America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

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‘Battle of the Statler’ –
Officers blamed in affidavits

Remarks called ‘unrepeatable’

Washington (UP) –
Affidavits of witnesses to the celebrated “Battle of the Statler” will show that the fisticuffs started when the two naval officers involved made “unrepeatable remarks” about President Roosevelt, Drew Pearson asserted in his radio broadcast last night.

One of the officers, LtCdr. James H. Suddeth, 33, of Greer, South Carolina, denied Mr. Pearson’s statement. The other, Lt. Randolph Dickens Jr., 23, of Bradenton, Florida, could not be reached immediately for comment. Lt. Dickins, a battle fatigue patient at the Bethesda Medical Center at the time of the fight, has been released for active duty and now is in Bradenton on leave.

Officers blame Teamsters

In their account of the incident, the only detailed story given thus far, the officers contended that at started in a hotel corridor the night the President addressed an AFL Teamsters Union banquet when several teamsters demanded to know if they would, vote for their commander-in-chief and were told it was “none of your business.”

Mr. Pearson said affidavits by two women – Mrs. Frank Lee, wife of a Washington bank vice president, and Mrs. Helen V. Roland, a stenographer – would show that the officers were actually the ones who wanted an answer to that question.

‘Grabbed by arm’

Their statements, he said, were that “long before the fight started they [the women] were peacefully going to the powder room at the Statler when one of the naval officers grabbed Mrs. Roland by the arm and demanded to know how she was going to vote.”

Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Roland declined to discuss Mr. Pearson’s statement, referring all inquiries to Joseph A. Padway, general counsel of the AFL. Mr. Padway said his office had obtained some affidavits for the Senate Campaign Expenditures Committee but that he did not know their contents since he has been out of town.

Mr. Pearson said the committee, which will meet Wednesday to decide whether to conduct a formal investigation into the fracas, has other affidavits showing that “the naval officers were making unrepeatable remarks about their Commander-in-Chief.”

‘Going to have new one’

“When they were reminded, they were talking about their Commander-in-Chief,” he added, one of them said:

“To hell with the Commander-in-Chief, we’re going to have a new one in January.”

He said the affidavits relate that the officers were “quietly asked to leave but persisted in staying” and that during the ensuing fisticuffs, one of them “was rushed into a nearby phone booth, kicking and biting. until the Shore Patrol arrived.”

Chairman Theodore F. Green (D-RI) of the Senate Committee has declined to discuss the affidavits, explaining that the committee will have to consider them first at Wednesday’s meeting.

Naval officers called sober

Washington (UP) –
In a story relating to the disturbance involving members of the AFL Teamsters Union and two naval officers on the night President Roosevelt addressed a union banquet at the Statler Hotel. the United Press on Oct. 12 erroneously attributed to Fulton Lewis Jr., radio commentator, a statement to the effect that hotel Officials had said the officers were intoxicated.

Mr. Lewis’ statement was that the officers were not intoxicated. The MBS commentator discussed the incident from Station KFRC, San Francisco, in part as follows:

The hotel officials who were present at the time tell me positively that the naval Officers were not intoxicated. One hotel official went so far as to say he was quite sure that neither one had even had a drink.

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GOP labor policy blasted by priest

Dewey ‘lies’ cited by Rev. Orlemanski

If Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican candidate for President, is elected, he and his backers will “throw out every labor law enacted under the present administration,” Rev. Casimir Orlemanski yesterday told a C1O-Citizens Political Action rally in Lithuanian Hall, South Side.

Father Orlemanski, pastor at St. Mary’s Church, New Kensington, recalled to his audience that he had led a hunger march on Washington when “millions of Americans were starving under the Republican administration.”

Charges Dewey lies

He charged that Mr. Dewey “lies” when he alleges President Roosevelt failed to prepare the nation for war.

Leo Krazycki, president of the American Slav Congress, urged his listeners “not to forget the misery and the empty bellies of the Hoover days.”

He said Republican attacks on Communist influence in the Political Action Committee was “Red scare propaganda" and an “old trick used against Lincoln 89 years ago when every lie and slander and all the muck was thrown at him.”

