German internees rule own camp
Democratic regime set up under AMG
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Gen. Patch buries son in France
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Welles ‘improved’
New York –
Actor Orson Welles was reported “considerably improved” today by Jack Lighter, his manager. Welles has been confined to his hotel suite with a severe throat infection.
Simms: Recognition to aid unity inside France
Allied Big Four may become Big Five
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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A ‘rebel’ Congress would hurt –
‘Chairmanship troubles’ loom for next President
Roosevelt has already warned of handicap; ‘seniority’ policies again reviewed
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
From a sideline point of view, it looks today as though the winner of next month’s presidential election maty have chairmanship trouble in the ensuing four years regardless of his identity. Presidents usually do.
President Roosevelt raised the question by warning the nation in his weekend foreign affairs broadcast that a GOP victory would make the isolationist Senator Hiram W. Johnson (R-CA), chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
The isolationist Senator Gerald P. Nye (R-ND) would take over leadership of the Senate Appropriations Committee. And the isolationist Rep. Hamilton Fish Jr. (R-NY) would become chairman of the House Rules Committee, one of the most powerful bodies on Capitol Hill.
Martin assailed
Mr. Roosevelt made a point of the probability that Rep. Joseph W. Martin Jr. (R-MA) would be Speaker of the House if the Republicans get a Congressional majority, and he assailed Martin’s voting record.
The President, however, probably would concede quickly that he would have chairmanship trouble himself if he were reelected. He unquestionably regards the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as safely led by Chairman Tom Connally (D-TX) and there are other Congressional committee chiefs even more in tune with the Roosevelt administration.
‘Purge’ attempt recalled
But some of the major committee chairmen are anything but New Dealers and a few are open and constant in their opposition to the White House.
Mr. Roosevelt, himself, pointed in 1938 to some of those whose views he challenged. It was in that off-year Congressional campaign that Mr. Roosevelt personally undertook to prevent the renomination of Senators Walter F. George (D-GA), Ellison D. Smith (D-SC), and Millard F. Tydings (D-MD), and Rep. John J. O’Connor (D-NY).
Only O’Connor fell before Mr. Roosevelt’s 1938 attack.
Smith, Tydings and George came through easily and today are, respectively, chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Insular Affairs and Finance Committees. Smith’s tenure, however, is only until the new Congress meets in January. He was licked in the primary this year.
Others also listed
Those are three of a dozen major Senate committees. Of the others: Appropriations is headed by Senator Carter Glass (D-VA), who has been cool from the start to Roosevelt policies and whose newspaper in Lynchburg has not yet taken a stand for or against Mr. Roosevelt in the present campaign.
Banking and Currency is headed by a staunch New Dealer, Senator Robert F. Wagner (D-NY). But the Interstate Commerce Committee is headed by the bitterest anti-Roosevelt Democrat of them all – Senator Burton K. Wheeler (D-MT). Senator Pat McCarran (D-NV), is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and is often off the administration reservation.
Chairman Robert R. Reynolds (D-NC) is chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee but not for long. He is not a candidate for reelection. He has been a bitter critic of Roosevelt’s foreign and domestic policies.
Chairman David I. Walsh (D-MA) of the Naval Affairs Committee is of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party and gets his party line in Massachusetts rather than from the White House.
The Senate Rules Committee is not so powerful as its opposite number in the House. But for what it is worth, the chairman is Senator Harry F. Byrd (D-VA), who was against a fourth term before the Democratic National Convention and who has not yet said anything back home in favor of Mr. Roosevelt’s reelection.
Senator Ball: World future is vote issue
Invitation to visit Roosevelt revealed
Baltimore, Maryland (UP) –
Senator Joseph H. Ball (R-MN), who has announced his support of President Roosevelt because of the President’s foreign policy stand, said last night the American people will have perhaps their last chance on Nov. 7 to express their determination to prevent civilization’s destruction in a Third World War.
