French close gap on Nazis in south
Secrecy hides rapid drive into interior
By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer
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41 Jap ships, 107 planes ripped on 4,000-mile front
Four-day task force strike at Volcano and Bonin Islands highlights U.S. attacks
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Col. Palmer: Neither gas nor robots can halt advance of Allies
Germans can bolster line only by taking reserves from collapsing Eastern Front
By Col. Frederick Palmer, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Bombers pave path for push into Rhineland
Hit Ludwigshafen, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe
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Nazis stymied by secret army
Belgian force active for four years
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Allies close in on Rimini, approach Po Valley in Italy
Yanks near Tyrrhenian Sea anchor of Germans’ Gothic Line defenses
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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.
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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:
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How to keep the peace, so we won’t have this gory task to do all over again a generation hence.
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How to provide real jobs and a chance to get ahead for all Americans who are willing and able to work.
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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.