Tuesday, November 28, 1944TOKYO BOMBED AGAIN! I guess General Arnold meant it when he said the other day that last Friday’s B-29 bombing of Tokyo was no "hit-and-run raid." The Superforts appeared over the Japanese capital’s skies again Monday, for the second time in three days. According to Tokyo communiques recorded by the F.C.C., 40 of the big planes sped through the skies over Honshu, Japan’s main island, for some ninety minutes. Meanwhile, another fleet of B-29s hit Japanese installations in Bangkok, Thailand. Best news of all: not a plane lost in either raid. Japan tried to send up interceptors, but they were unable to gain altitude due to bad weather.The overcast also prevented our fliers from assessing the damage, but no doubt it was heavy. The Associated Press says that the waterfront targets in Tokyo are "instrument" targets which can be hit through clouds by simply aiming bombs somewhere in the general target area.A spokesman for the Twentieth Air Force quickly tried to dampen the good news a bit, cautioning the public to not expect anything like daily raids on Japan. After the thirty-month wait since the Doolittle raid, I’d be thrilled if they were able to do this once every ten days or so. Twice in three days? Well, I’ll just take that as a very special treat. posted by Michael 6:59:00 AM . . .
THE ALLIES SLUG ONWARD IN THE WEST. Day by day, it seems we can see progress of a sort in General Eisenhower’s six-army offensive in the West. Facing "savage resistance" from Germans on the Cologne plain, the U.S. First Army has driven the enemy to the west band of the Roer River, which is the Nazis’ best natural barrier in front of the Rhine. The A.P. reports the news this way --"While this thrust . . . represented a gain of only a half-mile to a mile east of Bourhelm, it will give the Americans their first foothold on the Roer and enable them to drive on Julich from the south once they clean out the rest of Kirchberg."In other words, where previously we were charting progress on the Western Front in hundreds of yards, now we’re doing so by "a half-mile to a mile." It is progress, I guess, but it doesn’t sound anything yet like the kind of progress needed to finish the war in Europe. Then again, we still might see sometime soon an Allied breakout similar to what happened in Normandy in August. Max Werner’s weekly war roundup tells what the Allies are now trying to do in the West --"The first phase of our present offensive has already shown that the Allied high command and the Allied troops in action have the mastery of the procedure by which a continuous defense front is disrupted. The six Allied armies have driven wedges in the German defense front. Many pincers are on the move and the very variety of the blows must confuse the German high command. The originally continuous German front is being broken in many sectors and every one of them is menaced by double envelopment on both flanks. The German forces covering the vital Ruhr area are threatened from the British bulge at the lower Rhine and by the American offensive in the direction of Cologne. Between Cologne and the Saar the Wehrmacht is endangered by pincers composed of the right wing of the American First and the left wing of the American Third Armies. At the same time General Patton’s Third Army is executing an envelopment of the Wehrmacht in northeastern Lorraine pressing it into the corner where the upper Rhine meets the Palatinate area."The latest maps in the papers show that the most promising gains are even farther south, in Alsace, where the Nazi defenders are increasingly threatened with a Stalingrad-type entrapment before the Rhine. U.S. Seventh Army troops have made the most progress there, plunging into Strasbourg and moving into a position to attack southward, while the French First Army is attacking northward from Mulhouse. The A.P. says that this may already be happening. If it does, and at more than one location on the front, we can start really hoping for an accelerated German collapse. posted by Michael 6:56:00 AM . . .
SMALL WORLD. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In St. Petersburg, Fla., Charles Granderson lost his entire wardrobe to a burglar, moved to new quarters vacated by a tenant convicted of watch-snatching, found his own clothes hanging in the closet." posted by Michael 6:51:00 AM . . .