Speaking before the local chapter of the Foreign Policy Association, the 38-year-old liberal said the United States and the world are at the “crossroads of history” and that decisions of the Allies in the next few years will determine whether a world security organization can be established to prevent future wars.
U.S. support needed
He emphasized his “deep desire” to keep the question on a nonpartisan basis, but added that “it is a political issue because the convictions and attitudes on it of the President and the Congressmen and Senators elected this fall will determine whether or not the United States will join an effective world security organization.”
“Without the United States, such an organization cannot hope to succeed,” he said.
Talked to Roosevelt
In announcing his support for Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Ball told a news conference yesterday that he spent an hour “discussing Dumbarton Oaks and other phases of foreign policy” with Mr. Roosevelt on Oct. 15. He said he went to the White House in response to an invitation sent through presidential adviser Harry Hopkins “as a result of my statements and speeches emphasizing the importance of the foreign policy issue in this election.”
Mr. Ball added:
Because of my great concern with the foreign policy issue, I would have been more than happy to have accepted a similar invitation from Governor Dewey or any of his advisers. I never received any.
Senator Ball predicted Mr. Roosevelt’s reelection. In response to a question, he said that if Governor Dewey should advocate in the next two weeks a stronger foreign policy satisfactory to him, it would be “a little late in the day” for him – Ball – to switch his support to Dewey.
He said he plans a 15-minute radio speech at 10:00 p.m. Thursday, under sponsorship of the Independent Republican Committee “giving my reasons for supporting Roosevelt.” He said he still considers himself a Republican /and expects to run for reelection in 1948 on that ticket.
Ball assailed by Governor Bricker
Cheyenne, Wyoming (UP) –
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker said yesterday that Senator Joseph H. Ball (R-MN) made a “grievous mistake” and rendered a “disservice to his party and to his country” in announcing that he would support President Roosevelt for a fourth term.
Advised of Mr. Ball’s announcement, the GOP vice-presidential nominee first said “you can never analyze what a man’s motives are.”
He said it was an American’s right to “vote for whom he pleases” in a national campaign, and pointed out that that was what the Republicans were fighting for in this campaign. But he added:
Mr. Ball has sought office in the Republican Party. He seconded the nomination of Tom Dewey in the Chicago convention. I think he has made a grievous mistake and that he has rendered a disservice not only to his party but to his country through injury to the two-party system.
Ball unlikely to be Willkie heir
Washington (UP) –
Senator Owen Brewster (R-ME) today ridiculed speculation that Senator Joseph H. Ball (R-MN), who repudiated his own party’s presidential candidate to back a fourth term, would fall heir to political followers of the late Wendell Willkie.
Mr. Brewster, vice chairman of the Senate Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview that Mr. Willkie and Mr. Ball had been in disagreement on several issues, and that for several months prior to his death, Mr. Willkie was not on speaking terms with the Senator.
Mr. Brewster said:
It is impossible to believe that someone who was utterly persona non grata to another man could take on his mantle, and any implication to that effect is a strain on credulity.
Mr. Ball will further explain his decision to back Mr. Roosevelt on Thursday when he speaks for 15 minutes on the Blue Network at 10:00 p.m., under sponsorship of the Independent Republican Committee.
Union says drinking officers provoked ‘Statler battle’
Teamsters official journal prints affidavits to support its version of story
Indianapolis, Indiana (UP) –
The International Teamster, official organ of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (AFL), charged today that two naval officers had been drunk and had provoked a fight with union members in the “Hotel Statler incident” which followed President Roosevelt’s address to the union Sept. 23.
Lt. Randolph Dickins Jr. charged that he and a companion identified as LtCdr. James H. Suddeth of Greer, South Carolina, had been beaten by Teamsters Union members at the Hotel Statler, Washington, following President Roosevelt’s Sept. 23 speech, because they refused to tell who they favored for President.
