Allies close in on Rimini, approach Po Valley in Italy
Yanks near Tyrrhenian Sea anchor of Germans’ Gothic Line defenses
…
Wallace to speak
New York –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace will speak on behalf of President Roosevelt’s candidacy at a paid admission rally at Madison Square Garden Sept. 21. The Independent Voters’ Committee of the Arts and Sciences for Roosevelt, headed by sculptor Jo Davidson, will sponsor the meeting.
Editorial: Toward a labor party?
People occasionally speak of “the labor vote” in such a way as to suggest that all of labor is in the habit of balloting en bloc for a particularly political ticket. That is not true – fortunately, in our opinion, for the good of the country.
If substantially all of labor were to adhere to Party A, inevitably the other great elements of the electorate would align themselves with Party B. Elections would become competitions for supremacy between economic groups. A man’s politics would be determined not by his views on foreign affairs, or on the conduct of the public’s business in Washington, or on the personalities of candidates, but simply and strictly by his economic status.
The country would be split down the middle, politically, and the great body of independent voters who heretofore have wielded a corrective balance of power as between the Democratic and Republican parties, would shrivel up. The result would be domination of the country either by labor or by a combination of the other economic groups.
The objective of Sidney Hillman and his Political Action Committee is, of course, to turn out the labor vote as nearly unanimously as possible for the Roosevelt-Truman ticket. The operations of the PAC to this end have been energetic and ingenious. They have also been touched with something approaching ruthlessness, and there are scattered symptoms to indicate that not even all of the CIO, let alone the rest of organized and unorganized labor, is ready to have its nose held while Dr. Hillman pours his medicine down its gullet.
There were those two Utah locals of the CIO, and another one at Gary, Indiana, which said a flat “No” to the proposition that their members should kick in a dollar a head to be dispensed for Hillman candidates. There was that Boston member of the CIO’s Newspaper Guild who wrote in The Reader’s Digest that the PAC “is setting up a conflict between the labor movement and the free, independent political spirit.”
There was the warning of an AFL veteran Robert Watt, that “in every instance where the labor movement has become a front for a political party, it has eventually died.” And the expressed fear of Labor, organ of the rail brotherhoods, that the consequences of the PAC campaign “may be the most disturbing to the regular labor movement.”
Those are healthy symptoms, and if they turn out to be contagious, we think it will be a good thing for the long-haul fortunes of this country.
1 Like
Editorial: Mr. Dewey’s opportunity
Usually by this time in an election year, the presidential campaign is rolling and the oratorical guns roaring. But there has been little sound and fury from the hustings so far this season, in deference to the more deadly cannonading that has been deciding more fateful issues across the oceans.
But this week, Governor Dewey, the challenger, opens his campaign with a speech in Philadelphia Thursday night. Mr. Dewey must have been under tremendous pressure to start his stumping earlier. He has many disadvantages to overcome. National public opinion polls have shown him running second. He is undertaking to unseat an administration entrenched by 12 years in power and at a time when the country is “enjoying” a war boom and voters have plenty of money in their pockets.
Although he has a splendid record as Governor of New York compared to his opponent, Mr. Dewey is not well known to the electorate as a whole, and two months is a short time to acquaint the voters with his views and qualifications.
Mr. Dewey’s opponent has the prestige of the presidential office and the trappings of Commander-in-Chief, and is neither loath nor unskillful in exploiting them. So, Mr. Dewey probably has been both prudent and wise in holding back on his campaign until the end of the European War has come in sight. The people have not wanted to listen to politics. Their thoughts have been on what has been happening over there. Now that peace and the problems of peace seem to be in the offing, they will be more ready to listen to what Mr. Dewey has to offer in lieu of four more years of what they’ve got.
As much as he can Mr. Dewey has tried to eliminate the conduct of the war from the campaign. He has said that he will leave the completion of that job to the generals and admirals.
In the cross-country speaking tour, which he begins this week, Mr. Dewey will have an opportunity to tell the people what he proposes to do when the war is won.
This contest will not be decided by extraneous issues. Uppermost in the people’s minds are three questions, beside which all others pale. They are:
-
How to keep the peace, so we won’t have this gory task to do all over again a generation hence.
-
How to provide real jobs and a chance to get ahead for all Americans who are willing and able to work.
-
How to get away from one-man government and evils of bureaucracy, and restore to vigor government-by-law.
Bearing on the big three issues, of course, are questions of international cooperation, military preparedness, policies relating to free enterprise, taxation, economy, social insurance, reconversion, home rule, separation of constitutional responsibilities – but they are all collateral to, and stemming from, the three important questions.
