America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

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In driver’s seat at convention –
Hillman must give the nod before wheels turn at Chicago

Political Action chief holds court and Democratic bigwigs seek favor
By Henry J. Taylor, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
Sidney Hillman is granting no interviews here. “No publicity about Mr. Hillman,” is the word passed along by Clark Foreman, secretary of the Political Action Committee.

The man who vetoed President Roosevelt’s blessing of James F. Byrnes for Vice President, who allowed Senator Harry S. Truman to enter the race by agreeing not to oppose the Missourian if Henry A. Wallace could not make the grade, and who must give the nod before any wheels really move inside the Democratic National Convention, is operating in privacy at the Ambassador Hotel.

Mr. Hillman enjoyed similar privacy in the 1920s when he was in Russia learning about Russian peasants by living in a villa on the bank of the Moskva River opposite the Kremlin.

Associate of Browder

Earl Browder was Mr. Hillman’s associate then and Earl Browder is closely related to Mr. Hillman’s work today. So was Paul Robeson, then a Communist speaker between performances at Moscow’s Metropole Theater and now a leader in Mr. Hillman’s committee and chairman of the Communist-surrounded African Affairs Council in the Institute of International Democracy in New York.

That was a return trip to Russia for Mr. Hillman. He was born in 1887 at Žagarė, Lithuania, then part of Russia. He first came to the United States in 1907 at the age of 20. After organizing immigrants and refugee garment workers from Middle Europe into the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, which now has 325,000 members, the man who is saying “yes” and “no” to the convention here really got rolling in American politics.

Collects $2 million

President Roosevelt appointed him to work closely with Mrs. Anna Rosenberg in a series of New Deal executive posts. Mrs. Rosenberg and Mr. Hillman quarreled, she reportedly feeling that Hillman double-crossed her, and ousted her from the White House inner circle. But Mr. Hillman went on.

A year ago, he founded the Political Action Committee at the CIO’s Philadelphia convention. The fruit of that work gave him the Democratic leadership he is exercising here today. In Philadelphia, he outlined his plan to raise $5 million to defeat certain members of Congress. Mr. Hillman had his own clothing workers pledge $102,000 the first day. Before the convention adjourned, he had $2 million in hand collected by union officials, and he had made no statement of how much money he has collected since.

Group changes name

On June 14, appearing before the Senate Campaign Investigating Committee, Mr. Hillman conceded the illegality of union contributions to the election or defeat of federal officers. Out went the words CIO. Mr. Hillman changed his committee into the National Citizens’ Political Action Committee, as it is called today.

Mr. Hillman hands over no contributions. He spends where and when he wants to spend. Mr. Hillman uses $50,000 in one Congressional district, $70,000 in another, for newspaper advertising, organizing in the wards, operating political clubs on behalf of Mr. Roosevelt’s fourth term as the No. 1 declared objective, and supporting a corps of heavily-handed troubleshooters who filter through local areas visiting local voters and candidates alike. Mr. Hillman never delivers anything. He keeps control of the support he lends. And as both Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wallace know, you can’t call on Mr. Hillman once for help and have it over with. You have to keep calling back.

Leaders come to call

The coming-back process is in full swing here, with Mr. Hillman holding court at the Ambassador Hotel. On a telephone message from Hillman, Mr. Wallace paid a two-hour call. Attorney General Francis Biddle, of Montgomery Ward fame, followed suit. Secretary Harold L. Ickes followed Mr. Biddle.

Calls went out and the others came: National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan, Senator Harry S. Truman and Sam Rosenman of Hillman’s own inner circle at the White House, and numerous others of the favored few. Mr. Hillman likes to stay cozy at the Ambassador.

Guffey in attendance

Senator Guffey of Pennsylvania and Senator Claude Pepper of Florida are acting as Mr. Hillman’s right and left bowers in the apartment. You’ll find it a spacious place with a beige-carpeted sitting room, deep red draperies and paneled walls, which are a soft white under the indirect lights. Visitors sit in heavy red leather chairs or on an empire sofa covered with striped silk, waiting for Mr. Hillman to get off the telephone. This is no smoke-filled room. It is air conditioned.