Murray message read

Frank Burke, district director for the CIO United Steelworkers, read a message from CIO President Philip Murray, in which he said:

Dewey and Hoover are hoping we will fail to vote in sufficient numbers to reelect President Roosevelt. Their only hope is a light vote… This means day-by-day and house-by-house work between now and Nov. 7. The people will win, but only if the people will vote.

The rally was also addressed by Democratic Congressmen James A. Wright and Herman P. Eberharter.

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Huge crowds greet Dewey in St. Louis

GOP nominee repeats ‘unprepared; charge

St. Louis, Missouri (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey was given a tumultuous welcome when he arrived in St. Louis today to open his bid for the nation’s farm vote in a major campaign speech tonight.

KDKA and KQV will broadcast the speech at 10:00 p.m. ET.

Thousands of cheering Midwesterners lined downtown streets as the Republican presidential nominee rode in an open auto to his hotel.

The New Yorker said he would “bring honesty to the national government” after Jan. 20.

He said:

That is the issue of this campaign: Whether we want to continue down the New Deal road or whether we want a new administration that will bring opportunity and jobs for all.

25,000 line parade route

The Dewey party was saluted with loud explosions of cannon firecrackers, and torn paper fell from the high office buildings when he reached the downtown section. Police estimated crowds along the parade route at between 25,000 and 40,000.

Governor Dewey last night issued a statement to accompanying newspapermen contending the White House reply to his campaign speeches confirmed his charge that the Roosevelt administration failed to prepare the nation for war.

He reiterated the charge he made at Oklahoma City three weeks ago as his response to the White House statement of refutation.

Roosevelt ‘admission’

The White House statement, issued Saturday, quoted parts of the Oklahoma City speech in which Governor Dewey traced to Army officials and administration spokesmen the authority for his unpreparedness charge. Each Dewey statement was followed by longer quotations, obviously designed to accuse the New York Governor of distortion.

Mr. Dewey said:

In this statement, Mr. Roosevelt confesses that every single statement I made in my Oklahoma City speech was exactly correct down to the last period and comma.

The record is dreadfully bad. It cannot be concealed by epithets or by hiding behind the symbol of the White House.

Three-part reply

The White House refutation of Governor Dewey’s charges was in three parts – the refutation of his Oklahoma City speech, a letter from Assistant Secretary of State Adolf E. Berle Jr., accusing Governor Dewey of “misquoting” him at Charleston, West Virginia, Oct. 7, and an explanation by Maj. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, Selective Service director, of remarks on which Governor Dewey based charges that the administration “is afraid to let men out of the Army” after the war is won.

Governor Dewey’s response to Mr. Berle’s letter was to quote the State Department executive at greater length in an effort to show that the administration’s economic trend is toward Communism.

Asked about a reply to the Hershey disclaimer, Governor Dewey’s press secretary, James M. Hagerty, replied: “Just wait,” indicating it may be forthcoming in tonight’s speech.

Statement ‘dusted off’

Mr. Dewey charged that Mr. Roosevelt had used bis position in the White House to get widespread attention for the refutation of his campaign speeches.

Governor Dewey said:

Exactly the same statement was put out by the publicity director of the Democratic Party to its speakers 10 days before. Mr. Roosevelt has found it necessary to dust it off and issue it with the sponsorship of the White House.

Repeating his quotation of Gen. George C. Marshall, Gen. H. H. Arnold, Senator Harry S. Truman, the vice-presidential nominee, and Senator Alben W. Barkley, Democratic leader in the Senate, Mr. Dewey said:

Mr. Roosevelt’s failure to prepare this country and the resulting price we have had to pay is established out of the mouths of his own followers.

As I have said, I did not intend debating the tragic results of Mr. Roosevelt’s total failure of leadership. But the facts are even more clearly etched as a result of his statement of yesterday.

Berle letter ‘amazing’

Governor Dewey called it “amazing” that Mr. Roosevelt “should find it necessary to get his subordinate and close associate, Mr. Berle… to write him a letter accusing me of misquoting, dishonesty, and of having ripped a sentence from its context.”

