‘Fidelity pact’ slayer guilty
‘I’m already dead,’ killer insists
…
U.S. tax laws seen obstacle to tool buying
Policies encourage use of obsolete machines
By Roger Budrow, Scripps-Howard staff writer
…
U.S. Steel nets $1.22 a share in quarter
Profit exceeds common dividend requirements
…
Stokes: Test for Kelly
By Thomas L. Stokes
Chicago, Illinois –
Mayor Ed Kelly of Chicago, the Democratic boss of Cook County, faces his most difficult test in trying to carry this state for President Roosevelt for a fourth term.
His prestige is at stake. The Democratic Party in the state has revolved about Ed Kelly because of the tremendous majorities he has been able to roll up in Cook County with his machine, up to now always enough to win the state for President Roosevelt.
Furthermore, he was in the delegation of big city bosses which, it may be recalled, descended upon the President at the White House one night and served notice that Vice President Wallace must be dropped from the ticket. And their candidate who was substituted, Senator Truman, is being made an annoying issue by the Republicans. They won’t let Boss Kelly forget about Senator Truman, linking him up always with another boss, Tom Pendergast of Kansas City.
The Republican candidate for U.S. Senator, Richard J. Lyons, tried to spoil the monster demonstration Mayor Kelly put on for the President at Soldier Field last Saturday night by asking at a Republican luncheon rally subsequently why it was that Senator Truman’s name was missing from the Roosevelt banners on that occasion. When Governor Dewey was here a few days before, he said Governor Bricker’s name was linked with Governor Dewey’s.
Hard to dim
But it’s hard to dim that Soldier Field rally in Mayor Kelly’s eyes. He hiked that tremendously. It exhilarated him to the point where he began to raise his estimates of the Democratic majority in Cook County, even going so high as 375,000 to 400,000 which is quite handsome and most likely quite impossible. That would do the trick undoubtedly, offsetting downstate Republican majorities. President Roosevelt carried Cook County in 1940 by 222,000 and won the state over Wendell Willkie by 95,000.
Democrats generally were elated over that Soldier Field demonstration. They had begun a few days before to feel better about Illinois, virtually conceded to Governor Dewey a few weeks ago.
But Boss Kelly has troubles right here in Cook County in the suburban towns where, it is indicated, Republicans are going to roll up unusual majorities this year.
There seems, too, plenty of trouble in Downstate Illinois, the Republican stronghold, which is caught up in the Republican trend which has been surging slowly higher in the farm areas for several years. Southern Illinois farmers are making plenty of money, but they are sore over regulations, over forms to fill out, and those who fed cattle are resentful of price ceilings which, because of the high cost of corn, make a profit difficult.
GOP stirs up parents
The Republican leadership in the state, which is isolationist and dominated by Chicago Tribune influence, is putting on quite a campaign directed to stirring up parents of boys in the service. Considerable use is being made of President Roosevelt’s “again and again and again” promise in his 1940 Boston speech not to send American boys to fight in foreign wars.
Over all, Democrats get most encouragement from the high registration, a peak of 4,715,000 comparing with a vote of 4,190,000 in 1940, and especially from the fact that Cook County registration is 130,000 greater this year than downstate registration, compared with a margin of only 9,016 in 1940. The soldier vote may decide the issue. Nearly 100,000 have been returned to Chicago and nearly 50,000 downstate.
Consensus of political experts is that the state is doubtful, with the margin of victory very small either way.
Red Cross food and medical kits provided Yanks held by Germans
Cans punctured to avert escape
By Peter Edson
…
Yanks too busy fighting to worry about politics
Little election talk at front, reporter says; finds Dewey does not lack supporters
By B. J. McQuaid
With British 2nd Army, Holland –
U.S. troops fighting in this part of Holland have been too busy the last few days holding off big-scale German counterattacks to pay much attention to politics. Some, however, are still taking advantage of the opportunity afforded to use the federal ballot to express their presidential preferences up to the hour of polling in the United States Nov. 7.
Voting officers of the American units in the British sector say that no accurate record has been kept of the numbers who have voted, but they believe that more than 50 percent have done so.
It would make an interesting report to canvass some of the soldiers who are now involved in bitter fighting, for their opinions of the candidates, but there is a stiffly-worded federal statute which prohibits questioning any member of the Armed Forces as to whom he intends to vote for, or has voted for.
This statute, which was called to my attention by the voting officers, was passed by this Congress. It specifically bans questioning along this line for the purpose of newspaper or radio reporting.