Spreading from top down, Mr. Hillman roots his influence in weird assortment of political action groups similar to the Institute of International Democracy. And the men on his Political Action Committee know their business, which is how to organize to deliver the vote. Here are the few leading members of the CIO Political Action Committee who supply the steam behind the decisions Mr. Hillman makes in the Ambassador Hotel today.

  • Zlatko Balokovic functions as president of “the United Committee of South Slavic Americans,” New York City. His division operates mostly around the coal mines and steel mills.

  • Zarko M. Bunzick operates the “Serbian Vidivdas Congress” from headquarters in Akron.

  • John D. Butkovich works mostly in Pennsylvania as president of the Croatian Fraternal Union.

  • Leo Krzycki, headquarters in New York is president of “the American Slav Congress” for that state. Dr. W. T. Osowski has the same job in Michigan, while V. X. Platek is president of “the National Slovak Society” with headquarters in Pennsylvania.

  • James Loeb, as press secretary of the “Union for Democratic Action”, ties in at New York with Clifford T. McAvoy (president of the “Council of Pan-American Democracy”), who was forced to resign as New York City Deputy Welfare Commissioner after his Communist-front activities were exposed.

The assembly point here for such of the group as are in Chicago, is Room 1889 and adjoining rooms at the Hotel Sherman. Mr. Hillman is not mingling there. He calls them, when convenient, to the Ambassador.

8983

Maj. Williams: Weight elimination

By Maj. Al Williams

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Stokes: Wallace gives rare demonstration of honesty

He disregards foes to speak his mind
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
Somebody throws a bomb at Hitler. The Japanese Cabinet falls. The deadly circle closes in on the dictators.

Beating in on them too, are the shouts from assemblies of free people, such as that in Chicago’s great stadium. There a great political party goes through those contortions typical of a democracy in its trial-and-error method – a method which seems crude and cumbersome, but which leaves men free.

A man stands before them. He is the antithesis of Hitler and Tōjō. He grins shyly. He raises his hand as the crowd roars, in an awkward sort of wave. There is nothing mechanical about it. It is grateful.

He looks like Iowa

His hair is lopping, and he presents that ruffled appearance, which causes a wife always to say afterward, “Why didn’t you comb your hair? I wanted you to look nice before all those people.”

His tie straggles.

Henry Wallace is from Iowa, and he looks every inch of it.

He stands there and he talks, talks in simple, direct sentences, and suddenly you feel that you are hearing the voice of the plain people – the plain people of this country and of the world.

Here is honesty

And as you watch and listen, something tightens in you. You brush at your eye, and something cold chases up your spine.

Here, you think, is honesty. Here is decency. And as he goes on, here is a demonstration of “guts.”

This man is doing no ordinary thing. He is Vice President. He wants to be renominated, for in that way he can best carry on the fight for human justice, but not at the sacrifice of any convictions.

There are some sitting before him who hate him for the things he believes. But Wallace is no politician. He nits clean from the shoulder, and he smiles as he strikes – a friendly smile, not a taunting or belligerent smile. The iron is not on the surface. That’s underneath.

If telling the truth as he sees it means the end of political hopes, well and good.

“This is the way I see it,” he says in effect. “Do with me what you please.”

There are Southerners sitting before him, many of them. They don’t like him. There are others before him who represent economic interests that would be disturbed by the things Mr. Wallace would do. He knows that, he knows his political fate is in their hands, but he strikes:

In a political, educational and economic sense, there must be no inferior races. The poll tax must go. Equal educational opportunities must come. The future must bring equal wages for equal work, regardless of sex or race.

Then he says – what many realize who sit there before him – many who saw the party go down to defeat because it took the easy way and stood for nothing.

The Democratic Party cannot long survive as a conservative party.

