America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

3818

americavotes1944

Perkins: Leader hopes to give Dewey 25% UMW vote

Hard coal area still strong for Roosevelt
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Scranton, Pennsylvania – (Nov. 4)
The maximum hope of United Mine Workers leaders in the Pennsylvania hard coal area is to pull to the Dewey camp one-fourth of the 90 percent of miners who, they believe, voted for President Roosevelt in 1940.

The prediction that the 25 percent will be pulled came from a District UMW official who is a Dewey man.

His open Dewey sympathy is not met throughout the mine worker organization of district officials. Some of them are lukewarm and others are reported privately supporting Mr. Roosevelt.

This, despite the general belief that even if John L. Lewis could not divorce his union followers from Roosevelt allegiance, he at least could count on unanimous support from the field and district officers and organizers. most of whom are dependent upon Lewis’ favor for their jobs.

Lewis stays away

Mr. Lewis hasn’t appeared in the anthracite region during this campaign. He seldom does. Thomas Kennedy, International secretary-treasurer, and formerly Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, lives at Hazleton, near here, but has not appeared in the campaign.

The Democrats have capitalized on Mr. Kennedy’s silence by digging out a fairly old speech, castigating the Republican Party in general. The Republicans appear to have overlooked a piece of ammunition that could be used on their side. It consisted of some remarks about a month ago by Mr. Kennedy in criticism of “government by decree or fiat” with apparent direct reference to the Roosevelt administration’s handling of last year’s coal wage controversy.

Speech emphasized

The newspapers in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, most of them Dewey supporters, gave much attention to a speech in the huge Wilkes-Barre Dewey rally by John Kmetz, a district representative of the miners’ union and also president of UMW District 50. Mr. Kmetz devoted much of his talk to an effort to demonstrate that Communists and their support of the Democratic presidential nominee constitute a real menace to the United Mine Workers.

Mr. Kmetz is credited with real influence among the large groups of Slovaks, Poles, and other nationality groups in this section.

Conclusions by this writer from visits to miming sections of West Virginia and Pennsylvania indicate that considerable swings of miner strength from President Roosevelt to Mr. Dewey are indicated only in the southern section of West Virginia and the eastern or anthracite section of Pennsylvania. The symptoms of a swing seemed to fade out in Northern West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania.

The results will be easy to check because of the concentration of miners in certain voting precincts.

3819

Ex-British Chief of Staff Field Marshal Dill, dies

He rebuilt army after Dunkerque; for two years has been in Washington

…

Japs driving on major U.S. Air Force base

Enemy 53 miles from airfield at Linchow

…

3820

americavotes1944

Candidates denied use of union funds

Los Angeles, California (UP) – (Nov. 4)
Seven political candidates today were enjoined from receiving or using funds of the CIO Shipbuilding Workers Union.

Senator Sheridan Downey (D-CA), Congressional candidates Helen Gahagan Douglas. Hal Styles, Elis Patterson and Clyde Doyle, Assembly candidate Vincent Thomas and incumbent Superior Court Judge Stanley Mosk were named in the preliminary order.

Roy T. Trent, union member, brought suit, saying the union had spent $6,000 before the primary and $30,000 since, for the CIO Political Action Committee in violation of union bylaws and the Smith-Connally Act.

3821

Jackie Cooper is ‘washed out’ of officer class

…

3822

British bombers obliterate Ruhr Valley city of Bochum

RAF attack follows 2,000-plane U.S. attack on German railyards and oil plants

…

3823

Simms: Power politics roars head despite Dumbarton Oaks

Russian pressures Iran for oil concessions; move begun for ouster of premier
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

…

3824

425,000 casualties flown back to U.S.

…

3825

americavotes1944

Insurance firms accused of political activity

Washington (UP) – (Nov. 4)
The Senate Campaign Expenditures Committee revealed tonight that it is investigating alleged political activities of some insurance companies and complaints that certain radio broadcasts, put on the air as impartial news commentaries, are “highly partisan.”

Committee Counsel Robert T. Murphy said insurance company complaints involve the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Casualty Insurance Company, and the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association, Fire Insurance Company, both operated by the same board of directors, and alleged to be “mailing out huge quantities of Dewey literature.”

Letter mentioned

Another complaint involves a letter entitled, “Revolution,” written and distributed to stockholders, agents and employees by H. K. Dent, president of the General Life Insurance Company of America, First National Insurance Company of America and the General Casualty Company of America, home Office, Seattle. Washington, Mr. Murphy said. He said the letter mentions no names, but is “cleverly written – we think it should be looked into.”

