Keystone Division fighting in France
28th Division entered Paris; part of 1st Army
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7,020 Japs slain in 9-day battle
Yanks continue advance on Peleliu
By Mac R. Johnson, United Press war correspondent
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Troops in Pacific bitter over V-E Day celebration
‘Looks like we’re going to be left holding the bag,’ Marine veteran complains
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Roosevelt blisters GOP for ‘catastrophe which we inherited’
President, in opening talk, accuses Republicans of stealing New Deal thunder
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer
Dewey’s radio fails, he doesn’t hear speech
Aboard Dewey special campaign train (UP) – (Sept. 23)
Governor Thomas E. Dewey was unable to hear President Roosevelt open his campaign for a fourth term tonight when the radio in his special car failed.Paul E. Lockwood, the Governor’s secretary, said the radio failed shortly before the President began speaking.
Newspaper reporters listened to Mr. Roosevelt’s speech in the club car of the train which had a separate radio. The New York Governor did not enter the club car.
Washington –
President Franklin D. Roosevelt accused Republicans of claiming credit for New Deal reforms and charged Thomas E. Dewey and other GOP campaigners with lying in the Nazi pattern.
He declared that, after winning the war, his administration would lead the nation into history’s “greatest epoch of free achievement by free men.”
In this first avowedly political speech of his fourth-term campaign, the President fired a salvo against the party whose leaders, he said, produced the “catastrophe which we inherited.”
He was addressing 900 leaders of the AFL’s Teamsters Union – who shortly before had unanimously ratified their Executive Board’s endorsement of the Democratic ticket – but his blistering words were broadcast nationally by two major networks, CBS and NBC.
Mr. Roosevelt asserted confidently that the American people would win a “victory for democracy” in this war and “move forward with God’s help to the greatest epoch of free achievement by free men the world has ever known or imagined possible.”
Program laid down
His administration, he said, is now laying the groundwork for that epoch, and “the keynote of all that we propose to do in reconversion can be found in the one word: ‘jobs.’”
He laid down this program:
We shall lease or dispose of our government-owned plants and facilities and our surplus war property and land on the basis of how they can best be operated by private enterprise to give jobs to the greatest number.
We shall follow a wage policy which will sustain the purchasing power of labor – for that means more production and more jobs… this is not a time in which men can be forgotten as they were in the Republican catastrophe which we inherited.
No names mentioned
The President did not once mention any Republican by name, but he singled out statements by Mr. Dewey for special attention. Referring to the Republican candidate’s charge at Philadelphia that the administration planned to keep men in the Armed Forces until they found jobs, he said:
This callous and brazen falsehood about demobilization was an effort to stimulate fear among American mothers, wives and sweethearts.
‘Charge is fantastic’
Mr. Roosevelt said:
The very day that this fantastic charge was first made, a formal plan for the method of speedy discharge from the Army has already been announced by the War Department – a plan based upon the wishes of the soldiers themselves.
The President accused the Republicans of using “the propaganda technique invented by the dictators” according to which “you should never use a small falsehood; always a big one.”
Mr. Roosevelt said the Republicans were now supporting reforms which his administration introduced. In so doing, he revived the words “New Deal” which several months ago at a press conference he had sought to bury.
Accuses foes of fraud
He said:
The whole purpose of Republican oratory these days seems to be to switch labels. The object is to persuade the American people that the Democratic Party was responsible for the 1929 crash and depression, and that the Republican Party was responsible for all social progress under the New Deal.
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery – but I am afraid that in this case it is the most obvious common or garden variety of fraud…
Can the Old Guard pass itself off as the New Deal? I think not!
The President said that:
Perhaps the most ridiculous of these campaign falsifications is the one that this administration failed to prepare for the war.
GOP leaders assailed
Declaring that many Republican leaders, in and out of Congress, “tried to thwart and block nearly every attempt which this administration made to warn our people and to arm this nation,” he added:
Many of those very same leaders who fought every defense measure we proposed are still in control of the Republican Party, were in control of its national convention in Chicago, and would be in control of the machinery of the Congress and of the Republican Party in the event of a Republican victory this fall.