There is relatively little discussion of the election among troops in the forward areas, but from what I have overheard, it appears that the condition I encountered last June, when I interviewed a group of paratroopers who were about to jump on D-Day and found them solidly for President Roosevelt, has undergone some changes. In the few discussions I have heard, Governor Dewey does not lack supporters.
Arguments follow conventional lines. Roosevelt supporters are urging the retention of the midstream horse, and decrying Governor Dewey’s presumed lack of experience in military and world problems, while Dewey supporters deplore indefinite multiplication terms for one President, and insist that the war is now in such a stage that it is certain to be won, no matter who is President.
Some disappointment
There is some spirit of disappointment among soldiers, as among civilians at home, that the war, which many had hoped would fold up before November, now seems likely to go into and perhaps through the winter. But most votes here were already cast before this became clear. It is doubtful whether it would influence political preference much in any case.
Army regulations stringently ban electioneering, and there almost certainly has been nothing of that character. The effort continues to bring out the soldier vote, in the sense that voting officers, who have been appointed for all units down to company units, are more or less constantly urged to make sure that every soldier knows of his right to vote, and is fully acquainted with the machinery by which he can make his vote count.
Sinkwich, Westfall to test Steelers
Top ground gainer and mate lead Detroit against locals Sunday
By Carl Hughes
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Flyers triumph –
Hornets lose second game, but keep lead
…
Reading Eagle (November 1, 1944)
ON THE RECORD —
The birth of a new nation
By Dorothy Thompson
If I come back again today to the naval battle in the Philippine waters, it is because the perspectives on it would furnish material, not for a series of columns, but for volumes – as, in the future, it will. I do not believe the American people have realized what it means, not only for the war, but for our position in the world.
As a battle between our fleet and the greatest Asiatic fleet, it is comparable to the Spanish Armada. The defeat of that Armada, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, destroyed Spain as a world power, and made England its successor, and the undisputed master of the seas – the only worldwide element of those days – from then until our own times. In that succeeding epoch of the “Pax Britannica” was demonstrated the relationship between naval power and power itself. And in this battle of the Philippines, the United States has reinstated the leadership of Western civilization for at least a hundred years to come.
But more than that has happened. In one of his last speeches, the President made the statement that our Navy alone is now greater than all the navies of the world combined. That is significant in itself, but it is only a statistical statement. We knew before this Second World War, that Russia had the largest land army on earth. But that alone did not give the Soviet Union an adequate place among the great powers. Only when this land army met its supreme test and proved its superiority over the technically and traditionally best competitor – the Wehrmacht – did the statistical argument become a political fact of vast importance.
In the same way, the battle in the Philippine waters has transformed a statistical fact into a political reality.
The Japanese have proven in their short naval history that they are capable of challenging great Western powers. When they destroyed the Russian Navy, in 1904, there was already the premonition of a coming challenge to America. In reality, that was the birth of Japan as a great naval power.
But it could be argued that the Russian fleet was not comparable to that of a true naval power. But when, in the early days of this Second World War, the Japanese sank the two British battleships, the Prince of Wales, and the Repulse, the whole British nation was rocked. A sea-minded people realized what it meant.
That blow to British naval prestige followed closely our disaster at Pearl Harbor. At one blow, we were thrown out of the eastern Pacific, and its rich booty – the East Indies, Malaya, the Philippines – fell into Japanese hands.
But the inevitable course of history cannot be changed by a single treacherous trick or mighty blow.
The Japanese could only have succeeded if we had succumbed, through decadence, or internal division. Actually, that blow set America on her feet. And once she rose to her feet, that thing happened which was preordained should happen. The battle of the Philippines is only a demonstration of something that has been slowly developing during the past generation. Almost against the will of the American people, by sheer weight of its vitality, its geography, and its engineering skills, this country has been pushed into the leading place among world powers.
At no time has there been a competitive race with the British master of the seas. But when the world struggle forced the mobilization of all forces, the inherent truth about America came out: She is without question the supreme naval power of the earth.
Today, this means airpower as well as ships. And again, the factors that created our naval supremacy created our air supremacy, and for world power, the two are one.
The deeper significance of this will be felt only by farsighted Americans, today and tomorrow. It will be realized by all Americans in the coming decades. In the waters of the Philippines, not only was the Japanese fleet destroyed, but a traditional America was destroyed. There may be those who will deplore this, and look back to the days of “Little America,” remembering with nostalgia her ancient independent detachment from the earth. But they will waste their tears, because history does not stop because of nostalgias.
