Stokes: Campaign money
By Thomas L. Stokes
…
Love: Public opinion polls
By Gilbert Love
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The birth of a new France –
Wolf: ‘Give Gen. de Gaulle a chance!’ that’s political tenor of France
They may not approve of him later but he’s top dog now
By Tom Wolf
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Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Hollywood, California –
This isn’t a movie column, but I’ve gotten so many letters asking for inside information about the movie and radio stars that I’ll answer a few today.
To D. Q. of Miami, Florida: No, that’s just radio talk. In real life Eddie Cantor doesn’t try to get his daughters married. But if you’re interested, wire Eddie collect and he’ll charter a plane and bring them to Miami.
To the Marines who asked, “Is Betty Grable’s figure on the level?” The answer is “no.” …It’s anything but level. And not only is Betty beautiful but she’s a wonderful cook. You ought to hear the soldiers whistle when she walks in with a tray of sandwiches.
To Mrs. R. J. of Chicago: Yes, Jack Benny has a full head of hair. I had occasion to study it closely for quite some time. Jack left it in his dressing room.
War finance head lauds newspapers
Treasury aide cites ‘amazing support’
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‘Confession’ made in youth’s death
Girl says friend killed farm boy
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Cards still favored to top Browns
Cooper to face Potter in opener tomorrow; figures support Birds
By Leo H. Petersen, United Press sports editor
St. Louis, Missouri –
The Cardinals, perennial champions so far as this city along the banks of the Mississippi is concerned, came back to Sportsman’s Park today as the betting favorites for the 1944 World Series, but they found that their hometown had gone all out sentimentally for the rags-and-riches boys of Luke Sewell.
The facts and figures supported the betting odds, but they didn’t take into consideration the fighting heart of the American League Champion Browns.
For in the seven-game series that decides the gold and glory, past performances can be written off the record books and, if an old baseball tradition is borne out, the Browns will be the team to beat.
Browns ‘hot’
They are going into the series the “hot” club. They battled the Tigers right down to the wire – the final day of the season – before they won their first American League title, while the Cardinals coasted to their third consecutive National League pennant.
The pressure on the Browns has been heavy – but they have been winning and the Cardinals in the past month have looked like anything but the pre-war ball club they were in piling up such an early lead that their pennant drive was never in doubt.
Maybe Manager Billy Southworth can get his horde of stars back on the victory trail, for the cold statistics showed them superior to the Browns in almost every department of the game. But it was a sure bet that there was another department in which they might tie the Browns but never beat them – and that was fighting heart.
Few stars
Never before has a team with such few established major leaguers as the Browns even won a league pennant. All season long, no matter what the odds were against them, they came up with championship pitching from a staff that had no champions, hitting from batters who were strictly so-so at the plate, and fielding from fielders who had never been better than mediocre.
National Leaguers – and a lot of American Leaguers, too – felt that the Browns have been playing over their heads. They figured that the fighting spirit which carried them into baseball’s top ranks, after years and years in the poorer brackets, may have been good enough for a league championship but would probably fall short when World Series chips are riding.
While the Browns were sentimental favorites, St. Louis was taking its two champions in stride. Fans here have been used to Cardinals victories, but Brown triumphs have been something the town has been waiting for since the American League began operations in 1902.
Now they have it – but they aren’t too concerned about it. Hotels are sold out, tickets are going at scalper prices running as high as $50 for a box seat. Speculation is rife on the possible starting pitchers for the opener, but there was little to upset the even tenor of the ways of a war-boom town. While sellouts for little Sportsman’s Park were assured for as many games as will be necessary to decide the championship, there have been no rip-roaring celebrations, nothing to upset the blasé St. Louis fans.
Neither Southworth nor Sewell would say definitely who their starting pitchers would be tomorrow, but the assignments probably will go to Morton Cooper, the strong-armed righthander of the Cards, and Nelson Potter, a bargain basement pitcher whose clutch hurling kept the Browns in the running when they appeared out of the championship picture after kicking away a seven-game mid-August lead.
No Brownie injuries
Sewell had no injuries to worry about. His only problem was to keep his club keyed up to the pitch that carried it through one of the gamest stands a team has ever made.