Inquiries into reported use of radio news broadcasts for political propaganda, he said, have not progressed far enough to make a statement, “but… complaints have been made that certain commentators have… given highly-colored versions of current news events, which are, in effect, political speeches.”

The insurance and radio investigations are only two of several studies being made by the committee which intends “to make the most complete study of the overall cost of a national election ever undertaken.”

Final report made

Meanwhile, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives a final pre-election report showing $3000 expended since Oct. 21 for the campaign of Senate Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky.

The committee also reported contributions of $3,500 to the campaign of North Dakota Governor John Moses, $2,000 to Francis J. Myers of Pennsylvania and $1,500 to Rep. Warren G. Magnuson (D-WA), Mr. Moses is seeking to unseat Senator Gerald P. Nye (R-ND), while Myers is opposing Senator James J. Davis (R-PA). Mr. Magnuson seeks the vacancy created by the resignation of Senator Homer T. Bone of Washington, recently named to the Circuit Court of Appeals.

Final pre-election accountings of the Democratic and Republican National Committees, filed yesterday with the House clerk, showed that the Republicans had spent $2,008,000 between Jan. 1 and Nov. 1, and the Democrats, $1,331,713.

3826

On Italian front –
Fifth Army Yanks hole up in rain

…

Navy planes damage two Jap vessels

…

3827

americavotes1944

Final blows struck by Roosevelt, Dewey; bitter campaign ends

Massachusetts Democrats jarred by Truman’s isolationist charge against Senator Walsh
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

New York – (Nov. 4)
The angriest political campaign in recent history was in its final bitter hours tonight and the voters will cast their presidential ballots Tuesday in an election whose winner perhaps may not be known for days or weeks after the polls close.

The unknown factor is the armed services absentee vote. In 11 states with an aggregate of 123 electoral votes, absentee service ballots are counted in whole or part after other ballots have been tallied. The latest count is Dec. 7 in North Dakota.

The most significant delayed count probably will be in Pennsylvania which casts 35 electoral votes and for which complete returns will not be available until Nov. 22 or even later. All service ballots in Pennsylvania will be impounded for the late tally.

The two presidential candidates ended their major campaign efforts tonight.

Democrats jarred

Mr. Roosevelt spoke in Boston where the Democratic Party has been jarred by a chance remark by vice-presidential candidate Herry S. Truman that Senator David I. Walsh (D-MA) was an “isolationist” in need of reform.

Mr. Walsh lashed Mr. Truman in a bitter statement which seemed to invite his friends to bolt the party ticket – although the Senator, himself, said he would vote it straight. Mr. Dewey spoke tonight in Madison Square Garden in another bid for New York’s 47 electoral votes.

Both candidates will rest tomorrow and undertake a bit of neighborhood campaigning Monday, Mr. Dewey in Albany and Mr. Roosevelt up and down the Hudson Valley.

‘Lie’ charge hurled

They have hit at each other with unusual bitterness, charging each with the lie early in the campaign and going on from there, each hoping to convince the voters that if the other were elected the future of the Republic would be in instant jeopardy.

Mr. Dewey has travelled from coast to coast. Mr. Roosevelt got as far west as Chicago, but said he was not campaigning in the usual partisan sense, but only “to correct misrepresentations.”

Some of the presidential campaign bitterness is reflected in lesser contests, notably in New York and Connecticut.

Bennett opposes Fish

Rep. Hamilton Fish (R-NY), whom some of Mr. Roosevelt’s supporters have sought to tag for near treason, is opposed for reelection by Augustus Bennett who lost the Republican primary to Mr. Fish but won on the Democratic primary ballot.

In Connecticut, Rep. Clare Boothe Luce, a Republican member of the House and the prettiest woman in Congress – which is faint praise – is opposed by Margaret E. Connors, a politically experienced young woman who is making a good fight.

Senator Robert F. Wagner (D-NY) is running this time against Thomas J. Curran, Secretary of State here, who was handpicked by Mr. Dewey to take the veteran New Yorker out of national politics.

Hot Illinois contests

Senator Scott Lucas (D-IL), a member of the New Deal wing of the Democratic Party, is opposed by Richard J, Lyons, a Republican, who has the support of the Chicago Tribune. Another hot Illinois contest is between Representative-at-Large Stephen A. Day, Republican, with Tribune support, and Emily Taft Douglas.

There is a straight New Deal contest in Connecticut where Brian McMahon, one-time Assistant U.S. Attorney General, is trying to unseat Senator John Danaher, a Republican, who has been among the most alert and effective Congressional opponents of the Roosevelt administration.