In history, through all the centuries, the grasp of naval power has invariably been the forerunner of a new epoch for the country that obtained it. Previous to the destruction of the Spanish Armada, England was Shakespeare’s little island, and the great explorers and openers of the globe were Spanish and Portuguese. It was not British world travelers who created British world influence, but British naval power which created the travelers who carried the influence.
And so, these last few days will affect the minds, habits, visions, and responsibilities of Americans yet unborn. They will not be like us, who see these great events, almost with bewilderment, hardly with realization, against the background of a provincial America. At one single leap, we have outrun the runners – and we cannot plod back to the starting line.
It must have been with this in mind, that the President – throughout his life a Navy man – spoke, in his foreign policy speech about the necessity of our becoming a mature nation.
Pegler: Third stage
By Westbrook Pegler
New York –
There are among the Roosevelt political following some thorough Americans who support him even though they know that thereby they put themselves in alliance with the Communists. They justify this on the ground that Communism can’t happen here, forgetting, however, that Fascism or National Socialism has been happening throughout the Roosevelt reign and that the Communist program often calls for Fascism first and Communism later. Germany, yesterday, today and tomorrow is a perfect example of the development of this program.
In Germany, after the Communist revolution failed, the Communists supported Hitler and thousands of old Communists became Brown Shirts and were then known as the Brown Bolsheviki. They did this, under orders from Moscow whence the program and party discipline flow to the Communist movement all over the world. Later, Stalin made an outright alliance with Hitler and between them they divided Poland while the Communists of France betrayed their country in the factories by sabotage and in the army by outright mutiny and refusal to fight in the face of the enemy in the drive through the Low Countries and along the channel coast. As surely as Mussolini stabbed France in the back, these Communist traitors slit her throat and with greater guns because, after all, Mussolini was an Italian and these Communists were, in the legal sense, Frenchmen.
Germany is now approaching the third stage, the triumph of Communism at last, after a long and horrible progress over a devious and bloody trail.
When the fighting ends, Russia, not Britain or the United States, will dictate the ideology and politics of Germany and the survivors of the 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 old German Communists will emerge as the new governing party.
Are Roosevelt, then, and Mrs. Roosevelt, Communists? Of course not. They are too fond of wealth, luxury and the feeling of possession, but they do love power and official privilege, the identifying attributes of the Fascist.
The Democrats of unquestionable American loyalty who are supporting Roosevelt or refusing to oppose him, the Jim Farleys, the Joe Kennedys, the Paul McNutts, all know that Sidney Hillman and his Political Action Committee represent the Communist conspiracy in the United States. They know Hillman went to Russia in 1922, saw Lenin, and came back here to organize the Russian-American Industrial Corporation with himself as president, soliciting stock subscriptions for a “sound investment for Russia.” They know that Hillman endorsed the appeal for the release from prison of a vicious Communist firebug who then was secretly turned out of Sing Sing by Charles Poletti, the interim New York governor, just before Tom Dewey took office, that this criminal was an official of one of Hillman’s unions, and that Roosevelt then sent Poletti to Rome to govern the Italians by his own corrupt concept of the American form of government.
They know that the American Labor Party which Hillman took over, an alien political parasite composed of naturalized but unassimilated continental unioneers, is a Communist political disguise. And they know that the Political Action Committee borrowed organizers and managers from the Roosevelt bureaucracy in Washington and made frequent telephone calls to Mrs. Roosevelt at the White House, to the office of Henry Wallace and to other New Deal accomplices in Washington.
The release of Earl Browder from Prison by presidential order for the sake of “unity” in flagrant contempt of the grand jury and the trial jury, and the arbitrary order rescinding the writ of deportation against Browder’s Communist wife are known to all these Americans.
And they do not argue against the fact that both the Roosevelts have actively helped union politicians of the CIO whose own colleagues in the organization never bother to deny that they are Communists, enemies of the United States and loyal only to Russia.
These Americans of the Roosevelt following comfort and deceive themselves, however, with the argument that Communism can’t happen here. They are right only to the extent that it can’t happen here until like Italy and Germany, we have first lost our liberties and gone through a Fascist era. That Fascism is now evident many phases of our life. Some of the New Deal orate and propagandists of journalism already have taken threatening Fascist attitude.
In Philadelphia, last Friday night, in Roosevelt’s presence, Andrew J. Higgins, who introduced him to the crowd, howled for the entire people of the United States to hear, that “No one should dare challenge” Roosevelt. Another totalitarian supporter still vociferous in this campaign, as long ago as 1940, demanded that the election be called off. And a few nights ago, in Connecticut, still another warned that if Dewey should win, the Roosevelt followers would start a revolution.
