IS THE TIDE STARTING TO TURN? Suddenly, one sees something most unusual in the major newspapers’ war reports. Namely, an abundance of good news. The Associated Press reports that the Greek war is turning into an Italian rout -- the Greeks have decisively defeated a crack Alpini Centaur divison in the Pindus Mountains, seizing a "large number" of prisoners and the unit’s entire store of war materials. Meanwhile, Russell Hill writes in the New York Herald Tribune that at the southern end of the Greek front, where the attacking Italians previously had made some headway, they’re now in full retreat after their lines were broken in the Epirus sector. Mussolini’s invasion, the Herald Tribune says, is "bogged down on all fronts."
There’s more. The New York Times reports via special cable that General de Gaulle’s "Free French" forces are succeeding in an assault on the Vichy-held colony of Gabon, in French Equatorial Africa. The B.B.C. says de Gaulle troops have taken the capital, Libreville. And according to Times correspondent G.E.R. Gedye, diplomats in Turkey believe the upcoming visit to Berlin by Soviet Premier Molotoff is a sign that the Germans have become "desperate" to get Russian approval for Nazi designs on the Balkans and the Near East, in the wake of Hitler’s failure to crush Britain. Another A.P. dispatch reports "strong indications" from London that the British Near East army will soon be sent forth on the Empire’s first major land offensive of the war, apparently in Egypt.
It all sounds more promising than anything has in months -- but there were spurts of Allied optimism last February and last April which proved baseless. Molotoff surely isn’t being sent to Berlin for chit-chat, and if a new Nazi-Soviet agreement is signed which divides up Near East oilfields and the remainder of Eastern Europe, there might once again be some grim days ahead.
NO, THE TIDE ISN’T TURNING (YET). In his Monday Washington Post column, Barnet Nover tries to put a brake on the turning-point talk --
"Fourteen months after the outbreak of the war, five months after the crack-up of France, the total victory sought by Hitler and anticipated by Mussolini seems further off than ever. Something has gone wrong with the Axis time table. But it would be dangerously overoptimistic to assume that the war in Europe has reached a turning point. Perhaps it has. Future historians may reach the conclusion that the failure of Hitler’s aerial blitzkrieg against London marked the beginning of the end of the Nazi bid for world mastery. Or they may point to the vigor and skill of Greek resistance as the beginning of the decline in the curve of Axis fortunes. At the present moment, however, no one can afford to underestimate the still considerable advantages which Germany and Italy enjoy over the hard-pressed British and their allies. There is, for instance, the ominous circumstance that German and Italian submarines, German raiders and bombers have brought about a dangerous increase in British shipping losses during recent weeks. The British still have a very large merchant marine to draw on. But unless the rate of losses can be radically reduced they will find themselves in a desperate plight."
And Mr. Nover sees the Berlin conference with Molotoff as indication not that the Nazis are desperate, but that "British efforts to detach Moscow from the Axis appear to have met with flat failure." Still, Russia has made arguably pro-British and anti-Axis feints, particularly toward Turkey, and it’s reasonable to suspect that the Germans from now on will be paying a much higher price for Stalin’s cooperation than they’d like.
OPINION POLLS TAKE A BEATING. Arthur Krock writes in Sunday’s New York Times that the straw-vote opinion polls were "casualties" of the election. "How badly they were injured, and whether the degree of injury varied according to the luck of the poll, is yet to be determined," says he. Yet when Mr. Krock goes into particulars about how specific polls did, it doesn’t sound so bad --
"The straw tests which came chiefly to public attention were those conducted by Dr. Gallup. Emil Hurja, the Dunn Survey, The New York Daily News and Fortune Magazine. Fortune came within 1 per cent of discovering the popular majority Mr. Roosevelt would have in the nation as a whole, but it found that the margins indicated in the key States were ‘too small to be conclusive.’ The Daily News predicted the President’s victory in New York State by a ‘photo finish.’ The Dunn Survey predicted 364 electoral votes for Mr. Willkie and 124 for Mr. Roosevelt, and Mr. Hurja’s electoral straws for Mr. Willkie were in number 353. Fortune, though closer than any other to the popular majority in the country as a whole, was uncertain this would be reflected in an electoral majority. The Daily News’s ‘photo finish’ was not a precise description of the results in New York, though the President’s majority was small enough to be called a lead of half a length at the end of the race. The Dunn and Hurja prophecies were as incorrect as they were definite."
