SUNOCO. ^O^DANT. N3VL.^^R 4, 1940. GOOD EmilrJC LViiRY'bODY: Of course there are only two topics people are really interested in tonight, the election and the war. And for once the war take^a back seat/ There hasnft been an election eve with such excitement, such vivid universal personal interest since Eighteen Sixty-Four, since the historic struggle between Abraham Lincoln and General McClelland^ And now,a ur irnu borrow h phrase from the race track not only in the lap • but^the * home stretch of President iiooseveit’s historic caa>^aign for a third term, the first such campaign in the hi^tthis Republic. The President spent the day almost within earshot of his own home at Hyde Park in New York, campaigning among the neighbors with short talks here, there and everywhere, jin fact in one place he told the folks that he wasnft making a campaign speech^a visit of sentiment. That was at Beacon, New York, in the mid-Hudson valley, said it was the sixth time he had come LiiiivD ~ 2 to say "How do" to the neighbors thure, the sixth time on the day before election. And he added that it was the last time that he*d do it as a candidate for office. Aside from that, in his talks to the neighbors, he appeared to be campaigning more against his neighbor. Congressman Hamilton Fish, than for Franklin D. Roosevelt for ^resident. The opposition of Ham Fish has always galled Mr. Roosevelt, and he has resented the Congressman^ criticism of his foriegn policies. Some of his Dutchess County neighbors were reminding each other of how F.D.R. has never carried his own county in a major campaign, ^nd they assumed his speeches today were a last-minute effort to turn the tide in his own locality. Tonight Mr. Roosevelt will make his pxxt last public address, a twelve-minute nationwide broadcast at twelve minutes after eleven, that is — Eastern Standard Time. Tomorrow heTll be at home at Hyde Park, receiving election returns xusoh surrounded by friends and staff. f Wendell Willkie made another broadcast this afternooi sponsored by the Women1s Division of the Associated Willkie Clubs. The most important passage was a promise to build the soundest, healthiest and strongest army in the world, but, he added. It111 be an army for defense.\And he made a specific promise to TEe women of America that his every act as President will be to keep this LAD 3 country out of foreign wars and to keep it at peace, he has promised categorically to avoid bringing about any condition# of affairs that will make war necessary. Willkie will have not only the last word in the campaign but what is Known in card playing circles as the derndest last. At a quarter past ten tonight he111 broadcast with his running-mate, Senator McNary of Oregon. That is at quarter past ten Eastern Standard Time. And again at midnight he will broadcast to the entire country over three national networks. PLANK Another tragedy in the air, a crash in the Western Mountains. Once again it was that death-dealing Wasatch range in Utah, the beautiful but perilous peaks that hem in the Valley of the Salt Lake on the Northeast side. Early today there was the distressing news that a big transcontinental air-liner was missing. At noon United Airlines, owing and operating that liner, sent out a pilot to hunt for the mis ing transport. He soon reported that he had found it, crashed against the rocks fifteen miles north of Salt Lake City. A rescue party reaching the scene of the WTeckage on skis over the heavy snow found all ten passengers and crew dead on the mountainside. \5 \ WAR 0 Somevhere in Greece a battle is brewing, ti_j; atid.yz?£&£&c±UQ± gnrS^gaSH^ oJ of major importance. Thatfs the word that came over the wire from the main Italian army about an hour ago. For the first time since Mussolini launched his attack upon the Greeks, the 7&e weather has been good. On the wooded mountain slopes of nortaern A Hellas, the leaves on the trees are still bristling with raindrops. Under foot the turf is like a sponge full of rain water, but the sun is shiningbody along that^Tfeaiifcrfi Afl^pioan--^rrg^t^^»t^ Big guns are banking away.Overhead flies a constant stream of Italian bombers shuttling backwards and forwards between their bases and key points in Greece, dropping heavy loads of bombs. Tne brass hats on the Italian general staff at field headquarters are telling the planes American correspondents tnat Mussolini^ big j^LaiKgg are dropping tons and tons of their bombs on fortified positions of the Greek armyy TgefZC* clearing the way for an attack in force by the infantry, the long expected Italian advance. Surrounding the Italian forces are craggy mountains