This history and these citations are proven fact and there is no denial, either, of the tact that all the Communists and all the totalitarians of other hues, posing as liberals, are against Dewey because he preaches the United States Constitution, jobs under private, free enterprise, and a foreign policy in which the United States and Russia meet in mutual dignity as equals and not in the relation of a frightened and submissive hostage to a captor and master.
A few years ago, it could be said that in every country except Russia, where the Communists had made their bid, they created Fascism. instead. In Europe, now, the third stage is developing. From Fascism and Hitlerism, the nations move into Communism.
The Communists are patient and content with their progress and therefore are supporting Roosevelt, for after Fascism comes Communism. Meanwhile, under Roosevelt, they are content with the role of Brown Bolsheviki.
Address by New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey
November 1, 1944, 9:30 p.m. EWT
Broadcast from Boston, Massachusetts
Broadcast audio:
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1531945/m1/embed/
Governor and soon-to-be Senator Saltonstall, Speaker Martin, Governor Cahill, Lieutenant Governor […], my fellow Americans:
Once in every four years, late in October, my opponent announces that he believes in the enterprise system. Then for the remaining three years and 11 months, he wages war against the American enterprise system day in and day out. That is why there were still 10 million Americans unemployed in the spring of 1940. That’s why we had to have a war to get jobs. That’s why it’s time for a change.
Because of our magnificent military command, the heroism of our men in uniform, and the efforts of our war workers at home, victory is coming closer every day. And by installing a fresh and united administration in Washington, the day of total victory and the return of our fighting men will be speeded up greatly. Then, what do we face?
As I pointed out last night, if we go into the post-war period with nothing better than the New Deal has offered us in the past, we can expect no better results than we had under its peacetime years before.
But if we go in with a new and vigorous administration, pledged to a program of constructive action, we can and will succeed. With a government in which the President works in harmony and mutual respect with the Congress, we can unite America for effective world leadership in a world organization for lasting peace.
Now, one reason why the New Deal cannot provide jobs and opportunity after this war – one reason why it cannot give our country the unity we need – is because of the kind of people to whom it would owe its election. The New Deal is not a party. It is a collection of parties, all of which hate each other.
In my own state of New York, they hate each other so much that they won’t vote except under their own emblems, and Franklin Roosevelt is running on three different party lines in the state of New York.
No, the New Deal has become a collection of warring factions, tied together only by a consuming passion for power. That’s why my opponent is compelled to solicit the support of bigoted reactionaries on the one hand and of Communists on the other.
For 12 years, the great Democratic Party has been under the crushing dominance of one man. As a result, it is weakened and divided. It is vulnerable to capture by forces hostile to every tradition for which that party has stood. Beyond that, Mr. Roosevelt, in his overwhelming desire to perpetuate himself in office for 16 years, has put his party on the auction block – for sale to the highest bidder.
Who will buy it? Will it be the notorious 1000 Club which sponsored and paid for Mr. Roosevelt’s speech last Saturday? This is the organization, formed at the President’s own suggestion, which offers “special privilege,” a voice “in the formulation of administration policies” and a chance to visit with the President on Thursday afternoons, all for $1,000.
Will these purchasers of “special privilege” be the successful bidders for control of the captive Democratic Party? I doubt it. The 1000 Club members are being taken in. They will not get the “special privilege” or the influence they were offered. There are higher bidders in the market.
Those higher bidders are the Political Action Committee of Sidney Hillman and the Communists of Earl Browder.
In this campaign, the New Dealers attempt to smother discussion of their Communist alliance. They smear any discussion of this major question of our day. They insinuate that Americans must love Communism or offend our fighting ally, Russia. But not even the gullible believe that. In Russia, a Communist is a man who supports his government. In America, a Communist is a man who supports the fourth term so our form of government may more easily be changed.
No, the question of Communism in our country has nothing to do with our allies any more than it has to do with where a man was born. Every American – every one of us – traces his ancestry to some foreign land. As a nation, we owe our genius, our culture, our traditions, to nations all over the world. The keystone of the arch of American freedom is our opposition to intolerance. The foundation of our American system of civil liberties is an equal respect and an equal opportunity for men of every race, creed and color and regardless of national origin. The mighty bulwark of these liberties is the Constitution of the United States.
These are the things that have given America leadership in the world. These above all others are what America must continue to stand for if she is to give leadership to the world again.
The proof that Communism has nothing to do with national origin is the fact that Earl Browder, the avowed leader of Communism in America, was born in the United States.
Now, who is Browder? He is the man who was convicted of draft dodging in the last war. He was again convicted – this time of perjury – and pardoned by Franklin Roosevelt in time to organize the fourth-term campaign. Browder stands for everything that would destroy America.
