Election 1944: Pre-convention news

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (December 30, 1943)

Davis to seek state inquiry in Senate race

Probe of expenses in the 1944 primary will be requested

A Congressional investigation of election expenses in the 1944 senatorial primary campaign in Pennsylvania will be requested by Senator James J. Davis (R-PA), the Senator warned here today.

Senator Davis said that when he returns to Washington he will:

…ask the Majority Leader to have a resolution introduced immediately to oversee expenditures, particularly in the primary elections.

He added that Congress will also be asked to appropriate sufficient funds:

…to enable United States marshals to cooperate with the committee and a sufficient appropriation to supervise the votes.

‘Both sides guilty’

Senator Davis, who was declared for the Republican nomination for Governor in 1942, said:

I don’t want to see happen again what happened in Allegheny, Lackawanna, parts of Schuylkill County and Philadelphia in 1942.

Mr. Davis indicated that his proposed inquiry would include expenses of both the Republican and Democratic campaigns, declaring that:

It’s just as bad on the Democratic side as on the Republican side.

Strikes assailed

In a speech at Moose Hall last night, Senator Davis said that a shutdown of the nation’s steel mills or railroads would have been “a calamity comparable to Pearl Harbor.”

The Senator commended leaders of the railroad and steel unions:

…who, when they might have chosen to permit trouble and delay, chose rather to keep the men at work.

[NormanStewart]

Soldier vote support

Washington (UP) –
Democratic National Committee Chairman Frank C. Walker predicted that Congress will enact compromise legislation, making it possible for servicemen to vote in the 1944 election without controverting states’ rights.

He said in a telegram to Sidney Hillman, chairman of the CIO Political Action Committee, that he can conceive of no member of Congress being willing to deny the soldier the “chance to make his voice heard in a national election” since it would be “a strange democracy that singled out for disfranchisement the citizens who are giving the greatest service for democracy.”

He said:

What could be more absurd than to remove from the election the votes of 10 million of our most patriotic citizens?

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: ‘Dunce’ – ‘Picayune’

At a White House press conference some months prior to the 1940 conventions, Fred Perkins, Pittsburgh Press Washington correspondent, asked the President whether he would be a candidate for a third term. Mr. Roosevelt told Fred to put on a dunce cap and go stand in a corner.

This week, at another White House conference, after the President had boasted of the accomplishments of his administration and enumerated reasons why he wanted to abandon the “New Deal” label in favor of a new “win the war” slogan, Bert Andrews of the New York Herald Tribune asked if all that added up to a declaration for a fourth term. Mr. Roosevelt replied that the question was “picayune.”

It’s too bad, Mr. President, but good reporters are just made that way. They are curious and inquiring fellows. They are interested in the same things newspaper readers are interested in – if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be good reporters. So, they go about their job day by day asking questions, some of which may be embarrassing to those questioned, but all of which are designed to obtain news they think will be interesting to people who read.

Before 1940, and now again with 1944 approaching, Mr. President – though it may seem strange to you – reporters have thought that rank-and-file citizens who read the papers and vote in elections had, and have, a lively curiosity about your intentions.

It may in your view be dunce-like and picayunish of them, but reporters and the people they serve are interested in you as a personality and as their President, and they just can’t help wondering how long you want to stay in that White House. So, it is altogether likely – to borrow one of your phrases, Mr. President – that the question will pop up “again and again.” But the reporters don’t intend to be rude or to break the rules of lèse-majesté – they’re just curious.

[NormanStewart]

Edson: Bureau of Census devises advanced sampling scheme

By Peter Edson

Washington –
1944 being one of those years when the polltakers will be abroad in the land, sampling public opinion and thereby predicting who is going to be elected dogcatcher where and by how much, it is worthy of note that the U.S. Bureau of Census has worked out some new wrinkles on straw balloting which have produced amazingly accurate results.

It should be made clear at the start that the Bureau of Census wasn’t and still isn’t interested in political prophesying, the work of the bureau being limited to strictly economic fact-finding. But the bureau used its new sampling technique so effectively in the recent survey of consumer requirements that it has set the private, non-governmental polltakers like Crossley, Gallup and Roper to studying the results to see if their own methods may not need some revision.

