America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

3708

americavotes1944

Dewey charges secret deals by Roosevelt

Says New Deal’s afraid to tell truth

Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey returned to the Executive Mansion here today after his swing through Pennsylvania yesterday and last night during which he again accused the New Deal of selling “special privilege” through the “notorious 1000 Club.”

Mr. Dewey elaborated charges that the New Deal also was “selling something else – something it doesn’t dare put in writing.”

Letter is quoted

Governor Dewey was to spend most of today putting finishing touches on the speech he will deliver tomorrow night at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

KDKA and WJAS will broadcast the address at 10:30 p.m. EWT.

Speaking yesterday in Pennsylvania, Governor Dewey said he had a letter, written on stationery of the Democratic National Committee, which was sent “to a select list in Kansas.” He said the letter ended with the words:

Membership in this group will be a badge of distinction forever. There are other advantages which I can explain when we meet.

‘Special privilege’ hit

Governor Dewey continued:

Mr. Roosevelt’s club offers in writing to give “special privilege” to a select group of men who can afford $1,000 for a campaign contribution. Then it offers something more – something it doesn’t dare put in writing.

We can only guess what it is. Has this special privilege to do with war contracts? Or is it special concessions on income taxes? Or is ‘Mr. Roosevelt’s club peddling special influence with the War Labor Board or the National Labor Relations Board?

One thing I do know. We are not fighting a war for freedom in order to have a government of special privilege by a select few contributors or for the Communists.

Woos Democrats

Speeding northward from Baltimore, where he invited Democrats to vote the Republican ticket next ‘Tuesday as the only hope of saving their party from capture by “a coalition of subversive forces, including New Dealers, members of the Political Action Committee and Communists,” Governor Dewey made station stops at York, Harrisburg and Sunbury.

At Wilkes-Barre, he addressed a crowd estimated at nearly 20,000 and repeated many of his challenges of the Roosevelt administration’s record.

From Wilkes-Barre, Governor Dewey went by motorcade 20 miles to Scranton, passing through several mining towns where the streets were lined with crowds, In the Scranton Armory, Mr. Dewey delivered almost the same speech as at Wilkes-Barre to a crowd estimated at 11,500.

Appeal made to labor

Bidding for labor votes in Wilkes-Barre, an area dominated by the United Mine Workers, Governor Dewey promised, if elected, to “take the hand of government from free collective bargaining.” He said he would merge the 25 government agencies now handling labor matters into one and would choose “a Secretary of labor from the ranks of organized labor.”

He also proposed a revision of the tax system to relieve both low-income individuals and corporations. The goal, he said, should be “higher and higher national income,” “new jobs at high wages,” and “employment for every American.”

Returning to his attack on “secret deals” in international relations, Governor Dewey asserted that the country has never been told fully and completely what agreements President Roosevelt may have made with Premier Joseph Stalin of Russia.

“We don’t know where we’re going,” Governor Dewey said, “and we don’t know where we have been.”

3709

MESA members strike in Detroit

Over 18,000 quit at 23 plants

…

3710

Poll: Millions unable to name vice-presidential nominees

Bricker better known among Dewey backers than Truman is among Roosevelt followers
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

…

3711

americavotes1944

Navy officers sue Teamsters, Tobin

Washington (UP) –
The “Battle of the Statler” was carried into federal court today when the two Navy officers involved in the fracas with Teamsters Union (AFL) officials filed $200,000 libel suits each against the union and Daniel J. Tobin of Indianapolis, its president and editor of the union publication, The International Teamster.

The officers are LtCdr. James H. Suddeth of Washington, and Lt. Randolph Dickins Jr., now in Bradenton, Florida.

The suits charged that an article in The International Teamster falsely accused the Officers of drunkenness, attacks on union members, and using profane language against the President of the United States following Mr. Roosevelt’s Sept. 23 address to the Teamsters. The suits said the latter charge, if true, would subject the officers to court-martial and probable dishonorable discharge from the Navy.