Sunday, November 26, 1944TOKYO BOMBED! General MacArthur’s still having a tough time trying to break the Japanese on Leyte, but certainly the news that a fleet of B-29s from Saipan bombed Tokyo on Friday is the most heartening news from the Pacific since MacArthur first stepped ashore. Unlike the Doolittle raid of two-and-a-half years ago, this appears to be the start of a prolonged effort to bring the war home to Japan, and do lasting damage to Japan’s industrial might. As General Arnold’s official statement says --"This operation is in no sense a hit-and-run raid. It is a calculated extension of our air power. Combined operations of the Navy and the Army in the Pacific have won these island bases from which our B-29s now may strike at will into the enemy homeland. No part of the Japanese empire is now out of our range, no war factory too remote to feel our bombs. The battle for Japan has been joined. The systematic demolition of Japan’s war production, begun six months ago from China bases, henceforth will be carried out with decisive vigor, softening up the Japanese heart for the ultimate invasion by combined United Nations land, sea, and air forces."It’s the Superforts that make this all possible. The 1500-mile trip to Tokyo is within their range. To give you an idea of what an accomplishment this is, the round trip for such a mission is the equivalent of a non-stop flight from New York to London -- carrying a full bomb load.Except for the Doolittle raid, and in contrast to the havoc wreaked on Berlin, Tokyo has gotten off scot-free in this war. Until now. Who knows how quickly the next raid will come, but it looks from this we have real hope that the Tokyo regime will very soon get further demonstrations of what they did at Pearl Harbor -- and right on their doorstep. posted by Michael 7:39:00 AM . . .
WHEN WILL THE WAR END? (XI) The battles still rage in General Eisenhower’s big push all over the Western Front, but if what Gallup says is true, Americans have pretty well given up on the hope of breaking the Hitler regime by the end of this year. This is quite a change in public opinion from a couple of months ago --"In September, shortly after the liberation of Paris, two-thirds of all voters polled thought the German war would terminate by the end of the year. But the latest survey, completed shortly before General Eisenhower’s present offensive began, finds the majority expressing a belief that six months or more will be required to whip the Nazis."Indeed, a paltry 4% now believe the Germans will give way in December, and a total of 54% believe it’ll take us six months or longer to win in Europe. Mr. Gallup notes that there’s sound reasons why the majority might be right this time, despite progress in the current Allied offensive in the West --"It is believed in Washington that Germany may still be crushed by Christmas if the breakthrough achieves immediate success, but that if the six-army thrust from France and Belgium is halted, it may be a matter of months before the Allies can amass enough material for another decisive blow."Is this is so, the coming week’s news from the Western Front might be the most decisive news of the entire year. We may find out within a few days whether we’ll be still fighting Hitler’s armies in mid-1945. posted by Michael 7:35:00 AM . . .
WELL, IT WAS, WASN’T IT? From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Detroit, Mrs. Minnie Jordan stopped her car in the middle of a jammed downtown street, changed her baby’s diapers, got a suspended traffic court sentence because ‘it was an emergency.’" posted by Michael 7:32:00 AM . . .
Tuesday, November 21, 2008IS THE WESTERN FRONT GIVING WAY? The answer depends on which part of the front page you read. In yesterday’s Washington Post, Wes Gallagher seems to say that we shouldn’t expect any kind of Allied breakthrough soon --"In simplest terms the war apparently will not end until the German nation has been bled so white by battle losses that it will be physically impossible to put enough men, boys, or old men into the field to carry on an effective fight. . . . Thanks to Adolph Hitler’s idea of strategy -- which seems to begin and end with a series of fight to the death orders to his troops and a willingness of those troops to carry them out no matter how stupid the situation may be -- the war has become simply one of survival. . . . The Germans are doing exactly what they did in Normandy. They are trying to hold every inch of ground and fighting to the last bullet. When the line gives way they commit their reserves and patch the breach immediately, instead of withdrawing to better strategic positions. Over nearly all the front they are holding tenaciously to strategically useless bits of ground expending lives in futile counterattacks designed to regain other strips. As long as they have the manpower to plug sagging sectors of this 400-mile line, Allied progress is going to be slow and costly."Sounds persuasive. But in the very next column of the Post’s front page, the Associated Press celebrates "strong indications the bitter Nazi stand before the Rhine [is] cracking at last." The A.P. tells us that, as a great new Allied push gets underway, U.S. forces east of Aachen have suddenly made four miles of progress in a single day, while farther south Metz is finally falling and the Germans are in full retreat in the Saar. And today the A.P. triumphantly reports on "the greatest breakthrough since Normandy," as French troops have driven Nazi forces to the Rhine in three places near the Swiss border. The Post headlines the story, "Nazi Lines Breaking Under Six-Army Assault".So, according to the Post, the answer to the above question is: No and Yes. posted by Michael 7:59:00 AM . . .