The possibility that changes in scientific sampling methods would have to be made from time to time of course has been admitted by the commercial poll-taking organizations. The old Literary Digest poll was accurate up to 1936, when it missed completely. Gallup’s organization was close in 1936 and 1940, but it was off in 1942.

Definite improvement

The new Bureau of Census technique may not represent as much of a refinement over the Gallup method as Gallup was an improvement over the Literary Digest, but it is hailed as an improvement.

The polltakers all get their results by gathering the opinions of only a limited number of people – from 3,000 to 60,000. In the first instance, that’s approximately one out of every 43,000 people in the country. In the latter, it’s one for every 2,150. In neither case is it a big sample and that may explain why you never knew anyone who was asked for his opinion in a poll.

The trick, of course, is to pick the right 3,000 to 60,000 people for the poll so as to get a representative cross-section of the population, correctly divided as to geographic areas, income levels, sex, occupation, age groups and other pre-determined classification. This is known as “purposive selection,” to get exactly a true percentage of each classification in the entire population. Where the Literary Digest went wrong in 1936, of course, was that all of the two million straw votes it received were cast by people whose names were in phonebooks or owned autos.

‘Cell’ system used

The Bureau of Census, for its recent poll of consumer requirements, went after the problem on a different basis from both these others. First, by running through its 1940 census returns, as corrected by all the intra-census studies it has made of population shifts since then, the bureau was able to select 68 areas or “cells” which were statistically representative of other similar areas in the United States. The determination was made as to location, population, division of rural and urban population, type of farming, and other occupation. Two counties representative of each of these areas were chosen. Then from the census listing of households in all of these counties, providing perhaps 10 times as many households as it was desired to survey, a random selection was made of every tenth household. The census enumerators were told to go to those specific addresses to ask their questions.

What the census poll came up with in the end was a list of roughly 4,900 households out of 36.5 million households in the country, or approximately one for every 7,400 families.

Unfortunately, they weren’t permitted to ask their 4,900 sample families who was going to be the next President.

[NormanStewart]

The New York Times (December 31, 1943)

President stays indoors

Head cold continues, but he gets some paperwork done

Washington – (Dec. 30)
President Roosevelt remained in his quarters for a second day today, suffering from a head cold. His condition was reported as virtually unchanged, and he still had no fever.

The President felt well enough to do “a good bit” of paperwork, but had no callers, his aides reported, he will not hold his regular Friday press conference tomorrow morning.

[NormanStewart]

Lewis’ paper hits Roosevelt slogan

Calls ‘Win the War’ cloak of politics – sees New Deal dead 6 years ago

Washington – (Dec. 30)
On the heels of President Roosevelt’s adoption of the slogan “Win the War” in place of “New Deal,” the United Mine Workers Journal, the official organ for John L. Lewis’ miners union, says that the New Deal died more than six years ago.

In a leading editorial, the Journal contended in its issue to be distributed tomorrow that the “Win the War” slogan “has a greedy ring, like trying to rob the people of their birthright, of appropriating the people’s wartime prayers and their every desire, to cloak a political party.”

Criticism of the administration from this source was not unexpected, in view of the rift that developed after the mine union chief actively supported Mr. Roosevelt in two campaigns for the presidency.

The editorial said:

President Roosevelt’s belated acknowledgement that the “New Deal” is dead as such could have been well made, and honestly so, in mid-1937 – six-and-a-half years ago – for it was during the Little Steel strikes of that year when intelligent labor leaders first learned of the President’s feat that the rapid organization of the rank and file of American workers into unions might reach such huge totals as to give to the American workingman that degree of economic and political power which banking, business and industry, as well as those of the upper social caste, coupon clippers and the self-anointed ruling-class boys, deemed unwise for the workers to possess in these United States.

All of the social and control legislation which was enacted during the first years of the “New Deal” would have resulted in time, out of necessity, for the very sound reason that it represented needed reform long overdue.

