EDGE LEADS DRIVE TO BROADEN PLANK ON FOREIGN POLICY
Group led by Governor insists Republicans take a stronger stand on post-war unity
Pennsylvania for Dewey; votes of Illinois, Michigan, Tennessee, South Dakota help make his nomination sure
By Turner Catledge
Chicago, Illinois – (June 25)
A demand by outspoken Republican internationalists, headed by Governor Walter E. Edge of New Jersey, that the party stand up and “take it” on the international issue, stood tonight as the chief possibility for important new development at the party’s national convention, which opens in the Chicago Stadium at 10:15 a.m. CT tomorrow.
The prospect that Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York would become the presidential nominee and that Governor Earl Warren of California would be called upon to take the vice-presidential honor increased hourly.
The dominant party leaders, moreover, were intent upon centering on such policy declarations as would permit the Republicans to launch the 1944 election campaign with the utmost in harmony.
The likelihood of Mr. Dewey’s nomination increased immeasurably with a caucus of the 70-vote delegation of Pennsylvania, which went unanimously for the New York Governor. With this force, plus what he already had amassed in the states of New York, Illinois and California, Mr. Dewey had more than half the number of delegates needed to guarantee his nomination, while the addition of smaller delegations, either in whole or in part, ran his prospective total to well above the required 529.
Other states on bandwagon
Other states that climbed on the Dewey bandwagon during the day were New Jersey with 34 of 35 delegates, Michigan with 41, South Dakota with 11, Tennessee with 19, Connecticut with 16 and Massachusetts with 30 of 35.
After a conference, Governors Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, Raymond E. Baldwin of Connecticut, William H. Wills of Vermont and Robert O. Blood of New Hampshire decided to support Governor Dewey and to notify Governor Bricker of their position.
The one possibility – it decreased from a “probability” to a “possibility” during the night – of a fight over the platform was the most tangible promise to date that the party conclave might rise above a dull meeting on ratification.
Governor Edge at first threatened to take the matter to the floor of the convention itself and there to insist upon a stronger and clearer stand in favor of international post-war collaboration than has yet been seriously proposed. He was uncertain of his course late tonight, however, after some of the convention managers had said that any attempt to tamper with the “official” foreign policy plank might result in a stronger “nationalist” position.
Any possibility of a serious contest over the presidential nomination had vanished well before today’s events. Selection of Governor Dewey as head of the national ticket had become so much a foregone certainty that his managers were considering plans to bring him to Chicago for an acceptance ceremony before the convention adjourns – Wednesday night or Thursday.
Bricker drive keeps on
Backers of John W. Bricker of Ohio were still boosting their candidate, but they conceded candidly that the drift seemed to be away from them. They had never claimed any more than a one-to-three chance for their man. They continued to reject, however, the suggestion that Mr. Bricker should withdraw before the balloting starts, and take the honor of putting Governor Dewey’s name before the convention.
Spokesmen for former Governor Harold E. Stassen had not determined what to do about their candidate, in the light of the evident Dewey bandwagon movement, and so continued for the time being with original plans to have his name presented.
The question of a vice-presidential candidate had not been so definitely settled, due to the persistent reluctance of Governor Warren, who will deliver the “keynote” address at tomorrow night’s session, to take it. Mr. Warren arrived in Chicago today and immediately reiterated his earlier assertions that he is not seeking, and does noy want, any place on the ticket. He said, further, that he had put his own California delegation under obligation not to advance him and not to support him if some other delegation puts him in nomination.
Governor Warren is regarded by most observers as the odds-on choice of the convention delegates for the vice-presidential place and therefore is expected to be induced to take it by the sheer pressure of the demand for him.
With the main candidate contests thus developing into lopsided affairs, the possibility of fireworks had reposed, before today, in the one slight chance that Wendell L. Willkie, the 1940 nominee, might come to Chicago, or send a statement, demanding changes in some of the party declarations. This possibility was waning with each passing hour, however.
Edge talks of the platform
It was under such circumstances that Governor Edge’s demands and warnings immediately captured the interest of the delegates and spectators, who literally swarmed about the hotel lobbies all day and far into the night.
Addressing the New Jersey caucus at the Hotel Blackstone, and after expressing his own hope that the delegation would support Governor Dewey – which it did – Governor Edge swung into his discussion of the platform.
The veteran leader said:
I am worried about the platform. I’m a definite internationalist. Either we take the responsibility to maintain the peace, or we do not, and all this talk of “peace force” is silly. We cannot escape a very leading position in world affairs. It is better to be a party to war with its mass murder, and I believe that the Eastern and coastal states feel that way about it. I’m sorry about the Midwest. But let’s give our nominees a platform that the Eastern and coastal states will be proud of.
Ready for convention fight
I hope the plank [on world affairs] will be satisfactory, but I’m serving notice here and now that I am willing and ready to carry the fight to the convention floor. It must be an out-and-out American plank.
At this point, after applause, a delegate moved that the New Jersey delegation be bound by resolution to support Mr. Edge’s stand. Before the question could be put to a vote – it was carried unanimously a few moments later – Senator Hawkes asked to be excused from voting on it, since he was a member of the Resolutions Committee.
Senator Hawkes added that he had seen Senator Austin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, only a few minutes before and that Senator Austin had expressed approval of the plank in the form in which it then stood, the form of which Governor Edge disapproved, and that the plank had been unanimously recommended by the subcommittee to the full committee.
In an impromptu press conference a few moments later, Governor Edge said that his principal objection lay in the use of the words “peace force” in the plank, in referring to maintenance of peace by the United States after the present war.
He asked rhetorically:
What the devil is “peace force”? If it is force, it’s force and it’s better to tell the public about it, and not kid them.
Plank authors give warning
Authors of the compromise plank, which was unofficially adopted yesterday by the Resolutions Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs said that some changes might be made in the wording, but insisted that the substance of the plank would not be changed. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, who headed a pre-convention group of Republican leaders who evolved the declaration on the model of the so-called Mackinac Charter, warned that tampering with the proposal now might result in a greatly more “nationalistic” declaration.
Senator Vandenberg said:
If Governor Edge carries the fight to the convention floor, he may get the very thing he dislikes the most.
Leaders who have had opportunity during these few days to canvass opinion and feeling among the delegates and who, of course, assume that they represent the sentiments of their home districts, said that there was a strong current of “nationalist” and even “isolationist” in certain quarters of the party.
Governor Edge will likely await the official report of the Resolutions Committee, which was wrestling today with several other planks, before taking any definite action. The contest between national and international approaches to political problems was being waged over the party’s policies on international trade.
A subcommittee headed by former Governor Alf M. Landon of Kansas was trying to compose the views of two groups. One of these, led by Mr. Landon himself, favored a declaration favoring trade reciprocity among nations. The other, said to be sparked by former Senator Joseph R. Grundy of Pennsylvania, was reported as insisting that the party reassert its traditional doctrine of high tariffs in strongest possible language.
Drift to Dewey continues
The drift toward Mr. Dewey was marked throughout today and tonight as state delegations arrived, looked over the lay of the land, and went into caucus.
The Missouri contingent met for an hour, and then announced that it had divided – 19 for Mr. Dewey, four for Mr. Bricker, five not voting and seven absent.
The Illinois group, numbering 59, caucused late last night, and on a count of noses pledged 50 to Mr. Dewey. The nine others were regarded as largely favorable to Mr. Bricker.
The Oklahoma delegates were represented as lined up 22 for Mr. Dewey and one for Mr. Bricker, the one Brickerite being Senator E. H. Moore.