Race issue dispute holds up platform
Southerners term outline ‘too strong’
Bulletin
Chicago, Illinois –
The Democratic Platform Committee completed its declaration of party policy today after defeating a Southern effort to exclude state voting regulations from federal control.
Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Approval of the Democratic Party platform was held up temporarily today as members of the Platform and Resolutions Committee debated the controversial plank on racial equality.
The racial plank approved by the Drafting Committee was reported to be too strong for Southern state members of the full platform committee who wanted a declaration similar to that in the 1940 platform which simply assured equal rights under the law to all minority groups.
The drafters’ proposal was said to read:
We believe that racial and religious minorities have the rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. Congress should exert its full constitutional power to protest these rights.
The foreign policy plank was also under discussion by the full committee, still in session only a few hours before the platform was scheduled to be offered to the convention.
New emphasis was placed on the racial issue which has divided the party by announcement that the Tennessee delegation had rescinded its decision to cast its 26 votes for President Roosevelt pending the time when it learns the content of the platform’s racial plank.
Tennessee Governor Prentice Cooper, a member of the platform committee, warned that if certain proposals should be written into the platform over Southern opposition, there would be a strong protest on the floor from Southern delegations.
A group of rebellious Southerners had previously met to adopt a resolution opposing any pledges to support anti-poll tax or anti-lynching legislation and declaring opposition to any proposal calling for “social equality” between races.
Foreign plank prepared
Senator Kenneth D. McKellar, chairman of the Tennessee delegation, said it wanted to be “free,” but that “if the platform is reasonable and has nothing out of the ordinary in it, there won’t be any trouble.”
Senator Tom Connally (D-TX), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, met with the drafting subcommittee last night to discuss his proposed draft of a foreign plank providing for American participation in an international organization to maintain peace.
There appeared little likelihood of a contest over the foreign policy plank, although some of the committee members had expressed themselves in favor of an international police force.