The period of the Little Steel strikes, the editorial continued, made it “a matter of common gossip in big business circles that the ‘New Deal,’ as such, was dead.”

For that reason, and since the President’s second term still had some time to run, the Journal said, Mr. Lewis felt it was prudent for “labor to pay its hand out and get along the best it could for the remainder of the second term.”

It went on:

To us it seems incredible that, in shifting from the “New Deal” emblem, the domestic situation being what it is, the utter confusion which prevails as regards mustering out our fighting men and the complete lack of plans for the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy, the erstwhile “New Dealers” would have the audacity to adopt as a new political slogan the one thing which all Americans are agreed upon – “Win the War.”

It has a greedy ring like trying to rob the people of their birthright – of appropriating the people’s wartime prayers and their every desire – to cloak a political party. In a democracy, when patriotism is involved against a common foe, the President of the United States, or a political party, has no more right to patriotic claims than the humblest citizen.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (December 31, 1943)

Soldier vote steps

Washington (UP) –
Senator Walter F. George (D-GA) proposed today that soldier vote legislation provide absentee ballots for nominating primaries as well as the general election.

Senator George, whose home state hopes to be the first to authorize ballots for members of the Armed Forces, told reporters he believed the entire question could be solved by the states except for transporting ballots around the world.

Five governors have called special sessions of legislatures to provide for soldiers’ votes and three others are planning such a call in the near future, a United Press survey has indicated.

The soldiers’ vote will also be considered at the regular sessions of seven other state legislatures early in 1944.

[NormanStewart]

The New York Times (January 1, 1944)

President’s cold turns into grippe

Washington – (Dec. 31)
President Roosevelt was in bed with a slight case of grippe today following two days of confinement to his quarters with a head cold.

William D. Hassett, a White House secretary, told correspondents this morning:

I am sorry to inform you now that the President has the grippe. Dr. McIntire [Adm. Ross T. McIntire] reports he has about a half degree of temperature and that he has ordered him to stay in bed today, and probably will keep him in bed tomorrow.

As a result of the President’s illness, the Cabinet meeting, as well as the Friday morning press conference, was canceled.

[NormanStewart]

Guaranteed wage called 1944 issue

Murray of CIO says demands in steel negotiations will be pushed in politics

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – (Dec. 31)
A minimum annual wage for industrial workers, to be paid and guaranteed by employers, is being built up by the Congress of Industrial Organizations as a major issue for the 1944 elections, Philip Murray, CIO president, disclosed here.

Such a guaranteed wage is one of the principal proposals now being urged upon Carnegie-Illinois Steel and other U.S. Steel Corporation subsidiaries through direct negotiations by the CIO United Steel Workers of America. The steel workers are also contending for a 17¢ hourly wager increase and other concessions.

Going several steps further than in previous declarations, Mr. Murray said that the CIO’s political action committee would be directed to enlist all possible labor and liberal support for the minimum annual wage plan as they only feasible means of protecting the nation’s workers from destructive economic post-war jolts.

Appeal to WLB planned

The CIO chief also made known that he would shortly ask the National War Labor Board to “impose, if necessary, a guaranteed annual wage for steel workers” if the steel corporations refuse to adopt this program.

The weekly wage guarantee, Mr. Murray explained, would be computed on the basis of a 40-hour workweek. That section of the contract proposal reads in part:

Such minimum weekly wage shall be computed on the straight time average hourly earnings for the year preceding the effective date of this contract, or such portion during which the employee may have been employed, plus the general wage adjustments included in the new contract, multiplied by 40 hours.

Another proviso says:

For each week during the life of this contract that the employee for reasons beyond his control does not receive a sum equal to this minimum, the company shall make up the difference.

First movement of kind

Mr. Murray said:

So far as we know, this is the first time that a labor organization anywhere has undertaken to seek the establishment of an annual minimum guaranteed wage through collective bargaining.