Dewey for Roosevelt; Roosevelt for Dewey

Phoenix, Arizona (UP) –
Gazette columnist Bill Turnbow is certain that Dewey will go for Roosevelt and Roosevelt for Dewey in next week’s presidential election.

Dewey was for Roosevelt in the 1940 election and Roosevelt was for Willkie, Turnbow recalled. Dewey and Roosevelt are Arizona towns. The former was named after Adm. George Dewey and Roosevelt was named for Theodore Roosevelt.

3712

I DARE SAY —
The crisis

By Florence Fisher Parry

…

3713

americavotes1944

Truman raps GOP promises at rally here

Candidate headlines ‘variety’ program
By Kermit McFarland

Headlining a “variety” program offered by the Democrats as the closing rally of the election campaign, U.S. Senator Harry S. Truman, Democratic candidate for Vice President, last night in Syria Mosque charged that the best Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican candidate for President, had to offer is “promises that the Republicans will not destroy what they never would have created.”

Senator Truman asked:

Even if you could rely on the campaign promises of the Republican candidate, why should you? The best that he offers you is a belated acceptance of the great liberal program which we Democrats already had forced through.

Mr. Truman, making his last campaign speech before he goes home to Independence, Missouri, to vote, headed a speaking schedule which included such diverse personalities as the movie notable Orson Welles, former Republican Governor of Pennsylvania Gifford Pinchot, Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt (widow of the son of Teddy Roosevelt) and representatives of the CIO and the AFL.

Draws bobbysoxers

This was the third Syria Mosque rally of the campaign and the Democrats, in point of size, turned out the best audience (After all, they do control the City and County payrolls, and Orson Welles drew a humorous contingent of bobby-sox girls and checker-jacketed lads who stormed the platform for autographs when he finished speaking).

Mr. Truman dug up the Harding, Coolidge and Hoover administrations again, claiming all had “failed to carry out the campaign promises made to obtain their election.”

Phony prosperity

He alleged:

The attention of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover was lavished upon the bankers and Wall Street speculators. A phony prosperity was created for them at the expense of the working man and the farmer. Andrew Mellon and his favored friends made millions.

Senator Truman said the voters Tuesday must determine whether they want “the President and the Democratic administration which carried out those [liberal] reforms over the opposition of the Republicans in Congress to continue them or whether you want to elect the candidate of the Republican Party which so recently became converted to those reforms.”

He charged the Republican “reactionaries” don’t like “some of the things Mr. Dewey is saying,” but “they do not believe he means what he says.”

Charges ‘straddling’

“They have heard him talk out of both sides Of his mouth on foreign policy,” the vice-presidential candidate said, “and they know that he is an expert on straddling.”

To provide jobs after the war, Mr. Truman said:

We must see to it that all the great planta and facilities that were built to win the war are put to work producing peacetime goods to establish a better life for all of us.

Senator Truman inserted in his speech a special reference to U.S. Senator Joseph F. Guffey, who sat on the platform. He said Pennsylvania is “very ably represented” by the Senator from Pittsburgh, by whom he said he has sat in the Senate for nine years and nine months.

Pinchot speaks

Mr. Pinchot, twice governor of the state, charged that if Mr. Dewey’s “friends” had had their way, “America would have been helpless when Germany and Japan did attack us.”

And that is not the worst of it. The President’s opponent not only has the support of the isolationists, but he himself, according to the papers, has actually been backing some of the worst of them and urging their reelection to Congress.

Strange contradiction

Mr. Pinchot said there was a “strange contradiction” between Mr. Dewey’s promises and “some of the men who are trying to get him elected.”

He said:

Dewey promises everything the farmer wants. Yet the men who grow fat off the farmer are in is camp.

He promises everything labor wants. Yet the chief labor baiters of the nation are for him.

He promises to do away with monopolies. Yet the great monopolists are backing him up.

He says he is for little business. But the big business leaders are carrying his banner.

