Invasion troops seize control of two-thirds of island in Central Philippines
By William B. Dickinson, United Press staff writer
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Yank fighter ace back in best form on return to duty after visit home
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By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
White House Secretary Stephen T. Early today threw cold water on reports that President Roosevelt would carry his campaign tour into Ohio and indicated that his already-scheduled Boston speech Saturday will be Mr. Roosevelt’s sole remaining major appearance before Election Day.
There had been reports that the President would make a speech at either Cleveland or Detroit this week. Mr. Early said a definite decision would be made within 24 hours, but that as of the moment, the President still planned to spend the week in Washington taking care of important work.
Mr. Early told reporters that the just-concluded weekend trip to Philadelphia and Chicago was so successful that Mr. Roosevelt’s advisers again have pressed him to make an Ohio swing, but that the President’s original position “still stands.”
To tour Hudson Valley
The President has no fixed campaign plans beyond the Boston speech and a tour of the Hudson River Valley near his Hyde Park home the day before election, with several impromptu speeches at nearby small towns winding up with a speech at 5:30 p.m. EWT in front of the new post office at Poughkeepsie, New York.
Democratic National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan meanwhile announced in New York that Mr. Roosevelt will make brief steps – “probably” with platform talks at each stop – at Bridgeport and Hartford, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, while en route to Boston Saturday.
Mr. Early said the President was “feeling fine” after his trip which ended last night and took him into seven pivotal states.
Designed largely to show the people the state of his health, the journey included two big night speeches in raw and windy weather, long, rainy hours in an open car parade, and several train-end speeches.
Looks pretty good
Political followers on the train and some who have been traveling independently now have the distinct impression that the President’s health is the top conversational issue of this campaign. That 1s what the question-askers want to know about, and it was “how he looks” that interested curb and train-side crowds the most. The customers on the whole seemed to think he looked pretty good.
The President’s train returned to Washington last night. He had made speeches in six states: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois and West Virginia. In Lima, Ohio, the train moved slowly past the station where a big crowd was massed. Mr. Roosevelt stood on the rear platform there and gave the assembled citizens his campaign salute.
Those states add up to 128 electoral votes. Massachusetts casts 16 in the Electoral College.
His advisers were fairly ecstatic over a train poll taken by CBS’s Don Pryor, among newspaper, radio and picture men aboard the special.
In brief, the poll showed that of 39 persons participating, 28 favored Mr. Roosevelt’s reelection and 11 favored Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican candidate. But what pleased the President’s party was that 37 of the participants thought the odds favored Mr. Roosevelt’s reelection, from even money on Governor Dewey to 5–1 on Mr. Roosevelt.
Bids for business support
The President climaxed this journey Saturday night before more than 110,000 persons in Soldier Field, Chicago. Other thousands were massed outside. He bid heavily for the business support which has been rallying around Governor Dewey by proposing post-war tax inducements to help private industry create 60 million jobs.
Mr. Roosevelt’s last public appearance of the weekend swing was made yesterday at Clarksburg, West Virginia, where he addressed a railroad station audience estimated at 16,000 on the advantages of reforestation. The President described the speech and the topic as my “Sunday sermon,” emphasizing that it was a comfort to be able to forget politics when Sunday came around.
Clarksburg, West Virginia (UP) –
More than 16,000 persons listened to President Roosevelt yesterday as he spoke from the rear of the special train bearing him from Chicago to Washington.
Boarding the special train at Benwood Junction were Louis A. Johnson (former Assistant Secretary of War) of Clarksburg, Arthur Koontz (West Virginia Democratic national committeeman) of Charleston, Mrs. Carl Galbraith (national committeewoman from West Virginia), Mrs. J. E. Cruse (state regional Democratic chairwoman with headquarters in Clarksburg), John B. Smith (state public service commission) of Charleston, Cleveland M. Bailey (candidate for Congress of the 3rd district) and Fred Goff (Harrison County Democratic chairman).