He pointed out that industry in the United States, through the tax laws, has guaranteed itself post-war protection. Provisions have been made, he added, “though these various measures, to afford security for American business after the war is over.”

He went on:

That may be a good thing but certainly the same thing should be done to protect the interests of American workers.

The annual wage is a sensible way of combating widespread unemployment. If we’re going to spread income and afford workers a just share of the national income, it can be done only through this proposal.

Under the proposal as submitted, if a worker’s average hourly rate has been $1, his guaranteed weekly pay would be $40, the year around, or annual pay of $2,080.

Other demands by the union include one week’s paid vacation for employee with three years or less service, and two weeks for those over three years; time-and-a-half pay for overtime learners not to receive less than the common labor rate; all employees who are in the Armed Forces or Merchant Marine to receive vacation pay while in service.

[NormanStewart]

ODT insists on Chicago

Tells Spangler City has more Pullmans for convention travel

Washington (AP) – (Dec. 31)
The Office of Defense Transportation has reinforced its proposal that both major political parties hold their 1944 conventions in Chicago with a statement that more than three times as many sleeping cars arrive daily at the Illinois city than at any other Midwest point.

In reply to an inquiry from Harrison E. Spangler, chairman of the Republican National Committee, seeking a “list of other cities which might be used with the least interference with our transportation problem,” H. F. McCarthy, director of the ODT’s Division of Traffic Movement, said:

Indicative of Chicago’s dominance is the following table showing the number of beds in regular-line sleeping cars terminating at various favorably located cities:

Chicago	11,368
New York	7,129
St. Louis	3,240
Detroit	1,528
Kansas City	1,279
Cleveland	1,235

McCarthy added that:

The supply of sleeping cars is extremely limited, all available extra cars being dedicated to troop train service.

[NormanStewart]

McCormick: A grown-up America faces the year of decision

By Anne O’Hare McCormick

The year 1944 will be a year of decision and a year of test. Gen. Eisenhower predicts that it will see the end of the European war, and this means that Britain, Russia and the United States will have won from Hitler the power he aspired to when he threw down the gantlet in 1939. They will have won the power and the responsibility to reorganize Europe.

The European nations were already weak, weary and torn with internal strife when the Nazi drive began. Hitler’s plan of conquest was based on the assumption, largely justified, that all of Europe was as divided as Germany was when he took over. He thought he could ride to continental power over the same divisions, frustrations and hates he had exploited to achieve mastery in the Reich. He was the first to realize a truth that Stalin has now accepted: he saw that the old force of nationalism, harnessed to the new force of socialism would make a formidable team out of the two strongest impulses in the modern world.

Conquered never submitted

But he ignored the fact that the sense of nationhood is as intense in the smallest states as it is in Germany. Fortunately for the three great powers that slowly combined to defeat the Nazi dream of empire, this stubborn spirit of resistance of the lesser peoples held the fort until the big guns were ready to breach the walls. It is hardly too much to say that the fragmentations, the excessive nationalisms, which make it impossible for Europe to live in a world of larger units also make it impossible for Europe to die. If Hitler had been able to conquer Europe, if he had succeeded in convincing Poland or France, Yugoslavia or Holland that German hegemony was tolerable, the war would have been lost in 1940. If Europe had stood with Germany, neither Russian nor Anglo-American force could have taken the fortress.

The decisive factor in this war is not the four-power alliance, omnipotent as that combination of strength will be in the peace. The decisive factor is the crowd presently pushed into the background – the loose, amorphous federation called the United Nations.

The force of nationalism

This came together before the great powers merged. The truth is that not a single European people, and this goes for the satellites as well as the prisoners of war, accepted Hitler’s claims. Like it or not, our first line of defense was the force of European nationalism. This is a fundamental reality the victors will have to face. Stalin has faced it for Russia. He dissolved the Comintern because in twenty-five years it did not win a single nation. He has dropped “The Internationale” because he has learned that it will never have the appeal of a national anthem. This reality will have to be taken into account in the reorganization of the continent. The primary problem of victory will be to reconcile the force of nationalism – the force that won the war – with the compromises among nations and the concessions of sovereignty that will be necessary to maintain the international equilibrium that spells peace. For if it is clear that order cannot be maintained without force, it is equally clear that it can never be maintained by force alone. Except for a breathing spell, nations cannot be kept quiet unless they have an independent status and a conscious stake in the general security.