F.D.R. INDORSES COMPULSORY YOUTH SERVICE. He did so at his Friday press conference. But, as Arthur Krock tells us in the New York Times, there’s some confusion about what "compulsory service" is. The two bills pending in Congress envision a year or two of compulsory military service for young men in peacetime. But the President mentioned in the Civilian Conservation Camps in his indorsement, implying that young men could choose to serve in either a civilian or a military unit of some sort --"Both bills have in contemplation military and naval service only, with no relation to the CCC camp plan, and restrict their application to males. Within the Executive arm of the Administration, however, the CCC camp formula is supported as one of the ingredients or alternatives of the compulsory training, and there is some backing for the inclusion of females, with a somewhat different set of training requirements. The President, previously and this week, has shown sympathy with phases of this viewpoint, and Mrs. Roosevelt is known to believe that young women should not be excluded . . . . Thus the legislative prospect is cloudy and the President did not clarify it by what he said at the press conference."It sounds like, with victory getting closer, the administration is getting nostalgic for the New Deal. But there’s one thing the President’s men forget about those days -- the idea of a peacetime draft was very unpopular in the Thirties. I could see the public accepting compulsory military service after the war, in support of United Nations efforts to prevent aggression. But compulsory civilian service smacks too much of what we’re fighting against, doesn’t it? posted by Michael 7:56:00 AM . . .
LUCKY MAN. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Salt Lake City, Merrill Clement, 35, recalled high spots in his life since the age of four: stung twice by swarms of bees, kicked by a horse, struck by lightning, punctured in the stomach by falling on a stick while running away from a bull, treed by another bull, gouged in three fingers by a saw, hit under the eye by a cement mixer crank." posted by Michael 7:52:00 AM . . .
Sunday, November 19, 2008THE SHOWDOWN? Hanson W. Baldwin explains in this morning’s New York Times how the U.S. and Britain are making one last shot for Allied victory of 1944 --"Within the space of the next few weeks, possibly the next few days, the duration of the war in Europe may be determined. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allied Supreme Commander, who as recently as September said he thought there was still a good chance to defeat Germany in 1944, is undoubtedly striving for the knockout blow. Whether the offensive, now started, will eventually achieve its undoubted purpose of knocking Germany out of the war, or whether we must be content with more limited victories, will depend upon numerous factors. . . . Though the Allied superiority in effectives in the West may be as much as two or three to one, the Germans have well used the time between September, when the war of movement gradually slowed to the war of position, and last week. Recent estimates put the Nazi strength along the entire Western Front -- so far only the 350-mile section of it from eastern Holland to Switzerland is fully engaged -- at elements of 100 understrength divisions, perhaps 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 men."We will need every bit of our superiority on the ground and in the air, for the Germans are now fighting on their own territory. There won’t be any partisan force this time to carry out harassment and sabotage of Nazi supplies and communications.This could be the toughest fight of the war, and its outcome will probably have repercussions outside of the European war. If we yet manage to finish off Germany by the end of 1944, that would give us all the more time to shift resources into an all-out fight against Japan in 1945. And that would surely hasten the real end of the war, which might linger into 1947 if the Japanese choose to put up the kind of last-ditch battle that Hitler is insisting upon. posted by Michael 7:48:00 AM . . .
