Editorial: Dread in our hearts
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Background of news –
Women in Congress
By Bertram Benedict
The Democratic nomination of Mrs. Chase Going Woodhouse, former Connecticut Secretary of State, for a seat on Congress, brings to three the number of Connecticut women contesting for places in the House of Representatives. The state has only five House seats.
Sixteen women have been nominated in 1944 primaries and conventions to date for seats in the House of Representatives of the next Congress. Two women lost races for nominations in this week’s primary in Wisconsin but the number of women candidates may be increased to 20 or more in the primaries remaining to be held. The only woman seeking a Senate seat in 1944 – Senator Hattie Caraway – was defeated in the Arkansas primary in July.
Of the seven women now serving in the House, all except one have been renominated; Miss Winifred Stanley (R-NY) was not a candidate in the Aug. 1 primary in her state.
Of the present women representatives, six are Republicans and one a Democrat. Of the women nominated or renominated in the primaries to date, seven are Republicans and nine are Democrats.
Chances believed good
Several of the Democrats are running in “sure” Republican districts and several of the Republicans in “sure” Democratic districts, but the chances of all present women members who have been renominated are considered good, for all of them have served one or more previous terms in the House.
Rep. Mary Norton (D-NJ) and Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers (R-MA) have been members since 1925.
Since women first voted in all states in 1920, there have been 18 Democratic and 11 Republican women members of Congress, of whom five have served in the Senate. One Republican and two Democratic women Senators served merely honorary terms and Mrs. Rose Long (D-LA) took an active part in Senate proceedings for only a few months under an appointment to fill the unexpired term of her husband.
Senator Caraway, first appointed in 1931 to serve out her husband’s term, was elected to succeed himself in 1932 and was reelected in 1938. Over half of the women members owed, or have been appointed when widowed, or have been chosen at special elections to replace their husbands. Over half of these were not candidates in the next general election.
Have special interests
The special interests of the more active women members of Congress have been:
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Labor problems, to which Mrs. Norton (now chairman of the House Committee on Labor) has devoted her chief attention;
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Legislation affecting veterans and members of the Armed Forces, with which Rep. Rogers had been chiefly concerned;
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Education and public health, which have received the principal attention of Rep. Frances Bolton (R-OH);
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Preservation of peace, which led Rep. Jeannette Rankin (the first woman member of Congress) to sacrifice her seat by voting against war in 1917 – and again in 1941.
Three women have served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee – Ruth Bryan Owen (D-FL), a former member, and Reps. Rogers and Bolton, who are present members of the committee. Rep. Clare Boothe Luce (R-CT) was refused a place on the Foreign Affairs Committee but was made a member of the House Military Affairs Committee.
Connecticut, with three women candidates, is certain to have at least one woman member in the House of the next Congress, for in the fourth district of that state, the contest is between Republican Rep. Luce and Democrat Miss Margaret Connors.
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
On the Western front, France – (by wireless)
The commander of the particular regiment of the 4th Infantry Division that we have been with is one of my favorites.
That’s partly because he flatters me by calling me “General,” partly because just looking at him makes me chuckle to myself, and partly because I think he’s a very fine soldier.
Security forbids my giving his name. He is a Regular Army colonel and he was overseas in the last war. His division commander says the only trouble with him is that he’s too bold, and if he isn’t careful, he’s liable to get clipped one of these days.
He is rather unusual looking. There is something almost Mongolian about his face. When cleaned up he could be a Cossack. When tired and dirty he could be a movie gangster. But either way, his eyes always twinkle.
He has a facility for direct thought that is unusual. He is impatient of thinking that gets off onto byways.
He has a little habit of good-naturedly reprimanding people by cocking his head over to one side, getting his face below yours and saying something sharp, and then looking up at you with a quizzical smirk like a laughing cat.
Jacket fits like a sack
The colonel goes constantly from one battalion to another during battle, from early light till darkness. He wears a new-type field jacket that fits him like a sack, and he carries a long stick that Teddy Roosevelt gave him. He keeps constantly prodding his commanders to push hard, not to let up, to keep driving and driving.
He is impatient with commanders who lose the main point of the war by getting involved in details the main point, of course, being to kill Germans. His philosophy of war is expressed in the simple formula of “shoot the sonsabitches.”