Many hardships ahead

For the United States, 1944 will be a hard year. This country will have to pour out blood, resources and energy as never before to ensure the victory Gen. Eisenhower expects. His appointment in itself signifies how large our share must be in the desperate struggle ahead. Victory, moreover, will bring burdens as onerous as the sacrifices of war. We shall have to assume a major responsibility for the future of Europe at a time when our minds and hands will not be free to concentrate on European problems. We shall be fighting with all our strength in the Pacific. We shall be distracted by a political campaign at home.

When Tobruk fell, the position of Churchill seemed much more precarious than the President’s. The Prime Minister in Washington during that crisis was strongly incline to agree with Roosevelt’s arguments that a fixed tenure of office for the Executive was safer and sounder than a system in which the government could be voted out of office any time. But as the President’s term nears an end, the advantages are all with the system that can put off a general election as long as necessary. Of the Big Three, Roosevelt is the only one who must face election in the decisive year of the conflict.

It is up to us

This decision is added to the others weighing upon the American democracy during the coming year. The judgments we are forced to make in our own affairs and the affairs of the world are new in our experience, new in the effect they will have on the course of history. The terrible burdens of maturity descend upon us while we are still hesitant and unprepared. But nations never go out to meet destiny. It always catches up with them at an unexpected turn of the road. On this grave and portentous New Year’s Day, it is well that Americans have to realize that they have passed the point where they can blame other powers for the mistakes of war or the failures of peace. The end of war is the beginning of the struggle for peace and of our inescapable responsibility for the world born in 1944.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 2, 1944)

Germans hope U.S. election will aid them

Want to hold until after voting, then obtain compromise peace
By Richard Mowrer

Cairo, Egypt – (Jan. 1)
Germany’s political and military leaders, with few exceptions, are convinced that Germany must hold at any price until after the American presidential elections in November 1944, according to neutral sources recently in contact with Germany.

The Germans’ reasoning is said to be as follows:

The reelection of President Roosevelt depends on the successful opening of a second front and victory for the Allies before the November elections. If victory is not achieved by autumn, Mr. Roosevelt will not be reelected.

Nazi hopes

American opinion, disgusted by Allied failure to beat Germany, by then will compel the withdrawal of the American war effort from Europe to concentrate it on the war in the Pacific and will elect to the presidency somebody who will concentrate entirely on winning the war against Japan.

Germany thereupon will approach the new American government and make a deal which Britain, no longer supported by Americans arms in Europe, will have to accept.

Want compromise

If the German Army puts up stiff resistance on the second front and inflicts severe casualties on the Americans, the public outcry in the United States will be such that the presidential elections will be strongly influenced.

Such at least, appears to be the line of thought of German higher-ups who, although knowing they cannot win, hope to avoid total defeat by making German resistance drag on.

[NormanStewart]

‘Let’s win the war in ’44,’ new slogan for AFL

Washington (UP) – (Jan. 1)
The American Federation of Labor said tonight it has chosen “Let’s win the war in ‘44” as labor’s slogan, its objective and its highest resolve for the coming year.

In a New Year’s Day message, the AFL said U.S. workers are ready to work and sacrifice as never before to help the fighting forces in the great tasks that lie ahead.

The message warned, however, that victory will not end labor’s responsibilities to the cause of freedom.

It said:

We will not consider this war win until we have capped our military victories with equal triumphs for our chief post-war objectives.

These are:

• The establishment of lasting peace under world democracy.
• The provision of jobs for all in peacetime America.