Everyone knows that Communism is for state ownership, of all property, including your house, your farm and the factory, the shop, the office in which you work. It stands for absolute dictatorship, the abolition of civil rights and total political and economic bigotry. It stands for something else.
A few years ago, Mr. Browder wrote a book called What Is Communism? He said: “We stand without any reservations for education that will root out beliefs in the supernatural…” He concluded: “…We Communists do not distinguish between good and bad religions, because we think they are all bad for the masses.”
Now, Mr. Roosevelt in his recent speech from the White House very softly disavowed Communism. But the very next day, at a meeting right here in Boston, Earl Browder made a speech for Mr. Roosevelt and a collection was taken up for the fourth term. And not a voice in the New Deal was raised in protest. So much for Earl Browder.
Now, who is Sidney Hillman? He has held one official post after another in the New Deal, in addition to important duties as the head of a labor union. When the fourth term campaign came along, he went to New York to concentrate on politics.
There, in the primaries this year, he organized a movement to take over the previously respectable American Labor Party. And he succeeded with the help of Earl Browder’s Communists.
What is the American Labor Party today – the party whose nomination Mr. Roosevelt has accepted and whose votes he hopes will give him 16 years in the White House?
Listen to the words of another set of my opponent’s violent supporters. David Dubinsky, president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, was one of the founders of the American Labor Party.
Here is what he said last spring about that party as of today: “I regard the former American Labor Party as a Communist labor party… Mr. Hillman can act as a ‘front for the Communists; I never did and never will.” So said David Dubinsky.
The New York Post, formerly the mouthpiece of the labor party, says editorially that Mr. Hillman “fronts for the Communists by serving as chairman for their American Labor Party.”
The last candidate of that party for governor, who polled 400,000 votes in 1942, is another violent supporter of my opponent. But it was he who said last spring that he intended “leaving Mr. Hillman and his fellow travelers to stew in their own juice.”
“Political action by coercion is repugnant to our form of government…,” he also said, “Liberals throughout the country should beware of dealing with Mr. Hillman for he no longer comes to them with clean hands. He has set himself up as a new and dangerous type of political boss.”
Just four months after that statement was issued my opponent ordered the Democratic National Chairman to “Clear everything with Sidney.” The prophecy has come true. Sidney Hillman has become the biggest political boss in the United States, and in the words of David Dubinsky, Sidney Hillman is a “front for the Communists.”
In addition to being chairman of the Communist-controlled American Labor Party of New York, Mr. Hillman is also chairman of the Political Action Committee. This is the committee which summarized the degradation of New Deal politics in a pamphlet, two million copies of which were sent out on behalf of Mr. Roosevelt, That pamphlet, put out by Sidney Hillman’s PAC, began with the words: “Politics is the science of how who gets what, and why.”
Under that cynical motto, Mr. Hillman today operates the National Citizens Political Action Committee with his lieutenants who have taken leave of absence from high federal posts. He stalks the country squeezing dollars for the fourth-term campaign out of the working men and women of America, under threat that if they do not give the dollar, they will lose their jobs.
But the working men and women of America are rising in protest all over the nation. Letters have been pouring in to me denouncing this Roosevelt poll tax imposed by Sidney Hillman. As one of them said:
They can force my dollar out of me by threatening to take my job away, but they can’t force my vote because it is secret. I am going to vote Republican to save my own freedom.
It is not just his freedom that man will save when he goes into the secrecy of the voting booth. He and millions like him will exercise their precious right of a secret ballot and save the freedom of the American people.
Now, American liberty means that every man has a right to believe and vote as he will, even to vote Communist. But liberty involves a corresponding duty to defend our country from what we consider evil. I have never hesitated to expose and denounce the cynical alliance of the New Deal and the corrupt big city machines which depend on the most criminal and degraded elements in our big cities. And I do not propose to be silent when the New Deal, through the President’s political lieutenant, Sidney Hillman, strikes up a cynical alliance with Earl Browder’s Communists.
For a long time, it has been the fashion to brush aside the Communists as of little importance because of their small numbers. The Communists themselves have cunningly played upon our respect for the very civil liberties which they themselves hold in such contempt. Yet the fact is that the Communists wield an influence far out of proportion to their numbers.
They are not themselves a political party. They are a fanatical, secret conspiracy of well disciplined, highly trained zealots who work at their purposes every hour of the day. Falsehood, deception and smear propaganda are part of their technique. They are adept at working behind the false front of those they contemptuously describe as “innocents.”
