The Pittsburgh Press (October 19, 1944)
Almost all U.S. Pacific forces massed in area, enemy claims
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer
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Nazis falling back toward Maas River
By J. Edward Murray, United Press staff writer
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Roosevelt intervenes to order priority for infant to be flown from England
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Washington (UP) –
U.S. Army casualties exclusive of air forces in France, Germany and the Low Countries from D-Day through Oct. 3 totaled 174,780, the War Department announced today.
These included 29,842 killed, 130,227 wounded and 14,711 missing. Casualties of the 7th Army which landed in southern France are included.
Total Army casualties in all theaters through Oct. 6 were 384,895, an increase of 33,602 since the last figures announced Oct. 5.
The Navy lists 68,480 total casualties through Oct. 18 for Navy, Marine and Coast Guard personnel. This gives a grand total of announced service casualties of 453,379 in all categories.
The Army totals to date:
| Dead | 75,562 |
| Wounded | 208,392 |
| Prisoners | 52,537 |
| Missing | 48,404 |
The War Department explained part of the increase was due to a revised and improved statistical system which permitted more up-to-date reports than previously.
Secret negotiations called bar to peace
Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, accusing President Roosevelt of handling foreign relations on a “basis of personal secret diplomacy,” promised today to submit foreign policy to popular support if he is elected President in November.
In a blistering indictment of President Roosevelt’s conduct of foreign affairs last night, Mr. Dewey charged that “secret” negotiations have been the custom, cited relations with Poland, Italy, France and Romania as “examples” and predicted that a continuation of the policy would prevent a lasting peace.
He argued:
Our objectives and our methods must be known to our people and approved by them so that they will be willing to support them and to sacrifice for them in all the years to come.
Wants no reservations
He proposed that the U.S. participate in organization of a world peace league as rapidly as possible, without waiting for the end of the war, and that it enter such a compact without any reservations which would nullify its power to halt future aggression, using force if necessary.
The Republican presidential candidate expounded his foreign policy views on a nationwide broadcast in New York before an invitational audience of 2,000 clubwomen, businessmen and civil and social leaders at the final session of the annual New York Herald-Tribune Forum.
Dewey associates believed that he had presented a severe challenge to Mr. Roosevelt, who is scheduled to speak on the subject in New York City Saturday night before the Foreign Policy Association.
Governor Dewey’s greatest response came when he declared that “this must be the last war,” and that “to this end the U.S. must take the lead in establishing a world organization to prevent future wars.”
‘Paying in blood’
The New York Governor described the present turbulent Italian situation as “the improvised, inefficient administration which personal New Deal government is giving them.”
He charged that “we are paying in blood for our failure to have ready an intelligent program for dealing with invaded Germany.”
Mr. Dewey said careful plans for Germany had been worked out by the War and State Departments it one time but protested that “that kind of planning goes for nothing when the President personally handles foreign policy.”
Downtown parade scheduled at noon
By Kermit McFarland
Governor Thomas E. Dewey will arrive at noon tomorrow for a parade through the downtown section, preliminary to his night speech in Hunt Armory, East Liberty.
Mr. Dewey’s special train will pull into the Pennsylvania Station, according to a Republican announcement, at exactly 12 o’clock ET.
The presidential candidate will be met at the station by Governor Edward Martin and taken to a motor convoy which will parade down Liberty Ave. to Fifth Avenue, up Fifth Avenue to Smithfield Street, along Smithfield to Sixth Avenue, and up Sixth Avenue to Grant Street.
He will enter the William Penn Hotel at the Grant Street entrance.
Mr. Dewey will spend the day at the hotel conferring with Republican leaders from this area and working, the headquarters announcement said, on the text of the speech he will deliver in Hunt Armory.
The Armory doors will be open at 6:30 p.m., but Mr. Dewey will not speak until 9:00 p.m. The rally will be opened at 8:00 p.m.
KDKA will carry Governor Dewey’s speech at 9:00 p.m. ET tomorrow.
Republican County Chairman James F. Malone will present candidates for statewide offices and then present Governor Martin who will introduce Governor Dewey.
Mr. Dewey will speak for a half hour and the speech will be broadcast over a nationwide radio network.
Two speakers signed
While Republicans prepared for the Dewey rally tomorrow, the Democrats signed up two more speakers for campaign-end meetings here.
Mayor Fiorella H. La Guardia of New York will appear Tuesday might at North Side Carnegie Hall to headline a fourth-term mass meeting sponsored by the Independent Citizens Committee for Roosevelt.
Gifford Pinchot, former Governor of Pennsylvania, has been added to the Democratic rally set for Nov. 2, at which Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri, candidate for Vice President, will be the principal speaker.
Spoke here in 1940
Mr. Pinchot and Mr. La Guardia, both Republicans, spoke from the same platform here on behalf of Mr. Roosevelt in 1940.