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (January 3, 1944)

Wendell Willkie bestätigt:
Roosevelt unter Stalins Diktat

dnb. Genf, 2. Jänner –
Wendell Willkie bescheinigt den anglo-amerikanischen Mächten noch einmal nachdrücklichst ihre Abhängigkeit von Stalin. Die USA hätte es versäumt, so schreibt er, die moralische, wirtschaftliche und politische Führung zu übernehmen und daraufhin sei Stalin zum „mächtigsten Staatsmann der internationalen Politik“ geworden. Roosevelt habe bei der Schaffung der politischen Grundlagen für die internationale Zusammenarbeit und der wirtschaftlichen Basis für den internationalen Handel die Führung nicht an sich gerissen. Das Unvermögen des Präsidenten, dies zu tun, habe bereits auf der ganzen Erde seine Auswirkungen gezeigt.

Überall in der Welt, so meint Willkie, lege sich der Durchschnittsmann die Frage vor, was wohl Stalin demnächst tun werde, nicht aber, was Roosevelt und Churchill Unternehmen würden. Die dringlichste Frage sei die, was die Sowjetunion mit der politischen Integrität Polens und der Baltenstaaten zu tun gedenke.

Die USA, so schließt Willkie seinen Artikel, könnten die Haltung Sowjetrußlands den Kleinstaaten gegenüber nicht dadurch beeinflussen, daß sie das Mißtrauen gegen die Sowjetunion schüren. Die USA könnten Stalin nicht von der Richtigkeit und Klugheit ihrer Ideen dadurch überzeugen, daß sie „sein Land zum Fußball unserer innerpolitischen Streitigkeiten machen.“

Wendell Willkie bestätigt damit die These, daß Roosevelt und Churchill in Moskau und Teheran lediglich zum Befehlsempfang waren und widerspruchslos die Diktate des Kremlhäuptlings entgegenzunehmen hatten.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 3, 1944)

First Lady says she’s tired of ‘New Deal’ too

But she thinks substitute offered by President isn’t adequate

Washington (UP) –
Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who has not laid the New Deal “away in lavender,” but is “sort of tired” of that name, suggested today that the President’s proposed substitute, “Win the War,” is not enough.

She did not propose another substitute for “New Deal,” but hinted that her choice probably would be something like: “Win the War and Win the Peace.”

Mrs. Roosevelt denied a report that during her trip to the South Pacific she told servicemen that the President “has decided to give you the privilege of walking the streets of Tokyo” instead of coming home. She also said she did not recall being “booed” anywhere as was alleged in an interview with a wounded sergeant by the New Bedford Standard-Times.

Mrs. Roosevelt said she would not have been surprised if the soldiers had booed her after a Tokyo propaganda broadcast which quoted her as saying that the Marines should be kept in the Pacific six months after the war so they would have time to get “cleaned up” before returning home. Many soldiers had heard this broadcast, she said, which was propaganda.

[NormanStewart]

Roosevelt urged as world’s leader

Minneapolis, Minnesota (UP) –
Dr. George Mecklenburg, pastor, world traveler and student of international politics, today suggested that President Roosevelt retire from American politics to head an association of nations, and that Democrats and Republicans name Wendell Willkie President by acclamation.

Dr. Mecklenburg, of the Wesley Methodist Church here, said Mr. Roosevelt is the only international figure fitted to head the world organization.

He said:

Churchill, nearing 70, is too old. Stalin is not temperamentally fitted for the place, and has too many problems at home. Chiang does not understand the world.

Dr. Mecklenburg said Mr. Willkie would be the only man left at home with a clear conception of world affairs.

[NormanStewart]

Roosevelt improving

Washington –
President Roosevelt’s head cold and case of mild grippe kept him in bed again today, although his physician, RAdm. Ross T. McIntire, said that he might get up for a while this afternoon.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 5, 1944)

New GOP leader?

Washington (UP) –
Prominent Republican Senators believe the time is ripe for formal election of an acting successor to Minority Leader Charles L. McNary (R-OR), recuperating in Florida from a serious operation undergone last November. Senator Wallace H. White Jr. (R-ME) has been acting leader under appointment from Senator McNary.

