America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

3512

Gracie Allen Reporting

Hollywood, California –
We housewives don’t mind rationing, and we smile cheerfully when the clerk sneers and says, “No face tissues.” But one byproduct of this war that’s driving us crazy is the husband who has become a military expert… a parlor paratrooper… an armchair admiral.

I must admit that my husband, George, is one of the charter members of the “Kibitz with Nimitz” and “I’m Palsy with Halsey” clubs. But I will say that George is one of the few coffee-table colonels to be wounded by enemy action.

It was during the fierce fighting around Aachen last week. He was moving the pin representing the Germans when it slipped and jabbed his thumb. We’re giving him the Purple Heart.

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americavotes1944

Major parties bear down on Pennsylvania

Truman, Bricker lead vote-seeking groups

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Vice-presidential nominees of both major parties were committed today to heavy speaking schedules at opposite ends of politically-doubtful Pennsylvania to highlight intensive final-week campaigning for the state’s 35 electoral votes which may decide the fate of the Roosevelt administration’s try for a fourth term.

Democratic leaders planned a whirlwind tour for the party’s vice-presidential nominee, U.S. Senator Harry S. Truman, whose Thursday itinerary in the West calls for speeches at Braddock, East Pittsburgh, Wilmerding, McKeesport and Uniontown, a 15-minute radio talk and a major address at Pittsburgh.

Bricker invades East

Next day, his Republican opponent, Governor John W. Bricker, returns to the state at Philadelphia following a noon rally speech at Wilmington, Delaware. Mr. Bricker’s Friday schedule lists a speech before Republican workers at Camden, a city-wide rally in Metropolitan Opera House, Philadelphia, and a discussion of labor problems an hour later at a 5-ward gathering at the Labor Lyceum there.

Mr. Bricker’s bid for a majority of Philadelphia’s potential 900,000 votes will follow by exactly a week President Roosevelt’s tour and speech.

The Philadelphia City Democratic organization holds its annual $100-a-plate dinner there tonight with National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan as principal speaker.

Rises to peak

Democratic State Headquarters announced that the Roosevelt campaign in Pennsylvania would rise to “a sustained peak of effort” this week with 200 broadcast programs to “set a record for radio efforts in a political campaign.”

The principal radio speakers listed by the Democrats, in addition to Senator Truman, were Congressman Francis J. Myers of Philadelphia (the party’s nominee for U.S. Senator), Philip Murray (CIO president), Harold L. Ickes (U.S. Secretary of the Interior), Democratic State Chairman David L. Lawrence and former Governor Gifford Pinchot. Movie and radio celebrities listed as speakers included Orson Welles, Paulette Goddard, Quentin Reynolds, Frank Sinatra, Joan Bennett, Humphrey Bogart, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Merman and Clifton Fadiman.

The Hollywood contingent with Bricker at Philadelphia was to include Adolphe Menjou, Gloria Swanson and Eddie Bracken.

Governor Edward Martin’s activity on behalf of the Republican ticket during the final full week of the campaign will include an address Wednesday at McKeesport.

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americavotes1944

Dewey accused of ‘doubletalk’

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace yesterday charged that Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican presidential nominee, was guilty of “doubletalk” in dealing with his own Fair Employment Practices Committee in New York.

Mr. Wallace, speaking before a rally on the Nonpartisan Roosevelt Unity Committee in Chicago, said Mr. Dewey had named a “good” committee which, after three years of investigation, recommended state legislation to establish a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee in New York.

The Vice President asserted:

Governor Dewey, however, disregarded and dismissed all of this great effort. The people of New York will understand double talk when they hear it.

Compared to Roosevelt

Mr. Wallace compared Governor Dewey’s position on the issue with that of President Roosevelt, praising the President’s concern for all people, including all minority groups.

The future belongs to those “who go down the line unswervingly for the liberal principles of both political and economic democracy, regardless of race, creed or color,” the Vice President said.