Declaring that neither labor nor the people as a whole would forget the record of past Republican administrations. Mr. Roosevelt denounced “labor baiters among the opposition who instead of calling attention to the achievements of labor in this war prefer to pick on the occasional strikes which have occurred.”
Hits PAC opponents
In an apparent reference to President John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, Mr. Roosevelt said wartime strikes had been condemned “by every responsible national labor leader… except one.”
“And that one labor leader, incidentally, is certainly not among my supporters,” he said.
The President appeared to be referring to Republican critics of the CIO Political Action Committee headed by Sidney Hillman, which was among the first group to endorse him for a fourth term, when he said:
They hate to see any working man or woman contribute a dollar bill to any wicked political party.
Of course, it is all right for large financiers and industrialists and monopolists to contribute tens of thousands of dollars…
Mr. Roosevelt accused Republicans of making it “pretty hard” for service personnel to vote in the forthcoming election and went on to urge every citizen “to use your sacred privilege of voting, no matter which candidate you expect to support.”
Mr. Roosevelt devoted a few words to apparent criticism of John Foster Dulles, Mr. Dewey’s chief adviser on foreign affairs. He spoke of “some politicians who kept their heads buried deep in the sand” and said that “‘only hysteria entertains the idea that Germany, Italy or Japan contemplate war upon us.’” The “hysteria” quotation has been attributed to a Dulles statement before the war.
The President also took an indirect slap at former President Herbert Hoover in asserting that Americans would remember 1932 – the “closed banks and the breadlines,” the “foreclosures of homes and farms,” the bankruptcies and the “Hoovervilles.”
He replied to the “indispensable man” taunt of the Republicans. He said:
I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself – such as the old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable.
Mr. Roosevelt accused the Republican Party of talking “out of both sides” of its mouth at the same time and went on to say that the American people would not forget the accomplishments of his administration.
‘Won’t be deceived’
Mr. Roosevelt, in his first self-labeled political address, lashed out at the Republican position which has been outlined in a series of addresses by Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, the GOP candidate, saying that “the people of this country know the past too well to be deceived into forgetting.”
Mr. Roosevelt listed a number of tasks facing the country, among them:
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“There is the task of finishing victoriously this most terrible of all wars as speedily as possible and with the least cost of lives.”
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“And there is the task which we face here at home – the task of reconverting our economy from the purposes of war to the purposes of peace.”
Defends wartime economy
He told the Teamsters and a nationwide radio audience:
These peace-building tasks were faced once before, nearly a generation ago. They were botched by a Republican administration. This must not happen this time. We will not let it happen this time.
Mr. Roosevelt made a strong defense of his wartime economic policy, pointing particularly to the post-war situation in which, he said, “the keynote of all that we propose to do in reconversion can be found in the one word: ‘jobs.’”
Mr. Roosevelt assailed as “ridiculous… campaign falsifications” on the part of the Republicans a charge that “this administration failed to prepare for the war which was coming.”
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Wallace in Buffalo
Buffalo, New York (UP) – (Sept. 23)
Vice President Henry A. Wallace arrived here by train tonight and was met by district Democratic leaders and a cheering throng of several hundred persons.
Bulkley denies pressure won Browder visa
But board opinion cannot be made public
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Dewey may reply to FDR tomorrow
Starts homeward trip after coast visit
Aboard Dewey special campaign train (UP) – (Sept. 23)
Governor Thomas E. Dewey sped east tonight after a whirlwind campaign through 11 politically-important states whose combined electoral votes will be a major factor in his bid for the Presidency.
As the GOP nominee boarded his special train for the return trip home from Los Angeles, he appeared confident of victory in November and was reported “more than optimistic” at results of his drive through the West.
