Election 1940: Democratic National Convention (7-15-40 – 7-19-40)

[NormanStewart]

DISCLAIMER:

Indy talked about the results of this convention back in Ep. 47 - Good People on Both Sides? (7-20-40) - here’s the entire story of what happened at the convention itself.

This collection of posts is made in the context of the times (spot the differences in writing style). I also included the Democratic Party Platform of 1940 in its entirety not only for the sake of immersion, but also to help understand the political goals and ambitions of the Democrats at the time. I used newspaper reports from Jul 1940 to tell the story (Hint - read the last news article for the “other reason”). I will also be adding a few more pictures and articles in this post to spice it up a bit, so expect a lot of edits.

I will post the collage and a few pictures later because I’m still busy with the rest of my colorization work.

Just like with the RNC, members of the TimeGhost Army and others could easily take the time to read through the entire thing and hopefully create further understanding of the situation among the Democrats in a world at war.

With the Republicans, the question for America was “To be or not to be”.

For the Democrats, the question for America is:

Oh, who will be the nominee?
The question baffles all;
Will it be Franklin or F. D.?
Will Roosevelt get the call?

May Frank D. R. become the choice,
Or Hyde Park’s favorite son?
Will Groton heed the People’s voice?
Will Harvard make the run?

Oh, will he wear a sailor hat?
Or will the nominee
Be Father of the Fireside Chat?
It’s such a mystery!

Venue: Chicago Stadium, Chicago, Illinois.

The candidates:

Collage coming soon…

Chairman of the Democratic National Committee:
Postmaster General James Aloysius Farley (NY)

Sarasota Herald-Tribune (July 14, 1940)

The Democratic Convention

The middle of the stage will be occupied this week by the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Unless Franklin D. Roosevelt puts a crimp in its deliberations by refusing to accept the nomination for a third term, everything is cut and dried and the convention will roll along smoothly. However, should FDR refuse the nomination for a third term, the floodgates will be opened and the convention will be deluged with aspirants for the nomination. The Democratic Party is not suffering from a shortage of men well qualified for the position. If the President chooses to select the candidate, he can probably name the man, but if he keeps his hands off, no one is qualified to state with any assurance who the nominee will be. The refusal of FDR to take the country into his confidence and tell the public his decision, as to whether or not he would accept the nomination, has certainly invested the convention with an element of confusion.

The nomination of Wendell L. Willkie by the Republicans, in response to a very general demand, has created a somewhat more strenuous situation for the Democrats. Willkie is undoubtedly the strongest man the Republicans could have nominated. It is generally recognized by leading Democratic politicians that he is going to be a hard man to beat and many of them feel that the only Democrat who can beat him is the present occupant of the White House. A recent Gallup poll shows that Roosevelt today would get 53% and Willkie 47% of the popular vote. The poll shows that 10% of the voters interviewed were uncertain as to how they would cast their vote.

There will be no lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic Convention in Chicago. The Roosevelt administration has provided a good background for the party in the conduct of the campaign. There is lots of fuel for fiery speeches which will stir the enthusiasm of the members of the party. The platform will provide the issue upon which the party will go before the electorate. The probability is that the President will be nominated and he himself will supply the platform. Unless we misjudge the situation in American politics today, the coming campaign is going to be one of the hottest and one of the most stubbornly contested in recent years.

Lewiston Evening Journal (July 15, 1940)

CONVENTION PROGRAM
Chicago (AP) –

Here is the program for the Democratic National Convention:

Today

• Call to order at 11 a.m. (CST) by National Chairman James A. Farley.
• Invocation by Archbishop Samuel Stritch of Chicago.
• The national anthem, sung by Phil Regan, tenor.
• Welcome by Mayor Edward J. Kelly of Chicago and Senator Scott Lucas of Illinois.
• Routine business.
• Recess until 8 p.m.
• Invocation by Methodist bishop Ernest Lynn Waldorf.
• The national anthem.
• Address by Chairman Farley.
• Keynote address by Speaker William B. Bankhead.
• “God Bless America”, sung by Harry Richman.

Tuesday

• Adoption of rules and appointment of committees (11 a.m.)
• Address by Rep. Arthur Mitchell of Illinois.
• Address by Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky, Permanent Convention Chairman (8 p.m.)

Wednesday

• Addresses by Senator James F. Byrnes of South Carolina and Homer Mat Adams of Illinois, president of the Young Democratic clubs (11 a.m.)
• Adoption of platform (8 p.m.)

Thursday
Selection of nominee for President and Vice President.

KELLY CALLS ON DEMOCRATS TO DRAFT ROOSEVELT
…
Sen. Lucas Also Urges Draft to Defend Liberty
…
Chicago (AP) –

A demand that Franklin D. Roosevelt be drafted for a third term because he is “the kind of man that mankind needs” was sounded during the first hour of the Democratic National Convention today by Mayor Edward J. Kelly.

The mayor turned his scheduled “welcoming speech” into a “draft Roosevelt” demand as delegates listened thru nearly an hour of speeches and formalities which started the convention toward a presidential nomination.

“The salvation of this nation rests in one man because of his great experience and sincere humanitarian thinking,” Kelly said.

That is why I am praying that this great Democratic Convention, with the eyes of an unhappy world upon it, will stand with all unity.

Only a few minutes before, the President had talked with Chairman James A. Farley by telephone from the White House to wish him a successful convention and ask “how are things going?”

Farley’s response was “okay.”

“We Want Roosevelt!”

A burst of applause greeted Kelly’s “draft” speech but Farley cut the demonstration short with his gavel.

A burst of applause ran over the hall when Farley came to the speaker’s stand and rapped with his gavel. From high in the gallery rang a single shout:

We want Roosevelt!

Farley’s grin spread as the big organ playing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” – “One, Two, Three Strikes, You’re Out. That’s the Old Ball Game.” The song recalled recent reports that Farley might soon take a position with the New York Yankees.

The convention was declared in order at five minutes after 11:05 a.m. (CST) and Farley presented Archbishop Samuel A. Stritch of Chicago who prayed for a “rededication to the tasks of upholding under all circumstances our free institutions.”

“Let justice prevail in us,” the Archbishop said. “May our country of free men over be a beacon light to all the world.”

Phil Regan, Irish tenor, sang the Star Spangled Banner and received a big cheer when he had finished.

L. W. Robert Jr., Secretary of the National Committee, then read the formal “call for the convention.”

Few were listening. A loud buzz of conversation arose from the floor, and the aisles were a confusion.

Kelly

Mayor Edward J. Kelly of Chicago beamed when Farley presented him to welcome the delegates.

Kelly delivered what turned into a “draft Roosevelt” address which brought cheers from the delegates on the floor and started New York’s banner up the center aisle.

“Chicago has done its best to ward off any telegraphing bombardment from Wall Street,” Kelly said, perspiring under brilliant lights.

The delegates, he continues, would find in Chicago a people opposed to “selling humanity in the open market.”

“We can smell organized propaganda before the poison ink is dry,” Kelly said.

We in Chicago will always defend our personal liberty and our free institutions with everything we have.

The only dictatorship we will ever accept is that of the people.

Each Presidential candidate has the stamina and vision to carry the Democratic Party to victory. We are praying and hoping that the man who can keep the White House as the lighthouse for humanity will accept the crushing burden for the next four years.

I think I know that the President of the United States has no wish to labor under the burden of this office. He has discouraged every attempt I have made to have him become a candidate. He is not a candidate. But we must draft Roosevelt.

We will stand and confirm again and again that God-sent guardian of our liberties, the kind of man our country needs, our beloved President, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Lucas

Scott Lucas, 48, Senator from Illinois.

When Farley had restored order, he presented Senator Scott Lucas, who came to extend the welcome of Governor Henry Horner of Illinois, who is ill.

Recalling that it was “under this very roof” that the party first nominated “the man who is today our far-seeing, gallant and inspiring national leader, the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt,” Lucas said:

I am confident that this convention will not only meet the high hopes of the people of Illinois and of America, but all liberty-loving people throughout the world will be heartened and encouraged to know that democracy in America, described by Lincoln as ‘the last best hope on earth,’ continues to reign supreme.

At the behest of Farley, a minute’s standing tribute was accorded to the late Senator Joseph T. Robinson of Arkansas, who was chairman of the 1936 convention, and the late W. Forbes Morgan of New York, treasurer of the party.

Farley then presented Mrs. James Hamilton Lewis, widow of the late Senator from Illinois, who bowed briefly.

Recess Until 8 P.M.

Robert J. Dunham, chairman of the Chicago Citizens Committee, made another speech of welcome and then the convention, after a 45-minute session, recessed until 8 p.m. (CST).

Shortly before Chairman James A. Farley banged the gavel which tore he wrappings from the opening session, he had reiterated that his own name would be placed before the convention.

Fisher to Nominate Farley

His nominating speech will be made by Raymond M. Fisher of Nanuet, N.Y., who succeeded Farley as chairman of the Rockland County Democratic Committee in 1929, in the event that acid-tongued Senator Glass of Virginia, detained in Washington by his wife’s illness, is unable to reach Chicago.

In a press conference shortly before he called the delegates to order, Farley voiced the opinion that dominates this convention’s atmosphere. He was asked:

Do you anticipate that before the results of the first ballot are announced, the nomination will be unanimous?

“I think so, yes,” replied the Postmaster General.

In further explanation of the procedure leading to Mr. Roosevelt’s generally-accepted renomination, Farley said that the delegates should have “an opportunity to express their viewpoint” on a state-by-state roll call. But as in most national conventions, as soon as a numerical majority had been rolled up for one man – in this case Roosevelt – the delegates who had supported others would switch their support so that the clerk could announce a unanimous nomination.

Not Releasing Delegates

For his part, Farley said he favored making the nomination unanimous. He made clear, however, that he was not releasing his own delegates prior to that first roll call, and did not attempt to speak for other contenders such as Senator Wheeler of Montana, Vice President Garner and Paul V. McNutt of Indiana.

“The Massachusetts delegation is pledge to me,” Farley told reporters in a big hotel ballroom.

I certainly am not going to ask anybody to vote for me in this convention or to do anything for me that they do not feel free to do. If the members of the Massachusetts delegation don’t feel that their pledge is binding, that is up to them to determine.

If the delegates release themselves, that is up to the delegates.

In reply to another question relating to possible support in the New York delegation, Farley said:

I won’t ask anybody from New York to do anything.

The general belief that the President would run left speculation free to roam through vice presidential possibilities and into the field of foreign affairs, where there still was no certainty that an argument might not develop.

Here the name of Secretary Hull rose into high prominence. Many said he would be the man to whom Mr. Roosevelt might turn as his running mate. They based this belief on the European war crisis and the efforts of Mr. Roosevelt to develop a hemispheric solidarity.

Cordell Hull, 68, Secretary of State.

Secretary Hull has had more to do with the development of the “good neighbor” policy with Latin America than most of the others in the administration. He traveled to several Pan American conferences, and will attend one in Havana Saturday.

Token of “Good Neighbor”

Those booming Hull for the Vice Presidency argued that his nomination would be a token to Latin America that the “good neighbor” policy would be continued by the Democrats.

Still others were arguing, however, that for the sake of party solidarity, Vice President Garner should be renominated.

But the town was filled with potential vice presidential candidates.

Paul V. McNutt, 49, Federal Security Administrator.

Paul V. McNutt of Indiana, Federal Security Administrator, wandered among the plush furnishings of a palatial hotel suite shaking hands with all comers. He has withdrawn from the presidential race unless Mr. Roosevelt renounces another nomination.

William B. Bankhead, 66, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Speaker Bankhead held a press conference. So did Chairman Farley. Senator Byrnes of South Carolina was in evidence. Jesse H. Jones of Texas, who runs the lending agencies of the federal government, was here. So was Representative Rayburn of Texas, and the House Floor Leader, who, like Jones, is a close friend of Garner.

Wheeler Out of Contest

Of this group, only Senator Wheeler of Montana – like Garner and Farley, a presidential aspirant – removed himself from the vice presidential race. Wheeler said he would rather be Senator than doze away his time with a gavel in his hand.

He was devoting much of his energy to obtaining a strong “non-intervention” foreign policy plank in the party platform. Early today, he reached an agreement with four other senators on a declaration which they planned to submit to the Resolutions Committee.

The plank, which the group announced would be made the subject of a floor fight if necessary, would pledge the party never to use the nation’s armed forces for aggression or to engage in wars in Europe or Asia.

The four who joined with Wheeler were Senators Clark of Missouri, Clark of Idaho, McCarran of Nevada and Johnson of Colorado.

On the third term question, close friends of the President said he had not expressed himself to them except to say “I am not a candidate.” But such men as Secretary Ickes said they had no doubt he would take the nomination.

Yet, bereft of the counsel of Chairman Farley, the strategists of the third term drive were said to be somewhat uncertain whether to put Mr. Roosevelt’s name in nomination or simply to let the votes flutter to his standard when the polling starts Thursday, without the formality of a nominating speech.

The Day (July 15, 1940)

Green Asks Democratic Plank Safeguard Labor Standards
Chicago (AP) –

William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, asked Democratic Convention platform drafters today to safeguard labor standards in the national defense program.

Demanding that organized labor be given a voice in the formulation of defense policies affecting workers, Green said:

Minimum wage, maximum hour and social legislation standards must not be lowered.

The labor chief also called for prosecution of subversive elements. He declared that organizations “inspired, supported and financed by Communist and Fascist groups” were carrying on activities “subversive to the American form of government.”

Anti-Trust Laws

In addition, Green proposed a platform declaration against use of anti-trust laws to prosecute labor unions. On the subject of unemployment, he suggested that the 1940 Democratic Convention take a stand in favor of a permanent public works program and RFC insurance of private long term loans “to facilitate the flow of private investments”. “Impartial admission” of the Wagner Labor Act was also asked.

L. W. Robert, Secretary of the Democratic National Committee, urged the Resolutions Committee to incorporate a plank expressing confidence in the foreign-born part of the population of this country and their first generation descendants.

He asserted that since the outbreak of the European war, growing suspicion had been “unfairly” directed against foreign-born residents.

Would Stop Immigration

Another to speak before the committee was Senator Reynolds (D-NC), who advocated a program which included a demand for suspension of all immigration for permanent residence here until all persons now on relief and capable of absorption into private industry became self-supporting.

He also asked for a ban on government purchase of foreign silver and said further that the national interest demanded that Congress make unlawful the purchase of gold from Germany or Russia or from countries under their domination.

He recommended another plank calling for the outlawing of the Communist Party, the German-American Bund or any political organization controlled or subsidized by any foreign government or which advocates overthrow of the government.

Roosevelt Has Direct Wire To Chicago
Washington (AP) –

The White House is connected with Chicago now by a direct telephone wire, but Presidential Secretary Stephen Early assorted today it “has not been used” so far.

Early disclosed the telephone connection in talking with reporters at the start of a history-making week in which political leaders believed President Roosevelt would accept renomination by the Democratic Party and thus challenge the tradition against any man serving three terms in the White House.

The Democratic National Committee is paying for the wire, Early declared, adding that if the President or anyone in the White House used it, he would get an operator in the convention city, as the wire was not connected directly with anyone’s room.

Secretary of State Hull had a luncheon appointment with the chief executive and smilingly Early told reporters that probably no one would believe him when he said the two were going to discuss only the Pan American conference starting in Havana July 20.

Hull has been mentioned frequently as a vice-presidential prospect under Mr. Roosevelt.

Early was asked how Mr. Roosevelt was keeping in touch with developments in Chicago and with Secretary of Commerce Hopkins, who is regarded in some quarters as the President’s representative at the convention.

Early’s reply was that his statement on installation of the telephone circuit answered that question, even though the line did not terminate in a Chicago hotel room.

The Pittsburgh Press (July 15, 1940)

Keynote Tonight

The first full-fledged demonstration of the convention may come tonight when House Speaker William B. Bankhead of Alabama makes the keynote address of the convention.

KDKA, WCAR and WJAS will broadcast Mr. Bankhead’s address at 10:20 p.m.

[NormanStewart]

The Daily Times (July 16, 1940)

Roosevelt Forces Claim 904 Votes
Stadium, Chicago, July 16 (UP) –

Draft Roosevelt Democrats today claimed 904 of the 1,094 votes on the first ballot of the party’s national convention, and branded as “plain bunk” reports that menacing anti-third term sentiment was developing there.

The development of "draft Roosevelt sentiment was under circumstances persuasively suggested that Mr. Roosevelt does not want to run again unless nearly all of the 1,094 delegates want him to. The Roosevelt high command, under the leadership of South Carolina’s Sen. James F. Byrnes, says nearly all of them do.

They conceded the anti-Roosevelt minority around 200 votes. If the old guard could muster a couple hundred more, Mr. Roosevelt probably could be stopped.

The New Dealers admitted to a flurry of weekend apprehension that anti-third term arguments had bitten into their big majority.

Today’s session convenes at noon and tonight Permanent Chairman Alben W. Barkley, Senior Senator convention with the fourth consecutive speech endorsing the New Deal record.