Mr. Wallace said:

Mr. Roosevelt stands for all this. That is why certain people hate him so. That also is one of the outstanding reasons why the President will be elected for a fourth term.

Outlines program

He outlined again his own program in race relations, asserting that there must be no inferior races in the United States and that the poll tax must go and equal educational opportunities must come.

Mr. Wallace said:

All the people must be included in the economic, educational and political progress which we will make if the liberal cause is victorious. By all of the people, I specifically include the Negro and every other minority group in this country.

Dewey aide scoffs at Wallace charge

Albany, New York (UP) –
Paul E. Lockwood, secretary to Governor Thomas E. Dewey, challenged a charge by Vice President Henry A. Wallace that the Republican presidential nominee was guilty of “doubletalk” in connection with the Fair Employment Practices Committee.

Mr. Lockwood said:

Mr. Wallace is a little balmier than usual. What Governor Dewey said on the radio was: “We shall establish the Fair Employment Practices Committee as a permanent function authorized by law.”

That is exactly what the Republican platform pledged while the Democratic platform did not dare mention the subject.

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Political action ‘in the raw’ –
Perkins: Miner outtalks hecklers yelling ‘Dewey, phooey!’

Speaker didn’t order disturbers ousted, so some itching for fight are disappointed
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

High Coal, West Virginia –
The meeting of the United Mine Workers, called in a school building near here to discuss whether rank-and-file members should vote for President Roosevelt or Governor Dewey, was opened with a prayer by the Rev. Fred D. Fuller.

A member of the union, he works at the Ferndale mine of the Webb Coal Co. and is also pastor of the Baptist Church at nearby Madison.

But hardly had the pastor’s gentle supplication ceased when there was a terrific outburst of profanity from four men trying to drown out the speech of William Blizzard, vice president of UMW District 17. The four specialized in a foghorn call of “Dewey, Phooey.”

He outshouted ‘em

This Bill Blizzard has had a long career in UMW affairs, including a course in the tactics of how to break up meetings of the opposition. He could have instructed his friends to throw the disturbers out on their ears, in accordance with UMW routine, but he didn’t. Instead, he outshouted the hecklers.

And just before Mr. Blizzard got to the end of his reasons why coal miners ought to support John L. Lewis by voting for Mr. Dewey, the disturbing quartet left the hall. Thus, there was no fistfight, which apparently disappointed some at the meeting.

Leaving out the unprintable words both sides used in the heckling, the disturbers were described variously as “company stooges,” “Democratic payrollers” and “scabs.” The quartet claimed UMW membership, but one definitely was identified as a shoe repairman in Whitesville – and the miners objected to a cobbler advising them how to vote.

Just a sample

This was politics in the raw – a sample of what is going on every day in Southern West Virginia as part of John L. Lewis’ effort to induce miners to quit their habit of voting for Mr. Roosevelt and to vote for Mr. Dewey.

Ernest Lewis, treasurer of the UMW local here, told Mr. Blizzard the 500 miners there would support the union policy unanimously. Mr. Blizzard said 13 West Virginia locals have endorsed Mr. Roosevelt and about twice as many have gone officially for Mr. Dewey.

Bill Blizzard was encouraged to think he will be successful in turning to Governor Dewey 10 to 20 percent of the Roosevelt miners in the 1940 election. Political prognosticators say that would swing the state. West Virginia has only eight electoral votes, but they might be important in a close election.

3516

americavotes1944

Waldman: Communists backing PAC and New Deal to further own aims

Real objective of ‘united front’ is to capture Democratic Party
By Louis Waldman, written for the Scripps-Howard newspapers

EDITOR’S NOTE: Louis Waldman, long a leader in the Socialist movement, was New York state chairman of the Socialist Party and twice its candidate for the New York governorship. After leaving the Socialist Party, he helped found the American Labor Party. Mr. Waldman recently published his autobiography, Labor Lawyer.

New York –
The enthusiasm of Earl Browder, the Communist, for the united front in America, as expressed in the CIO Political Action Committee and the American Labor Party, is not inspired by the New Deal, which he once damned as Fascist; his purpose is to gain the widest influence on American public opinion so he can serve his Communist aims more effectively.