The magazine’s November issue, edited by International Teamster President Daniel J. Tobin, claimed that “those two young naval officers who have been raised up to high heaven by the newspapers as having been decorated for bravery, were according to all evidence, imbibing freely all evening and were hanging around the mezzanine floor at the entrance to the banquet hall, accosting everyone who came out and challenging them, using vile language and calling them names for supporting Roosevelt.”
Affidavits quoted
Among the affidavits printed by the magazine in support of its story was one from Peter J. Hoban, delegate from a Chicago local, which claimed that “they used grossly insulting language of a nature which is unprintable and addressed same to the President of the United States and to the Teamsters Union.”
An affidavit by Charles A. Burns of Boston related that he heard two naval officers “using profane language and cursing the President of the United States,” and that he saw “a lieutenant commander punching and kicking a man who was holding him and trying to quiet him down.”
Woman tells of affair
“To hell with the President – the President – he is no good,” was a statement attributed to the officers by John F. English, a Teamster delegate, and Mrs. Helen Rowland, declared that an officer “grabbed my arm, swung me around to face him.”
Her statement:
He asked me, “Who are you for?” I replied, “I’m for Roosevelt, the same as you.” He replied, “I’m not, he is no damn good.”
The magazine commented:
Only one of those young men had been overseas and the man who was overseas never was decorated for anything.
The truth about the Commies –
Fifth column trying to swing election for first time in history
Washington’s warning against foreign influence now more timely than ever
By William Henry Chamberlin, written for the Scripps-Howard Service
EDITOR’S NOTE: William Henry Chamberlin was assistant managing editor of The Philadelphia Press and, later, assistant book editor of The New York Tribune. From 1922 to 1934, he served as Moscow correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor and subsequently as its Far Eastern correspondent.
One of this country’s foremost authorities on the Soviet system and totalitarianism in general, Mr. Chamberlin wrote the outstanding history of the Russian Revolution. His book, Soviet Russia, published in 1930, was a sympathetic account of the Russian system; after the government-induced famine in Russia, he became highly critical of the Stalin regime and wrote Russia’s Iron Age and, more recently, Collectivism – A False Utopia.
Cambridge, Massachusetts –
“History and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.” – George Washington, in his farewell address.
These words of the father of our country are especially worth remembering today. Because a foreign fifth column, for the first time in our history, is trying to swing a presidential election. The all-out Communist support for the fourth term admits of no other interpretation. There has never been anything like this before because no American party or group has been willing to serve as the obedient instrument of the policies of a foreign power.
The great and sinister significance of this development has been obscured for many Americans because there has been a good deal of confusion and misunderstanding about the true nature of the Communist threat to American institutions and the American way of life.
Roosevelt not a Communist
Only a crackpot or an ignoramus would assert that Mr. Roosevelt is personally a Communist or that the New Deal, with all its defects, could fairly be likened to the dictatorial regime in the Soviet Union.
There would be no need for concern about Communists if they were only a group of American citizens interested in promoting radical political and economic change. Under our Constitution they and any other group have a right to do this, so long as they employ legal and peaceful means.
What makes the Communists dangerous, what makes their intervention as the allies of one of the major parties in a close presidential race objectionable, is their unmistakable status as a Soviet fifth column in this country. No amount of glib sophistry can alter the factual evidence on this point.
Moscow’s policies followed
The Communists keep time by the Kremlin clock. They change their “party line” in precise rhythm with the shifts and exigencies of Stalin’s foreign policy. Before the Stalin-Hitler pact of August 1939, the American Communists were vehement advocates of militant American intervention to “stop Hitler.” Immediately after the conclusion of the pact they became extreme isolationists and did everything in their power to obstruct aid to the Allies and national defense preparations.
Then, after Russia was attacked by Hitler on June 22, 1941, not after America was attacked at Pearl Harbor, they were transformed again into all-out interventionists. Early this year, toeing the line with other Communist parties, in response to a signal from Moscow after the Tehran Conference, they abruptly repudiated all the basic political and economic ideas they had been preaching for the last quarter-century.