He tells us, although in very limited and guarded words, that he is for cooperation among the nations. Yet the leaders of isolation, and the isolation newspapers, are his supporters and have been from the beginning.

Defends Hillman

Mr. Pinchot belittled the Communist issue raised by the Republicans against Sidney Hillman, chairman of the CIO Political Action Committee.

He said:

In the first place, nobody runs Roosevelt. He paddles his own canoe. And in the second place, Hillman is not now and never was a Communist. Hillman is an old friend of mine and I know he’s not a Communist.

3714

americavotes1944

Monahan: Orson, amateur politico, proves BO (box office)

Drama critic finds actor packs more appeal at rally than in stage realm
By Kaspar Monahan

As a self-confessed amateur politician, actor Orson Welles holds more box-office appeal in the hurly-burly realm of politics than as a practitioner in the sock-and-buskin trade.

That was demonstrated conclusively last evening at Syria Mosque which was jammed from top to bottom with folks who came to see and hear Mars’ most notable, not to say its most indispensable, citizen.

Of course, there were some high-ranking politicians on hand, including Senator Truman, who is running for Vice President on the Democratic ticket. But obviously, last evening it was Orson Welles who was the major drawing card, no matter what the program had to say about top billing, as they used to call it in the old vaudeville days.

In the words of the better drama critics, actor Orson wowed ‘em. He wowed ‘em so completely that even Mr. Dave Lawrence, an old and experienced gladiator of the political arenas, wound up the occasion by refusing to make an oration of his own.

Lawrence foregoes talk

Quoth Mr. Lawrence, slated as last speaker on the program:

It would be an imposition to keep you good folks here after you have listened to that orator of orators, Orson Welles.

The huge assemblage cheered at Mr. Lawrence’s succinct summary of the situation – then the young females on hand made a wild rush for the exits. They wanted to get Orator Orson’s autograph before he vanished from his scene of triumph.

This reporter couldn’t help but contrast this local reception for actor-orator Orson Welles to the one accorded him not many months ago when he made his initial entrance in Jane Eyre, which is a movie.

Then – in shadow – Mr. Welles was wearing a flowing, ebony cloak and he was riding a horse, a real horse. And by his side was a huge dog, the size of a small cow, and the dog was baying and snarling and scaring the daylights out of poor Joan Fontaine, who was playing the title role in this movie.

The audience – comprised solely of Dewey supporters, of course – snickered. Snickered, hell – they howled and guffawed.

Such uncouth conduct did not mar last evening’s triumphant debut of Orson the Orator. This time he did not wear his flowing, ebony cloaks. He had no horse and no wolfhound. Furthermore. he had – for him – a close-clipped haircut. Nothing bizarre about him, except, perhaps his big, bulging tie, tucked beneath his flaring collar points.

He was broad-shouldered, burly, impressive. And his Shakespearean voice boomed valiantly as he flung hefty verbal broadsides at Tom Dewey. Unlike the other major speakers of the evening, Orator Orson, the erstwhile boy wonder, spoke extemporaneously. No notes. He made it up, it seemed, as he went along.

It was a swell performance – his most effective in the opinion of this reporter, who has observed him, not always favorably, in many a movie and stage piece.

Right off he slashed violently at an editorial appearing in this newspaper the other day – an editorial which implied that, maybe, it would be better if Hollywood’s beautiful people would stay in Hollywood and just go on making endless variations of boy-meets-girl fables, instead of traipsing about the nation making campaign talks.

The slumberous eyes of Orator Orson blazed. One big hand shot out over the rostrum. And he tossed into this political rally a classic bombshell by bringing up the name of Pericles (At this point the party’s big shots on the stage stirred uneasily – for up to now Pericles’ name has not been made an issue in this campaign, and some wondered which side he was on).

“It reminds me,” boomed Orator Orson, “of Pericles speaking over the Athenian dead.” Now I don’t know Greek but he said something like this: “We hold those men who do not meddle in affairs of state as worse than nothing.”