LET’S HOPE HITLER’S STILL ALIVE. New hopes were raised this past week that Hitler is dead or incapacitated, after a "proclamation" from the Fuehrer was read on German radio the other week not by Hitler himself, but by Himmler. It’s an intriguing story, but the New Republic’s editors point out this week that we should actually hope that Hitler is still alive, and still in charge of Nazidom. They make a good case for it --"We certainly hope the reports of Hitler’s death or incapacitation prove false. He is a far less competent military leader than the men who would take control if he were removed; his ‘intuition’ has given us some of our outstanding victories. Moreover, there is a primitive but powerful impulse toward justice and retribution that would be better satisfied if Hitler lives to see the ruin of his empire than if he make st he comparatively easy escape which death or complete insanity at this point would provide." posted by Michael 7:46:00 AM . . .
ZOOLOGY, BROOKLYN STYLE. "From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "Near Camp McCoy, Wis., a Brooklyn G.I. returned to his company carrying a full-grown set of rattlesnake rattles, explained that he 'got ‘em off a big woim.'" posted by Michael 7:43:00 AM . . .
Tuesday, November 14, 1944CAN ROCKET BOMBS THREATEN AMERICA? Not now, of course. And not during this war, despite Nazi boasts that soon they’ll be able to do so. But after that...?The Nazis’ new V-2 rockets, unleashed on Britain and part of Belgium and France in recent days, are something new in warfare. Make no mistake, this is an entirely different kettle of fish from the V-1 robot bomb. The V-1s are deadly enough, but they’re essentially pilotless planes. The V-2s are true rockets, "flying telegraph poles" of over 13 tons apiece, which fly some 70 miles into space and reach an amazing speed of 3500 miles per hour. Being faster than the speed of sound, they strike before they can be heard.The experts have assured us that because of its imprecision, the V-2 will have only a negligible military effect -- the director of the trade publican Iron Age said last week-end that the rocket was "primarily a propaganda weapon [which] can have no appreciable effect on the war’s outcome." Drew Pearson agrees with that analysis in his latest column, but offers a grim warning on what the V-2 means for America’s security in the future --"Fortunately the Germans got started on this fiendish weapon late in the war and haven’t got it perfected. After this war, of course, they will try to perfect it. And one reason why American isolation has vanished and why it is so all-important to develop an efficient machinery for world peace is the certainty that rocket bombs launched from Arctic bases near Norway, Sweden or the north Japanese islands could wipe out New York, Chicago, Seattle and almost any city in the United States."More good reasons, as if any more were needed, why (1) Germany and Japan must be demilitarized after the war, and (2) the proposed United Nations has to succeed where the League of Nations failed. If we don’t succeed, we might not get another chance. posted by Michael 8:04:00 AM . . .
WHO MIGHT SUCCEED F.D.R.? The Roosevelt administration is happily basking right now in the President’s electoral-vote landslide, but Merlo Pusey’s column today points out some potential big trouble for the Democrats next time around. Namely, the Emperor has no understudy --"The question of who will succeed President Roosevelt is as much a mystery as it was eight years ago. At the end of his second term he was under strong inducement to run again because there was no heir apparent. The same argument played a part in his fourth nomination, and now, as the beginning of his fourth term approaches, there is still no successor in sight. . . . Four years ago it was generally assumed that the President had chosen Henry Wallace as his successor. As Vice President, Mr. Wallace might have risen to that opportunity if he had been willing to submerge New Dealism to winning the war. His persistence on dividing the people on ideological grounds caused the political chieftains to reject him and the President acquiesced in that action. Because of the poor showing made in the campaign by Vice President-elect Truman, however, it would not be surprising if Mr. Wallace should not be given another build-up in a high federal office. Whether or not he has any prospect of holding together the discordant elements that won the fourth-term campaign is another matter. If not Mr. Wallace, where is a potential successor to the President to be found? . . . In the Cabinet first honors for work well done go to Secretary of War Stimson. But Stimson is a Republican and by 1948 will be 81. Secretary Hull is sick and worn out. Secretary Ickes might qualify . . . [but] he would scarcely be eligible in 1948 at age 74. . . . In short, the official sources from which a successor to President Roosevelt would normally be chosen are pretty barren. . . . Unless the President has visions of running for a fifth term, he cannot too quickly begin the process of infusing new blood into his official family."The reason is actually pretty simple why no apparent successors to the President have shown up -- Roosevelt’s men busied themselves during the past two elections in busting up any other strong Democratic candidacies that might be considered alternatives to the administration’s rule. And now, no one is waiting the wings. It could well be, despite the Democrats’ victory this year, that they will fall on their faces at the polls when the President retires in 1948. posted by Michael 8:02:00 AM . . .