They love to fish in troubled waters. They placed their members at strategic points where they can seize control of large organizations. Millions of Americans have seen this happen time after time. Liberal, intelligent organizations suddenly turn out to be Communist propaganda fronts.
Similarly, millions of workers have seen their union organizations captured by compact minorities who attend all the meetings, vote in a bloc and thereby seize the union machinery, Once in control they cannot be dislodged. It was by just such tactics last spring that the Communists were able to seize possession of the American Labor Party of New York which in 1940 provided the balance of power that carried New York for Mr. Roosevelt.
Now, by the self-same tried and familiar tactics and with the aid of Sidney Hillman, the Communists are seizing control of the New Deal, through which they aim to control the government of the United States. If they should succeed, the fundamental freedoms of every American would stand in gravest jeopardy.
Throughout the ages, man’s greatest struggle is the struggle to be free – free to worship God; to have a family and family life; free to educate his children; to live in economic security in his own home: to be able to have work of his own choosing, and to have a government which is a servant, not a master.
Our nation was founded by men and women who came here to achieve those things. They built their institutions in a deeply religious pattern, and by the Bill of Rights they bound their government to respect freedom of religion and the dignity of the individual. Because of what they did, we call America “The land of the free and the home of the brave.”
But we cannot take our freedom for granted, nor can we afford to stop being brave. There always have been and always will be, those who seek to destroy our freedoms.
Nazism and Fascism are dying in the world. But the totalitarian idea is very much alive and we must not slip to its other form – Communism. All of these concepts are enemies of freedom and we must equally reject all of them. They would make the state supreme, give political power only to those who deny the supremacy of God and use that power to force all men to become cogs in a great materialistic machine.
Under these systems, the individual cannot worship, vote, or think as he would, or conduct his life as his own. Slavish obedience to the will of the state is the first great command and the price of nonconformity is liquidation, either through violence or slow economic strangulation.
Today that pagan philosophy is sweeping through much of the world. As we look abroad, we see that in country after country, its advocates are making a bid for power. We would be fools not to look for that same danger here. We have not far to look. Even Mr. Roosevelt has felt he must say that he does not welcome the support of any person or group committed to Communism. That is as may be. The important facts are, first, that Mr. Roosevelt has so weakened and corrupted the Democratic Party that it is readily subject to capture, and, second, that the forces of Communism are, in fact, now engaged in capturing it.
That danger can be surely met only by ending a situation which leaves vast power in tired hands. The Republican Party is not perfect. But one thing at least is sure: Neither the Communist group which Mr. Roosevelt professes to repudiate nor any other totalitarian group is making an effort to capture the Republican Party. They know how useless it would be.
The Republican Party is young and vigorous. In 26 states, Republican governors are bringing alert, progressive, competent and honest administration to the affairs of two-thirds of the American people. First in local governments, then in the states, the people have turned to our party. Now it is prepared to assume the responsibilities of national government. It is rich in able leaders steeped in the American tradition. It is close to the people. It wants to continue the American way of life and to perpetuate American institutions founded upon the God-given right of individuals to be free.
Millions of Americans are voting Republican this year to save their own party and their country.
Under a Republican administration, there will be no danger that the power of government will slip through tired fingers into hands which would destroy that free America for which our sons are fighting and dying.
I have a letter from an American soldier fighting in the far Pacific. He says:
When we come home there will be flags waving and people will exult in victory and cheer, But the greater effort will only begin then. We here are only securing the bridgehead to freedom. Will our generation forget that fact? If we do, this victory will be only the beginning of defeat for us and our children.
Let us tonight resolve that we will be equal to the duty that we owe that soldier and his comrades. Let us at home seize and hold that bridgehead to freedom. Let us install on January 20 a government which, under God, will dedicate its purpose to the preservation of the individual dignity and freedom of every American.
Führer HQ (November 2, 1944)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
In Holland kämpften unsere Truppen beiderseits der äußeren Westerschelde erbittert um jeden Fußbreit Boden. Im Brückenkopf nordöstlich Brügge leistet die zusammengeschmolzene Besatzung auf schmalem Raum immer noch verbissenen Widerstand. Auf der zum großen Teil überfluteten Insel Walcheren stehen unsere Grenadiere in heftigen Gefechten mit dem Feind, der auch im Westteil der Insel landete. Erneute Versuche der Kanadier, sich von Südbeveland aus den Zugang nach Walcheren zu erzwingen, wurden zerschlagen. An der unteren Maas hat die Kampftätigkeit etwas nachgelassen.