Welles explains

That meant, as Mr. Welles was quick to elucidate, that plumbers, dentists, boilermakers and even movie actors had a right to get up on their hind legs and take sides in a political campaign.

There were cheers from the packed audience – more than 4,000 inside and a couple thousand outside. Pericles knows his onions – and no fooling.

“I suggest” (still quoting Orson) “the Republican Party doesn’t exist.” Then he swiftly sketched highlights of the 1940 campaign, commenting on “the men who scuttled the Republican Party in 1940,” and everybody looked sad and shook their heads over his skullduggery of four years ago.

His resonant powerful voice lit into the GOP claims of Communist infiltration into the Democratic Party, the alleged Hillman-Browner alliance, saying “Why, Hillman and Browder have never met each other.” And he said, “Isolationism isn’t dead – it haunts the speeches of Dewey and Bricker,” and he drew a parallel between Lincoln and Roosevelt, and bitterly blasted the “professional wreckers of peace.”

He would up for a stirring “curtain line” by calling not only for a Democratic victory but for a “Roosevelt landslide,” urging everyone to sit up with their friends who insist on voting for Governor Dewey. “They are sick,” he said. “Do something for them.”

3715

americavotes1944

Truman ‘stumps’ to help friend’s bid for Congress

Vice-presidential candidate makes 4-hour tour of Fayette County with Snyder
By Robert Taylor, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Uniontown, Pennsylvania –
U.S. Senator Harry S. Truman, Democratic candidate for Vice President, included a four-hour trip through Fayette County in his Western Pennsylvania campaign tour yesterday to help a friend, Democratic Rep. J. Buell Snyder, in his campaign for reelection.

Mr. Truman praised the Fayette County Congressman in a speech yesterday afternoon at the Courthouse here in which he urged an audience of 1,000 not to “place an inexperienced man in office today.”

Earlier, Mr. Truman’s official party, escorted by a squad of Pittsburgh motorcycle policemen and a delegation of Allegheny County officials, had called at Rep. Snyder’s home at Perryopolis. The Congressman introduced Mr. Truman later to the Uniontown audience.

Speaks in McKeesport

Still earlier, the Missouri Senator told a McKeesport gathering that three members of Congress present – himself and Reps. Thomas E. Scanlon and Samuel A. Weiss – were not isolationists, and denounced the voting record of U.S. Senator James J. Davis, Republican candidate for reelection, against Democratic Rep. Francis J. Myers.

He said at a luncheon at the Penn-McKee Hotel:

You’ve got an isolationist running right here in Pennsylvania and I hope you won’t have another isolationist Senator after this election.

If the Republicans were to get control of the Senate, which won’t happen, Jim Davis would be chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs. After the last war, the Republicans sank our Navy and Jim Davis was a member of the administration that sank it.

Raps GOP votes

Calling attention again to Republican votes against Selective extension and other pre-war measures, Mr. Truman told his audience: “If we had gone the way they wanted, we’d have been slaughtered by now.”

In little more than an hour, Mr. Truman yesterday spoke before audiences totaling some 9,000 persons in the Turtle Creek Valley – 5,000 in East Pittsburgh, 2,000 in Braddock and 2,000 in Wilmerding, at rallies at mill gates and a street corner location.

Thousands of persons lined streets in the industrial suburbs through which the campaign party passed, and the welcome Mr. Truman got was pronounced the best of his campaign trip.

Seeks seventh term

In Republican Uniontown, however, the crowd was smaller and less responsive, although Fayette County, with its large miner population, is counted on to produce a sizeable majority for the Roosevelt-Truman ticket.

Rep. Snyder, beneficiary of the side-trip by the vice-presidential candidate, is chairman of the subcommittee on War Department appropriations of the House Appropriations Committee, and is seeking his seventh term in Congress.

Last time he ran, Mr. Snyder narrowly escaped defeat in the light vote of 1942, winning by only 1,466 votes out of 65,494 over Carl H. Hoffman, Somerset businessman.

Mr. Hoffman is again the Republican candidate for Congress this year, and the 1943 Congressional reapportionment may better his chances of winning.