I go away knowing that this is the greatest speech I have heard in 20 years of covering national political conventions.

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South’s revolt given new life by convention

All-out drive mapped to avert fourth term
By Marshall McNeil, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
This one-man Democratic convention has given enthusiastic new life to the Southern revolt which can now conceivably result in the defeat of President Roosevelt in November.

It has refused the demands of Texas’ Regular Democrats.

As a result, the Democratic presidential electors of Texas are instructed to vote against the President in the Electoral College.

If the election is close enough, Texas’ 23 electoral votes – to say nothing of the possibility of nearly as many more from other Southern states – may hold the balance of power and throw the election to the House of Representatives.

Looking toward that end, Southern Democrats who detest the fourth term were to begin laying their plans here today.

Their nucleus is the Texas group, which was so incensed in the convention’s decision to seat their pro-Roosevelt opponents that they walked out of the stadium in disgust.

All-Southern convention

Around this group, now prepared to go home and fight throughout the state against the reelection of the New Deal, an all-Southern convention will be called within a few weeks, perhaps at Shreveport, Louisiana.

That convention will nominate its own presidential ticket, headed perhaps by Senator Harry Byrd (D-VA).

The large majority of the Texas “free” electors, if elected in November, will cast their votes for the Byrd ticket.

This, at least, is the plan which anti-fourth-term Democrats – among them E. B. Germany of Dallas and former Mississippi Governor Mike Connor – were scheduled to discuss today.

They’re determined people

These anti-Roosevelt Democrats of Texas and the South are determined people. In the face of the convention’s action, they have dispelled the feeling, current before this meeting began, that the Southern revolt might peter out.

One reason it didn’t was the inept handling of the convention’s Credentials Committee by Senator Abe Murdoch (D-UT).

It was his job to lead his colleagues toward a decision on whether to seat the Texas Regulars or the Texas rump delegates. Obviously, national party leaders here wanted the Regulars seated, for they knew the danger of adding to the discontent in Texas.

Senator Murdock chose to compromise by voting to seat both delegations, dividing Texas’ 48 votes between them.

Tempted to march out

The Regulars came here backed by their convention’s pledge that if any rump delegates were seated, their (the Regulars’) presidential electors would not support the nominee of this convention.

At the convention hall, the Texas Regulars, learning of the decision, were tempted to march out of the hall at once, but at the insistence of state chairman George Butler of Houston, they decided to act in an orderly way.

Texans cry ‘insult’

How the national party leaders felt about the situation was shown when Chairman Bob Hannegan sent word through Ed Pauley of California that “he hoped no matter how your deliberations end, that your conduct on the floor will be orderly.”

“Insult!”, several Texans cried. Mr. Pauley said he meant no insult.

Finally, the decision was reached: If the convention upheld the Murdock Credentials Committee report, each Regular Texan could decide individually whether to stay in the convention – or leave.

Boos and applause

The issue was taken to the platform. Hart Willis of Texas appealed to the delegation to seed the Regulars from their own legal convention in Texas. He told what seating of the rump delegates would mean in freeing Texas electors from voting for FDR. There were boos and applause.

The convention voted to approve the seating of both delegations – and the Texas Regulars, with very few exceptions, walked out.

Later, the joint Regular and rump delegation cast 36 votes for Roosevelt and 12 for Byrd.

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Citizenship claim of half-Jap upheld

Philadelphia judge upsets two rulings

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DEMOCRATIC PARTY NOMINATES ROOSEVELT-TRUMAN TICKET

Franklin Delano Roosevelt for President!

Rooseveltsicily

Missouri Senator Truman for Vice President!