The Political Action Committee is merely one of many devices of the “United Front” tactic of the Communists to accomplish their aims. Other “fronts” created by them have disappeared for the present to merge into this one “United Front.”

The same trade unions, groups and individuals which control the American Labor Party in New York control PAC. When the call was issued by the PAC for the organization of the congressional district as the major unit, it followed the setup so characteristic of the various Communist-sponsored united front organizations.

Organization outlined

CIO leaders were told:

These Congressional district committees should include, wherever possible, representatives of the American Federation of Labor, Railroad Brotherhoods, farm organizations, such as the National Farmers’ Union, church groups, women’s groups, consumer organizations, professional organizations and other community organizations.

The real organizing strength of the PAC lies in the CIO local unions and their central bodies in the principal cities. Like the CIO council in New York City, these city central organizations are largely Communist-controlled. Yet there are many even in the CIO unions who don’t like the alliance with the Communists. Many labor leaders have said privately what they would not say publicly: “We have to do along with the PAC whether we like it or not.” They say that anybody in PAC knows where the strength lies.

As in the American Labor Party, the Communists are the doorbell ringers, the distributors of leaflets, the active workers in the job of getting citizens to register and vote. They organize meetings, and all the other activities of a well-oiled political machine. They do it under party discipline, and they’re good.

During my 30 years in the American liberal, labor and Socialist movement, I know of no organization except the Communists which concealed its true aims. All the other radical parties have come before the public openly advocating this or that reform or social change, to be accepted or rejected on its merits.

By this means of public education, the Socialist and the labor movement have secured gains. Many of the reforms for which we have worked have been enacted into law. And both major parties have accepted, in the main, the necessity of continuing these reforms. This is the American way. It is not the Communist way.

Democratic Party threatened

Their “dissolution” of the American Communist Party, following the “dissolution” of the Comintern, was a tactical move, dictated by their policy of concealment. Their capture of the American Labor Party in New York gave them a perfect camouflage. Now through the PAC they will try to capture the Democratic Party.

As totalitarians and revolutionists, the Communists could get nowhere. As “progressives” supporting the New Deal they are effective. To them, electing Mr. Roosevelt is secondary. Their real purpose is to capture the labor movement and, if possible, the Democratic Party. Their whole aim is power.

All those who are now accepting Communist support feel certain that they can handle their totalitarian collaborators. They are smart politicians who can “use” the Communists and fellow travelers, and discard them when their usefulness is ended – so they think. But the political cemeteries are filled with such “smart” politicians.

Fascism usual reaction

It is part of the technique of Communists to leave no alternative, no choice of a “middle way.” The rise of Communism in Europe provoked a Fascist reaction, and if Communism becomes a threat in America, we may be forced to choose between these two totalitarian extremes.

The Communists celebrate, this year, the 25th anniversary of their party, now veiled as an “Educational Association.” During these 25 years, these totalitarians have never once entered into a united front in good faith. Never once have they failed to betray their allies. Sidney Hillman will not succeed where John L. Lewis, and before him Norman Thomas, Leon Blum, Chiang Kai-shek, and a long list of others, have failed.

3517

americavotes1944

NCPAC attacked in Dies report

Communist front charges hurled

Washington (UP) –
A Dies subcommittee today termed the National Citizens Political Action Committee the “major Communist front organization of the moment” and charged that through the CIO Political Action Committee and NCPAC, Communists are seeking to rise to power in this country “by taking control of a major political party.”

Chairman John M. Costello (D-CA), and Reps. Joe Starnes (D-AL), and J. Parnell Thomas (R-NJ), representing the full subcommittee created to investigate the PAC, made the charges in a report to the full Dies group.

The PAC opposed all three Congressmen in their recent bids for reelection and Mr. Costello and Mr. Starnes were defeated in the primaries.

