America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

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

…

1740

americavotes1944

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

By Peter Edson

…

1741

Ferguson: Home front attitude

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

1750

americavotes1944

Wallace to speak at 10:00 tonight

New York (UP) –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace delivers his first address advocating the reelection of President Roosevelt for a fourth term tonight at Madison Square Garden.

Mr. Wallace’s speech, to be delivered at a meeting sponsored by the Independent Voters’ Committee of the Arts and Sciences, will be broadcast nationally at 10:00 p.m. ET.

The address will be broadcast over WCAE.

Stage and screen actor Frederic March will preside. Other speakers will include Orson Welles, Sinclair Lewis, Serge Koussevitzky and sculptor Jo Davidson.

1751

Millett: G.I. husbands may return to quite changed mate

Getting along independently has taught women a lot of lessons
By Ruth Millett

…

1752

In Washington –
Wheeler: League plan faces fight

Doubts its approval in Congress

…

1753

americavotes1944

Stokes: Dewey technique

By Thomas L. Stokes

With Dewey party –
Governor Dewey has been long enough on the stump and has exercised sufficiently his talents as a political craftsman to provide some basis for judgment of his performance.

His technique becomes important because he is pitted against the master politician in the White House who enjoys that psychological advantage inherent in long-time winners, whether in politics, in sports or otherwise.

Polish, precision, perfection and attention to detail describe the Dewey technique.

On the platform, the Republican presidential candidate gives a studied performance. Every gesture, each emphasis, every tone is plotted in advance. He’s an actor who prepares himself deliberately for the role of the streamlined orator of the new school, always conscious of his radio audience, and attentive to it.

Offhand it might be supposed that this would result in a brittle performance, but the reaction he brings from his audiences does not substantiate this. They rise to the occasion with those sudden outbursts that delight the heart of the speaker, not an emotional frenzy such as a Roosevelt or a Willkie draws from a crowd, but in a spontaneous tribute to what he says.

A competent man

He stands here, a personable young man, looking under the lights somewhat younger than his 42 years, and you get the impression that the audience feels that here is an earnest and competent young man who wants to get ahead, and of whom they wish well.

People who gather at his meetings are those who for some years now have been seeking a match for the man in the White House, who want very much to see Mr. Roosevelt out of Washington. And this young man seems to have the energy and the confidence that may do the job.

It is a pleasant surprise, too, when he suddenly shows a light touch, a quick change of pace to penetrating irony, such as his enumeration in his Seattle speech of all the agencies in Washington through which labor cases must go.

That passage was cut short by a tumult of laughter before he got through telling them in a mock solemn tone, like calling railroad stations.

He has also the occasional climaxes of the blunt question, such as his repeated “is a fourth term indispensable to that?” in his Portland speech. Every time he asked the question his audience answered a boisterous “No.”

An affable listener

The Episcopal Bishop who delivered the invocation at Portland spoke of his campaign as “a crusade.” It is not exactly that in the frenzied meaning that Wendell Willkie gave to his 1940 campaign, but it is in an earnest sort of way, judging from the sober determination that he seems to arouse.

His public appearances are only a part of the job that he has cut out for himself.

The other part is the contact that Governor Dewey is making with local politicians, and representatives of various groups – business, labor, farmers.

He has seen the inside of more hotel rooms and less scenery than probably any other presidential candidate who took the required “Grand Tour” through the West.

Here he has shown himself an affable listener and more successful at easy and amiable small talk than one would suppose.

The young man has learned a lot, and there is nothing amateurish about him.

1754

Maj. de Seversky: Pacific airpower

By Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky

…

1755

My four years in Hitler’s gray Paree –
Moral suffering almost beyond description

Written for the Pittsburgh Press

…

1756

Medal of Honor awarded to late Gen. Roosevelt

D-Day heroism of Teddy Jr. cited

…