America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

Relief comes just in time for trapped paratroopers

Rescue column struggles through after forced march against Nazi opposition
By Richard D. McMillan, United Press staff writer

Chinese take bastion near Burma Road

Gain in campaign in Yunnan Province


Racial war peril in Orient cited

Col. Romulo: U.S. pattern must be adopted

americavotes1944

Ball asks defeat of 11 Senators

Washington (UP) –
Senator Joseph H. Ball (R-MN) charged today that 11 of 32 Senators up for reelection in November are isolationists who would attempt to stifle plans for a world peace organization and called for their defeat at the polls.

Although declining to identify them, Mr. Ball said eight of the 11 Senators were Republicans, three were Democrats and almost all of them figures of note.

He predicted that a long, and perhaps disastrous, fight would ensue in Congress over the security organization now being planned at Dumbarton Oaks unless the public forces an “involuntary retirement” of certain members of the Senate and House.

At the same time, Senator Warren R. Austin (R-VT) said the world security plan being outlined at Dumbarton Oaks had a single purpose – security – and that fears that it would vest American representatives with authority to plunge the nation into war were premature.

Editorial: Worldwide press freedom

Editorial: A major post-war job

americavotes1944

Editorial: Every dog has his day

Just a couple of sidenotes about the President’s first official campaign appearance.

He didn’t dwell on the Commander-in-Chief. It was frankly a political speech. As it should have been.

Memories of 1912 came back when Fala was introduced. Recall the Champ Clark campaign song:

It makes no difference if he is a hound,
You’ve got to stop kicking my dog around.

Champ’s dog was just a mongrel from Missouri, didn’t go either to Groton or Harvard, or to Adak or Québec, wasn’t a Scottie, but played a big part in the campaign that finally nominated Woodrow Wilson.

And as Mark Twain said, “The more I see of men the better I like dogs.”

Anyway – if Fala, the Scottie, were made Secretary of the Treasury, we’d save a lot of billions.

Editorial: No political pressure?

americavotes1944

Edson: It’s nice to be President in an election drive

By Peter Edson

Washington –
There are many little ways in which a candidate in office and running for reelection has it all over a candidate not in the office he is seeking to be elected to.

Governor Dewey may not have the responsibilities that President Roosevelt has. Mr. Dewey can do a lot more fancy-free shooting from the hip with small worry about breaking a few windows in other people’s glass houses.

But Mr. Roosevelt can indulge in a lot more high-powered precision bombing from his exalted office without giving any too obvious appearances of playing politics and without ever mentioning his worthy opponent once, by name or inference.

For instance, the President dashes off a directive to Budget Director Harold D. Smith telling him he’s gotta start figuring how to reduce the number of government employees as soon as the war’s over. Thereby the President, in office, gets credit for a beautiful assist at cutting down federal expenditures.

The President signs the G.I. Bill of Rights, and his administration gets credit for being good to the soldiers.

As Commander-in-Chief, the President goes to Africa, the Middle East, Hawaii, Alaska. He sees the troops in those places, and without kissing a single baby or giving away one cigar or cigarette he makes his presence felt and thus appeals to a few hundred thousand potential voters, which his opponent cannot do.

Appointments

He can throw in along with a list of deserving promotions of career diplomats, the appointment of a former Democratic National Committeeman, Charles Sawyer of Ohio, to be Ambassador to Belgium, and he thereby can pay off a political debt.

He can make reports to the nation from “your government” and he can make fireside chats from secret naval bases on the West Coast without mentioning politics, while at the same time giving you every assurance that you now are getting the best possible deal of all.

He can send messages to Congress asking for national service legislation, higher taxes and more subsidies to keep down the cost of living. Such a message makes him a great hero with people who believe there should be national service, bigger taxes and better subsidies, even though it is a foregone conclusion that Congress will never approve such laws.

He can appoint a committee to survey the cost of living, which makes a great hit with folks who believe the cost of living is too high, as who doesn’t.

Without a word from him, a bureau of his administration can in the normal course of its business get ready to say that millions of people should have their wages raised. And you know who gets the credit for that.

Train wreck

He can attend conferences with Nimitz and MacArthur in Honolulu, with Churchill in Québec, Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo and Joe Stalin in Tehran. These have nothing to do with domestic politics, but they make an awful lot of front-page news without his party’s press agents having to turn a single handspring. Meanwhile, his opponent has to get in a train wreck to compete.