SenatorTruman43

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Völkischer Beobachter (July 22, 1944)

Zwei Männer vom Tenno beauftragt –
Koiso und Yonay bilden das japanische Kabinett

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Moskau treibt Eisenhower an

Stockholm, 21. Juli –
Im Daily Herald wird der schleppende, Verlauf der britisch-amerikanischen Operationen an der Invasionsfront scharf kritisiert. In unterrichteten Kreisen wird dieser Artikel auf sowjetische Einflüsse zurückgeführt. Moskau sei mehr als unzufrieden mit Eisenhower und Montgomery, und die neuen verzweifelten Anstrengungen der Briten und Amerikaner an der Invasionsfront seien auf diesen Druck Moskaus zurückzuführen. Eisenhower und Montgomery hätten Anweisung erhalten, ohne Rücksicht auf alle Verluste eine Entscheidung herbeizuführen.

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Präsidentschaftskandidat Roosevelt

Stockholm, 21. Juli –
Am Mittwoch wurde Roosevelt auf der Tagung der Demokratischen Partei auch formell zum Präsidentschaftskandidaten aufgestellt.

Wallace ausgeschaltet

Wie United Press meldet, sandte Roosevelt, der eine Wiederernennung von Wallace zum Vizepräsidenten offensichtlich für unmöglich halte, dem demokratischen Konvent in Chicago einen Brief, in dem er sich mit dem 60 Jahre alten Senator aus Missouri, Harry Truman, dem die Überwachung der Kriegsproduktion obliegt, als Amtskollegen einverstanden erklärt.

Roosevelt setzt also seinen langjährigen „Amtskollegen“ Wallace kurzerhand den Stuhl vor die Tür. Wahrscheinlich in Vorbereitung dieses Schrittes hatte er Wallace kürz vorher die mehr als undankbare Tschungking-Reise übertragen, mit der der Vizepräsident bekanntlich kläglich Schiffbruch erlitt.

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Vor 300 Jahren und heute –
Die Juden in Neuyork

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Führer HQ (July 22, 1944)

Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

In der Normandie führte der Feind gestern östlich und südlich Caen stärkere von Panzern unterstützte Angriffe, in deren Verlauf er an einigen Stellen in unsere Hauptkampflinie einbrechen konnte. Schon am Abend war jedoch das verlorengegangene Gelände durch Gegenangriffe unserer Truppen wieder in unserem Besitz und ein feindliches Bataillon vernichtet. Starke Panzerbereitstellungen des Feindes südöstlich Caen wurden durch Artillerie wirksam bekämpft. Nordwestlich Saint-Lô scheiterten heftige örtliche Angriffe des Gegners.

Kampfflugzeuge beschädigten im Seegebiet westlich Brest einen feindlichen Zerstörer schwer und schossen dabei ein britisches Sicherungsflugzeug ab.

Im französischen Raum wurden 73 Terroristen im Kampf niedergemacht.

Bei der Abwehr feindlicher Luft- und Schnellbootangriffe auf ein Geleit in der Deutschen Bucht schossen Minensuchboote, Sicherungsfahrzeuge und Bordflak der Handelsschiffe fünf feindliche Jagdbomber ab. Vor der niederländischen Küste beschädigten sie zwei britische Schnellboote schwer. Drei eigene Fahrzeuge gingen verloren.

Das Vergeltungsfeuer auf London dauert an.

In Italien führte der Feind fast auf der gesamten Front zahlreiche Einzelangriffe, die im Wesentlichen abgewiesen wurden. Nur am äußersten linken Flügel gelang es ihm, unter hohen blutigen Verlusten geringfügig Boden zu gewinnen. Erneute Angriffe gegen die neuen Stellungen scheiterten.

Im italienischen Raum wurden in der letzten Zeit 70 Terroristen im Kampf niedergemacht.

Im Osten wurden durch Gegenangriffe unserer Truppen östlich Lemberg einige Frontlücken geschlossen. Nordwestlich der Stadt erzielten die Sowjets weiteren Geländegewinn. Am oberen Bug wurden die auf das Westufer| vorgedrungenen Bolschewisten in harten Kämpfen aufgegangen. Zwischen Brest-Litowsk und Grodno griff der Feind mit starken Infanterie- und Panzerkräften an, konnte an einigen Stellen weiter Vordringen, wurde aber in den meisten Abschnitten unter hohen blutigen Verlusten und unter Abschuß zahlreicher Panzer abgewiesen.