Senator Gerald P. Nye (R-ND), who is high on the list of “isolationists” denounced by administration supporters, is in a three-way race against Governor John Moses, Democratic nominee, and Lynn U. Stambaugh, former national commander of the American Legion, running as an independent.

Davis warns labor ‘to shed shackles’

Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania (UP) – (Nov. 4)
U.S. Senator James J. Davis, seeking reelection on the Republican ticket, warned labor and industry tonight that they must “prepare to throw off the shackles of regimentation imposed by the government, as soon as the peace has been won.”

Mr. Davis said at a United Mine Workers Republican rally:

The present national administration has discouraged business ventures, and, under the guise of assistance, is progressively encasing labor in a straightjacket.

If that administration continues in power four more years, labor will be entirely beholden to the federal government, and business will be hogtied.

Impeded by bureaus

The Republican nominee said the nation must have a government “that has faith in the productive capacity of America and its workmen,” and does not favor “the creation of endless bureaus to regulate and control the economic life of our people.”

Freedoms extinguished

He said:

It is the joint obligation of management and labor to keep free from government control, for when the economic life of a nation comes under rigid control of the government it is not long until the individual and political freedoms of the people are extinguished.

If American labor and American management are to remain free and enjoy the benefits of a progressive and unregimented economy, they must establish and sustain mutual machinery for industrial peace.

3828

americavotes1944

Delay in soldier vote counting in 11 states may hold up decision

Last day for receipt of ballots is Dec. 7 in North Dakota; states’ dates listed

New York (UP) – (Nov. 4)
The names of the next President of the United States may not be known for a month after the votes are cast next Tuesday.

Such a contingency could come bout only in event of a very close race. But if the race should be close enough to make the election hinge on votes cast by service personnel, the decision conceivably could be delayed until as late as Dec. 7, the last day for receipt of soldier votes in North Dakota.

Eleven states are to count their service ballot after Nov. 7. Most of those states plan to impound the ballots until they are counted, although a few plan to count them as they are received.

Of the states where the soldier ballots are to be impounded after Nov. 7, the actual count will take place: California, on Nov. 24; Colorado, Nov. 22; Florida, between late next week and Nov. 17; Maryland from Nov. 9 until the count is completed; Nebraska, Dec, 1; Pennsylvania, starting on Nov. 22; Rhode island, starting on Dec. 5; Washington, Nov. 8 through Nov. 25.

Missouri starts counting its service ballots on Nov. 10 and expects to take about two weeks to complete the job. In Utah, they will be counted from Nov. 7 to Nov. 13.

Accompanying is a table showing the number of service ballots sent out by each state and the number expected to be returned.

3829

Millett: Use idle hours to advantage

War wives can improve looks
By Ruth Millett

…

3830

americavotes1944

Veteran’s room barred as polling place

Los Angeles, California (UP) – (Nov. 4)
A soldier home from the wars needn’t share his living room with an election board and the neighborhood voters, Area Rent Director David Barry Jr. said today in giving the room back to Lt. B. M. Garrett.

His landlady had rented it out for a polling place.

Lt. Garrett can legally throw out the board and the entire neighborhood as trespassers, Mr. Barry ruled.

London gets mixed up on election date

London, England (UP) – (Nov. 4)
A two-column front-page headline in The Evening Standard today said: “America Chooses Next President on Monday.”

The story under it, by The Standard’s New York correspondent, also said the election will be held Monday.

3831

americavotes1944

Willkie backers urge Dewey vote

Portland, Oregon (UP) – (Nov. 4)
Wendell Willkie’s 14-member executive committee tonight urged friends and supporters of the late Republican leader to vote for Governor Thomas E. Dewey for the Presidency.

The committee conducted Mr. Willkie’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination earlier this year but became inactive when Mr. Willkie withdrew from the race.

The group declared it had joined with Mr. Willkie two years ago to “check the continuing power too long held in our national Capitol” and was vitally interested “in his business-like approach to the solution of our woefully handled domestic economy, his broad concepts of international problems, and the establishment of a world peace organization.”

The statement said:

Our sole interest was the promotion of a presidential nominee with a sound and progressive domestic and international program…

We have not attempted, we cannot and will not, attempt to speak for our late and beloved friend, Wendell Willkie… [but] we believe that Governor Dewey through his potential leadership in national and international affairs will fulfill those aims.