He can receive ambassadors and ministers and heads of foreign governments with the same official rightness, while flashbulbs pop and the resulting pictures in the papers attest to one and all that the man in the White House knows the important folks from all over, subtly putting across the idea that he therefore should be continued in office to carry on.

Just before an election, he can get the plans all started for keeping the peace, preventing future wars, doing away with the wicked cartels, feeding the hungry, bringing relief and rehabilitation to the dispossessed, educating the dumb, stabilizing the world’s currency, regulating the world’s aviation, rubber and every other thing that is unregulated.

All this is not playing politics, but who would dare propose swapping planners in the middle of a plan?

It is very nice to be President, when you want to be President.

Ferguson: Military training for girls

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Simms: France to join U.S., Britain, Russia in Big Four

By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

americavotes1944

Background of news –
Campaign contrasts

By Charles Wyer

New York –
National political headquarters during presidential years naturally are pretty busy hives of industry, but no two are just alike and the character of each may be expected to change at various stages of the campaign. New York is the site of all three of the mater party headquarters and a visit to each produced three distinctly different impressions.

The largest of the three by a narrow margin is the Democratic headquarters at the Hotel Biltmore. Next is the Republican quarters at the Hotel Roosevelt, and the smallest is that of the CIO Political Action Committee on East 42nd Street. But the outward appearance of action is in reverse order.

The PAC opened national headquarters in a few rooms on the 15th floor of the East 42nd Street address last January, but gradually expanded until today it occupies more than half of that floor, as well as spare for the research department on the 18th floor and more space for the stencil and stenographic division, on the 14th.

None of the PAC rooms is very large, but there are many of them. Some are the private offices of Sidney Hillman, head of the organization, and of the other officers. Others are the quarters of special departments, such as speakers’ bureaus, radio writers, artists, mailers, etc., including, presumably, a cashier.

Bustle at PAC headquarters

The reception room and most of the others are heavily decorated with posters bearing President Roosevelt’s picture and urging the man on the street to contribute $1 toward his reelection. Tables are piled high with pamphlets and other campaign literature of many descriptions. Everything traditional in campaigns is on display except an American flag.

Young men, young women, old men and elderly women, pound typewriters, answer telephones and rush from one office to another. Men and women pour In and out of the offices from the street asking for instructions and, perhaps, making contributions. Yes, it is a busy place and doubtless will get busier as Election Day nears. A spokesman for the PAC said 75 paid employes are now on the staff.

Republican headquarters, too, is full of action. It occupies 77 rooms on the 10th floor of the Roosevelt and laps over into smaller space on the sixth and ninth floors. It is the 10th floor that the bulk of the public visits. Two pretty, young women sit at a desk opposite the elevators flanked by American flags, and pictures of Governor and Mrs. Dewey and of the Brickers.

People are popping off the elevators every moment or two and the receptionists have few idle moments. The 150-odd men and women on the staff work with marked zeal and considerable optimism, but perhaps more quietly than those at PAC headquarters, where the personnel, outwardly, indicates no particular interest, but gives more the appearance of “just doing a job.”

Calm and quiet prevail

In marked contrast is the atmosphere at the Biltmore. There the Democrats hold forth, for the most part on the fifth floor. All was quiet and it did not seem possible that this could be the headquarters of a man seeking reelection to the Presidency. Workers were little in evidence, posters were few. There was no hustle, only calm. Therefore, the visiting reporter was surprised to learn that here was the largest, most heavily manned quarters of all.

A spokesman said:

We have 60 rooms on this floor and 15 or 20 more divided between the first and second. We wish we could get more.

Also, the staff comprises at least 200 men and women, and none of them is concerned with one of the biggest jobs a political party has to meet – that of mailing out literature, posters and many other kinds of propaganda to the rest of the country. Lack of help forced the Democrats this year to farm out this job to a commercial organization.

Thus it appears that the Democrats are busy after all and not, as one wag suggested, letting the PAC do all the rough work.

Millett: Back to kitchen campaign is pretty sentiment

Most men have no idea what poor housewife has on her hands
By Ruth Millett

Nelson home, plans help for Chinese

WPB head to confer with Roosevelt soon


Labor attacks WLB, industry

Formula hearings to open tomorrow

americavotes1944

Stokes: The old master

By Thomas L. Stokes

With Dewey party –
Everybody on this campaign train including the Republican candidate for President, is continually conscious of the Democratic candidate – “That Man in the White House,” as he has been called so bitterly now for some years.