Nordöstlich Kauen dauern die erbitterten Kämpfe an. Zwischen dem Seengebiet südwestlich Dünaburg und dem Peipussee wurden zahlreiche feindliche Angriffe unter hohen Verlusten für die Bolschewisten zerschlagen. In einigen Einbruchsstellen sind die Kämpfe noch im Gange.

In Luftkämpfen verlor der Feind 83 Flugzeuge.

In der Nacht waren die Bahnhöfe Borissow und Orscha das Angriffsziel schwerer deutscher Kampfflugzeuge. In den brennenden Bahnanlagen flogen mehrere Munitionszüge in die Luft.

Nordamerikanische Bomber drangen vom Westen und Süden in das Reichsgebiet ein und griffen mehrere Orte in Süd- und Südwestdeutschland an. Besonders in den Wohngebieten von München, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen und Schweinfurt entstanden Schäden und Personenverluste. Luftverteidigungskräfte vernichteten 68 feindliche Flugzeuge, darunter 55 viermotorige Bomber.

In der Nacht überflogen feindliche Flugzeuge Nordwest- und Südostdeutschland und warfen unter anderem auf das Gebiet der Reichshauptstadt eine Anzahl von Bomben. 6 britische Flugzeuge wurden zum Absturz gebracht.

Unterseeboote versenkten in harten Kämpfen 9 Schiffe mit 44.000 BRT und 2 Zerstörer. 1 weiterer Zerstörer und 4 Dampfer wurden torpediert. 1 Unterseeboot schoss außerdem einen viermotorigen Bomber ab.

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Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (July 22, 1944)

Communiqué No. 94

A number of enemy counterattacks on both western and eastern sectors of the front have been repulsed with a total of at least 14 enemy tanks knocked out.

A limited number of aerial patrols were operated during the period from midnight to noon today.

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U.S. Navy Department (July 22, 1944)

Communiqué No. 532

The submarines USS TROUT (SS-202) and USS TULLIBEE (SS-284) are overdue from patrol and must be presumed to be lost.

The next of kin of casualties of the TROUT and TULLIBEE have been so notified.

CINCPAC Communiqué No. 84

Our troops are making satisfactory progress in both sectors on Guam. We have captured Mount Alifan in the southern area. In the north the roads from Agana to Piti Town are in our hands.

Our northern beach extending from Asan Point to Adelup Point, was under mortar fire during the night of July 20‑21 (West Longitude Date). Before daylight on July 21 the enemy launched a counter attack on the eastern side of our lines in the northern sector which was thrown back after daylight by our troops supported by air, naval, and artillery bombardment. Cabras Island is under our control and about half of it has been occupied.

At the southern beachhead, extending from Agat Town south to Bangi Point, the enemy attempted a counter attack in the early morning of July 21, which was thrown back. In retreating the enemy left behind five tanks and approximately 270 dead.

Initial beachheads on Guam Island were established immediately above and immediately below Orote Peninsula. Troops of the 3rd Marine Division landed on the northern beach. The 1st Provisional Marine Brigade landed in the south. Following the initial assault landings, elements of the 77th Infantry Division, USA, were landed in support of the Marines.

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The Pittsburgh Press (July 22, 1944)

Doughboys, Marines fan out inland from west coast of Guam

Yanks drive to cut off peninsula and airfield; Jap resistance increases
By Frank Tremaine, United Press staff writer

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8996

Cabinet formed by Jap general

By the United Press

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Two U.S. subs lost in Pacific

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8997

Two Nazi counterattacks smashed on French front

Allies wreck 14 German tanks as mud, rain bogs down British offensive near Caen
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

Gestapo kills general in France

London, England –
A report reached certain Allied intelligence quarters today that a serious conflict between Nazi SS troops and the German Army over the recent Oradour-sur-Glane massacre resulted in the assassination of a German general. The unidentified general was reported assassinated by the Gestapo. He had gone to investigate the massacre when intercepted by Gestapo agents, the report said.