In ihren Brückenkopfstellungen wiesen unsere Divisionen feindliche Panzerangriffe ab. Westlich Breda wurde eine feindliche Kräftegruppe abgeschnitten. Sie geht ihrer Vernichtung entgegen.
Schnellboote torpedierten in der vergangenen Nacht im Seegebiet vor Ostende zwei britische Nachschubdampfer mit zusammen 5.000 BRT. Mit dem Untergang eines dieser Schiffe ist zu rechnen. Durch Vorposten- und Minensuchboote wurden außerdem vor der niederländischen Küste erneut zwei britische Schnellboote versenkt, ein drittes in Brand geschossen und zwei weitere beschädigt. In der Scheldemündung versenkten unsere Sprengboote einen Munitionsdampfer mit 2.000 BRT und zwei weitere feindliche Kriegsfahrzeuge.
Beiderseits Stolbergs brachen Angriffe nordamerikanischer Bataillone in unserem Feuer zusammen.
Östlich Pont-à-Mousson sowie in den Wäldern beiderseits Baccarat entwickelten sich auf breiter Front heftige Kämpfe. Erst nach wechselvollem Ringen und erheblichen Panzerverlusten konnte der Feind einigen Geländegewinn erzielen. Im Wald von Mortagne wurden seine Angriffe zerschlagen.
Aus Mittelitalien wird nur beiderseitige Aufklärungstätigkeit vor allem in den Küstenabschnitten gemeldet.
Die Besatzung von Piscopi westlich Rhodos säuberte die Insel vom Feind. Auf Milos dauern die Kämpfe an.
Nach Landung englischer Truppen und kommunistischer Bandenkräfte an der dalmatinischen Westküste bei Split, Metkovic und Dubrovnik setzten sich unsere Sicherungsverbände auf vorbereitete Bergstellungen im Küstenstreifen ab. Im mittleren Balkan zerschlugen unsere Truppen erneut bulgarische Angriffe östlich des Vardartales und im Raum von Pristina. Die Bulgaren erlitten blutige Verluste. Auch bolschewistische Angriffe im Tal der westlichen Morava blieben ohne Erfolg.
Zwischen Donau und Theiß wurden von beiden Seiten neue Verbände in die wechselvollen, mit steigender Erbitterung geführten Kämpfe geworfen. Schlachtflieger griffen erfolgreich feindliche Panzer- und Bereitstellungen an. Durch deutsche und ungarische Jäger wurden über diesem Kampfabschnitt 17 sowjetische Flugzeuge abgeschossen.
An der mittleren Theiß setzten wir uns auf das Nordufer des Flusses ab, ohne daß der Feind unsere Bewegungen zu stören vermochte. Durch erfolgreiche Gegenangriffe im Raum Ungvár wurde eine Frontlücke geschlossen. Westlich des Duklapasses brachen erneute bolschewistische Angriffe in unserem Abwehrfeuer zusammen.
An der Narewfront haben die unter dem Befehl des Generalobersten Weiß stehenden Verbände im Laufe der letzten Wochen im Zusammenwirken mit fliegenden Verbänden und Flakartillerie der Luftwaffe harte Abwehrschlachten erfolgreich bestanden. Sie vereitelten wiederholte Durchbruchsversuche mehrerer Sowjetarmeen in zähem Ausharren, warfen den eingebrochenen Feind in wuchtigen Gegenangriffen auf seine Ausgangsstellungen zurück und vernichteten dabei 609 bolschewistische Panzer. Truppe und Führung haben damit die großangelegte, von Südosten her gegen Ostpreußen gerichtete Operation der Bolschewisten zunichte gemacht.
Östlich Libau und im Raum Autz scheiterten auch gestern alle feindlichen Durchbruchsversuche am heldenhaften Widerstand unserer Divisionen. Wo der Feind auf schmaler Front einbrechen konnte, wurde er aufgefangen oder in Gegenangriffen wieder geworfen.
An der Ostfront wurden durch Truppen des Heeres im Monat Oktober 4.329, durch Verbände der Luftwaffe weitere 367 feindliche Panzer vernichtet. Außerdem verloren die Sowjets 1.562 Flugzeuge.
Anglo-amerikanische Terrorflieger warfen Bomben auf rheinisches Gebiet, auf Wien und Graz. In der vergangenen Nacht griffen die Briten Städte im Rheinland und die Reichshauptstadt an. Die Anglo-Amerikaner büßten bei diesen Angriffen 16 Flugzeuge, vorwiegend viermotorige Bomber, ein.