CONVENTION “SLOW”

But this convention was off to a slow start. Delegates are restless, uneasy, unhappy. A whopping majority of them came here to renominate Mr. Roosevelt for a tradition-breaking try for a third term and their man of 1940 will not speak. The consensus is that draft-Roosevelt strategy is to make a real draft of this renomination – a maneuver that requires Mr. Roosevelt’s silence until the moment comes for him to disavow any desire for further White House service without categorically refusing to undertake it. Under those circumstances, this convention could – and will, unless a political miracle is on the way – vote to compel him to bow to its desires, to make a case of the office seeking the man.

Byrnes and Secretary of Commerce Harry L. Hopkins are quarter-backing this play. What pains the delegates is that they cannot hear the signals and they are hurt more by reason of the increasing evidence that these signals are not intended for their ears.

FARLEY DISGRUNTLED

“I’m playing my own side of the street,” National Committee Chairman James A. Farley told press conference questioners and there was little doubt that he meant that one which separates official Democratic headquarters in the Stevens from Hopkins’ New Deal high command across the way.

There was unmistakable anti-third term sentiment and restlessness among upstate New York delegates. Farley consistently has said to his intimates that he would obtain a bloc of New York votes if his name were placed in nomination here. Some New Yorkers say they do not consider Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination a certainty.

But in Massachusetts, it is the other way around. State Chairman William H. Burke and Delegation Chairman John McCormack are loudly trying to break the delegation away from its pledge to Farley. Mr. Roosevelt is expected to get some Massachusetts votes if there is a Farley-Roosevelt showdown. Thursday night is the time fixed for the presidential nominations and voting. The platform is to be presented tomorrow evening.

CHAIRMAN BELIEVED “THROUGH”

Farley may have been singing his political swan song last night when he faced the first night meeting of the convention to present the slate of temporary officials. Farley is against a third term, but will vote for the ticket this year, regardless, and he believes the nomination should be made unanimous when the victor finally is decided.

“The big fellow,” as Boss Frank Hague of Jersey City calls Farley, seems to be through, although there are rumors that he has been persuaded to run one more campaign. But one week ago, before he conferred with President Roosevelt at Hyde Park, Farley told this correspondent that he would not manage a third term campaign and he said then that his name would be placed in nomination for President before this convention.

Temporary Chairman William B. Bankhead contributed another New Deal endorsement last night but to a rather listless audience. But he got a big hand with a statement that the administration was pledged that American boys never would be sent to fight in Europe’s wars.

GARNER REPORTED “OUT”

The vice-presidential contest – still overshadowed by speculation regarding Farley’s future plans – has more verve than the contest for presidential nomination which is simply this: Farley, Sen. Burton K. Wheeler (D-MT), and Vice President John N. Garner will be put in nomination.

Burton K. Wheeler, 58, Senator from Montana.

John N. Garner, 72, Vice President of the United States.

But there is a “wide open” race for the vice-presidential nomination. Mr. Roosevelt, the United Press was informed, has not made his choice, Secretary of State Cordell Hull reportedly having refused absolutely to take the job.

The United Press was informed that Garner was not now under consideration for renomination with Mr. Roosevelt. There had been weekend talk of attempting to realign the 1932 and 1936 combination of Roosevelt-Garner-Farley and Company, which shellacked the Republicans twice running.

Old Democratic Plank Disapproved Of Third Term In White House
Chicago, July 16 (UP) –

Senator Alva B. Adams, 64, Senator from Colorado.

Sen. Alva B. Adams, Colo., produced today a 44-year-old Democratic declaration against a third term for Presidents. Adams found the plank in the 1896 party platform.

He said he was calling it to the attention of delegates “merely to point out that platforms are of little consequence. We don’t care anything about them anymore.”

The plank, in the platform adopted by the convention that first nominated William Jennings Bryan, read:

Third-Term Resolution
We declare it to be the unwritten law of this Republic, established by custom and usage of 100 years, and sanctioned by the examples of the greatest and wisest of those who founded and have maintained our Government that no man should be eligible for a third term of the Presidential office.

(1896 DNC)

Convention Stadium Is Closely Guarded
Chicago, July 16 (UP) –

Police, Secret Service, G-men and Fire Department squads took drastic precautions today as the Democrats held their convention in Chicago’s “Little Hell” district where bombs – not politics –once flourished.

The theft of a quantity of dynamite from a boxcar at Joliet, Illinois, 40 miles from Chicago, spurred the police. They recalled the finding of bombs in Philadelphia on the eve of the Republican Convention.

The stadium in which the sessions were held is fireproof, but a fire squad was on hand to turn fire hoses on any riotous demonstrators. Officials detailed 575 policemen to the stadium. One hundred detectives were placed within the building to make frequent checks of all rooms, and maintain a 24-hour watch over all entrances.

Policemen have been combing “Little Hell” for confidence men, pickpockets, and known gangsters and other police characters. They have been chased out. The Federal Bureau of Identification also had picked men in the stadium.

The Pittsburgh Press (July 16, 1940)

Roosevelt 7-5 Choice To Retain Presidency
New York, July 16 –

Baldwin & Co., Wall Street betting commissioners, reported today that President Roosevelt is a 7 to 5 favorite to retain the Presidence (sic) if he runs again.

A spokesman for the firm said that it had received a “45-minute” offer yesterday to bet $7,000 to $5,000 that Mr. Roosevelt will be reelected. There were no takers and the offer was withdrawn in three-quarters of an hour.

Democrats Shelve ‘Happy Days’ Tune
Chicago, July 16 –

The old Democratic battle song, “Happy Days Are Here Again”, was shelved today on orders from headquarters for duration of the convention because there are no happy days with war in the world.

Al Melgard, organist, said the “Happy Days” tune which whipped up the Democrats in 1932 and 1936, was ruled out because “there are no happy days with so many unfortunate people suffering the horrors of war.”

Instead, the theme song is “Here Comes An American,” written by Melgard for the convention. It’s a patriotic tune, one that the delegates don’t know. But its martial air stirs them.

NOTE ABOUT SPEAKER BANKHEAD’S KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Speaker William Bankhead got a big hand with a statement that the Administration was pledged that American boys never would be sent to fight in Europe’s wars.

He materially switched the advance text of his prepared address under circumstances further indicating that the Democrats here will write a “no war” and “no intervention” platform.

Here is what Mr. Bankhead’s prepared text distributed 24 hours in advance of delivery said on the subject –

I do not know what attitude of this convention may take on that subject (foreign affairs) and only can express a personal opinion when I assert that if the wishes of overwhelming American sentiment, including that of our loyal foreign-born citizens, should be expressed, the declaration would be that we are not only in deepest sympathy with the British Commonwealth in its struggle for life, and that we should furnish them every possible material assistance in our power within the limits of our law, short of war; but, also, that we will resist to the death any compromise of our democratic principles with those malignant disturbers of the peace of the world; that we do not propose to appease those aggressors whose doctrines wage war upon every principle of liberty for a free people that our Declaration of Independence proclaimed and our Federal Constitution preserved.

But here is what Mr. Bankhead actually said from the convention rostrum:

I know that it is the attitude of the American people that we will resist to the death any compromise of our democratic principles with those malignant disturbers of the peace of the world; that we do not propose to appease those aggressors whose doctrines wage war upon every principle of liberty for a free people that our Declaration of Independence proclaimed and our Federal Constitution preserved.

Notable was the dropping of the proposal for material assistance “short of war” for the British Commonwealth.

20,000 Listen as Farley Says His Farewell
Chicago, July 16 –

Jim! There’s Jim! Is he going to tell us he’s quitting? Stay with us, Jim!

James A. Farley stood there at the rostrum. Twenty thousand persons were there, all bending forward, not to miss a word. The word had gone around that this creator of victories, this man who knew every Democrat from coast to coast “worth knowing,” this man with a million friends, was quitting and this night he was saying his valedictory.

He must feel those eyes beating upon him through the rising blue haze. He stood there, a giant man, his heavy shoulders stooped, his head down, the lights beating on his bald pate, his slender, sensitive right hand playing with his eyeglasses.

A vast crowd, vibrant with expectancy, ready to be played upon as a musician commands his instrument. His spine must tingle as the feel of it, the sense of it, creeps over him. Here is his instrument. What will he do with it?

Mr. Farley lifts his head and raises his eyes to the highest pinnacle of the galleries. Slowly they descend over the rows and rows of faces and he is looking into the sea of faces directly before him, the faces of the men and women with the votes to fulfill the ambitions of any man: to create, if they truly represent the people, a President of the United States.

What was in his mind, in those few seconds? Was it, “There’s Bill out there – the Tennessee Bill – good old Bill!”? Did he think, “Oh boy! This crowd’s with me! Watch me go to town!”? Was he thinking that he, Jim Farley, aspired to be President of the United States? Was he thinking of the man in the White House who, even if Mr. Farley had helped to make him, had surely made Mr. Farley?

The reverie was over. He put his glasses on his nose, reached for his prepared speech, and began reading it. Perhaps he had been thinking, “Guess I’d better get this over with.”

His voice was solemn, perhaps sad.

And now…it becomes my duty to relinquish the gavel…Mine has been a happy service…I know that your new organization will…This great gathering will give out successors…

An Oklahoma office holder whispered to an Oklahoma lawyer, “There, didn’t I tell you? He just won’t have anything to do with the third term.” An Ohioan said: “Aw, that’s just the usual stuff. Friday we’ll re-elect him chairman; then watch us win with Roosevelt!”

Au revoir, Jim; but, decidedly, not goodbye!

Roosevelt and Hopkins Confer By Telephone
Washington, July 16 –

President Roosevelt took an increasingly active role in the Democratic National Convention today, conferring by telephone with Secretary of Commerce Harry L. Hopkins, one of the New Deal leaders of the Roosevelt third term forces at Chicago.

Mr. Hopkins, who, with Senator James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, reportedly is the White House contact man at the convention, called Mr. Roosevelt over the long-distance circuit by which the President is making his influence felt at the Democratic meeting.

The conversation lasted about five minutes, with Mr. Hopkins doing most of the talking. The call presumably was a report to Mr. Roosevelt on convention trends and the disposition of the delegates to offer him an third term nomination by Thursday night.

Sources close to the White House were inclined to dismiss published reports that Mr. Roosevelt might reconsider last week’s announcement that he would not go to Chicago. The President was emphatic in disclosing his intention to stay away and officials who ordinarily would be aware of any plan to revise that intention said they had no knowledge of any possibility of a change.

Mrs. Miller Opposes First Lady’s Stand
Chicago, July 16 –

Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt yesterday called for rejection of a proposed “equal rights for women” plank in the Democratic platform and promptly drew the fire of Mrs. Emma Guffey Miller, sister of Senator Joseph F. Guffey of Pennsylvania.

A delegate from Pennsylvania, Mrs. Miller said:

Greatly as I admire Eleanor, I am forced to disagree with her on this matter.

Mrs. Roosevelt joined the Democratic women’s squabble over the “equal rights” issue with a statement that such a plank would be a “grave mistake.” Her statement was presented by former Representative Nan Wood Honeyman (D-OR) after the platform committee had heard lengthy arguments on behalf of the plank.

The proposed plank calls for submission of a constitutional amendment to insure equal legal treatment for men and women.

Mrs. Miller said:

It is evident that Eleanor Roosevelt has been misinformed. It is my belief from her statement that she sees that an equal rights amendment is inevitable. But the question at present is not whether we should put an equal rights recommendation into our platform – but whether we should allow the people to decide by favoring submission of such an amendment to the country.

Mrs. Miller indicated that she was making her statement reluctantly. The equal rights question, she said, marked the first disagreement between herself and the First Lady, who is her friend.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (July 17, 1940)

Text of Barkley’s Statement For Roosevelt on Third Term
Chicago, July 17 –

The 146 words given to the Democratic Convention last night on behalf of President Roosevelt by Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky, follows:

I and other friends of the President have long known that he has no wish to be a candidate again. We know, too, that in no way whatsoever has he exerted any influence in the selection of delegates, or upon the opinions of delegates to this convention.

Tonight, at the specific request and authorization of the President, I am making this simple fact clear to this convention.

The President has never had, and has not today, any desire or purpose to continue in the office of President, to be a candidate for that office, or to be nominated by the convention for that office.

He wishes in all earnestness and sincerity to make it clear that all of the delegates to this convention are free to vote for any candidate.

That is the message I bear to you from the President of the United States.

DELEGATES JUNK PROGRAM IN RUSH TO NOMINATE HIM
…
New Dealers Shriek Demands as Senator Barkley Extols Chief Executive
…
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press Staff Writer

Chicago, July 17 –

The draft-Roosevelt steam-roller pounded ahead today with nomination of President Roosevelt for an unprecedented race for a third term expected at tonight’s session of the Democratic National Convention.

New Deal Roosevelt men were in the driver’s seat and they had their course set for a quick nomination, selection of a vice-presidential running mate and adjournment tomorrow, a day earlier than had been planned.

But all was not harmony in Democratic ranks. Vigorous anti-third termers still were attempting to light the bomb fuse on an anti-third term platform plank. And National Chairman James A. Farley, wistfully conceding that he no longer was running the show, uttered a sharp warning against any attempt to scrap traditional conventional procedure and proceed to name Mr. Roosevelt by acclamation.

Mr. Farley emphasized his belief that in “this important period in the nation’s history,” the convention should be “free and open.” A third-term nomination, he indicated, was enough of a precedent to be broken at this time and any further tampering with time-honored methods he warned would jeopardize the party’s chances of success in November.

Democratic Principles Denied In Railroading, Ryan Says

The anti-third termers attempted to present their views to the Convention Resolutions Committee today but got short shrift from Chairman Robert F. Wagner.

Representative Elmer A. Ryan of Minnesota, a Democrat but a former law partner and close personal friend of Republican Gov. Harold E. Stassen of Minnesota, sought out Mr. Wagner and asked that the anti-third termers be given a hearing.

“We’re all through with hearings,” Mr. Wagner snapped, turning on his heel and walking away.

Mr. Ryan released a statement saying:

The Democratic principle has been denied to the Democratic Party. The convention has been taken out of the hands of Jim Farley and railroaded from the start. This is not a draft-Roosevelt movement. It is a draft-Ickes, Hopkins, Corcoran, Cohen and other associates movement.

A last-minute hitch this afternoon blocked approval of the platform by the full committee. Revised plans call for its consideration by tonight’s session of the convention. There still was no assurance that a formal Roosevelt speech would be offered tonight. Judge John E. Mack of New York, who presented Mr. Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936, continue to insist that he would not speak unless the President asked him to.

Vice Presidential Contest Is Reserved for Tomorrow

It was certain, however, that Mr. Farley’s name would be offered as well as those of Vice President John N. Garner and Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana. Senator Millard E. Tydings of Maryland also may be presented as a favorite son.

The first ballot roll will be called. At the end of this, it was expected that candidates other than Mr. Roosevelt would withdraw and a motion would be offered to make the nomination unanimous.

Tomorrow would be reserved for the vice presidential contest. No word came from the hotel suite of Secretary of Commerce Harry L. Hopkins, manager of the Roosevelt forces, as to any decision to back a particular candidate.

Assistant Secretary of War Louis Johnson conferred with Mr. Hopkins and reports spread that Mr. Johnson’s name had been added to others on the President’s “green light” list of possibilities who would be acceptable. Backers of Gov. Lloyd C. Stark of Missouri were beating the drums for him and estimated that he would get “well over 200 votes” on the first vice presidential ballot.

President Roosevelt’s close-held secret is out. He does not want to be renominated nor to be President again.

Everyone here believes he will accede to a third-term draft, possibly within 24 hours, a step which will dissolve the great political partnership of Roosevelt, Garner, Farley and Co.

If he runs again, he will be the first President to accept a third presidential nomination.

Mr. Roosevelt released his delegates last night. There were around 800 of them more or less committed to his renomination and another hundred or so on his band wagon. He formally advised this convention that he had neither desire nor purpose to be renominated or re-elected. But the third-term juggernaut still is rolling and his words seemed to have hastened its pace.

Permanent Convention Chairman Alben W. Barkley, the senior Senator from Kentucky, tripped the trigger on the Roosevelt show last night by reading a statement of these Presidential views. Twice he shouted his glasses off his nose as he called the roll of New Deal accomplishments and he had great praise for the man he knew would become this convention’s choice.

But the fight is not over although the decision is in. Three men challenge Mr. Roosevelt as the leader of the Democratic Party for the next four years.

The show is not over yet. There can be a pretty battle over the vice presidential nomination with Mr. Farley preparing to back Jesse H. Jones, Federal Loan Administrator, Mr. Hopkins insisting that it is wide open and that no White House decision on that nomination had been made. That Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace was on the inside rail was a tip here early today. He is for drafting Mr. Roosevelt.

And even if there is harmony on the vice presidential nomination, Senator Carter Glass (D-VA) still is to be heard from. He is a mighty man with words and he is going to nominate for President his already defeated favorite – James A. Farley. The Senator arrived this morning and his speech is eagerly awaited by that minority group of Democrats here which would like to see Mr. Roosevelt go to Hyde Park and stay there. The word is out that “Carter’s gonna skin 'em alive!”

If Mr. Roosevelt had wanted to prevent this convention from naming him for the tradition-violating third term race, the pattern of his language was cut long ago when another man did not want to run and said he would not accept if nominated, nor serve if elected. Anything short of that would not have had much effect here.