Mr. Pinchot, twice Governor, and Senator Truman will speak in Syria Mosque. The former Governor heads an independent Pennsylvania committee supporting the President.
Mr. Dewey’s parade route tomorrow is the same one he followed when he was here in July for conferences with political, business, agricultural, labor and war veteran groups.
He will be met at the station by a large representation from Governor Martin’s Cabinet, state candidates and top party officials.
Martin heads party
The reception committee, in addition to the Governor and Mr. Malone, will include Mrs. Martin, National Committeemen G. Mason, Owlett and Margery M. Scranton, State Chairman M. Harvey Taylor, Lieutenant Governor John C. Bell, Attorney General James H. Duff, Secretary of Internal Affairs William S. Livengood, Insurance Commissioner Gregg L. Neel, and George I. Bloom, secretary to the Governor.
Also present will be the statewide candidates: U.S. Senator James J. Davis, Supreme Court Justice Howard W. Hughes, Superior Court Judge Arthur H. James, Judge J. Frank Graff (candidate for the Superior Court), Senator G. Harold Watkins (candidate for Auditor General) and Philadelphia City Treasurer Edgar W. Baird (candidate for State Treasurer).
Teeth pulled from anti-racketeering law
By Edward A. Evans, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Heaviest fighting on American front
By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer
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Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, U.S. Ambassador to Norway who fled from that country just ahead of the invading Germans in 1940, will take issue with Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce in an address tonight before the central committee of the Independents for Roosevelt, of which J. S. Crutchfield is chairman.
Mrs. Harriman will discuss “Why All This Luce Talk?” at 8:15 p.m. ET on the club floor of the William Penn Hotel.
The former envoy, chairman of the Free World Association, will “take Mrs. Luce to task for her misstatements concerning the President’s leadership in foreign affairs and national preparedness before Pearl Harbor.”
The meeting will be open to the public.
Agree on objective, at odds on candidate
New York (UP) –
Politics’ two glamor girls – Helen Gahagan Douglas, Democratic candidate for Representative from California, and Rep. Clare Boothe Luce (R-CT), appearing on the same speaker’s platform for the first time – agreed that world peace is 1944’s major objective, but disagreed on the presidential candidate best able to achieve it.
Speaking at the closing session of The New York Herald-Tribune Forum last night on a program at which Democrats and Republicans discussed the issues of a national election in war time, Mrs. Douglas, wife of screen actor Melvyn Douglas, talked on “The Campaign Issue,” followed by Mrs. Luce’s discussion of “Waging the Peace.”
Asserting that the “indispensable” issue of the election campaign is a philosophy – and not a man – Mrs. Douglas maintained that President Roosevelt, for seven years before the war broke, fought against isolationism.
Mrs. Luce, speaking after Mrs. Douglas, asserted that an international police force, plainly “recognized as the teeth” in any peace plan today as it was in Henry the Fourth’s day, poses the unanswered question, “who puts the bit on whom?”
Mrs. Ogden Reid, vice president of the Herald-Tribune and chairman of the forum, in a closing statement expressed regret that President Roosevelt did not appear to make the traditional final address.
She said:
Last Friday, he sent a telegram saying he would be unable to speak.
By Gracie Allen
Hollywood, California –
Lots of people are saying this political campaign isn’t being handled right, and I, for one, certainly agree with them.
For instance, I haven’t seen a single news photo of a candidate holding a baby. Goodness knows, it would be especially helpful this year, what with so many of the mothers working in war plants.
And why doesn’t one of the candidates take advantage of the cigarette shortage? Many a long face would brighten up with a cigarette in it. If they can get votes by promising “a chicken in every pot,” they should be able to start a landslide by promising “a cigarette in every pan.”
District 50 head asks why unions don’t forsake board after inaction on pay demands
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Speeches now scheduled for three cities; quick trip to Midwest expected
Washington (UP) –
The White House today added Boston to the growing list of cities where President Roosevelt will make campaign speeches, in line with his apparent decision that the time has come to take a few direct potshots at Governor Thomas E. Dewey.
Presidential Secretary Stephen T. Early confirmed to reporters that Mr. Roosevelt will speak in Boston. He did not give the date of the appearance but reports from that city indicated it would be on Nov. 4.
Confirmation of the Boston speech brought to three the number of formal talks now on the President’s schedule. He speaks in New York Saturday night, after a day-long tour of the city. On Oct. 27, he is to address a mass meeting at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park. Furthermore, high Democratic officials expect him to make a brief stab into the Midwest, perhaps speaking in Ohio and Illinois.
Democrats irritated
Mr. Roosevelt and his campaign advisers are obviously irritated by Mr. Dewey’s use of statements by administration figures for his attacks against the New Deal. On two occasions, the White House has released compilations of “facts” making the point that the statements had been lifted from context and their meaning twisted.