And on those paramount issues, Mr. Dewey is at no disadvantage to his opponent.
Mr. Roosevelt can claim no special knowhow on keeping the peace. He was in office nine years and vested with extraordinary powers – and granted that others may have been more to blame and that he did the best he could – still the fact remains that our country was attacked and the peace was not kept.
Mr. Roosevelt can claim no special knowhow in the making of real jobs and opportunities. Through those nine years before we entered the war, although he was given billions of borrowed dollars to spend, there remained eight or nine million unemployed, and the country was still crippling along with WPA, NYA and CCC.
As for one-man government versus constitutional processes, Mr. Roosevelt’s knowhow runs all in the wrong direction.
But Mr. Dewey cannot win this election merely by reciting Mr. Roosevelt’s failures. He can win only if he convinces the voters that he can do better – only if he lays out a program which the people recognize as being sounder and more hopeful than they can expect from four more years of Mr. Roosevelt. The people may want a change, but they’ll ask, “A change to what?” In answering that lies Mr. Dewey’s opportunity.
Norris funeral held
McCook, Nebraska –
Funeral services for former Senator George W. Norris, 83, were held at the First Methodist Church here yesterday.
Overseas service girls hope for Yuletide gifts they can’t buy
‘Glamor togs’ will be welcomed
By Epsie Kinard
…
U.S., British output tops Axis 4–1
Some shortages cited despite good record
…
Reconversion ‘not as bad’ as pictured
Bank is optimistic on changeover
…
British pilot Pyle found recovering in RAF hospital
Washington –
The courageous British pilot, found by Ernie Pyle and a group of American soldiers in Normandy after he had been lying, wounded and trapped, in his plane for eight days without food or water, is recovering from his terrible ordeal.
After treatment in an American hospital, he was transferred to an RAF hospital, where he “is resting comfortably and progressing satisfactorily,” the British Information Service here said.
The pilot, Lt. Robert Gordon Lee, is expected to be in the hospital three months, he suffered a compound fracture of the left leg and numerous bullet wounds when his plane was shot down.
Lt. Lee had tried to land his plane in a field and it flipped upside down, trapping him. He wrapped his handkerchief around a wound in his hand and then thrust his hand through a small hole in the side of the pane and waved it to attract attention.
On the eighth day, American soldiers, riding by in a jeep, noticed the movement of the handkerchief, investigated, and in a few hours the pilot was rescued.
Ernie Pyle called Lt. Lee’s calm fortitude during that long period of suffering “one of the really great demonstrations of courage in this war.”
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Paris, France – (by wireless)
This is the last of these columns from Europe. By the time you read this, the old man will be on his way back to America. After that will come a long, long rest. And after the rest – well, you never can tell.
Undoubtedly this seems to you to be a funny time for a fellow to be quitting the war. It is a funny time. But I’m not leaving because of a whim, or even especially because I’m homesick.
I’m leaving for one reason only – because I have just got to stop. “I’ve had it,” as they say in the Army. I have had all I can take for a while.
I’ve been 29 months overseas since this war started; have written around 700,000 words about it; have totaled nearly a year in the frontlines.
I do hate terribly to leave right now, but I have given out. I’ve been immersed in it too long. My spirit is wobbly and my mind is confused. The hurt has finally become too great.
All of a sudden it seemed to me that if I heard one more shot or saw one more dead man, I would go off my nut. And if I had to write one more column I’d collapse. So, I’m on my way.
It may be that a few months of peace will restore some vim to my spirit, and I can go war-horsing off to the Pacific. We’ll see what a little New Mexico sunshine does along that line.
Couldn’t get around to all the branches
Even after two and a half years of war writing, there still is a lot I would like to tell. I wish right now that I could tell you about our gigantic and staggering supply system that keeps these great armies moving.
I’m sorry I haven’t been able to get around to many branches of service that so often are neglected. I would like to have written about the Transportation Corps and the airport engineers and the wire stringers and the chemical mortars and the port battalions. To all of those that I have missed, my apologies. But the Army over here is just too big to cover it all.
I know the first question everyone will ask when I get home is: “When will the war be over?”
So, I’ll answer even before you ask me, and the answer is: “I don’t know.”
We all hope and most of us think it won’t be long now. And yet there’s a possibility of it going on and on, even after we are deep in Germany. The Germans are desperate and their leaders have nothing to quit for.
Every day the war continues is another hideous blackmark against the German nation. They are beaten and yet they haven’t quit. Every life lost from here on is a life lost to no purpose.
If Germany does deliberately drag their war on and on, she will so infuriate the world by her inhuman bullheadedness that she is apt to be committing national suicide.