[NormanStewart]

Dewey asks surplus saved for post-war

Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, prominently mentioned as possible Republican presidential candidate, told the New York Legislature today that it should “lock up” a $140-million State Treasury surplus for a post-war program to aid returning veterans.

In an address to a joint meeting of the Senate and Assembly, Governor Dewey waved aside demands for immediate reduction of state taxes as “unsound and irresponsible” and asked that the money be earmarked to provide financial relief for war veterans and defense workers thrown out of jobs when peace comes.

He said the surplus was the result of economies in operation and increases in the amount of revenue from current taxes.

Governor Dewey also suggested revising the present system of succession to the governorship. Some observers interpreted the plan as a move to assure continuation of Republican control of New York in the event Governor Dewey is nominated and elected President this year.

[NormanStewart]

Stimson, Knox hit vote bill for soldiers

Recommendations to set up uniform state laws are outlined
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
Secretaries Stimson and Knox have dealt a heavy blow to the soldier-voting legislation recently passed by the Senate, and now pending in the House, which would turn the problem over to the states with their complicated absentee-voting laws.

A joint statement by the two Cabinet officers to the Council of State Governments said:

The services are unable effectively to administer diverse procedures of 48 states as to 11 million servicemen all over the world in primary, special and general elections.

While the statement emphasized that “the War and Navy Departments do not advocate or oppose any particular voting legislation,” it is expected to give impetus to compromise measures to be considered when Congress resumes next week.

Compromises outlined

The compromises, sponsored by Senator Lucas (D-IL) and Rep. Worley (D-TX) would set up a federal commission to supervise distribution and collection by the Army and Navy of a simple ballot for President, Vice President and members of Congress. The ballots would be turned over to the states for counting under their laws.

Secretaries Stimson and Knox submitted their statement in reply to an inquiry by Frank Bane, executive director of the Council of State Governments.

The statement explained that it is Army and Navy policy “to assist and encourage servicemen to vote, so far as practicable and compatible with military operations.” It said that service voting is subject to factors beyond control – weather, war and plane space – and that no assurance could be given that enactment or elimination of any legislative provision “will result in the casting of more votes by servicemen.”

Recommendation made

It ruled out, as impracticable of administration by the services, numerous requirements of state laws as to furnishing names and addresses of servicemen, a specific day or period for voting, and the like.

For uniform legislation, the Cabinet officers recommended that state secretaries of state be authorized to transmit to appropriate election officials the form prepared and distributed by the War and Navy Departments as an application for a state absence ballot and for wartime registration as a voter – when executed by the absentee serviceman – and that election officials be authorized to receive these at any time before election.

They recommended that, for servicemen within the United States, at least 30 days be permitted before election in which to send out absentee ballots and, for those outside the United States, at least 45 days and perhaps longer.

They also specified a limit of eight-tenths of an ounce for total weight of covering envelope, enclosed outer envelope, inner envelope, ballot and voting instructions, and outer dimensions of the covering envelope at 4⅛ by 9½ inches, No. 10 size. The outer envelope would be clearly marked “official ballot.”

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Right to vote is preferred to Varga girl

Algiers, Algeria (UP) – (Jan. 4)
A poll of servicemen and women by the Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes, showed today that in a choice between the thinly-clad Varga girls which brought the wrath of the Post Office Department down on Esquire Magazine and the right to vote, the boys and girls in uniform prefer the latter.

The poll was taken following a recent observation by Rep. Ranulf Compton (R-CT), that servicemen were more concerned over the fate of the Varga girls than their right to vote. Mr. Compton’s lone supporter, reported the Stars and Stripes, was Seaman Moses Ellen Detroit, who said:

I’d rather have a Varga girl than a vote.

WAC Pvt. Marguerite Burney of Salem, Oregon, said that all the WACs with whom she had discussed Postmaster General Frank C. Walker’s ban on Esquire were against it:

…because the Varga girl is not really vulgar in this day and age, and it seems like an infringement of the freedom of the press.

Pvt. Burney said:

But we over here, the men who are fighting and the women who are helping, should have the right to choose our leaders. This Congressman made no sensible comparison at all.