Once I was at a battalion command post when we got word that 60 Germans were coming down the road in a counterattack. Everybody got excited. They called the colonel on a field phone, gave him the details and asked him what to do. He had the solution in a nutshell.
He just said, “Shoot the sonsabitches,” and hung up.
Another of my favorites is a sergeant who runs the colonel’s regimental mess. He cooks some himself, but mostly he bosses the cooking.
His name is Charles J. Murphy and his home is at Trenton, New Jersey. Murph is redheaded, but has his head nearly shaved like practicably all the Western Front soldiers – officers as well as men. Murph is funny, but he seldom smiles.
When I asked him what he did in civilian life, he thought a moment and then said:
Well, I was a shyster. Guess you’d call me a kind of promoter. I always had the kind of job where you made $50 a week salary and $1,500 on the side.
How’s that for an honest man?
Murph and I got to talking about newspapermen one day. Murph said his grandfather was a newspaper man. He retired in old age and lived in Murph’s house.
‘Went nuts reading newspapers’
Murph said:
My grandfather went nuts reading newspapers. It was a phobia with him. Every day he’d buy $1.50 worth of 3-cent newspapers and then read them all night.
He wouldn’t read the ads. He would just read the stories, looking for something to criticize. He’d get fuming mad.
Lots of times when I was a kid, he’d get me out of bed at 2 or 3 in the morning and point to some story in the paper and rave about reporters who didn’t have sense enough to put a period at the end of a sentence.
Murph and I agreed that it was fortunate his grandfather passed on before he got reading my stuff, or he would doubtless have run amuck.
Murph never smoked cigarettes until he landed in France on D-Day, but now he smokes one after another. He is about the tenth soldier who has told me that same thing. A guy in war has to have some outlet for his nerves, and I guess smoking is as good as anything.
All kinds of incongruous things happen during a battle. For instance, during one lull I got my portrait painted in watercolor. The artist sat cross legged on the grass and it took about an hour.
The painter was Pfc. Leon Wall, from Wyoming, Pennsylvania. He went to the National Academy of Design in New York for six years, did research for the Metropolitan Museum and lectured on art at the New York World’s Fair.
Artist Wall is now, of all things, a cook and KP in an infantry regiment mess. He hasn’t done any war paintings at all since the invasion. I asked him why not. He said: “Well, at first I was too scared, and since then I’ve been too busy.”
Pegler: On Wilson
By Westbrook Pegler
New York –
A visit to the screen show President Wilson allays any thought that this might be politically unhygienic entertainment for the American fighting people, even though it is a propaganda picture, heroizing a man who had at least a fair share of faults and arguing that the resistance of the historic little group of willful men in the Senate was, in the end, responsible for the present World War.
Without the benefit of counterpropaganda or argument, the young men and women of the American forces in this war might be persuaded that Mr. Wilson was a god and that none of the fault was his. However, the whole thing is very provocative so I think the result will be a reopening of the debate among those who see it.
And there are, fortunately, still many Americans around, even in the fighting services, who remember that Mr. Wilson, himself, was no less willful than Henry Cabot Lodge and that, the conduct of the whole American people after 1920, showed that they were fed up on Europe and didn’t want to commit themselves to intervention in Europe’s interminable wars, as the phrase went in those days.
Wilson bossy and patronizing
For the benefit of those who came into this world too late for personal observation of the issues and personalities, it will be recalled that Mr. Wilson was a very bossy and patronizing President, wherein he seems to have served as a model for the next man elected on the same ticket.
He had a way of low-rating Congress and going over their heads to appeal to the people who then turned him down on two important occasions. His conduct in Europe revealed an appetite for personal honors and homage which, likewise, is reflected in Mr. R., and each had a mysterious personal stool pigeon whose unaccountable importance created ill-feeling and some distrust.
The tendency of this film is to suggest that Mr. Roosevelt is the heir to Mr. Wilson’s wisdom and his woes and that, therefore, the troops ought to vote for him and a league of some kind to enforce peace.