where the Greeks have ensconced archie batteries and nests of WAR - 2 machine tuns in the rocky caves. The hardy Greek mountaineers know every inch of those mountainsides. And the Italians axe needing every bit of their great superiority in aircraft, artillery and modern mechanism. At Saioni'ak^ the Italian air force seems to have had more - V ' success. Telephone communication with\6k<» &&&&£ port was resumed dt ^ today after being cut off since T devastating raid on Saturday. Hardly a street escaped the attentions of Mussolini’s bombers, ten* many buildings are destroyed, and the streets are littered with dead. Aside from that, the most tangible news we have, tells xixxBZKKSSojsy of successes by the Greeks. And that doesn’t mean reports from the Greek side. The stories favoring the Greeks come from Belgrade, capital of Jugoslavia. So, though they’re unofficial, they’re neutral. They report a Greek naval victory off over Fascist warships, bko the island of Corfu. And from the a A frontier. the Jugoslavs broadcast a story of an advance by Greek airplanes and light tanks infantry into Albania. The A Hellenes are reported to be maKing an attack in force at Koritza, where Mussolini’s generals have concentrated a Fascist division of some seventeen thousand men. A detachment of Greek mountain troops is believed to have captured twelve hundred Italian prisoners. From another point in Jugoslavia, comes a story that the Greeks are attacking Koritza from two directions, and that the Italians have been obliged to rush up reinforcements to the rescue. Returning to that naval battle off Corfu, the details are rather vague. It is believed that British warships were helping the Greeics, but there’s no definite mention of ther From Bulgaria, another neutral source, A $3 favorable to the Axis powers, comes a story about British aid to the Greeits. They have helped the hel' ^ airplanes, warships and materials, but v. The Bulgarian story has it that there ar thousand British soldiers now on Greek t that the entire Balkans may blaze into war. Hitler’s generals are believed to have as many as a hundred thousand men, strongly mechanized divisions, inRumania^ tcT ^ help the Italians at any help moment. WAR -4 From Rome comes a story that the Turkish high command had called twenty classes of reserves to the colors. Just as the correspondent was about to give further details of these actions in Turkey, the Italian censor cut off his telephone. That of itself indicates that something must be stirring in Turkey. One of the most spectacular events of the day happened at western end of the Mediterranean. The Spanish have seized Gibraltar. They have ejected themixed commission which administered the zone. That is obviously a significant act. The Spaniards were already in possession of Ceuta, across from Gibraltar. All this increases the conjecture that the Italian attack on Greece is just the prelude to a general Axis offensive in the Mediterranean. seems Here!s a sensation that just came off the 77ire. It t: ^y ipcri^iiiTr immediate attack on Turkey. The story &oes that the Axis powers are about to send an ultimatum to the Turks demaid int that they permit Hitler and Mussolini to occupy Turkish t,rriw. — ^ A curioiB thing about this report is that it comes from Vichy, the temporary capital of France* But another ominous poii^t is that it ties in with that report from Rome, the report that the Turkish army was calling up twenty classes of reserves to the colors. That!s the report which the Italian censor cut short as it was being telephoned by an American correspondent. DRAFT The way in which the draft was handled continued to be one of the chief topics today all over the country. The NEW YORK VnRLD TELEGRAM assigned a writer to investigate the drawing of the numbers. One of the principal curiosities in the result was that it flew straight in the face of the law of averages. In the orld War, it wras admitted that the draft was handled excellently with consequences that brought the least possible degree of o_ unfairness. But in this draft, the man who had tfii serial number A. between forty-eight hundred and five thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine, ran twenty times as many chances of having his number drawn as the one whose number was between twelve hundred and two thousand three hundred and ninety-nine. *llen Kellar, who investigated for the NEW YORK WORLD TELEGRAM, declares that no skullduggery could be imputed to the handling of the draft. But, he adds, many experts who studied Ity do charge that it was badly bungled. The gist of the explanation is that the numbers were