For two years before last night’s statement by Senator Barkley in his behalf, Mr. Roosevelt parried, ducked and laughed himself out of the necessity of saying whether he would accept a presidential nomination again – and he still has not answered that question. A corner and dunce cap was his prescription for the first reporter who put the question. And since then, the political mystery has multiplied parallel to a powerful draft-Roosevelt campaign which had its roots deep in his Cabinet and lacked the active support among its members of only Postmaster General James A. Farley and, possibly, Secretary of State Cordell Hull.

New Dealers, uneasy lest this convention, with little to do, begins to bore itself waiting to renominate Mr. Roosevelt, until it would spoil for a fight and welcome a shift which might endanger the renomination. They fear something might slip. So Mr. Hopkins from his Blackstone Hotel headquarters gave the word last night about the time some thousands of cigarettes and spectators out of the Chicago Stadium were yelling themselves hoarse with the battle cry of the gathering:

WE WANT ROOSEVELT!

Hopkins Speeds Voting

Mr. Hopkins told questioning reporters:

When the President is nominated tomorrow night (Wednesday), he will accept.

Tomorrow night?

“Tomorrow night,” he replied.

Permanent Convention Chairman Alben W. Barkley told the convention last night:

…He has no wish to be a candidate again. In no way whatsoever has he exerted any influence in the selection of delegates…

The President has never had, and has not today, any desire or purpose to continue in the office of President, to be a candidate for that office, or to be nominated to the convention for that office.

All of the delegates to this convention are free to vote for any candidate.

The delegates heard that and streamed whooping into the aisles brandishing state standards and before long Senator Barkley was kissing them as they were poked under his nose by perspiring paraders on the floor. He gave a big kiss to Massachusetts where Mr. Farley believes he has a solid bloc of anti-third term votes. Genial Jim does not have them solid anymore.

Meet Today at 2 P. M.

Senator James F. Byrnes (SC) announced the shift in schedule from the platform. Abandoning the customary noon meeting, the delegates were to meet at 2 p.m., to approve their platform and in the evening to name their man.

“Draft, draft, draft!” shouted a large company of Congressional New Dealers headed by Senator Claude C. Pepper (FL), Senator Josh Lee (OK), Senator James M. Mead (NY), and others. Mayor Maury Maverick of San Antonio was perspiring up there on the platform while the crowd was going wild. Senators Pepper and Lee shouted in unison into the microphone: “We want Roosevelt.” Over and over they repeated it and the crowd was following their best in bellowing chorus. Most of the old-timers were not there, and hardly a face or voice so prominent tonight in the draft Roosevelt demonstration would be found in any picture of the convention here which nominated Mr. Roosevelt eight years ago. Jim Farley sat apart. He had no tent to sulk in.

The Women Joins In

Someone let a microphone into the midst of the milling crowd and the “we wants” began.

“The women of New Jersey want Roosevelt,” came a high pitched voice.

Massachusetts wants Roosevelt.
Massachusetts will get Roosevelt.

“Virginia wants Byrd” – a sour note in the praiseful paean.

Michigan wants Roosevelt – Tennessee wants Roosevelt – Indiana women want Roosevelt – we all want Roosevelt – whooooo-e-e-e-e.

Willkie wants Roosevelt.

Senators Pepper and Lee still were up there, arms swinging, cheering the paraders on.

But it ended finally after some 45 minutes.

That wasn’t the real Roosevelt demonstration anyway. Senator Barkley let the real one go early in his speech, at 10:33 p.m., when he praised the “leadership of one of the world’s outstanding Democrats – Franklin D. Roosevelt” and they were off. There was a fight in Massachusetts – the floor area reserved for delegates from that state – and it spilled into the aisles where fists began flying.

More Fights Start

There are Roosevelt and Farley delegates in that delegation and Mr. Farley’s men would not have their state’s banner in the parade. But it went in and got the biggest kiss of all from Senator Barkley.

Texas fought, too, and perhaps better than the men of Massachusetts. The Texans wrestled themselves and their state standard to the floor but the standard stayed in the parade and few states were not represented although that it just short of an honest count because some states had two or three standards and one could be parading and the other firm in its socket – to the satisfaction of all factions, if possible.

There were some 28,000 persons in this hall, a police count. Not more than a few thousand of them could or did actually parade last night and into this morning. The aisles were too narrow for that. But the “we want” chorus was coming from the excited standees and there was no doubt that a majority of the delegates, and a big surplus to boot, was ready to put Mr. Roosevelt up again, this time to adjust with Republican Wendell L. Willkie. He broke the Hoover and Landon shields, in 1932 and 1936 respectively.

Virginia Stays Out

Perhaps the only state that kept both its standards solidly in their sockets during the two Roosevelt demonstrations was Virginia. Senator Harry F. Byrd (VA) is boss there and he rules. Senator Byrd is an anti-New Dealer. Mayor Edward J. Kelly of Chicago, who with Frank Hague, the New Jersey boss, and some other notable machine politicians were pumping the draft-Roosevelt bellows with the best of them.

Mayor Kelly had not planned on two demonstrations and had his guns loaded for only one. He was chagrined that Senator Barkley had let the crowd get loose in the first part of his address as Permanent Chairman, because it inevitably took some of the steam out of the second, which was the one which had been foreseen and planned. But the double feature went off all right and the New Deal could cry bingo.

That first show ran about 25 minutes and it had more whoopee than the second, but placed side-by-side or end-to-end, they made a good political show despite the fact that many a Roosevelt plugger chose to sing his song from a standing position on his chair rather than to risk his shins and temper among the milling musketeers in the aisles.

“He took himself out of the race,” said Senator William H. King (D-UT), who does not approve of the New Deal or a third term and considers the government practically bankrupt. Some others read Mr. Roosevelt’s message that way. But not the delegates nor, to judge by the expression on his face, did Jim Farley, the man who yanked the throttle back on the 1932 and 1936 first and second term expresses.

The platform does not seem so important now that the Democrats have their man. The danger of an anti-third term plank being offered evidently had been avoided and the foreign relations plank is long on “no intervention” and “no war.”

Wheeler Objects

Some of the more impetuous New Dealers wanted to call for the nominations last night. There was a flurry of effort although Mr. Hopkins did not approve the idea. Finally Chairman Barkley promised representatives of Senator Wheeler that he would not recognize anyone to move that the convention suspend its rules and proceed to nominate. Senator Wheeler’s young men, armed with Wheeler-for-President banners, meantime, had been shunted far into the galleries by the tumult of the Roosevelt administration.

And as the hoarse crowd fled finally from the Stadium, they already were calling it the convention that knew what it wanted.

Platform Group Quakes As the Ladies Move In
By Joan Younger, United Press Staff Writer

Chicago, July 17 –

How would you like to have 52 earnest women descend on you?

That is what is going to happen to the platform committee of the Democratic Convention this morning. Fifty-five men – accustomed to masculine standards – shirt sleeves, spittoons, elgara – and 52 women are going to join them.

There were just 55 comfortable armchairs around the long committee table this morning. Will the gentlemen of the platform committee cold shoulder the debutantes to policy making into the straight-backed gilt coated chairs that line the walls? Or will they give them the good chairs and sit along the walls? That problem kept the men awake last night weighing the disadvantages of scribbling notes in their laps – against the loss of the women’s vote.

Gone were the good old days – of the “smoke-filled” room.

The women were delighted and expected no difficulty but they did not expect to sit against the wall in those hard, straight-backed chairs.

The three men from the states which had no daisy-chain delegates to send – Alabama, Louisiana and New Hampshire – were well-pleased. The other 52 were not.

The Democratic women got to work yesterday and whipped through a resolution they refer to gaily as “50-50 representation” on the platform committee. It means that each state and territory has a woman as well as a man on the committee – with the three exceptions.

Democratic Foreign Plank Unimportant, London Says
By William H. Stoneman

London, July 17 –

The London Times today predicts editorially that the Democratic platform on foreign policy will be as “anodyne as the Republican”.

What matters is the way in which it will be interpreted and that depends not only upon the personality of the President who will take office next January, but, even more upon the course of the war.

What is beyond dispute is that public opinion in the United States has moved very rapidly since Hitler launched the series of attacks which in a few weeks have given him control of the whole of northern and western Europe.

Except in the minds of a few die-hard isolationists, there is no longer any doubt that America herself, and the whole American way of life, would be in very considerable peril if he were to succeed in breaking the resistance of Great Britain and the British Empire – resistance, in President Roosevelt’s words, of “great nations still gallantly fighting against aggression, encouraged by the high hope of ultimate victory.” The only difference of opinion is over the degree to which the United States can and should, in her own interests, help to strengthen this resistance.

At the same time, the Times again warns its readers that “neither party, nor anyone in America outside of a very small minority” desires participation in the war.

Roosevelt Action Adds 1,094 to Dunce Cap Club
Washington, July 17 (UP) –

President Roosevelt’s third-term statement added 1,094 new members to the “Dunce Cap Club” today as delegates to the Democratic Convention at Chicago still asked:

Will he or won’t he run?

Washington correspondents, who have been members of the club since 1937, rejoiced as Democratic rank and file encountered the President in his sphinx-like mood. The new members were all the delegates to the convention.

The Dunce Cap Club was founded three years ago when a reporter surprised Mr. Roosevelt at a press conference by asking him directly if he would seek a third term.

How Club Was Formed

The President replied that he was surprised at the reporter’s political naiveté and suggested that he don a dunce cap and go stand in the corner.

Thus was formed the Dunce Cap Club, and as the time ran out on the President’s second term, a majority of the capital’s correspondents joined the organization.

Over every press conference, the third term question impended twice each week – whether or not the correspondents actually placed a direct inquiry. They devised virtually every conceivable indirect approach on the subject. But the President was equally deft in artful dodging.

The questions came at almost any time or place – at the White House, at Hyde Park, N.Y., at Warm Springs, Ga., or on Mr. Roosevelt’s special train. The President usually was urbane and met the queries with banter. But occasionally he was brusque.

Mr. Roosevelt’s last official recognition of the club came last Friday. Fred Perkins, correspondent for the Pittsburgh Press and other Scripps-Howard newspapers, told him that club members were hopeful of dissolving the organization at Chicago this week. Perkins suggested that Mr. Roosevelt might wish to send a few kind words to the club members at the Chicago convention on the occasion of the organization’s dissolution.

But Mr. Roosevelt, even then, would not admit that the club was about to become defunct.

The Daily Times (July 17, 1940)

NO WAR PLATFORM IS PRESENTED AT CONVENTION TODAY
Isolationists Win Fight To Keep Armed Forces From Foreign Soil
…
Platform Commends And Reaffirms Acts and Policies Of New Deal
…
Chicago, July 17 –

An anti-war and pro-New Deal platform goes before the Democratic National Convention today.

Isolationists won their fight for a strict pledge that no American armed forces would be sent to fight on foreign soil, unless the Monroe Doctrine is violated.

Administration leaders, anxious to avoid a convention floor fight on the peace or any other platform issue, claimed Democratic unity had been established for a third term campaign by President Roosevelt. The platform, it was said, will be approved without a dissenting voice.

The platform in general reaffirms and commends the policies and acts of the New Deal’s first seven years as the basis for asking for four more years of it.

PUBLIC POWER PLANK

An interesting plank is one regarding public power. This is designed to draw an issue with the Republican presidential candidate Wendell L. Willkie who headed a private utilities company, Commonwealth and Southern Corp., until he was nominated.

Two threats of floor fights – one by those who wanted an even stronger pledge of aid to nations resisting aggression, and the other by those who thought an anti-third term plank would be a good idea – remained as the full Resolutions Committee of 55 men and 52 women, largest in history, convened to receive the unanimous report of its 17-member drafting sub-committee. The size of the Resolutions Committee was doubled yesterday by convention approval of the women’s demand for equal representation on the policy group.

The convention was scheduled to receive the platform at 2 p.m.

The national defense plank calls for strengthening the Army, Navy and Air Force to keep war from the Americas, but contains no reference to the controversial question of conscripting youth for military or non-combatant service.

The Republican platform called for submission of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal rights for women, but the Democrats won’t approve this change because some party leaders, including Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, contend that it would invalidate present laws which protect women in industry.

Lewiston Evening Journal (July 17, 1940)

WILLKIE CONFIDENT FDR WILL RECEIVE, ACCEPT NOMINATION
Colorado Springs, Colorado (AP) –

Wendell L. Willkie, predicting that President Roosevelt would receive and accept a third-term nomination, renewed today his declaration that he would rather run against the President than any Democrat.

Willkie said that the chief executive was the best representative of the New Deal side of the coming campaign and that he would like to have a fight against him.

Willkie, sitting on a couch in his hotel apartment, listened by radio last night to Senator Alben W. Barkley’s talk accepting the chairmanship of the Democratic Convention. He yawned several times, lay back occasionally on heavy green-striped pillows and thumbed through newspapers and a book.

When Barkley ended his talk with the statement that President Roosevelt “has never had and has not today any desire or purpose to continue in the office of President,” Willkie dictated this comment to reporters:

I’ll make the same prediction I made the other night – that the President will be renominated on the first ballot and will accept the nomination.

Again when Barkley asserted that the Republicans had wanted “color” in their nominee and added that they picked a man who had been a Republican for only a short time, Willkie declared that the statement was “the most complimentary thing I have received since my nomination.”

The statement of one convention speaker that Willkie would be sent a twist of tobacco to “keep him from chewing the rag” drew the remark from the Republican nominee, “that’s a remarkable bit of humor.”

Mrs. Willkie, hearing her husband’s radio from a nearby room, walked in once during Barkley’s talk and asked:

Is he talking about you, Wendell?

The Republican nominee responded that Barkley had been talking about him but that he was discussing something else at the moment.

When Barkley mentioned the Republican candidate before saying that it was not his purpose to review the New Deal history, Willkie grinned and remarked:

He gets me before history.

Barkley’s address, Willkie said, was “all defensive but a reasonably good defensive talk.”

During the convention demonstration that followed Barkley’s mention of Mr. Roosevelt, Willkie turned to reporters in his suite and said, “I think my worries are over.” He added that he always had wanted to run against the president and that it appeared the chief executive would be the nominee.

“This is the answer,” Willkie said, indicating the radio. “Now I can take it easy.” And he leaned back comfortably on the couch.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (July 18, 1940)

THE VOTE BY BALLOTS

The official tabulation of votes for presidential candidates by roll calls at the Democrat National Convention:

By state:

	Roosevelt	Farley	Garner	Tydings	Hull
Alabama (22)	20	1	-	1	-
Arizona (6)	6	-	-	-	-
Arkansas (18)	18	-	-	-	-
California (44)	43	-	-	-	-
Colorado (12)	12	-	-	-	-
Connecticut (16)	16	-	-	-	-
Delaware (6)	6	-	-	-	-
Florida (14)	12.5	-	1.5	-	-
Georgia (24)	24	-	-	-	-
Idaho (8)	8	-	-	-	-
Illinois (58)	58	-	-	-	-
Indiana (28)	28	-	-	-	-
Iowa (20)	20	-	-	-	-
Kansas (18)	18	-	-	-	-
Kentucky (22)	22	-	-	-	-
Louisiana (20)	20	-	-	-	-
Maine (10)	10	-	-	-	-
Maryland (16)	7.5	-	-	-	8.5
Massachusetts (34)	21.5	12.5	-	-	-
Michigan (38)	38	-	-	-	-
Minnesota (22)	22	-	-	-	-
Mississippi (18)	18	-	-	-	-
Missouri (30)	26.5	2	1.5	-	-
Montana (8)	8	-	-	-	-
Nebraska (14)	13	1	-	-	-
Nevada (6)	2	4	-	-	-
New Hampshire (8)	8	-	-	-	-
New Jersey (32)	32	-	-	-	-
New Mexico (6)	6	-	-	-	-
New York (94)	64.5	25	-	-	1
North Carolina (26)	26	-	-	-	-
North Dakota (8)	8	-	-	-	-
Ohio (52)	52	-	-	-	-
Oklahoma (22)	22	-	-	-	-
Oregon (10)	10	-	-	-	-
Pennsylvania (72)	72	-	-	-	-
Rhode Island (8)	8	-	-	-	-
South Carolina (16)	16	-	-	-	-
South Dakota (8)	3	5	-	-	-
Tennessee (22)	22	-	-	-	-
Texas (46)	-	-	46	-	-
Utah (8)	8	-	-	-	-
Vermont (6)	6	-	-	-	-
Virginia (22)	5	3	8	-	4
Washington (16)	15	-	-	-	-
West Virginia (16)	12	4	-	-	-
Wisconsin (24)	21	-	3	-	-
Wyoming (6)	6	-	-	-	-
Alaska (6)	-	6	-	-	-
Dist. of Columbia (6)	6	-	-	-	-
Hawaii (6)	6	-	-	-	-
Puerto Rico (6)	3	3	-	-	-
Panama C. Z. (6)	-	6	-	-	-
Virgin Islands (2)	2	-	-	-	-
Philippine Isl. (6)	6	-	-	-	-

The totals:

Can’dates:	Votes
Roosevelt	946
Farley	72
Garner	61
Tydings	9
Hull	5

ROOSEVELT NOMINATED AGAIN; TO ADDRESS NATION TONIGHT
White House Backs Wallace For No. 2 Job
…
Administration Leaders Run Roughshod Over Candidacies Of Their Opponents
…

BULLETIN
New York, July 18 –
…
WCAE will join the Mutual network for the President’s talk at 10 p.m.
According to WJAS, the Columbia Broadcasting System said that it understood the President “may” speak at 9:30 tonight.