After posing as radical revolutionists, they professed overnight enthusiasm for “free enterprise” and the “two-party system.” Instead of putting up their führer, Earl Browder, as presidential candidate they became cheerleaders for the fourth term.
Browder gives himself away
Browder himself recently let the cat out of the bag in an indiscreet speech in New York. In contrast to his usual conventional claim that Communists are 100 percent Americans, without a trace of foreign affiliation, the Communist boss threatened this country with dire consequences if an outspoken anti-Communist, Thomas E. Dewey, should be elected. Browder’s precise words are worth quoting and filing for reference:
It [Dewey’s election] would be a message to our great ally, the Soviet Union, which is predominantly led by Communists, that America disapproves in principle of cooperation between the two countries, accepted it only as an unfortunate necessity of war and was determined to bring it to an end as soon as possible… it would be a call from America to France, Italy, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland to break up their existing national unity formations, to drive out the Communists from their public life and to drive out all those who want to cooperate with the Communists.
Amazing implications
Consider the amazing implications of this extravagant statement. It attributes to the Soviet government a “love me, love my Communists” attitude which would make international relations on a basis of dignity and equality impossible. It suggests that opposition to Communism should be a permanent disqualification for an American President.
Browder threw off a rather transparent mask in this speech. He revealed himself not as an American citizen voting according to American considerations, but as a partner in a vast international movement that is a formidable instrument of Russian power politics. Should the American people accept this reasoning, “Clear everything with Sidney” would have to be enlarged and supplemented by “Clear everything with Browder” and “Clear everything with Stalin.”
The Communist record in electing avowed Communist candidates to public office has been such a fiasco as to be funny. But the Communist record in penetrating into the leadership of trade unions, in obtaining well-known names for “innocents’ organizations,” in pushing members and sympathizers into government departments and agencies, is not funny at all. It has been ominously successful.
Would suppress criticism
Communists have already been trying to exploit our wartime association with Russia in order to suppress in this country any objective discussion of Soviet foreign policies and internal conditions. They act on the assumption that America is already one of the Soviet Republics, where there can be no discussion of Stalin and his regime except in terms of worshipful praise.
This psychology has become sufficiently prevalent to cause the summary firing of Alexander Barmine, former Soviet diplomat, naturalized American citizen and employee of the Office of Strategic Services, immediately after he had published an expose of the new Communist tactics in the Readers’ Digest. One can imagine how the arrogance of the Communists and their behind-the-scenes influence in government agencies will swell if, after Nov. 7, they can preen themselves as having been the decisive element in a close election.
Skilled in infiltration
Nov. 7, the date of the election, is also the 27th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. On the eve of that revolution, there were only about 200,000 Communists in Russia. By shrewd appraisal of mass moods, relentless discipline, ruthless crushing of all opposition they built up the most powerful totalitarian state in the world, a state with international tentacles. in the form of fifth-column Communist parties, in every large country.
One of the leading candidates in this election has attracted the cheers, the other the jeers of the Communists. It is for the voters to decide which is better qualified to carry out foreign and domestic policies inspired by purely American considerations, without benefit of foreign political influences and ideologies.
Vote fight is close in hard coal area; Luzerne is ‘pivotal’
Union seeks to swing miners for Dewey and GOP leaders are mildly hopeful
By Kermit McFarland, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania –
The political prophets are beginning to think that the result of the presidential election may well hang on how the two candidates do in Pennsylvania and New York.
And the result in Pennsylvania will depend in part on how the vote goes in this county of Luzerne – the third most populous in the state and a county the politicians believe to be “pivotal.” That is, they see a chance for Luzerne to swing either way.
By rule of thumb, this and the other counties in the anthracite area are Roosevelt counties. But there is some evidence to show that the rule of thumb may be no good this time.
Miner vote important
The way the county goes, you get to feel after you have explored the possibilities with the leading political minds of the area, will depend a great deal on how much the Republicans can dent the miner vote, up to now pretty solid for Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The prospect is not appealing to the Dewey backers here. So far, there is no evidence to show that it has been dented appreciably.
