United automobile worker. [volume], January 01, 1944, Page 3, Image 3

About United automobile worker. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1936-1957

Image provided by: Central Michigan University, Clark Historical Library

                
"Dear
Senator
Quisling"
“DEAR SENATOR QUIS
LING” is the way servicemen
and their relatives are address
ing members of the Republi
can-poll tax combination in
the u. S. Senate which killed
the Green-Lucas soldier vote
bill to provide for a Federal
ballot-distribution and vote
gathering set-up for men and
women in the services.
N. T. TIMES AROUSED!
Even the conservative New
New York Times is Sheet by the
anti Roosevelt Senators who
voted against giving soldiers a
chance to vote in ’44. The Times
says: *Tt is argent that the serv
ice vote be obtained and record
ed. Anything else would be un
democratic and wickedly un
just.”
T—"
RANKIN RANKEST
I
Mississippi Representative John
E. Rankin, elected by grace of the
poll tax which bars most of his
“constituents” from voting, de
serves to go at the top of the list
of the Quislings in Congress. He
went over to the Senate while the
Green-Lucas bill was up and lined
up votes against it When protests
began to pour in, Rankin made
a Hitler speech in the House in
sinuating that all the protests he
received were from Jewish people.
If that is true (which is not), then
the Jews are a lot better citizens
than the rest of us.
Rankin sneered at five Jewish
names signed to a letter of protest.
It turned out that men of the
same names have been killed in
service to the United States in this
war.
GARTER GLASS OBJECTS
The Rankin-Senator Byrd
(Va.) kniie*in-the-back to the
servicemen was so raw it
aroused the South’s elder
statesman, Senator Carter Glass,
also of Virginia. Glass wrote
from a sick-bed that he was in
favor of Federal machinery to
father the soldier vote and
pooh-poohed claims of the Ran
kins that this would be an “in
vasion of state’s rights."
STATES WONT DO IT
The phony alibi of the enemies
of soldiers votes is that the states
can take care of their respective
servicemen. The Associated Press
has polled state election bureaus;
spokesmen for states “ex
pressed doubt about getting a size
able ballot return from their
servicemen.” .Nine other states
were “confident” they could
handle it. The other states were
non-committal. Among the states
where “doubt” was expressed are
Michigan, Illinois, Indiana.
COMPROMISE?
The heat already turned on
Congress is beginning to have an
effect. A “compromise” is being
talked. This would give the
Federal Government the right
to circulate and collect ballots,
hut would give states the right
to throw out ballots of those
servicemen who don’t meet state
qualiflcations—such as poll tax
payments.
If the heat keeps up, we may
get better than that bad com
promise.
POLL TAX ELECTIONS
In Charlestow/i, South Carolina,
Whose population was 70,000 be
fore the war and is now consider
ably above that figure, there were
1,841 persons eligible to vote in
the recent municipal election.
UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKER DETROIT MICHIGAN JANUARY I IM4
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Tell Your Congressman That
You Want Votes for Servicemen
There Is still time te wta the right to vote to *44 for eur
men and women to the anted services. The phony bill adopted
by the U. S. Senate which weald turn the problem over to the
various states Is* new before the House Elections Committee.
This committee can approve the Senate stab-to-the-back, or
it earn come out with u recommendation that the Federal gov
ernment assure our soldiers, sailors and marines of the right
to veto.
Write to the members of this committee today. Tell your
friend or relative to the service to write them. Tell them you
want effective Federal machinery to distribute and gather sol
dier votes. And then sit down and write your Senator telling
him what you think of the situation.
Members of the House Election Committee, who may be
, reached at the House Office Building, Washington D. C., are:
Rep. Eugene Worley (D„ Tex.) Rep. Ralph A. Gamble (R-, N. Y.)
Rep. John E. Rankin (D., Miss.) Rep. Ksrl M. Le Compte (R, Is.)
Rep. C. Bonner (D„ N. C.) Rep. Hmrris Ellsworth (R., Ore.)
Rep. Carter Msnssco (D., Ala.) Rep. Charles W. Vursell (R-. I1L)
Rep. John S. Gibson (D.* Ga.) Rep. Leon Gavin (R, Pa.)
Rep. Daniel K. Koch (D„ Pa.) Rep. Edward J. Hart (D, N. J.)
Rep. John Lesinski (D., Mich.)
Thomas Urges Work
r
For Wounded Vets
R. J. Thomas, president of the
UAW-CIO, has written to all locals
urging that they seek immediately
to negotiate agreements with their
respective managements whereby
light work may be provided for
partially disabled war veterans.
Thomas said that while seniority
clauses in UAW contracts will
provide job protection for most
discharged soldiers who are mem
bers of the UAW-CIO, it will be
necessary to create “light work
departments” in plants to give
veterans who have been partially
incapacitated an opportunity to
earn a livelihood for themeslves
and their families.
DISCHARGES HAVE BEGUN
Thomas* letter to the local
unions follows:
“The return of the wounded or
otherwise unfit veterans of the
armed services to civilian life has
already begun in large numbers.
Under the terms of the contracts
which we have negotiated general
ly throughout our industry the re
turning members of our union
come back with their seniority
protected, so they have some as
surance of a job. But this does
not meet the situation of the re
turning wounded, permanently
partially disabled veteran.
Remove That Gag
“Surely we owe a great debt to
these men who have not only
gone to fight for our democratic
freedom, buT have also made the
sacrifice of some of their capacity
to earn a living. Whatever pen
sions the United States Govern
ment may give these partially dis
abled men will not take the place
of their normal earning power.
PLAN IS FEASIBLE
“For this reason I ask that all
our local unions proceed imme
diately to consider the situation
in their own plants, and negotiate
