THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW AFTER a dull and uneventful start, marked by almost incredible public apathy, the 1944 political campaign began last week to show signs of life and interest. The race for the...
...We Socialists alone are discussing issues in concrete terms...
...I know that when I speak as I do, I preserve the spirit of the Bible—at least of the Bible that is read from beginning to end and not only in its soft and gentle passages...
...Hershey could be voted the man with whom we should like most to share a slit trench in the front lines...
...I found little enthusiasm for Gov...
...Lewis scored at least a partial victory when the UMW convention adopted a resolution condemning President Roosevelt, praising Gov...
...John A. Ryan of the National Catholic Welfare Conference warned that postwar job discriminations will be practiced against Catholics as well as against Negroes and Jews...
...Claude Pepper, Florida Democrat, proposed in the Senate recently that the proceedings of Congress be broadcast...
...Philip Murray, CIO president, told the convention that the Little Steel formula has been broken and an upward revision of wages based on increased costs of living will soon be granted to the steel workers—and presumably to others who have been held down by the enforcement of the Little Steel formula...
...Harry Truman, Democratic candidate for Vice President, and Gov...
...The Socialist candidate's assertion that the Dewey candidacy was making little if any headway was not confirmed by the newest Fortune Magazine poll...
...By this new device," Thomas wrote leaders of the two major parties, "America will be thoroughly committed at no matter what cost to enforce Stalin's and Churchill's peace...
...Wagner declared...
...John Jennings, Tennessee Republican, asserted that "right now we think that Gen...
...Retort...
...Dewey except as the beneficiary of opposition to Roosevelt...
...Love...
...There must be no distinction between soldiers and civilians in the destruction of men, women, and children," he declared...
...Tests conducted among high school seniors by Science Clubs of America, Science Service, and the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company have revealed that girls are inferior intellectually to boys...
...The rest of America has pretty nearly boiled the issue down to for or against Roosevelt...
...One of the best of the educated estimates of the situation as of this week came from a man who is himself a contender for the Presidency—Norman Thomas, the perpetual Socialist candidate...
...Dewey asking whether they had approved any peace proposal allocating an armed force to police the world...
...The Senator called...
...Broadcasts...
...Call Mamie at once or she may quit...
...In New York, Sen...
...Rep...
...We must beat down intolerance through action in our daily lives, in our churches, in our schools, and in all our relations with one another," Sen...
...One of the most interesting political developments of the week was Dewey's demand that Gen...
...Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes opened fire on Dewey last week, especially on the latter's Philadelphia charge that the Roosevelt regime does not intend to demobilize armed forces As quickly as possible...
...A Paris clergyman in a sermon last week urged that every German be killed...
...Lister Hill, Alabama, got an urgent message one day last week from his daughter Henrietta about the family cook...
...Another Democratic blast this week took cognizance of mounting criticism of the CIO's Political Action Committee, headed by Sidney Hillman, which is solidly behind the Roosevelt candidacy...
...Little Henrietta...
...In a statement analyzing sentiment as he found it on a transcontinental tour, Thomas asserted that if ''Dewey doesn't wake up, the only vote he will get is the convinced anti-Roosevelt vote...
...This result represented a sharp reduction in the President's lead over Dewey, for in the previous Fortune poll Roosevelt had been credited with 54.6 per cent and Dewey with 40.9 per cent, with 4.5 per cent undecided...
...Lewis asserted that if the miners voted for a fourth term they might lose the right of collective bargaining...
...A. J. Engel, Michigan Republican, charged that official records suppressed by the Roosevelt Administration showed that the President slashed the Army's requests for annual appropriations by hundreds of millions of dollars in the six years before American entry into the war...
...The Little Steel formula, which limits cost-of-living wage increases to 15 per cent above wages as of Jan...
...The Socialist candidate sent letters to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Sen...
...Prices...
...Observing one of the strangest campaigns in American history, the "experts" are completely divided on the possible outcome...
...Roosevelt Record Attacked The Republican attack on the Roosevelt record be-jgan to take definite form during the past week...
...There has been many a grim warning during the past week that racial and religious intolerance may grip America when the war ends...
...Two of the nation's mightiest unions, assembled at their annual conventions, heard conflicting counsel on the course for labor to pursue in the 1944 elections...
...Thomas blasted the Democratic-Republican agreement on plans to set up world policing machinery before the peace settlement which is to be policed is written...
...Ickes denounced the Dewey allegation as "reckless and baseless...
...The church leader called for passage of legislation creating a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee...
...We are certain that none of us would ever consider returning home to America and taking work away from the poor fellows who have so nobly stood up under the strains of gasoline rationing, cuft'less trousers, and union scales...
...Advice For Labor Organized labor was active, too, last week on the fringes of the political controversy...
...In Washington, the Rt...
...Inferior...
...He accused the Administration of "smearing" the coal miners of America and charged that the President, along with Earl Browder, Communist leader, and Hillman, had sought to dethrone him as UMW president...
...Thomas reported that he "found no sentiment for Dewey and I found plenty against Roosevelt...