In 1942, the district consisted of Republican Somerset County and Democratic Fayette and Greene Counties. This year, Greene County, with its certain Democratic majority, is transferred to the old Washington-Greene district and the 23rd district now consists only of Somerset, certain to go Republican, and Fayette Counties.

3716

Jap bullet hits near MacArthur

…

3717

americavotes1944

State is safe, Martin tells Governor Dewey

GOP to win at least 50 counties, he says

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey headed homeward today from his third campaign swing into Pennsylvania carrying the personal pledge of Governor Edward Martin that the state’s 35 electoral votes will be “overwhelmingly” his in next Tuesday’s presidential election.

“Pennsylvania will be overwhelmingly Republican on Nov. 7,” Governor Martin said as he introduced Governor Dewey last night to GOP rallies at Wilkes-Barre and Scranton.

Confidence expressed

Governor Martin predicted that the 107,000 votes by which President Roosevelt carried Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) in 1940 would be cut to “less than 20,000.”

He said he expected to be able to talk more intelligently about Philadelphia after he visits there with Governor John W. Bricker, the GOP vice-presidential candidate, tonight, but predicted that “Philadelphia couldn’t possibly go bad enough for Roosevelt to carry Pennsylvania.”

He said it was mathematically possible for the soldier vote, which he expects to reach 300,000, to swing the state but he didn’t think the result would hang in the air until the absentee service ballots are counted Nov. 22.

Expects to win 50 counties

The Governor told a press conference that Mr. Dewey would carry “at least 50” of the state’s 67 counties.

It was at Governor Martin’s urging, in recognition of the possible close race for Pennsylvania’s 35 electoral votes, that Governor Dewey swung back into Pennsylvania for the third time. Governor Dewey had opened his campaign at Philadelphia on Sept. 7 and spoke again at Pittsburgh on Oct. 20.

3718

americavotes1944

Miners, wives line tracks, all curious about Dewey

By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Albany, New York –
For a hundred miles along the railroad tracks in Pennsylvania as Governor Dewey’s presidential campaign train rode through the hard coal country yesterday and into Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, the people stood in little groups of twos and threes and fours.

They were working men and their families, farmers and miners and small townsmen; men in overalls and rough jackets and caps, their women in house dresses and aprons, children in sweaters that knew much wear.

Most of them had never seen a President or a presidential candidate. Washington was a place in the headlines and for many, even in a modern way, the world ended beyond the second range of hills.

But the train was a symbol to them. It was a piece of their America and so they stopped a moment to watch.

Curious about Dewey

Some of these men stood quiet, hands in pockets. For years a large section of them, men whose dollars came by hard work, had counted Franklin Roosevelt their friend. Many still do. About Mr. Dewey they were curious.

In the towns, there were big crowds and generally they were good natured and friendly, yet in this hard coal country there was more booing and more cries of “We Want Roosevelt” than had been heard anywhere else in the campaign.

Makes many talks

It was hard, tough campaigning, six meetings in a day that did not end until nearly midnight. Most of the time heretofore the Republican candidate had done little back platform speaking, but, fighting now for Pennsylvania’s 35 electoral votes, he came out repeatedly to address thousands gathered around his train.

At York, Harrisburg, Sunbury, Wilkes-Barre and Scranton there were big crowds, and repeatedly Mr. Dewey lambasted the New Deal. He talked about the “1000 Club” which he said represented a sale of power and influence by the Democrats, of the Hillmans and the Browders who would be the real victors if President Roosevelt is reelected, of the President’s conflicts with Congress.

But always he came back to the jobs-and-employment theme, the one which, probably more than the others, interested these thousands of workers and their families.

3719

americavotes1944

If ‘Teddy’ did with Ickes’ aid, can Franklin?

Washington (UP) –
The White House today displayed evidence that Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party had something like a $1000 Club in 1912.

With a reference to “the pot calling the kettle black,” White House Secretary Stephen T. Early showed reporters a certificate of Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes’ honorary membership in Bull Moose “Founders’ Association.”

