Defiant Texas delegates assail ‘power politics’
‘Regulars,’ pushed around in convention, say CIO and Communists ousted them
Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
“We ran into a buzzsaw of power politics,” members of the Texas delegation at the Democratic National Convention who walked out of the convention said today.
They made the comment in a statement addressed through Texas Democrats. A copy was sent to the Democratic National Committee. It was signed by the dissident members of the delegation who left the Chicago Stadium yesterday after the convention voted to split Texas’ votes between the “Regular” (anti-fourth-term) delegation and the rump delegation, which supported President Roosevelt.
Hot under the collar
The Texans said:
The bureaucrats, the CIO Political Action Committee, and a liberal sprinkling of Communists joined forces to tell Texas Democrats where they stand in national politics. The action of the Texas convention was thwarted by the Hillman, Tobin, and Browder followers who carried the ball behind the perfect interference of an army of bureaucrats.
The action of the Credentials Committee [which recommended splitting the state’s votes] was a deliberate slap at duly constituted authority. The trouble was the Regulars were not under the domination of the powerful elements that had control of the National Convention.
For this reason, it was necessary to discipline the Regulars and show Texas Democrats the consequence of disobedience to boss rule. That is exactly what the convention proceeded to do in a most arrogant and dictatorial manner.
A complaint was made that the convention’s Rules Committee turned “thumbs down” on the reinstatement of the two-thirds rule for nominations, and that the platform adopted by the convention was written “designed to secure the support of Negroes, the CIO, the Communists, and other radical groups.”
Texas planks turned down
Noting that every plank proposed by the Texas delegation was rejected, the statement complained specifically of refusal to recognize “reserved power of states to determine qualification of voters and to regulate public school attendance without interference from the federal government.”
“Worst of all,” it said, was refusal to approve passage of a law to prohibit management-labor contracts from requiring any war veteran to join an organization or pay a fee to get employment.
A special train leaving tomorrow will carry most of the Texas delegates from both Texas factions.