Mr. Dewey went on:

Once again, the facts are very simple. Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Berle again admit my statement that Mr. Berle said in a memorandum: “Over a period of years, the government will gradually come to own most of the productive plants of the United States.”

Other language cited

Mr. Berle claims he meant the opposite and cites other language in the memorandum, But he skillfully omits to quote the relevant language in the very same passage, from which I have quoted above. It reads:

If the country desires to make wealth creation a function of government [I personally believe it must do so in a larger measure than it has heretofore], the choice should be the considered choice of the country and not the result of a policy of drift.

The government’s ability to create wealth efficiently is denied by a good many people. It seems to me a good many of these attacks are unjustified, though I am frankly biased in favor of public ownership of certain forms of wealth.

Governor Dewey said the only conclusion he could draw is that Roosevelt is continuing the slippery tactics the New Deal has always employed.

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President lauded by La Guardia

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia returned to New York today after a brief invasion of the Midwest during which he announced that “President Roosevelt is going to win his second war for the American people.”

Mr. La Guardia said here last night that:

You know and I know the President is going to win this war for us. It is the second war he has won for us. He won one of the greatest wars ever waged – the war over hunger, suffering, starvation and hardship.

Mr. LaGuardia said:

When the history of this war is written by impartial men and women, it will be shown that the only man in the country who saw what was coming and did all he could within his constitutional powers to make the best of a bad situation was President Roosevelt.

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Green light to Wall Street hit by Wallace

Urges federal funds for unemployment

Gary, Indiana (UP) –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace said last night that full post-war employment cannot be maintained by “giving the green light to Wall Street.”

“That’s Taftism,” he told a rally sponsored by the Lake County (Indiana) Democratic organization. “That reminds me of the bird who flies with his head backwards, sees where he’s been, but doesn’t know where he’s going, and I suggest that bird might serve as the new symbol for the Republican Party.”

He said that although 80 percent of the job must be done by private industry, government funds should be used “if there is any indication of unemployment.”

Industry ‘mindful of dollar’

Charging that the job of converting to war manufacture was done by labor, government and “certain enlightened leaders of industry,” despite those who wanted to hold it back, he said: “Industry was very patriotic, but it also was very mindful of the dollar.”

In Cleveland, Mr. Wallace said:

Given the green light, industry would have gone on making automobiles and washing machines. You had to take industry by the scuff of the neck and throw it into the war.

PAC contributions

Touching on the controversy over contributions to the CIO Political Action Committee, the Vice President said industrialists have assembled millions of dollars to exert pressure against the administration, but at the same time call it “sinful for workers to contribute dollars to the Democratic campaign.”

What a travesty to convict the man who gives a dollar of Communism. It just isn’t true to say he holds Russia first and America second.

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New York Times backs Roosevelt

Foreign policy issue deciding factor

New York (UP) –
The New York Times today announced its support for the reelection of President Roosevelt.

The Times, which opposed Mr. Roosevelt in 1940, said in an editorial that it was supporting the President this election year because of his foreign policies.

The editorial said:

On this issue of foreign policy, we believe the scales tip heavily in favor of the Democratic Party.

It listed three reasons for this viewpoint:

  • The record and the present position of the two parties themselves.
  • The background of the two candidates themselves.
  • The factor of experience.

Experience a factor

The editorial criticized Republican presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey for failing to “divorce” the isolationist from the internationalist elements in his party and for failing to take a definite stand either way.

Discussing the “factor of experience” of the two candidates, The Times said:

We agree entirely with Mr. Dewey that there is no such thing in a free republic as an “indispensable man.” We have never thought there was…

Nevertheless, when we come down to specific cases in the choice actually before us, we cannot dismiss as unimportant the fact that Mr. Roosevelt has a large firsthand knowledge of the problems that will arise in the making of peace. Moreover, the great prestige and personal following among the plain peoples of the world, which he has won with his war leadership, might easily prove in itself to be one of the most important cohesive forces binding together a new world organization in its first experimental years.

