Editorial: Labor and the PAC
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Edson: Pre-election quiz tests your political IQ
By Peter Edson
Washington –
Now is the time for all self-appointed political experts to make their predictions or the outcome of the election, writing the expected results on a piece of paper, carefully putting it away, and then dragging it out on the morning after to show what smart forecasters they really were.
President Roosevelt does this, only he admits that he has never been right on his predictions.
But you, too, can play this kind of political solitaire, and as a convenience to those who care to indulge in this harmless pastime, there is presented here a checklist of questions on the outcome of this election. Write your own answers and file for future reference:
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Will Roosevelt run up a greater Electoral College vote than that by which he beat Willkie in 1940, when the count was 449–82? He beat Hoover 472–59 and he beat Landon 523–8.
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How many more states will Dewey carry in 1944 than the 10 states Willkie carried in 1940?
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The total number of votes cast in the presidential election of 1940 was 49,815,312. How much bigger will the popular vote be in 1944?
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The 1940 popular vote was divided roughly 27 million for Roosevelt, 22 million for Willkie, Roosevelt winning by five million. What will the difference be in 1944 and which way?
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The 1940 popular vote was 44.7 percent Republican, 54.8 percent Democratic. What will be the percentages this year?
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Will Dewey carry New York?
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Will Roosevelt carry Pennsylvania?
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Will Dewey break the Solid South, and if so, which states will he carry?
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Will Dewey carry any of the border states of Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky?
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Will Truman carry Missouri, a “doubtful” state, for Roosevelt and Truman?
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The Midwest has been claimed by and conceded to Dewey, including Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. Will Roosevelt carry any of those states, and if so, which ones?
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Will Dewey carry any of the Pacific Coast states of California, Oregon and Washington?
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Of the three Gallup poll doubtful states of Pennsylvania, Missouri and Oregon, will the soldier vote decide the issue?
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The present U.S. Senate is 58 Democrats, 37 Republicans, 1 Progressive. The terms of 11 Republicans and 21 Democrats expire this year, meaning that 32 new Senators are to be elected. What will be the division of the new Senate, by party, 37 Democrats and 26 Republicans being holdovers?
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The present composition of the House of Representatives is 214 Democrats, 210 Republicans, 10 seats being scattered and vacant. How will the new House be divided by party?
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Will the House go Republican, even if Roosevelt is reelected to the Presidency?
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If Dewey wins, will both the Senate and House go Republican?
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Which of these 12 prominent Senators running for reelection will be defeated: Democrats Downey of California, Gillette of Iowa, Barkley of Kentucky, Wagner of New York, Lucas of Illinois, Thomas of Utah; Republicans Danaher of Connecticut, Nye of North Dakota, Taft of Ohio, Davis of Pennsylvania, Aiken of Vermont, Wiley of Wisconsin?
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Will a record popular vote – say 55 million as against 49 million in 1940 – work to give Roosevelt a larger or smaller popular vote than his previous high of 27,751,612 in 1936 against Alf Landon?
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Eleven states do not count their soldier vote until after the regular Nov. 7 election. They are Missouri Nov. 10, California Nov. 24, Pennsylvania and Colorado Nov. 22, Delaware Nov. 9, Florida Nov. 17, Rhode Island Dec. 4, North Dakota Dec. 5, Utah and Washington Nov. 27, Nebraska Dec. 7. Will the soldier vote in these states, with a total of 116 electoral votes, change the result of the election?
State GOP seeks to ‘double’ vote
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (UP) –
The Republican state committee has announced through vice chairman Mrs. Edna R. Carroll of Philadelphia, its designation of Oct. 25 as “Double the Vote for Dewey” Day, marking a statewide drive for 1,220,000 “additional sure votes” for the GOP presidential nominee.
She said Republican women in every Pennsylvania precinct would undertake on Wednesday to “round up the rocking chair vote” among the 1,500,000 eligible Pennsylvanians who failed to exercise their franchise at the last presidential election.
The climax of the day’s program will be the Chicago radio address by Governor Thomas E. Dewey at 10:00 p.m. EWT, around which rallies, block parties and neighborhood listening parties will be staged by local groups, she said.
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Hollywood, California –
With Gen. MacArthur back in the Philippines and the hara-kiri knives are really flashing.
What a general! But, believe it or not, there are still millions of people who wish that he would drop everything he’s doing and come back here to run for President. Of course, these people couldn’t vote – they live in Japan.