SHAEF, London, England –
Allied armies knocked out 14 German tanks yesterday in repulsing two futile counterthrusts mounted despite heavy rain which stalled the British push across the Caen plains toward Paris, it was officially announced today.

The limited counterattacks were repulsed south of Saint-André-sur-Orne below Caen and along the Périers–Saint-Lô highway south of Remilly-sur-Lozon.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s shortest communiqué of the French campaign said today that “there is nothing to report,” and late in the day the word at Supreme Headquarters was the same.

A spokesman revealed that Gen. Paul Hausser, old-line Prussian officer, was commanding the German 7th Army facing the Americans in Normandy.

The German Transocean News Agency reported that the British had massed more than 10 divisions east of the Orne River, were moving up still more troops, and a “new major assault seems imminent.” The enemy report, lacking any immediate support in responsible quarters, said artillery fire was already increasing east of Caen but “the expected new attack has not yet started.”

British and Canadian forces waited in foxholes, trenches and ditches half-filled with water on an arc extending nearly five miles beyond Caen for clearing skies to resume their march toward Paris, 112 miles to the east.

Ground fog and low-flying clouds further immobilized operations and front reports told only of occasional artillery and mortar fire and routine limited patrols. Virtually all planes were grounded.

Desultory clashes were reported at Troarn, seven miles east of Caen, with the British vanguards in the outskirts and about 1,000 yards north of the town. South of Caen, the British were established firmly in Saint-André-sur-Orne, four miles down the Orne River, but headquarters retracted a previous announcement that they had taken Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay, a few hundred yards farther south.

A London broadcast said that “half of Troarn” was still in German hands, but the “fighting is going well for us.”

On the western half of the front, the U.S. 1st Army inched to within 4,000 yards north of Périers, made slight gains at several points south of the Périers–Saint-Lô highway and won positions 1,500 yards west of the Vire River four miles northwest of Saint-Lô.

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After Truman wins –
Move toward unity made by Democrats

CIO, South, bosses rally behind ticket
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was off today on his fourth-term campaign with running mate No. 3 after a bruising final session of the Democratic National Convention which rejected Vice President Henry A. Wallace and nominated Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO) for his job.

Mr. Roosevelt’s first running mate was John Nance Garner of Texas, who was elected Vice President in 1932 and 1936 and then broke with the President.

The Democratic nominees plan a late campaign, conforming to Mr. Roosevelt’s standard and effective practice. Neither is expected to begin major speeches until late September or October.

Senator Truman appears to have been the handpicked choice of the President, whose wishes were carried out here by a strategy board consisting of half a dozen men. Top honors for beating down the effort of left-wingers and others to keep Mr. Wallace on the ticket goes to National Committee Chairman Robert E. Hannegan, a 40-year-old from St. Louis who was chosen by Mr. Roosevelt to administer party affairs.

Senator Truman, nominated yesterday for Vice President about 24 hours after Mr. Roosevelt was named for a fourth term, is a second term member of the Senate who is chairman of the committee investigating munitions production and contracts. He is reckoned to have saved for the taxpayers a great many millions of dollars which might have been spent to no purpose.

Mr. Wallace was ahead on the first ballot, 429½ to 319½.

Stampede gets started

The remainder of the votes were scattered among other candidates, most of whom had been nominated to provide various state delegations with safe places to cast their votes pending some indication who might be the winner.

The Wallace drive began collapsing on the second ballot when little Delaware switched to give its full eight votes to Senator Truman. When Maryland was reached on the roll call, the delegation abandoned favorite-son Governor Herbert R. O’Conor to give Senator Truman 18 more votes.

Oklahoma Governor Robert S. Kerr then withdrew from the race and the state’s 22 votes went to Senator Truman. Virginia switched her 24 from Senator John R. Bankhead (D-AL) to the Missourian. By that time, the stampede was on and states were clamoring for a chance to change their votes.

