It reminds that in Charlotte, two conservative middle class neighborhoods had, combined, voted for Roosevelt. Although the Sidney Hillman CIO crowd, the Communists, the bureaucrats, the ne'er-do-wells may have contributed to the election of the President, there were also many solid citizens who did so. Perhaps the Roosevelt haters, it suggests, were simply out of step with the mainstream of America.

They were Contras, too, or, perhaps incipient Sandinistas.

Hurja had predicted that Dewey would win by 52 to 48 percent and 364 to 167 in the electoral college. But Hurja's divergence from reality could be readily explained by its narrow sample, relying on 28 select counties in fifteen states.

More problematic was Dr. Gallup. He had predicted a Roosevelt popular vote victory at 52 percent, not far off the mark. But he had also stated that there were 18 sure states for Roosevelt and nine for Dewey, with twenty pivotal states too close to call, only three of which he gave as leaning to Roosevelt. Most of these states wound up with the President.

All of it was potentially thrown off by the unknown factor of the soldier vote and the two or three percent margin of error in each poll. But, concludes the piece rhetorically, what good was a poll if it could not even approximate the end result.

Regardless, Hitler, the piece insists, was not the embodiment of Germany, only its most sinister expression. His death would have no more impact on the war than had the death of Erwin Rommel. Germany would continue to fight until the bitter end and its military might finally destroyed.

Of course, there is no way history may test the premise, for the twain, the death of Hitler and the final destruction of Berlin by the Russians, occurred with virtual simultaneity, leading to capitulation by the Germans eight days after Der Fuehrer ended his existence.

British economist Lord John Maynard Keynes was proposing to American representatives in secret conference in London that there should be a post-war lend-lease program consisting of 6.5 billion dollars worth of raw materials provided Britain in 1945, whereby the British could then manufacture goods from them and resell 3.5 billion dollars worth of the lend-lease materials in the world marketplace to re-establish their export trade. A proposed court of two Americans and one Briton would determine which goods could be used for the export trade. The plan was to be submitted to Congress prior to Christmas.

He next turns to the Army engineers and their foresight in designing bridges two years before D-Day. The bridges were to replace particular bridges in France, Holland, and Belgium, as they would be blown up by the enemy in retreat. The engineers achieved exact specifications from members of the underground. The parts were manufactured and numbered, and teams were trained in England to put them together. It enabled putting the bridges in place within a matter of hours after arrival at a point of a previous span's destruction.

Mr. Pearson also tells of the woman constituent of Senator Nye of North Dakota, just defeated, who wanted an iron from the buyers' guide catalogue for surplus war goods. She had wired the Senator to tell the Senate Small Business Committee of her need.

He concludes with the optimism that Americans, for all their differences, could still unite in character, as proven by the great production effort embracing the entirety of the country during the war.

The country had passed through a baptism by fire during the war and would emerge from it inexorably changed: the New Deal of 1945 could not be the New Deal of 1933.

She advocates reconciliation both domestically and with countries abroad to work toward a common goal for the future.

The units would move a tank into the area facing the blind side of a pillbox while another team covered the adjoining pillboxes to prevent flanking fire, as the pillboxes were designed to permit overlapping fields of fire. Usually, by the time the armor-piercing tank shells pierced the doors, the Germans were ready to surrender. If not, infantry moved in and tossed grenades into the pillbox. That would usually bring the enemy scurrying forth as the smell of the gases were intolerable in confined spaces, even if the explosion itself had not injured them.

After the box was cleared, the first team would "rest" by providing cover fire while the previous cover team conducted the assault.

In one instance, Sgt. Ezra Cook of Mt. Airy, N.C., entered a pillbox where the phone lines were still intact, called the next pillbox and urged surrender before the Americans began the assault. Some 25 to 30 Germans promptly gave up without a fight. They knew better than to tangle with Mayberry.

In all, only two men were killed with fewer than twenty casualties in taking the 25 pillboxes.

H. L. Mencken had stated that the Republicans could beat Roosevelt with a Chinaman. Perhaps, but not with Landon.

William Randolph Hearst was willing to stake his reputation as a prophet on a Landon landslide. He also said at one point: "Don't be afraid to make a mistake. Your readers might like it."

Future Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, running on the 1936 ticket as the vice-presidential nominee, had also predicted comfortable victory, that the Landon-Knox team would carry every state east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio. But, he was the vice-presidential nominee. One would not expect him to say that he anticipated the defeat of the ticket by a landslide.

In 1944, the rhetoric had not been dissimilar. Louis Bromfield, the author-farmer, predicted the Democrats would not elect so much as a dogcatcher.

Alf Landon had said that the Republicans would carry every state between the Alleghenies and the Rockies, except in the South.

Col. Bertie McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, proclaimed that any good Republican could beat FDR. He was probably thinking in terms of Col. Lindbergh. In any event, in 1948, Dewey won in his newspaper.

Losing Representative Ham Fish had similarly stated that Roosevelt was through, along with the New Deal, that he would lose every state above the Mason-Dixon Line.

Oil magnate Joseph Pew forecasted the greatest Republican sweep of the country ever.

Herbert Brownell, Mr. Dewey's campaign manager and future Attorney General under President Eisenhower, predicted that most Democrats would either vote Republican or stay home, foresaw, as late as November 4, a sweeping victory, expressed November 6 that no state outside the South could be conceded--until 3:15 a.m., November 8.

No one made mention of the fact, for it had ceased to be an issue after the Democratic Convention and the mollifying of the Southern wing of the Party with the elimination of Henry Wallace and the nomination of Harry Truman, but the Texas revolt, which had at one point in the spring appeared as a Hydra-headed monster set to spread to South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, possibly Arkansas, threatening to provide their electoral votes to Virginia Senator Harry Flood Byrd regardless of popular vote, never materialized. The object in a close election was to throw the matter into the House for determination, where the Southern Democrats could have effectively determined the next President.

As it turned out, even had the President lost all of the South's 124 electoral votes, he still would have won by a comfortable margin in the electoral college, as he had 166 more votes than needed for victory.

Incidentally, speaking of Mr. Hearst's quote on mistakes, we find it only fitting to provide a couple of observations on the Republican campaign of late.