Gen. MacArthur has really become the symbol of fear to the Japs. I read where their government issued free sake wine to boost home-front morale. But it didn’t work. Everyone got drunk and saw little pink MacArthurs.
This must be an awfully confusing war to the Japs, anyway. They call themselves the “sons of heaven” and our boys are sending so many of them to the wrong address.
Background of news –
Mr. Roosevelt and labor
By Bertram Benedict
If President Roosevelt should be reelected, he undoubtedly would owe his success in large part to the valiant efforts on his behalf of the CIO and to a less degree by other labor groups in the large industrial states.
President Roosevelt’s opponents go to his record on labor legislation to prove that he did not really have a pro-labor philosophy, out was pushed into one by the need of labor support. The President’s admirers go to the same record to prove that he was eager to meet labor’s legitimate demands, that he held back when the demands became exorbitant.
In Mr. Roosevelt’s first campaign for the Presidency, in 1932, he laid little stress on labor’s needs and rights. Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 – guaranteeing the rights of collective bargaining and the freedom to join unions – received little attention when it was enacted, although it was to become the cornerstone of the New Deal labor policy.
Labor bills listed
Then came acts setting up a federal system of employment exchanges, for retirement annuities for railroad employees, the first Guffey Act for a wage-and-price code in the bituminous coal industry, the Social Security Act of 1935, the present Wagner Act setting up the National Labor Relations Board and outlawing “unfair” labor practices, and, in 1936, the Walsh-Healey Act for a 40-hour week and prevailing wages on government contracts.
By the 1936 election, it was apparent that business and conservative support for Mr. Roosevelt would be weaker than in 1932. During the campaign, the President advocated what was to become the Wage-Hour Act of 1938. A broad act for federal housing construction was passed in 1937, as was the second Guffey Coal Act, and in 1939, the Social Security system was liberalized.
Thereafter the administration became concerned primarily with retaining the gains already achieved by labor. In January 1937, when John L. Lewis demanded that the administration publicly support the General Motors sit-down strike, the President had said: “There come moments when statements, conversation and headlines are not in order.”
In the summer of 1937, during the coal strike, he commented: “A plague on both your houses,” and that signalized the end of the Roosevelt-Lewis axis. In the same year, administration forces managed to insert in the anti-sit-down strike resolution adopted by the Senate a clause condemning recalcitrant employers.
Smith-Connally Bill
In the following years, the administration with difficulty beat off attempts to weaken the Wagner Act and the Wage-Hour Act. Despite labor pressure, the administration has adhered to the Little Steel formula evolved by the War Labor Board in 1942. The second Price Control (anti-inflation) Act of 1942 directed the President to stabilize wages, as far as possible, at the level of Sept. 15, 1942.
The coal strikes in 1943 made the administration impotent to stave off anti-strike legislation any longer.
The President vetoed the Smith-Connally Bill (in vain), but said he did so only because it really encouraged strikes; he had no objection to the provisions allowing the government to take over struck plants and making strikes in such plants a criminal offense. He expressed no objection to the section outlawing political contributions by unions.
In vetoing the 1944 tax bill (again in vain), the President did not refer to the provision, bitterly opposed by labor, requiring financial statements from unions.
In 1936, Mr. Roosevelt won by 523 electoral votes to 8, and in 1940 by 449 to 82. In those years, he had needed labor support less than he obviously needs it in 1944.
Bricker: Middle class ‘neglected’
Appeal is made for white-collar vote
Pueblo, Colorado (UP) –
“The Neglected Man” was substituted by Ohio Governor John W. Bricker today for the New Deal’s famous “Forgotten Man” in an appeal for the votes of the unorganized white-collar workers.
The GOP vice-presidential nominee, in a speech here, said that the greatest contribution of the New Deal to clerks, stenographers, bookkeepers, small manufacturers, small merchants, and professional men was “disillusionment.”
He said:
The present-day counterpart of the “Forgotten Man” is the Neglected Man… the great middle class who work for a salary or for an uncertain income.
‘Tragic development’
Governor Bricker said the New Deal had offered the country a “utopia” in which “wealth was to come from spending; plenty from scarcity.”
Mr. Bricker said:
What’s happened to him (the Neglected Man) is one of the most tragic developments of our times. He has been outraged by government extravagances, dictation, and the doubletalk of the New Deal.
‘Insincerity’ charged
Governor Bricker said that something must be done for the unorganized white-collar workers “for the sake of our economic and social stability.”
Calling his “Neglected Man” an “individualist,” the nominee said that was why he had not organized, and that because he was unorganized, he has “small influence with the New Deal.”
