Reaction of miners awaited in seizure by government
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GOP studies war’s trend
Defeat of Germany seen big boon to Dewey’s chances
Albany, New York (AP) –
Prospect that the European War may and before American voters choose their next President provided an undisguised lift in the spirits of Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s supporters today, although Democrats were generally inclined to discount the effect on the Nov. 7 election.
The Republican presidential nominee was silent about the political reaction that might come with the defeat of Germany, but some of his friends expressed the belief the New York Governor’s chances would be enhanced by developments that might offset the Democratic plea for retention of President Roosevelt as Commander-in-Chief.
It was evident they considered the announced liberation of Paris a long step toward victory and Dewey himself lost no time in issuing a formal statement yesterday that it means “the beginning of the end of Nazi domination in Europe.” Calling on Germany and Japan to surrender before the consequences to them become more severe, Dewey predicted that the Allied armies would sweep onward to Berlin.
At the same time, he said:
We must not relax for one moment in our all-out war effort until Germany and Japan are so utterly defeated that the people of their countries shall vow “never again.”
Peace problems seen
Many Democrats contend that the cessation of hostilities in Europe will produce peace problems that may be of more lasting importance than the war itself and that President Roosevelt has had the opportunity to become more familiar with these problems than any other American.
Dewey, who has predicted that the next President will serve more of his four-year term in peace than in wartime, has taken occasion recently to identify himself publicly with the consideration of post-war problems.
He sent his foreign affairs deputy, John Foster Dulles of New York, to exchange views on the Dumbarton Oaks diplomatic conference with Secretary of State Hull. Dulles announced last night that progress had been made toward a bipartisan understanding in the talks, which will continue today.
Dewey is expected to devote much of his attention to peace problems, both at home and abroad, in his major campaign speeches.
The supporting cast of his vote-getting organization was rounded out yesterday with the appointment of Godfrey Hammond of Scarsdale, New York, president of the Popular Science Publishing Company, as publicity agent for the campaign. Hammon replaces James P. Selvage, who resigned.
GOP chief encouraged
Republicans believed party will win control of Congress
By John L. Cutter
Washington (UP) –
Republican National Chairman Herbert Brownell Jr. returned to his New York headquarters today encouraged after conferences with GOP Congressional leaders that the party will win control of Congress as well as the White House in the November elections.
Brownell received progress reports from both the Senate and House Republican campaign committees in conferences yesterday afternoon and last night. He took back with him plans for coordinating the Congressional and Senate campaigns with efforts of the national committee on behalf of the presidential candidacy of Governor Thomas E. Dewey.
While here, Brownell announced the appointment of Godfrey Hammond of Scarsdale, New York, well-known magazine publisher, as publicity director for the Dewey-Bricker campaign.
Voting trend observed
The Republican claims for victory, both in the presidential contest and for Congress, were based to a great extent on the trend of voting since President Roosevelt won his unprecedented third term in 1940.
Brownell told a press conference that the trend, which gave Republicans many new seats in both the House and Senate as well as several more state governors in 1942, is still with the Republican Party.
He predicted:
When Governor Dewey and Governor Bricker begin their speaking campaign in the near future that trend will be accelerated.
He referred to Dewey’s speeches scheduled at Philadelphia Sept. 7 and Louisville, Kentucky, Sept. 8 and Bricker’s speech at French Lick, Indiana, Sept. 9. He refused to confirm that Dewey will swing to the West Coast after his Louisville appearance.
Trends cited
Former Senator John G. Townsend Jr. of Delaware, chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, also cited “trends” in his report to Brownell at yesterday’s luncheon.
Townsend told reporters he had informed Brownell that a careful survey of all states in which there are senatorial contests this fall indicates that “we have a fighting chance of winning control of the Senate.” He was certain the party would win House control.
Townsend predicted the election of Republicans in all states where the Republicans now hold a Senate seat. He declined to name the states in which he believed the Republicans will unseat Democratic incumbents.
Richards: U.S. aviator’s grave is shrine in tiny French town
By Robert Richards
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Richards: Armored column tactics resemble those of Civil War
By Robert Richards
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Negro vote faces test in Georgia
Preacher, denied ballot, files damage suit
Columbus, Georgia (UP) –
Georgia’s Democratic white primary, for years unchallenged, faced a federal court hearing today after a Negro barber and preacher, Primus E. King, filed suit against Muscogee County Democratic executive committeemen for $5,000 on grounds that he was denied the right to vote solely because of his color.
In a complaint filed before U.S. Commissioner N. A. Brown yesterday, King said he met all requirements demanded of a voter in the United States and that he had paid all his state taxes. However, he said, the committeemen refused him a ballot in the July 4 Democratic primary because he was a Negro.
County Democratic Chairman J. E. Chapman Jr., who, with ten other members of the committee was named as defendant, had expected the suit. Chapman had agreed with Negro leaders prior to the election to plan a toke attempt to vote and a subsequent test of the white primary in the courts.
Committee members have 20 days in which to answer the complaint. Commissioner Brown said the case would probably not be heard before March.
G.I. poll may decide vote
Election outcome may not be sure until Dec. 7
By Edward Creagh
New York (AP) –
Because 11 states will not count their soldier votes on Election Day, Nov. 7, it is possible that the outcome of the 1944 presidential election will remain in doubt for several weeks after the polls close.
Should the election be unusually close, the winner might not be known until as late as Dec. 7, when the canvass of Nebraska’s absentee vote could determine whether the state’s seven electoral votes would be cast for President Roosevelt or Governor Thomas E. Dewey.
