I DARE SAY —
Trouper
By Florence Fisher Parry
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Final tribute paid to Willkie
Great and humble attend funeral
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Soldier voter gets benefit of doubt here
Election board takes liberal attitude
By Kermit McFarland
Allegheny County election officials, in handling military ballots for the country’s voters in the Armed Forces, have taken literally the admonition of the Pennsylvania Military Ballot Act to “liberally construe” the provisions of the law.
They are bending over backwards to give the soldier-voter, as Election Director David Olbum expresses it, “the benefit of the doubt.”
In following this policy, the Elections Department is proceeding on the theory that it was the intention of the law to give every voter in the military and naval forces a vote if:
- His intention is plain.
- There is no evidence of fraud.
- The voter will be 21 or more on Nov. 8.
Up to board
Mr. Olbum said he could see no other reasons for disallowing any military ballot, although the final decisions will be determined in each case by the Board of County Commissioners, who will sit as a special election board beginning Nov. 22 to count military ballots.
State election officials have predicted that wherever the civilian vote results in a close election, there will be substantial challenges to soldier votes based on technicalities. Election authorities here are not anticipation any such trouble.
The Elections Department is not even waiting until the count begin to start giving the soldier-voters the “benefit of the doubt.”
Minor oversights seen
So far, the department has received 1,122 from voters in the military and naval forces who did not comply strictly with the technicalities outlined in the Military Ballot Act. They sent in ballots without the required affidavits, without taking the affidavits before commissioned officers as provided by the law or without signing their own signatures. Other minor oversights on the part of military voters have also been detected by the Elections Department.
In each case, the ballot has been returned to the voter the same day it was received with a letter explaining his error and asking him to correct it at once and return it.
Some undelivered
In addition, out of the 99,381 ballots sent to the Armed Forces by the County Elections Department, 970 have come back undelivered.
In these cases, the Elections Department has sent letters to the next of kin asking for new addresses. In 503 cases, the families have supplied these addresses and the ballots were forwarded immediately.
The Department has even passed out second ballots in some bases, as the War Ballot Commission in New York has done.
This has happened in cases where a soldier home from overseas service, has appeared personally at the Elections Department and asked for a ballot. When a checkup disclosed that a ballot had already been sent him at Guam, the South Pacific, India or some other place so far away that the chances of the ballot catching up with him before election was remote, the Department has handed over a new one.
Any chance for double voting in such cases is eliminated by the fact that the voter must sign his name on the sealed envelope containing the ballot and a complete check of these envelopes will be made before the count of military ballots begins.
While the Elections Department has been returning ballots on which the affidavits were not sworn before a commissioned officer, Mr. Olbum said he thought there was good legal basis for counting these ballots if the oath was administration by an Army sergeant or a Navy petty officer.
Laws differ
The federal law – as well as the New York and Wisconsin laws – permits taking affidavits before sergeants and petty officers. Since this would create confusion, Mr. Olbum said he believed the courts would take it into account, despite the fact that the Pennsylvania law specifically requires an affidavit before a commissioned officer.
Ballot forms for military use officially approved by the State Elections Department carry an instruction to the voter to “ask for a new ballot” if he makes a mistake. The rules sent out by the same bureau, however, merely instruct the vote to make a neat erasure and forward the same ballot, since he obviously cannot “ask for a new ballot.”
The County Elections Department left this instruction off the ballots printed here.
When it comes to counting military ballots, Mr. Olbum says he thinks every ballot on which the voter’s intention is clear should be counted, “even if it’s marked with a burnt match.”
The Elections Director said:
We don’t know under what conditions a soldier may be compelled to mark his ballot. You can’t pay strict attention to all the rules and regulations when you are trying to mark the ballot in a foxhole.
The law itself contemplates a similar policy, for, unlike the law governing civilian voters, it permits the military voter to mark his ballot with “pencil, crayon, indelible pencil or ink.” Civilian voters are restricted to pencil or indelible pencil.
Incidentally, the Elections Department has sent 75 ballots to Pittsburgh soldiers now prisoners of war in Axis internment camps. The addresses were furnished by the families. None so far has been returned.
About 75 ballots have been returned by the Army and Navy undelivered and marked “deceased.”
In Metz fort –
Yanks, Nazis fire around corner
Weird battle of tunnels continues
By Collie Small, United Press staff writer
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Yanks closing on main road in Po Valley
Three columns gain on Italian front
By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer
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Patton’s army settles down to muddy job
But Yanks remain confident in France
By Robert W. Richards, United Press staff writer
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Simms: Congress faces two issues in discussing security
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Hollywood, California –
Have you seen the latest product of the cigarette shortage – the pipe-smoking girl?
It seems that college coeds started the fad when cigarettes first became scarce and now even the movie actresses here in Hollywood are taking up the pipe. Think what this could do to the movies!
Somehow, I just can’t picture Paul Henreid putting two pipes in his mouth, lighting them and giving one to Bette Davis, as he did with cigarettes in Now, Voyager.