not properly mixed. What happened was this:-first of all, some three tnousand of the capsules containing the numbers were dumped into the goldfish bowl. Then they were DRAFT - 2 stirred, stirred so briskly that some of the capsules broke and spilled out the numbers. After that, the remaining numbers were not stirred enough. The consequence was, they didnft become properly mixed^ fWhat should have been done, say the experts, was to handle the draft in the same way as the drawing for the Irish sweepstakes, just as an example. There, the numbers are put in a huge revolving drum and are churned twenty-four hours before the drawing. If that had been done, it would have been fair to ch hb(7, everybody. ThatT cs MCHOLS Out in Chicago, the President of a bank at Englewood published an advertisement, an advertisement which had one spectacular effect: it provoked tne Department of Justice. Part of the Ad consisted of a statement of the condition of the bank. The rest of it was a strong endorsement of V.endell Willkie for President. That*s what angered President Roosevelt*s Department of Justice. The D.J. says it*s against the law for banks to contribute to the election of candidates. But even so the Department of Justice did not discourage the Englewood banker. He published another advertisement to the same effect today. He repeated what he had said in his first PAMPELuT A pamphlet that has been circulating in toew York City has L aroused the indignation of the Repu^ican National Committee, -^t is a pamphlet appealing to religious prejudice. And Sa ryor. Vice-Chairman of the Republican Committee, makes the charge that it was put out in such fashion as to make it seem that it came from the Republicans, whereas they had nothing to do with it. It was a pamphlet criticizing National Democratic Chairman, Ed Flynn, and accusing him of favoring members of the Roman Catholic Church. Vice- Cnairman Pryor repudiated it indignantly, and said he turned it over to the District Attorney for investigation. tin that pamphlet appeared also the name of the American Protestant Defense League. But the Director General of the American Protestant Defense League also repudiated it, and made the statement >ded with those pamphlets, he charges Vice-Chairman Pr^or of the National Committee is furious about it, describes it as a bare-faced fraud, a deliberate last minute campaign trick. another tricK of which he accuses the Democratic leaders.1 sending out gorillas with large Willkie buttons^topeople in public places, public vehicles,particularly the^Newiork City subways. They are instructed' particularly to pick on people who look as though they m pht be of OTTO,, LI Even the most sanguine supporter of TTendeil V/illki^ a doesn’t expect much from the South. But today^ prominent voice was lifted for the Republican candidate. It came from a southern Senator, Cotton Ed Smith of South Carolina, the dean of the Senate of the United States. He announced that he wasn’t even going to the polls tomorrow, going fishing instead. Then he expressed himself caustically about Mr. Roosevelt’s campaign for a third term. Cotton Ed doesn’t like the President’s foreign A A policy, says he has done everything he could to insult other nations xxxxkx in spite of his declarations of peace. Cotton Ed, you may remember, was one of the men whom the President’s coterie tried to purge in the elections of Nineteen Thirty-Eight, without A A success. On the subject of Wendell Willkie, Cotton Ed said - ”He • ” snou-ud receive a tremendous Democratic vote 1 -' ■■ 1 '"ttvy'j? ' ^ ..HATHEB 4 C\ What about the election weather? That always helps to CS2<2 T c provoke argument and guessing -cborat who will be helped in case it ^ A rains. There1s no proverb to settle it for us such as the one concerning marriages, which says, "Happy is the bride the sun shines on." To the question, "Will it be fine tomorrow?", the answer is, "¥es and No." Uncle Sam!s experts tell us there111 be showers over the Great Lakes and down the middle and lower reaches of the Mississippi Valley. Also, in the lower valley of the Missouri, the eastern part of the southern plains, and in various scattered sections of Texas. Around Lake Superior, some of the folks will be going to the polls with snow falling on them. ii0 rain to speak of over the northern part of the Ohio tfalley and it111 probably be fine around hake Erie and Lake Ontario and the northern Appalachians, ^n the northern plains, f&ii siia i^tner colej fair and warmer in the east, meaning tne southern pait of the Ohio Valley, southern New England, and the middle and soutn Atlantic coast states. CtL-Ji ow. -iL.