with management the establish
ment of what might be called
’light work* departments, in which
partially disabled veterans can do
a fair day’s work and thus earn
a decent living for themselves and
for their families.
“Some management may not be
too anxious to get to the trouble
of doing this because it will re
quire some thought and planning,
but there can be no question that
such set-ups can be arranged in
a very large proportion of the
plants over which we have juris
diction. The veterans engaged in
this work, once adapted to their
capacity, can make a real contri
bution to production and not be
a burden upon the employer.”
U. S. Fighters in Italy
s
Resent Senate Baa
American soldiers are bitter and resentful over the
refusal of the U. S. Senate to enact a bill which would
give servicemen a chance to vote in the 1944 elections.
This is the reaction reported by H. R. Knickerbocker,
famed foreign correspondent and chief of the Chicago Sun
foreign service. In a despatch published in the Sun and in
PM, the New York daily, Knickerbocker tells of the re
action among officers and soldiers in the United States
sth army, now in battle on the Italian front. »
Here are some excerpts from Knickerbocker's des
patch:
INFORMED BY “STARS AND STRIPES”
With the American Army on the Italian Front, Dec. 18.—(De
layed. ) —American Bth Army soldiers and officers were puzzled and
discouraged and some of them bitter when they learned through
today’s Stars and Stripes that congressional wrangling over
methods of giving absentee servicemen the right to vote would
probably deprive them, in practice, of that right.
Army interest in the problem of soldier voting was also stim
ulated by the news that Secretary of War Stimson had ruled that
any officer could resign from the Army to run for President and
it was assumed this ruling applied primarily to Gen. Douglas
MacArthur.
There o interest and feeling in the Army about MacArthur
—both for and against him—and the speculation that he might
be Mr. Roosevelt’s opponent has spurred many servicemen to
desire to be in such a contest with the power to make their voices
effective..
No soldier or officer I have met in several days’ convassing
of the sth-Army has any confident notion as to what his voting
rights are. I can also testify it is considered vital, the more angry
and resentful the thinking members of the Army become. In other
words, it is bad for morale.
A Chicagoan, 2nd Lt. Burt Stern, 28, r ' 3400 Lake Shore dr.,
exclaimed:
“How can they dare to keep us from voting? We are fight
ing for them, aren’t we? We should have seme say so. I demand
the right to vote for President Rosevelt again. Let Gen. Mac-
Arthur win his part of the war. That is how he can be most
valuable.”
LIKENED TO ABE LINCOLN
In the vast Quartermaster warehouse I found the discussion
heated.
“The average 'soldier isn't up enough on the news to vote
properly, but everybody is up on President Roosevelt and for
me, I want the right to vote Just so we can vote him back in
office—he is Just like Abraham Lincoln crossing the stream,”
poured out Corp. Joseph Stribling, Negro, 22, Pa.
Later when informed by their one and only Stars and Stripes
that the federal ballot bill to enable servicemen overseas to vote
had been defeated by a bloc of Southern Democrat and northenr
Republican senators, many Of G. I’s inferred today that the Senate
was deliberately attempting to prevent our expedition armies
from voting because they would vote for President Roosevelt
MAJORITY FAVORS FJ).R.
My observation after wandering from camp to camp, division
to division, and bivouac to bivouac along most of the front and
rear is that enlisted men are for President Roosevelt in greater
majority than is his civilian following, first because they come
from the classes which have benefited most by Roosevelt legisla
tion, second because as servicemen they see with their own eyes
what a magnificent job the administration has done in organ
izing, equipping and leading the armed forces.
Officers are much more divided and some as “anti” as it is
possible to be. In the headquarters of one of our crack divisions
some typical officer views on the soldier’s right to vote are:
“A lot of men are more politically conscious here than
at home. If you take away the right to vote from such a large
army as ours, you disfranchise the major part of the elector
ate.”
Carrying on my investigation, soldiers of a famous regiment
asked me to ask the Stars and Stripes to print the names of the
Senators who voted for and against the federal ballot law that
would have provided a quick and easy method of voting for soldiers
in foreign fields.
GJ. BELIEVES HE 9 S CHEATED
The Stars and Stripes has carried a full account of the sub
stitute bill that would put the responsibility for the soldiers’ ballot
upon individual states, but nothing can persuade the average G.L
that he isn’t being cheated out of his franchise.
Several hundred men in this regiment gathered around me
today after I had spoken to an entire regiment in response to a
request from a special services officer who was trying to do some
thing to entertain the troops. My subject was, “How does a War
Correspondent Work?”
The most frequent question teas, "Are u>e going to get to
vote? What do those gugs think they are doing to us — ain't we
fighting? Haven't we got as much right to vote as the folks at
home? Whafa MacArthur going to do? /• he going to run?"
On this last question there was lively discussion, but small
difference of opinion.
A GJ. SPEAKS HIS MIND
Pvt. Andrew Manyak Jr., 18, of 8547 Mackinaw av., Chicago,
whose name I did get because he kept saying, “I’m from Chicago,
Mister,” asked me to publish his view—a not uncommon one—that
not only should the Army abroad be allowed to vote, but every
soldier, no matter if he is under 21, should be given the vote. To
anyone who associates with soldiers in battle, the argument seems
irrefutable that “if a man is old enough to fight for his country
and to die for it, he is old enough to vote.”
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