Speaks Monday night
Mr. Dewey will deliver only one major speech on the trip east – in Oklahoma City Monday night – but his associates say it will be “full of fight.” He may take the opportunity to reply to President Roosevelt, who formally opened his campaign tonight.
The New York Governor spent 22 days consulting with Republican leaders and representatives of labor, farmers, cattlemen and businessmen in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California.
Organizes groups
His purpose was to organize the groups behind his campaign and at the same time gather material for future speeches. The states have a total of 131 electoral votes and many are considered “doubtful.”
Mr. Dewey’s major argument in six nationwide speeches and numerous back platform appearances had been, “It’s time for a change.” He argued the Roosevelt administration had failed to solve the nation’s problems despite more power and more money than any previous administration in history.
Slav Congress told to back fourth term
Resolution on issue to be voted on
A resolution calling for endorsement of a fourth term and reelection of President Roosevelt will be placed before delegates to the second national American Slav Congress today as the Congress closes its two-day convention at Carnegie Music Hall.
More than 2,000 delegates registered for the convention yesterday and heard Leo Krzycki of Milwaukee, the Congress president, keynote the opening session by calling upon “every Slavic American, regardless of party affiliation, to vote and work for the reelection of President Roosevelt and those candidates for Congress who will support his general policies for victory, security and peace.”
Scully speaks
Officials of the organization say the Congress represents 15 million people of Slavic descent living in the United States.
Mr. Krzycki’s address followed an address of welcome to the delegates by Mayor Cornelius D. Scully who also urged their support of President Roosevelt.
Halls closed to group
John Sobczak, Pittsburgh district organizer for the CIO Amalgamated Clothing Workers of which Mr. Krzycki is a vice president, and also chairman of the Western Pennsylvania Committee of the Congress, explained to the delegates that the “cramped quarters” in the Music Hall was due to two halls in Pittsburgh breaking contracts with the Congress “on grounds that we were holding a political meeting.”
Soldiers & Sailors’ Memorial Hall refused the Congress on grounds that its session was a political meeting. Syria Mosque also refused to entertain the convention but gave no reason.
Mr. Sobczak asserted that only a short time before in one of the halls a Republican meeting had been held where Ohio Governor John W. Bricker, GOP vice-presidential candidate, had been the speaker. The Congress delegates booed roundly at mention of Governor Bricker’s name.
Letter from Roosevelt
Mr. Sobczak charged:
Those in charge of those halls are more interested in the kind of politics than they are in whether a meeting is political.
Jaroslav Zmrhal, vice president of the Congress, in a brief address, told delegates that “the hour of the Slav has struck… and with the unification of all Slavs the day of bloody wars has ended.”
A letter to the Congress delegates from President Roosevelt read at the opening session pointed out that “the day of liberation of peoples of Slav blood draws near and with it the time for administration of retributive justice on their Nazi enslavers.”
The message urged the Congress “in all of your deliberations to be inspired by constructive action to further the great objective of hastening victory as a preliminary to peace on earth.”
An Army chaplain, Lt. Ernest J. Zizka of Camp Barkeley, Texas, gave the invocation at the opening session.
Ickes to ‘pick’ Dewey cabinet here today
Secretary of the Interior to speak at 4:00 p.m.
Although the “official” campaign opening is scheduled tomorrow night, the fourth-term drive will get started here this afternoon when Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes appears on Flagstaff Hill to “choose” Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s Cabinet for him.
Mr. Ickes will address an outdoor rally of the American Slav Congress, which has been holding a convention to endorse the reelection of President Roosevelt.
The New Deal “curmudgeon” has announced he will devote his speech to Mr. Dewey and, by coupling Mr. Ickes’ bent for picturesque speeches and his obvious partisanship, it can be surmised that the Secretary will attempt to “do a job” on Mr. Dewey.
Address on radio
Mr. Ickes agreed to speak to the Slav Congress only after officials of the organization promised him a radio hookup. Fifty stations on MBS will broadcast his speech.
