The Pittsburgh Press (November 17, 1944)
U.S. 1st Army drives close to Duren, biggest barrier to Cologne
By J. Edward Murray, United Press staff writer
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Silence of Hitler saps morale in Reich
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By Henry T. Gorrell, United Press staff writer
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By William H. Stoneman
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By Gracie Allen
I see by the paper that pre-war girdles are back… and not a moment too soon either. The wonderful hospitality and food we enjoyed in Boston are expanding George right out of his old one.
Our radio sponsors gave us a real old-fashioned Irish shindig. Sure, ‘twas a bit of the Ould Sod with the beautiful songs and blarney bringing tears to the eyes of the good Boston folks. As usual, George’s singing was the hit of the party. That man does a song convincingly. All the Irish agreed that when George sang “My Wild Irish Rose” they could actually smell it.
Now George and I are moving on to sell more war bonds. They tell us to expect rain, sleet and fog on this trip. Pity us poor Californians – we came east for a change.
By Florence Fisher Parry
How much would you take for the life of your son – or your husband, if you were a bride? A million dollars? Five million? 10 million? You wouldn’t accept it. His life beyond the riches of the world.
The United States Army knows this. At the very moment when it has to send hundreds, thousands of your boys and mine to almost certain death, because it knows they are expendable, because it knows that in order to win its objective – at this very moment, the cause they are fighting for and dying for, the cause of freedom, is being treated shabbily at home.
Now ask any American what he thinks freedom is. He will give you different answers, but answers all to be found in our Declaration of Independence, in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. And among those answers, freedom of speech looms large.
Americans pride themselves upon their freedom of speech. Even now, as the sound and fury of the presidential campaign subside, the disappointment of millions gives place to good sportsmanship and a really sincere attempt at internal peace. We are displaying to our Allies a wonderful example of what we really mean by freedom of speech.
What better proof, we brag, than that in the midst of war we can conduct a heated political campaign and return instantly when it is over to one united front.
Boycott
So what happens? Mr. Craig Sheaffer, president of the Sheaffer Pen Company, sponsor of Upton Close on the radio, has been told by the National Broadcasting Company that his company will be denied any further time on its network if he continues to engage as radio commentator, Upton Close.
Yes, my readers, this has happened to a company which has received the Navy “E” for its wonderful production in supplying the men in the Army and Navy with an indispensable gadget. Now it is denied radio advertising on a major network.
Who is this Upton Close? He is not a mountebank or a demagogue. He does not offend the sensibilities of his listeners by vulgarity or trash. He is a recognized scholar; he is a widely traveled observer at home and abroad. He is an American sprung from Americans who have been Americans for many generations. He has drawn a wide and highly intelligent audience; he has been recognized as one of the most highly qualified commentators on the air. His talks have been frank, factual and fearless.
Why, then, this boycott from a major broadcasting company, whose sacred obligation must be protection and maintenance of free speech in America? If we are not to have a free radio, can we long hope to have a free press? If minority opinion is not given as full expression as that of the majority which now rules what, pray, is to become of this Republic and the democratic principles which it is supposed to embody?
New era
This is the first time, I believe, that free speech has been threatened by any such act of a broadcasting company. There have been many instances of timid sponsors not permitting their employed commentators to express opinions which might antagonize potential purchasers of the commodity sponsored. But this was merely business discretion, and in no way imperiled free speech in abstract.
Here is something very different. It is a threat to every free institution in our land. All oppressive measures had a first time. This first time has finally come to radio, the greatest medium of expression human communication has ever known!
It exerts the greatest of all powers in forming opinions in the world today. It reaches into every outpost. Its listeners are legion. It has been the most potent instrument of this war. Without it, Hitler could not have destroyed half the world and plunged the rest into such chaos as will take a hundred years to bring to decent order.
It may not seem important to us today, busy on the little treadmills of our special squirrel cages, that one mere radio commentator, by name of Upton Close, has been the means of his sponsor’s being denied time on the radio. Yet I say that this action on the part of the National Broadcasting Company marks the start of a new era in the history of this Republic.
Recently set record for Senate service
Ellison D. Smith
Lynchburg, South Carolina (UP) –
Senator Ellison DuRant “Cotton Ed” Smith, tobacco-chewing New Deal-hating conservative Democrat from the Old South, died today at his Tanglewood Plantation home, less than four months after he had set an all-time record for continuous Senate service.
Mr. Smith had served 35 years and eight months in the Senate. But the voters called an end to his political career this year and he would have left the Senate Jan. 3.
Dies of heart attack
The aged Senator died of a heart attack. He visited his family doctor two days ago, according to his son, Farley, and had been pronounced “in good physical condition.”
Mr. Smith arose as usual this morning and appeared cheerful. Death came about 10 o’clock in his bedroom.
Mr. Smith celebrated his 80th birthday anniversary Aug. 1, a month after he was defeated for renomination in the South Carolina primary by Senator-elect Olin D. Johnston.
Known as ‘Cotton Ed’
Known throughout the country as “Cotton Ed,” Mr. Smith’s death ended one of the most colorful political careers of his generation. He fought for the principles he upheld, often screaming his Congressional speeches on his favorite issues: White supremacy, state’s rights and “King Cotton.”
By contrast, death came to him quietly. None of his family was at the bedside, although his wife, son and daughter-in-law were in the house.