Hillman ‘dictatorial’

The report identified the NCPAC as an organization created last June 14 by the PAC “to dodge provisions of the Corrupt Practices Act,” and adds that at the same time the PAC’s approximately $700,000 “slush fund” was frozen. Sidney Hillman, who heads both PAC and NCPAC, was pictured as a “dictatorial” labor leader who last spring allied himself with Earl Browder, Communist leader, and his followers to capture the machinery of the American Labor Party in New York State.

The report called the PAC and the NCPAC the “rallying point for the Communist Party and its allied groups and organizations.”

It added:

There is no doubt anywhere in anybody’s mind that the Communists today are doing their utmost to bore from within the Democratic Party.

Coercion by PAC charged

The subcommittee charged that CIO members are being coerced through the fear of expulsion from union membership, and therefore from employment, into “following and supporting” the political line dictated by the PAC national office.

It continued:

This is something new in American history. It is, in short, the entering wedge of a brutal totalitarianism, supported by goon squads.

The report said the membership of the national committee of NCPAC is comprised of persons 83 percent of whom have been affiliated with the Communist Party or its fronts during recent years. It further charges that the PAC and NCPAC “have had and are now receiving the active assistance of a number of officials in the government.” It asserted that a majority of the top officials of the PAC national office “are persons who left the government to join in directing the PAC and NCPAC.”

The subcommittee also stated it is convinced the Hatch Act, restricting political contributions, and the Smith-Connally Act, outlawing strikes in wartime, are “being winked at” by Attorney General Francis Biddle.

In conclusion, it said the PAC is “perverting the hitherto accepted aims of trade unions” and by its tactics “will do more to destroy the usefulness of trade unions than all the opposition of those who dislike collective bargaining could do.”

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americavotes1944

Bricker assails financing plans

U.S. debt called ‘postponed taxes’

Flint, Michigan (UP) –
Describing the estimated $300 billion post-war national debt as “postponed taxes,” Ohio Governor John W. Bricker said today that the only way the American people can repay the enormous obligation and, at the same time, get reduced taxes, was to vote Republican Nov. 7.

Entertainment world figures shared the program with Mr. Bricker to urge labor to vote Republican.

Movie star Adolphe Menjou scored Vice President Henry A. Wallace, who, he said, “incited a riot” at his recent speech by ridiculing the DuPont industrial family.

‘No disgrace’

“It’s no disgrace to be a DuPont now,” Menjou said. “If these big corporations didn’t employ labor, I don’t know who would.”

Stage comedian Eddie Bracken drew laughter when he said he “used to be a Democrat but now I’m an American.”

Mr. Bricker delivered his speech at a luncheon meeting which Flint Police estimated was attended by 4,500.

The Republican platform, the GOP vice-presidential nominee said, offers a “clear and workable plan for payment” of the national debt.

Financial ruin feared

“The New Deal policy of deficit financing means ultimate financial ruin and untold suffering,” he said.

A vote for the Republican ticket, Mr. Bricker said, is a vote to “bring taxes down so that men can walk upright again.” But, he warned, this cannot be achieved by “magic.”

He said:

Post-war taxes can be reduced, only by reduced costs of government… We want taxes reduced so that people will be able to work more for themselves and less for their government.

3519

americavotes1944

Editorial: Promises – and jobs

“For 12 years in this country,” said Governor Dewey at Syracuse, “we have had an unmanageable surplus of promises, promises lightly made, sketchily kept, or openly violated.”

And President Roosevelt, at Chicago, boosted the output, at least equaling his own record for super promises: Sixty million productive post-war jobs; high wages and efficient production; government encouragement to growth of business, large and small; abiding faith in free enterprise and the profit system; trebled foreign trade; firm prosperity for farmers; America preserved as s land of action, of adventurous pioneering, of growing and building.

Such promises may win votes…

If enough voters have short memories.

Most of what the President said about how an abundance of post-war jobs can be created is thoroughly sound. Just as sound as it was when Mr. Dewey said it at Philadelphia nearly two months ago.