And Ginger Rogers might not have had a career at all. You’ll remember Ginger made her hit as a seductive siren in Young Man of Manhattan with the tagline, “Cigarette me, big boy.” How seductive could she have been, saying, “Corncob pipe me, big boy.”
Marion, Doerr win baseball honors
‘Most valuable’ award in each league goes to Cards, Red Sox stars
St. Louis, Missouri (UP) –
A keystone combination that would be the fulfillment of a perfect dream for any major league manager – Marty Marion of the St. Louis Cardinals at shortstop and Bobby Doerr of the Boston Red Sox at second base – bore the accolade of the Sporting News today as the most valuable players in their respective leagues for 1944.
The national baseball weekly, singling out the infield stars for its annual awards, stressed their fielding prowess and general all-around capabilities.
In addition, it created a special award of merit for pitchers, explaining that they were at a disadvantage in competition for the most valuable rating because they did not play every day. Rewarded in this category were Hal Newhouser, the Detroit Tiger lefthander, who won 29 games and almost pitched the team to a pennant in the closing stages of the race, and Rookie Bill Voiselle of the New York Giants, who won 21 games in his first season.
Special distinction for Doerr
The award to Doerr bore a special distinction – it was the first time it had ever gone to a man who was unable to finish the season with his club.
Doerr, who was inducted into the Armed Forces as his team was entering the late stages of the race, left behind him the second-best batting record in the American League, a .325 mark which was only two points short of the .327 with which Lou Boudreau of Cleveland won the championship.
In addition, he was the standout fielding second-baseman of the circuit, a record which he has achieved almost annually. However, the batting mark was the best in his major league career of eight years and marked the first time since 1939 he had hit more than .300.
Marion tops in series
For Marion, unanimously designated the outstanding player in the World Series just completed, his play was just a continuation of his all-around stylish ball handling during the regular season. In the series, he handled a total of 29 chances, seven putouts and 22 assists without an error and was one of the top clutch hitters on either side.
Although he batted only .227, he drove in two important runs and connected for three doubles, more than any other player on either side except Mike Kreevich of the Browns.
During the season, he batted .269 and his fielding record topped that of any other infielder. Uniquely, he had the distinction of starting wo triple plays on successful weekends, providing the only incident in National League history in which the same players participated in the same three-way killing.
The Village Smithy
By Chester L. Smith, sports editor
Just as the All-Star Game, in July, substantiated the suspicion that the National League possessed greater overall strength than the American this year, so did the World Series lend plausibility to the crack that the major leagues, as of 1944, consisted of “15 poor clubs and the Cardinals.” Aside from the fact that the scores were generally close and the Browns gave it all they had, it was a Redbird show from beginning to end. And come to think of it, the Cards weren’t a high-scoring team all season long. Occasionally they would break out as they did in Pittsburgh one afternoon with a 16-run splurge, but for the most part they were modest along that line and depended largely on superlative pitching and one of the toughest defensive infields within memory.
Averages for a short series more often than not fall below those of a full campaign, and true to tradition, the Cardinals’ batting was 38 points under normal. But the Brownies slumped 70 points, which might prove the pre-Series contention that pitching in the junior wheel was on the whole of an inferior brand. George McQuinn was the lone Brown to hit with any consistency. Because the Cardinal attack was spotty, Georgie was able to make what was actually a one-sided match appear to be a hand-to-hand grapple.
It was a pitchers’ series through and through. Aside from McQuinn, Emil Verban and Walker Cooper were the only ones to better their season’s marks. Verban had a wild session at the plate, batting .412, and the catching member of the Cooper family was in the groove, with .318 for the six games against .317 during the regular campaign.
Johnny Hopp was the Nationals’ big disappointment.
On the final day it was the failure of the Browns’ infield that won the title for the Cards, but we wonder if the blow that actually killed off Luke Sewell’s men wasn’t delivered much earlier in the series – in the second game and by none other than Blix Donnelly, who has specialized in pitching his fast ball past batters for a long time but was finishing only his first season in a St. Louis uniform.
Rebuild the situation: The Browns had won the opening brush and had beaten Morton Cooper, to boot, with the ragtag Denny Galehouse. Now they had tied up the second game in the seventh inning on Max Lanier and had attacked the veteran southpaw viciously to open the eighth.
A run or two here might not only have put the Browns two-up but would have had a severe effect on the Cardinals’ nerves. They would have had every reason to believe then that what they had been hearing about their opponents being a team of destiny and a child of Lady Luck was entirely true and that nothing they could so would be enough.
In this clutch, Donnelly stepped in and began whirling his swifter. He struck out Laabs and also Verban Stephens. Now he had two down and the strategy was to pass McQuinn, who had wrecked everything the previous day. Even had the latter been a weak batter, it was good baseball to walk him and thus put a force play all around. Anyhow, that’s what Donnelly did, and then he got Mark Christman on a third strike. They went along after that until Ken O’Dea out the damper down with a pinch-hit that defeated the Browns, 3–2, and squared the series.