Others who boarded the train in Clarksburg were Governor Neely, Rep. Jennings Randolph, Herschel Wade of Salem, and Major Leisure McGee, former state mine inspector.
Democrats want Nov. 30 as deadline; Roosevelt rules out Cleveland-Detroit visit; Governor asks 3-day extension
Albany, New York (UP) –
A fight over soldier voting developed today in a special session of the New York State Legislature.
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, laying aside his role as a presidential candidate temporarily to convene a special session to liberalize voting arrangements, proposed that the time for receiving absentee ballots be extended to Nov. 6.
The Democratic minority introduced a bill proposing that the deadline on absentee ballots be extended to Nov 30.
Nov. 3 deadline now
Under present law, the absentee ballots must be in the hands of the War Ballot Commission by Nov. 3 and counted in the proper election district, along with all over votes, Nov. 7.
In recommending an extension of time, Mr. Dewey told the Legislature in a special message that in view of the fact that absentee ballots were arriving at the rate of from 2,000 to 3,000 a day, he would favor the three-day extension of time for their receipt. He would have left the counting time unchanged.
The Democratic bill would put off the counting of absentee ballots received from Nov. 4 to 30 until a special meeting of District Canvassing Boards Dec. 2.
Voting time extended
The fight over soldier balloting overshadowed the purpose for which Mr. Dewey called the session – to extend for two hours, until 9:00 p.m., the polling hours in the state next Tuesday.
Both Houses passed the two-hour extension bill without debate.
Governor Dewey also recommended legislation to extend the voting hours throughout the state by two hours so the polls will be open from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Governor Dewey’s special message was released to reporters almost simultaneously with a report by Secretary of State Thomas J. Curran showing that registration throughout the state was 6,894,785, only a little below the 1940 figure. There was a notable increase in such industrial centers as Buffalo, Binghamton, Schenectady, Rochester and Niagara Falls.
Mr. Curran said the report included duplications of Armed Forces registration in non-person election districts.
The aggregate, which was far above the 1942 figure, was only 73,925 less than four years ago when President Roosevelt carried the state against the late Wendell L. Willkie.
Buffalo speech tomorrow
Meanwhile, for the final week of campaigning, Mr. Dewey has stepped up the tempo of his activities. He speaks in Buffalo tomorrow night on a nationwide radio hookup, with a short stop en route at Rochester.
En route to Boston, where another major radio speech is scheduled Wednesday night, the special train will stop at Pittsfield, Springfield and Worcester, Massachusetts, in a bid for that state’s 16 electoral votes.
Governor Dewey has only two major radio addresses scheduled after his Boston appearance. One is before a huge rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden Saturday night. The other is an election eve talk, probably from the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.
By Florence Fisher Parry
Words come up fast and they die fast. The topical words, I mean. The political words.
The impartial, the just words, are immortal.
Now of the words coined to the circumstances I am thinking of three which, when first used, had dignity and fire. But because they have been manhandled by the opportunists, carrying no value. I am speaking of the words “appeaser,” “interventionist,” “isolationist.” Like cold dead embers they have been raked back into the furnace of the presidential campaign.
Let’s have done with them! They have no further place in our philosophy.
There was a time when these words stood for something honest. Yes, honest. No shame attached to President Monroe when he issued his great doctrine of splendid Isolationism. It matched our national need.
In the early days of this war, before America entered in, the word “interventionist” was not ignoble. It was the name we called those men of vision, who, although not more sincere than others, had the gift of prophecy.
There were at that time isolationists, strong and sincere in their patriotism, granite in their convictions. But that was long before their nationalism was corrupted and debased by the infiltration of fascist interlopers into their honest, if short-sighted, ranks.
Remember?
Thursday night on The American Forum of the Air over the radio, the listening audience was insulted by one of the lowest political debates of radio history. A veritable capsule of all the dirt which has smeared this campaign was pushed down our throats by the Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes; and in his speech, this mangled, manhandled political football word “isolationist” was tarred and feathered and lynched again, and in a lynch-mob mood. You would have thought that only arch fiends, dedicated to the destruction of every human decency, had ever been isolationists!
