seems particularly resentful at trade unions and at the concessions given them under the New Deal.

In 1916, Woodrow Wilson was considered the “liberal” candidate, Charles Evans Hughes the conservative. Justice Hughes carried only four states west of the Mississippi (Iowa, Minnesota, Oregon, South Dakota). Mr. Wilson was popular among the unions and had put through the Adamson eight-hour law at the behest of the railroad brotherhoods (also, Mr. Wilson’s supporters were stressing the “He Kept Us Out of War” issue, and the Midwest was strongly anti-war).

Insurgent revolt began there

Theodore Roosevelt, branded as a Socialist in some of the more conservative quarters of the East, was especially popular in the western part of the Midwest. In 1912, Minnesota and South Dakota gave him their electoral votes when he ran on a third-party ticket and a reform platform. And Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and North Dakota gave him more votes than they gave William Howard Taft, the Republican nominee. From this section came many of the insurgent Republicans who had led the revolt against the conservative Taft administration.

In 1896, William Jennings Bryan, running for the Democrats on a Free Silver program and endorsed by the Populists, carried Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. In that section of the country, the Populists and Greenbackers had won in the preceding years many victories in Congressional, state and local elections.

Evidently the farmers of the western Midwest were liberally or radically inclined when in trouble on mortgage indebtedness, inclined to go conservative when they did not feel overburdened with indebtedness. If Mr. Roosevelt carries most of the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast states in November, it will seem that the earlier liberalism or radicalism of the Midwest has moved farther West.

1743

Senate urges freedom of press

Worldwide access to news favored

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1744

Play with all-Negro cast above average

But after first scene it starts to sag – acting first rate
By Jack Gaver, United Press drama editor

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Start of brawl puzzles Jon Hall but he knows nose was slashed

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1745

Stable tax program needed to encourage post-war expansion

Two million veterans will want to set up business, Bearsley Ruml points out
By Beardsley Ruml, written for the United Press

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1746

Pvt. Buck has busy night piling up 80 dead Nazis

Joined the Army 14 years ago in Pittsburgh; didn’t even have rifle when battle started

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1747

americavotes1944

Pearl Harbor probe pledged by Bricker

Democrats accused of ‘hiding facts’

Baltimore, Maryland (UP) –
Ohio Governor John Bricker said today he would do everything in his power to air immediately all the facts about Pearl Harbor if the Republican presidential slate is elected in November.

Declaring at a press conference that the Roosevelt administration should “give us the facts now,” the Republican vice-presidential candidate added that “there is nothing that happened in December 1941 that could possibly hurt the war effort now.”

Mr. Bricker came here for a series of conferences with GOP leaders and a speech tonight. At Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, last night, he called for an immediate trial of RAdm. Husband E. Kimmel and Maj. Gen. Walter C. Short, Navy and Army commanders at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese struck.

‘Won’t be periled’

In response to press conference questions as to what his attitude would be, in the event of a Republican victory, if the military staffs advised against publication of Pearl Harbor details, Mr. Bricker insisted that the war effort would not be imperiled by so doing.

Mr. Bricker said:

Divulging of the facts would establish confidence in the government once again. The American people are not subject to dictation. There is nothing to warrant withholding the facts of the disaster from them. The facts are known to the administration and it should come clean with the American people.

Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin welcomed the governor upon his arrival here, but a scheduled tour of shipyards was canceled.

At Wilkes-Barre, Mr. Bricker said the New Deal was attempting to preserve its “entrenched power” by propaganda, intimidation and suppression of vital news.

The Republican vice-presidential nominee made his fourth major speech in Pennsylvania within two days in his 3,250-mile Eastern campaign swing at the Wilkes-Barre Armory.

Mr. Bricker said that the Roosevelt administration is “spending hundreds of millions of dollars” to propagandize the President as the “indispensable man,” is “withholding news,” is purposely confusing the issues and has begun a campaign of “threats and intimidation” to win the election.

Hillman is mentioned

Answering a claim that “we must not change horses in midstream,” Mr. Bricker said:

The New Deal convention answered that one when it changed the off horse and Sidney Hillman holds the check line on the lead horse.

He said:

There is no other motive that could prompt keeping the American people in the dark. In a republic, a people’s government, there’s no place for secret commitments for closed door conferences. We want no armed guards keeping the American people in the dark as they did at the food conference. We want no more Dumbarton Oaks conclaves, considering the matters that the American people. who will ultimately foot the bill, do not know about.

The best assurance that the best interests of the American people will be protected by any commitments would be in the elections of Governor Thomas E. Dewey as President. The New Dealers are fighting to save their jobs. The Republicans are fighting to save the nation!

Strikes at Biddle

The campaign of intimidation and threats being carried on to preserve those jobs, Mr. Bricker said, more recently was under the leadership of Attorney General Francis J. Biddle. He recently “brought indictments against western railroads without the facts, admitting that it would take 18 months to secure the facts and try the case he had lodged,” Bricker said.

That indictment, Mr. Bricker said, was one of the “most unsound and demagogic effort that could be conceived.”

Mr. Bricker said:

If Attorney General Biddle represents the philosophy of the New Deal, then we are threatened with a dictatorship, right here at home should the New Dealer be successful in his campaign.

1748

americavotes1944

Stimson denies Army censors ballot mail

No envelope opened, Secretary says

Washington (UP) –
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson answering claims that soldiers’ ballots had been opened by Army censors, declared today that “an investigation has not disclosed a single such envelope opened.”

He said orders were sent by the War Department Dec. 15, 1943, that any envelope marked as containing ballot material was not subject to censorship. This order, he said, has been reiterated in various War Department directives and, more recently, in Army radio instructions.

Senator studies need for probe

Washington (UP) –
Senator Homer Ferguson (R-MI), said today that there “might be a need for an investigation” into letters endorsing President Roosevelt which Mayor Edward J. Kelly of Chicago has sent to servicemen, provided any attempt has been made to tamper with election machinery.

He said, however, that evidence reaching him does not disclose any such attempt, and consequently, there probably will be no request for an investigation by the Senate Campaign Expenditures Committee.

Mr. Ferguson pointed out that under the 1944 Service Voting Act, “Kelly has a right to send any kind of propaganda he wants to the soldiers.”

GOP sends pleas, Navy officer says

Miami, Florida (UP) –
An officer at the Miami Naval Training Center reported today that Republican campaign literature had been received from Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire by sailors stationed here and that in the Michigan case such maternal was accompanied by a ballot.

Political talk laid to chaplain

Galesburg, Illinois (UP) –
Richard J. Lyons, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, said today he had received a letter from a Coast Guardsman in New Guinea which charges that thousands of servicemen were forced to “remain in their seats” and listen to a political speech.

The letter was from Richard Smothers, former Marion, Illinois, businessman, Mr. Lyons said.

The letter said:

After a group of several thousand men had gathered for a show, they announced that we had to keep our seats, that they had acquired some wonderful speakers, including high-ranking officers who were carrying a message to all the war zones on the face of the earth.

As it is time for we servicemen to send for our ballots, I don’t believe I ever heard a more enthusiastic New Deal speech. The principal speaker was the President’s chaplain. He emphasized what a wonderful job our President, our Commander-in-Chief, I believe, is the way he put it, was doing.

The letter did not disclose the name of the chaplain.

1749

No tea at this spree –
Nine-day drunken debauch ends in socialite’s death

Companion suffers acute alcoholism

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