These possibilities grow out of an Associated Press survey which indicates that more than 2,000,000 men and women in the Armed Forces have applied for absentee ballots and that, by the most conservative estimates of state election officials, approximately twice that number will vote in November.
The soldier vote is likely to be decisive in most of the 11 states which do not immediately tabulate it, and the 11 – including Pennsylvania with 36, California with 22 and Missouri with 15 – have a combined electoral vote of 116. President Wilson’s electoral margin over Charles Evans Hughes in 1916 was only 23.
In Pennsylvania, where officials expect 200,000 to 300,000 soldier ballots, the absentee vote will be counted Nov. 22. “The votes of 100,000 to 125,000 persons could easily swing a close election,” commented a member of Governor Edward Martin’s official family. “We may not know who has won until the absentee votes are counted.”
California, whose Secretary of State predicts a service vote of 175,000 to 200,000, will not canvass it until Nov. 24. Missouri, receiving more than 1,000 ballot applications daily, will start counting absentee votes the Friday after Election Day.
Of the states which will defer their soldier vote count, eight gave President Roosevelt a total of 99 electoral votes in 1940. The other three gave Wendell L. Willkie 17.
Besides Nebraska, Pennsylvania, California and Missouri, the states which will add up some or all of their soldier votes after Election Day are:
| Colorado | 6 | November 22 |
| Delaware | 3 | November 9 |
| Florida | 7 | November 17 |
| North Dakota | 4 | December 5 |
| Rhode Island | 4 | December 4 |
| Utah | 4 | November 27 |
| Washington | 8 | November 27 |
Florida’s canvassing boards usually meet the Friday after election although the law gives them until Nov. 17. Utah counts state ballots on Election Day but federal ballots may be counted until Nov, 12 and would not be shown in the total count until the official canvass, Nov. 27.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 24, 1944)
Kirkpatrick: Allied airpower wrecks Nazi morale
Retreating Germans busy diving to cover
By Helen Kirkpatrick
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Death from a friendly source –
Storm-tossed Liberator crashes on English school
U.S. bomber kills at least 54, perhaps 84; children and snack bar patrons are victims
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
On the Western Front, France – (by wireless)
We had sent one soldier to the nearest aid station as soon as we discovered the wounded British pilot, trapped for eight days in his plane. He had to drive about six miles.
Just a few minutes after the other soldiers finished tearing two holes in the sides of the plane, a medical captain and three aid men popped through the hedge and came running.
The doctor knelt down and sized up everything in a few seconds. He asked an aid man for morphine. The pilot willingly held out his right arm. and the doctor stuck a needle into the bend of the elbow. The pilot never flinched, but looked on almost approvingly.
The doctor said to him:
You’re in good condition. This is just to make it easier for you when we start to pull you out. We’ll wait a few minutes for it to take hold.
While we were sitting there on the ground beside the plane, waiting for the morphine to take effect, the pilot said: “I am delaying you from your work. I’m frightfully sorry about it.”
One of the soldiers, touched by the remark, blurted:
Good God, lieutenant, you aren’t delaying us. This is what we’re here for. We’re just sorry we’ve been so long getting you out.
The pilot momentarily closed his eyes and put his hand on his forehead. And then, as if in resignation at his own rudeness in bothering us, he said: “Well, I don’t know what I should do without you.”
Morphine never put him out
So incredibly strong was that pilot’s constitution that the morphine never put him out.
They waited about 10 minutes. Then two soldiers took off their web belts and looped them around the pilot’s armpits. The medics on the other side said they had hold of his trapped foot and could gradually free it.
The pilot said:
It’s my back that’s weak. All the strength seems to be gone from the small of my back. You’ll have to help me there.
They pulled. The pilot, although without food for eight days, was tremendously strong, and he reached above his head to the plane’s framework and helped lift himself.
The belts slipped, and the soldiers took them off. They knelt and lifted his shoulders with their hands. They had padded the jagged edges of the torn aluminum, over which they would have to slide him, with the heavy rubber of his collapsible lifeboat.
The doctor said, “We’ll be as easy as we can. Tell us when to quit.”
And the brave man said, “Go ahead. I’ll stand it as long as I can.”
They pulled again. The pilot made a face and exerted himself to help them. They slid him slowly a few inches through the hole, until he suddenly called: “Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa! My back! It’s stuck to the ground. We’ll have to break it loose slowly.”
Pilot offers suggestion
They surveyed the possibilities a while, trying to figure a less painful way of getting him out. There wasn’t any. He said: “I can’t raise my behind at all. If you could slide something under me to carry the weight.”
A soldier went running to the next field, looking for a board. We waited. In a few minutes he came back with a short, thick board.
The pilot reached up with his strong arms, made a1 face, and lifted himself a little from the ground, and the doctor slid the board underneath him. Then the doctor, still kneeling, lifted one end of the board.
Gradually the pilot came out. Twice he had to stop them while they rearranged his injured leg. He said it was twisted. But apparently it was largely the agony of suddenly straightening out a cramped knee that had lain bent for eight days.
At last, in a sort of final surge, he came clear of the plane. They crawled backwards with him, on hands and knees, struggling to hold his back off the ground. You could see that he was steeling himself fiercely.
“Quick! Slide that litter under him,” the doctor called. The pilot said, “My God, that air! That fresh air!” Three times in the next five minutes he mentioned the fresh air.
When they finally laid him tenderly onto the canvas litter and straightened his left leg, you could see the tendons relax and his facial muscles subside, and he gave a long half-groan, half-sigh of relief.
And that was the one single sound of normal human weakness uttered by that man of great courage in the hour of his liberation.