Nazis reinforce Italian front
Six divisions thrown into Bologna battle
By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer
…
Record retail store sales seen for 1944
Volume estimated at $67 billion
…
New financing sets record during week
Bankers clear decks for war bond drive
…
Brundige: Seventh Cross is dramatic
Based on premise that good prevails
By Lenore Brundige
…
CBI Roundup renews its blasts at movie stars
Army paper dismissed their protests as ‘outraged squeals’ of wounded patriots
…
Millett: Time for lessons
Returning G.I.’s want good meals
By Ruth Millett
…
Soldier homecoming dependent on ships
…
Week of real tests –
College grid leaders face most formidable opposition to date
…
Pittsburgh Symphony gets network brushoff
Lesser orchestras in notable series
By Si Steinhauser
…
Address by New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey
October 20, 1944, 9:00 p.m. EWT
Broadcast from Hunt Armory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
I am happy to come to Pennsylvania again and report that a great upsurge is sweeping the country. Everywhere, from coast to coast, the American people are coming to the decision that it’s time for a change.
Republicans are confident of winning. Democrats, who deeply resent the kidnaping of their part by the Communists and the Political Action Committee, are also confident of winning – with us. Together with independents, they are fed up with 12 years of quarreling, waste and decay. They agree that 16 years would be intolerable. They want a fresh and vigorous government with faith in the future of America.
That’s why it’s time for a change.
In 26 Republican states, having two-thirds of our population, our people have found that we can have good progressive government without wrangling, waste and confusion. We have learned that we can change state administrations and greatly strengthen our unity for war and our capacity to hasten victory. With our great military command continued, a similar change in civilian Washington will speed total victory and will also speed our work for a just and lasting peace.
In the same way, a change of administration offers the only future to the working people of America. The slogan of the New Deal is: “Back to normalcy with ten million unemployed.” That’s where we still were in 1940, after seven years of the New Deal. But we Americans are not going backward.
When the war is won, a tremendous job will just begin. No one man and no single group will be able to hold all the forces released by war in constructive channels. Every group in our population – agriculture, business, labor and government – will have to pull together.
Can this great effort be led by an administration which is both worn out and torn to shreds by internal dissensions? Can it be done by a president who has warred with a Congress of his own party year after year until that Congress is in open rebellion?
Let me recall to you what happened at the end of the last war under another tired administration. 1919 brought soup kitchens into our cities – not for the helpless – but for returning soldier. In the best organized communities, it took a returning soldier an average of two and a half months to find a job. While that veteran walked the streets, this nation was shaken by its first general strike. The same year brought the great steel strike, the meat-packing strike, the lockout in the building trades. Making the strife more bitter were the assaults of the Democratic Attorney General, A. Mitchel Palmer, on union halls and civil liberties. This nation was so torn by cleavage and insecurity that it was in that year 1919 that the Communist Party of the USA was organized, dedicated to revolution.
Improved labor relations and advances for the working people of the country came only with good times. Labor leaders joined with a Republican Congress to establish the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor. They helped a Republican administration set up the Railway Labor Act, which is today still the model law in employer-employee relations. Under Republican administrations came legislation against child labor, limitation of interstate distribution of the products of prison labor, laws for payment of prevailing rates of pay on government jobs, and the anti-injunction bill of rights for labor.
This program was a part of the social trend which has continued since the Social Security Law, the Wage and Hour Law and the National Labor Relations Act. There is no reason why our social trend should not continue. There is no reason except one – the New Deal – tired out and too long in office. It distrusts the people. It treats the social gains of the 1930s as its private property.
The New Deal sits by the fireside and gazes back on its long-lost youth with happy contemplation, It hopes to spend its declining days clipping coupons on its political investments of the 1930s. It wants to hold office forever in stalemated idleness. I say that social gains are not the property of any party. They are the property of the people of the United States and no party can exploit them for its political profit. Good laws are necessary but they are not enough. Social progress needs vigorous protection and promotion all the time. It needs the nourishment of competent, free government.
Let’s look at what has happened to the right of collective bargaining under one-man government. The New Deal has posed for years as the friend of labor. But today it has turned collective bargaining into political bargaining.