The Times admitted that “in some respects” it believed Governor Dewey would do a better job in the domestic field and that a “new broom in Washington is badly needed,” but said it seemed “safer” to trust the “great responsibility of setting up the new international organization which is to defend the world’s peace” to the Democratic Party.

The Times editorial said:

Ours has not been an easy choice… There will be many who disagree with us. but this we know: That our decision is the product of hard thinking and good conscience. As such, we recommend it to our readers.


Roosevelt’s four sons to get books, sugar

Washington (UP) –
The four sons of President and Mrs. Roosevelt – all on active duty with the Armed Forces – will receive books and maple sugar as Christmas gifts from their mother, she revealed today.

Mrs. Roosevelt said she had sent “quite a few” packages to her sons, and that they contained mostly reading matter and the sweets.

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La Follette speaks up –
Foreign policy silence attacked

Washington (UP) –
Senator Robert M. La Follette (PR-WI) today accused both President Roosevelt and Governor Thomas E. Dewey of entering into a “conspiracy of silence” on the most important issues of the presidential campaign – those pertaining to foreign policy.

Mr. La Follette asserted it was time for the two candidates to “speak up” on the issues of American foreign policy.

U.S. has key position

In an editorial in The Progressive, organ of the Progressive Party, Senator La Follette declared the American people must know the peace terms before they can decide on participation in the projected world organization.

He said:

The United States has the key position in the United Nations councils today. Why then… is the settlement which is reached on each major questions stamped “Made in London” or ‘Made in Moscow”? … It is time for America to break away from the imperial designs of Mr. Churchill and the Soviet drive for power of Mr. Stalin.

Questions people should know

He then posed the following foreign policy questions to which he said the American people were entitled answers:

What about the future of Germany? Do we favor a strong China or do we side with the British and Russians to keep China weak? Are we to be committed to endorsing Churchill’s friendliness to Franco or to abandoning the Poles to Russia? What about post-war rights to air bases built with American money? Will the United States retain its dominant merchant marine position?

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CIO ‘free vote’ seen by Bricker

Members will refuse dictation, he says

Santa Barbara, California (UP) –
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker said today that on Election Day, many CIO members would “smite down” the “brazen effrontery” of their union’s Political Action Committee in trying to dictate how they should vote.

Governor Bricker’s speech here today reviewed what he said he had learned on the first 7,500 miles of his nationwide campaign.

He said:

Many members of the CIO have told me in no uncertain terms that they will show the PAC on Nov. 7 that they have not given up their right to exercise a free choice when they cast their ballots…

The laboring man, “regardless of union affiliations,” Governor Bricker added, “deeply resents” being told whom to vote for and “rebels at being forced to contribute to a campaign for candidates of whom many of them do not approve.”

Governor Bricker speaks tonight at San Bernardino.


‘Silent’ John L. working for GOP

Washington (UP) –
John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers, who staked – and lost – the presidency of the CIO four years ago on the election of the late Wendell L. Willkie, probably will take no public stand in the 1944 presidential contest, reliable sources said today.

Associates emphasized, however, that Mr. Lewis’ silence does not mean he is remaining on the political sideline. He and his top aides will do all they can, it was stated, to swing the nation’s 400,000 unionized miners to Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey.

UMW officials will not hazard a guess as to the number that might foreswear a 12-year allegiance to the New Deal, but it was pointed out that the miners are im a strategic position to make their influence felt 1n the election results. This is particularly true in two important states – Pennsylvania and West Virginia – where the UMW has a large membership.

The UMW adopted a resolution in convention last month in which the record of the Roosevelt administration was denounced as one of “studied disruption” of the mine union, and Governor Dewey was praised as a firm believer in “equal justice and fearless and courageous action.”