Last night in Denver, Governor Bricker accused Mr. Roosevelt of insincerity and cited the President’s “record” of statements which, he said, later were contradicted or repudiated altogether.
He called for “integrity” in the spirit as well as the letter of government.
Governor Bricker said:
We must judge Mr. Roosevelt’s sincerity on his attitude and method on the way he does things…
Washington needs Tom Dewey, who says what he means and means what he says.
Brownell links Truman and Klan
New York (UP) –
Republican National Chairman Herbert Brownell Jr. today charged that Democratic vice-presidential nominee Harry S. Truman, in a recent statement on the candidacy of a Los Angeles Democrat for Congress, had “figuratively embraced the Ku Klux Klan.”
Mr. Brownell quoted Mr. Truman as saying in Los Angeles, on Oct. 16, that if Hal Styles, Democratic Congressional nominee, is “one of ours, I am for him.”
‘Dollar-for-Dewey’ drive launched
New York (UP) –
Anthony Capasso, a CIO local official, has advised Republican National Chairman Herbert Brownell Jr. of the formation of a “Dollar-for-Dewey” campaign as a protest against activities of the CIO Political Action Committee, the Republican National Committee announced today.
Mr. Capasso, chief steward for the Brass Workers Union (CIO) Local 320 of Bridgeport, Connecticut, told Mr. Brownell he had been suspended by his union as chief steward after refusing to contribute to the PAC campaign for the reelection of President Roosevelt, the Republican Committee said.
The Republican Committee also announced celebration by women voters throughout the nation tomorrow of “Double the Vote for Dewey Day” with a doorbell-ringing and neighborhood party campaign for the support of independent voters.
Clare Luce called ‘sprig of lavender’
Buffalo, New York (UP) –
Author Edna Ferber today turned her talents to the advocacy of President Roosevelt’s reelection and the condemnation of Republicans, particularly Rep. Clare Boothe Luce (R-CT), whom she called “that fragrant sprig of lavender and old lace.”
Miss Ferber stole the show from veteran campaigners at a political rally here last night when she denounced Miss Luce as “that coiner of shabby wisecracks, whose sole distinguishing record in Congress is her record of absenteeism.”
Electoral College may be on way out
Washington (UP) –
This election could be the last in which voters elect a President through the Electoral College – if Congress and three-fourths of the states approve any one of three proposed constitutional amendments pending in Congress.
Senator Joseph F. Guffey (D-PA) and Rep. Emanuel Celler (D-NY) have introduced identical resolutions to abolish the Electoral College but to retain the present system of giving each state a number of electoral votes equal to their members in both houses of Congress.
However, each state’s electoral votes would be divided among the candidates in proportion to their percentage of the popular vote. At present, the winning candidate in a given state gets all of that state’s electoral votes.
Senator William Langer (R-ND) has introduced a resolution to abolish the entire electoral vote process and elect the President on the basis of popular vote.
Fala patriotic
Washington –
President Roosevelt’s “greatest joy” during his tour of New York Saturday came when Fala, his Scottie dog, put his paws on the seat in front of him and stood at attention while bands played “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Mrs. Roosevelt said today. She said she guessed it was “accidental,” that Fala saw everybody else standing at attention.
‘Denounce isolationists,’ Truman challenges Dewey
GOP nominee dared to call for a Senate backing strong foreign policy
Minneapolis, Minnesota (UP) –
Senator Harry S. Truman, Democratic nominee for Vice President, challenged Governor Thomas E. Dewey last night to call for the defeat of eight Republican “isolationist” Senators and for the election of a Senate to support a “strong foreign policy.”
He made the challenge in a statement issued a few hours after making a similar demand in a luncheon address in which he charged Republican Senators had adopted a “rule-or-ruin” policy in an “attempt to blackjack the American people” into electing a President satisfactory to isolationists.
Mr. Truman’s statement said that foreign affairs were “universally recognized to be the most important issue in this election.”
Mr. Truman noted that Governor Dewey would be here today and said he should answer the question then, but “at all events, in view of the nearness of the election, I call upon Mr. Dewey to give his answer to the American people promptly.”
Senator Truman named the eight Republican Senators as Gerald P. Nye (R-ND), Robert A. Taft (R-OH), Clyde M. Reed (R-KS), Charles W. Tobey (R-NH), James J. Davis (R-PA), Alexander Wiley (R-WI), Eugene D. Millikin (R-CO) and John A. Danaher (R-CT).