…
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press Staff Writer

Chicago, July 18 –

Administration men in control of the 1940 Democratic National Convention today named a ticket of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Henry A. Wallace to make an unprecedented third term bid for the White House.

Mr. Wallace’s nomination will be made at a convention session tonight. Indications were that the former Iowa Republican and Secretary of Agriculture would go over on a first ballot sweep.

Henry A. Wallace, 51, the Secretary of Agriculture

The question of whether Mr. Roosevelt would address a special convention session tonight by radio as still open. Senator James F. Byrnes, one of the draft-Roosevelt managers, said he would read to the convention this afternoon a telegram from the President on the third-term draft.

Notifies Roosevelt

Mr. Byrnes formally notified Mr. Roosevelt in a telephone conversation about noon of his nomination. He said Mr. Roosevelt was sending a telegram expressing his views which would be read to the convention. He declined to say whether this upset tentative plans for the President to make a radio address this evening.

As soon as word of Mr. Wallace’s selection started to fly through the hotel lobbies the others in the Vice Presidential field began to drop out. First to quit was Federal Security Administrator Paul V. McNutt.

However, it was apparent that several names would go before the convention. Most substantial backing appeared to be for Federal Loan Administrator Jesse H. Jones of Texas who has National Chairman James A. Farley’s blessing.

Bankhead Still in Race

Speaker William B. Bankhead of Alabama, whose name will be the first to go before the convention for Vice President, doubted that the White House had picked Mr. Wallace and said he still is in the race.

My name definitely will go before the convention. I don 't believe the White House has picked anyone. You can hear all kinds of rumors.

Tentative procedure for today’s proceedings after a last-minute switch was as follows:

Nominating speeches for vice presidential candidates will be delivered at this afternoon’s session. The convention will then recess until early evening, possibly 7 p.m., when the vice presidential ballot will be conducted.

The conclusion of the roll call, Mr. Byrnes will read to the convention the President’s telegram. Mr. Roosevelt will then come on the radio and address the delegates.

The telegram to be read by Mr. Byrnes, it was said in Washington, probably will not give Mr. Roosevelt’s fateful yes-or-no to the convention draft. It probably will be a formal acknowledgement of the nomination and a word of thanks.

Then, by radio, Mr. Roosevelt finally will speak for the first time personally on whether he will break the great American political presidential two-term tradition.

It seemed possible that Mr. Jones’ name might not go before the convention. He told a caucus of Texas delegates that he still opposed to presentation of his name for the Vice Presidential spot. The Texas delegation then caucused, 88 to 7, to support Representative Samuel Rayburn but Mr. Rayburn said that if Mr. Roosevelt wanted Mr. Wallace, he was out too.

Johnson Retires

Assistant Secretary of War Louis Johnson withdrew his name from consideration as did Gov. Lloyd Stark of Missouri.

Mr. Johnson said:

The President chose Wallace instead of myself. We are good soldiers and we are stepping out for Roosevelt and Wallace.

Belief in convention quarters was that Mr. Wallace was picked by the Administration as a counterpoise to the Republican No. 2 man, Charles L. McNary of Oregon.

Both Mr. Wallace and Mr. McNary have made their records on aid to agriculture. Both are regarded as vote-getters in the Farm Belt.

Despite expectations of a first-ballot sweep for Mr. Wallace, many states planned to place favorite son candidates in nomination and the prospect existed that Mr. Jones, with backing by Mr. Farley, South-western delegates and Southern conservatives, would amass a substantial vote total.

Westerners Disagree

A caucus of western state delegates failed to agree on supporting any candidate for the vice presidency.

Representative Compton I. White of Idaho urged that they endorse Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney of Wyoming but Mr. O’Mahoney cautioned against any sectional endorsement of any candidate.

It was reported that Mr. Wallace’s name was not mentioned at the caucus which adjourned after adopting a resolution urging Mr. Farley to continue as National Chairman.

Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky, Permanent Convention Chairman, scotched an incipient Vice Presidential boom for himself which had been started by the Kentucky delegation.

‘Not a Candidate’

I did not come here as a candidate for anything. I am not now a candidate for anything.

Repercussions of the convention’s unprecedented action early today in voting a third presidential candidacy were being felt. Senator Edward R. Burke of Nebraska, an anti-New Dealer who was defeated for renomination this year, announced he would bolt the party and support Wendell L. Willkie, the Republican nominee.

Here and there among the delegates were indications of bitterness over the iron-fisted control of the convention by the Roosevelt men. But there were no indications that any substantial trend of bolts from the ticket would develop.

The party leaders streamed into Mr. Hopkins’ office in a lake front hotel today to get the word on the vice presidential nomination.

Pepper Breaks News

First to emerge with news that Mr. Wallace had been picked was Senator Claude Pepper of Florida, red-hot southern New Dealer who led an unsuccessful platform fight for all aid “short of war” to aggressors’ victims.

He was followed by Senator Carl A. Hatch of New Mexico, who had received some vice presidential mention. Senator Pat Harrison of Mississippi and Gov. E. D. Rivers, Georgia leader of the third-term forces.

His motion carried and these men will bear the news.

Mr. Byrnes, Senator Joseph F. Guffey ¶, Gov. Culbert Olsen (CA), Charles Sawyer (OH), and Mayor Edward J. Kelly of Chicago.

“The President has never had, has not today, any desire or purpose to continue in the office of President” – that is what Chairman Barkley told these perspiring delegates and alternates Tuesday night in a message direct from their chief.

But at 1:30 a.m. today, the convention made Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination unanimous.

Glass Scores New Deal

And what happened in between does not make much difference just now although some weeks must pass and perhaps November come before it can be determined whether it was a little band of willful men or the spokesmen of a great army of protesting Democrats who have been campaigning here for some days against the Roosevelt boom.

The draft was on when the first delegate got here days ago. It was more than a hatful of wind when Mr. Farley stepped off his train here almost two weeks ago. It was half a gale when the first gavel tapped last Monday; and in the early hours of this morning the barometer fell to nothing-minus and the hurricane was on.

Putting Mr. Farley in nomination, Senator Carter Glass of Virginia blistered the third-tern idea. There was reference by the anti-draft brigade to their men and the way they kept their word. But this convention would have none of that.

It wanted Mr. Roosevelt and it got him at 12:55 a.m. When New York’s fat delegation of 94 votes delivered 64.5 votes for the draft with a consolation prize of 25 for Mr. Farley and a hopeless 1 for Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Three and one-half of New York’s delegates abstained from voting.

Platform Adopted

The convention met early last night – shortly after 8 o’clock – and adopted its platform. It was a long one in contrast to the brief document on which Mr. Roosevelt sought his first two White House terms. The fight which bubbled around the foreign relations plank did not spill onto the convention floor.

When Resolutions Committee Chairman Robert F. Wagner moved that the platform be adopted and Mr. Barkley put the question, there was a swelling chorus of “aye” to which the hoarse gallery crowds added their un-enfranchised approval.

Mr. Barkley did not bother to ask for a second to Mr. Wagner’s motion. The convention was in a hurry to get to the Presidential nomination. The platform said that foreign wars shall not come to America and that “we will not send our army, naval or air forces to fight in foreign lands outside the Americas, except in case of attack.”

There was much noise, considerable confusion and more than a little discomfort in the convention hall last night and early today as the carefully-tended Roosevelt machine minced its opposition. They came out fit for a sieve. Vice President John N. Garner’s campaign for the presidential nomination ended on the clear notes of a cowboy soloist from Hardin Simmons University of Cactus Jack’s home state.

Singer Joe Allen and his musical pals were there in chaps and yellow shirts to whoop it up for Mr. Garner but the demonstration never came – only Texas delegates marched with them.

Wright Morrow of Houston, Tex., placed the veteran statesman in nomination but his speech was not in this convention’s key.

The cowboy band was more in tune with the delegates who listened with interest and pleasure to the young man’s rendition of “The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You” and a wailing cowboy song. But two minutes after Mr. Garner’s name had been placed before the convention, it was forgotten in the brass band’s melody and 10 minutes later the band was forgotten, too. Mr. Garner has been benched by these Democrats.

Mr. Farley is coming in from the coaching box too. His days as Cabinet member and National Committee Chairman are almost over. He uttered what probably were his last words in those capacities before a great political convention early today.

It was in the same hall and almost in the same spot where he stood smiling and perspiring eight years ago this month as Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York lifted another Democratic National Convention to a frenzy of enthusiasm with his address accepting his first nomination.

Farley a Beaten Man

Mr. Farley was not up there today to cheer the delegates on in a Roosevelt demonstration. He stepped up a beaten man, unable even to hold all the 34 votes which had been pledged to him by the Massachusetts Presidential primary.

Draft-Roosevelt raiders took 12.5 of the states 34 and the necessity for polling the delegation, name by name, because of a challenge from the floor indicated the hot anger which lies under the surface in some parts of the party organization.

It was a delegation poll in strange contrast to the returns from Massachusetts eight years ago. Massachusetts was enemy country then for Mr. Farley and the power of Alfred E. Smith still was potent there. It was a center of the Stop-Roosevelt machine and Mr. Farley did his best to break it down for his man of 1932.

Garner’s Plans Hidden

Mr. Farley’s motion for unanimity was not a friendly one; it was the deed of a party man. He will support but probably not campaign at all for the Roosevelt ticket. Mr. Garner’s plans have not been revealed. Senator Millard Tydings, Maryland, an unexpected starter in the Presidential contest, probably will come along.

Senator Burton K. Wheeler (Montana), who withdrew from the race yesterday with a statement which practically charged that Mr. Roosevelt’s managers here had staged the third term draft, did not, however, indicate that he would bolt. Mr. Wheeler with the backing of President John L. Lewis of the Congress of Industrial Organizations had been going through the motions of a third party threat.

He had half-promised to bolt if the Democrats became a “war party.” But in his statement of withdrawal, Mr. Wheeler said he was content with the platform’s foreign relations plank.

Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination was foretold in the roll call for the states to name their choices. The platform had been adopted at 10:38 p.m. Alabama’s Senator Lister Hill was first up at 10:43 p.m. His man was Mr. Roosevelt.

But Mr. Hill withheld the name from eager delegates and gallery crowds so long there were fidgets all over the place. By 10:47 p.m., Secretary of Commerce Harry L. Hopkins, the one-time New York social worker who is masterminding the third-term draft, was sitting in his ringside box head in hands, apparently almost unable to wait until his chief’s name could be tossed to the eager crowd.

“There is no choice left to us,” Mr. Hill was saying at 10:48 p.m.

At 10:52 p.m., his candidate was “the symbol of the hope of all the sweating and suffering people on this earth.”

Parade Starts

Mr. Hill hit his high political C at 10:53 p.m. and named his man – “FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT.”

They were off.

The crowd had been waiting. There were corn stalks tied to the shafts of the Iowa standards and the delegates had stalks in both hands. Bells and noise makers appeared and scores of “WE WANT ROOSEVELT” signs came out of the hideaways. The din was terrific.

Literally it was all over then but the shouting and the formality of casting votes. In alphabetical order, the states seconded the Roosevelt nomination with some exceptions. Arkansas yielded to Virginia and Senator Carter Glass, the 82-year-old Democratic dean of that state, placed in nomination the name of James A. Farley. Mr. Glass stressed Mr. Farley’s forthright nature and the fact that his word was as good as gold anywhere in the land.

Tydings Nominated

Maryland put up Senator Tydings. Handsome Wright Morrow gave the convention Mr. Garner. During all this, the rest of the states had been signifying by their Roosevelt seconds that they would have Mr. Roosevelt and none other.

Finally, the convention was ready for the nominating call of the roll.

It was 1:14 a.m. today when it began – Alabama casts 20 votes for Roosevelt, 1 for Farley, 1 for Tydings.

Arizona – Roosevelt 6.

The delegates and galleries howled.

Arkansas – Roosevelt 18 – big California – 43 for Roosevelt, 1 for Garner. Three in a row for the President, then when Florida is reached and Garner gets one and a half the state’s 14 votes. Nine states voted solidly for the President until Maryland gave Senior Senator Tydings a narrow vote of esteem; Tydings 3.5, Roosevelt 7.5 and so it went.

Missouri Splits

Missouri chipped off 2 votes for Farley and 1.5 for Garner from its allotment. Nebraska found one for Farley and Nevada gave him four. In New York, 64.5 votes went to the President. Farley got 25, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull got one. A few New York ballots were not cast.

Then it was all Roosevelt until South Dakota, where he got three of Farley’s five. Utah and Vermont were in the Roosevelt parade but Virginia caused it to pause.

Virginia: Roosevelt five 14-15, Farley three 6-15, Garner three, Hull four 10-15. Not even the heavy-handed leadership of Senator Harry F. Byrd, nor the bitter anti-New Dealism of the fiery Glass had kept that state in line against a third term.

Voter Goes On

By Washington’s turn, the anti-third termers were twitching under the last and hoping

Mr. Farley finally got the platform appearing in public for the first time in opposition to his chief despite the fact that his motion was one for unanimity.

Mr. Rayburn announced that Mr. Garner wished to release Texas’ 46 votes to Mr. Roosevelt. The anti-third term rebellion was over so far as this convention was concerned.

Delegates gave Mr. Farley a big hand while he spoke his piece, this man who rode the cab in the first two Presidential campaigns but who didn’t catch the caboose this time.

But Mr. Farley got 72.5 votes for the Presidential nomination. He had been offered to the convention by Mr. Glass, a great man in the party and a master of biting language, a very old man who had come from Washington for that purpose alone.

As long as I live, I shall be grateful.

Jim Farley Refuses To Predict Victory
Chicago, July 18 (UP) –

Postmaster General James A. Farley, who accurately predicted that President Roosevelt would carry 48 states in 1936, today declined to forecast a Roosevelt victory in 1940.

“I am not at the moment in the role of a prophet,” Mr. Farley told his press conference when he was asked what he thought of the President’s chances in November.

I don’t want to be making any predictions.

Mr. Farley indicated he might have something to say on the subject after the National Committee meeting on Friday at which he will make his future course known.

He said he could not reveal in advance of the National Committee meeting whether he would offer his resignation as party head.

It has been reported that Mr. Farley and a group of other men are negotiating for the purchase of the New York Yankees baseball club.

Mr. Farley said that he was greatly honored by Senator Carter Glass of Virginia, who left a sick bed to place his name in nomination.

He made it clear that he never expected to win the nomination. It was all a matter of convictions with him, he emphasized. He didn’t say what these convictions were but it was obvious he was referring to his opposition to a third term for any President.

$1,800 to $1,000 Placed on Roosevelt
New York, July 18 (Dow Jones & Co.) –

A wager was placed in Wall Street today of $1,800 to $1,000 that President Roosevelt would be re-elected.

At the moment those who want to bet on the President’s re-election are offering odds at 6 to 5, but bidders want 8 to 5.

NEW DEAL FOE BOLTS PARTY FOR WILLKIE
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Burke of Nebraska Assails Third Term Nomination Of Roosevelt
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Washington, July 18 (UP) –

Senator Edward R. Burke (D-NE), today bolted the Democratic Party and announced his support of the Republican Presidential candidate, Wendell L. Willkie.

Mr. Burke sent a telegram to Mr. Willkie at Colorado Springs, Col., advising him that he would “work for your victory at the polls in November.”

Mr. Burke, who was elected to the Senate for the first time in 1934, was defeated for renomination this year in the Nebraska primaries by Gov. Roy L. Cochran.

Mr. Burke said:

Thus only may we make certain that never again will any party or any individual be tempted to try to overturn the wide precedent established by Washington, strengthened by Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Jackson, and cherished by all Americans who prize their freedom.

The telegram was the first adverse reaction here from conservative members of the Democratic Party to President Roosevelt’s nomination for a third term.

Mr. Burke criticized the “leadership of those of my party” who nominated Mr. Roosevelt.

He predicted that a “host of citizens nurtured in the Democratic faith” will support his stand against the third term for any President. He quoted past Democratic leaders, including Presidents Buchanan, Jackson and Grover Cleveland in opposition to a third term.

“I disclaim the leadership of those of my party who but a few years ago put themselves on record that any departure from the two-term tradition would be unwise, unpatriotic and fraught with peril to our free institutions, and who today take the very action they then denounced,” Mr. Burke’s telegram said. “A fitting rebuke to their apostasy will be administered by an aroused people.”

Text of Telegram

The text of Mr. Burke’s telegram to Mr. Willkie follows:

As one who feels deeply that in the light of present world conditions it is essential for our country to maintain the two-term limitation on the tenure of office of President, I shall work for your victory at the polls in November.