Take just one example. In the autumn of 1942, the 1,100,000 non-operating railroad employes and then the 350,000 operating workers requested a wage increase to meet the higher living costs. Since 1926, the machinery of the law always had worked successfully in such matters. And it started to operate properly this time, with the regular hearings before the national mediation emergency boards.
But, the grasping hand of one-man rule reached in and set itself above the law. Mr. Roosevelt’s Economic Stabilization Director Vinson completely destroyed the effectiveness of the Railway Labor Act by setting aside the recommendation of the mediation board for an increase of eight cents an hour. Desperate, the railway workers of the nation decided to walk out, if necessary, by a vote of 97.7 percent.
For six months last year, while uncertainty and tension increased, Mr. Roosevelt did nothing but wage a war of nerves against the railway workers. Finally, he decided the stage was set for making political capital. He called the union leaders to the White House. They met there four times. Mr. Roosevelt demanded that he, instead of the legally established mediation board, be selected as the final arbitrator. Three presidents of railway brotherhoods declared, and I quote: “The whole thing had all the earmarks of a political setup.”
The tension rose higher. Finally, Mr. Roosevelt seized the railroads to forestall a national disaster which he himself had prepared. After he did that, he graciously gave the very wage increase to which the railway workers had been entitled for over a year.
The comment of the three brotherhood leaders was, and I quote: “The trouble was that the administration was not content to follow the law.”
“We are firmly convinced,” they said, “that if the administration had kept its hands off and had permitted the rail unions to proceed under the Railway Labor Act, we could have reached a satisfactory settlement with our employers without stopping work for a single day and without causing the slightest bitterness.”
“But the administration did not do that. It insisted on changing rules in the middle of the game.”
Now, political power wasn’t the only profit in this case. There was political cash, too – for one of the New Deal city bosses. The railway brotherhoods had to be represented by special legal counsel because the proceedings were obviously of a very special sort. And who do you suppose was the lawyer? An attorney eminent in labor law? An authority on railroad economics? Not under the New Deal.
With legal process out the window by act of Mr. Roosevelt, the railway workers were forced to hire someone who knew his way up the backstairs of the White House. So, the railway brotherhoods had to hire Mr. Roosevelt’s third-term national chairman – that eminent authority in Belgian paving blocks, Boss Flynn of the Bronx. This was the man who once appointed the notorious gangster and gunman, Dutch Schultz, as a deputy sheriff of the Bronx. And did Mr. Roosevelt’s political manager lend his aid for nothing? The price of his services for the railroad workers was $25,000.
That sort of business must come to an end in this country. Political bosses and one-man government must not be allowed to keep a strangle-hold on the rights of our working people. I believe with all my heart in collective bargaining and it must again be free collective bargaining. It must be bargaining for the rights of working people and not for the profit of political bosses.
Now, playing with the rights of labor for political power and political cash is bad enough. But there is something even more dangerous in what the New Deal is doing. Here are the words of Robert J. Watt, one of the top officials of the American Federation of Labor. He says:
Even as we fight for the survival of our basic freedoms, we find that the democratic process in many ways is being hogtied and rendered subordinate to the dictum of a one-man boss…
Just a week ago at a public forum in New York, this same labor leader said: “Government intervention has already strangled collective bargaining to death.”
And to this, Railway Brotherhood President David B. Robertson said: “I should like to say amen to that.”
But collective bargain is only one of the casualties of the rights of the workers under the New Deal. Look at what has happened to the white-collar worker.
A friend of mine is an employee in a publishing house. He asked his employer for a raise and the employer agreed. But then the trouble began. The employer filed an application with the appropriate government bureau.
Seven weeks went by and then what? More information was requested. Two months later, the request was turned down. Three months more until an appeal was heard. Another month for a decision that the appeal had been denied. Three and a half months of further delay waiting word that a further appeal to Washington had been turned down. On the last appeal, four months later, the word was finally handed down: “OK. You can have half as much as you asked.”
Thus, more than 15 months after the original request, the New Deal settled the case by the old kangaroo court method of splitting the difference. If the request had no merit in the first place, a denial would be fair and proper. But when it’s right all the time, 15 months delay and three appeals to get justice are inexcusable. It is the same all through the New Deal. It has been the same with millions of other white-collar workers and factory workers all over the country. That’s why it’s time for a change.