It was a green bond-like certificate with a large “$1000” engraved in each top corner against a dollar sign.

This year, the Democrats have a $1000 Club composed of persons who contribute that sum to the fourth-term campaign.

President Roosevelt told his press conference Tuesday that he had mentioned the idea to some people last summer after they had laughed at his suggestion first for a $100,000 Club and then for a $10,000 Club.

3720

Mine workers rebuff Lewis, remain idle

800 at Frick Coke Company continue strike

…

3721

americavotes1944

‘Dewey Smear’ charged by Ickes

New York (UP) –
Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes last night charged that Governor Thomas E. Dewey was waging a campaign which has been a “sly but deliberate effort” to capitalize on anti-labor and anti-Semitic sentiment in the United States.

Mr. Ickes asserted that the “Dewey Smear” was “in the Republican tradition” and was the method used to defeat the late Al Smith for President in 1928.

Secretary Ickes said:

Governor Smith happened to be a Catholic. It was in that same year and on that issue that I left the Republican Party never to return. A Protestant myself. I resented the injection into a political campaign of a religious issue.

Speaking at a Madison Square Garden rally sponsored by “Everybody for Roosevelt,” the secretary said Mr. Dewey and his followers have reiterated that CIO Political Action Committee Chairman Sidney Hillman was “Russian-born or Lithuanian-born” and have referred to his “rabbinical training.”

Anti-Roosevelt talk booed off air

Houston, Texas (UP) –
Senator W. Lee O’Daniel (D-TX) was booed off the air last night in an anti-Roosevelt speech at the Houston City Auditorium.

Mr. O’Daniel, speaking over a Texas chain of stations, was interrupted throughout the speech by boos, catcalls and hisses from the audience.

Toward the end of his address, Mr. O’Daniel was forced to surrender the microphone to John H. Crooker, a leader and spokesman for the Texas Regular (anti-Roosevelt) Democrats.

Mr. Crooker shouted:

I am ashamed of the people of Harris County [Houston] for this disgraceful conduct. This is the most disgraceful scene I’ve ever seen in my life. This gang of ruffians came here to break up this meeting.

You can guess for yourself who sent them, but the right of free speech shall prevail.

Senator O’Daniel said he was not campaigning for the Dewey-Bricker ticket. He was on the last lap of a Texas-wide anti-Roosevelt tour.

3722

americavotes1944

How world feels –
Roosevelt’s backing laid to Lend-Lease

Foreign nations hear little of Dewey
By Jay G. Hayden, North American Newspaper Alliance

Washington –
Judging by the foreign newspaper coverage of the American presidential campaign, folks abroad are due for a great shock if on next Wednesday they should receive the news that Governor Thomas E. Dewey has been elected.

The point of the matter is that foreign correspondents in the United States are giving more attention to American politics than ever before, but with a distinctly one-sided slant.

Among the newspapermen accompanying President Roosevelt to New York and Chicago were representatives of Reuters, TASS and the Chinese Central News Service, the government-controlled or subsidized press services respectively of Great Britain, Russia and China.

Dewey almost ignored

Correspondents of several individual British newspapers toured New York and Philadelphia with the President and at least one of them rose the presidential train to Chicago.

No comparable attention has been paid to Mr. Dewey; in fact, his speeches have been reported abroad scarcely at all. One London correspondent relates that he sent a 500-word condensation of Mr. Dewey’s New York foreign policy speech, only to draw a reprimand from his editor for reckless waste of telegraph tolls.

In contrast, several foreign correspondents following Mr. Roosevelt on his New York and Philadelphia tours were sending spot bulletins on how he was received by the crowds.

‘Crazy about Roosevelt’

Explaining the attitude of his editors, one of these correspondents said:

They don’t care what Dewey Says because they don’t think he’s going to be elected, but they’re crazy about Roosevelt. We can’t send enough about him.

This foreign interest in Mr. Roosevelt’s political fortunes is not difficult to fathom.