Thus only may we make certain that never again will any party or any individual be tempted

I am certain that a host of citizens nurtured in the Democratic faith, as you and I have been, will rally to the defense of the vital principle that under our form of government a limitation on the tenure of office of an all-powerful executive is essential.

‘Share Firm Conviction’

We share the firm conviction of the patron saint of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson, that should a President ever consent to be a candidate for a third term he will be rejected on this demonstration of ambitious views. We believe with another Democratic President, Buchanan, that the principle that no President should be more than once re-elected is as sacred as if it were written in the Constitution.

Andrew Jackson, honored by all real Democrats, steadfastly maintained that our liberties would possess an added safeguard if our Presidents were limited to a single term, and his view became party doctrine by action of the Democratic National Convention in 1912.

Grover Cleveland saw the most serious danger to America resulting from the zeal born of benefits received and the hope of favors yet to come with which a horde of office holders would seek to retain a President in office.

Disclaims Leaderships

I disclaim the leadership of my party who but a few years ago put themselves on record that any departure from the two-term tradition would be unwise, unpatriotic and fraught with peril to our free institutions, and who today take the very action they then denounced.

A fitting rebuke to their apostasy will be administered by an aroused people. In that program of education, I volunteer my services for the duration of the campaign.

BYRNES PHONES ROOSEVELT THAT HE’S BEEN NOMINATED
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President Is Surrounded by Advisors as He Listens to Convention Proceedings by Radio
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By T. F. Reynolds, United Press Staff Writer

Washington, July 18 –

President Roosevelt prepared today to acknowledge the notification of his renomination with a message to the Chicago convention, followed by a yes or no answer to the third term in a radio address to the nation tonight.

In the selection of his executive office, Mr. Roosevelt received a telephone call from Senator James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, informing him that he is again his party’s choice for the Presidency.

Mr. Roosevelt will acknowledge the notification in a statement to Mr. Byrnes which the South Carolina New Dealer will read to the convention.

The statement through Mr. Byrnes, however, probably will not give a yes or no answer to the greatest political riddle of all times.

It appeared more likely that it would be a formal acknowledgement of his convention’s draft and a word of thanks for the honor preferred him.

It still was believed that the President, utilizing national radio networks, will transmit his acceptance of the nomination to his party and the nation sometime tonight.

Surrounded by old friends, political advisors and members of his staff, Mr. Roosevelt reached the showdown on the third term issue early today after nearly three years of equivocating on the question.

Shedding the air of detachment with which he has viewed political developments in recent weeks, Mr. Roosevelt sat close by a radio to hear the convention roll call of states and finally, his nomination by acclamation.

The group with which Mr. Roosevelt surrounded himself last night to hear the radiocast of convention developments implied that he felt he had reached an historic milestone in his career, and wanted his most trusted associates to be near him on the occasion.

With him in the oval study, which adjoins his bedroom on the second floor of the White House, were Judge Samuel Rosenman of the New York State Supreme Court, his chief literary collaborator and his closest councilor during the pre-convention maneuvers of 1932 and 1936, and Secretary Stephen Early, his most trusted adviser on relations with the press and the general public.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. – the only member of his personal family. Others included Brig. Gen. Edwin M. Watson, secretary and military aide; Captain Daniel J. Callaghan, naval aide; Rear Admiral Ross T. McIntire, his personal physician; Marguerite LeHand, his confidential secretary; Louise Hackmeister, chief White House telephone; Grace Tully, Roberta Barrows and Antoinette Bachelder of the executive office secretariat, and Thomas Qualters, his personal bodyguard.

In the familiar surroundings of the study where he has wrestled with the major problems of his administration since March 4, 1933, Mr. Roosevelt sat in an easy chair. He was close by his desk, on which was connected a portable radio tuned in on network broadcasts of the convention. The members of the party were grouped around the room informally.

Sure to Accept

Party leaders at Chicago and the few remaining in Washington were unanimous in predicting that Mr. Roosevelt would accept the nomination. They pointed out that when he rejected the opportunity to refuse a nomination in the statement read to the convention by Senator Alben W. Barkley Tuesday night he passed up his final opportunity to head off the certain convention drive to designate him as the party candidate for the third time.

Mr. Roosevelt still expects to visit his Hyde Park, N.Y., home over the weekend, and it was conceivable that he might defer his response to the “draft” until he arrived there. But the imminent conclusion of the convention and urgency of the party problem posed by the nomination combined to indicate that he would not wait that long.

WILLKIE SEES ‘GREAT FIGHT’
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Welcomes Battle on New Deal, Third Term
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By Paul T. Smith, United Press Staff Writer

Colorado Springs, Col., July 18 –

Wendell L. Willkie, as the Republican Presidential nominee, welcomed today the issue of a campaign against a third term for President Roosevelt and continuance of the New Deal.

I am greatly gratified. It ought to be a great campaign.

Mr. Willkie was attending a performance of the operetta, “The Bartered Bride,” at Central City, Col., when the news of Mr. Roosevelt’s overwhelming draft reached him.

‘Vote to Test Philosophy’

Central City is a ghost town, the shadow of once-wealthy gold mining metropolis, but an operetta is presented there, annually. Mr. Willkie left immediately after the performance for his vacation headquarters at Colorado Springs.

Mr. Willkie said:

We will have presented to the voters of the country the issues which have been created by the New Deal, advocated for the New Deal by the author and ablest advocate of that philosophy, and the directing force of the New Deal practices.

Predicted Acceptance

In addition, the American voters will have their first opportunity to pass upon the question of a third term. Other Presidents have aspired to a third term, but that issue heretofore has been determined in the negative by political convention.

In this election, the voters themselves will have the opportunity to pass upon the doctrine of the indispensability of one man and the sanctity of our two-term tradition.

The issues are fundamental and important which the people must and should determine. I hope I may be able to do my part in their adequate presentation.

Mr. Willkie had predicted long before the Democratic convention that Mr. Roosevelt would be renominated and that he would accept. He had indicated that the nomination of any other New Dealer would simply becloud the issue, since he could disavow specific Roosevelt policies under attack.

Ready To ‘Slug It Out’

The Republican Presidential nominee left no doubt that he would conduct one of the most energetic campaigns in American political history ready to settle the election on issues, but prepared and willing to “slug it out” if the Democrats resorted to personalities.

His remarks along this theme were interpreted to mean that he would reply in kind if Democrats insinuated he was linked with questionable corporation practices against which the New Deal had legislated – the utilities “death sentence” act, for example – because he had headed the Commonwealth and Southern Utility Co. before his nomination.

Mr. Willkie’s campaign plans are indefinite – even the date of his acceptance speech at his native Elwood, Indiana. But it was certain he would consider the advice of every segment of the party throughout capital, labor, agriculture and industry to formulate the most intelligent appealing assault against the administration.

Seeks to Convert Democrats

He made it plain that no Republican faction would be overlooked and that a determined effort would be made to convert all “borderline” independents and conservative Democrats to his cause.

In his statement referring to the third term, Mr. Willkie did not name previous Presidents, but presumably he referred to General Ulysses S. Grant and to Theodore Roosevelt’s “Bull Moose” Party of 1912.

Mr. Willkie returned to Colorado Springs today. His group had flown to Denver and motored to Central City as guests of Gov. Ralph Carr of Colorado, his vacation host.

Crowds, including many persons dressed in the picturesque garb of the old West, lined the narrow streets of Central City, and gave the candidate a tumultuous welcome as he proceeded to the Teller House, an historic inn.

Dedicates Self to Peace

A whisked old man in a buckskin suit shoved his way through the throne to hand Mr. Willkie a nugget. The crowd’s chant, “WE WANT WILLKIE,” echoed across hills honeycombed by abandoned gold diggings.

He responded briefly with a reference to the quaint city and its play festival.

War destroys cultural life like this. It can only be maintained in peace and I hereby dedicate myself to the preservation of that peace.

[NormanStewart]

FIRM NO-WAR PLANK VOTED BY DELEGATES
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Democratic Pledge Against Conflict More Specific Than GOP’s
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By William H. Lawrence, United Press Staff Writer

Chicago, July 18 –

Democrats presented for American voters today a more specific anti-war platform than Republicans as the 1940 campaign for the Presidency began.

Democrats said that “the American people are determined that war, raging in Europe, Asia and Africa, shall not come to America” and pledged that "we will not send our Army, Naval or Air Forces to fight in foreign lands outside the Americas, except in case of attack.

The Republican Party described itself as the party of “Americanism, preparedness and peace,” and said that they were “firmly opposed to involving this nation in foreign war,” but their platform committee did not include a specific pledge that United States and to aggression-resisting nations should prohibit sending soldiers to foreign soil.

Both platforms bid for the peace vote and both also ask the support of those Americans who believe this nation should help Great Britain stop Hitler and Mussolini.

Willkie Nomination Hit

The Democratic platform dealt with one subject the Republican platform didn’t – electric power. The reason was stated as follows:

The nomination of an utility executive by the Republican Party as its Presidential candidate raises square the issue, whether the nation’s water power shall be used for all the people or for the selfish interests of a few. We accept that issue.

The statement said the Democrat Party had won the first major victories of the people against the “power monopoly”; that this had resulted in recognition of these principles:

That water power sites belong to all the people; that the people have the right to develop these power sites; that public utilities holding companies must not be used as a means for a few men to control “vast power empires.”

It condemned –

the Republican policies which had permitted the victimizing of investors in power securities, and the exploitation of the public by high rates. It charged that utility power interests had delayed national defense projects in the Tennessee Valley and obstructed other public power projects.

Aid to War Victims

On the controversial subject of aiding Great Britain and other nations which have been attacked by aggressor nations, the Democratic and Republican platform commitments are almost identical.

The Democrats said:

In self-defense and in good conscience, the world’s greatest democracy cannot afford heartlessly or in a spirit of appeasement to ignore the peace-loving and liberty-loving peoples wantonly attacked by ruthless aggressors. We pledge to extend to these peoples all the material aid at our command, consistent with law and not inconsistent with the interests of our own national self-defense—all to the end that peace and international good faith may yet emerge triumphant.

The Republicans adopted a platform in Philadelphia last month which said that:

Our sympathies have been profoundly stirred by invasion of unoffending countries and by disaster to nations whose ideals most closely resemble our own. We favor the extension to all peoples fighting for liberty, or whose liberty is threatened, of such aid as shall not be in violation of international law or inconsistent with the requirements of our own national defense.

Both parties reaffirmed the Monroe Doctrine, warning the dictators to keep hands off the Western Hemisphere, and both pledged to rearm the nation sufficiently to carry out this commitment.

A comparison of the two platforms adopted by the Republican and Democratic conventions indicated that American voters in the months between now and Nov. 5 will hear much campaign oratory about the responsibility for America’s present unpreparedness.

No Anti-Third Term Plank

Republicans asked a constitutional amendment limiting presidential tenure to two terms “to insure against overthrow of our American system of government,” but the Democratic convention last night shouted down an anti-third term plank offered by Rep. Elmer J. Ryan of South St. Paul, Minn. Minnesota’s unit rule later forced Mr. Ryan to vote for Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination against his will.

The Democratic platform, adopted without debate except for Mr. Ryan’s gesture, in general pledged continuation of the New Deal and outlined these three major objectives:

• To strengthen democracy by defensive preparedness against aggression, whether by open attack or secret infiltration;
• To strengthen democracy by increasing our economic efficiency; and
• To strengthen democracy by improving the welfare of the people.

Promises to Farmers

Both parties made a strong bid for the farm vote but the Democrats promised continuation of parity payments, which the Republicans didn’t mention. The GOP would junk the New Deal production control schemes, but the Democrats would continue them. Both would continue soil conservation checks, and carry on farm refinancing ventures.

Organized old persons were wooed with old age pension planks in both platforms,. Democrats pledged they would seek at an early date to provide “a minimum pension for all who have reached the age of retirement and are not gainfully employed,” and the Republicans promised “extension of necessary old age benefits on an earmarked pay-as-you-go basis to the extent that revenues raised for this purpose will permit.”

The organized labor vote got more attention and space from the Democrats than from the Republicans. CIO President John L. Lewis, who has been off the New Deal reservation and has predicted “ignominious defeat” for Mr. Roosevelt, got several Democratic platform planks that he wanted.

The Republicans urged amendments to make the Wagner Labor Relations Act “fairer” to employers and all groups of employees, but the Democrats did not mention any amendments.

The Democrats, in effect, told President Roosevelt to call the national unemployment conference which until now he has declined to summon. Such a conference would include representatives of industry labor and the government.

Mr. Lewis also won a Democratic plank endorsing extension of the Guffey Bituminous Coal Stabilization Act, under which the government is preparing to fix minimum soft coal prices, and a pledge that “sympathetic consideration” would be given to a similar law for the anthracite industry.

Both parties pledged aid to little business, promised impartial enforcement of the anti-trust laws, and each indicated that it alone could restore full prosperity.

For the Negro vote, important in the North and traditionally Republican, although it went Democratic in 1932 and 1936, both parties put their best foot forward. The Republicans went further than Democrats, advocating repeal of southern poll tax laws and enactment of legislation to stop lynchings. Democrats pointed to benefits to Negroes in New Deal social legislation, and said they would “uphold due process and the equal protection of the laws for every citizen, regardless of race, creed or color.”

[NormanStewart]

DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM OF 1940:

The world is undergoing violent change. Humanity, uneasy in this machine age, is demanding a sense of security and dignity based on human values.

No democratic government which fails to recognize this trend—and take appropriate action—can survive.

That is why the Government of this nation has moved to keep ahead of this trend; has moved with speed incomprehensible to those who do not see this trend.

Outside the Americas, established institutions are being overthrown and democratic philosophies are being repudiated by those whose creed recognizes no power higher than military force, no values other than a false efficiency.

What the founding fathers realized upon this continent was a daring dream, that men could have not only physical security, not only efficiency, but something else in addition that men had never had before—the security of the heart that comes with freedom, the peace of mind that comes from a sense of justice.

To this generation of Americans it is given to defend this democratic faith as it is challenged by social maladjustment within and totalitarian greed without. The world revolution against which we prepare our defense is so threatening that not until it has burned itself out in the last corner of the earth will our democracy be able to relax its guard.

In this world crisis, the purpose of the Democratic Party is to defend against external attack and justify by internal progress the system of government and way of life from which the Democratic Party takes its name.

Fulfilling American Ideal
Toward the modern fulfillment of the American ideal, the Democratic Party, during the last seven years, has labored successfully:

• To strengthen democracy by defensive preparedness against aggression, whether by open attack or secret infiltration;
• To strengthen democracy by increasing our economic efficiency; and
• To strengthen democracy by improving the welfare of the people.

These three objectives are one and inseparable. No nation can be strong by armaments alone. It must possess and use all the necessary resources for producing goods plentifully and distributing them effectively. It must add to these factors of material strength the unconquerable spirit and energy of a contented people, convinced that there are no boundaries to human progress and happiness in a land of liberty.

Our faith that these objectives can be attained is made unshakable by what has already been done by the present Administration—in stopping the waste and exploitation of our human and natural resources, in restoring to the average man and woman a stake in the preservation of our democracy, in enlarging our national armaments, and in achieving national unity.

We shall hold fast to these gains. We are proud of our record. Therefore the Party in convention assembled endorses wholeheartedly the brilliant and courageous leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his statesmanship and that of the Congress for the past seven trying years. And to our President and great leader we send our cordial greetings.

We Must Strengthen Democracy Against Aggression
The American people are determined that war, raging in Europe, Asia and Africa, shall not come to America.

We will not participate in foreign wars, and we will not send our army, naval or air forces to fight in foreign lands outside of the Americas, except in case of attack. We favor and shall rigorously enforce and defend the Monroe Doctrine.

The direction and aim of our foreign policy has been, and will continue to be, the security and defense of our own land and the maintenance of its peace.

For years our President has warned the nation that organized assaults against religion, democracy and international good faith threatened our own peace and security. Men blinded by partisanship brushed aside these warnings as war-mongering and officious intermeddling. The fall of twelve nations was necessary to bring their belated approval of legislative and executive action that the President had urged and undertaken with the full support of the people. It is a tribute to the President’s foresight and action that our defense forces are today at the peak of their peacetime effectiveness.

Weakness and unpreparedness invite aggression. We must be so strong that no possible combination of powers would dare to attack us. We propose to provide America with an invincible air force, a navy strong enough to protect all our seacoasts and our national interests, and a fully-equipped and mechanized army. We shall continue to coordinate these implements of defense with the necessary expansion of industrial productive capacity and with the training of appropriate personnel. Outstanding leaders of industry and labor have already been enlisted by the Government to harness our mighty economic forces for national defense.

Experience of other nations gives warning that total defense is necessary to repel attack, and that partial defense is no defense.

We have seen the downfall of nations accomplished through internal dissension provoked from without. We denounce and will do all in our power to destroy the treasonable activities of disguised anti-democratic and un-American agencies which would sap our strength, paralyze our will to defend ourselves, and destroy our unity by inciting race against race, class against class, religion against religion and the people against their free institutions.

To make America strong, and to keep America free, every American must give of his talents and treasure in accordance with his ability and his country’s needs. We must have democracy of sacrifice as well as democracy of opportunity.