But the situation was different with Southworth. His hitting star, Stan Musial, was recovering from injuries; his southpaw pitching ace, Max Lanier, was trying to shake off a late-season slump which saw him knocked out of the box seven times in as many starts, and outfielders Danny Litwhiler and Johnny Hopp were doubtful starters. Litwhiler has a bad knee, Hopp a bad back. The chances were both would play and that Southworth would try Lanier in the second game against Jack Kramer. There wasn’t much doubt but that the other starting pitchers would be Ted Wilks and Harry Brecheen for the Cardinals and Denny Galehouse and Sig Jakucki for the Browns.
Williams: St. Lou agog, but not over the Cardinals
By Joe Williams
St. Louis, Missouri –
There is a great deal of agoging out here. Practically all the citizens are agog. This is understandable. The town is about to enjoy its first in-the-family, exclusive, all-ours World Series. Beginning tomorrow, the St. Louis Browns play the St. Louis Cardinals for the world’s championship. Only a captious person would stop to ask how St. Louis playing St. Louis could possibly hope to settle a world issue. Certainly no one from New York, where similar fiction is commonplace, should bring up the report.
The difference here is that the Browns never before have been cast in a global role. This is the first time they have ever been in a World Series. It is interesting to study the reactions. The Browns are led by one Luke Sewell, rather undistinguished in baseball up to now, beyond his contributions as a first or third base coach and as a fair sort of catcher.
Who’s Eisenhower?
From what you read and hear here, Mr. Sewell has just completed a campaign which makes blushers of Eisenhower, Patton and Montgomery. There is a description of him as he sits in the clubhouse following the all-decisive victory over the Yankees on the final days of the season which would stir the memories of Carl Sandburg; it would make him feel close to the tired, weary and stricken Lincoln at Gettysburg.
This is not meant to be too cynical. Rather, to picture the emotion and attitude of a town that for so many years was denied a place among American League winners, and what could be more natural, in the zone of sports, than that the manager would take on a spiritual quality and that it would be accepted as such by citizens, frustrated for almost two generations?
It’s different now
Pennants are not unknown out here but were unknown to the Browns, achieving their first in 43 years. It is not difficult to imagine how a faithful follower of the Browns must have felt and how he feels today. All at once the sun has started to shine for him; he is no longer the underprivileged or the “little man,” to whom Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Wallace and Ma Perkins refer with such sympathy, from now on, even to the end of time, nobody can say his team never won a pennant, and if there is an implied suggestion here that the New Deal has improved its position in the election, all I can say is that Governor Dewey’s broad strategy must make the best of it.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Roosevelt’s handlers would be smart if they capitalized on the Browns’ victory. One incident alone would be of material help. The pitcher who won the pennant-winning game never pitched in the big leagues before. A year ago, at this time, he was pitching semi-pro ball in the Southwest. Today he is the hero of St. Louis. From mediocrity to magnificence! And he beat the Yankees, blasted Hoover’s symbol of capitalism in baseball. Even Stalin couldn’t ask for a better natural.
Pessimists’ faces are red –
Baseball ends banner campaign
…
Landis to miss Series; breaks long record
Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Judge Kenesaw M. Landis will miss the World Series for the first time during his 24 years as baseball commissioner when the annual classic opens tomorrow.
The 78-year-old baseball czar’s office announced that “because of illness, which, although not serious, prohibits the Commissioner from traveling in the judgment of his physician, the Judge will be unable to attend the series.”
Landis appointed Les M. O’Connor (secretary and treasurer of the commissioner’s office), William Harridge (president of the American League) and Ford Frick (president of the National League) as his representatives to supervise, control and direct the series.
DOJ: Nazis obtain $25 million in secret pact
Five U.S. banks named in sale of marks
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Senate group urges freezing of U.S. plants
Move proposed in 11 major states
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Völkischer Beobachter (October 4, 1944)
Emigranten liefern Land und Volk aus –
Belgiens Not erzeugt Widerstand
Besatzungsterror mit Hunger, Arbeitslosigkeit, Massenverhaftungen
…
Enthüllungen über Dumbarton Oaks –
Statt ‚Weltsicherheit‘ Weltsicherheitsverwahrung
…
Das Ende einer Greuellüge
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Führer HQ (October 4, 1944)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
Der starke Druck der 1. kanadischen Armee bei Antwerpen und an der belgisch-holländischen Grenze nördlich Turnhout dauert an. Schwere Kämpfe sind hier im Gange. Nördlich Nimwegen und an der Maas führten die Engländer und Nordamerikaner heftige, für sie verlustreiche Angriffe, die Jedoch gegen zähen Widerstand und wuchtige Gegenstöße unserer Grenadiere und Panzer nicht durchdrangen. Nur an der deutsch-holländischen Grenze südlich Geilenkirchen konnte eine neu herangeführte amerikanische Division nach schweren, hin und her wogenden Kämpfen einen örtlich begrenzten Einbruch in unsere Stellungen erzielen.