First and foremost, of course, is the fact that he spurned neutrality, and began helping Britain and France as much as he could from the very start. And when Russia was attacked by Germany, he immediately announced that the same aid would be extended to Russia as to other members of the anti-Axis alliance.

Shipments listed

But there is another matter that presently may be even more in the minds of our foreign friends.

According to the latest report, as of June 30, 1944, goods valued at $21,534,870,000 had been dispensed by the United States under Lend-Lease.

Great Britain received $9,321,549,000; Russia, $5,931,944,000; China and India, §1,402,426,000; Australia and New Zealand, $1,011,885,000; Africa and the Middle East, $3,070,229,000. The rest is scattered among a score of other nations, including those of South America.

Now the time is approaching when the Lend-Lease accounts must be cast up and the final settlement made, and the foreigners are concerned to whom they will be required to settle with. They remember that Republicans led in urging payment of debts after the last war.

3723

americavotes1944

Perkins: UMW anthracite leader throws support to Dewey

By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania –
What Jonn Kmetz has to say is important when you’re trying to learn how this section of the coal country is going to vote next Tuesday.

Although there are some new manufacturing industries here coal mining is still the predominant way of the great mass of wage-earners in this district to make a living.

And John Kmetz is the International representative of the councils of the United Mine Workers from one of the anthracite districts, and he is also president of the United Mine Workers District 50 – its catchall department.

Longtime miner

Mr. Kmetz is a big and personable man who was born in Czechoslovakia and was brought to this country as a child. He went to work as a mine breaker boy when he was seven, went into underground work at 11, and spent 20 years at it until he became an aboveground official of the miners’ union. Mr. Kmetz got his education by night work.

He was chairman in 1936 of the Newer Nationalities Committee which had a part in producing a pro-Roosevelt gathering estimated at more than 100,000 persons. Mr. Roosevelt addressed the throng, under the sponsoring of John L. Lewis.

Works for Dewey now

But now, says Mr. Kmetz:

I ask all my friends – Poles, Italians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Slovaks – to vote for Thomas E. Dewey. The New Deal is favoring our union opponents.

How many of his friends Mr. Kmetz may take with him into the Dewey camp is, of course, problematical.

Thomas Kennedy, International secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers, and thus a sidekick of John L. Lewis, has been silent in this campaign. His office at nearby Hazleton said today he contemplated making no statement. Mr. Kennedy is a former Democratic lieutenant governor of this state.

Mr. Kennedy, although closely connected with Mr. Lewis in administration of the United Mine Workers, did not appear in last night’s Dewey meetings in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton.

3724

americavotes1944

How to figure wage schedule on Election Day

Washington (UP) –
From today’s crop of Labor Department press releases:

Election Day next Tuesday may not be counted as a day worked for the purpose of computing double-time payments for employees who have the whole day off unless it is observed as a holiday in lieu of Memorial Day, May 30, 1945.

It’s all in connection with interpreting Executive Order 9240 and deciding what does and what does not violate the economic stabilization policy. For the benefit of the uninitiated, Executive Order 9240 provides that under the Wage-Hour Law, double time shall be paid for the seventh consecutive day worked in a week.

So if you have all day off next Tuesday, but work the six other days, you’ll be paid double time for the sixth day – but only if Tuesday is counted as a holiday and next Memorial Day isn’t.

3725

americavotes1944

Bricker wants government out of business

Says Roosevelt has dodged this question

Wilmington, Delaware (UP) –
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker brought his campaign into Delaware today after accusing President Roosevelt of silence on what he termed “the big question” of the day. “When is Washington going to get out of business?”

The GOP vice-presidential nominee came here with Senator C. Douglass Buck (R-DE); Governor Walter W. Bacon and Rep. Earle D. Wiley (R-DE) to address a rally at Rodney Square.

Governor Bricker accused the New Deal today of resorting to “devices of sordid desperation” in its efforts to “perpetuate” itself in power for 16 years.