To insure that our armaments shall be implements of peace rather than war, we shall continue our traditional policies of the good neighbor; observe and advocate international respect for the fights of others and for treaty obligations; cultivate foreign trade through desirable trade agreements; and foster economic collaboration with the Republics of the Western Hemisphere.

In self-defense and in good conscience, the world’s greatest democracy cannot afford heartlessly or in a spirit of appeasement to ignore the peace-loving and liberty-loving peoples wantonly attacked by ruthless aggressors. We pledge to extend to these peoples all the material aid at our command, consistent with law and not inconsistent with the interests of our own national self-defense—all to the end that peace and international good faith may yet emerge triumphant.

We do not regard the need for preparedness a warrant for infringement upon our civil liberties, but on the contrary we shall continue to protect them, in the keen realization that the vivid contrast between the freedom we enjoy and the dark repression which prevails in the lands where liberty is dead, affords warning and example to our people to confirm their faith in democracy.

We Must Strengthen Democracy By Increasing Our Economic Efficiency
The well being of the land and those who work upon it is basic to the real defense and security of America.

The Republican Party gives its promises to the farmer and its allegiance to those who exploit him.

Since 1932 farm income has been doubled; six million farmers, representing more than 80 per cent of all farm families, have participated in an effective soil conservation program; the farm debt and the interest rate on farm debt have been reduced, and farm foreclosures have been drastically curtailed; rural highways and farm-to-market roads have been vastly improved and extended; the surpluses on the farms have been used to feed the needy; low cost electricity has been brought to five million farm people as a result of the rural electrification program; thousands of impoverished farm families have been rehabilitated; and steps have been taken to stop the alarming growth of farm tenancy, to increase land ownership, and to mitigate the hardships of migratory farm labor.

The Land and the Farmer
We pledge ourselves:

To make parity as well as soil conservation payments until such time as the goal of parity income for agriculture is realized.

To extend and enlarge the tenant-purchase program until every deserving tenant farmer has a real opportunity to have a firm of his own.

To refinance existing farm debts at lower interest rates and on longer and more flexible terms.

To continue to provide for adjustment of production through democratic processes to the extent that excess surpluses are capable of control.

To continue the program of rehabilitation of farmers who need and merit aid.

To preserve and strengthen the ever-normal granary on behalf of the national defense, the consumer at home and abroad, and the American farmer.

To continue to make commodity loans to maintain the ever-normal granary and to prevent destructively low prices.

To expand the domestic consumption of our surpluses by the food and cotton stamp plan, the free school lunch, low-cost milk and other plans for bringing surplus farm commodities to needy consumers.

To continue our substantially increased appropriations for research and extension work through the land-grant colleges, and for research laboratories established to develop new outlets for farm products.

To conserve the soil and water resources for the benefit of farmers and the nation. In such conservation programs we shall, so far as practicable, bring about that development in forests and other permanent crops as will not unduly expand livestock and dairy production.

To safeguard the farmer’s foreign markets and expand his domestic market for all domestic crops. To enlarge the rural electrification (sic).

To encourage farmer-owned and controlled co-operatives.

To continue the broad program launched by this Administration for the coordinated development of our river basins through reclamation and irrigation, flood control, reforestation and soil conservation, stream purification, recreation, fish and game protection, low-cost power, and rural industry.

To encourage marketing agreements in aid of producers of dairy products, vegetables, fruits and specialty crops for the purpose of orderly marketing and the avoidance of unfair and wasteful practices.

To extend crop insurance from wheat to other crops as rapidly as experience justifies such extension.

To safeguard the family-sized farm in all our programs.

To finance these programs adequately in order that they may be effective.

In settling new lands reclaimed from desert by projects like Grand Coulee, we shall give priority to homeless families who have lost their farms. As these new lands are brought into use, we shall continue by Federal purchase to retire from the plow sub marginal lands so that an increased percentage of our farmers may be able to live and work on good land.

These programs will continue to be in the hands of locally-elected farmer committees to the largest extent possible. In this truly democratic way, we will continue to bring economic security to the farmer and his family, while recognizing the dignity and freedom of American farm life.

Industry and the Worker
Under Democratic auspices, more has been done in the last seven years to foster the essential freedom, dignity and opportunity of the American worker than in any other administration in the nation’s history. In consequence, labor is today taking its rightful place as a partner of management in the common cause of higher earnings, industrial efficiency, national unity and national defense.

A far-flung system of employment exchanges has brought together millions of idle workers and available jobs. The workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing is being enforced. We have enlarged the Federal machinery for the mediation of labor disputes. We have enacted an effective wage and hour law. Child labor in factories has been outlawed. Prevailing wages to workers employed on Government contracts have been assured.

We pledge to continue to enforce fair labor standards; to maintain the principles of the National Labor Relations Act; to expand employment training and opportunity for our youth, older workers, and workers displaced by technological changes; to strengthen the orderly processes of collective bargaining and peaceful settlement of labor disputes; and to work always for a just distribution of our national income among those who labor.

We will continue our efforts to achieve equality of opportunity for men and women without impairing the social legislation which promotes true equality by safeguarding the health, safety and economic welfare of women workers. The right to work for compensation in both public and private employment is an inalienable privilege of women as well as men, without distinction as to marital status.

The production of coal is one of our most important basic industries. Stability of production, employment, distribution and price are indispensable to the public welfare. We pledge continuation of the Federal Bituminous Coal Stabilization Act, and sympathetic consideration of the application of similar legislation to the anthracite coal industry, in order to provide additional protection for the owners, miners and consumers of hard coal.

We shall continue to emphasize the human element in industry and strive toward increasingly wholehearted cooperation between labor and industrial management.

Capital and the Businessman
To make democracy strong, our system of business enterprise and individual initiative must be free to gear its tremendous productive capacity to serve the greatest good of the greatest number.

We have defended and will continue to defend all legitimate business.

We have attacked and will continue to attack unbridled concentration of economic power and the exploitation of the consumer and the investor.

We have attacked the kind of banking which treated America as a colonial empire to exploit; the kind of securities business which regarded the Stock Exchange as a private gambling club for wagering other people’s money; the kind of public utility holding companies which used consumers’ and investors’ money to suborn a free press, bludgeon legislatures and political conventions, and control elections against the interest of their customers and their security holders.

We have attacked the kind of business which levied tribute on all the rest of American business by the extortionate methods of monopoly.

We did not stop with attack—we followed through with the remedy. The American people found in themselves, through the democratic process, ability to meet the economic problems of the average American business where concentrated power had failed.

We found a broken and prostrate banking and financial system. We restored it to health by strengthening banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions. We have insured 62 million bank accounts, and protected millions of small investors in the security and commodity markets. We have thus revived confidence, safeguarded thrift, and opened the road to all honorable business.

We have made credit at low interest rates available to small-business men, thus unfastening the oppressive yoke of a money monopoly, and giving the ordinary citizen a chance to go into business and stay in business.

We recognize the importance of small business concerns and new enterprises in our national economy, and favor the enactment of constructive legislation to safeguard the welfare of small business. Independent small-scale enterprise, no less than big business, should be adequately represented on appropriate governmental boards and commissions, and its interests should be examined and fostered by a continuous research program.

We have provided an important outlet for private capital by stimulating home building and low-rent housing projects. More new homes were built throughout the nation last year than in any year since 1929.

We have fostered a well-balanced American merchant marine and the world’s finest system of civil aeronautics, to promote our commerce and our national defense.

We have steered a steady course between a bankruptcy-producing deflation and a thrift-destroying inflation, so that today the dollar is the most stable and sought-after currency in the world—a factor of immeasurable benefit in our foreign and domestic commerce.

We shall continue to oppose barriers which impede trade among the several states. We pledge our best efforts in strengthening our home markets, and to this end we favor the adjustment of freight rates so that no section or state will have undue advantage over any other.

To encourage investment in productive enterprise, the tax-exempt privileges of future Federal, state and local bonds should be removed.

We have enforced the anti-trust laws more vigorously than at any time in our history, thus affording the maximum protection to the competitive system.

We favor strict supervision of all forms of the insurance business by the several states for the protection of policyholders and the public.

The full force of our policies, by raising the national income by thirty billion dollars from the low of 1932, by encouraging vast reemployment, and by elevating the level of consumer demand, has quickened the flow of buying and selling through every artery of industry and trade.

With mass purchasing power restored and many abuses eliminated, American business stands at the threshold of a great new era, richer in promise than any we have witnessed—an era of pioneering and progress beyond the present frontiers of economic activity—in transportation, in housing, in industrial expansion, and in the new utilization of the products of the farm and the factory.

We shall aid business in redeeming America’s promise.

Electric Power
During the past seven years the Democratic Party has won the first major victories for the people of the nation in their generation-old contest with the power monopoly.

These victories have resulted in the recognition of certain self evident principles and the realization of vast benefits by the people. These principles, long opposed by the Republican Party, are:

That the power of falling water is a gift from God, and consequently belongs not to a privileged few, but to all the people, who are entitled to enjoy its benefits;

That the people have the right through their government to develop their own power sites and bring low-cost electricity to their homes, farms and factories;

That public utility holding companies must not be permitted to serve as the means by which a few men can pyramid stocks upon stocks for the sole purpose of controlling vast power empires.

We condemn the Republican policies which permitted the victimizing of investors in the securities of private power corporations, and the exploitation of the people by unnecessarily high utility costs.

We condemn the opposition of utility power interests which delayed for years the development of national defense projects in the Tennessee Valley, and which obstructed river basin improvements and other public projects bringing low-cost electric power to the people. The successful power developments in the Tennessee and Columbia River basins show the wisdom of the Democratic Party in establishing government-owned and operated hydro-electric plants in the interests of power and light consumers.

Through these Democratic victories, whole regions have been revived and restored to prosperous habitation. Production costs have been reduced. Industries have been established which employ men and capital. Cheaper electricity has brought vast economic benefits to thousands of homes and communities.

These victories of the people must be safeguarded. They will be turned to defeat if the Republican Party should be returned to power. We pledge our Party militantly to oppose every effort to encroach upon the inherent right of our people to be provided with this primary essential of life at the lowest possible cost.

The nomination of a utility executive by the Republican Party as its presidential candidate raises squarely the issue, whether the nation’s water power shall be used for all the people or for the selfish interests of a few. We accept that issue.

Developments of Western Resources
We take satisfaction in pointing out the incomparable development of the public land states under the wise and constructive legislation of this Administration. Mining has been revived, agriculture fostered, reclamation extended and natural resources developed as never before in a similar period. We pledge the continuance of such policies, based primarily on the expansion of opportunity for the people, as will encourage the full development, free from financial exploitation, of the great resources—mineral, agricultural, livestock, fishing and lumber—which the West affords.

Radio
Radio has become an integral part of the democratically accepted doctrine of freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion. We urge such legislative steps as may be required to afford the same protection from censorship that is now afforded the press under the Constitution of the United States.

We Must Strengthen Democracy By Improving the Welfare of the People
We place human resources first among the assets of a democratic society.

Unemployment
The Democratic Party wages war on unemployment, one of the gravest problems of our times, inherited at its worst from the last Republican administration. Since we assumed office, nine million additional persons have gained regular employment in normal private enterprise. All our policies—financial, industrial and agricultural—will continue to accelerate the rate of this progress.

By public action, where necessary to supplement private reemployment, we have rescued millions from idleness that breeds weakness, and given them a real stake in their country’s well being. We shall continue to recognize the obligation of Government to provide work for deserving workers who cannot be absorbed by private industry.

We are opposed to vesting in the states and local authorities the control of Federally-financed work relief. We believe that this Republican proposal is a thinly disguised plan to put the unemployed back on the dole.

We will continue energetically to direct our efforts toward the employment in private industry of all those willing to work, as well as the fullest employment of money and machines. This we pledge as our primary objective. To further implement this objective, we favor calling, under the direction of the President, a national unemployment conference of leaders of government, industry, labor and farm groups.

There is work in our factories, mines, fields, forests and river basins, on our coasts, highways, railroads and inland waterways. There are houses to be built to shelter our people. Building a better America means work and a higher standard of living for every family, and a richer and more secure heritage for every American.

Social Security
The Democratic Party, which established social security for the nation, is dedicated to its extension. We pledge to make the Social Security Act increasingly effective, by covering millions of persons not now protected under its terms; by strengthening our unemployment insurance system and establishing more adequate and uniform benefits, through the Federal equalization fund principle; by progressively extending and increasing the benefits of the old-age and survivors insurance system, including protection of the permanently disabled; and by the early realization of a minimum pension for all who have reached the age of retirement and are not gainfully employed.

Health
Good health for all the people is a prime requisite of national preparedness in its broadest sense. We have advanced public health, industrial hygiene, and maternal and child care. We are coordinating the health functions of the Federal Government. We pledge to expand these efforts, and to provide more hospitals and health centers and better health protection wherever the need exists, in rural and urban areas, all through the co-operative efforts of the Federal, state and local governments, the medical, dental, nursing and other scientific professions, and the voluntary agencies.

Youth and Education
Today, when the youth of other lands is being sacrificed in war, this nation recognizes the full value of the sound youth program established by the Administration. The National Youth Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps have enabled our youth to complete their education, have maintained their health, trained them for useful citizenship, and aided them to secure employment.

Our public works have modernized and greatly expanded the nation’s schools. We have increased Federal aid for vocational education and rehabilitation, and undertaken a comprehensive program of defense-industry training. We shall continue to bring to millions of children, youths and adults, the educational and economic opportunities otherwise beyond their reach.

Slum-Clearance and Low-Rent Housing
We have launched a soundly conceived plan of loans and contributions to rid America of overcrowded slum dwellings that breed disease and crime, and to replace them by low-cost housing projects within the means of low-income families. We will extend and accelerate this plan not only in the congested city districts, but also in the small towns and farm areas, and we will make it a powerful arm of national defense by supplying housing for the families of enlisted personnel and for workers in areas where industry is expanding to meet defense needs.

Consumers
We are taking effective steps to insure that, in this period of stress, the cost of living shall not be increased by speculation and unjustified price rises.

Negroes
Our Negro citizens have participated actively in the economic and social advances launched by this Administration, including fair labor standards, social security benefits, health protection, work relief projects, decent housing, aid to education, and the rehabilitation of low-income farm families. We have aided more than half a million Negro youths in vocational training, education and employment. We shall continue to strive for complete legislative safeguards against discrimination in government service and benefits, and in the national defense forces. We pledge to uphold due process and the equal protection of the laws for every citizen, regardless of race, creed or color.

Veterans
We pledge to continue our policy of fair treatment of America’s war veterans and their dependents, in just tribute to their sacrifices and their devotion to the cause of liberty.

Indians
We favor and pledge the enactment of legislation creating an Indian Claims Commission for the special purpose of entertaining and investigating claims presented by Indian groups, bands and tribes, in order that our Indian citizens may have their claims against the Government considered, adjusted, and finally settled at the earliest possible date.

Civil Service
We pledge the immediate extension of a genuine system of merit to all positions in the executive branch of the Federal Government except actual bona fide policy-making positions. The competitive method of selecting employees shall be improved until experience and qualification shall be the sole test in determining fitness for employment in the Federal service. Promotion and tenure in Federal service shall likewise depend upon fitness, experience and qualification. Arbitrary and unreasonable rules as to academic training shall be abolished, all to the end that a genuine system of efficiency and merit shall prevail throughout the entire Federal service.

Territories and District of Columbia
We favor a larger measure of self-government leading to statehood, for Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. We favor the appointment of residents to office, and equal treatment of the citizens of each of these three territories. We favor the prompt determination and payment of any just claims by Indian and Eskimo citizens of Alaska against the United States.

We also favor the extension of the right of suffrage to the people of the District of Columbia.

True First Line of Defense
We pledge to continue to stand guard on our true first line of defense—the security and welfare of the men, women and children of America.

Our Democratic Faith
Democracy is more than a political system for the government of a people. It is the expression of a people’s faith in themselves as human beings. If this faith is permitted to die, human progress will die with it. We believe that a mechanized existence, lacking the spiritual quality of democracy, is intolerable to the free people of this country.

We therefore pledge ourselves to fight, as our fathers fought, for the right of every American to enjoy freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, petition, and security in his home.

It is America’s destiny, in these days of rampant despotism, to be the guardian of the world heritage of liberty and to hold aloft and aflame the torch of Western civilization.

The Democratic Party rededicates itself to this faith in democracy, to the defense of the American system of government, the only system under which men are masters of their own souls, the only system under which the American people, composed of many races and creeds, can live and work, play and worship in peace, security and freedom.

Firmly relying upon a continuation of the blessings of Divine Providence upon all our righteous endeavors to preserve forever the priceless heritage of American liberty and peace, we appeal to all the liberal-minded men and women of the nation to approve this platform and to go forward with us by wholeheartedly supporting the candidates who subscribe to the principles which it proclaims.

[NormanStewart]

Mrs. Roosevelt To Visit Convention
Chicago, July 18 –

Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt will appear before the Democratic National Convention tonight Postmaster General James A. Farley revealed today.

He said that Mrs. Roosevelt had telephoned him and said that several friends had indicated to her it would be “quite beneficial” if she appears before the convention after the President addressed the gathering from Washington. It was considered possible that she might make a brief address.