Über dem holländischen Kampfraum und den Vogesen schirmten deutsche Jäger eigene Angriffsunternehmungen ab und unterstützten durch Bekämpfung feindlicher Tiefflieger die Abwehrkämpfe der Erdtruppen.
Im Parroywald und an den Berghängen östlich Épinal und Remiremont blieben hartnäckige Angriffe amerikanischer Verbände in der Masse auch gestern in unserem Feuer liegen oder gewannen nur einzelne Dörfer und Waldstücke.
Vor Dünkirchen herrscht Waffenruhe zur Evakuierung der Zivilbevölkerung. Im Vorfeld unserer befestigten Stützpunkte an der Atlantikküste kam es zu Feuerüberfällen und örtlichen Gefechten.
Unsere Grenadierdivisionen fingen in den Bergen des Etruskischen Apennin weiterhin standhaft die auf breiter Front und mit hohem Materialeinsatz vorgetragenen amerikanischen Angriffe auf. In heftigen Kämpfen um einzelne Bergkuppen vereitelten sie zum Teil in neuen Stellungen alle Durchbruchsversuche des Gegners. An der adriatischen Küste wurden angreifende britische Kompanien zerschlagen.
Gegen das Vordringen schneller sowjetischer Verbände aus dem serbisch-rumänischen Grenzgebiet nördlich des Eisernen Tores in den Raum nördlich und nordwestlich Belgrad sind eigene Gegenmaßnahmen im Gange. Auch südlich der großen Donauschleife wird heftig gekämpft. Deutsche und ungarische Truppen führten westlich Arad erfolgreiche Angriffe.
Südwestlich Großwardein warfen unsere Panzerkräfte in schwungvollem Gegenstoße sowjetische Schützendivisionen und Panzerverbände zurück und vernichteten 24 Panzer. Starke feindliche Angriffe westlich Torenburg und an der Maros wurden hach unwesentlichen Fortschritten von unseren Truppen abgewiesen.
In den Ostbeskiden gehen die schweren Kämpfe um die Passstraßen, vor allem südlich Dukla, weiter. Die bolschewistischen Angriffe wurden in Gegenangriffen zerschlagen oder aufgefangen.
Nach Abwehr sowjetischer Angriffe und Rückführung aller Waffen und des Kriegsgerätes räumten unsere Nachtruppen, unterstützt durch Sicherungsfahrzeuge und Kampffahrzeuge der Kriegsmarine, ihre Brückenköpfe im Südteil der Insel Dagö.
In Finnland erreichten unsere Truppen auf ihrem Rückmarsch nach Norden die befohlenen Ziele.
Deutsche Räumboote beschädigten in nordnorwegischen Gewässern drei Schnellboote der Sowjets und trafen eines so schwer, daß mit seinem Untergang zu rechnen ist.
Nordamerikanische Bomber richteten ohne Erdsicht einen Terrorangriff gegen die Stadt Nürnberg. Es entstanden Schäden in Wohngebieten und an Kulturstätten. Auch der Raum von Köln und das Rheinland waren das Ziel feindlicher Terrorbomber. In der vergangenen Nacht warfen britische Flugzeuge Bomben auf Kassel und Aschaffenburg. Durch vereinzelten Bombenabwurf und Bordwaffenangriffe wurden Wohnhäuser in einigen Orten Süd- und Südwestdeutschlands zerstört. Luftverteidigungskräfte brachten hierbei 31 feindliche Flugzeuge, darunter 13 viermotorige Bomber, zum Absturz.