He again read the letter which he said Albert A. Horstman, Ohio Democratic National Committeeman, addressed to civil service employees in his state asking for financial support of the Democratic campaign.

Charges corruption

It is not enough, Bricker said, for “Sidney Hillman and his Political Action Committee” to “take over” the New Deal. It is not enough, he added, for Mr. Hillman to form an “alliance with Earl Browder and the Communists” to “to make up for the dwindling support of the New Deal.”

He said:

Now, on top of all these reprehensible practices, the New Deal is resorting to downright political corruption of the most obvious sort in order to get votes.

There you have it, the New Deal expects not only to receive but demands, in cold and brazen terms, financial tribute for its favors. No administration ever stooped lower in American history.

The candidate’s party left for Philadelphia and a series of conferences. A major speech will be made in the Metropolitan Opera House at 9:00 p.m. EWT. Between his afternoon conferences and his night speech, he will cross the Delaware River to speak in the Walt Whitman Hotel at Camden, New Jersey, at 8:00 p.m.

Attacks Roosevelt

Governor Bricker’s attack on Mr. Roosevelt for failing to say when the government would release business to private industry was made last night in Paterson, New Jersey.

Governor Bricker said in his broadcast speech:

Today, the vast network of government-owned war plant constitutes the nucleus of state socialism. The big question is: When is Washington going to get out of business after the war? Mr. Roosevelt said nothing about that in Chicago.

The President, he added, was “simply employing a familiar campaign device” through his “expression of goodwill toward business.”

Governor Bricker quoted Mr. Roosevelt as saying at Chicago that he saw “an expansion of our peacetime productive capacity,” and recalled that in 1932, the President had said that “our industrial plant is built… our last frontier has long since been reached…”

Admission of wrong

The Republican candidate said:

His present statement is at best an admission that the New Deal economic policies during these last 12 years have been dead wrong.

Governor Bricker termed “news” Mr. Roosevelt’s Saturday statement that his administration “had been mindful from its earliest days… of the problems of small business.”

He said:

The truth is that for 12 years, small business has been stunted in growth by arbitrary and restrictive New Deal policies.

The Republican Party under Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Mr. Bricker said, “presents a practical and constructive program to strengthen business and provide jobs.”

UAW head speaks –
Bricker called ‘new Harding’

Thomas says GOP lacks ‘progress’

Jersey City, New Jersey (UP) –
R. J. Thomas, president of the United Auto Workers (CIO), asserted last night that the Republican Party has attacked the CIO Political Action Committee because “they have no forces of their own which stand for progress and courageous action.”

Speaking at the Hudson County PAC meeting, he said Governor John W. Bricker, whom he characterized as “the new Harding of the Old Guard,” had left a trail “of smears and lies” in his campaign tour of the West.

Communist claim cited

Mr. Thomas charged that Mr. Bricker had based a claim of Communist domination of the Democratic Party on the fact that PAC Chairman Sidney Hillman was born in Lithuania, then a part of Russia.

He added:

Therefore, according to Bricker logic, Sidney Hillman is a Communist. Therefore, President Roosevelt, because Sidney Hillman supports him, is also a Communist.

Mr. Thomas recalled that Mr. Bricker told a Detroit audience that Mr. Hillman, who came to the United States in 1907, went to Moscow and talked with Lenin at the Kremlin.

Interview cited

Mr. Thomas continued:

Well, publisher Roy Howard of the miserable Scripps-Howard newspapers also went to Moscow and talked with Stalin at the Kremlin.

Roy Howard published his interview with Stalin in all the Scripps-Howard papers on their front pages. Therefore, Governor Bricker, Roy Howard must be a Communist. He must be planning to overturn the U.S. government. He is supporting you, Governor Bricker, and your running mate, Governor Dewey, and therefore you, Governor Bricker, and your running mate, Governor Dewey, must be Communists.

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U.S. fliers bag destroyer off coast of China

Jap transport hit by Chennault’s planes

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British in Italy reach airfield

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