A close contest

But even with the changes effected during the roll call, Senator Truman and Mr. Wallace were only three and a half votes apart when the last delegate was polled and before changes began being made for the record. Senator Truman had 477½ votes at the end of the roll call and Mr. Wallace had 473. Eleven other candidates were still in the contest at that time, but not for long.

By the time all the changes had been announced, the score, subject to minor correction, was:
Truman 1074
Wallace 66
Cooper 26
Douglas 4
Absent 6

Only 589 votes were required for a bare nominating majority.

Behind those figures is a story of angry disputes which foretells trouble for the New Deal-Democratic coalition. The strain of conflicting interests was evidenced in bitter language and boos in the convention yesterday.

Goes back four years

The story goes back to four years ago in the same stadium when Mr. Roosevelt compelled the sullenly reluctant 1940 Democratic Convention to accept Mr. Wallace as its vice-presidential nominee. That compulsion angered the south but was made effective with the support of the big northern Democratic organizations controlled by Chicago Mayor Edward J. Kelly, Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, Pennsylvania’s David Lawrence, and others.

This year, the big organization leaders balked. On the advice of his associates or under their pressure, Mr. Roosevelt failed this time to insist on Mr. Wallace.

He said he would vote for him if he were a delegate. But he also advised National Committee Chairman Robert E. Hannegan that he would welcome either Mr. Truman or Mr. Douglas on the ticket, explaining that he thought either would add strength.

A bitter session

It was a bitter session beginning at noon and ending at 8:21 p.m. CT. The moment the results were announced most of the principals began to move again toward unity, especially Sidney Hillman of the CIO. Mr. Wallace and Mr. Hillman both sent congratulatory messages to Senator Truman.

The rebellious South will go along with Senator Truman – a factor which makes persuasive the argument that the Missouri Senator was the man Mr. Roosevelt wanted from the first, despite his letter saying he would vote for Mr. Wallace. Much of the South was bitterly opposed to Mr. Wallace. Party members from that region expressed fears here that organized labor, notably the CIO, might take over the party if Mr. Wallace were renominated. They wanted a Southerner for Vice President but compromised on Senator Truman because he could lick the Vice President here with Mr. Roosevelt’s support.

So, it will be President Roosevelt and Senator Truman against Tom Dewey and John Bricker this November. Mr. Roosevelt is 62 and Mr. Truman is 60. Governor Dewey is 42 and Governor Bricker is 50.

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Oh yeah, I forgot today was when the Soviets liberated the first extermination camp.

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I’ll transcribe that article soon :slight_smile:

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CIO takes political licking –
Both Guffey, Lawrence lose prestige in convention fight

Senator managers to keep state from riding front seat on Truman bandwagon
By Kermit McFarland, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
The CIO took a licking, politically, in the Democratic Convention which ended here last night, but it and Senator Joseph F. Guffey managed to hold off the Pennsylvania delegation long enough to keep their intramural rivals from riding a front seat in the Truman bandwagon.

The defeat of Vice President Henry A. Wallace was a serious blow to Senator Guffey’s political self-respect, as well as it was to the political potency of the CIO.

But the fact that the Pennsylvania delegation failed to time its conversion to Senator Harry S. Truman’s nomination served to diminish somewhat the prestige accumulated by Democratic State Chairman David L. Lawrence by his long and arduous efforts on behalf of the Missouri Senator.

On the second ballot for the vice-presidential nomination, which Senator Truman carried, the original Pennsylvania vote stood 46 for Mr. Wallace to 24 for Mr. Truman – two of the 72 delegates being absent.

On this original count, Senator Truman only had 477½ votes, while Mr. Wallace polled 475, the rest being scattered among sundry favorite sons. Then the favorite-son delegations began to switch to the Missouri Senator.