But the officers of the United Mine Workers, at the instance of John L. Lewis, are pro-Dewey.
Most of them, to date, have contributed nothing to the Dewey campaign except hip service and the gesture of wearing a Dewey-Bricker button on their coat lapels.
GOP hopeful
A few have been trying actively to round up Dewey votes among the miners, apparently with not much success at this writing. But the Republicans have hopes that, just before the election, the union officials will turn on the heat.
They point out that the assignment of work in the mines is no longer under the control of the mine bosses. It is under the control of the union. And, they think, if the union officials will go to work in genuine style, they will be able to deflect a sufficient percentage of the mine vote to Governor Dewey to turn the Roosevelt majority here into a slight Dewey majority.
Perhaps they are too wistful about it, but some of them, experienced political workers in the coal patches, believe they can achieve that “dent.” They don’t hope for much more.
Want Lewis to act
Whether or not the union officials will make a real effort to produce, they are not saying. Republicans hope John L. Lewis quietly will put out the word, that he will do this with no fanfare and that he will do it just before election, too late for countermoves to take effect.
The Republicans all seem to feel that their situation in the coal patches is not quite as bad, whatever the United Mine Workers officials eventually do, as it was four years ago.
What mild defections do exist among the miners are not due, it is apparent, to the influence of Mr. Lewis. They are due to other factors which have worked to the advantage of the Republicans among the older generations of “nationals” who have developed an opposition to the President because of shortcomings they think they see in his policies toward their ancestral lands. This is more apparent among the people of Italian extraction than any others.
Polish question is issue
So far, there is nothing to indicate any material opposition to Mr. Roosevelt among the Polish groups. The most the Republicans have accomplished, they themselves believe, has been to create some doubt in the minds of a segment of these groups.
They are directing an intensive campaign at the Polish sections. Among other things they are arguing that the President, in his Saturday night speech to the Foreign Policy Association, did not mention the Polish question.
Editorial quoted
An editorial in a Republican newspaper here summed up the Republican argument: “What is America’s foreign policy, if any, relative to the status of Poland?”
And:
The emphasis for Roosevelt laid on the recognition his administration extended to the Soviet government in 1933 assumes added significance in view of his silence on the Polish question.
That is the Republican line with respect to the large and potent Polish groups.
Whether or not it will work, the Republicans don’t know. Up to now, it hasn’t done much good.
Perkins: CIO influences NLRB, claims AFL official
Board attacked on Telegraph Union vote
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Edson: Pre-election quiz tests your political IQ
By Peter Edson
Washington –
Now is the time for all self-appointed political experts to make their predictions or the outcome of the election, writing the expected results on a piece of paper, carefully putting it away, and then dragging it out on the morning after to show what smart forecasters they really were.
President Roosevelt does this, only he admits that he has never been right on his predictions.
But you, too, can play this kind of political solitaire, and as a convenience to those who care to indulge in this harmless pastime, there is presented here a checklist of questions on the outcome of this election. Write your own answers and file for future reference:
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Will Roosevelt run up a greater Electoral College vote than that by which he beat Willkie in 1940, when the count was 449–82? He beat Hoover 472–59 and he beat Landon 523–8.
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How many more states will Dewey carry in 1944 than the 10 states Willkie carried in 1940?
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The total number of votes cast in the presidential election of 1940 was 49,815,312. How much bigger will the popular vote be in 1944?
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The 1940 popular vote was divided roughly 27 million for Roosevelt, 22 million for Willkie, Roosevelt winning by five million. What will the difference be in 1944 and which way?
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The 1940 popular vote was 44.7 percent Republican, 54.8 percent Democratic. What will be the percentages this year?
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Will Dewey carry New York?
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Will Roosevelt carry Pennsylvania?
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Will Dewey break the Solid South, and if so, which states will he carry?
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Will Dewey carry any of the border states of Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky?
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Will Truman carry Missouri, a “doubtful” state, for Roosevelt and Truman?