Slav Congress officials said they had to raise $4,000 to pay for the broadcast. Each of the delegates paid a $2 fee on registering at the convention and the organization sold programs for 50 cents. If this doesn’t provide the necessary fund, they indicated, they will pass the hat for more.
Mr. Ickes’ speech will be broadcast by WCAE from 4:00 to 4:30 p.m. ET.
The officials’ opening of the Democratic campaign here, sponsored by the Democratic Women’s Guild of Allegheny County, is scheduled for North Side Carnegie Hall at 8:30 p.m. tomorrow.
Mrs. Norton to speak
Mrs. Mary T. Norton, Congresswoman from New Jersey, will head a list of 12 speakers, In addition to the speeches, the rally will be shown a new Roosevelt campaign picture “Lest We Forget,” a 20-minute reel depicting the achievements of the New Deal administration.
Other speakers will include: Congressman Francis J. Myers of Philadelphia, candidate for the U.S. Senate; Federal Judge Charles Alvin Jones of Edgeworth, candidate for the State Supreme Court; Auditor General F. Clair Ross, candidate for the Superior Court; State Treasurer G. Harold Wagner, candidate for Auditor General, and Ramsey S. Black, third assistant postmaster general, candidate for state treasurer.
In addition, U.S. Senator Joseph F. Guffey; his sister, National Committeewoman Emma Guffey Miller; State Chairman David L. Lawrence; Mrs. Emma Bray, vice chairman of the County Committee; Mrs. Elinor Kane, president of the Women’s Guild, and County Commissioner George Rankin will speak.
GOP units tour state
Meanwhile, two Republican campaign groups will be touring the state.
U.S. Senator James J. Davis, State Senator G. Harold Watkins, candidate for Auditor General, and Judge J. Frank Graff of Kittanning, candidate for the Superior Court, will visit Rochester at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday, Butler at 3:30 p.m. and Kittanning at 5:45 p.m.
On Wednesday, these candidates will appear at Brookville at 11:45 a.m., at Indiana at 4:00 p.m., at Johnstown at 9:00 p.m. Thursday they will address a noon meeting at DuBois and a 5:45 p.m. rally in Altoona.
Another group composed of Supreme Court Justice Howard W. Hughes, Superior Court Judge Arthur H. James and City Treasurer Edgar W. Baird of Philadelphia, candidate for state treasurer, will travel through the central part of the state.
In Washington –
GOP refuses to end fight on Pearl Harbor
‘People want facts,’ Congressman says
Washington (UP) – (Sept. 23)
Republicans continued their efforts to smoke out the facts about the Pearl Harbor disaster today despite every indication that the administration has no intention of saying a word until official Army and Navy inquiry boards have completed their investigations.
Rep. Ralph Church (R-IL), indicating GOP dissatisfaction with waiting for the military board to report, said again that “the people want the facts.”
The work of those boards is going forward steadily, but there is no knowledge as to how much of their factfinding task has been completed. Neither has there been any indication as to when they expect to make public their findings.
General summoned
Evidence that the factfinding is being accelerated was seen yesterday in a War Department announcement that Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow, commanding general of the V Corps of the 1st Army now fighting in Europe, has returned to testify before the Army board.
Removal of an officer from his post during active operations indicates anxiety to obtain vital information at once. Both Army and Navy authorities had previously objected to investigations until after the war partly because key witnesses might be engaged in fighting and unavailable for questioning here.
The Navy last winter sent Adm. Thomas C. Hart to Pearl Harbor to conduct an on-the-post investigation His findings have not been made public.
GOP may be aided
The Republicans might have much to gain politically should any high administration officials be involved in responsibility for the surprise with which the Japs caught U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941.
On the other hand, they would have little to lose if the guilt lay on the accused Pearl Harbor Army and Navy commanders or on non-administration shoulders, since the Republicans were not in power and could scarcely be held accountable for the Pearl Harbor disaster.