Germans show their real cruelty
In our other campaigns we felt we were fighting, on the whole, a pretty good people. But we don’t feel that way now. A change has occurred. On the Western Front, the Germans have shown their real cruelty of mind. We didn’t used to hate them, but we do now.
The outstanding figure on this Western Front is Lt. Gen. Omar Nelson Bradley. He is so modest and sincere that he probably will not get his proper credit, except in military textbooks.
But he has proved himself a great general in every sense of the word. And as a human being, he is just as great. Having him in command has been a blessed good fortune for America.
I cannot help but feel bad about leaving. Even hating the whole business as much as I do, you come to be a part of it. And you leave some of yourself here when you depart. Being with the American soldier has been a rich experience.
To the thousands of them that I know personally and the other hundreds of thousands for who I have had the humble privilege of being a sort of mouthpiece, this then is to say goodbye – and good luck.
GOP protests letter given to soldiers
President’s message called political
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Washington –
All members of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps serving overseas have been given a letter from President Roosevelt either on shipboard or after arriving on foreign soil, it was disclosed today.
A White House spokesman acknowledged that political capital may be made of the letter, but he insisted it was wholly without political intent. A large percentage of the more than four million troops overseas is expected to vote in the November election.
Asked for letter
The White House explained that the War Department in February 1942 had asked for a letter from Mr. Roosevelt to be given overseas troops, and the spokesman commented that at such an early date in the war Mr. Roosevelt certainly did not know he would be in a presidential campaign in 1944.
The letter is on White House stationery, and bears a facsimile of Mr. Roosevelt’s signature. It emphasizes the importance of the fight Americans are making and concludes with the statement that, “You bear with you the hope, the confidence, the gratitude and the prayers of your family, your fellow citizens and your President.”
Message in 1917
When it was suggested that proponents of Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s candidacy might think that, as a presidential candidate opposing the President, he should also have the right of a personal message to overseas troops, the White House official commented that Mr. Dewey would be able to if he had been elected President a couple years ago. The President, it was pointed out, is also Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
Belief was expressed that President Wilson had written a similar letter to U.S. troops in 1917. But the message, carried by Governor R. L. Beekman of Rhoda Island was delivered on Nov. 13, 1917, after the off-year elections here.
The White House spokesman acknowledged that the letter “and a lot of other things” may be seen as having political intent between now and the election.
Text of letter
Addressed “to members of the United States Army Expeditionary Forces,” the text of the letter follows:
You are a soldier of the United States Army.
You have embarked for distant places where the war is being fought.
Upon the outcome depends the freedom of your lives; the freedom of the lives of those you love – your fellow citizens – your people.
Never were the enemies of freedom more tyrannical, more arrogant, more brutal.
Yours is a God-fearing, proud, courageous people, which, throughout its history, has put its freedom under God before all other purposes.
We who stay at home have our duties to perform – duties owed in many parts to you. You will be supported by the whole force and power of this nation. The victory you win will be a victory of all the people – common to them all.
You bear with you the hope, the confidence, the gratitude and the prayers of your family, your fellow citizens and your President.
The letter recalled the fact that distributions of material alleged to be of political nature to U.S. troops has been the subject of one of Washington’s most heated controversies in recent weeks. Well-known books and magazines were barred by the Army until the law covering this matter was liberalized.
Truman stresses reconversion
Seeks labor’s aid in Michigan speeches
Detroit, Michigan (UP) –
Senator Harry S. Truman, Democratic nominee for Vice President bidding for labor’s support in November, declared tonight that if President Roosevelt is reelected the nation’s armament plants will be converted to post-war goods production, but that if he is defeated they probably will be “junked.”
Completing a Labor Day schedule pf three addresses and a press conference in this industrial area, the Missouri Senator told a gathering of AFL leaders that “if those who fear the competition of these new plants have their way, they will be shut down.”
Shortly after noon yesterday, he went to Pontiac for a brief appearance.
Mr. Truman told the CIO rally:
America is again at the crossroads. we must again decide whether we shall help suffering humanity find the hard road to lasting peace, or revert to selfish isolationism.
You all know that the greatest advances made in the history of labor have been made under the administration of the greatest friend labor ever had – Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Plants built for war work can provide jobs for all if we have the courage and resourcefulness to help industry put them to work on peacetime goods.
These new plants, added to those we had before the war, can produce a wealth of peacetime goods beyond anything we ever dreamed.
First Lady denies urging social equality of races
Mrs. Roosevelt blames political enemies for distorting her views
Evergreen, Alabama (UP) –
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, accusing political enemies of distorting her views, declared in a letter received here today that she did not advocate race social equality.