It is time to face the fact that the New Deal is a bankrupt organization, living only to extend its powers over the daily lives of our people. It did some good things in its youth, but now it seeks to live on its past. In this great national campaign, my opponent has not offered to the people of this country even the pretense of a program for the future. He tells the working men and women of America to trust him, to do as they are told and ask no questions. That is the end result under one-man government, always. It is the inevitable end of a philosophy which sees no real future for America. It is the result of a viewpoint that can see nothing ahead but a repetition of its own peacetime failures – a return after the war to unemployment, with leaf raking and doles.
I am sure America will never submit to that dreary prospect. We are going forward to swift, total victory over our enemies abroad. We are going to take the lead in building a world organization for lasting peace, and here at home, we are going to establish a government which will make possible a vigorous productive economy with jobs and opportunity for all.
Only thus can we maintain social progress and make secure the rights of free labor.
With the full backing of our party, Governor Bricker and I stand committed to a program that will insure to American labor the guarantee of free collective bargaining through the National Labor Relations Act, and with freedom from government dictation.
We stand committed to the proposition that America can and must have both economic security and personal freedom. That program we shall begin to put into effect next January 20.
We shall appoint an active, able Secretary of Labor from the ranks of labor.
We shall abolish wasteful, quarrelsome and competing agencies which are strangling collective bargaining.
We shall establish the Fair Employment Practices Committee as a permanent service.
We shall put back into the Department of Labor the functions that belong in the Department of Labor.
We shall do away with special privilege for one group of American workers over another group. °
We shall see to it that every working man and woman stands equally in the Department of Labor and that the department exists to serve, and not to rule, the working men and women of America.
We shall work for a broader Social Security Act to include those not now covered. Old-age and survivors’ insurance is now denied to 20 million of our people. All those who have been left without protection under the New Deal must be included. Public employees who are not now protected by existing systems should, also, be included.
We shall work to widen the provisions of unemployment insurance to include the groups now unprotected.
To all these things we are pledged.
These things government can and should do. But they alone are not enough. We can have a free labor movement and make social progress only within the framework of a society that encourages enterprise – that provides opportunity for all – that is productive and growing.
To that end we are pledged to remove from the backs of American farmers and businessmen the hordes of bungling bureaucrats and the load of red tape and regulations under which they have staggered so many years.
Necessary regulation of industry and finance will encourage, not discourage freedom and opportunity. It must be administered by men who believe in the enterprise system and who know that the personal and political freedom of the average American citizen is more important than increased power for a government bureau.
We must have a government that wants every American to succeed, a government that will make possible full employment with an ever-increasing standard of living for every man and woman who works for a living.
Above all, we must have an administration that will restore unity to our country. That means a government with teamwork in its own ranks – a government that works in harmony with Congress – a government that has equal respect for the rights of agriculture, labor and business, and for every race, creed and color.
The years that lie ahead will be largely peacetime years. They will bring great problems and great opportunities. Let us determine now that we shall work together in unity as free Americans under an administration that believes in the future of America.
Tonight, brave men on far off battlefronts are fighting and dying for our country. If we are to be worthy of their sacrifices, we must strengthen freedom here at home. That we will do and with God’s help, we will build a future fit for heroes – a land of equal opportunity for all.
Völkischer Beobachter (October 21, 1944)
Antwort an Morgenthau –
Volkssturm – Enttäuschung für den Feind
…
Briten und Yankees sollen weiter bluten –
Stalin befiehlt – Eisenhower greift an
Von unserem Berichterstatter in Stockholm
…
Führer HQ (October 21, 1944)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
In Holland brachen feindliche Angriffe sowohl im Brückenkopf Breskens wie östlich Helmond im Feuer unserer Abwehrwaffen zusammen. Nordöstlich Antwerpen traten die Kanadier auf breiterer Front zum Angriff an. Sie wurden nach geringen Anfangserfolgen zum Stehen gebracht; insgesamt wurden gestern in Holland 20 feindliche Panzer abgeschossen.
Nach 19 Tagen blutigen Ringens und gewaltigem Materialeinsatz auf engstem Raum zerschlugen die tapferen, aber zusammengeschmolzenen Verteidiger von Aachen auch gestern noch starke Angriffe gegen den Nordrand der Stadt, die durch das wochenlange amerikanische Artilleriefeuer und die starken Luftangriffe umfangreiche Zerstörungen erlitten hat. Um einzelne Häusergruppen tobt noch ein erbitterter Kampf Mann gegen Mann. Seit dem 10. Oktober würden von der Besatzung 25 Panzer vernichtet.