The candidate said Governor Dewey was trying to follow the tactics of the late President Harding by “carrying water on both shoulders.” The Democratic Party acted to “cleanse itself” of isolationists in the primaries, Mr. Truman said, “but the Republicans renominated theirs.”
Millett: Girls’ accomplishments will surprise G.I. Joe
‘Weaker sex’ is doing quite well at filling ‘his’ shoes while he’s away
By Ruth Millett
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Stokes: The ‘silent vote’
By Thomas L. Stokes
Washington –
There are some unpredictable forces at work underneath the surface in this presidential election – or so the politicians, who like things plain and simple, seem to think.
Big Jim Farley put it this way a few days ago when encountered on a train in Boston: “There is something going on that I can’t quite understand. This is a hard election to figure out.”
Political leaders interviewed on a recent tour into New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Pennsylvania complained that people are not talking much this year – at least to them. It disturbs them. People, of course, have got lots of other things to worry about now.
“I move about a good deal among people, and I always make a point of sounding them out,” said a Pennsylvania Democratic leader. “But they don’t seem to want to talk politics, and many of them won’t say who they are going to vote for.”
This disinclination to talk would seem to mean a fairly sizeable vote still undecided, as the polls indicate, largely perhaps the so-called “independent” vote. Certain segments are frozen already and have been for months – labor is heavily, though by no means entirely, for the Democrats: Midwestern farmers are for the Republicans, and the usual quota of staunch Democrats and Republicans, the year-in, year-out regulars, is frozen.
Remainder unaccounted for
That leaves lots of voters loose and unaccounted for. It leaves out, for example, many of the great white-collar class which is perturbed about inflation, and to whom Governor Dewey very shrewdly appealed in his Pittsburgh speech.
Politicians all through the East are hesitant about making definite claims. That shows how the race has tightened up in the East in the last couple of weeks, and it reveals the unsettled state of many minds that has sent President Roosevelt to the stump at last and has the Republicans intensifying their campaign.
In the back of the minds of the politicians is that sudden ground swell in the 1942 Congressional elections which surprised the party leaders of both Republicans and Democrats here, and also Dr. George Gallup. Democrats just didn’t get out their vote that year. They discovered, too late, that much migrant labor which had moved into their states to work in war plants was not registered.
That is being taken care of this year. Registration is high all through the East and, with the soldier vote, will top the previous peak of four years ago in many areas. That disturbs the political leaders too. They don’t know quite how to interpret it.
Distress about ‘apathy’ unfounded
A few weeks ago, politicians were distressed about “apathy.” The registration in the East certainly disproves that. Lots of voters may not be talking, but they seem interested enough, a bit too interested for some ward bosses in big cities who like to keep the voting down to the folks they can depend upon.
Some Republicans talk hopefully and analyze this “silent vote” – a favorite symbol in politics – as a protest vote that will come out suddenly on Election Day in droves and give President Roosevelt and the New Deal a big wham.
One thing that makes them anxious. however, is the indication that many Republicans – no one knows how many – are going to switch over and vote for President Roosevelt for the first time this year because of the war and the keen interest in a post-war world organization to check future wars. Some of the latter are former Wendell Willkie supporters.
Democrats like to think that the voters who are silent made up their minds long ago to vote for President Roosevelt, on the single, simple issue that there should be no change in the midst of war, and that they are just not in the mood for conversation about the election, having more important things to do.
John Barleycorn becomes candidate in hotly-contested Nebraska election
Prohibition made a big issue; soldiers overseas send protest home
By Lorne Kennedy, NEA staff writer
Omaha, Nebraska –
Overshadowing all other Nov. 7 election issues in Nebraska is the question of whether the state will vote to restore prohibition or retain its present local-option liquor control.
The wet-dry question was forced on the ballot by an initiative petition with 50,393 names, obtained through the efforts of persistent prohibitionists, organized as the “Allied Dry Forces of Nebraska.” The organization is headed by Harold “Three-Gun” Wilson of Lincoln, a former federal prohibition administrator.
Not partisan issue
Heading the opposition to prohibition are most Nebraska newspapers, an organization known as “The Committee of Men and Women Against Prohibition” and another group known as the “Nebraska Servicemen’s Protective Committee.” The first group, carrying the main fight, is led by Keith Neville, a North Platte teetotaler who was Governor of Nebraska during part of the prohibition era.
The Servicemen’s Committee is headed by William Ritchie, Omaha lawyer and state Democratic campaign director.
Neither side has attempted to link the dry issue with partisan politics, although the Democratic State Convention adopted a plank opposing prohibition, Republicans held their state convention before the initiative petition, have made no effort since to take a stand.