Even the Republican presidential candidate, in a regrettable moment of indulgence, accused President Roosevelt of being an isolationist.
The whole thing has become so preposterous! Have we no memories? Is there no place on the record for day-before-yesterday, when we were all isolationists? Yes, all! All the people of all the countries of all the earth.
How long ago was day-before-yesterday? Why, 1938. Do you remember? I remember listening to The March of Time, which was recreating a little scene which had just taken place on Sept. 28, on the eve of the day Hitler marched into Czechoslovakia.
The scene was the private study of President Beneš. His visitors were the British and French Ministers. It was 2:00 a.m. They aroused him to announce the result of the Munich Conference. They were there to tell him he must accept Hitler’s terms regardless of the dissolution of Czechoslovakia which would inevitably follow.
The ritual
Who were the isolationists then? Great Britain, France only? Who were the appeasers then? Great Britain, France only? Who, then, moved his finger to help Czechoslovakia?
Let’s face ourselves. We may lie to others, but we can’t lie to ourselves. We were ALL isolationists. All. Everyone.
Why shall we then dig up those old cadavers to stench the air already polluted by the ill-smelling gases of this political campaign?
On Thursday, I went to the luncheon dedicated to the American relief for Czechoslovakia. A native food was offered us to eat. It was called Boží milosti, meaning “God’s blessing on you,” or “Food from Heaven.” As I saw, the people of Czechoslovakia eating as one family and sharing with us their guests this native pastry, the picture came back strong of that night only six years ago when Czechoslovakia met her ordeal and gave up her existence as a nation.
There was something about this little sharing with us this celestial pastry that took on something of the ritual of communion. They were willing to forget how the world had betrayed them, they were willing to forgive our isolationism, our appeasement. This was another day.
It offered us a beautiful example. Would that we could be worthy of it!
St. Louis Medical Society probes charges hospitals shun servicemen’s wives
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Spirit doesn’t fit conception of city that has been wounded in heart and body
By Marshall McNeil, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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U.S. troops worship in open air, near brick factory, as Nazi shells drop nearby
By Jack Frankish, United Press staff writer
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Russia may favor softer peace terms
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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Tall, thin guy is a hero on Dawson Ridge although he can’t remember things well
By W. C. Heinz, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Yanks only eight miles from Po Valley city
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Blockbusters rip Cologne twice again
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London, England (UP) –
The Daily Herald, chief organ of the British Labor Party, today expressed its preference for President Roosevelt in the U.S. presidential campaign.
The Daily Herald said editorially:
It would be childish to pretend our concern is academic. All those who wish to see internationalist precepts consolidated in the post-war years desire the election of a man who will most surely help promote those ideals. We did not find the choice excessively difficult.
Hollywood, California –
We housewives don’t mind rationing, and we smile cheerfully when the clerk sneers and says, “No face tissues.” But one byproduct of this war that’s driving us crazy is the husband who has become a military expert… a parlor paratrooper… an armchair admiral.
I must admit that my husband, George, is one of the charter members of the “Kibitz with Nimitz” and “I’m Palsy with Halsey” clubs. But I will say that George is one of the few coffee-table colonels to be wounded by enemy action.
It was during the fierce fighting around Aachen last week. He was moving the pin representing the Germans when it slipped and jabbed his thumb. We’re giving him the Purple Heart.
Truman, Bricker lead vote-seeking groups
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Vice-presidential nominees of both major parties were committed today to heavy speaking schedules at opposite ends of politically-doubtful Pennsylvania to highlight intensive final-week campaigning for the state’s 35 electoral votes which may decide the fate of the Roosevelt administration’s try for a fourth term.
Democratic leaders planned a whirlwind tour for the party’s vice-presidential nominee, U.S. Senator Harry S. Truman, whose Thursday itinerary in the West calls for speeches at Braddock, East Pittsburgh, Wilmerding, McKeesport and Uniontown, a 15-minute radio talk and a major address at Pittsburgh.
