America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

2592

americavotes1944

Dewey calls Italy an ally, urges active, friendly aid

No other course can serve United Nations so well, Republican candidate says

Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, amplifying his stand on international policy, said today that Italy must be considered a “friend and an ally, not just a cobelligerent.”

The Republican presidential candidate’s statement, issued shortly before he left Albany for New York City to attend the funeral of Wendell L. Willkie, followed his proclamation of Thursday as Columbus Day.

He said:

We Americans cannot and will not stand by and watch Italy suffer. …She needs our active, friendly help in her fight against Nazism and on behalf of her own freedom.

In the name of our common human heritage, in the name of gratitude, in the name of generosity, we must stand beside Italy today. No other course can serve so well the cause of the United Nations in charting the future of Europe.

Italians ‘forced into war’

Governor Dewey said the Italian people were forced into a war “they did not want,” and that they were betrayed by their own government.

Earlier this week, the Governor issued statements which said Poland must be reestablished as a free and independent nation and that the United States must speed more aid to China.

To register Thursday

Governor Dewey will return to Albany after Mr. Willkie’s funeral. He will remain only briefly, returning to New York City Thursday to review the Columbus Day parade and register so he will be eligible to vote in November.

His next major political address will be next Monday at St. Louis.

Dewey forgetful, Hillman charges

Cleveland, Ohio (UP) –
Sidney Hillman, CIO Political Action Committee chairman, last night described Republican presidential nominee Governor Thomas E. Dewey as “a man with an extraordinary case of amnesia.”

Addressing the state convention of the Ohio CIO, Mr. Hillman asserted Governor Dewey had developed “his own peculiar form of doubletalk.” Quoting from the Republican candidate’s Louisville address, he said:

Our would-be President proclaimed, “I have long and repeating insisted we must continue close cooperation among the four great powers.”

Mr. Hillman asked:

Was he insisting on it on March 30, 1940, when he said this government should keep its hands wholly out of the European War and out of any negotiations that may take place between the warring nations now or at any other time?

2593

Limited-service status eliminated

…

2594

americavotes1944

11 states hold election key with only four weeks to go

Roosevelt can win if he holds own in areas of close vote in 1940
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
Four weeks remain today of the election campaign in which the voters will decide whether President Roosevelt shall have a fourth term or be supplanted by Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican presidential candidate.

The campaign is primarily a contest for 11 big states where the vote last time was close and of which Mr. Roosevelt carried nine in 1940 and the late Wendell L. Willkie, Republican nominee, carried two.

If Governor Dewey holds the two Mr. Willkie carried four years ago and reverses the trend in the others, his chances of election will be excellent. If Mr. Roosevelt can hold his own in most of these states, he probably will be reelected.

The key states are Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Mr. Willkie carried Indiana and Michigan.

But the count was close in all of those states. their aggregate of electoral votes is 237. Only 266 electoral votes are required to win.

In 1940, these states cast 15,613,807 votes for Mr. Roosevelt and 13,522,386 for Mr. Willkie. The nation as a whole cast 27,243,466 votes for Mr. Roosevelt and 22,304,755 for Mr. Willkie. Discounting the South where Republicans get hardly more than token support, the President had a 1940 margin of around four million votes.

Total vote a factor

Of that nationwide edge, the 11 pivotal states accounted for just over two million votes of the margin by which the President was returned to office. A slight shift in some of these states would move them from the Democratic column to the Republican. And a factor to be remembered is that, whereas nearly 50 million votes were cast in the 1940 election, estimates of the probable total this year range from 40 million up.

A reduced vote would be attributed to apathy, failure of servicemen to vote in large numbers and – the bugaboo that keeps Democratic managers awake at night – the failure of hundreds of thousands of war workers to register and to vote in their new election districts.

Political Action campaign

There has been an enormous migration of workers. That is why the CIO Political Action Committee undertook a doorbell-ringing campaign to persuade the workers to register. Those votes are regarded as more favorable to Mr. Roosevelt than to Governor Dewey, by a considerable margin. But they must be cast to be counted.

Although the President’s 1940 aggregate margin was large, there were some narrow margins among the states both for Mr. Roosevelt and for Mr. Willkie. Take the 11 pivotal states and the record of their 1940 returns:
Illinois 2,149,000 2,047,000
Indiana 874,000 899,000
Massachusetts 1,076,000 939,000
Michigan 1,032,000 1,039,000
Minnesota 644,000 596,000
Missouri 958,000 871,000
New Jersey 1,016,000 945,000
New York* 3,251,000 3,027,000
Ohio 1,733,000 1,586,000
Pennsylvania 2,171,000 1,889,000
Wisconsin 704,000 679,000

*In 1940, the Democrats polled fewer votes there than the Republicans, but that Mr. Roosevelt won New York’s 47 electoral votes because of the 417,000 popular votes cast for him as the candidate of the American Labor Party.

Starting from scratch a few years ago, the ALP has become the balance-of-power party in New York.

