Feb. 17, 1944

Note: If you haven’t noticed already, start keeping track of the number of times Walter Winchell takes a blast a certain members of Congress, particularly Rep. John Rankin (D-Miss.). Next month (that is, March 1944), Rep. Martin Dies, head of the what’s now known as the House Un-American Activities Committee, will accuse Winchell of being “a mouthpiece for a ‘smear bund’ that was trying to destroy Congress.”

Dies insisted that there was a “highly organized and well-financed enterprise to destroy by vilification the character of any public man who gets in the way of the objectives of the groups who manage and finance this offensive.”

The shadowy group’s objectives? To “undermine the authority and destroy the prestige of Congress in the interest of setting up an all-powerful central executive.”

Notes of a Newspaperman

Today’s colyum: Then there are the about-faces of the armchair strategists … Not long ago, lots of commentators were being very sarcastic about the military program in the South Pacific … They couldn’t think of anything more cutting than to call the Navy “island hoppers” … The name had the same note of panning as boondogglers or pub-crawlers … Then the victory which won the Marshalls brought this same mob to their feet cheering — acting just like they thawt out the whole maneuver themselves … Somebody’s going to have fun (after the war) collecting the memwars of the popper-offers — which’ll sell as humor.
You can have those idiotic pieces on Lincoln’s anniversary, too … Just make me an offer of any nickel … A lot of scriveners very kindly volunteered to explain how Abe would have run things today — deeming that little enough to do for him in his absence … One typewriter-spoiler thawt it highly significant that Lincoln had never been to Yurrop — and had no experience in international relations … The idea being, of course, that if Lincoln were alive today he would live in the same fog as they do — which is about as vicious an insult to his memory as you can imagine … Lincoln was so far ahead of his time that a lot of those who attempt to interpret him haven’t caught up to his 1861 point of view.

From the St. Petersburg Times.