Wets worried
Although anti-dry Nebraskans are frankly worried over the possibility that the prohibition lid might be slipped back on, they believe generally that by Election Day, enough resentment will be aroused to defeat the attempt.
They feel they have the most effective argument. Instead of meeting the issue head-on, most prohibition opponents have urged that it would be better to defeat the proposed dry law now and settle the issue again finally when 100,000 Nebraska servicemen are home again and can participate in the decision.
Opponents termed the 1944 dry vote as “a sly trick” to force the issue in the absence of fighting forces. They also capitalized on the fact that two million dollars yearly is contributed to the state old-age pension program from liquor and beer revenue and that breweries buy a million dollars’ worth of Nebraska grain annually.
Petition from France
Mr. Neville’s committee, spending heavily on advertising of nearly every form, charged the dry forces lacked true interest in state welfare when they submitted the question without providing a means of enforcing prohibition or supplying substitute finances for old age pensions between Nov. 7 and such time as the 1945 Legislature can enact legislation.
Most effective document produced against the dry cause was a full-page advertisement in state papers, reproducing a petition against prohibition which was prepared and signed by 312 soldiers of the famous 134th Infantry, formerly the Nebraska National Guard.
The petition was sent home from France by Col. Butler Miltonberger, regimental commander and former duck-hunting companion of former Governor Neville.
It was soiled from being circulated in the field just after the 134th succeeded in a bloody, costly breakthrough at Saint-Lô.
Soldiers’ statement
A facsimile of all signatures was printed along with the soldiers’ statement that:
We, the undersigned citizens of Nebraska, who are now serving in the Armed Forces in defense of our country, are dismayed to learn that those of us who survive this war may have to return to the kind of Nebraska that our fathers returned to in 1919. We feel that we are being disfranchised.
Mr. Wilson and his allied dry forces have made but little effort to answer the opposition arguments except to deny that the dry vote was intentionally timed to a period when soldier voting is difficult.
Drys rely on WCTU
They are relying mainly on the strength of WCTU chapters, church groups and strong anti-liquor sentiment in rural districts.
To the wets’ charges that “prohibition doesn’t prohibit” and that it would make Nebraska “a bootleggers’ paradise,” Mr. Wilson responded blandly that prohibition didn’t succeed before only because the will to enforce it was lacking.
Nebraska’s first experiment with prohibition began in 1917, when a state dry law was enacted 146,574 to 117,132, nearly three years before national prohibition. Nebraska had the distinction of being the 36th state to ratify the federal dry amendment, thereby putting it into effect.
State experience under prohibition was typical, with corn alcohol stills flourishing in rural sections and a rash of gang killings resulting. The climax came in 1933 when 53 persons, including a former Omaha political boss, district leaders and several policemen, were tried in a spectacular conspiracy case in Omaha Federal Court.
Strict law enforced
In 1934, Nebraskans voted 327,074 to 216,107 for repeal and it became effective May 24, 1935, following enactment by the Legislature of the State Liquor Control Act. Dry forces have at no time seriously criticized the administration of the State Liquor Act, which is directed by a three-member bipartisan control commission, with a reputation for being “tough” on licensees violating state law or commission rules.
Under the Control Act, beer sale is permitted throughout the state but liquor can neither be sold by the package or drink unless approved by residents of a town. Liquor sales in rural areas are forbidden.
First Lady says 4th term is not an important issue
Mrs. Roosevelt lists three major questions as post-war jobs, victory, lasting peace
Washington (UP) –
The fourth term is less of an issue in the 1944 presidential campaign than the third term was four years ago, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt told a press conference today.
She said there are three major campaign issues this year, all of them “tied together” – first, how to provide jobs for all after the war; second, winning the war; and third, building foundations for peace in the future. These points, she said, in her opinion are “the things which are in the minds of the people at present.”
The First Lady said she thought the President’s four-hour open-car tour of New York through a drizzling rain on Saturday “did him good.” He suffered no ill effects from the trip, she said, and gained benefits from it because it had been a long time since he had been “in contact with real crowds – always stimulating to him.”
Approves political campaigns
She said she regarded political campaigns as beneficial to the country because they take officeholders “out to more people” and thus enable the officeholders to determine what the people are thinking.
In ordinary times, she added, “a man in office should travel through the country” frequently.
Calls Ball ‘courageous’
On other matters, Mrs. Roosevelt said:
She looks forward “to the day in which we choose persons for their fitness for the job, whether they are men or women.” This was in answer to an inquiry about the possibility of a woman being elected President.