2595

americavotes1944

Hull protests ‘link’ with Dewey

Washington (UP) –
Secretary of State Cordell Hull protested today against a published story predicting that Governor Thomas E. Dewey, if elected, would ask him to remain with the government as special foreign policy adviser.

He said in a statement that he “must object to it or anything of the kind,” regardless of whether it was authorized by Governor Dewey.

He said:

My support and loyalty belong primarily to the government and… President Roosevelt. And in order that no American citizen may be misled, this will continue to be my attitude.

The published story said Governor Dewey is planning, if elected, to ask Mr. Hull to remain and work toward building an international peace organization.

Mr. Hull said he was forced to object as an early stage in order to “preserve the policy of nonpartisan efforts rather than the contrary.”

2596

americavotes1944

Davis scores New Dealers’ war claims

Senator belittles defense efforts

Erie, Pennsylvania (UP) –
President Roosevelt and those backing his fourth-term campaign are trying to convey the “utterly false impressions” that winning of the war and the peace following it “have been and are the sole concern of the New Dealers,” U.S. Senator James J. Davis charged last night.

Mr. Davis, Republican nominee for reelection, said in a campaign address that the Democratic claim that the Roosevelt administration built up the nation’s defenses before Pearl Harbor was false and that their contention that they alone favor international cooperation to preserve the peace of the world is “just as preposterous.”

Cites King’s report

While Adolf Hitler was rearming, absorbing Austria and Czechoslovakia and invading Poland in the 1933-39 period, Mr. Davis said, “this administration added only 110,000 men to the Armed Forces of this nation.” He cited an official report of Adm. Ernest J. King as showing that during 1933-38, “not one single warship was added to the U.S. Navy.”

Mr. Davis said an official report of Gen. George C. Marshall showed that:

We had on hand in 1940 only 461 anti-aircraft guns, 186 infantry mortars, 142 tanks and 38,000 Garand rifles.

These conditions existed, Mr. Davis said, despite the fact that “in every year from 1935 through 1940, the Congress appropriated more money for defense than the administration asked for - $208 million more.”

Favored cooperation

Countering the second claim he attributed to Mr. Roosevelt’s supporters, Mr. Davis, who served three terms as U.S. Secretary of Labor, said:

I have served in the cabinets of three Republican Presidents, and all of them favored international cooperation. Not only did they favor it; they promoted it. Under their administrations the Nine-Power Pact, the inter-American conferences and numerous other international organizations and agreements were formulated and what is more those agreements were honored throughout those Republican administrations.

Mr. Davis said that during Mr. Roosevelt’s first two terms the League of Nations fell apart and “the New Dealers permitted every international agreement to which this nation was a party to die completely.”

The Senator told his audience:

I say to you that the New Dealers are no more fit to create and keep world peace today than they were fit to preserve peace from 1933 to 1939. As they proceeded with indifference and secrecy before the war, so too are they proceeding with indifference and secrecy at the present time – indifference toward the rights of small nations and secrecy toward their own people.

2597

americavotes1944

Bricker lashes ‘unwise spending’

Cites Republican record of economy

Spokane, Washington (UP) –
The Roosevelt administration’s necessary war and relief spending neither explains nor justifies its unwise, wasteful and sometimes unconscionable squandering which has made it the “most spendthrift regime in American history,” Ohio Governor John W. Bricker declared today.

In a speech for delivery here, Governor Bricker, who last night at Great Falls, Montana, called President Roosevelt “the most prolific spender in world history,” continued to criticize the New Deal fiscal policies.

The Republicans, their vice-presidential candidate said, had established a record in Congress which is “convincing evidence” that the party’s pledge to reduce government costs and eliminate waste will be kept.

Into the red before war

Instead of reducing government costs as he promised, Governor Bricker charged, President Roosevelt’s administration “skyrocketed” them.

He said:

Worse than this, the New Deal launched upon… unlimited deficit spending and financing, and as a result we had been plunged into the red even before the war.

Some of the national debt increase, he continued, was necessary for relief.

But the depression does not explain – and should be justify – the squandering of billions of dollars for unwise, wasteful and sometimes unconscionable purposes. Never in the history of this country has there been such a spendthrift administration.

GOP record concrete

On the other hand, Governor Bricker asserted, Republicans under the leadership in Congress of Senators Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI), Wallace White Jr. (R-ME) and Robert Taft (R-OH); Reps. Joseph Martin (R-MA) and the late Senator Charles E. McNary (R-OR), fought for reduction of “non-essential spending.” However, he said, they gave “full support” to all appropriations needed for war.

He said:

The Republican record in Congress is concrete and convincing evidence that the party’s pledge for economy will be kept.

Governor Bricker arrived this morning from Great Falls, Montana, to begin a whirlwind campaign down the Pacific Coast to San Diego. He speaks at Wenatchee tonight before moving to Seattle tomorrow.

2598

americavotes1944

As election draws near –
Perkins: CIO still unable to win promise of pay boost

And may have to back Roosevelt without one
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
The election is four weeks from today and it looks as if the CIO supports of President Roosevelt will have to vote for him without official assurance that he is going to order a pay raise for them.