Angreifende nordamerikanische Bataillone wurden an der Grenze nordöstlich und östlich Luxemburg bereits durch unsere Gefechtsvorposten abgewiesen oder wieder über die Mosel zurückgetrieben. Auch im Raum von Bruyères und Cornimont blieben feindliche Angriffe im Feuer vor unserem Hauptkampffeld liegen.
Über dem Kampfraum im Westen wurden gestern in heftigen Luftkämpfen durch deutsche Jagdflieger 18 anglo-amerikanische Jäger abgeschossen.
Vor Dünkirchen brachte ein eigener Stoßtrupp Gefangene ein.
Das „V1“-Feuer auf London geht weiter.
Der Schwerpunkt der Kämpfe in Mittelitalien lag gestern im Raum von Vergato, wo alle feindlichen Angriffe abgeschlagen wurden, östlich Colano brachten unsere Truppen bei Gegenangriffen Beute und Gefangene ein.
Im Raum der westlichen Morawa vereitelten unsere Divisionen bolschewistische Umfassungsangriffe. Die Stadt Belgrad wurde nach erbitterten Straßenkämpfen und nach Zerstörung aller militärisch wichtigen Anlagen dem Feind überlassen. Im Donau-Save-Bogen leisten unsere Truppen dem Feind weiter zähen Widerstand.
Während in Südungarn der Feind westlich der Theißmündung in Richtung auf die Donau weiter Vordringen konnte, machte im Raum beiderseits Szolnok der Angriff deutscher und ungarischer Truppen, unterstützt durch Verbände der Luftwaffe, trotz zäher feindlicher Gegenwehr weitere Fortschritte. Im Raum von Debrecen und beiderseits des Szamos leisteten unsere Divisionen den nach Norden stoßenden Sowjets hartnäckigen Widerstand, warfen sie an mehreren Stellen zurück und fügten ihnen dabei hohe Verluste zu.
In den Waldkarpaten beseitigten die Honveds westlich des Uzsokpasses im entschlossenen Gegenangriff eine noch bestehende Einbruchsstelle, Westlich des Duklapasses zerschlugen unsere Truppen unter härtesten Witterungsbedingungen in vier Wellen vorgetragene Angriffe der Bolschewisten.
Stärkere Angriffe der Sowjets scheiterten am unteren Narew beiderseits Seroc, schwächere bei Rozan. In diesen Brückenköpfen verlor der Gegner in den beiden letzten Tagen 89 Panzer.
Zwischen Sudauen und Schirwindt brachte der fünfte Tag der Schlacht im ostpreußischen Grenzgebiet wieder schwere Kämpfe. Der mit neuen Kräften anrennende Feind wurde bis auf einen Panzerdurchstoß nördlich der, Rominter Heide abgeschlagen. Die feindliche Panzerspitze erlitt durch unsere Schlachtflieger hohe Verluste. Weitere Gegenangriffe sind im Gange. Mit dem gestrigen Abschuß von 109 Panzern durch Truppen des Heeres und durch Schlachtflieger wurden bisher in dieser Schlacht 463 feindliche Panzer vernichtet.
Zwischen Moscheiken und der Rigaer Bucht sowie auf der Halbinsel Sworbe scheiterten zahlreiche starke Angriffe der Bolschewisten. 21 Panzer wurden abgeschossen.
Feindliche Umfassungsversuche im nördlichen Finnland und an der Eismeerküste wurden auch gestern zerschlagen.
Nordamerikanische Terrorflieger griffen Regensburg und weitere Orte in Süddeutschland an. Zehn viermotorige Bomber wurden abgeschossen. Tiefflieger setzten im west- und südwestdeutschen Raum ihre Angriffe gegen die Zivilbevölkerung fort.