She was “thrilled” by the news of the Philippine invasion, which she said “must have been a tremendous satisfaction” to Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Senator Joseph C. Ball (R-MN) was “courageous” in announcing that he would support President Roosevelt, rather than Thomas E. Dewey, because of Mr. Roosevelt’s stand on foreign policy.
Japs to pick up aid for prisoners
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Co-coach speaks –
Handler sure Steeler-Cards will win soon
By Glen Perkins, United Press staff writer
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Freed war prisoners will be sent to U.S.
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30 aliens plead guilty
New York –
Thirty German aliens – 28 men and two women – pleaded guilty in Federal Court yesterday to conspiracy to violate the Alien Registration Act of 1940 by concealing their affiliations with the Nazi Party. They will be sentenced Dec. 4.
Address by New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey
October 24, 1944, 10:30 p.m. EWT
Broadcast from Minneapolis, Minnesota
It is mighty good to come back again to Minnesota, the state of that gallant leader, Cdr. Harold Stassen. As a great Governor and as a bold and courageous leader of opinion, he rendered services to his country equaled only by his present services in the Navy.
To the people of Minnesota, he gave something else very precious and too long absent from our national life. He gave teamwork government, not one-man government.
As a result, when he left for the Navy, there was a first-class man ready and able to fill his shoes. That man has so ably and successfully conducted the affairs of the state that everyone agrees you will reelect by an overwhelming majority my good friend Governor Edward J. Thye.
The experience of the people of Minnesota under these great Republican administrations points the way toward the progressive, forward-looking teamwork government the people will install in the nation next January 20.
I had intended to talk tonight about some of the problems of the American farmer. I have deferred that talk so that I can, without delay, correct some errors and omissions in the speech of my opponent of last Saturday night. But before doing so, I want here and now to repledge my adherence to the farm program of the Republican platform, which was drawn by the farm leaders themselves.
The wide fluctuation of prices of farm products that followed the last war will not be tolerated. A floor will be placed and maintained under farm prices with assurance of seal-up crop loans. A proper farm program will be created and so operated that it will leave with the farmers the administration, the control and operation of their program without domination or dictation from appointed bureaucrats.
On three great objectives we, the American people, are wholly agreed. We are determined to carry through this war to swift and total victory. We are determined that the United States shall take the lead, even before victory in the war is won, in the establishment of a world organization to prevent future wars. We are determined that our fighting men shall find, when they return victorious, a vigorous and productive America, the kind of America in which there will be jobs and opportunity for all.
It was for the purpose of keeping our unity for peace that, last August, I lifted our peace plans wholly out of partisan conflicts – by joining hands with Secretary Hull in work on the proposed organization to prevent future wars.
In my addresses on that subject, I have tried to keep it out of partisan debate.
Unhappily, however, last Saturday night, my opponent once again sowed among us the seeds of disunity. He made a long speech on foreign affairs. We had hoped he would speak to the American people as grown-ups and tell us what our foreign policy is and where it is going.
We had also hoped to hear some word of cheer about the smaller nations, so important to the conscience of the American people – some word about the fate of Poland, some hope for the people of Italy, some assurance that the Scandinavian countries which have suffered so much, and the other small countries, might soon be admitted to their full partnership in the work for organized peace.
But Mr. Roosevelt gave us none of that. Instead, he sat by the fireside and dreamed of yesterday. He paraded before the American people the ghosts of the dead past. He told us a few bits of history, carefully selected, and then said in effect, “Ask me no questions – you are not entitled to know where we are going. Just leave everything to me.”
Now, Mr. Roosevelt said in that speech, “I am giving you the whole story.” But the isolated bits of history he gave were only a very small part of the story.
My opponent says the heavy hand of isolationism governed our country in the 1920s. Does he mean to apply that term to the three great Republican Secretaries of State, Charles Evans Hughes, Frank B. Kellogg, and Henry L. Stimson, his own present Secretary of War? If so, I am afraid he has a convenient memory. It was my opponent himself who said of the day he took office, the 4th of March, 1933:
The world picture was an image of substantial peace. International consultation and widespread hope for the bettering of relations between the nations gave to all of us a reasonable expectation that the barriers to mutual confidence, to increased trade and to the peaceful settlement of disputes could be progressively removed.
And that was the truth. My opponent did inherit a progressively improving structure of international cooperation – from the disarmament conference of 1921 led by Charles Evans Hughes, through the great Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, in which most of the nations of the world renounced war as an instrument of national policy.