Ralph Cake of Portland, Republican National Committeeman from Oregon and Mr. Willkie’s pre-convention campaign manager, issued the statement, which he said included the views of the following committeemen: Sinclair Weeks of Boston; Frederick E. Baker of Seattle; John Hanes of New York; Robert Burroughs of New Hampshire; Mrs. Grace Reynolds of Indianapolis; J. Kenneth Bradley of Connecticut; Frank O. Horton of Laramie, Wyoming; Harvey Jewett of Aberdeen, South Dakota; Wilson Williams of Atlanta, Georgia; Mrs. Pearle Wates of Birmingham, Alabama; Mrs. Paul Henry of Seattle, Washington; Mrs. Gladys E. Knowles and Mrs. Margaret Marr.

3832

americavotes1944

Bricker: Elect ‘vigorous’ man

Stresses huge task ahead for President

Cleveland, Ohio (UP) – (Nov. 4)
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker, ending his eight-week, 16,000-mile campaign, called tonight for the election of a President “vigorous enough to perform the greatest task that ever confronted an American statesman.”

Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican nominee, Mr. Bricker said, in an address at the Music Hall, is “that man.”

The GOP vice-presidential nominee voiced confidence that next Tuesday “this long-suffering nation will free itself from the depressing regimentation of the New Deal.”

Hits Hillman, Browder

Taking a parting shot at Sidney Hillman who, he said, was “working in double harness” with Earl Browder, “the ex-convict whom President Roosevelt released from the penitentiary in time to manage his campaign,” Governor Bricker said:

I am fully convinced, after my travels over practically this entire country, that neither Hillman nor Browder will have their way with the working men and women of this country.

Governor Dewey, he added, “with his record and reputation for good government, for efficiency, for order and for single-minded devotion to public service, would be the last person to win Mr. Browder’s support.”

Calls for change

Calling for a change from the Democrats to Republicans next Tuesday, Governor Bricker said the need was for an administration that would “restore responsible cabinet government and free us from the caprice of one-man government.”

Making his final appeal for the election of Dewey, Governor Bricker said:

We must choose a leader who is vigorous enough to perform the greatest task that ever confronted an American statesman. We must choose a leader who will take the American people into his confidence instead of asking them to take him on faith… who will select the ablest en available for places of responsibility instead of making appointments on the basis of friendship or to pay off political obligations.

3833

americavotes1944

Truman calls Roosevelt symbol to small nations

Europe’s oppressed people look to our Commander-in-Chief, running mate says

Independence, Missouri (UP) – (Nov. 4)
Democratic vice-president candidate Harry S. Truman, closing his campaign in his home town, tonight characterized President Roosevelt “as a symbol of liberty to all the smaller nations of the world.”

“The small nations of this world look to our Commander-in-Chief to champion their interests,” Mr. Truman said in a speech broadcast to the borderline state of Missouri.

‘Send him to peace table’

He said:

Franklin D. Roosevelt is the symbol of liberty to all the smaller nations of the world. On our President the oppressed people of Europe will depend to renew their hope in the future.

You will not let him down. You will not betray the American boys who have made the greatest sacrifice a man can make for his country, by gambling on the peace. You will send Franklin D. Roosevelt to the peace table.

Mr. Truman asserted we lost the peace in 1920 “when we were misled by the promises of a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Warren G. Harding.” He charged the Republican candidates “can offer us no more than did Harding,” that for “political expediency they rendered lip service to the foreign policy of the Roosevelt administration.”

Mr. Truman said:

Ask yourselves if you are willing to take a chance on a man who has had no experience in world affairs, who has no program to secure the peace.

Ask yourselves if you want a man with no experience to sit at the peace table with Churchill, Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek, or do you want a man to represent you who can meet those great leaders on equal terms?

Bids for farm vote

Mr. Truman, turning to the home front, declared the Roosevelt leadership “will create new opportunities for our returning veterans and for all of our people.”

He continued:

I have had an opportunity given to few men to study and to observe what has been done to get this war won.

I have had intimate contact with the men who are getting the job done. I can tell you that these same men will utilize our plants and facilities and our resources just as efficiently for peace as they have for war.

Mr. Truman made a final bid for the farm vote, declaring that “the farmer knows that his government has done more to help him in the last 12 years than was done by any other administration in our history.”

Indiana voting time extended two hours

Indianapolis, Indiana (UP) – (Nov. 4)
The State General Assembly today passed a Republican majority bill extending the Indiana polling deadline from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. CWT to give farmers and war workers a better opportunity to vote in next Tuesday’s election.

The regular polling hours, from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., were extended two hours by the legislation. The Assembly was called into special session by Governor Henry F. Schrick, to consider the bill.

3834

Nations consider world air routes

Irish likely to hold bargaining key

…

3835

How states have voted in last six elections

In the presidential elections since the end of World War I, each major political party has been victorious three times, the Republicans in the three elections held in the 1920s and the Democrats in 1932, 1936 and 1940. These maps show how the states have cast their votes. It is interesting to note the sharp increase in the total vote cast since the low marks of the early 1920s when fewer votes were cast for both candidates than were cast for President Roosevelt alone in 1940.