An airline reported it had reservations for Mrs. Roosevelt and “one of her sons” on a plane arriving this afternoon.

‘My Son, My Son’ ―
Chicago, July 18 –

In the demonstration which followed the speech nominating President Roosevelt for a third term, the Texas delegation, part of which was backing Vice President Garner, took part in a free-for-all for possession for Texas standards.

San Antonio’s mayor, Maury Maverick, nearly came to blows with a fellow delegate.

Shouts of the crowd showed plainly where the sympathies lay but the banners were finally permitted to be placed in the parade amid the cheers of the convention.

Elliott Roosevelt, the President’s son, a delegate remained in his seat taking no part in the demonstration for his father.

FOREIGN REACTIONS TO ROOSEVELT’S RENOMINATION

Italy Disappointed By Renomination
Rome, July 18 –

Italian political circles received today news of President Roosevelt’s renomination with disappointment. They said it had committed at least the Democratic Party to continuation of “Roosevelt’s pro-English policy.”

Such a policy, it was said, inevitably means “an anti-Italian policy.”

Well-informed Italian quarters said that should Mr. Roosevelt win the election there would be intensified, non-belligerent aid from America to Britain.

In some quarters, it was said that:

…( renomination of Mr. Roosevelt) indicated that the United States was swinging around to the totalitarian thesis that the chief of government must remain in office for a long term of years if he is to carry out a far-reaching social program.

Views from Great Britain
London, July 18 –

Afternoon newspapers today gave great prominence to President Roosevelt’s renomination.

The Evening News said editorially that the Republican and Democratic platforms “present no perceptible differences to eyes on this side of the Atlantic…in their references to help for Britain in her struggle.”

The Evening Star said that “we can view the situation with great encouragement in that both candidates are men who will see that Britain gets such help as America can give her.”

Views from Germany
Berlin, July 18 –

Nazi quarters said today that President Roosevelt’s renomination had caused no surprise here.

An authorized informant said:

Practically no new element is introduced in the foreign political situation since Mr. Roosevelt’s position is well known.

Attention was called to the platform resolution not to send troops abroad. The spokesman commented that expressions of sympathy toward the Allies were to be expected.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (July 19, 1940)

CONVENTION BALLOT ON NO. 2 JOB

A tabulation of the state by state vote on Vice Presidential nominees follows:

	Bankhead	Wallace	McNutt	Farley	Barkley	Jones	O’Mahoney	Brown	Lucas	Walsh	Adams	Johnson	Timmons
Alabama	22	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Arizona	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Arkansas	-	18	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
California	6.5	35	-	2.5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Colorado	-	0.5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	11.5	-	-
Connecticut	-	16	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Delaware	-	4	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Florida	2.5	8.5	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Georgia	24	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Idaho	-	-	8	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Illinois	3	55	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Indiana	8	20	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Iowa	-	22	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Kentucky	11	11	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Louisiana	20	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Maine	3	3	3.5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Maryland	13	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Massachusetts	3.75	25	0.5	0.5	-	-	2	-	-	1.5	-	-	-
Michigan	-	38	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Minnesota	-	22	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Mississippi	13.5	4	-	0.5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Missouri	28.5	1.5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Montana	3.5	3	0.5	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Nebraska	9	3	1	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Nevada	4	0.5	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
New Hampshire	-	4	4	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
New Jersey	-	32	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
New Mexico	-	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
New York	4.5	47	3	-	-	4	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
North Carolina	17.5	4.2	3.8	-	-	0.9	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
North Dakota	-	8	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Ohio	-	52	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Oklahoma	-	-	22	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Oregon	-	10	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Pennsylvania	3	68	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Rhode Island	-	5.5	-	1.5	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-
South Carolina	4	9.5	2.5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
South Dakota	-	8	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Tennessee	22	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Texas	46	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Utah	2	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Vermont	1	5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Virginia	22	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Washington	7.5	1.5	5	1	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-
West Virginia	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-
Wisconsin	4	14	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	1
Wyoming	3	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Alaska	3	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Dist. of Columbia	-	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Hawaii	2	2	1	0.5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Panama C. Z.	1	5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Puerto Rico	-	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Virgin Islands	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Philippines	-	-	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Can’dates:	Votes
Wallace	627.7
Bankhead	329.26
McNutt	66.63
Adams	11.5
Farley	8
Jones	5.9
O’Mahoney	3.5
Barkley	2
Brown	1
Johnson	1
Lucas	1
Timmons	1
Walsh	0.5
Not counting or absent	40.5

‘I’LL RUN,’ ROOSEVELT SAYS; NEW DEALERS CRUSH REVOLT
…
Farley to Quit as Chairman Aug. 17 – Predicts Victory For Democrats
…
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press Staff Writer

Chicago, July 19 –

Franklin Delano Roosevelt today ordered the New Deal-Democratic Party into an immediate offensive against Wendell L. Willkie, the Republican Presidential candidate. He had accepted a tradition-shattering third-term nomination which, he said, he had hoped earnestly to avoid.

Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, an Iowa New Dealer, was nominated for Vice President by Mr. Roosevelt’s order.

That was the second demonstration of Mr. Roosevelt’s power over the Democratic National Convention which convened here at noon Monday and adjourned sine die at 2:05 a.m. (EST) today.

The party purge was almost completed early today when Mr. Wallace was substituted for Vice President John N. Garner who ran with the winning ticket in 1932 and 1936. It will be finished when the New Deal drops the pilot, Chairman James A. Farley of the Democratic National Committee.

Mr. Farley today accepted a four-week third term as national chairman and predicted victory for the Roosevelt-Wallace ticket in November.

Galleries Boo

Mr. Farley said he would retire Aug. 17 and that a five-member subcommittee headed by Edward J. Flynn of New York would appoint his successor after conferring with Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wallace. Many observers believe that Frank Walker of New York would succeed Mr. Farley.

It was a rowdy wind-up to four days of stop and go politics in which Mr. Farley and a scattering of anti-third term conservatives sought to make a river flow uphill. They lost.

The galleries clamored and there were shouts and boos from the floor last night and today as the constricting pressure of White House influence forced the convention steadily toward Mr. Wallace, a Republican recruit, for Vice President.

The campaign is open between the Roosevelt-Wallace ticket ratified here and Republican Presidential Candidate Wendell L. Willkie and his running mate Senator Charles L. McNary of Oregon.

Somebody May Get Hurt

It is the New Deal vs. the most articulate and adverse critic of the Roosevelt Administration that business has produced.

This year the American public may expect a campaign of unusual vigor in which any participant is likely to get hurt.

Whether this convention “drafted” Mr. Roosevelt or was “stage managed” into nominating him is a matter of some dispute. There are conservatives here who hold the latter to have been the fact.

“Had this been a free and open convention–” said Senator Scott Lucas of Illinois last night in asking that his name be withdrawn from the list of Vice Presidential contestants. There were others who felt that way about it.

But the returns are in, the old line Democrats are out and the 1940 presidential contest is moving toward November.

The opposition had the boos but not the votes to stop Mr. Wallace. Time after time his nomination and those who seconded his nomination or shouted a defiant determination to vote for Mr. Roosevelt’s man, were washed with a flood of derision, some of which came from the floor where the votes were.

Wallace Yields

Mr. Wallace sat through it all clutching the speech of acceptance which never was delivered. Mr. Roosevelt needed the minutes Mr. Wallace would have required, so the No. 2 man of the Third New Deal still had his speech to deliver.

Conference room and platform rebellions blazed through the afternoon and early evening. But Mr. Wallace would not stay down, Mr. Roosevelt sent word that he would address the convention at 9 p.m., and then that he would not – unless he got his man. He got him after a wrangling roll call in which big delegations had to poll and came up with tenths and fifths of votes cast in protest against the Administration organization.

Says ‘I Will’

And then a silence fell upon the assembly. At 12:20 a.m., the President began to speak – just as eight years ago he spoke from the platform here in the Chicago Stadium to accept his first nomination.

But this time he was not there. His voice came, smooth and reassuring as a benediction, from a cluster of loud speakers overhead as this Democratic man of all time, said – “I will.”

No campaigning will he do this year, he told the convention, but he will talk to the press and over the radio from time to time to report to the people on the crisis he says exists and to answer “deliberate or unwitting falsifications of fact, which are sometimes made by political candidates.”

Loathe to Continue

He was loathe to continue in the White House and would rather retire. But for the developments after Europe’s September declarations of war, Mr. Roosevelt said, he would have renounced public office long before this. But, he said, he could not renounce it now.

“Every day that passed called for postponement of personal plans and partisan debate,” he told the packed stadium, and the nation, until the latest possible moment. “The normal conditions under which I would have made public declaration of my personal desires were gone.”

Thinking solely of the national good and of the international scene, I came to the reluctant conclusion that such declaration should not be made before the National Convention. It was accordingly made to you within an hour after the permanent organization of the convention.

No. 1 Draftee

In this speech of acceptance Mr. Roosevelt made himself the nation’s No. 1 draftee in the cause of peace and national defense and he said all citizens are agreed that some form of draft was as fair and necessary today as in 1917. And if his draft sticks, it will be because of the voters next November and not by action of the convention, he said.

So Mr. Roosevelt made his decision and told of it last night to the suddenly-silenced delegates and to those thousands who had remained in the galleries and to unestimable (sic) thousands gathered at their radios which were turned on late at night throughout the nation.

“My conscience will not let me turn my back upon a call to service,” he confided.

Up to The People

The right to make that call rests with the people through the American method of free election. Only the people themselves can draft a President. If such a draft should be upon me, I say, in the utmost simplicity, I will, with God’s help, continue to serve with the best of my ability and with the fullness of my strength.

And he thanked the convention for naming Mr. Wallace because, he said, he wanted a man of that turn of mind to fight beside him.

All of that came from the calm surroundings of the White House where Mr. Roosevelt stayed through the four days of the futile fight to stop him. The circumstances were as unusual, perhaps, as eight years ago when he stepped down from an airplane – the first presidential nominee to fly.

Farley is Through

Now he is the first to accept a nomination by radio a few hours after it was extended, and that broken precedent sent him into the battle to break the third-term precedent – that one which says no man shall serve more than twice as Chief Executive.

Mr. Farley – the one-time counselor and party advance man – is just another Democracy now. The program seems to be to let him go to the New York Yankees and put either Mr. Walker or Senator James F. Byrnes of South Carolina in his place.

One usually well informed Senator said Mr. Walker would be committee chairman, largely concerned with raising funds and that Mr. Byrnes would manage the third term campaign.

Mr. Farley would stay on as Postmaster General until Sept. 1 or Sept. 15. He may keep his committee chairmanship for a few weeks and even resign both the chairmanship and the cabinet post together a month or six weeks hence. But Big Jim as the organizing genius of the New Deal is through.

Saluted by Roosevelt

He goes out smiling, more or less, and he is glad to go. But his huge hands and then a paper fan shaded his face and eyes last night as Mr. Roosevelt spoke and there might have been a wetness in his eyes when it all was over and he removed his shield. Perhaps it was the lights. They were bright and hard upon him.

There was a message for him in that acceptance, let the regulations say what they will of the propriety of personal communications by radio broadcast.

From the man in the White House to the man who sat hands cupped over his face on the convention platform came this word:

And to the chairman of the party – as I have often called him, my old friend, Jim Farley – I send you, as I have often done before, my most sincere appreciation for the help that he has given and for the help which I now he will continue to give.

As I think my good wife suggested a few hours ago, in some respects the next few months will be different from the usual national campaigns of recent years. Most of you know how important it is that the President in these days remain close to the seat of government.

Trips Abandoned

Since last summer I have been compelled to abandon proposed journeys to inspect many of our national projects from the Alleghenies to the Pacific Coast.

Events move so fast in other parts of the world that it has become my duty to remain either in the White House itself or at some nearby point – I shall not have time or the inclination to engage in purely political debate.

But I shall never be loathe to call the attention of the nation to deliberate or unwitting falsifications of fact, which are sometimes made by political candidates.

It looks like a front porch campaign on the White House stoop but with the air full of talk and contention.

My good wife–

There went a precedent.

First Lady Speaks

The First Lady moved all smiling to the platform tongue at the end of a bitter roll call for the vice presidential nomination and said her husband was too busy to be there and told of the responsibilities of men in office and of those who vote to keep him there.

To be a candidate of either great political party is a very serious and a very solemn thing. You cannot treat it as you would treat an ordinary nomination in an ordinary time.

If the back of rebellion against Mr. Wallace was not broken before, she broke it. Mrs. Roosevelt was telling those delegates to behave by appealing to their love of country. And she had her own tribute to Jim Farley and one he probably treasures more than the radioed words that came from Washington this morning. The big man who went along so long and the woman who went along too, and still is going, are great friends.

Praises Farley

It may be doubted that much friendship remains now between the President and his man.

So first of all, Mrs. Roosevelt spoke of Mr. Farley.

I want to say a word to our national chairman, James A. Farley. For many years I have worked under Jim Farley and with Jim Farley, and I think nobody could appreciate more what he has done for the party, what he has given in work and loyalty, and I want here to give him my thanks and devotion.

That was all. But it was all that was needed to show that a friendship of long standing still was firm.

Bitterness Evident

There was much bitterness in the stadium last night and early today but the convention ended on Mr. Roosevelt’s key of attack on the Republican nominee on the grounds of inexperience and doubtful capacity for the world crisis and domestic needs.

Lying awake, as I have on many nights, I have asked myself whether I have the right, as commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, to call on men and women to serve their country or to train themselves to serve and, at the same time, decline to serve my country in my own personal capacity, if I am called upon to do so by the people of my country.

It is not ordinary war but revolution in the world, he continued, which if triumphant proposes to enslave men, not to set them free.

Abandons Plans

The President said:

Like most men of my age, I had made plans for myself, plans for a private life of my own choice and for my own satisfaction to begin in January, 1941.

But those plans were abandoned. Mr. Roosevelt said a public statement of renunciation would have been “unwise” so he kept silent until the convention met, and it was too late then.

The Government of the United States for the past seven years had had the courage openly to oppose by every peaceful means the spread of the dictator form of government. If our government should pass to other hands next January – untried hands, inexperienced hands – we can merely hope and pray that they will not substitute appeasement and compromise with those who seek to destroy all democracies everywhere, including here.

‘I Do Not Recant’

I would not undo, if I could, the efforts I made to prevent war – I do not now soften the condemnation expressed by Secretary Hull and myself for the acts of aggression that have wiped out ancient liberty-loving, peace-pursuing countries which had scrupulously maintained neutrality. I do not recant.

And there it was, the 1940 foreign relations plank of the New Deal-Democratic Party and nothing in the formally adopted platform would have any effect on it whatever. And in that part of Mr. Roosevelt’s address lay the challenge to Mr. Willkie and in that language the 1940 Presidential campaign was joined. The campaign was on.

But Mr. Roosevelt, too, declared war on poverty, suffering and ill health in an affirmation in general of the First and Second New Deal and he said you could call all of it reform or social legislation what you will. He is carrying on.

Roosevelt Hears Cheers

All of the thousands in the stadium sat silent while Mr. Roosevelt spoke and gave him a few minutes of cheering when he had finished. He could hear them on his White House radio. The battle was over but while it lasted it was hot.

The dissidents organized in early afternoon yesterday to block Mr. Wallace’s nomination. Secretary of Commerce Harry L. Hopkins, the ex-amateur politician who ran the convention from the Blackstone Hotel under constant direction from Washington, had let it be known that Mr. Wallace was Mr. Roosevelt’s man.

Mr. Farley turned to Federal Loan Administrator Jesse Jones. The Bankhead-for-Vice-President movement would not down. Finally half a dozen or more were placed in nomination, but most of them came storming to the platform to say, “No.” The word was out hereabouts that balking at the Wallace nomination would not be good politics.

McNutt Withdraws

Federal Security Administrator Paul V. McNutt, who turned out to have a hoarse and noisy following and a better-than-just-good chance for the nomination if the White House had let him start to run, was first into the bombproof. He got out when word came from Mr. Hopkins.

But he was put in nomination, anyway, and the crowd, mostly in the galleries, whooped itself headachy trying to prevent him from shouting into the tumult that did not want to run.

Speaker William B. Bankhead was put up first and he ended with 329 and a fraction votes to Mr. Wallace’s 627 and a fraction.

There was real steam behind Mr. Bankhead and many a vote cast for him was preceded by some such remark as “a real Democrat.” It will not down that Mr. Wallace was an Iowa Republican for years before he became an Iowa New Dealer and a member of the President’s Cabinet, and each time Mr. Wallace was mentioned, directly or indirectly, there were lusty boos.

Mr. McNutt, withdrawal and all, took 66 votes, Senator Alva B. Adams, of Colorado, collected 11.5 on the one and only Vice Presidential roll call.

Mr. Farley, who did not want to be in the race and did not bother to take himself out got eight and from one to five were distributed among Mr. Jones, who also withdrew, and half a dozen others more or less informally nominated or not at all, including Bascom N. Timmons, the Washington correspondent of a group of Texas and other newspapers who was prominent in the lost cause of Garner-for-President and is known around the Capital as an able man and a cat fancier.