In der Schlacht im ostpreußischen Grenzgebiet hat sich die Aufklärungs-Lehrabteilung der 1. Infanteriedivision unter Führung des Rittmeisters Rosenfeld und nach dessen Heldentod unter Führung des Oberleutnants Rohrbeck, vielfach auf sich allein gestellt, durch beispielhafte Standhaftigkeit und hervorragenden Angriffsgeist ausgezeichnet und dadurch wesentlich zur erfolgreichen Abwehr des feindlichen Durchbruchsversuchs beigetragen.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (October 21, 1944)
FROM
(A) SHAEF FORWARD
ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section
DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
211100A October
TO FOR ACTION
(1) AGWAR (Pass to WND)
TO (W) FOR INFORMATION (INFO)
(2) FIRST US ARMY GP
(3) ADV HQ 12 ARMY GP
(4) FWD ECH (MAIN) 12 ARMY GP
(5) AEAF
(6) ANCXF
(7) EXFOR MAIN
(8) EXFOR REAR
(9) DEFENSOR, OTTAWA
(10) CANADIAN C/S, OTTAWA
(11) WAR OFFICE
(12) ADMIRALTY
(13) AIR MINISTRY
(14) ETOUSA
(15) SACSEA
(16) CMHQ (Pass to RCAF & RCN)
(17) COM Z APO 871
(18) SHAEF MAIN
(REF NO.)
NONE
(CLASSIFICATION)
IN THE CLEAR
Communiqué No. 196
In an attack which began yesterday morning north of Antwerp, Allied forces advanced more than three miles to the area of Loenhout.
West of Kalmthout, we made good gains, and southeast of the village we advanced on both sides of the Antwerp–Roosendaal road. In the Scheldt pocket, more ground was taken south of Schoondijke, and the original bridgehead was merged with the main westward drive.
Fighters and fighter-bombers attacked fortifications in the Breskens area and continued their close support of our ground forces. Other attacks were carried out in the neighborhood of Bergen-op-Zoom, at Esschen, Giesbeek, Steeg and Maashees. The fighter-bombers also attacked transportation targets cutting rail lines and attacking trains and motor transport in Holland and western Germany, in the areas of Zwolle, Zutphen, Amersfoort, Neuss, Krefeld, Hamm and Lissendorf.
Medium bombers, none of which is missing, hit a railroad bridge at Moerdijk, 15 miles southeast of Rotterdam, and a road bridge at Geertruidenberg, ten miles further east. Most of Aachen is in our hands. our forces have fought their way through the main part of the city and are now encountering resistance in its outskirts. In France, fighting continues in Maizières-lès-Metz. Some 25 miles east of Nancy, our fighter-bombers successfully attacked the Dieuze Dam (Étang de Lindre). Other formations attacked enemy troop concentrations and rail supply lines along this sector. We have made gains east and north of Bruyères following the capture of that stubbornly defended strongpoint. Counterattacks were thrown back. In the Vosges foothills farther south, reinforced enemy units counterattacked in a vain attempt to halt our advance east of the Moselotte River bend area. The opposition is being cleared rapidly from forests in this sector. During the day, 18 enemy aircraft were shot down and two were destroyed on the ground. Eleven of our aircraft are missing.
COORDINATED WITH: G-2, G-3 to C/S
THIS MESSAGE MAY BE SENT IN CLEAR BY ANY MEANS
/s/
Precedence
“OP” - AGWAR
“P” - Others
ORIGINATING DIVISION
PRD, Communique Section
NAME AND RANK TYPED. TEL. NO.
D. R. JORDAN, Lt Col FA Ext. 9
AUTHENTICATING SIGNATURE
/s/
U.S. Navy Department (October 21, 1944)
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 162
Carrier aircraft of the Pacific Fleet on October 20 (West Longitude Date) continued to attack enemy aircraft and shipping targets in the Philippines. At Coron Bay, southwest of Mindoro Strait, a cargo ship, previously damaged, a small coastal cargo ship and a small escort vessel were sunk. Four enemy PT boats, three at Batangas Bay and one at Cebu Harbor, were also sunk. Several ammunition barges were destroyed in Masbate Harbor, while two medium cargo ships and two luggers were damaged. At Bulan, ground installations and a hangar near the airfield were bombed.
During the day, 13 enemy planes were shot down and 37 destroyed on the ground, some of which previously had been reported damaged. Our losses were three planes, one pilot and one aircrewman.
In the month‑long operations against the Philippines, Ryukyus and Formosa which commenced on September 21, and have continued until the present, the carrier aircraft employed have consisted of Hellcat fighters, Avenger torpedo planes and Helldiver dive bombers.