KNOW YOUR ENEMY. From Time magazine’s news section this week -- "Tiring of C and K rations, a private first class on Guam bagged a brace of chickens, was on his way to the mess when he was intercepted by the Chaplain. 'Where did you get those chickens?' asked the chaplain. 'Shot 'em, sir.' That was a slip. The chaplain was mentally thumbing the rule books as he repeated, dubiously, 'Shot them, eh?' The private first class quickly amended: 'Yes sir, shot 'em in self defense.'" posted by Michael 8:01:00 AM . . .
Sunday, November 12, 1944WILL GERMANY REVOLT? MAYBE. There’s a tantalizing hint of it in a story by Joseph Driscoll in today’s New York Herald Tribune --"The cities of the Rhineland, the Ruhr and the rest of Adolf Hitler’s Reich are growing restive under the relentless bombing and the steady approach of Allied armies. . . . In Cologne, which has been in something of a ferment since the fall of Aachen, posters are said to spring up overnight with the simple, straightforward legend, 'Down with Hitler.' Jokes about Nazi Party leaders are taking on a note of sharp political criticism. Leaders who enjoyed some standing are said to be forfeiting it because of their corrupt dealings, particularly in food. Reich Marshal Hermann Goering’s round face and belly no longer go over well with a nation of diminishing boundaries and waist lines. . . . At the southern end Alsace is reported to have become strongly anti-German. Definite anti-Nazi trends are also reported in south Germany and in Austria."But Mr. Driscoll adds that his fellow correspondents don’t believe Germans will rise up to end the Nazi regime. William L. Shirer, in a separate report filed from occupied Aachen, offers an explanation why --"Why don’t they quit then, you ask? They can’t. Himmler’s grip on the population and on the army is too iron. To falter now means instant execution. Eleven years of Naziism and five years of war have knocked out of the German people all principles and morals, and above all, any urge to revolt. All they think of now is how to survive."That’s understandable -- but what would ordinary Germans do if it turned out Hitler was dead, or no longer running the show? That’s the intriguing possibility raised in an Associated Press story this morning. The A.P. notes that Hitler hasn’t been heard by the public since he spoke right after the July 20 bombing attempt, and that he didn't make his usual speech on the November 9 anniversary of the 1923 Munich putsch. The A.P. adds --"The mysterious silence of Adolph Hitler has deluged London with reports that he is dead, seriously ill or suffering nervous disorders. Strange doings on the German radio, dispatches from the Swiss and Swedish listening posts, and reports to London from the German underground all suggested that something may be wrong with the Fuehrer. . . . London’s Daily Express aid under a front page headline today that 'authoritative quarters in London' believed Hitler had been seriously injured in the bombing attempt against him on July 20. The London Daily Mail also front-paged a suggestion by a prominent British psychologist, William Brown, that 'the Fuehrer may now be approaching the final phrase of his mental sickness.'"I think it’s wrong to discount the possibility, as Mr. Shirer does, that ordinary Germans might give up the fight soon and bring down the Reich on their own. Hitler is the glue that has always held this alliance of monsters together. If Hitler is gone, or incapacitated, then that will be evident soon enough, even to those who live on a daily diet of Nazi propaganda. And the most powerful psychological weapon allowing "Himmler’s men" to force the population into obedience will have evaporated. posted by Michael 7:47:00 AM . . .