...the maintenance of the British and French and Dutch Empires in the Far East by American strength...
...Dewey, but endorsing neither for election...
...A month or so ago, Maj...
...Douglas Mac-Arthur be given "greater scope and recognition" in leading the war against the Japanese...
...The resolution charged that President Roosevelt had sought to destroy the miners' union through attacks on Lewis and accused the President of preventing labor unity and depriving labor of its just rights...
...Gov...
...Bristling with bitter sarcasm, the letter satirically said that "we want to stay here forever and forever £mong our pleasant European friends (yeah, friends...
...Thomas E. Dewey of New York, hammered relentlessly at the Roosevelt Administration's 12-year record, while the President bestirred himself to announce that he would make two campaign addresses over the radio during the next fortnight...
...Pointing out that Nazi ideologies have made inroads in the United States, Justice Murphy declared that "unless we halt this mounting fury, the end of this war may unleash another program of hate and persecution far greater and more destructive than that which followed the last war...
...Message...
...Advertising...
...Although the Democrats largely allowed the Republicans to carry the ball in these first active weeks of the campaign, the Administration did send one of its ace campaigners into the fray...
...7 attack on Pearl Harbor, the Australian Government had advised Washington that a Japanese aircraft carrier force was headed toward Hawaii., [(Australia's Prime Minister John Curtin characterized this charge as "pure invention...
...Dewey, supported in Congress by a team of hard-hitting GOP Representatives, struck out at the Administration's pre-Pearl Harbor record, seeking to convey the impression that the President and his associates had actually delayed, rather than pushed, the rearmament of the .United States in the fateful period before Dec...
...The Word...
...He charged that Dewey "in his reckless quest for votes has stooped to pluck the heartstrings of every American mother, wife, sweetheart, and child of every soldier and sailor throughout the world with a charge that is as false as any ever promulgated by Goebbels...
...The United Automobile Workers (CIO) heard their president, R. J. Thomas, plead for the reelection of President Roosevelt, while the United Mine Workers (unaffiliated) heard their President, John L. Lewis, lash out at the New Deal...
...7, 1941...
...The United Automobile Workers' convention went on record as reaffirming the no-strike pledge for the duration of the war, but only after a turbulent debate...
...and Stalin's mastery of Eastern Europe, the quality of which may be illustrated by his extraordinary desertion of the fighting Poles in Warsaw...
...The latest survey showed that 49.3 per cent of the American people support President Roosevelt's bid for a fourth term and 44.4 favor Dewey, with the remaining 6.3 per cent undecided...
...Dewey praised MacArthur's military leadership as "brilliant," "extraordinary," and "magnificent," and implied that the Roosevelt Administration had sidetracked the general up to now because he had been "a political threat" to the New Deal...
...Robert E. Hannegan, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, accused Republican campaign speakers of "directly injecting racial prejudice" into the campaign by referring to Hillman as "a foreign-born labor leader...
...GOP spokesmen emphatically denied the charge...
...No lace-pantied gigolos are going to dethrone John L. Lewis at his own convention...
...Thomas E. Dewey of New York, GOP candidate for President, used the quotation in a major campaign address to show that the Roosevelt Administration has no plan but relief and continued military service for veterans of World War II...
...1, 1941, has long been under attack by organized labor...
...F. A. Harness, Indiana Republican, asserted on the floor of the House of Representatives that "there appears to be an abundance of evidence" that 72 hours before the Dec...
...The letter, released by Rep...
...The race for the Presidency appeared ready to roll into high gear as the GOP candidate, Gov...
...Names And Notes In The News Warnings...
...Hershey, smarting under criticism of his statement, was confronted last week with the hottest indictment of all—a blistering letter by 11 soldiers overseas...
...The cook stayed...
...Lewis B. Her-shey, director of Selective Service, wrote in the magazine Stars and Stripes: "We can keep people in the Army about as' cheaply as we could create an agency for them when they are out...
...An unofficial survey of Government and trade sources revealed last week that the first new cars, refrigerators, and washing machines will cost 20 to 35 per cent more than their prewar counterparts...
...In San Francisco, Justice Frank Murphy asserted that the United States could lose the peace if it fails to "eradicate every vestige of racial and religious prejudice and hatred...
...With other branches of the armed services planning to cut induction schedules, the Women's Army Corps this week announced that it would allocate $2,200,000 for advertising to spur recruiting fortheWAC...
...Robert Wagner said there were signals of danger that must be recognized...
...Harness this week demanded an independent Congressional investigation of the Pearl Harbor disaster...
...Don't Browder and Hillman and President Roosevelt know," demanded Lewis as the mine delegates roared approval, "that for 25 years I have met every challenge and never flinched from a fight...
...Rep...
...Thomas Demands Answers Although the ruling cliques of the Democratic and Republican Parties have sought to remove foreign policy as an issue in the campaign, Thomas continued to bombard the leadership of both parties with demands that they speak up clearly and frankly on this critical issue...
Vol. 8 • September 1944 • No. 39
