Naval fliers destroy 2,594 Jap aircraft
Nimitz lists toll for two months
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Simms: Aviation conference opens but Russia stays away
Soviet Union, at present, wants no outsiders flying in, so she bides her time
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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U.S. Air Force will continue raids in China
Chennault comments on loss of bases
By A. T. Steele
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Probe of Lend-Lease use in China asked by Reynolds
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Yanks hammer German oil, rail targets
Cologne battered again by RAF
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The war didn’t end –
Scientist too kindhearted to turn loose cosmic ray
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Kirkpatrick: Fifth column still active in France
Endangers relations with U.S., Britain
By Helen Kirkpatrick
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Background of news –
The cost of an election
By Bertram Benedict
Perhaps $50 million will be spent to elect a President and Congress in 1944.
In 1940, there was spent on the election of President and Senate the sum of $22,740,313, according to the Gillette Committee of the Senate to investigate campaign expenditures. But this figure did not include the expenses of electing the 435 members of the House of Representatives. Neither did it include the cost of campaigns for nomination – whether by primary or convention. Nor did it include such expenditures by county, city, precinct and other local groups as were really attributable to the national campaign.
Finally, it did not and could not include private expenditures by personal friends of candidates – often in the form of cash from person to person without any record.
In 1937, the Lonergan Committee of the Senate, which reported expenditures of $23,973,329 in 1936 for the election of President and Senate, concluded:
If the committee might venture an approximation of the total cost of the election of 1936, it would indicate a figure relatively double the sum which it has tabulated and presented.
Of the expenditures of almost $23 million reported by the Gillette Committee in 1940, 66 percent ($14,941,143) was spent by regular Republican committees, 27 percent ($6,095,358) by regular Democratic committees, seven percent ($1,703,813) by other bodies and minor parties.
Time set for reports
The Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925 requires political committees to report on their finances two weeks before a national election. On Oct. 28 last, the Republican National Committee reported contributions of $2,428,321, the Democratic National Committee contributions of $1,093,178. The National Citizens Political Action Committee reported receipts of only $271,371 – a far cry from the $3 million it originally set as its goal. This body was organized on July 7, 1944. The original PAC had receipts of $669,764 by May 31, 1944.
A number of federal statutes theoretically limit campaign contributions and expenditures in national elections:
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No corporation or national bank may contribute (Corrupt Practices Act of 1925, following earlier act of 1907). Neither may labor organization (Anti-Strike Act of 1943).
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No single political committee may receive or spend more than $3 million in any year (Hatch Act of 1940).
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No person may contribute more than $5,000 in any one year for any candidate for a federal office or in connection with any campaign for nomination or election (Hatch Act of 1940).
Evasion is too easy
But these restrictions are too easily evaded to mean anything. Corporations buy advertising space in convention programs and tickets for their officials to $100-a-plate political banquets. And the CIO has created its own organization for the 1944 campaign, just as AFL bodies always work directly to elect or defeat candidates for Congress.
What used to be the activities of a single national committee are now split among several national organizations, while state and local committees also work for the success of the national ticket.
And many members of a family follow the lead of the head of the family – in 1940, 65 members of the du Pont family contributed a total of $186,780 to 25 different bodies working for Republican victories, and Mr. Lamont du Pont alone contributed $49,000 to committees in 11 different states (In 1936, the du Pont family contributed $520,000; to the Democrats, the late Walter A. Jones of Pittsburgh alone gave $104,500 and the United Mine Workers donated $100,000 to the DNC alone).
Henrietta Crosman, ex-stage star, dies
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Johnson: Blond Ann a screen sensation
Ranks with Ingrid Bergman, B. Davis
By Erskine Johnson
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U.S. tax laws seen obstacle to tool buying
Policies encourage use of obsolete machines
By Roger Budrow, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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U.S. Steel nets $1.22 a share in quarter
Profit exceeds common dividend requirements
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Stokes: Test for Kelly
By Thomas L. Stokes
Chicago, Illinois –
Mayor Ed Kelly of Chicago, the Democratic boss of Cook County, faces his most difficult test in trying to carry this state for President Roosevelt for a fourth term.
His prestige is at stake. The Democratic Party in the state has revolved about Ed Kelly because of the tremendous majorities he has been able to roll up in Cook County with his machine, up to now always enough to win the state for President Roosevelt.
Furthermore, he was in the delegation of big city bosses which, it may be recalled, descended upon the President at the White House one night and served notice that Vice President Wallace must be dropped from the ticket. And their candidate who was substituted, Senator Truman, is being made an annoying issue by the Republicans. They won’t let Boss Kelly forget about Senator Truman, linking him up always with another boss, Tom Pendergast of Kansas City.
