Quotes
There is no cheap way of ending this war.
ADMIRAL ERNEST J. KING
Why are you laughing at us? We’re going to New York; you’re going to Italy!
AN ITALIAN PRISONER, North Africa
No factor in our political procedure has done more to block and nullify our teaching than the insistence that education is primarily a matter of local concern.
DR. ALEXANDER MEIKLEJOHN
conditioned Utopia, in which human life is run by a succession of push-buttons, that the Bounderbys of modern industrialism, mistaking profits for perfection, hold forth as a reward.
LEWIS MUMFORD
The business of a judge is to hold his tongue until the last possible minute and to try to be as wise as he is paid to look. The only impartiality possible to the human mind is that which arises from an understanding of neither side of the case.
LORD CHIEF JUSTICE HEWART
How to Crash Washington
Only a few possessions are required: acquaintance with a well-known person in public life so that the guests can be invited to “meet him”; a house suited to entertainment; a lavish expense account from some credulous employer or funds belonging to the host (the second is rare); the hide of a rhinoceros, the brass of a book agent, and the persistence of a Solomon Islands mosquito.
ARTHUR KROCK
All you have to do to make friends and influence people here in Washington is to give a party. You send out an invitation to Senator Schmoozlegoozle telling him you are giving a party for Governor Anthrobooby, and that Professor Mitnick will be there. Of course, you tell Professor Mitnick that Senator Schmoozlegoozle and Governor Anthrobooby will be at your gin dansant. It’s a simple matter of cross-indexing.
HYMAN GOLDBERG in PM
Actually, however, we are sending our soldiers to war with little better understanding of humanity’s essential inheritance than the Fascists have, and with no better picture of the future than the fatuous, air-
Winning in battle is like wanning at poker or catching lots of fish — it’s damned pleasant and it sets a man up.
ERNIE PYLE in a dispatch from overseas
I’ve always been a great believer in people giving up important jobs while they are still able to perform them well.
T. TERTIUS NOBLE, New York organist
Radio
Freedom of utterance is abridged to many who wish to use the limited facilities of radio.
Unlike the other modes of expression, radio inherently is not available to all. That is its unique characteristic and that is why, unlike other modes of expression, it is subject to governmental regulation.
U. S. SUPREME COURT
Radio and the press could make no greater mistake than to suppose that voluntary censorship has become a definite and final success and that the worst is over. The worst will never be over until the war is over.
JAMES LAWRENCE FLY, Chairman of the FCC
The Japs
The main physical difference between the Germans and the Japanese is that the Japanese wear their teeth outdoors.
JOHN B. KENNEDY, Radio commentator
The Jap force fled like an elephant before a champing, whiskered mouse.
IRA WOLFERT
The family that plays together stays together.
NATIONAL RECREATION ASSOCIATION
Germany and the German people must undo, at least partially, the almost incredibly inhuman harm they have done to the occupied countries and their inhabitants. The main burden of this task should certainly fall on Germany. It must not be forgotten, however, that the other Axis powers to a greater or lesser degree share Germany’s guilt.
DR. EDUARD BENEš
Shoes and Feet
You wouldn’t think that we had men in the Army we couldn’t fit out of our regular stock. But we have. We get between fifty and sixty special measurement orders a day.
Fully 95 per cent of the men for whom these special orders are placed will be wearing the proper kind of shoes for the first time in their life. In civilian life these shoes would cost them between $35 and $125 a pair.
LT. COL. EDWARD G. TREMAINE
The time will come when we can put a taxpayer on exhibition and make money charging admission for people to see him.
CONGRESSMAN JENNINGS, Tennessee
It is perfectly possible that even as Germany loses this war, I. G. Farben will win the peace.
CHARLES A. WELSH, OPA cartel expert
SOS
It is not necessary to know code. A hand crank on the set generates power and the instrument automatically grinds out SOS messages on 500 kilocycles, the international distress frequency.
CAPT. E. L. DAVIS, Army Air Forces
I cannot consider that production has met its goal until we have met all overseas demands and have fully equipped our troops in training. I go beyond this and say that we are not prepared for total war until we have accumulated a substantial strategic reserve of all the important weapons of war.
LT. GEN. BREHON B. SOMERVELL
There is no doubt that Robert McCormick is an extremely charming character. I think America today needs many more characters like this Chicago veteran.
TOKYO RADIO
Our Weapons
German armaments show a clever design and careful workmanship.
Some late specimens show a tendency to substitute stampings, spot welding, and rougher but adequate material and workmanship for the finely machined mechanical parts formerly used.
However, the German mind, while giving close attention to details, has not yet grasped the fundamental idea of mass production of ordnance so well shown by the American mind.
All in all, the American boys facing Axis armies throughout the world can rest assured that they are well armed and have, in practically all instances, a far superior weapon to use against the enemy.
LT. COL. G. B. JARRETT
When you have eaten one vegetable you have eaten them all and, frankly, the smell of a corned beef sandwich on rye bread excites me much more than the fanciest bowl of succotash.
GROUCHO MARX in Variety
We have no record of all the contributions the Indians have made to war relief societies, but such reports as we do get indicate that the Indians are giving all they can. Pueblo and Navajo Indians, in lieu of cash, have given sacks of corn, — their staff of life, — mutton silver jewelry, and rugs to the Red Cross. An unsolicited $1000 for Navy relief came from a wealthy Kiowa Indian woman of Cement, Oklahoma, who signed the check with a thumb print.
JOHN COLLIER, Commissioner of Indian Affairs
Sometimes I’m right. But I’m never wrong.
SAM GOLDWYN, as reported by Harry Hershfield
There are two wars going on in Germany. One is for the defense of the country. The other is for the defense of the Nazis. Undoubtedly the carpet-biting season has opened in Berchtesgaden.
VERNON BARTLETT, M.P., in a BBC broadcast
Since our arrival here, the blue foxes have learned to stand in the chow line and the ravens are beginning to fly in military formations.
CAPT. AARON BLEWITT in the Aleutians
Ballet
Silk tights are treated with loving care. Since lack of train space has ruled out personal maids, we launder our own after every wearing. We darn them over and over again, wearing the mended ones with long costumes, as in ”Les Sylphides,” where they don’t show. We’ve experimented with rayon tights, but they lack the necessary elasticity.
ALICIA MARKOVA, Ballerina
Despite a vast empire with its colonial problems, only 5 per cent of the English people had ever seen Negroes before American troops arrived; thus they were welcomed as Americans by the English. Then the English people learned for the first time that there are two Americas — one for the whites and one for the Negroes.
PATRICIA STRAUSS, British author
We are building not a two-ocean navy, but a navy big enough to dominate all seas over the world.
FRANK KNOX
Newsmen
It is too much to expect that the newsmen will sit at the peace tables. Around those tables will be, as always, politicians and soldiers in the roles of statesmen. This in spite of the fact that it is doubtful whether any politician or soldier can have any better understanding of most of the causes of war than accomplished newspapermen of international experience. Certainly newsmen alone have competent knowledge of one cause of war concerning which I mean to be specific — namely, perverted presentation of international news, which is found in lands where the people are not free.
KENT COOPER, AP General Manager
There is no case known to Moscow correspondents of a false Soviet claim to capture of any point.
HENRY C. CASSIDY, AP correspondent
When you get a bourbon famine in Kentucky, that’s when the suffering starts.
IRVIN S. COBB