Fliers bolster troops in Holland
London, England (UP) –
Huge forces of bombers and fighters streaked across the Channel toward the continent this afternoon, possibly going to the aid of Allied forces in Holland, as an estimated 500 Italian-based heavy bombers hammered industrial targets in the Sudetenland.
Other squadrons of U.S. 15th Air Force heavies lashed at railroads in southern Austria and bridges in northeastern Italy, while three formations of Mitchell bombers blasted the German-held 5,000-ton cruiser Taranto at the La Spezia Naval Base. The warship, which the Nazis had so placed as to block the harbor entrance in the event La Spezia fell to the Allies, was set afire, it was reported from Rome.
Hit bow, stern
German anti-aircraft batteries threw up a terrific barrage, but bomb-strike photos showed explosives fell across the Taranto’s bow and stern, and amidships. There was no immediate announcement of the specific targets hit by the Lightning and Mustang-escorted bombers in the Sudetenland and Austria.
Despite yesterday’s bad weather, the 9th U.S. Air Force flew 750 sorties during which it dropped 200 tons of bombs on rail communications, motor transport and power stations in the vicinities of Coblenz and Saarbrücken, Germany. Six planes were lost, but the pilots of two were safe, it was announced officially.
U.S. and French P-47 Thunderbolts of Brig. Gen. Gordon P. Saville’s 12th Tactical Air Command struck at German locomotives and vehicles along the Rhine in good weather Friday after being grounded for almost a week by bad weather.
Bricker to speak in Connecticut
World court urged in his Boston speech
Norwalk, Connecticut (UP) – (Sept. 23)
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker, Republican vice-presidential nominee, came here tonight for his last speaking engagement on his 3,250-mile eastern campaign swing through Pennsylvania, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Connecticut Governor Raymond E. Baldwin boarded the Bricker train at New London, Connecticut, and accompanied the governor to the home of Mrs. Clare Booth Luce, Republican congresswoman.
Calls for cooperation
Earlier at Boston, Mr. Bricker told the Massachusetts State Republican Convention that the United States must cooperate with other nations in the post-war era and use force if necessary, to prevent a third world war should “moral persuasion or economic pressure” fail.
The United States, Mr. Bricker said, should “take the leadership among the nations of the world in organizing to preserve the peace.”
Mr. Bricker said:
The United States has always had a tremendous stake in world order and stability, yet we have not kept ourselves alert to developments threatening peace and world order. We have not kept ourselves prepared to cope with them when they attained world-shaking proportions.
Expediency is charged
The administration’s international policy, he said, has been ruled by “day-by-day expediency.” America sent money to China while sending war material to Japan, he said. Hitler seized power in Germany at the same time the New Deal entered office, he added, but the administration did nothing to keep “orderly peace” in the world.
Mr. Bricker proposed that a World Court be established “wherein justiciable questions will be decided” and adequate machinery created for arbitration and conciliation of international disputes.
Gen. Eisenhower: Power of Gestapo factor in length of war
General injured knee; he believes Germany’s military situation is hopeless
By John E. Lee (representing combined U.S. press)
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Eisenhower bars travel of civilians to war zones
Headquarters to probe charge businessmen were transported into liberated areas
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Allies smashing toward Bologna
Seize key positions in Gothic Line in Italy
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
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Two-term advocate backs Roosevelt
Washington (UP) – (Sept. 23)
Senator Josiah W. Bailey (D-NC) said today that Republican presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey has “endorsed all the New Deal except Secretary Ickes, Miss Perkins and President Roosevelt and proving almost as good a New Deal speechmaker as Vice President Henry Wallace.”
Mr. Bailey, who has introduced a bill to limit presidential terms to two, said he would support President Roosevelt for a fourth term because “I am a Democrat,” but that he intended to do what he could to keep Sidney Hillman, chairman of the CIO Political Action Committee, out of the party.
Mr. Bailey said:
It appears Mr. Hillman is trying to control of both the political parties with a view of setting up his own peculiar sort of government.