In other words, a couple of major polls got the result wrong, and three others got it right. Isn’t that about what you’d expect in a close election affected by a late trend toward the challenger? Mr. Krock’s own evidence shows that the Gallup surveys had a 4 per cent "margin of error" -- which in practice meant that eight states totalling 173 electoral votes, which Gallup had forecast going narrowly to Willkie, went narrowly to the President instead. And yet because of the "margin of error," the Gallup survey wasn’t really "wrong." Such uncertainties in modern polling might justify Mr. Krock’s prediction that "henceforth these polls will be scanned as interesting but not very important sidelights of campaigns." But I don’t believe they support the correspondent’s condescending verdict that the polls "are clearly no better than a survey by the State capitol correspondents of newspapers such as was published...in the New York Times."
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Sunday, November 10, 1940
MORE GOOD NEWS FROM GREECE. The Associated Press says that twelve days after Italian troops first crossed the Greek border, "neutral experts declared that Greek positions were as good as on the first day of the Fascist assault, or better." And while the Italians retain a small pincer inside Greek territory at the southern end of the front, at the northern flank Greek troops continue to endanger the strategic Italian base at Koritza, Albania. Plus, a United Press dispatch says that Greek troops, aided by heavy rains, have stopped an Italian drive on Janina about fourteen miles northwest of the city. The A.P. cites reports that the Greeks have now taken more than 2,500 Fascist prisoners, including five officers.
When the invasion began and the prevailing belief was that the Italians would probably win a quick victory, the New Republic editorialized on the tonic effects of a gallant Anglo-Greek defense -- "If perchance Britain and Greece together could throw back an assault, the anti-Axis coalition would be immensely strengthened, and the way would at last be open for action against the Axis on an Eastern front." Could it be that, if Greece continues a successful resistance and humiliates the Italians, that Turkey, and maybe even Russia, would find the nerve (and the self-interest) to join a coalation against Hitler and Mussolini? If so, these little Greek border battles could be a major turning point in the war.
NAZIS SINK 86,000 TONS OF SHIPPING. In a single engagement, that is. According to Saturday’s New York Times, German surface warships in the North Atlantic attacked and sunk fifteen to twenty ships in a British convoy last Tuesday. The German press is sketchy on details of the assault, which took place about 1,000 miles east of Newfoundland. But the Associated Press notes that Stuka dive bombers have also been at work, sinking another 31,000 tons of shipping (six vessels) on Friday and damaging an additional 21,000 tons. The Times sees this as evidence that the Nazis are shifting the emphasis of their Blitz campaign against Britain to attacks on shipping -- an unbylined story describes German warships, submarines, and warplanes as a "triple threat blockade instrument which at the present stage is one of Germany’s most powerful weapons."
NAVAL PROWESS WILL DECIDE THE WAR. Walter Lippmann raises an interesting point in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune, that "now as in the first World War...the outcome depends upon the control of the Atlantic Ocean. In the end the victory will go to the powers that can use the ocean to supply themselves and can cut off their enemies from the non-European world." He’s a relative optimist on the subject, arguing that "the pressure of British sea power is driving Germany, Italy, Russia, and France apart." If the Royal Navy remains invincible, Mr. Lippmann predicts, it will "do to Hitler what it did to Napoleon; it will deprive him of his allies and transform them into his enemies." It may already be causing strains between Germany, which has had great success in a series of landlocked campaigns, and Italy, which has had slow going attacking countries such as Egypt and Greece whose defenses can be assisted directly by British warships.