The Republican candidate for U.S. Senator, Richard J. Lyons, tried to spoil the monster demonstration Mayor Kelly put on for the President at Soldier Field last Saturday night by asking at a Republican luncheon rally subsequently why it was that Senator Truman’s name was missing from the Roosevelt banners on that occasion. When Governor Dewey was here a few days before, he said Governor Bricker’s name was linked with Governor Dewey’s.
Hard to dim
But it’s hard to dim that Soldier Field rally in Mayor Kelly’s eyes. He hiked that tremendously. It exhilarated him to the point where he began to raise his estimates of the Democratic majority in Cook County, even going so high as 375,000 to 400,000 which is quite handsome and most likely quite impossible. That would do the trick undoubtedly, offsetting downstate Republican majorities. President Roosevelt carried Cook County in 1940 by 222,000 and won the state over Wendell Willkie by 95,000.
Democrats generally were elated over that Soldier Field demonstration. They had begun a few days before to feel better about Illinois, virtually conceded to Governor Dewey a few weeks ago.
But Boss Kelly has troubles right here in Cook County in the suburban towns where, it is indicated, Republicans are going to roll up unusual majorities this year.
There seems, too, plenty of trouble in Downstate Illinois, the Republican stronghold, which is caught up in the Republican trend which has been surging slowly higher in the farm areas for several years. Southern Illinois farmers are making plenty of money, but they are sore over regulations, over forms to fill out, and those who fed cattle are resentful of price ceilings which, because of the high cost of corn, make a profit difficult.
GOP stirs up parents
The Republican leadership in the state, which is isolationist and dominated by Chicago Tribune influence, is putting on quite a campaign directed to stirring up parents of boys in the service. Considerable use is being made of President Roosevelt’s “again and again and again” promise in his 1940 Boston speech not to send American boys to fight in foreign wars.
Over all, Democrats get most encouragement from the high registration, a peak of 4,715,000 comparing with a vote of 4,190,000 in 1940, and especially from the fact that Cook County registration is 130,000 greater this year than downstate registration, compared with a margin of only 9,016 in 1940. The soldier vote may decide the issue. Nearly 100,000 have been returned to Chicago and nearly 50,000 downstate.
Consensus of political experts is that the state is doubtful, with the margin of victory very small either way.
Red Cross food and medical kits provided Yanks held by Germans
Cans punctured to avert escape
By Peter Edson
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Yanks too busy fighting to worry about politics
Little election talk at front, reporter says; finds Dewey does not lack supporters
By B. J. McQuaid
With British 2nd Army, Holland –
U.S. troops fighting in this part of Holland have been too busy the last few days holding off big-scale German counterattacks to pay much attention to politics. Some, however, are still taking advantage of the opportunity afforded to use the federal ballot to express their presidential preferences up to the hour of polling in the United States Nov. 7.
Voting officers of the American units in the British sector say that no accurate record has been kept of the numbers who have voted, but they believe that more than 50 percent have done so.
It would make an interesting report to canvass some of the soldiers who are now involved in bitter fighting, for their opinions of the candidates, but there is a stiffly-worded federal statute which prohibits questioning any member of the Armed Forces as to whom he intends to vote for, or has voted for.
This statute, which was called to my attention by the voting officers, was passed by this Congress. It specifically bans questioning along this line for the purpose of newspaper or radio reporting.
There is relatively little discussion of the election among troops in the forward areas, but from what I have overheard, it appears that the condition I encountered last June, when I interviewed a group of paratroopers who were about to jump on D-Day and found them solidly for President Roosevelt, has undergone some changes. In the few discussions I have heard, Governor Dewey does not lack supporters.
Arguments follow conventional lines. Roosevelt supporters are urging the retention of the midstream horse, and decrying Governor Dewey’s presumed lack of experience in military and world problems, while Dewey supporters deplore indefinite multiplication terms for one President, and insist that the war is now in such a stage that it is certain to be won, no matter who is President.
Some disappointment
There is some spirit of disappointment among soldiers, as among civilians at home, that the war, which many had hoped would fold up before November, now seems likely to go into and perhaps through the winter. But most votes here were already cast before this became clear. It is doubtful whether it would influence political preference much in any case.
Army regulations stringently ban electioneering, and there almost certainly has been nothing of that character. The effort continues to bring out the soldier vote, in the sense that voting officers, who have been appointed for all units down to company units, are more or less constantly urged to make sure that every soldier knows of his right to vote, and is fully acquainted with the machinery by which he can make his vote count.