It may be questionable pool to issue a propaganda film on this theme during the current campaign and it should be noted again, for future reference, that in going in for propaganda, the moving picture industry so far has conspicuously refrained from presenting any work dealing forcefully with any of the notorious evils of the New Deal. Under a Republican administration, it might be moved to pay some attention to such phases of our recent history, including the elevation to the Supreme Court of two men who have flagrantly condoned violent insurrection.
Film provokes own reputation
The trouble with this kind of film is that it provokes its own refutation. You present Wilson as he is shown here and you instantly arouse reminiscences showing that he was so self-willed and mulish, in fact so selfish, that he estranged himself from almost all his friends and even treated the faithful Joe Tumulty so badly that public sympathy went out to Joe.
You insinuate that money-hungry men tried to drive him into the war prematurely and you draw attention to the presence in his cabinet of old William Jennings Bryan who was always running off from the State Department to pick up $500 or $1,000 for a lecture and who, in the end, became so greedy that, in the Florida boom, he actually exploited the people’s trust in him to rally suckers for a real estate promotion by preaching religion to them and then leading them out to the scene of the development.
The man who paid him his hire in those days revealed later that Bryan always demanded his money before he would go on with his act and, toward the end, when the company seemed shaky, demanded it in currency.
There have been parallels of this exploitation of high office and public faith in the present government which will be brought to mind instinctively as the film unreels.
Foster: Scriptor-actor Benchley on to all the tricks
Other writers don’t fool him when they pull old stunts
By Ernest Foster
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Tigers’ drive recalls grab of 1940 pennant
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War front observers believe –
Stokes: Big soldier vote likely to upset election polls
Taft irked by War Department’s efficiency in distributing ballots
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Washington –
There is likely to be a rather sizable soldier vote, larger perhaps than generally expected.
This is indicated by the efficiency of the War Department system for distributing ballots, as observed by some who have returned from abroad. Voting is being made easy for the soldiers, much easier, in fact, than it is for civilians here at home.
Consequently, current election polls must be considered conditionally. They do not include the soldier vote, for they have no way to gauge it. President Roosevelt is generally conceded the edge among the soldiers, and the soldier vote may be decisive in a number of large states now counted for Governor Dewey.
Many applications received
The War Department has about completed distribution of postcard applications for ballots, which the soldiers fill out and send back. The Army’s deadline for this job was Aug. 15. Many thousands of postcard applications have been received and distributed through secretaries of state. A third of the states have already begun to mail ballots to the soldiers.
One competent observer who has lived with troops since the invasion of Africa offers an interesting analysis. Although there is no apparently burning political interest among troops, he said, the ease with which they can vote will lead many to fill out their ballots who otherwise would not take the trouble.
Filling out their ballots will be just something else to do something about which they can gossip and joke as soldiers will.
Too perfect for Taft
Senator Robert Taft (R-OH), who led the successful fight for use of state ballots rather than a short federal ballot, seems to be convinced now that there is going to be a substantial soldier vote.
Now that the War Department has worked out an efficient system, Mr. Taft is apparently not happy about it. It seems to be too perfect; one would judge from the tenor of his remarks in the Senate. He harked back to charge that War Department representatives “cooperated 100 percent with the extreme New Dealers and the CIO Political Action Committee in support of a clearly unconstitutional federal ballot carrying no names except those of the candidates for President.”
He said:
The Department has now set up an organization to get out the vote, extending to the smaller units, on a scale which no political organization could possibly duplicate among the civilian population.
Senator’s dander aroused
The Senator’s dander was up, perhaps because he was in the process of eating a little crow. He made his remarks while the Senate was passing legislation relaxing censorship restrictions on books, magazines and moving pictures for soldiers, placed in the soldier vote bill at his instigation.
The zealous effort of Republicans, led by Senator Taft, to keep anything that smacked of propaganda from the troops may turn out, in the end, to their disadvantage.
In trying to bar anything favorable to President Roosevelt, they also barred anything favorable to Governor Dewey.
President Roosevelt is known to every soldier. The Republican candidate is not so well known.