Bei den Kämpfen um Siebenbürgen haben sich die ostmärkische 3. Gebirgsdivision zusammen mit schlesischen Jägern und ungarischen Grenzschutzverbänden unter Führung des Ritterkreuzträgers Generalmajor Klatt und die württembergisch-badische 23. Panzerdivision unter Führung von Generalmajor von Radowitz in Angriff und Abwehr besonders ausgezeichnet.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (October 4, 1944)
FROM
(A) SHAEF FORWARD
ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section
DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
041100A October
TO FOR ACTION
(1) AGWAR (Pass to WND)
TO (W) FOR INFORMATION (INFO)
(2) FIRST US ARMY GP
(3) ADV HQ 12 ARMY GP
(4) FWD ECH (MAIN) 12 ARMY GP
(5) AEAF
(6) ANCXF
(7) EXFOR MAIN
(8) EXFOR REAR
(9) DEFENSOR, OTTAWA
(10) CANADIAN C/S, OTTAWA
(11) WAR OFFICE
(12) ADMIRALTY
(13) AIR MINISTRY
(14) ETOUSA
(15) SACSEA
(16) CMHQ (Pass to RCAF & RCN)
(17) COM Z APO 871
(18) SHAEF MAIN
(REF NO.)
NONE
(CLASSIFICATION)
IN THE CLEAR
Communiqué No. 179
Allied troops advancing north of the Antwerp-Turnhout Canal have reached a point eight miles northeast of Antwerp on the road to Breda. North of Turnhout, we have taken Baarle-Nassau. East of Turnhout, our forces are in the village of Reusel.
Between the Meuse and the Waal, the villages of Wamel and Dremnel have been freed. In the area of Overloon, a German counterattack was repulsed by our troops with an estimated 50 percent loss to the enemy.
Allied forces attacking in the area north of Aachen are advancing slowly against varying resistance from German artillery and small arms, and from pillboxes. Our troops have penetrated to Ubach three miles south of Geilenkirchen and have advanced against heavy resistance in the area immediately southwest of Ubach. Gains have been made in the vicinity of Meckstein, north of Kerkrade.
Just south of Aachen, intense tank and mortar fire has been directed against our units, and in the area west of Hürtgen small enemy counterattacks were repulsed at three points.
Fighters and fighter-bombers supported ground forces and attacked transportation targets in Holland and the Rhineland.
In southeastern Luxembourg, our troops have gained high ground just west of Echternach and Grevenmacher. Farther south, high ground was taken in the vicinity of Maizières-lès-Metz, on the west side of the Moselle River northwest of Metz. Five miles southwest of Metz, our forces have entered Fort Driant after a successful assault.
East of Nancy, the enemy has been forced back to the Forêt de Parroy by our advance which has gained more than a mile in some sectors. Our armored elements repulsed a counterattack by enemy infantry and tanks in the vicinity of Anglemont, five miles southwest of Baccarat.
Northeast of Épinal, our troops, favored by clearing weather, made new gains and occupied several villages. These included Grandvillers, Deycimont and Lepanges.
Farther south, resistance was more stubborn and enemy counterattacks have been more frequent. Limited progress was made in one area northwest of Belfort.
The sea dyke near Westkapelle on the Dutch island of Walcheren was breached yesterday in a two-hour attack by waves of heavy bombers escorted by fighters. A gap 120 yards wide was made in the dyke and extensive flooding of enemy positions resulted. None of the aircraft is missing from this operation.
More than 1,000 heavy bombers, with a strong fighter escort, attacked the Daimler-Benz factory at Gaggenau, tank works at Nürnberg and airfields at Lachen-Speyerdorf and Giebelstadt. The escorting fighters also strafed airfields in Germany. Eleven bombers are missing.
COORDINATED WITH: G-2, G-3 to C/S
THIS MESSAGE MAY BE SENT IN CLEAR BY ANY MEANS
/s/
Precedence
“OP” - AGWAR
“P” - Others
ORIGINATING DIVISION
PRD, Communique Section
NAME AND RANK TYPED. TEL. NO.
D. R. JORDAN, Lt Col FA Ext. 9
AUTHENTICATING SIGNATURE
/s/
U.S. Navy Department (October 4, 1944)
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 140
Further reducing the remnants of enemy troops still resisting on Peleliu and Angaur Islands, Marine and Army troops destroyed the occupants of a number of enemy‑held caves on October 3 (West Longitude Date). Mopping-up operations on Angaur continued. The bodies of more dead Japanese soldiers have been counted, a total of 9,878 on Peleliu and 1,109 on Angaur.
Search Venturas of Fleet Air Wing Four bombed Paramushiru in the Kurils on October 2. Meager anti-aircraft fire was encountered. All our planes returned.
Seventh Air Force Liberators on October 1, scored a direct hit on an enemy cargo vessel near Chichijima in the Bonin Islands. Two enemy planes were in the air, but did not attempt interception. Shipping in Chichijima Harbor was attacked by 7th Air Force Liberators on October 2. Anti-aircraft fire varied from moderate to meager.
