Millett: G.I. Joe will like quiet
Don’t annoy him with conversation
By Ruth Millett
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Editorial: United we stand
Today we vote as partisans, but we do not cease to be Americans, We shall prove that, when the verdict of the polls is in, by laying politics aside and joining hands to support the chosen President.
People in other countries are said to be amazed that we in the United States have dared, at a crucial moment in history’s greatest war, to argue our differences of opinion publicly and hotly and even bitterly in an election campaign “as usual.” They think it displayed a lack of unity which we might wisely have concealed.
Such people do not know the secret of our strength. They fail to understand that we preserve our unity because we do argue publicly about our differences and because, at stated intervals, we settle our arguments by casting our ballots and accepting the results. If we had feared to hold an election at this time, that would indeed have been a sign of division, deep and dangerous.
In this campaign, as in many, many others, things have been said on both sides that might better have been left unsaid. But a reading of history would show that more bitter campaigns than this one have come and gone and left no lasting scars. And none has revealed a more fundamental agreement on main objectives – to win the war quickly, to make America’s influence count decisively for enduring peace, to achieve sound prosperity and abundant employment within the framework of the private-enterprise system.
Those were the things pledged by both presidential candidates, for the compelling reason that those are the things most desired by a vast majority of the American people, Democrats and Republicans and independents alike. Our arguments have been about methods and men, not about goals.
The next President, whether his name be Dewey or Roosevelt, will need the support of a united nation. He will have it. The nation will need the leadership of a President whose aim is to preserve unity. May it have that!
As we await the returns tonight, let us resolve not to gloat in victory, not to sulk in defeat, not to cherish partisanship and forget sportsmanship. We have mighty tasks ahead of us. We must tackle them together.
Editorial: You can always turn it off
Not so many years ago, a citizen could take his politics or leave it alone. He didn’t have to listen to campaign speeches unless he wanted to.
Then, the radio revised campaign methods in 1928 and now you can’t escape hearing the candidates.
But there’s more to come – in the post-war world. Senator Wagner, last Sunday night, was the first candidate for major office to be televised right into the homes of voters. Wonder what the campaign of 1948 will be like?
Ferguson: Political campaign
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
As this is written the election is in doubt. Although many people are saying so, this campaign has been no meaner than many others we’ve staged. Between campaigns, we forget old rancors.
The reason we can forget the wounds of political campaigns is because we are essential a fair-minded people. Even when contests are hottest, neighbors and friends on opposing sides can laugh together over their differences.
Editorial and platform accusations sometimes sound vicious, but that’s a part of the game too, and those who are engaged in the fight know it. In Washington, Democrats and Republicans fraternize in private even while the public is led to believe them mortal enemies. Those skilled in political techniques use every device to win, but a good deal of their alarmist talk is pure bosh and nobody knows it better than they do.
Whatever the election outcome, the country faces a crucial period. It will take the best efforts of all good Americans to pull us through. We could therefore utilize the day to examine our own hearts and ask ourselves seriously why mankind has not been able to outlaw war.
We know the answer, too. Peace is not built on hates. It does not spring from greed. It is the result of human behavior. And a good many humans must change their behavior in order to achieve it. Maybe that means you and me, as well as our leaders.
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Simms: Security plans depend on Russian stand
Exclusiveness gives rise to anxiety
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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Bricker casts vote
Columbus, Ohio –
Governor John W. Bricker, Republican vice-presidential nominee, today voted the Republican ticket “all the way down the line.”
G.I. ‘affirmative’ wins debate –
Verona brothers on patrol ‘reason’ Nazis out of pillbox
Argument in no-man’s-land results in 18 Germans deciding to save their skins
By William H. Stoneman
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Yank goes AWOL to get in fight
Wounded sergeant tires of red tape
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Texan for Dewey
Houston, Texas –
John H. Crooker, Texas elector, declared here today that he will cast his electoral vote for Governor Thomas E. Dewey and Governor John W. Bricker “if that’s the best way to defeat the Roosevelt-Truman ticket,” and indicated other electors of the anti-Roosevelt party will do likewise.
Monahan: Robeson and Ferre excel in Othello
Uta Hagen appealing in stirring revival of classic at the Nixon
By Kaspar Monahan
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Supply – Lifeblood of victory
Negro troops given credit for ‘miracle of supply’
By Marshall McNeil, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Fourth son dies in service after family asks release
General informs Utah family personally; fifth recently discharged by Marine Corps
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Stokes: Turn of affairs
By Thomas L. Stokes
Washington –
One very significant fact emerged from the 1944 presidential campaign as to the future function and objective of our government.
This is that laissez-faire, though long dead, was finally buried formally for all time, both as affects our place as a nation among other nations, and as affects the role of our government in the life of its people.
Both parties, through their platforms and candidates, agreed that no longer can there be any hit-or-miss, any happy-go-lucky attitude, any return to the principles of what are fondly called “The Good Old Days,” in the conduct of our affairs with other nations, or our own affairs within our country.
There will, of course, be dissenting voices in Congress, and perhaps bitter fights in Congress over the method of our cooperation with other nations and the method of adjusting our national economy. But it will be a battle over a plan, and not a battle as to whether there should be a plan.
The principle of national planning, of supervision from Washington of the delicate mechanism of our national economy, has been established and accepted finally, just as has the necessity of planning our relations with other nations of the world.
Significant turn
This is a simple fact, long recognized in many quarters, though hotly disputed in some others during this campaign. It is worth noting, for it represents a significant turn in national affairs that perhaps will assume more importance in the history books than it does now when seen as closely.
President Roosevelt and Governor Dewey stood together on the creation of a post-war world organization. Primarily such an organization is to keep the peace. But in that objective, it must plan in other directions – to do away with trade barriers, to open up access for all nations to raw materials, to check international monopolies, to protect minority groups, and the like, It is from these sources of irritation that wars spring.
The United States has taken the lead in the past in all these areas and is prepared, from its experience, to furnish leadership now.
Earlier in his campaign, before the fur began to fly, Governor Dewey expressed a philosophy of broad national government participation im meeting economic and social problems. Even before that, in his St. Louis conference with Republican governors, Governor Dewey supervised the drafting of a program which called for broad use of federal powers, in cooperation with the states, to promote the social and economic welfare of the people.
OK’d New Deal reforms
In his campaign along the Pacific Coast, he accepted the various domestic reforms of the New Deal, speaking as the leader of his party. At the same time, he espoused government intervention to keep the economic structure in balance, to provide jobs when private industry could not, to support prices of farm crops against collapse, and so on. He pronounced the end of the “Dog-Eat-Dog” philosophy.
At Los Angeles, he went a step further and advocated extension of social security to cover 20 million persons not now included, and additional assistance to veterans in getting jobs and being rehabilitated.
Simultaneously with advocacy of a broad participation of the national government in the lives of the people, Republicans made quite an attack on “bureaucracy” which raised an inconsistency often pointed out. The reforms of the New Deal require lots of personnel to administer, though not near as much perhaps as the government now employs.
Extension of Social Security undoubtedly would add some more.
What this all adds up to is that if people are to be given this sort of government, as both parties are agreed, then it will require continually large personnel to administer it. There is no way around it, even though politicians in the heat of a campaign don’t say so while making their promises.
But there is a “bureaucracy” issue in the top-heavy, inefficient structure, with its duplication of agencies and its waste, and Republicans performed a service in pointing this out. President Roosevelt recognized this vulnerability early in the campaign when he issued orders for a survey to prepare for liquidation of war agency personnel.
But more than a survey will be needed to cut the government structure down to size.