YOU’RE UNDER ARREST, DUMMY. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Manhattan, Detective James Costello, patrolling Broadway in the small hours, noticed a shattered window displaying four dummies, three nude, one clothed. When the clothed dummy twitched, Detective Costello reached in and arrested one Albert Gibson for burglary." posted by Michael 7:43:00 AM . . .
Wednesday, November 8, 1944NO DOUBT -- IT’S ROOSEVELT AGAIN. Well, so much for that "close" election. Actually, it was close in the popular vote -- Dr. Gallup was quoted this morning as saying it was the closest popular-vote tally since the nail-biting Wilson-Hughes election of 1916. But the President’s 53% majority is enough to have him leading in 34 states with 394 electoral votes, while Governor Dewey only leads in 14 states with 135 electoral votes. So, in that sense, it was just another Roosevelt landslide.From the start there was little cheer for Dewey. He had to win New York and its 47 electoral votes, but Roosevelt piled up a 200,000-vote lead. Pennsylvania, with 36 electoral votes, was supposed to be close and perhaps decisive, but the President took a 67,000-vote lead in the Keystone state by the wee hours. Governor Dewey conceded about 3:15 this morning.There’s no solace for Republicans in the congressional races, either. There were eight upsets in House races, and they all cost the G.O.P. seats. The Democrats will start President’s Roosevelt’s fourth term with a heavy majority in Congress.Anyway, congratulations to the President on his victory. May he have a successful fourth term.After that, finally, can we have a new President? posted by Michael 4:12:00 AM . . .
Tuesday, November 7, 1944DEWEY’S ELECTION EVE MESSAGE. Here’s a last shot from Governor Dewey as the campaign finishes up --"Let me ask you one simple question. Do you believe the job at home is being handled as well as possible? I think everyone from the housewife who struggles with a new rationing problem every week to the industrial executive who struggles with priorities and allocutions -- everyone will agree we need improvement and need it badly. Will it help to shorten the war and assure quicker return of our fighting men if we have a change of administration? . . . I would have refused the nomination of my party for President if I did not believe so, with all my heart and soul. . . . No matter how you vote -- it is the duty of every American to vote tomorrow.""Tomorrow" is now "today," and Governor Dewey is absolutely right. Go vote! posted by Michael 8:08:00 AM . . .
...AND HERE’S ROOSEVELT’S MESSAGE. In the interest of fair play, I suppose it’s only sporting to quote the election eve statement of President What’s-His-Name as well. It’s a pretty good statement, actually --"Our boys are counting on us to show the rest of the world that our kind of government is the best in the world -- and the kind we propose to keep. And so, when our people turn out to the polls tomorrow -- and I sincerely hope that it will be fifty million strong -- the world will respect our democracy and the grand old Stars and Stripes will wave more proudly than ever before. . . . When the ballots are cast, your responsibilities do not cease. The public servants you elect cannot fulfill their trust unless you, the people, watch and advise them, raise your voices in protest when you believe your public servants to be wrong, back them up when you believe them to be right." posted by Michael 8:04:00 AM . . .