But it was on March 5, 1933, that Adolf Hitler made himself dictator of Germany. That was a fateful year. Germany walked out of the disarmament conference. Germany and Japan quit the League of Nations. And tragically, under the leadership of Mr. Roosevelt, America did her own bit toward the breakdown of international cooperation for peace.
Mr. Roosevelt now speaks fondly of the League of Nations. But it was he who in 1933 said this of the league: “We are not members and we do not contemplate membership.”
He rejected the policy of collaboration with the League which had previously been established, and in 1935, the American representative at Geneva was instructed “that we desire to follow our course independently.”
Here are two parts of the story my opponent conveniently forgot. Now let’s look at some more.
It was also in 1935 that instead of the policy of consultation with other nations, an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress adopted the fruitless neutrality act and the President signed it.
But it was in 1933 that we really had our last chance to bring order out of the chaos of international money exchange and trade. The London economic conference had been labored over for months by Republican Secretary of State Stimson. Yet, as one of his early acts as President, Mr. Roosevelt deliberately scuttled that conference. That was the most completely isolationist action ever taken by an American President in our 150 years of history. It was that event that led at least one European statesman to say there was then nothing ahead in Europe but war.
Year after year, from 1933 to 1939, our representatives in Berlin and Tokyo, in their confidential reports which are now partly made public, warned of the growing danger.
Year after year, our chiefs of staff reported on the utterly impoverished and pitifully small man power of our Army. Year after year, the Budget Bureau, which is under the personal direction of the President, cut down the amount requested. It was right in the fall of 1939, after the second world war had actually begun, that Mr. Roosevelt’s Budget Bureau cut out $552 million of amounts certified by the Army for critical and essential items.
It was in January 1940 that Mr. Roosevelt told the Congress that $1,800,000,000 for national defense was, in his judgment, “a sufficient amount for the coming year,” although he admitted that it was “far less than many experts on national defense think should be spent.”
It was in that month that I called publicly for a two-ocean Navy, a concept which Mr. Roosevelt still later called “just plain dumb.”
It was in those terrifying days of the Nazi blitz, in May of 1940, that he told us we should not become “discombobulated.” Then, with France about to fall, he publicly announced on June 4 that he saw no reason for Congress to stay in session. It was an election year – so in that hour of national peril he said that a continued session of Congress would serve no useful end except, sarcastically, the laudable purpose of making speeches.
It was that American Congress which refused at that historic time to go home. It stayed in Washington and worked.
It was that Congress which then passed the national Selective Service Act, sponsored by a Republican Congressman and an anti-New Deal Democrat. It was that Congress that stayed after it had been told to go home, which ran the appropriations and authorizations for national defense up to twelve billion dollars.
Here, then, are some more chapters of the story – all of which my opponent conveniently forgets. But the American people will not forget them when they go to the polls in November.
In his speech of last Saturday night, my opponent did remember the Washington arms conference by which, for the first time, we succeeded in restricting Japan to an inferior naval relationship of 5-5-3. But he forgot that he was supposed to be telling “the whole story.” He complained that we “scuttled” part of the strength of our navy. But that is not what he said at the time. Then, in a magazine article, Mr. Roosevelt asked America to trust Japan and complained of “the delay in the scrapping of United States ships as provided for and pledged in accordance with the treaty.” What he also forgot last Saturday night was that as late as 1934, he called the Washington arms conference a “milestone in civilization.”
How election times change men’s memories! If we are going to learn the lessons for future use, we have to keep the record straight.
It was in that year, 1934, that Japan served notice of termination of the limitation treaty which kept her navy inferior to ours. Yet, it was in the first two administrations of the New Deal that this country sent ten million tons of scrap iron and steel to Japan, unchecked by my opponent until October 16, 1940. The weight of that scrap iron alone was ten times the tonnage of the whole Japanese Navy.
Mr. Roosevelt said last Saturday that we could have “compromised” with Japan, “by selling out the heart’s blood of the Chinese people.” Well, let’s see what he did.
In addition to scrap iron, he permitted the shipment of as much as three million barrels a month of oil, the heart’s blood of war, for use against China and for storage against America. It continued to flow until July of 1941, four months before Pearl Harbor.
Let those who claim to have exercised great foresight remember these lessons in history. And let us as a nation never forget them.
Now, my opponent in his speech actually blamed a handful of Republicans for our failure to go into the World Court in 1935.