But Pennsylvania remained silent. Among the delegates and in the press row, they began to think of the 1940 Republican Convention, when the Pennsylvania delegation missed the Willkie bandwagon.

It was West Virginia which really sank the final shot for Mr. Truman. When the Mountaineer State’s delegation changed its second ballot vote by switching 13 votes for Mr. Wallace and Senator John H. Bankhead to Senator Truman, the nomination was clinched.

Twelve other states had changed over before Senator Guffey himself, usurping the floor microphone from the delegation’s chairman, former Judge John H. Wilson of Butler, arose to move that the nomination be made unanimous. He was ruled out of order. Eight more states shifted and Mr. Guffey got up again, this time to record 72 Pennsylvania votes for Mr. Truman.

By that time, Senator Truman had 350½ votes – only 589 were needed for the nomination.

Massachusetts saves them

On the first ballot, Pennsylvania voted 48½ to 23½ for Mr. Wallace against Senator Truman. This resulted from a closed caucus taken just after the nominating speeches were completed.

Right there, in fact, Pennsylvania almost missed the boat, as per the Republicans in 1940. The roll call was well underway while the Pennsylvanians were in caucus. But a poll of the Massachusetts delegation took so long that the Pennsylvania delegation managed to untangle its caucus confusion and scramble back to the auditorium in time to register the vote.

Scully switches

On this first ballot, delegates voting for Mr. Wallace included Senator Guffey, his sister Mrs. Emma Guffey Miller, CIO President Philip Murray, Attorney General Francis Biddle, Clerk of Courts John J. McLean, McKeesport Mayor Frank Buchanan, Register of Wills John M. Huston, Coroner William B. McClelland, Record of Deeds Anthony J. Gerard (an alternate voting for delegate Marguerite McNaughton, who was absent), Irwin D. Wolf, and Mayor Cornelius D. Scully.

Voting for Mr. Truman were County Commissioner John J. Kane, Postmaster General Frank C. Walker, Mr. Lawrence, County Commissioner George Rankin, chief clerk of the City Public Safety Department Edward D. Johnson, and City Treasurer James P. Kirk.

On the second ballot, Mr. Scully switched to Senator Truman, while Matthew H. McCloskey, Philadelphia contractor and a delegate-at-large, changed his half-vote from Mr. Truman to Mr. Wallace. This made a net change of a half-vote in the Pennsylvania delegation.

Kane seconds Truman

Prior to the first caucus, Mr. Kane had made a seconding speech for Senator Truman and Mrs. Miller had seconded the nomination of Mr. Wallace.

In his speech, delivered extemporaneously, Commissioner Kane declared:

We didn’t have to come to Chicago to learn about the greatness of Senator Truman. We learned about him by following his record.

We had a wholesome respect for the splendid contribution he made to the protection of our sons and daughters in the fighting forces all over the world.

Mr. Kane referred to the senatorial committee investigating the war effort, which Senator Truman heads.

The commissioner said the Missouri Senator had “made the greatest contribution toward the protection of the Armed Forces of any man in the United States.”

Mrs. Miller, in her praise of Mr. Wallace, said:

As a thoroughgoing Democrat, I never have been one to accept the advice of the reactionary Republicans when it comes to nominating Democratic candidates. Neither have I been an advocate of appeasement. No party nor government ever gained thereby.

This was a crack at the chief Truman backers whom the Wallace forces called “reactionaries.”

Sees Republican plot

Mrs. Miller said:

The knees of the Old Gray Mare of Pennsylvania [meaning herself] may have grown stiff from a quarter century of service, but she still knows which road to take to victory. And that road is the road of positive and active liberalism from which the standpat and machine Republicans are not attempting to drive the Democratic candidate for the Vice Presidency [Mr. Wallace].

When the opposition saw how successful he was [as Secretary of Agriculture], they immediately set about through Republican-controlled farm organizations and papers to thwart and ruin his plans. We Pennsylvania Democrats know this to be a fact, for Joe Pew, the high priest of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, has spent millions toward this end.