THE SOUTH’S ONE-PARTY SYSTEM. I don’t know why there isn’t more discussion at election time about the harm done by the Democratic Party’s total domination of the southern states. Merlo Pusey’s column takes it up today --"Our great national drama means virtually nothing in the South. A mere handful of people go to the polls. And they could just as well stay away and permit the Southern States’ electoral votes to be counted automatically for the candidate who bears the Democratic label. For the South, like Russia, is one-party land. . . . Why, indeed, should people go to the polls when they know in advance what the outcome will be? South Carolina Democratic leaders estimate that 96 percent of the vote in that state today will go to President Roosevelt. The Nazis found it possible to obtain similar results in Germany by giving the people only one choice at the polls. . . . Perhaps the South finds some emotional satisfaction in thus maintaining a spite fence against the two-party system. But it should at least realize the cost of its indulgence. Because the South can be taken for granted, it gets little consideration from either party. No southerner has a chance for the presidential nomination. Even the vice presidential nomination has gone to a southerner only three times since the turn of the century. The South kills itself politically by permitting tradition constantly to erase self interest. Southerners will watch eagerly tonight and tomorrow to see how the East and the West have voted. They will be out on the fringe of the great contest that is to determine the course of the Nation during the next four years. . . . It is high time for the Old South to come back into the United States as an active political factor."How bad is voter turnout in the South due to Democratic party domination? Worse than you can imagine --"In Illinois 53.4 per cent of the total population voted in 1940; in Indiana, 52 per cent; Delaware, 51.2 per cent; Colorado, 48.9 per cent; . . . Contrast this with the pitiful showing of the South. In South Carolina 5.3 per cent of the population went to the polls in the 1940 election; in Mississippi, 8.1 per cent; in Georgia, 10; in Arkansas, 10.3; Alabama, 10.4; Virginia, 12.9; Louisiana, 15.7; Texas, 16.2; and Tennessee, 17.9."In light of this, Mr. Pusey says, "it can scarcely be said that democracy prevails in the South." No kidding. Is it too much to hope that one day the Republicans might have an honest chance of attracting votes in the southern states? posted by Michael 8:02:00 AM . . .
OFF KEY. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Springfield, Ill., Sheriff Walter Hagler listened carefully, then broke up a prisoners’ quartet and took away the discordant saw with which one of the singers was cutting through the bars." posted by Michael 8:00:00 AM . . .
Sunday, November 5, 1944DOPESTERS PREDICT A CLOSE ELECTION. Harvey Cantril of Princeton University’s Office of Public Opinion Research has a most interesting analysis of the state of the election in today’s New York Times. You can disregard the optimistic projections of Democratic partisans, because the real experts assure us that Governor Dewey has a genuine shot at winning --"The political dopesters seem genuinely agreed that the election will be close. Most say it is a toss-up. For example, the final estimate of the experts on the panel of Newsweek, a panel composed of 118 political writers in forty-eight States, gives Mr. Roosevelt an advantage of twenty-seven States with 249 electoral votes (266 are needed to win) and Mr. Dewey an advantage in twenty States with 247 electoral votes. They say the election is likely to depend on how Pennsylvania goes. And they don’t feel able to place Pennsylvania one way or the other."Mr. Cantril notes the three major polls, all of which give the President a slight lead -- Gallup, 51% to 49%; Fortune magazine, 53.5% to 46.5%; and the Crossley service, 52% to 48%. But as he points out, such a small lead is a danger signal for the Democrats --"Because of the Democratic vote wasted in the South, Mr. Roosevelt needs slightly more than 50 per cent to win. Just how much more he needs depends upon the way different States go. A popular vote of 50.5 per cent could elect him if there happened to be heavy Democratic voting in certain key States. On the other hand, under the reverse conditions, Mr. Roosevelt could actually lose the vote in the electoral college, even though his total popular vote were slightly above 51 per cent. . . . Because the figures of both Gallup and Crossley land in the danger zone between 50 and 53 per cent Democratic, neither of them can feel safe in predicting the winner. For all polling operations are subject to a sampling error of around 3 per cent. And if a scientific poll-taker does not allow for this possible error, then he too is guessing."I agree with Mr. Cantril that this election might come down to the so-called "independent" voters, who are not large in number but are most open to the arguments of both President Roosevelt and Governor Dewey. The surveys show that if these voters expect the war to go on for quite a while longer, they are inclined to support the President. But if they expect the war to end soon and want a President to focus on domestic affairs, they are more inclined to vote Republican.Thus, the outcome of this election could well be decided by a handful of voters, and how they see America’s future. posted by Michael 7:51:00 AM . . .
HUSBAND OF THE YEAR. From Time magazine’s Miscellany section -- "In Detroit, Mrs. Helen Lukaszewicz, suing for separate maintenance, said that her husband borrowed $150 from her on the morning of their wedding, $450 that afternoon, $30,000 in the following six weeks, then left her, taking her engagement ring with him." posted by Michael 7:49:00 AM . . .