This, it is probable, was the left the Southworth crew needed. It showed them they could win and it also muffled the enthusiasm of the Browns, who were really in high after they had won one and overcome a lead in the second.
What happened afterward was more or less routine. The Browns had a large day on Friday but Brecheen squelched them again the next afternoon and on Sunday Cooper came back to throw the entire American League setup in reverse. Big Mort’s 2–0 victory meant only one thing: the finish was in sight. Twenty-four hours later, the Cards played as though they sensed it and so did the Browns.
And that was your ’44 World Series, although a point or two could be added. Oldtimers can’t remember when a shortstop who batted only .227 came out of the post-season melee as one of the eligibles for top honors, yet there are many who think Marty Marion deserves such a rating. Marion’s fielding was said to have been as fine as any ever seen and his few hits were timely. When the critics said earlier they would discount Stephens’ slugging and give the Cards the advantage in the short field, they weren’t idly clacking their store teeth, for if it wasn’t Marion, who was it?
With election only 27 days away –
Perkins: Major labor trouble plagues Roosevelt from three fronts
Some of ‘breaks’ that help swing the vote flare to beset New Deal on home front
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
Washington –
Three of the “breaks” that help swing elections appear today on the labor front. All are against Mr. Roosevelt.
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The Petrillo case, in which the head of the American Federation of Musicians (AFL) leaves the President out on a limb by rejecting an official but courteous request that he obey an order of the War Labor Board.
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The Matthew Smith case, in which this leader of non-affiliated unions offered a destructive strike of 70,000 men in 64 vital war plants. Republicans may cite the case in their attacks on the administration’s manner of handling labor problems.
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Disclosure that heads of five railway workers’ brotherhoods were recently pressured, in some cases unsuccessfully, to declare for reelection of Mr. Roosevelt.
As to No. 3, the rail union heads called on the President a week ago to add their weight to other labor groups in asking for a relaxation of wage-control policies, preferably before election.
When they came out of Mr. Roosevelt’s office, George M. Harrison, president of the Railway Clerks and a vice president of the American Federation of Labor, gave reporters the impression that the entire group was enthusiastically in favor of a fourth term.
‘Pressure’ charged
What wasn’t told was that when the rail labor leaders entered the President’s office they found there Dan Tobin, head of the Teamsters Union (AFL) and director of the Labor Division of the Democratic National Committee. Some of the railway men construed Mr. Tobin’s presence as intended to “put the heat” on them, and they so said today.
They pointed out that Mr. Tobin was not a member of their group, could have been there only at the instance of the President, and they construed his participation as purely political.
Split vote predicted
The conversation was reported as dealing only scantily with the subject the railway men had come to talk about, but abundantly about how the members of railway unions – with a membership of approximately a million and a half – should regard Mr. Roosevelt as their friend, despite the bad feeling early this year over the administration’s handling of the railway wage controversy.
None of the rail union heads, it was learned authoritatively, attempted to commit their organizations to the support of Mr. Roosevelt, and some were said to have failed to give their personal pledges. An authority on the political pulse of railway workers says their votes, predominantly in recent years for Mr. Roosevelt will be split.
Petrillo is problem
The group, in addition to Mr. Harrison, included D. B. Robertson (president of the Locomotive Firemen and Engineers), Harry W. Fraser (president of the Railway Conductors), E. E. Milliman (president of the Maintenance of Way Men), and Harvey W. Brown (president of the Machinists Union).
The Petrillo refusal followed a request from the President for compliance with War Labor Board orders that the union lift its ban on members doing work for the transcription divisions of NBC, Columbia Recording Corporation, and Radio Corporation of America.
A high official concerned with labor matters expressed the opinion that the development would cause more unfavorable public reaction against Mr. Roosevelt than against the head of the musicians’ union. This opinion was based on the fact that in the President’s telegram of Oct. 4 to Mr. Petrillo he left no means of enforcements against the union.
‘Very polite’ request
The presidential telegram cited an opinion that “under all the present circumstances the noncompliance by your union is not unduly impeding the war effort,” thus absolving Mr. Petrillo from prosecution under the War Labor Disputes Act.
However, the President’s telegram added:
This noncompliance may encourage other instances of noncompliance which will impede the war effort.
Matthew Smith, defying the government with a threat of a serious war strike, and drawing a “stab in the back” charge from Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, has been in a long conflict with the War Labor Board over its refusal to include spokesmen for independent or non-affiliated unions in the Board’s labor membership. He is identified as a Socialist in politics, but has publicly announced support for Mr. Roosevelt in this campaign.
It’s Roosevelt vs. Petrillo in ‘Battle of Jukebox’
Musicians Union president refuses pleas of Chief Executive to lift record ban
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Bricker cuts loose –
‘Unprepared’ blame placed on Roosevelt
Pacific fortifications not urged, he says
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