Remarks by President Roosevelt at a Businessmen’s Rally for Senator Wagner
October 21, 1944, 11:00 a.m. EWT
Delivered at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, New York
I wanted to come here for two reasons. You know I come from the State of New York, and I have made a series of inspection tours here. I come from the State of New York and I practiced law in New York City, but I have never been to Ebbets Field before. I have rooted for the Dodgers. And I hope to come back here some day and see them play.
But the chief reason I came here today is to pay a little tribute to my old friend Bob Wagner. We were together in the legislature – I would hate to say how long ago – thirty-some years ago, in the Senate of the State of New York, and we have been close friends ever since, I think largely because we had the same ideals of being of service to our fellow men.
If anybody knew and could visualize all the way through the help that Bob Wagner has been to mankind, there wouldn’t be any question about asking him to go back to the Senate for six years more, to carry on the splendid service that he has rendered.
And so, I just came here to say that word in his behalf. He deserves well of mankind.
Thanks ever so much.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 21, 1944)
MACARTHUR GAINS ON LEYTE
Jap resistance to Yanks stiffens
Invaders seize Dulag road junction, storm defenses of capital
By William B. Dickinson, United Press staff writer
…
U.S. bombers blast dam above Nancy
Nazi transport center of Dieuze flooded
By J. Edward Murray, United Press staff writer
…
Over 65 die in Cleveland explosion; 50-block area hit; loss S10 million
Many children are among victims
…
Foreign policy speech tonight –
Roosevelt takes campaign to sidewalks of New York
Two million expected to see President as he braves drizzle in open car
New York (UP) –
President Roosevelt took his fourth-term reelection campaign to this vast damp city today in an open car, 50-mile motor tour despite wet weather and gray skies.
Bare-headed and without the cape which had sheltered him earlier, the President made the first major station of his citywide swing at Ebbets Field, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ ballpark, where he called upon an estimated 16,000 persons to return Senator Robert F. Wagner (D-NY) to the U.S. Senate.
He speaks tonight before the Foreign Policy Association.
KDKA and KQV will broadcast the speech at 9:30 p.m. EWT.
Bad weather, brushed over the metropolitan area by the diminishing force of a hurricane-at-sea, cut crowds and took some of the sparkle from the occasion. But the President made good on the promise that he would parade “rain or shine.” He did so at the head of a motorcade of about 50 cars which was destined to be on the streets for four hours or more. Near noon the schedule was lagging by half an hour.
Will tour five boroughs
From the Brooklyn depot, where he arrived just before 8:30 a.m., Mr. Roosevelt will move for four hours or more through all but one of the city’s five boroughs. He will see and be seen by more persons, than could be mustered in many a prairie state in a matter of days.
Military courtesies were not wholly observed at the beginning of the city-swing. There was no 21-gun salute at the Army depot and it was as Candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt and not as the Commander-in-Chief that the President came to town. The party left the Brooklyn depot at 10:02 a.m. for the first leg of the journey to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The next was Ebbets Field, home grounds of the Brooklyn Dodgers, where the rally for Senator Wagner attracted additional thousands because the President appeared.
Route well-guarded
Ten thousand policemen – vacations and other leave canceled in this war-time political emergency – were guarding the route. Rooftops were ordered cleared and the Secret Service, and probably the FBI, were on unostentatious duty. This is Mr. Roosevelt’s first wholly public appearance since Pearl Harbor.
He has travelled far and often since then but his plans have been unannounced and his route as much of a military secret as a war plan. This avowedly political public appearance was undertaken under pressure of the President’s campaign advisers who believe there are thousands of yotes to be gained by presenting the President in person to the curbside crowds.
Crowds gather early
And if his health is an issue in this campaign, it doubtless will be remarked by the electorate that the President was not fearful of spending hours in an open car on a day which promised at any moment to send even the ducks indoors.
Hatless at the start of his tour, the President arrived at the Navy Yard at 10:18 a.m. Mrs. Roosevelt awaited him there. Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia and other municipal and party leaders were in the parade. Mr. La Guardia in the presidential car for the first leg of the ride.
Child greets Roosevelt
Four-year-old Carol Levine, a Brooklyn beauty, came up with the first placard of the thousands which are expected to greet the President today. It was homemade, mailed to a suck and read: “Long Live Roosevelt.”