Buildings, gun emplacements, and docking facilities at Pagan Island were bombed and rocketed on October 2 by Thunderbolts of the 7th Air Force. No anti-aircraft fire was encountered.
Seventh Air Force Liberators bombed the runway and installations on Marcus Island on October 2. Anti-aircraft fire was meager.
Corsairs and Venturas of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing bombed communications facilities and gun positions at Jaluit Atoll on October 2. Anti-aircraft fire, which was moderate, damaged one Ventura. All our planes returned safely. Dauntless dive bombers of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing flew through meager anti-aircraft fire to bomb installations at Taroa Island in the Maloelap Atoll.
White House Statement on the Death of Al Smith
October 4, 1944
The nation mourns the death of The Happy Warrior. Al Smith had qualities of heart and mind and soul which not only endeared him to those who came under the spell of his dynamic presence in personal association but also made him the idol of the multitude.
To the populace he was a hero. Frank, friendly and warmhearted, honest as the noonday sun, he had the courage of his convictions, even when his espousal of unpopular causes invited the enmity of powerful adversaries.
During his tenure as Governor of the great State of New York, he attracted national attention by his skill as an administrator. It was a natural sequence that he should become the candidate of his party for the highest office in the land. In a bitter campaign, in which his opponent won, Al Smith made no compromise with honor, honesty, or integrity. In his passing the country loses a true patriot.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 4, 1944)
STRIKE HITS 20 DETROIT WAR PLANTS
35,000 men already idle; spread feared
Chrysler and Briggs factories crippled
…
Tanks join drive to Rhine
Gen. Hodges’ armor cuts Siegfried Line; Metz fort stormed
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
…
Yanks on Metz fort repel sallies by Nazis from inside
By Robert Richards, United Press staff writer
…
Al Smith dies at 70 with prayer on lips, conscious to last
‘Man in Brown Derby’ rose high to fame
New York (UP) –
Alfred E. Smith, “the Happy Warrior” who cut a leading figure in national Democratic politics from 1920 until 1932, was four times Governor of New York State, and ran for President in 1928, died at 6:20 a.m. ET today.
A solemn requiem mass will be celebrated for Mr. Smith at 11:00 a.m. Saturday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, with burial in the family plot at Calvary Cemetery, Queens. The funeral will be simple. There will be no honorary pallbearers, and no flowers.
The “Man in the Brown Derby,” who rose to power and fame from the poverty of a New York City slum, took his last breath with a prayer on his lips, fully conscious it was his last, just as the Rev. John Healy, his Parish priest, entered his room at the Rockefeller Institute Hospital.
His physician, Dr. Raymond P. Sullivan, came down to the hospital lobby where reporters were waiting and, wet-eyed, announced his death.
“This is the last of a great man,” he said. “He was a real man, a great father, a great American.”
Dr. Sullivan said Mr. Smith had had “a severe relapse” at 5:30 a.m., “accompanied by acute heart failure.”
Hospital authorities sent at once for Father Healy and Mr. Smith’s children. Father Healy arrived just as Mr. Smith died and the children – Mrs. John Warner, Mrs. Francis J. Quillinan, Walter Smith and Arthur Smith – came a few minutes later.
Mr. Smith’s sister, Mrs. Mary Glynn, and his old friend, John J. Raskob, the motor magnate who helped him finance the world’s tallest structure – the Empire State Building – was with them. A third son, Alfred E. Smith Jr., is on duty with the Army in the South Pacific.
Seventy years old, Mr. Smith had been ill most of the summer, following the death of his wife, Catherine, on May 4. He was transferred from St. Vincent’s Hospital to the Rockefeller Institute Hospital three weeks ago and had been at the point of death since Saturday.
Among the scores of floral tributes arriving at the hospital last night were a dozen American Beauty roses and the card from President and Mrs. Roosevelt.
Dr. Sullivan said “the immediate cause of death was the lung congestion which developed Monday night and acute heart failure.” The cause of Mr. Smith’s long illness, he continued, was “intestinal and liver disturbances.”
Those who had known Mr. Smith intimately over the years said that he never recovered from the shock of his wife’s death. Mrs. Catherine Dunn Smith, the woman who bore him five children and watched his political career build up from a Tammany leader to the Governors chair at Albany and reach its eminence as his party’s presidential candidate, died May 4, 1944, of pneumonia after a five-week illness.