Völkischer Beobachter (August 18, 1944)
Der Gegner an der mittleren Loire –
Der Bewegungskrieg im Westen
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Aufschlussreicher Bericht –
Kommunisten in US-Behörden
Stockholm, 17. August –
Unter der Überschrift „The Federal Government Harbor Communist Cells“ greift Lawrence Sullivan im San Francisco Examiner die Roosevelt-Regierung an. Er schreibt, 20 Jahre lang sei der nordamerikanische Kommunismus vor dem Jahre 1933 nur eine Knallerbsenbewegung gewesen. Der Kommunismus habe seine wütenden Verwünschungen gegen Arbeitgeber, Reichtum, Besitz, Handel und Familie gebellt, aber niemand habe ihm ernstlich geglaubt, daß die amerikanische Wirtschaftsstruktur ein Versager sei. Dann hätte der Kommunismus seine Hauptquartiere nach Washington verlegt, und nun seien die USA einem intensiven und systematischen Feldzug unterworfen worden, der sogar von einigen der neuen Behörden der Bundesregierung geleitet und koordiniert worden sei. Dieses Treiben habe darauf hingezielt, Demokratie und Kommunismus zu gleichartigen Begriffen zu stempeln. Das Ergebnis sei, daß jede Regierungsbehörde heute eine kommunistische Stelle beherrsche.
Dieses Untergrundnetzwerk innerhalb der nordamerikanischen Regierungsstruktur, fährt der Verfasser fort, sei in seinen Einzelheiten in einem am 25. Juni 1942 vom Dies-Komitee dem Kongress dargelegt worden. Aber der Kongress sei machtlos gegen die radikalen Extremisten der Behörden. Diese unsichtbare Regierung habe den Willen der Mehrheit, wie er in den Beschlüssen des Kongresses sich ausdrücke, umgangen und zerstört.
Innsbrucker Nachrichten (August 18, 1944)
Die Enge zwischen Argentan und Falaise erweitert
Schwere Kämpfe bei Chartres und in Orléans – Die Besatzung von Saint-Malo der Übermacht erlegen – Erbittertes Ringen im Osten
Aus dem Führerhauptquartier, 18. August –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
In der Normandie wurde der westlich der Orne weit vorspringende Frontbogen hinter den Fluss zurückgenommen. Der Feind versuchte mit starken Kräften im Raum östlich und nordöstlich Falaise von Norden her in diese Stellung hereinzubrechen, wurde jedoch nach erbitterten Kämpfen zum Stehen gebracht. Unsere Gegenangriffe im Raum von Argentan zerschlugen feindliche Umgehungsgruppen und erweiterten dadurch die Enge zwischen Falaise und Argentan. Um Chartres wird weiter erbittert gekämpft. Auch in Orleans tobten den ganzen Tag hindurch erbitterte Straßenkämpfe mit amerikanischen Truppen, die sich im Verlauf der Kämpfe in den Besitz der Stadt setzen konnten.
Die Besatzung von Saint-Malo ist der feindlichen Übermacht erlegen. Unaufhörlich unter schwerstem Beschuss konnte sie sich, nachdem sämtliche schweren Waffen ausgefallen waren, zuletzt nur noch mit Handwaffen zur Wehr setzen. Soldaten aller Wehrmachtteile, unter ihrem Kommandanten Oberst von Aulock, haben hier dem Ansturm stärkster feindlicher Kräfte in fast dreiwöchigem, heldenhaftem Ringen standgehalten und dem Gegner hohe blutige Verluste zugefügt. Ihr Kampf wird in die Geschichte eingehen.
In Südfrankreich konnte der Feind seinen Brückenkopf zwischen Toulon und Cannes erweitern und verstärken. Unsere Sicherungs- und Sperrverbände wiesen gepanzerte feindliche Aufklärungskräfte, die weiter nach Norden vorfühlten, ab. Mehrere Versuche des Gegners, westlich Toulon neue Truppen zu landen, scheiterten.
Durch Kampfmittel der Kriegsmarine wurden in der Seinebucht zwei feindliche Zerstörer und vier Transporter mit 25.000 BRT versenkt, ein größerer Transporter von 15.000 bis 20.000 BRT und acht weitere Schiffe mit zusammen 48.000 BRT wurden torpediert. Mit ihrem Sinken kann auf Grund der beobachteten schweren Detonationen gerechnet werden.
Vor der südfranzösischen Küste versenkte eine Marineküstenbatterie zwei feindliche Minenräumboote und beschädigte einen Zerstörer.