The first Roosevelt speech of the day was at Ebbets Field where some 7,500 persons had gathered well in advance of the President’s arrival as Senator Wagner began his preliminary remarks. The President will speak later today at Hunter College, a WAVE installation, in the Bronx.
Tonight, he will make the third of his formal and avowed nationwide political broadcasts before a Waldorf-Astoria Hotel dinner of the Foreign Policy Association.
Police seem apprehensive
A raw drizzle in the Ebbets Field section of Brooklyn dampened the occasion and the stands blossomed umbrellas by the hundreds. The area of the Navy Yard was cleared of all spectators before the President’s appearance. Police and others responsible seemed apprehensive.
The President’s battered old campaign fedora, a veteran of 1932, came into view early as the procession got underway.
Municipal politicos alternated in the open car with Mr. Roosevelt. But he had one constant companion – Fala, the White House dog. There were two secret service men on each side of the car, assigned to the running boards for an anxious four-hour tour of duty. Military bands – one of them powered by WACs – sent the party away from the Army depot with a blare of sound.
Bad weather cuts crowds
Mr. Roosevelt was 23 minutes behind schedule when he reached Ebbets Field at 10:58 a.m. Bad weather had cut the crowds on the early laps. But there were cheers, banners and shouts from windows and from the curbs. The sidewalk crowds were in knots of 500 here and 1,000 there, concentrated largely where the President was expected to make brief stops.
It was a colorful procession. City and national flags and the President’s own standard flew from the handlebars of the 50-motorcycle escort. Each time the motorcade slowed a dozen Secret Service men loped up alongside the presidential car to screen its flanks.
Rain fell steadily as the procession rolled at 30 miles an hour into the downtown section of Brooklyn.
The President and his wife smiled and nodded to the crowds, Mr. Roosevelt giving from time to time with a two-hand, overhead gesture or with a wave of the old hat acknowledgement. Women observed that Mrs. Roosevelt wore a dark red, fur-collared coat and a felt hat. Crowds stood three-deep along downtown Brooklyn curbs.
There was a buzz of curbside comment as the President passed by. “He looks swell” was a frequent judgement, and there was comment that in the long procession of cars only one top was down – the President’s.
Rail union paid Flynn $25,000, Dewey claims
Fee is for pay boost Roosevelt granted
By Kermit McFarland
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican candidate for President, came to Pittsburgh last night to charge that Edward J. Flynn, friend of President Roosevelt and third-term Democratic National Chairman, received a $25,000 legal fee for representing the railroad brotherhoods when Mr. Roosevelt granted them a wage increase of eight cents an hour.
This was the most spectacular angle in a labor speech Mr. Dewey delivered at an audience estimated at 12,000 which jammed Hunt Armory, despite a downpour of rain, to hear the Republican candidate in a major bid for Pennsylvania’s 35 electoral votes.
‘What happened?’
Mr. Dewey, to the hilarious applause of his audience, went into meticulous detail in describing the manner in which the railroad wage, increase came about.
When the controversy began, he said, the mediation laws which apply to railroad unions were operating successfully.
“But what happened?” he asked.
He answered that by saving Economic Stabilization Director Fred M. Vinson “destroyed the effectiveness of the Railway Labor Act by setting aside the recommendation of the mediation board for an increase of eight cents an hour.”
‘Uncertainty and tension’
Then, he charged, after the railroad workers had threatened a strike, “the grasping hand of one-man rule reached in and set itself above the law.”
While uncertainty and tension increased, Mr. Roosevelt did nothing but wage a war of nerves against the railway workers. Finally, he decided the stage was set for making political capital… Finally, Mr. Roosevelt seized the railroads to forestall a national disaster which he himself had prepared. After he did that, he graciously gave the very wage increase to which the railway workers had been entitled for over a year.
Then he charged that the railroad unions “had to be represented by special legal counsel” and that Mr. Flynn was the attorney they “had” to hire.
“The price of his services to the railroad workers,” Mr. Dewey alleged, “was $25,000.”
Interruptions
“That sort of business,” he went on, “must come to an end in this country.”
Mr. Dewey, whose half-hour speech was interrupted 24 times by noisy applause, promised his listeners that if he is elected, he stands committed to a program “that will ensure to American labor the guarantee of free collective bargaining through the National Labor Relations Act, and with freedom from government dictation.”