If we could forget Mr. Roosevelt’s record since he first became a promising presidential candidate, we’d hail his Chicago speech as the utterance of an economic statesman.

But there the record stands:

The many fervent promises of government frugality, followed by unprecedented government extravagance. The promises to curb bureaucracy, and bureaucracy enormously swollen in size and power. The promises to “stop the deficits,” and the deficits made an invariable annual event. The promises to preserve state rights, and authority centered in Washington as never before. The promises of jobs, and WPA used as a political machine.

When Mr. Roosevelt talks now of need for vast expansion of job-creating industrial capacity, we recall the long years when he practiced the mature economy philosophy, he stated in 1932 at San Francisco: “Our industrial plant is built; the problem just now is whether under existing conditions it is not overbuilt.”

When he proclaims belief that “private enterprise can give full employment,” we remember how Winston Churchill said in 1937:

The Washington administration has waged so ruthless a war on private enterprise that the United States… is actually leading the world back into the trough of depression.

When Mr. Roosevelt says he knows how to provide 60 million peacetime jobs, we remember that he had been President for seven peacetime years in 1940, and that then there were only 46 million jobs and almost 10 million people unemployed.

When he promises enlightened tax policies to encourage business expansion, we remember that the policies he would have to alter are his own policies, insisted upon by him although business showed that they were discouraging expansion.

We are for the things Mr. Roosevelt promised at Chicago. But we want them delivered, nor promised before election and forgotten afterward. “That’s why it’s time for a change.”

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Editorial: Three-year hush-hush

Pearl Harbor doesn’t appear to be in any desperate danger as of today. Martial law was lifted recently in the Hawaiian Islands. And the Jap navy has been engrossed lately in certain interesting exercises a long way from Honolulu, the major details of which you might get by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Mr. Davy Jones.

We see no reason why this country should not now, at last, be given the true story of an event almost three years old. The American battleships wrecked by Jap planes on Dec. 7, 1941, have been repaired or replaced, and enormously supplemented. The Navy has just released details on the new Iowa class of battleships. If this information can be made public, surely there is little of a technical nature in the old but untold story of Pearl Harbor that needs to be hushed up any longer.

Only last Friday night, at Philadelphia, Mr. Roosevelt was remarking that “we have constantly investigated and publicized our whole management of the war effort.” But the naval court of inquiry and the Army board assigned some months ago to ascertain the facts about Pearl Harbor have now submitted their reports to the Secretaries of the Navy and of War – and have marked these documents “secret” and “top secret.” (Meaning, “You can’t print it.”)

Perhaps there are certain details in these reports that might lend a little aid and comfort to the enemy, but it is hard to believe that the bulk of the material could not be made public with full safety and propriety.

Rep. Maas of Minnesota has charged that the President and other high Washington officials had six hours’ advance notice of the time and place chosen by Japan for her attack, and that they failed to get word to Adm. Kimmel and Gen. Short at Pearl Harbor.

Whether there is truth in that, we do not know. But we do feel that if we were in the President’s shoes, and the charge were untrue, we would want to have the full story told to the public.

Somehow or other, though, our hunch is that the Army and Navy will not put out anything. Not, anyway, until after Nov. 7, 1944.

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Editorial: Election imponderable

As to Election Day, one imponderable that is stumping the experts is how the absentee civilian travelers are going to affect the result.

Every railway train, bus and plane, come Nov. 7, will be jammed, as they are every day now in the feverish froth of hither-and-yon that always characterizes wartime. You can’t vote on a plane, train or bus. So, many thousands will be out of ballot-box circulation. How many thousands nobody knows.

Further, every great American city is bursting at the seams with transients. You need a shoehorn to get around the sidewalks of New York. The same is true of Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco, Kansas City or almost any other metropolis you care to name. No hotel rooms available, long lines before every registration desk and ticket window – that’s the scene right across the continent. There never was an election time when so many were out of reach of voting.

Then, of course, there are the war-plant workers who have moved from where they used to vote to where they may or may not have registered.