Simms: Seven million in Holland face famine

Cities to be without food, heat, lights
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

CAA proposes billion-dollar airport plan

London, New York flight to cost $250

Yanks captured Nazi fortress near Po Valley

Fall of Livergnano opens way to Bologna
By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer


First Lady doubts ‘interest’ in her

Artificial harbors enable Allies to supply France

Ports for open coast are built in Britain and transported across Channel


U.S. fliers blast Burma Road towns

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Editorial: Too much tripe

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Editorial: An appraisal of Roosevelt

Ferguson: Wonderful New York

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

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Background of news –
The campaign in 1940

By Bertram Benedict

The 1944 presidential election is just three weeks from tomorrow. The day three weeks before the 1940 election was Oct. 15. What was the situation then?

On Oct. 15, 1940, London and Berlin were being heavily bombed. American nationals were heeding their government’s warning to get out of Japan.

The presidential campaign had been under way for two months, beginning with Wendell Willkie’s acceptance speech on Aug. 17. On Oct. 13, Mr. Willkie announced 55 more speeches, bringing his total to more than 200 before the final week of the campaign. He was now to concentrate on the Northeastern and the East Central states. In Detroit, his party was pelted with missiles; he himself was struck by a potato in Boston.

President Roosevelt was on a “nonpolitical” inspection trip of defense plants in Pennsylvania and Ohio; he gave a talk on national defense at Dayton, Ohio, on Columbus Day. He announced the six major speeches he was to make during the campaign – in Philadelphia on the 23rd; New York on the 28th; Boston on the 30th; Brooklyn on Nov. 1; Cleveland, Nov. 2; Hyde Park, Nov. 4.

Jim Farley replaced

James A. Farley was out as Democratic National Chairman, succeeded by Edward J. Flynn of the Bronx, New York. Mr. Flynn charged on Oct. 16 that the newspapers as a whole were under a “dictatorship” of advertisers and stockholders. He disavowed an attack by the colored division of the Democratic National Committee on Mr. Willkie because of German ancestry.

Republican speakers were criticizing the award to Elliot Roosevelt of a captaincy in the Air Corps Reserve.

In a broadcast from Washington on Oct. 14, Col. Lindbergh asked why a nation of 130 million people should be told that its frontiers lay in Europe, and that its destiny depended on how the European War resulted. Why, he asked, take sides in a foreign quarrel, or defend Great Britain? What the United states needed, he said, was an efficient, but small, defense force, not an “astronomical” number of lanes, guns and warships.

On Oct. 14, Mr. Willkie, at Syracuse, New York, charged that the New Dealers had taken over the Democratic Party and betrayed the principles of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Cleveland, Wilson; that a third term would lead yo dictatorship, and asked why anybody should think the President was indispensable.

Mr. Willkie on the stump

At Cincinnati on Oct. 16, Mr. Willkie promised to get jobs in private employment for three million on relief, the “slavery of idleness.” He charged that the Democrats had used relief for political ends. Governor Bricker told him that Ohio would “certainly” go for him (it was to go for Roosevelt by almost 150,000). Alfred M. Landon predicted that if Mr. Roosevelt were reelected, American boys and even American girls would be sent to labor camps.

District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey of New York said in Michigan that the New Deal was after a totalitarian form of government. He said that it had abetted internal strife, repudiated pledges for a sound currency and a balanced budget, and that if the administration could perpetuate itself, American freedom was at an end. On the next day, Mr. Dewey here in Pittsburgh called the New Deal much like the Popular Front which had wrecked France.

A Gallup poll published on Oct. 17 gave a more accurate picture of the final result than did the poll published on the eve of the election. It had only three states in the wrong columns – Illinois and Wisconsin, shown as leaning toward Mr. Willkie by 51 or 52 percent, Colorado leaning toward Mr. Roosevelt by 51 percent.

Reconversion pay studied by WLB

Board seeks right to set rates

Monahan: Tuneful Irish Eyes on Fulton screen

Gorgeous June Haver sweetheart of crooner Dick Haymes in film
By Kaspar Monahan

‘Stop! You’re killing me,’ heiress quoted as shouting

Neighbor thought ‘it must be family row;’ fingerprints found in apartment and auto


Marine indicted as girl’s slayer

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Stokes: Willkie’s plans

By Thomas L. Stokes