The President’s speech before the Foreign Policy Association in New York Saturday is expected to be a scholarly discussion of international policy, perhaps replying to Mr. Dewey’s attack last night against the administration’s conduct of foreign affairs.
Fighting speech expected
But when he speaks at Shibe Park in Philadelphia a week from next Friday night, Mr. Roosevelt is expected to take off the gloves and follow the lugging style of his Sept. 23 speech to the AFL Teamster Union here. At stake will be Pennsylvania’s important 35 electoral votes.
Mr. Roosevelt will also be going after New York’s vital 47 electoral votes in his Saturday trip. His tour of the city before the foreign policy speech will include a stop at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn for a rally on behalf of Senator Robert F. Wagner.
En route to Fresno, California (UP) –
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker winds up his five-day campaign for California’s 25 electoral votes tonight at Fresno where he delivers his 19th speech since entering the state.
The GOP vice-presidential nominee carries his drive into Nevada tomorrow with speeches at Reno, Sparks and Lovelock.
Bricker opened his final day in California with a speech at Bakersfield today. He also made rear-platform talks at Tulare and Selma.
He told a Los Angeles audience last night that Senator Harry S. Truman, his Democratic opponent for the Vice Presidency, bespoke “New Deal cynicism” when he admitted he had Pendergast machine support. He also said that Mr. Truman, in his speech two days prior in the same auditorium, “insulted” industry, labor and armed service personnel when he “accredited” the Roosevelt administration with “the miracle of war production – indeed for winning the war itself.”
Mr. Bricker asserted:
I want to say to you, right at the outset that these historic results have been achieved not because of the New Deal, but often in spite of the New Deal.
Citing the fact that Mr. Truman could become President, Governor Bricker condemned the Missourian for his statement that “a statesman is only a dead politician” and Mr. Truman’s disclaimer that he wanted to be “a statesman.”
The time has come to eliminate such cynicism from our political life and restore the Presidency of the United States to its rightful place of dignity and honesty.
Following his three Nevada speeches tomorrow, Governor Bricker will campaign in Utah Friday.
En route to Seattle, Washington (UP) –
Senator Harry S. Truman completes the West Coast leg of his campaign trip today in Washington, which is acutely conscious of post-war reconversion problems.
Mr. Truman, Democratic nominee for the Vice Presidency, will appear at a Democratic rally tonight in Seattle to deliver a radio address pointed at those problems. He also expects to reiterate the administration view toward the giant Grand Coulee and Bonneville power projects which have been closely linked to industrial expansion in the Northwest.
The nominee told a Democratic rally at Portland, Oregon, last night that the projects were partly responsible for the tremendous wartime expansion of aluminum production and that they had been “bitterly opposed” by Republicans in Congress.
Mr. Truman also charged that the Republican platform and presidential candidate “straddle every issue” and asserted again that the nation needed experienced leadership to win the war and the peace.
He said:
The same old gang that tried to turn the clock back in 1920 is standing at the door waiting for a chance to come in and turn the clock back.
Mr. Truman asserted that Governor Thomas E. Dewey had embraced New Deal reforms on a tour of the West Coast but had gone to Charleston, West Virginia, and told “the Old Guard he didn’t mean it at all.”
Moving into Washington today, Mr. Truman was accompanied by Senator Mon C. Wallgren, Democratic gubernatorial nominee for that state, on a motor trip to Seattle. They planned stops at Centralia, Olympia and Tacoma.
Washington (UP) –
The Senate Campaign Expenditures Committed voted 4–1 yesterday to forego a formal investigation of the “Battle of the Statler,” deciding that nothing could be gained by delving further into the brawl between two naval officers and members of the AFL Teamsters Union.
The decision was announced by Chairman Theodore F. Green (D-RI) after a closed meeting at which members considered material uncovered by its own investigators and affidavits filed by President Daniel J. Tobin of the Teamsters and by Thomas C. Bradley, attorney for the naval officers.
Mr. Green said the affidavits were “conflicting,” that he did not know which side to believe, and that “it would be difficult to believe both.”
The lone dissenting vote was cast by Senator Homer Ferguson (R-MI), who told reporters he thought all the known facts should be given to the public.
The only detailed version has been given by the naval officers – LtCdr. James Suddeth, 33, and Lt. Randolph Dickins Jr., 23 – who contend it all started after President Roosevelt’s opening campaign address to the Teamsters dinner when union members collared them in a corridor and demanded to know how they would vote.
Mr. Green said the decision closes the matter as far as the committee is concerned and that, if any further action is taken, it can be done by the “public authority that has the duty to take such action.” He did not elaborate.
Committee members, he said, had “various reasons” for opposing an investigation.
He said:
Some believed the committee had no jurisdiction. Others said the facts developed showed as important as the public attention that had been brought to it.