As a betting proposition, there is no past-performance chart for use in 1944.

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Edson: PAC embraces religious wing to spur votes

By Peter Edson

Washington –
An effort to incorporate a great religious movement into the program of the National Citizens Political Action Committee, working for reelection of President Roosevelt, is revealed in a series of letters and pamphlets sent to some 20,000 American clergymen of all faiths, soliciting them to become “Religious Associates” of the NCPAC.

New York headquarters of the PAC says that about 130 priests, rabbis, preachers and lay leaders are now enrolled in the “R.A.” branch of the PAC.

The movement has drawn criticism from a number of conservative clergymen, particularly Dr. Norman Vincent Peale of the Marble Collegiate Reformed Church in New York, who has charged that the PAC is “trying to drag the church into politics.” Dr. Peale is listed as chairman of the Committee for Constitutional Government, but as Dr. Edward A. Rumely testified before the House Campaign Expenditures Committee that the Committee for Constitutional Government, of which he is executive secretary, was not a political organization but an educational one, Dr. Peale’s own activities with the Committee could of course not be considered in the same political light with those of the PAC Religious Associates.

‘Cleared’ by Sidney

It was Sidney Hillman himself who started the Religious Associates, with a letter to the 20,000 clergymen, dated Aug. 18. In the letter Mr. Hillman said that the Associates had no blueprints and no goals, but would be an informal fellowship of ministers and lay leaders.

Shortly after this letter went out, the Rev. Dwight J. Bradley became head of the Religious Associates and his name now appears on all the “R.A.” literature. Mr. Bradley has held pulpits in a number of cities and since 1938 has been head of the Congregational Church Council of Social Action.

One of the more intriguing bits of literature which Mr. Bradley has put out is a 16-page pocket size leaflet bearing the old nursery rhyme title, “This Is the Church, This Is the Steeple, Open the Doors… and There Are the People.”

The CIO isn’t mentioned in this sermonette until Page 7, where it explains that anyone who serves the working people well is a friend of the church and “The CIO is primarily concerned with the protection and the improvement of the economic conditions of its members.” Then it explains what the CIO-PAC is, and the NCPAC, finally getting around, on Page 9, to the “R.A.”

A slight suggestion

“Who are the Religious Associates?” asks the pamphlet, and it answers:

The Religious Associates are a group of leaders of all faiths, joined in a fellowship of religious social action and associated with the National Citizens Political Action Committee.

Do religion and politics mix? Politics is a means of achieving freedom and order. Whatever works for freedom and order is a concern of religion. When religion and politics are mixed on a basis of progressive democracy, political action is maintained at a high level of ethics, and religion makes itself felt…

There is a 10-point credo set forth for the Religious Associates, and another decalogue of Political Aims of the Religious Associates. In neither of these does the name of Mr. Roosevelt appear, but in a series of neat little mimeographed notes sent out over the signature of Mr. Bradley, Mr. Roosevelt’s name is mentioned plenty.

The last of these letters, mailed from New York on Oct. 18, begins:

Dear Religious Leader: In the last letter we asked: For whom shall we vote in order to meet these issues in the right way?

There follow six paragraphs of all the things Mr. Roosevelt has done, with the conclusion that:

In the light of this record, it seems to me quite clear that Mr. Roosevelt should be reelected… The issues are not merely political. They are fundamentally ethical. …Shall not the spiritual guides help the people understand? …Shall not he who is ordained to the ministry of religion at least exert his influence to persuade the citizens to vote?

DWIGHT J. BRADLEY

3523

Ferguson: More about a refugee

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

…

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americavotes1944

Background of news –
Pennsylvania’s vote

By Bertram Benedict

In journeying to Philadelphia last Friday to make one of his major speeches of the 1944 campaign, President Roosevelt testified to the political importance of Pennsylvania this year.