On the large map below the 1944 electoral votes of the states are given beside the name of the state. In parenthesis on 16 of the states are the electoral votes which the states had in 1940. The electoral vote total is changed at the end of the national census every 10 years. The total of 531 remains unchanged but some of the state figures are altered with shifts in population. Pennsylvania, for instance, in 1940 had 36 electoral votes. This year, it has 35.

1920.elect

Popular Electoral
Warren G. Harding (R) 16,152,200 404
James M. Cox (D) 9,147,353 127

1924.elect

Popular Electoral
Calvin Coolidge (R) 15,725,016 382
John W. Davis (D) 8,385,586 136

1928.elect

Popular Electoral
Herbert Hoover (R) 21,392,190 444
Alfred E. Smith (D) 15,016,443 87

1932.elect

Popular Electoral
Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) 22,821,857 472
Herbert Hoover (R) 15,761,841 59

1936.elect

Popular Electoral
Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) 27,476,637 523
Alfred M. Landon (R) 16,579,583 8

1940.elect

Popular Electoral
Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) 27,243,466 449
Wendell Willkie (R) 22,304,755 82

Poll: Soldier vote may decide Nov. 7 winner

Scales could be tipped in 21 states
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion

…

3836

americavotes1944

A likely possibility –
PAC may go on if Roosevelt is reelected

President would owe group a big debt
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer

New York (UP) – (Nov. 4)
If President Roosevelt is elected for a fourth term next Tuesday, the CIO may make its Political Action Committee a permanent organization.

Plans for the Political Action Committee’s future have been discussed at headquarters here, But O. B. Baldwin, assistant to Sidney Hillman, says that any talk of permanency must await such action as will be taken by the CIO at its national convention after the election.

The Political Action Committee now has a better organized headquarters here than does the Democratic Party. The PAC originated with the CIO, but it since has been expanded under the name of the National Citizens Political Action Committee, to take in other union members, or anyone else who wants to join in the fourth-term fight.

But the planning for a post-election organization all depends upon CIO action, Mr. Baldwin said.

Should Governor Dewey win, PAC quite likely will go out of business. But its officials feel they have a large share of credit coming if they put President Roosevelt across and quite likely would keep going.

Among the ideas being considered is keeping PAC as a well-knit pressure group which can stir up demands for such things as repeal of the Smith-Connally Act and the like.

With the President owing more to them than he does to the Democrats, the PAC feels it has a field for future functioning if Mr. Roosevelt is reelected.

They do not like to talk too much now about organization, since it might detract from their Election Day efforts, one official reported.

3837

americavotes1944

Democrats lead in West Virginia

Charleston, West Virginia (UP) – (Nov. 4)
West Virginia, which is classed generally this year by national election polls as a “doubtful” state, has a registered Democratic majority of 171,677 voters, a figure which varies less than 200 registrants from the last general election “edge” held by the Democratic Party.

Secretary of State William S. O’Brien said today all 55 counties had reported final registration figures, showing 1,046,514 persons registered, or an increase of 63,574 from the number registered for the May primaries.

15 counties GOP

Of all 55 counties, only 15 were majority GOP, including Ohio, Hancock, Marshall, Mason, Preston, Jackson and Upshur. However, Ohio’s Republican majority was only 127, where in 1940 there was a GOP majority in Ohio County of 3,481.

By party divisions, 604,645 were registered Democratic in all counties, or an increase of 36,932 over the 1944 primary total. The GOP registration total is 432,968, or a 25,758 increase since the primary.

What of soldiers

During 1940, of 1,109,082 voters registered, 635,324 were Democratic and 463,844 Republican.

Records show that about 80 percent of the registrants voted in the 1940 contest.

About the soldier registration – Mr. O’Brien’s office has received reports from 51 counties, showing 16,827 servicemen registered, of which 9,705 are Democratic and 5,826 Republican.

Truman takes time out to register

Independence, Missouri (UP) – (Nov. 4)
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Harry S. Truman and Mrs. Truman dropped in to see the home folks on the Eastern Jackson County election board this afternoon and got their names back on the books so they can vote next Tuesday.

They had been so busy campaigning around the country that they hadn’t had time to register when the books were revamped last month.

Ed S. Carroll, chairman of the board, said:

We were in session getting the ballots arranged for the voting when they dropped in and we figured there was no need for a court order. We took care of them.

Under election laws in rural Jackson County, all voters are required to register before each presidential election.