The Pittsburgh Press (October 19, 1944)
Two glamor girls in Forum debate
Agree on objective, at odds on candidate
New York (UP) –
Politics’ two glamor girls – Helen Gahagan Douglas, Democratic candidate for Representative from California, and Rep. Clare Boothe Luce (R-CT), appearing on the same speaker’s platform for the first time – agreed that world peace is 1944’s major objective, but disagreed on the presidential candidate best able to achieve it.
Speaking at the closing session of The New York Herald-Tribune Forum last night on a program at which Democrats and Republicans discussed the issues of a national election in war time, Mrs. Douglas, wife of screen actor Melvyn Douglas, talked on “The Campaign Issue,” followed by Mrs. Luce’s discussion of “Waging the Peace.”
Asserting that the “indispensable” issue of the election campaign is a philosophy – and not a man – Mrs. Douglas maintained that President Roosevelt, for seven years before the war broke, fought against isolationism.
Mrs. Luce, speaking after Mrs. Douglas, asserted that an international police force, plainly “recognized as the teeth” in any peace plan today as it was in Henry the Fourth’s day, poses the unanswered question, “who puts the bit on whom?”
Mrs. Ogden Reid, vice president of the Herald-Tribune and chairman of the forum, in a closing statement expressed regret that President Roosevelt did not appear to make the traditional final address.
She said:
Last Friday, he sent a telegram saying he would be unable to speak.