Bricker invades East
Next day, his Republican opponent, Governor John W. Bricker, returns to the state at Philadelphia following a noon rally speech at Wilmington, Delaware. Mr. Bricker’s Friday schedule lists a speech before Republican workers at Camden, a city-wide rally in Metropolitan Opera House, Philadelphia, and a discussion of labor problems an hour later at a 5-ward gathering at the Labor Lyceum there.
Mr. Bricker’s bid for a majority of Philadelphia’s potential 900,000 votes will follow by exactly a week President Roosevelt’s tour and speech.
The Philadelphia City Democratic organization holds its annual $100-a-plate dinner there tonight with National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan as principal speaker.
Rises to peak
Democratic State Headquarters announced that the Roosevelt campaign in Pennsylvania would rise to “a sustained peak of effort” this week with 200 broadcast programs to “set a record for radio efforts in a political campaign.”
The principal radio speakers listed by the Democrats, in addition to Senator Truman, were Congressman Francis J. Myers of Philadelphia (the party’s nominee for U.S. Senator), Philip Murray (CIO president), Harold L. Ickes (U.S. Secretary of the Interior), Democratic State Chairman David L. Lawrence and former Governor Gifford Pinchot. Movie and radio celebrities listed as speakers included Orson Welles, Paulette Goddard, Quentin Reynolds, Frank Sinatra, Joan Bennett, Humphrey Bogart, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Merman and Clifton Fadiman.
The Hollywood contingent with Bricker at Philadelphia was to include Adolphe Menjou, Gloria Swanson and Eddie Bracken.
Governor Edward Martin’s activity on behalf of the Republican ticket during the final full week of the campaign will include an address Wednesday at McKeesport.
Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace yesterday charged that Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican presidential nominee, was guilty of “doubletalk” in dealing with his own Fair Employment Practices Committee in New York.
Mr. Wallace, speaking before a rally on the Nonpartisan Roosevelt Unity Committee in Chicago, said Mr. Dewey had named a “good” committee which, after three years of investigation, recommended state legislation to establish a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee in New York.
The Vice President asserted:
Governor Dewey, however, disregarded and dismissed all of this great effort. The people of New York will understand double talk when they hear it.
Compared to Roosevelt
Mr. Wallace compared Governor Dewey’s position on the issue with that of President Roosevelt, praising the President’s concern for all people, including all minority groups.
The future belongs to those “who go down the line unswervingly for the liberal principles of both political and economic democracy, regardless of race, creed or color,” the Vice President said.
Mr. Wallace said:
Mr. Roosevelt stands for all this. That is why certain people hate him so. That also is one of the outstanding reasons why the President will be elected for a fourth term.
Outlines program
He outlined again his own program in race relations, asserting that there must be no inferior races in the United States and that the poll tax must go and equal educational opportunities must come.
Mr. Wallace said:
All the people must be included in the economic, educational and political progress which we will make if the liberal cause is victorious. By all of the people, I specifically include the Negro and every other minority group in this country.
Albany, New York (UP) –
Paul E. Lockwood, secretary to Governor Thomas E. Dewey, challenged a charge by Vice President Henry A. Wallace that the Republican presidential nominee was guilty of “doubletalk” in connection with the Fair Employment Practices Committee.
Mr. Lockwood said:
Mr. Wallace is a little balmier than usual. What Governor Dewey said on the radio was: “We shall establish the Fair Employment Practices Committee as a permanent function authorized by law.”
That is exactly what the Republican platform pledged while the Democratic platform did not dare mention the subject.
Speaker didn’t order disturbers ousted, so some itching for fight are disappointed
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
High Coal, West Virginia –
The meeting of the United Mine Workers, called in a school building near here to discuss whether rank-and-file members should vote for President Roosevelt or Governor Dewey, was opened with a prayer by the Rev. Fred D. Fuller.
A member of the union, he works at the Ferndale mine of the Webb Coal Co. and is also pastor of the Baptist Church at nearby Madison.