Born in 1873
Al Smith was born Dec. 30, 1873, in an Irish community on New York’s Oliver Street. His birthplace was only a short distance from the 14th Street Tammany wigwam, home of the political creed that there always would be coal-in-the-cellar for a vote-on-the-line.
In parochial school, Mr. Smith found a stage for his inherent love of dramatics. If there was a fat comedy party in a school play, the sister in charge of dramatics knew unerringly whom to cast in it. Young Al played the tragedian with equal success. He still had acting on his mind when at 14 he quit school to help out at home after his father’s death.
He made a brief try at running his father’s teamster business, then found a job in the Fulton Fish market before deciding that politics was his field.
Wed Oliver Street ‘belle’
At 21, he went on the public payroll as clerk in the office of the New York Commissioner of Jurors. Shortly afterward, he met and began courting Catherine Dunn, the belle of Oliver Street and daughter of a moderately prosperous ship’s chandler.
Mr. Smith was warning $75 a month when he married Miss Dunn. They moved into a small flat and began their life together that continued until her death.
Mr. Smith traveled political upward fast as far as he could go.
His ability and wide acquaintance brought him the Democratic leadership of the New York State Assembly in 1911. He reached the Governor’s mansion in Albany in 1918. His defeat for reelection as Governor in 1922 set the stage for his doomed presidential aspirations.
As a member of the Legislature and as Governor, Mr. Smith introduced dozens of broad social, economic and political reforms.
The Manhattan State Hospital fire in 1923, which destroyed an old wooden building and killed 25 patients, promoted Mr. Smith to propose a $50-million bond issue to improve state hospitals.
Safety laws rewritten
The famous Triangle shirtwaist factory fire in New York was Mr. Smith’s opportunity to write sweeping safety laws into the statutes. He liberalized workmen’s compensation laws, amended the domestic relations law to provide for the support and education of illegitimate children and signed a bill providing $2,500,000 in bonuses to the next of kin of World War I dead.
Mr. Smith in 1923 fought for amendments to civil service rules and regulations so that women could compete for certain civil service jobs. He promoted the construction of Sing Sing Prison, new state office buildings, a state health laboratory and many schools, hospitals and parks.
Families divided
In 1928, the presidential nomination fell into Mr. Smith’s lap, and the nation promptly settled down to one of the most partisan campaigns in years – Hoover vs. Smith.
Families were divided on the issue, and religious feeling hit a fever pitch. Al Smith was a devout Catholic. Mr. Smith’s bandwagon was noisy, but weak in the axles. He carried only eight states.
Mr. Smith reorganized the Democratic National Committee and was making strides in the 1932 campaign when he realized that Mr. Roosevelt was traveling a separate road.
The 1932 Democratic Convention in Chicago made everything clear. Mr. Smith arrived with a scattering of support and instantly assured leadership of the “Stop Roosevelt” movement. Mr. Smith’s cloture forced a nightlong session of the convention which remained deadlocked until the following day when William G. McAdoo steered California’s votes to Mr. Roosevelt.
Mr. Smith left the convention, and his departure presaged his action in 1936 when he joined a coalition of wealthy Democrats in the American Liberty League to stop Mr. Roosevelt.
He ignored the Democratic National Convention that year, and supporter Alfred M. Landon, the Republican nominee. That “walk” was in reality Mr. Smith’s first strides into the long corridor of political obscurity. He was through.
Roosevelt: Al Smith ‘a true patriot’
Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt said today that in the passing of Al Smith, the “Happy Warrior” whom he twice nominated for the Presidency, “the country loses a true patriot.”
“Al Smith had qualities of heart and mind and soul which… made him the idol of the multitude,” Mr. Roosevelt said in a statement issued at the White House shortly after he had been informed of Mr. Smith’s death in New York early today.
The statement said:
The nation mourns the death of the Happy Warrior. Al Smith had qualities of heart and mind and soul which not only endeared him to those who came under the spell of his dynamic presence in personal association but also made him the idol of the multitude.
To the populace he was a hero. Frank, friendly and warmhearted, honest as the noonday sun, he had the courage of his convictions, even when his espousal of unpopular causes invited the enmity of powerful adversaries.
During his tenure as Governor of the great State of New York, he attracted national attention by his skill as an administrator. It was a natural sequence that he should become the candidate of his party for the highest office in the land. In a bitter campaign, in which his opponent won, Al Smith made no compromise with honor, honesty, or integrity. In his passing, the country loses a true patriot.