That was when Mr. Roosevelt was still on the crest of his leadership, with three-fourths of the United States Senate Democratic. Even with the help of nine Republicans, he still could not muster a two-thirds vote. Since then, he has warred with Congress at every major turn. He has insulted its integrity, and its members have learned the bitter lesson that legislation asked for one purpose, is twisted to another. This is a sad foundation on which to build the teamwork necessary for the future. That’s why it’s time for a change.
Three times in recent months I have discussed at length what I consider the sound and successful program for lasting peace. I have emphasized that this work must be pressed forward without waiting for the end of the war. I have emphasized, as my opponent has not, that “we must make certain that our participation in this world organization is not subjected to reservations that would nullify the power of that organization to maintain peace and to halt future aggression.” That means, of course, that it must not be subject to a reservation that would require our representative to return to Congress for authority every time he had to make a decision. Obviously, Congress and only Congress, has the constitutional power to determine what quota of force it will make available and what discretion it will give our representative to use that force.
I have not the slightest doubt that a Congress which is working in partnership with the President will achieve the result we all consider essential and grant adequate power for swift action to the American representative. But those who would attempt to ride roughshod over Congress and to dictate the course it should follow before it has even been acquainted with the facts are trifling with the hope of the world. They are deliberately, in my judgment, seeking to precipitate a hardening of minds. If this stubborn course is pursued, it can only result once again, as in 1919, in a disastrous conflict between the President and the Congress. To that I will never be a party.
I deeply believe that we cannot build an understanding and a purpose for our future if we are to continue to have abuse from the President of the members of Congress.
None of us has been all-wise in these matters. Individual Congressmen and Senators of both parties have made mistakes. Individual citizens have made mistakes. Every one of us – both in and out of office – has made mistakes.
I am not interested in the mistakes of any individual, in either party. I am interested – the people of this country are interested – in what the next Congress will do. We must not find ourselves after next January 20 stalled on dead center as a result of this series of recriminations between my opponent and the Congress. He has already demonstrated that he cannot work with a Congress of his own party. It is unmistakably clear that our future demands that we have a new Chief Executive who can and will work with the new Republican Congress beginning next January 20. We must be able to go forward harmoniously and effectively if we are to meet the mighty problems of peace.
Who will lead the next Senate and the next House? Well, here are the acknowledged leaders today:
- Senator Wallace H. White Jr. of Maine, Acting Minority Leader of the United States Senate.
- Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference Committee.
- Senator Warren R. Austin of Vermont, chairman of the Republican National Convention Foreign Relations Subcommittee.
- Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, chairman of the Republican Steering Committee.
- Senator Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska, Republican Senate whip.
- Joseph W. Martin Jr. of Massachusetts, the minority Republican leader of the House of Representatives.
I hold in my hand a telegram from each of these gentlemen. Let me read you the wire from Senator Wallace H. White, the Acting Minority Leader of the United States Senate. It reads:
Your statements in support of a post-war organization and your vigorous leadership in developing and clarifying our country’s foreign policy have my respect and approval. Your views will be accorded enthusiastic and loyal support by Republicans of the Senate and by the American people.
Now let me read a wire from Joseph W. Martin, whom my opponent last Saturday night conceded is likely to be the next speaker of the House of Representatives. It reads:
When elected President, you can count on enthusiastic support of the Republican House of Representatives to carry into effect your plan for United States leadership in organization to co-operate with other nations for world peace. I shall personally be very pleased to follow your splendid leadership in bringing this plan into reality.
I have made public the rest of these messages tonight. Here is the kind of unity we need in this country – the kind we will need so desperately in these important years ahead.
From the beginning of this campaign, I have insisted that organization for world peace can and must be a bipartisan effort. I shall continue to insist on that approach.
The avoidance of future wars is too important to be in the sole custody of any one man – of any one group – or of any one party. It is too important to hang by the slender thread of one man’s continuity in office.
Only with the unity now demonstrated by the telegrams I have read to you tonight from the next leaders of the Congress and the Senate can we achieve the kind of action necessary to preserve peace. Only with a chief executive who will work with the Congress in harmony can our future be assured.
Our work for future peace must and will become on January 20 next year, a bipartisan effort, bringing to it the ablest men in our country from both political parties.
That sense of unity can also be brought to our domestic affairs. With a President who will cooperate with the Congress, we need not fear the peace. For agriculture, for labor and for business, we have an unlimited future before us, if we will seize it and unite to bring it about.
Certainly, this is the least we can do in the name of those who are fighting today to make that future possible. With God’s help we shall unite America and go forward once again.