The First Lady pointed out four fundamental rights which, she wrote, belonged to all U.S. citizens, irrespective of color.
Mrs. Roosevelt aired her racial attitude in a reply to a letter from Mrs. Catherine Stallworth of Evergreen, who had suggested to Mrs. Roosevelt that her ideas about treatment of the Negroes arose “from a lack of complete knowledge of the Negro situation in the South, particularly in the small towns where there are almost as many Negroes as whites.”
Enemies blamed
Mrs. Roosevelt wrote:
Much that is said about my attitude on the Negro situation is distorted and exaggerated by people who are opposed to my husband and me, and by those who have deep-rooted prejudices… I have never advocated social equality.
In a democracy, however, we cannot have 12 million people who are denied rights as citizens.
Those rights, as Mrs. Roosevelt summarized them, were: An equal opportunity for employment according to ability and at equal pay, an equal opportunity for education, for justice before the law, and to participate in government through the ballot.
‘A world question’
This [race] question is not just a Southern question. It is a world question… If we are not fair and just to the colored people, how can we expect other countries to trust us and believe in our good faith?
I know in many places the Negroes outnumber the white people and that is one explanation for not giving them the right to vote. There can be and should be a standard of literary and education required [for voting] and I think you will find that the Negroes will not vote as a group any more than other minority groups do in this country.
Perhaps one of the solutions will be to move the Negroes into places where there are only a few and thus prevent the lack of balance.
Mrs. Roosevelt pointed out that this idea had been suggested, but had been opposed by some Southern states.
She said that, inasmuch as she had lived in both Georgia and Florida, she could understand the South’s problem.
More governors to speak tonight
New York (UP) –
Governors of New Jersey, Michigan and Washington broadcast tonight over a coast-to-coast network in support of Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican nominee for President.
Governor Walter E. Edge will speak from Atlantic City; Governor Harry F. Kelly from Lansing, and Governor Arthur B. Langlie from Olympia.
The 15-minute broadcast will be carried by WCAE at 9:15 p.m. ET.
Governor Dewey, meanwhile, worked on a series of radio addresses which he will broadcast jointly with the governors of 24 GOP states.
Although the exact plans for the addresses were not revealed, it was understood that Governor Dewey and a governor of a Republican state would share radio time several times weekly. The programs will begin after his return from his 6,700-mile coast-to-coast tour, on Sept. 28.
Women Democrats map vote drive
Democratic women in Pennsylvania are planning the “most intensive drive on registration and getting out the vote since women won suffrage,” Mrs. Emma Guffey Miller, Democratic National Committeewoman, announced today.
Women Democrats opened their campaign today with a regional conference here and in Oil City, the first of six similar feelings.
‘Democratic Women’s Day’
At these conferences plans will be made for “National Democratic Women’s Day,” Sept. 27, when Democratic women’s groups will meet in every precinct in the state.
Mrs. Miller said:
In the hundreds of thousands of homes where a son or sons are in the Armed Forces, the last thought of every woman at night is: “How soon will my boy get home?” And the mothers, wives and sisters of our fighting Pennsylvania boys realize only too well the war will be ended and the boys brought home sooner if President Roosevelt is kept in command, rather than turn the conduct of this great conflict over to the thoroughly inexperienced Governor Dewey.
There is an unprecedented activity on the part of Pennsylvania women in this election and they will have a great deal to do with putting it in the Democratic column. Until Oct. 7 [the last day to register for the Nov. 7 election], an intensive drive to get voters registered will be carried on, reaching through every precinct.
Communists join registration spat
Communists today joined the Republican-Democratic dispute over the field registration schedules set up by the County Elections Department and the Pittsburgh Registration Commission.
Democrats had accused the Republican Registration Commission of juggling the enrollment sites to Republican advantage. Republicans filed similar charges against the Democratic Elections Department.
Maximum registration
Both allegations, said Max Weiss, president of the Communist Political Association for Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, are beside the point which concerns the “greatest possible registration.”
He said:
If there are any who object to such a maximum registration and maximum vote, on the ground that it surely will result in the reelection of President Roosevelt, then they admit that President Roosevelt is already the people’s choice.
Offices for every district
Mr. Weiss said Anthony J. Federoff, CIO regional director and a leader of the CIO Political Action Committee, had given a “direct and forceful lead to the development of a nonpartisan approach to voter registration” when he said recently that “the people will vote liberal if they only get out and vote.”
Mr. Weiss advocated opening registration offices “in every single one of the election districts in Allegheny County [there are 1,020 districts].”