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The Midwest has been claimed by and conceded to Dewey, including Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. Will Roosevelt carry any of those states, and if so, which ones?
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Will Dewey carry any of the Pacific Coast states of California, Oregon and Washington?
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Of the three Gallup poll doubtful states of Pennsylvania, Missouri and Oregon, will the soldier vote decide the issue?
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The present U.S. Senate is 58 Democrats, 37 Republicans, 1 Progressive. The terms of 11 Republicans and 21 Democrats expire this year, meaning that 32 new Senators are to be elected. What will be the division of the new Senate, by party, 37 Democrats and 26 Republicans being holdovers?
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The present composition of the House of Representatives is 214 Democrats, 210 Republicans, 10 seats being scattered and vacant. How will the new House be divided by party?
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Will the House go Republican, even if Roosevelt is reelected to the Presidency?
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If Dewey wins, will both the Senate and House go Republican?
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Which of these 12 prominent Senators running for reelection will be defeated: Democrats Downey of California, Gillette of Iowa, Barkley of Kentucky, Wagner of New York, Lucas of Illinois, Thomas of Utah; Republicans Danaher of Connecticut, Nye of North Dakota, Taft of Ohio, Davis of Pennsylvania, Aiken of Vermont, Wiley of Wisconsin?
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Will a record popular vote – say 55 million as against 49 million in 1940 – work to give Roosevelt a larger or smaller popular vote than his previous high of 27,751,612 in 1936 against Alf Landon?
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Eleven states do not count their soldier vote until after the regular Nov. 7 election. They are Missouri Nov. 10, California Nov. 24, Pennsylvania and Colorado Nov. 22, Delaware Nov. 9, Florida Nov. 17, Rhode Island Dec. 4, North Dakota Dec. 5, Utah and Washington Nov. 27, Nebraska Dec. 7. Will the soldier vote in these states, with a total of 116 electoral votes, change the result of the election?
State GOP seeks to ‘double’ vote
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (UP) –
The Republican state committee has announced through vice chairman Mrs. Edna R. Carroll of Philadelphia, its designation of Oct. 25 as “Double the Vote for Dewey” Day, marking a statewide drive for 1,220,000 “additional sure votes” for the GOP presidential nominee.
She said Republican women in every Pennsylvania precinct would undertake on Wednesday to “round up the rocking chair vote” among the 1,500,000 eligible Pennsylvanians who failed to exercise their franchise at the last presidential election.
The climax of the day’s program will be the Chicago radio address by Governor Thomas E. Dewey at 10:00 p.m. EWT, around which rallies, block parties and neighborhood listening parties will be staged by local groups, she said.
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Hollywood, California –
With Gen. MacArthur back in the Philippines and the hara-kiri knives are really flashing.
What a general! But, believe it or not, there are still millions of people who wish that he would drop everything he’s doing and come back here to run for President. Of course, these people couldn’t vote – they live in Japan.
Gen. MacArthur has really become the symbol of fear to the Japs. I read where their government issued free sake wine to boost home-front morale. But it didn’t work. Everyone got drunk and saw little pink MacArthurs.
This must be an awfully confusing war to the Japs, anyway. They call themselves the “sons of heaven” and our boys are sending so many of them to the wrong address.
Background of news –
Mr. Roosevelt and labor
By Bertram Benedict
If President Roosevelt should be reelected, he undoubtedly would owe his success in large part to the valiant efforts on his behalf of the CIO and to a less degree by other labor groups in the large industrial states.
President Roosevelt’s opponents go to his record on labor legislation to prove that he did not really have a pro-labor philosophy, out was pushed into one by the need of labor support. The President’s admirers go to the same record to prove that he was eager to meet labor’s legitimate demands, that he held back when the demands became exorbitant.
In Mr. Roosevelt’s first campaign for the Presidency, in 1932, he laid little stress on labor’s needs and rights. Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 – guaranteeing the rights of collective bargaining and the freedom to join unions – received little attention when it was enacted, although it was to become the cornerstone of the New Deal labor policy.
