After Due Consideration

The Army ruled last week that Franklin Roosevelt's Bremerton speech (TIME, Aug. 21), was a political address, and forthwith granted a Socialist Party request for equal radio time to speak to the soldiers overseas. Six hours later the War Department reversed the decision, in a statement that sounded as if heads had rolled all over the Pentagon Building. On thinking it over, the Department now held that the President's broadcast was a "nonpolitical report."

Norman Thomas, Socialist candidate for President, immediately made the charge: "Troops overseas will have little chance to hear anything but their Master's Voice . . . the candidate for re-election ruled that his own speech was not political." Republicans grabbed up their own adjectives and leaped in. They demanded that the networks give Tom Dewey equal time; they were refused. The Army's about-face even prompted a protest from Franklin Roosevelt's staunch backer, Florida's Senator Claude Pepper. "Let all the candidates be heard by the troops," said-he. "The President will be able to hold his own."

At week's end the War Department tried again, allotted each political party equal weekly radio time for broadcasts to servicemen. This, in turn, brought up a new problem. Would the President's future "nonpolitical reports" be counted by the Army as part of the Democratic radio time?

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