Schweres „V1“-Vergeltungsfeuer liegt bei Tag und Nacht auf dem Großraum von London.
In Italien wurden mehrere feindliche Übersetzversuche über den Arno und zahlreiche Aufklärungsvorstöße abgewiesen.
Im Osten wiesen rumänische Truppen Übersetzversuche der Sowjets über den unteren Dnjestr ab. Im Karpatenvorland sind westlich Sanok und nordwestlich Krosno wieder heftige Kämpfe im Gange.
Im Weichselbrückenkopf von Baranow scheiterten wiederholte Angriffe der Bolschewisten. Panzer und Panzergrenadiere brachen hierbei im Gegenangriff zähen feindlichen Widerstand und warfen die Sowjets zurück. Eine größere Anzahl feindlicher Panzer wurde abgeschossen.
Beiderseits Wilkowischken setzten die Sowjets mit 14 Schützendivisionen und mehreren Panzerbrigaden, von zahlreichen Schlachtfliegern unterstützt, ihre Angriffe fort. Wilkowischken ging erneut verloren. Bei Raseinen wurden wiederholte Angriffe des Feindes zerschlagen. Durch wirksame Angriffe unserer Schlachtfliegerverbände hatten die Bolschewisten hohe Verluste. Allein in Luftkämpfen wurden in diesem Frontabschnitt 56 feindliche Flugzeuge abgeschossen.
An der lettischen Front brachen die feindlichen Durchbruchsversuche nördlich Birsen und im Raum von Modohn am verbissenen Widerstand unserer Divisionen blutig zusammen.
In Estland wurden zahlreiche feindliche Angriffe abgewiesen oder aufgefangen. An der See-Enge zwischen dem Pleskauer und dem Peipussee sind heftige Kämpfe mit den auf das Westufer übergesetzten Sowjets entbrannt.
Bei einem Angriffsversuch sowjetischer Bomber auf Kirkenes wurden 40 feindliche Flugzeuge durch unsere Luftverteidigungskräfte abgeschossen und damit über ein Drittel des feindlichen Verbandes vernichtet. Am gestrigen Tage wurden an der Ostfront insgesamt 110 feindliche Flugzeuge abgeschossen.
Bei Angriffen feindlicher Bomber auf das Gebiet von Ploeşti wurden durch deutsche und rumänische Luftverteidigungskräfte 18 viermotorige Bomber zum Absturz gebracht.
In der Nacht warfen einzelne britische Flugzeuge Bomben auf Mannheim, Ludwigshafen und im rheinisch-westfälischen Gebiet.
Zum heutigen OKW-Bericht wird ergänzend mitgeteilt:
In den schweren Abwehrkämpfen im Raum nördlich Birsen haben sich die unter dem Befehl des Eichenlaubträgers General der Infanterie Hilpert stehenden Divisionen, die schlesische 81. Infanteriedivision unter Führung des Obersten von Bentivegni und die Norddeutsche 290. Infanteriedivision unter Führung des Generalleutnants Ortner, durch beispielhafte Tapferkeit und kühne Gegenstöße ausgezeichnet. An der Vernichtung von 108 Panzern innerhalb von drei Tagen hat die Sturmgeschützbrigade 912 unter Führung des Hauptmanns Karstens hervorragenden Anteil.
U.S. Navy Department (August 18, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 515
For Immediate Release
August 18, 1944
Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands was attacked by 7th AAF Liberators on August 16 (West Longitude Date). Buildings, storage facilities, and installations near the airfield were bombed. Several enemy fighters were airborne but did not succeed in intercepting our force. Anti-aircraft fire was meager. All of our aircraft returned. On the night of August 15‑16, a single Liberator bombed Iwo.
Fighter planes attacked Rota and Pagan Islands on August 16, bombing and strafing gun positions and the airstrips. Anti-aircraft fire was light at Rota and moderate at Pagan.
Warehouse areas on Dublon Island in Truk Atoll were bombed by 7th AAF Liberators the same day, causing large explosions and fires. One of six intercepting fighters was shot down, and three were damaged. Anti-aircraft fire was moderate.
Nauru Island was attacked by Navy Venturas on August 16, while Corsair fighters and Dauntless dive bombers of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing hit defense installations at Mille Atoll in the Marshalls on the same day.