But hardly had the pastor’s gentle supplication ceased when there was a terrific outburst of profanity from four men trying to drown out the speech of William Blizzard, vice president of UMW District 17. The four specialized in a foghorn call of “Dewey, Phooey.”
He outshouted ‘em
This Bill Blizzard has had a long career in UMW affairs, including a course in the tactics of how to break up meetings of the opposition. He could have instructed his friends to throw the disturbers out on their ears, in accordance with UMW routine, but he didn’t. Instead, he outshouted the hecklers.
And just before Mr. Blizzard got to the end of his reasons why coal miners ought to support John L. Lewis by voting for Mr. Dewey, the disturbing quartet left the hall. Thus, there was no fistfight, which apparently disappointed some at the meeting.
Leaving out the unprintable words both sides used in the heckling, the disturbers were described variously as “company stooges,” “Democratic payrollers” and “scabs.” The quartet claimed UMW membership, but one definitely was identified as a shoe repairman in Whitesville – and the miners objected to a cobbler advising them how to vote.
Just a sample
This was politics in the raw – a sample of what is going on every day in Southern West Virginia as part of John L. Lewis’ effort to induce miners to quit their habit of voting for Mr. Roosevelt and to vote for Mr. Dewey.
Ernest Lewis, treasurer of the UMW local here, told Mr. Blizzard the 500 miners there would support the union policy unanimously. Mr. Blizzard said 13 West Virginia locals have endorsed Mr. Roosevelt and about twice as many have gone officially for Mr. Dewey.
Bill Blizzard was encouraged to think he will be successful in turning to Governor Dewey 10 to 20 percent of the Roosevelt miners in the 1940 election. Political prognosticators say that would swing the state. West Virginia has only eight electoral votes, but they might be important in a close election.
Real objective of ‘united front’ is to capture Democratic Party
By Louis Waldman, written for the Scripps-Howard newspapers
EDITOR’S NOTE: Louis Waldman, long a leader in the Socialist movement, was New York state chairman of the Socialist Party and twice its candidate for the New York governorship. After leaving the Socialist Party, he helped found the American Labor Party. Mr. Waldman recently published his autobiography, Labor Lawyer.
New York –
The enthusiasm of Earl Browder, the Communist, for the united front in America, as expressed in the CIO Political Action Committee and the American Labor Party, is not inspired by the New Deal, which he once damned as Fascist; his purpose is to gain the widest influence on American public opinion so he can serve his Communist aims more effectively.
The Political Action Committee is merely one of many devices of the “United Front” tactic of the Communists to accomplish their aims. Other “fronts” created by them have disappeared for the present to merge into this one “United Front.”
The same trade unions, groups and individuals which control the American Labor Party in New York control PAC. When the call was issued by the PAC for the organization of the congressional district as the major unit, it followed the setup so characteristic of the various Communist-sponsored united front organizations.
Organization outlined
CIO leaders were told:
These Congressional district committees should include, wherever possible, representatives of the American Federation of Labor, Railroad Brotherhoods, farm organizations, such as the National Farmers’ Union, church groups, women’s groups, consumer organizations, professional organizations and other community organizations.
The real organizing strength of the PAC lies in the CIO local unions and their central bodies in the principal cities. Like the CIO council in New York City, these city central organizations are largely Communist-controlled. Yet there are many even in the CIO unions who don’t like the alliance with the Communists. Many labor leaders have said privately what they would not say publicly: “We have to do along with the PAC whether we like it or not.” They say that anybody in PAC knows where the strength lies.
As in the American Labor Party, the Communists are the doorbell ringers, the distributors of leaflets, the active workers in the job of getting citizens to register and vote. They organize meetings, and all the other activities of a well-oiled political machine. They do it under party discipline, and they’re good.
During my 30 years in the American liberal, labor and Socialist movement, I know of no organization except the Communists which concealed its true aims. All the other radical parties have come before the public openly advocating this or that reform or social change, to be accepted or rejected on its merits.