This, despite efforts of Philip Murray, head of the CIO, to get a War Labor Board recommendation for breaking the Little Steel wage formula on the President’s desk by next Monday, and despite a statement today by R. J. Thomas, president of the CIO Auto Workers, that he will do all he can to see that the President will have three weeks in which to make the final decision that would please the unionists, but might antagonize other sections of the electorate. Inflation possibilities are involved.

Roosevelt commitment denied

There’s a story going around that Mr. Roosevelt told union leaders who called on him 10 days ago that the question would have to go over until after election, that there would be no political advantage in unsettling wartime wage policies just before the election and the wage action might produce charges he was attempting to buy votes with other people’s money.

Mr. Thomas said the story “isn’t true.” He was one of the labor leaders in the White House conference. Mr. Thomas has a reputation for straight-shooting and no doubletalk. And all other evidence indicates that the President made no commitment on either side of the question.

Won’t promise early action

William H. Davis, chairman of the War Labor Board, said he could not guarantee a Board decision next week – “I don’t like deadlines. I never said it would be decided by next week.”

A labor spokesman pointed out that any recommendation for a change in wage policies would have to go through the Office of Price Administration, to the Director of Economic Stabilization and the Office of War Mobilization before it reached the President.

Mr. Davis admitted that “would take considerable time.” He also said that the problem he was trying to impress on the other members of the Board was whether “if wages go up the wage-earner will get anything out of it or will prices go up at the same time so that everybody will lose.”

2599

Peaceful end to Cleveland dispute likely

Leaders hesitate to act on strike vote

…

2600

americavotes1944

Dewey backers believe he’ll win

Pennsylvania one of four ‘testing grounds’
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer

New York –
Four weeks from the day on which the nation will decide whether to give President Roosevelt a fourth term or succeed him with Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the Dewey high command, after what was termed a “coldly realistic war council,” believes the Republican candidate is on his way to victory.

This doesn’t mean the Dewey strategists believe they can coast; but party leaders feel that unless some now unforeseeable factors occur, their chances are good. Some sharp change in the trend of the war is a factor which conceivably could affect the election. A major blunder by the Republicans might be another.

Real test in four areas

With top campaign strategists apparently satisfied as to Dewey strength in the Midwest, New York, upper New England and one or two other areas, the real testing ground, as they see it, breaks down into four “areas.”

These are, first, Pennsylvania; second, the border states; third, the West Coast, and fourth, the lower half of New England, including important Massachusetts.

Dewey supporters believe their position is improving in Pennsylvania, and both Mr. Dewey and John W. Bricker, his running mate, will probably appear there. A Pittsburgh meeting is a good bet for Mr. Dewey. County-by-county organization work in Pennsylvania is reported effective, and Governor Edward Martin is personally working hard for the national ticket.

Roosevelt edge in Massachusetts

In the border states, GOP campaigners say they have good prospects in Missouri, West Virginia and Maryland. The more optimistic add Oklahoma. Mr. Dewey will make his big bid for support in St. Louis Monday night, and Governor Bricker will be in Missouri for one or two speeches.

President Roosevelt generally has been given the edge in Massachusetts. Mr. Dewey will make his major appeal there in a Boston meeting Nov. 1.

The Republicans, juggling the electoral figures, hardly expect to win all four areas, but express confidence they will count sufficiently in them to provide victory.

2601

Roosevelt to make War Fund appeal

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt’s annual National War Fund appeal will be made one week from tonight at 10:30 p.m. ET in a five-minute radio address from the White House.

Each year the President has briefly stressed importance of supporting War fund and Community Chest campaigns conducted in most communities of the nation.

americavotes1944

Guffey ‘gives’ state to Roosevelt again

Washington (UP) –
Senator Joseph F. Guffey (D-PA) predicted today that President Roosevelt would carry Pennsylvania in the November election by a larger vote than he polled in 1940, when his margin was more than 280,000.

Mr. Guffey also forecast that his “isolationist colleague,” Senator James J. Davis (R-PA), would be defeated and that a “New Dealer,” Francis J. Myer of Philadelphia, would be elected.

2602

Editorial: The Dumbarton draft

…

2603

americavotes1944

Editorial: Jobs for tomorrow

…

2604

Editorial: The China test

…

2605

americavotes1944

Edson: Host of mushroom political groups get into action

By Peter Edson

…

2606

Ferguson: Demanding fashion

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

…

2607

americavotes1944

Background of news –
Railroad freight rates

By Frank P. Huddle

…

2608

Millett: War brings appreciation of very ‘small favors’

Peacetime wonders ‘better be good’ or they’ll lose their importance
By Ruth Millett

…

2609

Suit, coat and dress show thrills Paris onlooker

LeLong guests enjoy displays of exquisite taste and detail
By Judy Barden, North American Newspaper Alliance

…

2610

Foster: Joe tops with film lovelies

Photographer is a popular guy
By Ernest Foster

…

2611

americavotes1944

Stokes: Roosevelt’s plans

By Thomas L. Stokes

…