Insgesamt wurden im Monat Oktober trotz häufig für die Abwehr ungünstiger Wetterlage durch Jäger und Flakartillerie der Luftwaffe 739 anglo-amerikanische Flugzeuge, darunter 377 viermotorige Bomber, abgeschossen.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (November 2, 1944)
FROM
(A) SHAEF FORWARD
ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section
DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
021100A November
TO FOR ACTION
(1) AGWAR (Pass to WND)
TO (W) FOR INFORMATION (INFO)
(2) FIRST US ARMY GP
(3) ADV HQ 12 ARMY GP
(4) FWD ECH (MAIN) 12 ARMY GP
(5) AEAF
(6) ANCXF
(7) EXFOR MAIN
(8) EXFOR REAR
(9) DEFENSOR, OTTAWA
(10) CANADIAN C/S, OTTAWA
(11) WAR OFFICE
(12) ADMIRALTY
(13) AIR MINISTRY
(14) ETOUSA
(15) SACSEA
(16) CMHQ (Pass to RCAF & RCN)
(17) COM Z APO 871
(18) SHAEF MAIN
(REF NO.)
NONE
(CLASSIFICATION)
IN THE CLEAR
Communiqué No. 208
Allied forces landed yesterday morning on the Walcheren Island and have made good progress. Two beachheads are firmly established. Some miles of the coast and a large part of the town of Flushing are in our hands. At Flushing, an army commando was successfully landed under cover of bombardment from the south shore of the Scheldt Estuary. At Westkapelle, Royal Marines secured a beachhead under cover of long-range bombardment by the HMS WARSPITE, HMS EREBUS and HMS ROBERTS, and close bombardment by a squadron of support craft. Preparing the way for these landings, light bombers during the night of Tuesday-Wednesday attacked enemy gun positions and strong points on Walcheren.
At daylight yesterday, fighter-bombers renewed the attack on gun positions and strong points, and struck at enemy troop movements. While fighters provided cover for our land and sea forces, no enemy opposition was encountered in the air and none of our aircraft is missing from the operations. Heavy fighting continues at the western end of the Beveland-Walcheren Causeway. In the Scheldt Pocket, our troops are fighting in Knokke. Sluis and Westkapelle have been cleared of the enemy. There has been stiff fighting in the area of our crossings over the Mark River. Farther east, we have increased our hold on the south bank of the Meuse River, in the Capelle area. We have made further progress east and southeast of Liesel. Transportation targets in Holland were hit by fighter-bombers.
Objectives in the Ruhr were attacked in the afternoon by heavy bombers escorted by fighters. In the late evening, a strong force of heavy bombers attacked, through clouds, the industrial and railway center of Oberhausen in the Ruhr, and light bombers hit Köln and Berlin. Communications, rail transport and power facilities in the Rhineland and the Saar were the objectives for fighter-bombers. Other formations hit a dam near Dieuze. North of Nancy, our forces have cleared the enemy from Létricourt and Abaucourt. Our units made gains southeast of Lunéville and freed the villages of Buriville, Hablainville and Azerailles. Substantial gains also were made in the wooded country southeast of Rambervillers.
COORDINATED WITH: G-2, G-3 to C/S
THIS MESSAGE MAY BE SENT IN CLEAR BY ANY MEANS
/s/
Precedence
“OP” - AGWAR
“P” - Others
ORIGINATING DIVISION
PRD, Communique Section
NAME AND RANK TYPED. TEL. NO.
D. R. JORDAN, Lt Col FA Ext. 9
AUTHENTICATING SIGNATURE
/s/U.S. Navy Department (November 2, 1944)
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 172
A single enemy PT-boat on the night of October 26 (West Longitude Date) attempted to attack one of our beaches on Peleliu Island in the Southern Palaus where cargo unloading was in process. A torpedo is thought to have been launched but it did no damage. There were a few personnel casualties, however, from enemy machine-gun fire from the vessel. The PT-boat was sunk as it tried to escape northward.
Corsairs of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing bombed and strafed shipping installations and oil storage areas on Koror Island in the Northern Palaus on October 30. A second group of Corsairs hit trucks and barges at Babelthuap Island on the same day.
The airfield at Yap Island was bombed and strafed by Corsairs of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing on October 30.
A single Navy search Liberator bombed targets on Iwo Jima through meager anti-aircraft fire on October 30.
Seventh Air Force Thunderbolts strafed installations and gun positions on Pagan Island on October 31.
Neutralization raids against enemy‑held positions in the Marshall Islands continued on October 30.
The Pittsburgh Press (November 2, 1944)
1st Army opens new drive
Yanks gain two miles in Germany; Allies map up Channel to Antwerp
By J. Edward Murray, United Press staff writer
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