Labor bills listed
Then came acts setting up a federal system of employment exchanges, for retirement annuities for railroad employees, the first Guffey Act for a wage-and-price code in the bituminous coal industry, the Social Security Act of 1935, the present Wagner Act setting up the National Labor Relations Board and outlawing “unfair” labor practices, and, in 1936, the Walsh-Healey Act for a 40-hour week and prevailing wages on government contracts.
By the 1936 election, it was apparent that business and conservative support for Mr. Roosevelt would be weaker than in 1932. During the campaign, the President advocated what was to become the Wage-Hour Act of 1938. A broad act for federal housing construction was passed in 1937, as was the second Guffey Coal Act, and in 1939, the Social Security system was liberalized.
Thereafter the administration became concerned primarily with retaining the gains already achieved by labor. In January 1937, when John L. Lewis demanded that the administration publicly support the General Motors sit-down strike, the President had said: “There come moments when statements, conversation and headlines are not in order.”
In the summer of 1937, during the coal strike, he commented: “A plague on both your houses,” and that signalized the end of the Roosevelt-Lewis axis. In the same year, administration forces managed to insert in the anti-sit-down strike resolution adopted by the Senate a clause condemning recalcitrant employers.
Smith-Connally Bill
In the following years, the administration with difficulty beat off attempts to weaken the Wagner Act and the Wage-Hour Act. Despite labor pressure, the administration has adhered to the Little Steel formula evolved by the War Labor Board in 1942. The second Price Control (anti-inflation) Act of 1942 directed the President to stabilize wages, as far as possible, at the level of Sept. 15, 1942.
The coal strikes in 1943 made the administration impotent to stave off anti-strike legislation any longer.
The President vetoed the Smith-Connally Bill (in vain), but said he did so only because it really encouraged strikes; he had no objection to the provisions allowing the government to take over struck plants and making strikes in such plants a criminal offense. He expressed no objection to the section outlawing political contributions by unions.
In vetoing the 1944 tax bill (again in vain), the President did not refer to the provision, bitterly opposed by labor, requiring financial statements from unions.
In 1936, Mr. Roosevelt won by 523 electoral votes to 8, and in 1940 by 449 to 82. In those years, he had needed labor support less than he obviously needs it in 1944.
Bricker: Middle class ‘neglected’
Appeal is made for white-collar vote
Pueblo, Colorado (UP) –
“The Neglected Man” was substituted by Ohio Governor John W. Bricker today for the New Deal’s famous “Forgotten Man” in an appeal for the votes of the unorganized white-collar workers.
The GOP vice-presidential nominee, in a speech here, said that the greatest contribution of the New Deal to clerks, stenographers, bookkeepers, small manufacturers, small merchants, and professional men was “disillusionment.”
He said:
The present-day counterpart of the “Forgotten Man” is the Neglected Man… the great middle class who work for a salary or for an uncertain income.
‘Tragic development’
Governor Bricker said the New Deal had offered the country a “utopia” in which “wealth was to come from spending; plenty from scarcity.”
Mr. Bricker said:
What’s happened to him (the Neglected Man) is one of the most tragic developments of our times. He has been outraged by government extravagances, dictation, and the doubletalk of the New Deal.
‘Insincerity’ charged
Governor Bricker said that something must be done for the unorganized white-collar workers “for the sake of our economic and social stability.”
Calling his “Neglected Man” an “individualist,” the nominee said that was why he had not organized, and that because he was unorganized, he has “small influence with the New Deal.”
Last night in Denver, Governor Bricker accused Mr. Roosevelt of insincerity and cited the President’s “record” of statements which, he said, later were contradicted or repudiated altogether.
He called for “integrity” in the spirit as well as the letter of government.
Governor Bricker said:
We must judge Mr. Roosevelt’s sincerity on his attitude and method on the way he does things…
Washington needs Tom Dewey, who says what he means and means what he says.