Funeral services will be held Sunday at the plantation house where Mr. Smith had lived since childhood, in an atmosphere of the Old South which he chose never to forget himself or to allow his colleagues in the Senate to forget.
Wanted ‘normalcy’
Mr. Smith’s son said his father a few days before his death expressed the hope that one day the “nation would return to normalcy” and that South Carolina and the South in general would “become more conservative.”
That was the final political utterance from the South Carolinian who through nearly 40 years of public life blasted repeatedly at bureaucracy and roared at what he believed was the steady, encroachment of the federal government on the rights of states.
Mr. Smith was a bristling, bombastic man – a legendary figure who wore a huge handlebar mustache, wavy sandy hair and whose mischievous dynamic eyes could change in a nonce from kindliness to flashing coals when he became angry or excited – which was frequent.
Shunned ‘machines’
A man who never depended on a political machine to gain office, Mr. Smith relied instead on his gift for drama, oratory and innate genius to hold his political career intact.
He usually managed to keep some cotton investigation boiling and most of his bills were to promote the welfare of the southern farmer.
The nickname “Cotton Ed” was affixed to him, so the story goes, in the summer of 1908 when he was campaigning in a small Southern town. He reportedly rode down the main drag in a springboard pulled by a span of mules. Atop the wagon was a big bale of cotton and in his lapel, he wore a cotton boll.
‘My sweetheart*
As he drew near the crowd of villagers, he rose with native Southern dignity, it was said, and, stroking the cotton boll in his lapel, said:
My sweetheart, my sweetheart, others may forget you. But you will always be my sweetheart.
Elected to the Senate in 1908, Mr. Smith became in time one of the country’s best-known lawmakers on six counts:
His frequent oratorical flights on behalf of Southern womanhood which he esteemed.
His almost equally passionate championship of cotton, which he espoused on all possible occasions.
His thoroughgoing dislike of the New Deal, which he once called “this contemptible thing.”
His flair for colorful language and, when the occasion seemed to warrant, ripe and rich profanity.
His zealous belief in white supremacy, which once caused him to walk out on the 1936 Democratic National Convention because the prayer was offered by a Negro minister.
His love and constant use of chewing tobacco. He always had a “wad” in his cheek, and didn’t mind when it stained his walrus mustache.
Interested in farming
Mr. Smith was sincerely and devotedly interested in the welfare of agriculture. As chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee for 14 years, he toiled unceasingly for legislation which he thought would help farmers.
He fostered measures for soil conservation during the Wilson administration and helped to set up the present system of federal aid for agricultural extension work. He also sponsored legislation for regulation of cotton exchanges. But he didn’t like many of the New Deal’s ideas on aid to farmers.
Mr. Smith was born Aug. 1, 1864, on a 3,000-acre plantation, the son of a Methodist minister. He grew up in the Reconstruction period after the Civil War and learned to hate Carpetbaggers and everything he associated with them.
Elected to legislature
After graduation from Wofford College, he entered politics in 1896 and was elected to the State Legislature. For a time, he was an organizer for the Southern Cotton Association and traveled all over the South.
He was a bred-in-the-bone states’ rights, tariff-for-revenue-only Southern Democrat. As chairman of the Agriculture Committee, he fought the New Deal at every opportunity. He became so bitter on this score that on last Feb. 4, he said:
I am actually getting to the point where I turn to the Republicans instinctively when I want the real fundamental constitutional laws of this country adhered to.
Opposed women’s suffrage
Mr. Smith gave expression to his high regard for Southern womanhood on all possible occasions. But when women’s suffrage was an issue, he was against it.
He complained:
I don’t know why women want any more power than they already have. They run everything now.
Mr. Smith loved fishing, hunting and reading. His reading favorites were the Bible, novels and detective stories. He called detective yarns “red hot trash” and read all he could find.
Association cites ‘regrettable breach against God’ while casting ballot
Glendale, California (UP) –
The Glendale Ministerial Association today sent a letter to President Roosevelt asking him to apologize publicly for his reported “shocking profanity” while casting his vote in a Hyde Park (New York) voting booth Election Day.
The letter referred to Time Magazine which, in its Nov. 13 issue, quoted the President as muttering from behind the curtain as he attempted to manipulate the voting machine: “The **** thing won’t work.”
In Washington, White House officials had no comment on the request but said they were checking to see if the clergymen’s letter of protest had been received.
The text of the letter sent by Dr. J. Whitcomb Brougher Sr., president of the association:
The members of the Ministerial Association of Glendale do hereby express to you our grief over your regrettable breach against God and the consciences and hopes of millions of people of this and other lands by your shocking profanity on Election Day, while in the election booth as reported by Time Magazine.
We earnestly pray that you may feel that contrition and seek that forgiveness which Holy God enjoins, and publicly apologize too, and reassure faithful constituents and friends the world over, whom you so gravely grieved.
Walkout starts at Dayton Exchange
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Washington –
The War Department today urged that Christmas cards destined for overseas points be mailed at once so they may be delivered to even the most distant points before Christmas Day.
World assembly’s power restricted
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Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt will officially launched the $14-billion Sixth War Loan Drive with a radio address at 10:00 p.m. Sunday ET over the four major networks.
He will be introduced by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr.
By Jack Frankish, United Press staff writer
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Special sign painted: ‘We never capitulate’
By Richard D. McMillan, United Press staff writer
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Soviet envoy warns against propaganda
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