The Republican candidate’s speech not only was a straight-out bid for the labor vote in this industrial area, but also an appeal to the “white collars.”
15 months delay
He cited the case of a white-collar worker whose employer proposed to give him a pay raise.
He said:
More than 15 months after the original request, the New Deal settled the case by the old kangaroo court method of splitting the difference.
He said the New Deal is a “bankrupt organization” and that Mr. Roosevelt “has not offered to the people of this country even the pretense of a program for the future.”
Mr. Dewey said Democrats “resent the kidnaping of their party by the Communists and the Political Action Committee” and that a change in the Washington government “will speed total victory and will also speed our work for a just and lasting peace.”
One-man rule
He charged the New Deal “distrusts the people” and claims the social gains of the 1930s “as its private property.”
He accused the Roosevelt administration of “playing with the rights of labor for political power and political cash” and charged that the President is attempting to establish “one-man rule” over working men and women.
Mr. Dewey said that “playing with the rights of labor for political power and political cash is bad enough,” but “there is something even more dangerous in what the New Deal is doing.”
He then quoted Robert J. Watt, an AFL official, as saying:
Even as we fight for the survival of basic freedoms, we find that the democratic process in many ways is being hog-tied and rendered subordinate to the dictum of a one-man boss…
His pledges
The candidate reiterated pledges to appoint a Secretary of Labor from “the ranks of labor,” to abolish agencies he said are “strangling collective bargaining,” to establish the Fair Employment Practices Committee on a permanent basis, to give the Labor Department greater authority, to do away with “special privilege" and to expand unemployment insurance to all groups, including 20 million he said now are denied old-age and survivors’ insurance.
Mr. Dewey had a responsive crowd for his speech, which was carefully staged.
The audience not only gave him a prolonged ovation on his initial appearance, but, besides the applause, frequently required him to pause by breaking out with boos for “my opponent” and for “Boss Flynn of the Bronx” and laughs and yells of encouragement.
Some partisan kept hollering, “You tell ‘em, Tom!”
Plea for Davis
Mr. Dewey was introduced by Governor Edward Martin who also received a roaring ovation when he entered the hall on a carefully-timed arrival under the escort of a squad of State Police.
The Pennsylvania Governor, who made a special plea for U.S. Senator James J. Davis, his opponent for the gubernatorial nomination in 1942, said, “We want to bring our boys back to an America like they are fighting for.”
Crowd in tumult
Gauging his time by the hour Mr. Dewey was to start speaking over a radio network, the Governor completed his speech, paused briefly, looked a bit anxiously toward the entrance through which the presidential candidate was to enter, then said:
I want to give you that courageous young Governor of New York, the next President–
But the words were lost in the tumult which followed as the crowd, 9,500 of them seated but the others standing, rose with an outburst of applause, cowbells and other noisemakers to greet the smiling and dapper presidential nominee as he strode up a side aisle to the platform, accompanied by Mrs. Dewey and an escort of police.
Mr. Dewey’s speech was delayed at the start as the audience broke into a noisy chant, “We want Dewey, we want Dewey.”
Mr. Dewey began:
It is good to be in Pennsylvania and to hear from Governor Martin that your state is in the Republican column and for Senator Davis.
Other speeches
Before the presidential candidate’s appearance, the crowd heard speeches by Warren Atherton, former commander of the American Legion, Republican County Chairman James F. Malone, Supreme Court Justice Howard W. Hughes, and Superior Court Judge Arthur H. James.
Mr. Dewey, neatly dressed in a brown suit, smiled and waved to the crowd from both sides of the speaking stand both before and after his address.
Mrs. Dewey, wearing a simple black coat, decorated by an orchid, and a red-feathered turban, sat between Governor and Mrs. Martin smiling shyly while the candidate delivered nis address.
Mr. Dewey, after his arrival at noon yesterday, held several conferences, among them one with a delegation of United Mine Worker officials.
‘He is against us’
After the UMW meeting, John O’Leary, vice president, said “We’re against President Roosevelt because he is against us.”
The Republican candidate was escorted to the East Liberty armory by City and State Police. He was sirened back in ample time to catch his. special train, which returned to Albany the way it came, via Ashtabula, Ohio, Erie and Buffalo.
Members of the Pennsylvania Reserve Defense Corps (Home Guard) were on duty at the armory and the unit’s band provided the music.