In a close election, Pennsylvania might well prove pivotal with its 35 electoral votes, fewer only than New York’s 47. It is being frequently said that Mr. Roosevelt, with a foundation of 113 votes in the Deep South, will win if he carries Pennsylvania even if he loses New York, but that Governor Dewey, absolutely sure of only 55 electoral votes in the Midwest, needs Pennsylvania as well as New York.

In 1940, the Keystone State gave Mr. Roosevelt a majority of 221,187 in a total of 4,060,883 presidential votes cast. Mr. Roosevelt had a majority of 177,271 in Philadelphia County and one of 104,641 in Allegheny County. In the rest of the state the result was 50-50, with Wendell Willkie receiving a net majority of 725.

In 1936, Pennsylvania gave Mr. Roosevelt a majority of 663,488 over Alfred M. Landon. But in 1932 Pennsylvania was one of the six states which stuck by Herbert Hoover, giving him a majority of 157,592 over Mr. Roosevelt.

From Civil War until 1936

Pennsylvania never went Democratic for President between the Civil War and 1936, even when the Democrats won the presidency in 1884, 1892, 1912 (Pennsylvania voted for Theodore Roosevelt on a third-party ticket), and 1916. In the close election of 1916, the Keystone State gave Charles Evans Hughes almost 60 percent of its major-party vote.

Possibly it was because Pennsylvania was not regarded as a doubtful state that the Republicans never went to it for their presidential nominee, Although the state always has ranked second or third in population, it has given only one President to the nation – Democrat James Buchanan, elected in 1856, and perhaps the weakest of all our Presidents.

In the decades prior to the New Deal, a very large proportion of Pennsylvania’s miners and factory-workers had been won over to the Republican gospel of a high protective tariff to keep wage rates high. John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers since 1919, was a Republican and worked for the Republican ticket.

Democratic in 1934

But after 1932, the miners and factory workers of Pennsylvania seemed to go over to the Democrats with a whoop and a holler. In 1934, Pennsylvania elected a Democratic Governor, a Democratic Senator, and Democrats to 23 of its 34 seats in the House of Representatives. Mr. Lewis became an ardent supporter of the New Deal and told the country over the radio in October 1935:

The President has succeeded so well in his task of rehabilitating America that the industrialists and financiers have recovered sufficiently to fight him with malice and venom.

In 1938, Pennsylvania went back to Republicanism in the state election. It elected a Republican Governor by a 279,000 majority, a Republican Senator by 393,000.

In 1940, when Mr. Lewis was back in the Republican camp, he could not carry his miners with him. The state voted for Mr. Roosevelt and for a Democratic Senator (by 177,000), and sent more Democrats than Republicans to the House.

But in 1942, Pennsylvania was back with its old love, the GOP – it elected a Republican Governor by 218,000 majority, sent almost twice as many Republicans as Democrats to the House, and elected a Republican as its Representative-at-Large by a majority of 255,000.

3525

Anybody want any pigeons? See Treasury

Zippers, snow shoes, a grouser for sale
By Frederick C. Othman, United Press staff writer

…

Kress gives art to U.S. gallery

…

3526

Surprise for Japs –
U.S. bombers defeat Zeros

Foe learns hard way about Americans

…

Army accused of ‘filtering’ news

…

3527

Garrison: Kelly’s from Pittsburgh and he is almighty proud of the fact!

Hoofer devoted to wife and baby
By Maxine Garrison

…

Excellent whodunit at Harris

Gene Tierney stars in mystery film
By John D. Paulus

…

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Truman to make reply to Dewey

Will speak in Providence tonight

Boston, Massachusetts (UP) –
Senator Harry S. Truman, Democratic candidate for Vice President, winds up the New England leg of his campaign tour today with a reply to Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s references to the “Roosevelt depression.”

After two days in Massachusetts, Mr. Truman’s schedule called for him to motor to Providence, Rhode Island, today and to address a party rally tonight. He will speak in New York’s Madison Square Garden tomorrow night.

During his two days in Massachusetts, the nominee appeared at party rallies at Fall River, New Bedford, Worcester, Lawrence and Lynn.