By this means of public education, the Socialist and the labor movement have secured gains. Many of the reforms for which we have worked have been enacted into law. And both major parties have accepted, in the main, the necessity of continuing these reforms. This is the American way. It is not the Communist way.
Democratic Party threatened
Their “dissolution” of the American Communist Party, following the “dissolution” of the Comintern, was a tactical move, dictated by their policy of concealment. Their capture of the American Labor Party in New York gave them a perfect camouflage. Now through the PAC they will try to capture the Democratic Party.
As totalitarians and revolutionists, the Communists could get nowhere. As “progressives” supporting the New Deal they are effective. To them, electing Mr. Roosevelt is secondary. Their real purpose is to capture the labor movement and, if possible, the Democratic Party. Their whole aim is power.
All those who are now accepting Communist support feel certain that they can handle their totalitarian collaborators. They are smart politicians who can “use” the Communists and fellow travelers, and discard them when their usefulness is ended – so they think. But the political cemeteries are filled with such “smart” politicians.
Fascism usual reaction
It is part of the technique of Communists to leave no alternative, no choice of a “middle way.” The rise of Communism in Europe provoked a Fascist reaction, and if Communism becomes a threat in America, we may be forced to choose between these two totalitarian extremes.
The Communists celebrate, this year, the 25th anniversary of their party, now veiled as an “Educational Association.” During these 25 years, these totalitarians have never once entered into a united front in good faith. Never once have they failed to betray their allies. Sidney Hillman will not succeed where John L. Lewis, and before him Norman Thomas, Leon Blum, Chiang Kai-shek, and a long list of others, have failed.
Communist front charges hurled
Washington (UP) –
A Dies subcommittee today termed the National Citizens Political Action Committee the “major Communist front organization of the moment” and charged that through the CIO Political Action Committee and NCPAC, Communists are seeking to rise to power in this country “by taking control of a major political party.”
Chairman John M. Costello (D-CA), and Reps. Joe Starnes (D-AL), and J. Parnell Thomas (R-NJ), representing the full subcommittee created to investigate the PAC, made the charges in a report to the full Dies group.
The PAC opposed all three Congressmen in their recent bids for reelection and Mr. Costello and Mr. Starnes were defeated in the primaries.
Hillman ‘dictatorial’
The report identified the NCPAC as an organization created last June 14 by the PAC “to dodge provisions of the Corrupt Practices Act,” and adds that at the same time the PAC’s approximately $700,000 “slush fund” was frozen. Sidney Hillman, who heads both PAC and NCPAC, was pictured as a “dictatorial” labor leader who last spring allied himself with Earl Browder, Communist leader, and his followers to capture the machinery of the American Labor Party in New York State.
The report called the PAC and the NCPAC the “rallying point for the Communist Party and its allied groups and organizations.”
It added:
There is no doubt anywhere in anybody’s mind that the Communists today are doing their utmost to bore from within the Democratic Party.
Coercion by PAC charged
The subcommittee charged that CIO members are being coerced through the fear of expulsion from union membership, and therefore from employment, into “following and supporting” the political line dictated by the PAC national office.
It continued:
This is something new in American history. It is, in short, the entering wedge of a brutal totalitarianism, supported by goon squads.
The report said the membership of the national committee of NCPAC is comprised of persons 83 percent of whom have been affiliated with the Communist Party or its fronts during recent years. It further charges that the PAC and NCPAC “have had and are now receiving the active assistance of a number of officials in the government.” It asserted that a majority of the top officials of the PAC national office “are persons who left the government to join in directing the PAC and NCPAC.”
The subcommittee also stated it is convinced the Hatch Act, restricting political contributions, and the Smith-Connally Act, outlawing strikes in wartime, are “being winked at” by Attorney General Francis Biddle.
In conclusion, it said the PAC is “perverting the hitherto accepted aims of trade unions” and by its tactics “will do more to destroy the usefulness of trade unions than all the opposition of those who dislike collective bargaining could do.”