More dramatically, Mr. Lippman says the British blockade could well cause fatal fissures between Germany and Russia --
"We do not know whether Russia will participate in [the Greek] campaign as an accomplice of the Axis, or stand aside, or even eventually support the Greeks, the Turks, and the British. But we can be reasonably sure that Russia will go with Germany only if Stalin thinks it is too soon to be safe to oppose Germany, and that he will go against Germany if he thinks this is not too dangerous an operation. But what he must know, what everybody knows, is that while Russia will go with Germany, if the blockade continues Germany must finally attack Russia and get at the supplies of the Ukraine and the Black Sea region. Thus the effect of the blockade is to engender an irrepressible conflict between Germany and Russia. This conflict will eventually be precipitated by Germany if Germany is strong in arms but desperately pressed, or by Russia herself if Germany’s military power begins to show signs of deteriorating. This is what it means to say that the effect of sea power is to drive apart Hitler’s partners and allies."
SHOULD WE ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE? The election wasn’t all that close, but a number of the pre-election polls said it would be, with Gallup predicting a fair chance that President Roosevelt would win the popular vote while Wendell Willkie took a majority of electoral votes – and the election. However, the Washington Post argues in a Saturday editorial that proposals to "fix" our electoral system would only make things worse --
"Chairman Edward J. Flynn of the Democratic National Committee condemns the present electoral system because in some cases it might ‘defeat the will of the majority.’ Republican Senator Lodge has announced his intention of introducing a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College, which he regards as a useless relic....[But] Mr. Flynn should not forget that the Electoral College more closely reflects the popular will than does the Senate. Each State has the same proportionate influence in the election of a President as it has in the enactment of legislation. To disturb this balance would be a blow to the Federal system -- a system which is particularly well adapted to the needs of a country as large and diversified as the United States....No less important is the influence of the Electoral College upon the two-party system. Election of the President by popular vote would be a great encouragement to minority parties. Since the two-party system has many advantages in promoting unity and encouraging continuity of national policies, Congress is not likely to approve any proposal that would tend to split the major parties into ineffective factions."
The Post sums up wisely, "Mr. Lodge’s proposal takes on the appearance of an invitation to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire."
THE TRIBUNE TURNS ITS BACK ON WILLKIE (II). It’s been a lousy week for a good man, Wendell Willkie. Not only does he lose the election, but now the F.B.I. is investigating allegations of Republican vote fraud in Michigan which might end up taking away a chunk of the few electoral votes he managed to win. (Willkie won Michigan’s nineteen electoral votes by a bare margin of 3,404 votes, according to an International News Service tabulation). And the Chicago Tribune, which spoke worshipfully of him right up until Nov. 5, now finds in a Thursday editorial that he was fatally flawed --
"Mr. Willkie gave everything he had to the campaign but his unfamiliarity with the campaign problems he faced made him a great deal of trouble in the beginning....His mistakes in the beginning...were costly. One of them was made when he overruled the Republicans in congress and came out for conscription at the behest of the male and female Dorothy Thompsons who cut his throat afterwards. He was never able fully to recover from the bad start he made. He approved so much of Mr. Roosevelt’s administration that many people were confused. He couldn’t persuade them that there was an issue between him and Mr. Roosevelt. He thus became a candidate without a machine, approving the policies of a candidate who had a machine. Mr. Willkie not only approved the New Deal acts in internal affairs but he adopted Mr. Roosevelt’s foreign policy almost item by item."
Loyal isolationists who religiously read the Tribune will no doubt be stunned to discover their newspaper spent the last four months aggressively ballyhooing a candidate who "approved the New Deal" and pledged to copy the Administration’s foreign policy.
When the invasion began and the prevailing belief was that the Italians would probably win a quick victory, the New Republic editorialized on the tonic effects of a gallant Anglo-Greek defense -- "If perchance Britain and Greece together could throw back an assault, the anti-Axis coalition would be immensely strengthened, and the way would at last be open for action against the Axis on an Eastern front." Could it be that, if Greece continues a successful resistance and humiliates the Italians, that Turkey, and maybe even Russia, would find the nerve (and the self-interest) to join a coalation against Hitler and Mussolini? If so, these little Greek border battles could be a major turning point in the war.