The failure of Senator David I. Walsh of Massachusetts, anti-administration Democrat, to appear at the Worcester meeting provoked speculation over his political intentions, but he silenced rumors by greeting Mr. Truman at Lawrence yesterday and announcing that he was “heart and soul for the success of our entire ticket.”

Earlier, Chairman Robert E. Hannegan of the Democratic National Committee, who conferred with Mr. Truman here yesterday, had a telephone conversation with Mr. Walsh.

Mrs. Stassen backs Dewey

St. Paul, Minnesota (UP) –
Mrs. Harold E. Stassen, wife of Minnesota’s former governor, today urged the election of Governor Thomas E. Dewey and his running mate, Governor John W. Bricker, because they “have a far better chance to solve the vital problems of peace than the present administration.”

Mrs. Stassen said.

No President can succeed in creating unity and harmony in world affairs unless he can first create unity and harmony at home.

Every mother knows that the family which has harmony, unity and cooperation within the four walls of the home has the basis of friendly relations with the neighbors.

Mrs. Stassen’s husband is serving in the Pacific as a commander in the Navy.

3529

Millett: It’s easy

Waitress course is offered
By Ruth Millett

…

3530

Russia balks on meeting with neutrals

Reds refuse to attend aviation conference

…

3531

americavotes1944

Stokes: Michigan test

By Thomas L. Stokes

Detroit, Michigan –
Michigan offers perhaps the best laboratory in the nation for a test of the influence in politics of newly alert and highly organized labor and of its effect upon the complexion of the Democratic Party.

It also provides a test of labor’s influence through politics upon the changing economic pattern of the country, for it is here that labor in the huge auto industry has been most vociferous in demanding a greater share in the management of industry. This demand has been silenced temporarily by the war.

Economic and political analysts undoubtedly henceforth must give this state and its highly concentrated auto industry the same close study they gave some years ago to the Wisconsin experiments in state social welfare and economic legislation sponsored by the LaFollette regime which gradually percolated into the national government. Wisconsin was a pattern for the New Deal in many ways.

A significant political test for labor here is in the presidential election next week.

GOP registrations down

If President Roosevelt should carry Michigan, it will be because of the intense activity of the CIO Political Action Committee, which has done perhaps the best Job of registration of any unit in the country. A few weeks ago, Michigan generally was put down safely in the Republican column. It had moved back to its traditional Republicanism nationally four years ago, but insecurely, for the late Wendell Willkie carried it by only 7,000 votes. For a while it seemed destined to remain Republican, and it may yet, of course.

But a big cloud of doubt, ominously regarded by Republicans, was formed when new registrations in Wayne County (Detroit) raised the total some 72,000 above the 1940 figures, and with the soldier vote, the total may be something over 100,000 larger than four years ago. The story is the same in Flint, Pontiac, and other auto centers. Registration in rural areas, almost solidly Republican, is down somewhat from four years ago.

Another significant development in Michigan is that the Democratic Party here today closely approaches a labor party. The old Democratic leadership virtually has disappeared. There is friction between the organization and the Political Action Committee, which is running its own show, and almost the whole show. The CIO dominated the state Democratic convention.

Labor has earned partnership

The Democratic organization is so weak in some parts of the state that it has no candidates for local offices. The party is preponderantly a city party now, with labor the predominant influence.

Labor has encroached upon the Democratic Party in this state to a greater degree than is apparent in other big industrial states, although the trend is noted elsewhere. This development provokes speculation as to the future of the party nationally. The country does not seem ripe yet for a labor party – if it ever will – and certainly any attempt to make the Democratic Party a labor party will be resisted stoutly, as it is now, by the old-line leadership still entrenched in the South and in the big cities of the North and East.

Labor has earned its right to a partnership. If President Roosevelt is reelected, it undoubtedly will make its claims. Whether this will result in some compromise that will satisfy old-line leaders, or whether the party will fall apart because of antagonisms already manifest and bring new political alignments, remains to be seen.

But something interesting is happening, and it is seen in its most advanced stage in Michigan.