THE EDITOR RESERVES THE LAST COLUMN
The Editor Reserves . . . The Last Column Official Obituary. WISCONSIN election officers have just completed the formal canvass required by law. The official tally tells an even more amazing...
...most papers buried the story far inside if they used it at all...
...Thomas E. Dewey of New York piled up 143,000 votes although he had been publicly and specifically commanded by Dewey to desist from using his name...
...Pearson did no such thing, of course...
...President Roosevelt has called him a "chronic liar...
...Robert E. Wood, chairman of the board of Sears, Roebuck, and Company and former chairman of the disbanded America First Committee...
...He refused...
...The top delegate candidate for Gen...
...Wendell Will-kie's defeat was so crushingly complete as to be almost incredible, especially in view of the vigor with which he worked the state, the pile of cash he spent, and the fact that he had the support of many papers which were thought to have considerable influence in populous centers...
...Harold Stassen collected 67,000 votes...
...But next week or the week after, they'll bombard their readers with editorial mumbo-jumbo which will seek to convey the impression that pre-war non-interventionists and critics of Roosevelt foreign policies are leagued with Gerald L. K. Smith's crackpot crowd...
...Walter George called him a "skunk...
...APRIME example of the free press in action last week concerned the statement issued by Gen...
...Secretary of State Cordell Hull said he was the author of "monstrous and diabolical falsehoods...
...Far in the rear came the top Willkie candidate who managed to scrape together 49,000 votes...
...It was as near unanimous as anything Wisconsin has had in many, many years...
...M.H.R...
...DREW PEARSON, whose syndicated Washington column is a curious combination of crusading journalism, barber shop bulletins, phony trial balloons, barroom rumors, and ordinary lies, is currently being forced to swallow a bit of his own medicine...
...Wood has made it abundantly clear on many occasions that the America First Committee folded immediately after Pearl Harbor...
...Nor did the readers of Pearson's column learn from this intrepid crusader for the truth that his radio sponsor, the makers of the patent medicine "Serutan" were currently being accused before the Federal Trade Commission of "false, misleading, and deceptive" advertising in promoting the sales of their laxative...
...As a matter of common decency, I feel you should promptly present this denial to your readers...
...Unabashed, Pearson airily announced that he was being attacked because he insisted on telling the truth and "scooping" his colleagues...
...The statewide tabulation shows that the front-running candidate pledged to Gov...
...If you, or a member of your staff, had taken the trouble to call me, I would gladly have given you the facts and it would not have been necessary for me to call your attention to this falsehood...
...Here's what happened : Pearson carried a story to the effect that Sen...
...Comdr...
...Gerald P. Nye, North Dakota Republican up for reelection...
...Last week Pearson was caught in an open-and-shut lie and challenged to make a retraction...
...Keating, manager and editor of Labor, wrote Pearson characterizing the statement as "just 100 per cent falsehood" and showing that the Railroad Labor Executives Association does the endorsing of candidates and not the editor of Labor...
...Douglas MacArthur received 76,000 votes, while the number one candidate for Lieut...
...My telephone number is in the Washington directory...
...Pearson On The Pan...
...The Free Press...
...Wood issued a new statement, emphasizing again that America First disbanded in December, 1941, that the current Smith outfit has no connection whatever with the original .Committee, that he had never even met Smith, and that he opposed the policies advocated by Smith because he "preaches a doctrine of intolerance...
...Last week Gen...
...But smear specialists continued to convey the opposite impression and many have linked the old America First Committee with Gerald L. K. Smith's discredited America First Party...
...Willkie appears to have run just as badly, and in some cases worse, in districts known to have large labor and Progressive strength than he did in the more Tory dominated areas, and he seems to have had no more appeal to Wisconsin residents of Norwegian, Danish, . Swiss, Polish, or Scotch-Irish origin than those of German extraction...
...Burton K. Wheeler was "bringing all sorts of pressure to bear on Ed Keating, editor of Labor," organ of the Railroad Brotherhoods, in an effort to get the backing of the powerful Brotherhoods for Sen...
...The official tally tells an even more amazing story than did the original newspaper tabulations...
...A study of the vote by districts explodes the carefully cultivated myth that Willkie was whipped because the conservative machine gang was against him...
...Sen...
...Most of its active officials and spokesmen entered or sought military service...
...You guessed it...
Vol. 8 • May 1944 • No. 18