NAZIS SINK 86,000 TONS OF SHIPPING. In a single engagement, that is. According to Saturday’s New York Times, German surface warships in the North Atlantic attacked and sunk fifteen to twenty ships in a British convoy last Tuesday. The German press is sketchy on details of the assault, which took place about 1,000 miles east of Newfoundland. But the Associated Press notes that Stuka dive bombers have also been at work, sinking another 31,000 tons of shipping (six vessels) on Friday and damaging an additional 21,000 tons. The Times sees this as evidence that the Nazis are shifting the emphasis of their Blitz campaign against Britain to attacks on shipping -- an unbylined story describes German warships, submarines, and warplanes as a "triple threat blockade instrument which at the present stage is one of Germany’s most powerful weapons."
NAVAL PROWESS WILL DECIDE THE WAR. Walter Lippmann raises an interesting point in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune, that "now as in the first World War...the outcome depends upon the control of the Atlantic Ocean. In the end the victory will go to the powers that can use the ocean to supply themselves and can cut off their enemies from the non-European world." He’s a relative optimist on the subject, arguing that "the pressure of British sea power is driving Germany, Italy, Russia, and France apart." If the Royal Navy remains invincible, Mr. Lippmann predicts, it will "do to Hitler what it did to Napoleon; it will deprive him of his allies and transform them into his enemies." It may already be causing strains between Germany, which has had great success in a series of landlocked campaigns, and Italy, which has had slow going attacking countries such as Egypt and Greece whose defenses can be assisted directly by British warships.
More dramatically, Mr. Lippman says the British blockade could well cause fatal fissures between Germany and Russia --
"We do not know whether Russia will participate in [the Greek] campaign as an accomplice of the Axis, or stand aside, or even eventually support the Greeks, the Turks, and the British. But we can be reasonably sure that Russia will go with Germany only if Stalin thinks it is too soon to be safe to oppose Germany, and that he will go against Germany if he thinks this is not too dangerous an operation. But what he must know, what everybody knows, is that while Russia will go with Germany, if the blockade continues Germany must finally attack Russia and get at the supplies of the Ukraine and the Black Sea region. Thus the effect of the blockade is to engender an irrepressible conflict between Germany and Russia. This conflict will eventually be precipitated by Germany if Germany is strong in arms but desperately pressed, or by Russia herself if Germany’s military power begins to show signs of deteriorating. This is what it means to say that the effect of sea power is to drive apart Hitler’s partners and allies."
SHOULD WE ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE? The election wasn’t all that close, but a number of the pre-election polls said it would be, with Gallup predicting a fair chance that President Roosevelt would win the popular vote while Wendell Willkie took a majority of electoral votes – and the election. However, the Washington Post argues in a Saturday editorial that proposals to "fix" our electoral system would only make things worse --
"Chairman Edward J. Flynn of the Democratic National Committee condemns the present electoral system because in some cases it might ‘defeat the will of the majority.’ Republican Senator Lodge has announced his intention of introducing a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College, which he regards as a useless relic....[But] Mr. Flynn should not forget that the Electoral College more closely reflects the popular will than does the Senate. Each State has the same proportionate influence in the election of a President as it has in the enactment of legislation. To disturb this balance would be a blow to the Federal system -- a system which is particularly well adapted to the needs of a country as large and diversified as the United States....No less important is the influence of the Electoral College upon the two-party system. Election of the President by popular vote would be a great encouragement to minority parties. Since the two-party system has many advantages in promoting unity and encouraging continuity of national policies, Congress is not likely to approve any proposal that would tend to split the major parties into ineffective factions."
The Post sums up wisely, "Mr. Lodge’s proposal takes on the appearance of an invitation to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire."
THE TRIBUNE TURNS ITS BACK ON WILLKIE (II). It’s been a lousy week for a good man, Wendell Willkie. Not only does he lose the election, but now the F.B.I. is investigating allegations of Republican vote fraud in Michigan which might end up taking away a chunk of the few electoral votes he managed to win. (Willkie won Michigan’s nineteen electoral votes by a bare margin of 3,404 votes, according to an International News Service tabulation). And the Chicago Tribune, which spoke worshipfully of him right up until Nov. 5, now finds in a Thursday editorial that he was fatally flawed --
"Mr. Willkie gave everything he had to the campaign but his unfamiliarity with the campaign problems he faced made him a great deal of trouble in the beginning....His mistakes in the beginning...were costly. One of them was made when he overruled the Republicans in congress and came out for conscription at the behest of the male and female Dorothy Thompsons who cut his throat afterwards. He was never able fully to recover from the bad start he made. He approved so much of Mr. Roosevelt’s administration that many people were confused. He couldn’t persuade them that there was an issue between him and Mr. Roosevelt. He thus became a candidate without a machine, approving the policies of a candidate who had a machine. Mr. Willkie not only approved the New Deal acts in internal affairs but he adopted Mr. Roosevelt’s foreign policy almost item by item."