So, it was only natural that there should be keen interest in this campaign cavalcade in what President Roosevelt would say in his first avowed political speech bidding for a fourth term, and how he would say it.

Well before the scheduled hour, the lounge car – with bar attached – was filled with newspaper correspondents. Several stood, a little knot about the radio. These included Henry Turnbull, radio director for the Republican National Committee. John Marshall, Governor Dewey’s private secretary, sat at one of the tables, notebook and pencil ready to take down the words of Mr. Roosevelt.

The gong sounded then there came a din of showing and tumult from the dining room in Washington. It went on and on, interminably. Those in the car, wise in the ways of pumped-up radio demonstrations, grinned knowingly at one another. They whispered that the Teamsters were trying to outdo that cascade of sound that had greeted Governor Dewey in Los Angeles’ Coliseum the night before. That had come, too, at the signal of a man at the microphone with his watch in hand. Henry Turnbull glanced at his watch, smiling.

‘A voice in the wilderness’

Dan Tobin’s voice did not come through so well, sounding like a foghorn in the midst of a storm-tossed sea. He finished. Then that other voice for which everyone had waited was there, strong, confident and masterful.

The line of the poet “A voice in the wilderness singing” came to mind, but Lord Byron was writing of love, and this was no love feast going on there over the radio. Not on your life. It was the familiar Roosevelt political voice, unheard for so long, now sweetly ironic, now brutally sardonic, now raw with sarcasm, now rising to an emotional climax.

We were in the middle of the wilderness, it was true. Away from the train, on each side, the desert swept off like a giant dirty plate littered with scraps of sage brush to the purplish rim of the mountains.

Ears were sharp for the voice from the radio. Inside was the sound of laughter as the voice spoke of the rope that one didn’t mention in the house of one who has been hanged. the story of Fala, the dog with the Scottish soul, the young man who could not remember the 1929 depression.

Hard-boiled newsmen appreciative

Correspondents with New Deal sympathies – and there are quite a few along – beamed as they chuckled and hooted. Hard-boiled men of the press, who look on all politics with a cold and calculating eve, laughed in appreciation of the Roosevelt technique. From the grins and comments, you learned, too, that some who write for newspapers in which there is never a kind word said for the New Deal have their secret affections outside of editorial policy.

As the President talked on, a very pained expression came over the face of Henry Turnbull. He was not having any fun.

There was a babble as the speech ended.

“The old Roosevelt” … “The greatest political speech he ever made” … “He canceled out this whole trip we’ve made” … “He took up every Dewey speech in this one” and so on.

Had the Republican candidate heard the speech?

It turned out that they were unable to get the radio to work back in the private car. It has been out of whack ever since the wreck.

Before the speech was ended, the train had come into Needles, California. There Governor Dewey made a speech from the back platform to a crowd in which there were some few Roosevelt hecklers, mostly kids.

As we left, somebody slapped red, white and blue stickers on the car windows, showing to the inside of the train the one word: “Roosevelt.”

Mrs. Browder revealed as spy on Americans at Moscow school

By Nelson Frank, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Mrs. Whitney, ‘First Lady’ of American turf, dies

Heart ailment fatal after long illness

americavotes1944

Gracie Allen Reporting

By Gracie Allen

Hollywood, California –
There’s been so much fighting in Hollywood lately that I understand the newspapers are thinking of withdrawing their ace war reporters from Europe and sending them here.

Governor Dewey, who was in town over the weekend, was invited to a Hollywood party, but declined. I guess he figured he could see the same thing at Madison Square Garden done by professionals.

Mr. Dewey was presented at the Los Angeles Coliseum Friday night in a colorful program under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille. I can admit now that I was a little worried until I saw Mr. Dewey walk out fully attired. Mr. DeMille had promised something spectacular – and you know him and his bathtubs.

Garrison: Films’ background music is a major studio task!

Hundreds of men work on scores – that you WON’T hear it – that something?
By Maxine Garrison

Trade journal says –
Nazi collapse to cause lull in steel buying

Demand seen hinging on speedy conversion

It’s Bengals or Browns in final dash

Yanks virtually out; schedule favors Tigers