Loyal isolationists who religiously read the Tribune will no doubt be stunned to discover their newspaper spent the last four months aggressively ballyhooing a candidate who "approved the New Deal" and pledged to copy the Administration’s foreign policy.
Monday, November 7, 2016
Thursday, November 7, 1940
IT’S ROOSEVELT IN A ROUT. So much for the "closest election since 1916," or the prospect of another 1888. It now looks like the Roosevelt-Wallace ticket has won 39 states with 468 electoral votes. The popular vote for the President is around 25,700,000, versus 21,400,000 for Willkie-McNary. Strangely enough, though, reports also tell us that as far as the popular vote is concerned, this actually is the closest election since 1916. And Willkie has surpassed President Hoover’s 1928 vote total of 21,390,000, giving him the distinction of having the highest number of votes of any G.O.P. candidate in history. Some comfort.
The Republicans have done no better in Congress. They’d hoped to take control of the House for the first time in ten years, or at the very least to pick up some seats -- but it looks now like the Democrats will add to the 259 seats they now have. The G.O.P. may pick up a few Senate seats, but that won’t put much of a dent in the 69-to-24 margin in seats that the Democrats had going in to Tuesday.
One of the popular lapel buttons this past year has been "Republican Victory Year -- Life Begins in ’40." There were high hopes that the party could build on its huge victories of 1938 and regain control of both Congress and the presidency this year. The results are depressing, but we don’t have the luxury of dwelling on it in this critical year. As the New York Herald Tribune says, "There is an old American tradition of good losing. It was never more important than today, with a desperate world war raging overseas and the fate of every democracy endangered."
WILLKIE’S CONCESSION. I thought it a bit queer that Wendell Willkie didn’t concede on election night, even though he was running some three-and-a-quarter million votes behind the President by the early wee hours, and the electoral college returns had left no doubt of the outcome. Instead, according to Robert C. Albright in Wednesday’s Washington Post, he predicted the "horse race" would go on into the next day, went into a midnight meeting with advisors. Then he spoke to a gathering of his supporters in New York City and via radio hookup to the rest of the nation, saying things like "I never felt better in my life." Meanwhile, also rather queerly, Charles McNary conceded Tuesday night from Salem, Oregon, at 10:30 local time.
But when Willkie did come before the microphones about 9 a.m. Wednesday morning to concede, he did get off at least one good line. He pledged to continue fighting "for the unity of our people in the completion of our defense efforts, in sending aid to Britain, and in an insistence upon the removal of antagonisms in America, all to the end that a government of free men may continue and may again spread throughout the Earth." The President couldn’t have said it any better. Here’s hoping both parties ignore the rantings of their isolationist factions and work aggressively together toward all those goals.
Could the C.B.S. have been showing a bit of pro-Roosevelt bias in their coverage of the concession? After Mr. Willkie finished his statement, I distinctly heard the network announcer finish the news bulletin by saying, "And so speaks Wendell L. Weak...ah, Willkie."
"UNGRUDGING SUPPORT" FROM THE TIMES. A New York Times editorial Wednesday says it superbly --
"This newspaper does not regret that in the campaign just ended it supported a Republican candidate for the first time in thirty years. We have believed that violation of the American tradition against a third term would create a precedent certain to trouble the people of this country deeply for many years to come. We still hold that belief, now that the votes are counted. We have believed, and continue to believe, that on the other major issues of the campaign – the question of how to secure an adequate national defense, the problem of how to create the conditions of a confident and expanding business, the hope of checking the reckless fiscal policies of the last seven years short of national bankruptcy – the strongest arguments were on the side of Mr. Willkie. We disagree with the decision that has now been made. But we glory in the fact that ours is still a system of government in which the will of the majority prevails, and the minority gives ungrudging support to the majority in the achievement of every truly national purpose."
THE TRIBUNE TURNS ITS BACK ON WILLKIE. Well, that’s gratitude for you. The Chicago Tribune beat the drum for Wendell Willkie incessantly and unashamedly in its news pages throughout the campaign. Tuesday’s banner front-page headline summed up what’s happened to the Tribune’s "news" judgement -- "Prosperity! No War! Willkie." Their front-page voter guide even helpfully suggested, "If you need transportation to your polling place, telephone Republican county headquarters, CENTral 7802." Articles and editorials and cartoons for the last four months have touted the virtues of this fine man and how he would save America from getting embroiled in a foreign war.
But as the Republican ticket slid toward defeat Tuesday night, the editors abruptly turned on their favored candidate with breathtaking fickleness. A Wednesday editorial concludes as follows -- "A strong non-interventionist platform carried the [Republican] party to victory in Illinois. If the national platform and the national candidate had taken the same line it seems reasonable to believe they would have enjoyed an equal measure of success."
In other words, how could Willkie have dared fail us by not being a pie-eyed isolationist? On the other hand, at least the Tribune finally got around to acknowledging what readers of many other newspapers have known all along – that Willkie endorsed the peacetime draft, supports aid to Britain short of war, and pledged to carry out the Roosevelt Administration’s foreign policy in general. His fight with the President was over who could do a better job at administering those policies and thus keep the nation out of war. And some of us supported Willkie precisely for those reasons, and not out of agreement with the Tribune’s bizarre logic that he could have gotten more votes by narrowing his appeal to a smaller number of party faithful.
GREEKS ON THE OFFENSIVE. The New York Times’ election coverage pushed their war stories onto page 25 Wednesday, but the United Press dispatch on the fighting in Greece was worth looking inside the paper for. Greek forces are now said to be closing in on the Italian invasion base of Koritza, Albania. And that’s far from all --
"Other frontier dispatches said Greek columns converging on Koritza had encircled an entire Italian division [about 15,000 men] and its base in the mountains north of Biklishta. Italian planes were reported trying to feed from the air another Italian column allegedly surrounded in the mountains....Dispatches from Ohrid, Yugoslavia, east of Koritza, said that after capturing the Albanian villages of Zagradec and Tren the Greeks continued to advance last night, occupying the Albanian village of Pogri on the Devol River, thus completing encirclement of the Italian division. During the operation, the Greeks were reported to have captured forty Italian soldiers, three officers and three tanks."
Plus, there are unconfirmed reports of popular uprisings against the Italians by Albanian peasants. Can it really be that Mussolini’s latest aggression is turning into a complete disaster, even more so than the initial Russian attacks on Finland?
The Republicans have done no better in Congress. They’d hoped to take control of the House for the first time in ten years, or at the very least to pick up some seats -- but it looks now like the Democrats will add to the 259 seats they now have. The G.O.P. may pick up a few Senate seats, but that won’t put much of a dent in the 69-to-24 margin in seats that the Democrats had going in to Tuesday.
One of the popular lapel buttons this past year has been "Republican Victory Year -- Life Begins in ’40." There were high hopes that the party could build on its huge victories of 1938 and regain control of both Congress and the presidency this year. The results are depressing, but we don’t have the luxury of dwelling on it in this critical year. As the New York Herald Tribune says, "There is an old American tradition of good losing. It was never more important than today, with a desperate world war raging overseas and the fate of every democracy endangered."
WILLKIE’S CONCESSION. I thought it a bit queer that Wendell Willkie didn’t concede on election night, even though he was running some three-and-a-quarter million votes behind the President by the early wee hours, and the electoral college returns had left no doubt of the outcome. Instead, according to Robert C. Albright in Wednesday’s Washington Post, he predicted the "horse race" would go on into the next day, went into a midnight meeting with advisors. Then he spoke to a gathering of his supporters in New York City and via radio hookup to the rest of the nation, saying things like "I never felt better in my life." Meanwhile, also rather queerly, Charles McNary conceded Tuesday night from Salem, Oregon, at 10:30 local time.
But when Willkie did come before the microphones about 9 a.m. Wednesday morning to concede, he did get off at least one good line. He pledged to continue fighting "for the unity of our people in the completion of our defense efforts, in sending aid to Britain, and in an insistence upon the removal of antagonisms in America, all to the end that a government of free men may continue and may again spread throughout the Earth." The President couldn’t have said it any better. Here’s hoping both parties ignore the rantings of their isolationist factions and work aggressively together toward all those goals.
Could the C.B.S. have been showing a bit of pro-Roosevelt bias in their coverage of the concession? After Mr. Willkie finished his statement, I distinctly heard the network announcer finish the news bulletin by saying, "And so speaks Wendell L. Weak...ah, Willkie."
"UNGRUDGING SUPPORT" FROM THE TIMES. A New York Times editorial Wednesday says it superbly --
"This newspaper does not regret that in the campaign just ended it supported a Republican candidate for the first time in thirty years. We have believed that violation of the American tradition against a third term would create a precedent certain to trouble the people of this country deeply for many years to come. We still hold that belief, now that the votes are counted. We have believed, and continue to believe, that on the other major issues of the campaign – the question of how to secure an adequate national defense, the problem of how to create the conditions of a confident and expanding business, the hope of checking the reckless fiscal policies of the last seven years short of national bankruptcy – the strongest arguments were on the side of Mr. Willkie. We disagree with the decision that has now been made. But we glory in the fact that ours is still a system of government in which the will of the majority prevails, and the minority gives ungrudging support to the majority in the achievement of every truly national purpose."
THE TRIBUNE TURNS ITS BACK ON WILLKIE. Well, that’s gratitude for you. The Chicago Tribune beat the drum for Wendell Willkie incessantly and unashamedly in its news pages throughout the campaign. Tuesday’s banner front-page headline summed up what’s happened to the Tribune’s "news" judgement -- "Prosperity! No War! Willkie." Their front-page voter guide even helpfully suggested, "If you need transportation to your polling place, telephone Republican county headquarters, CENTral 7802." Articles and editorials and cartoons for the last four months have touted the virtues of this fine man and how he would save America from getting embroiled in a foreign war.
But as the Republican ticket slid toward defeat Tuesday night, the editors abruptly turned on their favored candidate with breathtaking fickleness. A Wednesday editorial concludes as follows -- "A strong non-interventionist platform carried the [Republican] party to victory in Illinois. If the national platform and the national candidate had taken the same line it seems reasonable to believe they would have enjoyed an equal measure of success."
In other words, how could Willkie have dared fail us by not being a pie-eyed isolationist? On the other hand, at least the Tribune finally got around to acknowledging what readers of many other newspapers have known all along – that Willkie endorsed the peacetime draft, supports aid to Britain short of war, and pledged to carry out the Roosevelt Administration’s foreign policy in general. His fight with the President was over who could do a better job at administering those policies and thus keep the nation out of war. And some of us supported Willkie precisely for those reasons, and not out of agreement with the Tribune’s bizarre logic that he could have gotten more votes by narrowing his appeal to a smaller number of party faithful.
GREEKS ON THE OFFENSIVE. The New York Times’ election coverage pushed their war stories onto page 25 Wednesday, but the United Press dispatch on the fighting in Greece was worth looking inside the paper for. Greek forces are now said to be closing in on the Italian invasion base of Koritza, Albania. And that’s far from all --
"Other frontier dispatches said Greek columns converging on Koritza had encircled an entire Italian division [about 15,000 men] and its base in the mountains north of Biklishta. Italian planes were reported trying to feed from the air another Italian column allegedly surrounded in the mountains....Dispatches from Ohrid, Yugoslavia, east of Koritza, said that after capturing the Albanian villages of Zagradec and Tren the Greeks continued to advance last night, occupying the Albanian village of Pogri on the Devol River, thus completing encirclement of the Italian division. During the operation, the Greeks were reported to have captured forty Italian soldiers, three officers and three tanks."
Plus, there are unconfirmed reports of popular uprisings against the Italians by Albanian peasants. Can it really be that Mussolini’s latest aggression is turning into a complete disaster, even more so than the initial Russian attacks on Finland?
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