All other cat fanciers are second to Mr. Timmons in care of his pets. He regularly has them tended at Johns Hopkins Hospital when they are ill.

The last one there was a huge and ill-bred monster known as Mr. White, or so the short-lived candidate often has said. Timmons got one vote.

Jones Quit Race

The roll call itself was anti-climatic. Mr. Farley heard the steamroller whistle and got his man, Mr. Jones, out of the race at once. He had been in a score of whispering conferences on the platform, trying to erect the anti-Wallace defenses but it was no go. He sat back then and watched the opposition take it on the chin.

Virginia, Massachusetts and other states quarreled over division of their votes and the roll call dragged until the spectators began leaving by the hundreds. But on it went until the last name had been called and the last vote was in. Then and only then it was announced that Mr. Roosevelt would address the convention.

There was reason enough to nominate Mr. Wallace.

Mr. Roosevelt had sent word that he would not talk to the convention last night and might not take the nomination if he did not get his man.

He Can Take It –
TIME PREVENTS WALLACE TALK
…
Vice Presidential Candidates Woo Farmers
…
By Ronald G. Van Tine, United Press Staff Writer

Chicago, July 19 –

The Democratic Vice Presidential nominee – Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace – demonstrated today that he can take it.

Mr. Wallace went to the Democratic National Convention last night with a copy of his acceptance speech in his pocket. He expected to deliver it within an hour or so. It still was in his pocket today. He never delivered it.

Each time a delegate said, “Wallace,” boos and catcalls, as well as cheers, roared through the huge hall.

Farm Vote Wooed

But when the votes were counted. Mr. Wallace was the victor. He went on the Democratic ticket against an equally well-known “friend of the farmer” – Senator Charles L. McNary of Oregon, the Republican Vice Presidential nominee. Thus pitted against each other will be the country’s best known exponents of Federal legislation to assist the farmer.

Mr. McNary’s record throughout his service in Congress is studded with sponsorship of farm legislation, including the McNary-Haugen bill, twice passed by Congress and twice vetoed by Presidents Coolidge and Hoover.

Mr. Wallace, son of the Republican Secretary of Agriculture, Henry C. Wallace, under President Harding, came on the national scene when farm aid legislation got a more sympathetic reception.

Mrs. Wallace There

Some elements of the McNary-Haugen “export debenture” plan have been put into effect by New Deal Congresses, along with the “Triple A” program of farm benefits and farm conservation enacted during the Roosevelt Administration and administered by the Department of Agriculture under Mr. Wallace.

Mr. Wallace hastily prepared a speech before leaving his hotel for the convention hall last night. He knew President Roosevelt had picked him as his running mate. So did Mrs. Wallace. She flew from Des Moines, Ia., to be present for the nomination.

Wallace Still Smiles

The Iowa-born Cabinet officer, hair rumpled, suit unpressed, sat for hours under the glare of Klieg lights on the speaker’s’ platform waiting to accept. When the boos were loudest, his smile seemed broadest.

Mr. Wallace was scheduled to speak immediately after Mr. Roosevelt’s radio address.

But Democratic National Committeemen told him he probably would get a cool reception – the crowd, particularly the gallery, but not the votes, was going for Speaker of the House William B. Bankhead and Federal Security Administrator Paul V. McNutt. Mr. Wallace was said to have replied that he wouldn’t mind.

Mr. Wallace’s staff said that “it was getting late and the crowd was tired” – so the boss didn’t speak.

New Deal In Command

Bankhead supporters put up a strong fight, but New Deal chieftains, operating under the shrewd direction of Senator James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, overwhelmed them.

Mr. Byrnes, aided by Edward J. Flynn, New York, was all over the stadium, keeping Wallace votes in line.

Mr. McNutt, the first to climb on the third-term bandwagon, got the night’s biggest ovation. And he wasn’t a candidate for anything. His Presidential boom had collapsed long ago; his Vice Presidential aspirations fell before the President’s insistence upon Mr. Wallace.

The crowd wouldn’t let him speak for nearly 10 minutes. Each time he opened his mouth, there was a new outburst of cheers. He finally convinced most of the delegates that he didn’t want their votes.

Alabama Stands Firm

Mr. Bankhead wanted votes and his managers worked hard to get them. When the word went out early yesterday that “Wallace is in,” Mr. Bankhead conferred with his brother, Senator John H. Bankhead, and Senator Lister Hill, who had placed Mr. Roosevelt’s name in nomination.

New Deal leaders attempted to persuade Alabama, first state on the roll call, to yield to Iowa, so Mr. Wallace could get the pole position. Bankhead forces were fighting though, and Alabama nominated its favorite son.

Mr. Wallace said after his nomination that he would go home to Des Moines for a vacation before returning to Washington. He indicated that his formal acceptance speech would be delivered in Des Moines, but no date for it has been set.

McNutt’s a Hero, President Admits
Chicago, July 19 (Scripps-Howard Alliance) –

Paul V. McNutt emerged from Democratic National Convention today as a political hero and martyr and was so cited by President Roosevelt.

When the convention adjourned at 1 a.m. and Mr. McNutt returned for a final visit to his hotel headquarters, the White House was on the phone.

It was Miss Marguerite LeHand, the President’s personal secretary, who told him he was “just grand” and then turned the wire over to the President.

Mr. Roosevelt voiced unstinted praise for Mr. McNutt’s conduct, calling him a good soldier who performed his duty in a grand manner and who put loyalty to his commander-in-chief above all personal consideration.

On Behalf of Her Husband –
Mrs. Roosevelt Appeals To Delegates’ Patriotism
Chicago, July 19 (UP) –

A women stood before 50,000 persons last night and delivered a simple appeal to patriotism in behalf of her husband.

Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke quietly and seriously. The hot and weary Democrats caught her mood of gravity and fell into unsmiling silence, in strong contrast to their earlier mood of argument and jubilance.

Delegates to the convention, visitors, friends: It is a great pleasure for me to be here and to have an opportunity to say a word to you.

First of all, I think I want to say a word to our National Chairman, James A. Farley. For many years I have worked under Jim Farley and with Jim Farley, and I think nobody could appreciate more what he has done for the party, what he has given in work and loyalty. And I want to give him here my thanks and devotion.

And now, I think that I should say to you that I cannot possibly bring you a message from the President because he will give you his own message. But, as I am here, I want you to know that no one could not be conscious of the confidence which you have expressed in him.

I know and you know that any man who is in an office of great responsibility today faces a heavier responsibility, perhaps, than any man has ever faced before in this country. Therefore, to be a candidate of either great political party is a very serious and solemn thing.

You cannot treat it as you would treat an ordinary nomination in an ordinary time. We people in the United States have got to realize today that we face a grave and serious situation.

Therefore, this year the candidate who is the President of the United States cannot make a campaign in the usual sense of the word. He must be on his job.

So each and every one of you who give him this responsibility, in giving it to him assume for yourselves a very grave responsibility because you will make the campaign. You will have to rise above considerations which are narrow and partisan.

You must know that this is the time when all good men and women give every bit of service and strength to their country that they have to give. This is the time when it is the United States that we fight for, the domestic policies that we have established as a party that we must believe in, that we must carry forward, and in the world we have a position of great responsibility.

We cannot tell from day to day what may come. This is no ordinary time. No time for weighing anything except what we can do best for the country as a whole, and that responsibility rests on each and every one of us as individuals.

No man who is a candidate or who is President can carry this situation alone. This is only carried by a united people who love their country and who will live for it to the fullest of their ability, with the highest ideals, with a determination that their party shall be absolutely devoted to the good of the nation as a whole and to doing what this country can to bring the world to a safer and happier condition.

Previous to her appearance on the rostrum, she sat among the distinguished guests on the platform. On her right was her son, Franklin Jr., and on her left was Mrs. Henry A. Wallace, wife of the nominee for Vice President. Both women were dressed in Eleanor blue, Mrs. Roosevelt’s hat was navy, and Mrs. Wallace’s was white.

As the heat in the hall got worse, they fanned themselves with the free fans provided by various campaigners. Mrs. Roosevelt’s read “Roosevelt and Humanity,” and was red, white and blue.

Mrs. Wallace’s read “Discover Puerto Rico” – and Franklin kept his “Wheeler for President” fan whipping up a stiff breeze.

Many Greet Her

They followed the activities closely. Now and again a friend broke their concentration – Miss Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor and close friend of the Roosevelts, sat behind them, and Ann Farley, Jim Farley’s youngest daughter, stopped for a moment.

The chairman of the convention, Speaker William B. Bankhead, put down his gavel shortly after the First Lady’s entrance and came back to shake hands warmly – and Mr. Farley was constantly leaving his seat on the rostrum to chat with Mrs. Roosevelt and her son.

Mrs. Wallace arrived at the convention with no fanfare. Few of the delegates had any idea of her presence. Only that morning she had telephoned a friend to say that she definitely would not go. When her husband phoned her at noon, she changed her mind.

Speak? ‘My Goodness, No’

Though it’s Mrs. Wallace’s first experience in such a large crowd, she carried herself with dignity and graciousness. When asked if she replied, startled:

Oh, my goodness, no! I hope not.

The two “running mates” left the hall together, as soon after the President’s radio broadcast as possible. Escorted by Franklin, whose tie was awry, his collar unbuttoned, they got into a waiting limousine and whizzed through the crowded streets followed by the echo of two police sirens.

Mrs. Wallace went to her husband’s hotel suite but Mrs. Roosevelt, with her usual numerous engagements, and her son headed for the airport, where they took the same plane back to New York that had flown then here yesterday afternoon.

It was almost 2 a.m. and “her day” was not yet finished.

Donkey Decides to Balk –
Wrangling Democrats Boo As Wallace Garners Votes
…
Ohio Delegates ‘Panics’ Convention With Hilarious Belligerency; McNutt Was ‘People’s Choice’ But Administration Had Control
…
By William H. Lawrence, United Press Staff Writer

Chicago, July 19 –

Democrats wound up their 1940 convention early today with a roaring political cat-and-dog fight which delayed for three and a half hours a message from the White House, from the man they had drafted to seek a third term.

It ended in victory for Mr. Roosevelt in the selection of a former Republican, Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, as the Democratic nominee for Vice President. Southern Democrats, to whom party switching is a cardinal sin, didn’t like it, but they consented to make it unanimous.

The galleries, packed with some 27,000 spectators, loved it all – but most of all they liked tall, handsome Paul V. McNutt and he was mad because they did.

Boss Wanted Wallace

This last session of the convention began at 7:33 p.m. yesterday and adjourned sine die at 1:05 a.m. (CST) today. It was supposed to be “tin the bag,” a quick first ballot nomination of Mr. Wallace, completed in time for Mr. Roosevelt to address the convention and the nation by radio from Washington at 9 p.m.

The word went out in mid-morning that Mr. Roosevelt wanted Mr. Wallace. Southern Democrats, including the vigorous anti-New Dealers, were furious. They wanted Speaker William B. Bankhead, Federal Loan Administrator Jesse Jones, Senator James F. Byrnes, or almost anyone except a former Republican and 100 per cent New Dealer.

Of a dozen candidates, all except Mr. Bankhead, declared themselves out of the race.

[NormanStewart]

Alabama Stands Fast

The afternoon session was perfunctory but the anti-Wallace crowd was busily organizing the opposition.

The night session began with Chairman Alben W. Barkley ordering the clerk to call the roll of states.

New Dealers had hoped that Alabama would drop its favorite son, Speaker Bankhead, and yield so Iowa could nominate Mr. Wallace.

Alabama didn’t yield. Representative Henry Steagall, Mr. Bankhead’s colleague, stepped to the microphone at 7:56 p.m. and put his man into the race to the dismay of the Roosevelt managers and the joy of the anti-Wallace delegates who whooped it up.

Jesse Jones was offered next by Howard Bruce of Maryland, after Arizona yielded. There was no demonstration.

Then came the time for the Roosevelt men. Frank O’Connor of Dubuque, Ia., nominated his neighbor, Mr. Wallace, but the demonstration didn’t jell. When Mr. O’Connor concluded, the organist, whose efforts are an important part of getting up enthusiasm, was not on the job. The bands played too softly. The galleries booed.

McNutt Cheered

Senator Alva B. Adams of Colorado was next and there was little enthusiasm.

But the galleries went wild a moment later when Speaker Don Welch of the Oklahoma State Legislature offered Federal Security Administrator McNutt – who had steadfastly refused to give his consent to his name being offered because Mr. Roosevelt wanted Mr. Wallace.

Mr. McNutt rushed to the platform while Mr. Welch was speaking, but when he concluded, the band struck up “Indiana” and the galleries roared and the delegates poured into the aisles.

Tall white-haired Mr. McNutt strode to the front of the platform. His chin was set firmly and he was frowning.

The delegates knew what he wanted to do – and they would have no part of it. He started to speak, and the crowd roared so loud he could not be heard. Women delegates screamed, “McNutt, McNutt,” and red-haired Gov. Leon C. Phillips of Oklahoma yelled: “Don’t do it, Paul.”

McNutt Angered

It was the most extraordinary demonstration of approval that this convention had given to any man – including Mr. Roosevelt – but Mr. McNutt frowned and was angry. He was the good soldier, obeying his commander’s orders. Chairman Barkley tried to get order, but without avail. Mr. McNutt pleaded with the delegates to listen, but the crowd thundered “no.” Finally, he shouted loud enough for the crowd to hear:

I want to express my eternal gratitude. We must have leaders who have demonstrated what they can do and what they will do – men who have been through the fires and have come out true and proven leaders.

We have such a leader in Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is my commander-in-chief. I follow his wishes and I am here to support his choice for Vice President. I therefore ask in all sincerity that my name be withdrawn…

There were cries of “No!” Many booed.

Mrs. Roosevelt There

During all this time, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt had walked onto the stage almost unnoticed. She had flown here from New York in a chartered plane. Mr. McNutt stopped to chat with Mrs. Roosevelt and patted her son, Franklin D. Jr., on the back. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins sat nearby.

Mr. Wallace smiled at each chorus of boos for his name. He had a copy of an acceptance speech in his pocket – an address, incidentally, which he never delivered. Mrs. Wallace made her first airplane trip – from Des Moines – to join him there, midway in the nominating speeches.

Senator Prentiss M. Brown of Michigan was nominated next, and Ohio passed, although a delegate-at-large from that state dashed to the platform demanding to make a nominating speech. None of the officials knew him, but they found out.

Jesse Jones got recognition next and he withdrew and protests from the anti-Wallace delegates.

Chairman Barkley announced that he understood some Ohio delegate wanted to make a nominating speech, and the man who had been forced off the platform by police, stood up and identified himself as Francis W. Durbin of Lima. He wanted to make a nomination. Chairman Farley said, “go ahead.” Mr. Durbin belligerently demanded the platform.

A six-foot, 200-pound giant, he jerked off his coat, exposing a perspiration-soaked shirt. His name was Durbin, he said, and the convention ought to cheer Mayor Edward J. Kelly of Chicago, whose police had just ejected him. The convention did. Mr. Durbin then endorsed the Illinois Democratic ticket, and so did the convention with cheers.

But He Wasn’t Through

Bascom N. Timmons, 50, Washington newspaper publisher.

Then he nominated a Washington newspaper publisher, Bascom Timmons, and the press gallery held up signs, “Win with Tim,” upside down. But he also nominated Charles Sawyer, Ohio National Committeeman, and then appealed to Mr. Roosevelt as though the President was before him, not to stand by Mr. Wallace, but to back either Mr. Timmons or Jim Farley. The delegates roared with laughter.

The nominating roll call ended a few minutes later, and Chairman Barkley introduced Mrs. Roosevelt before calling for a vote, the outcome of which then was most uncertain.

Mrs. Roosevelt was the common denominator for Democrats of every faction. Everybody cheered her. She appealed for non-partisan action in a time of world crisis – and that obviously included nominating ex-Republican Wallace for Vice President. It seemed to sober the convention.

Polls Demanded

The clerk began to call the roll. The crowd then began cheering Bankhead votes, and booing Wallace votes. The roll call went on, and a fist fight broke out in the Pennsylvania delegation. Some of the big states – Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio and Texas – passed. Virginia cast 22 votes for Mr. Bankhead, and a delegate disputed the vote. This forced a poll of the delegation – a long and tedious procedure, because some of the Virginia delegates had only one-fourth of a vote. The poll showed the same result – 22 votes for Mr. Bankhead.

Wisconsin and Massachusetts also had to be polled, but when the roll call was over, Mr. Wallace had 627.7 votes, and it only took 551 to nominate.

Roosevelt Speaks

Mr. Roosevelt’s man was in. Then the states, led by Kentucky, began to switch from Mr. Bankhead and other candidates, and the Speaker’s brother, Senator John Bankhead, went to the microphone to ask the convention to make Mr. Wallace’s nomination unanimous. The convention approved his motion, but with dissenting votes.

There were a few routine motions, and then Mr. Barkley announced that Mr. Roosevelt was ready to address the convention by radio from Washington. He asked the delegates to listen in silence, because the President could not hear them.

When he finished, the delegates leaped to their feet cheering, and they joined in singing “God Bless America.” Microphones carried their demonstration back to the White House where Mr. Roosevelt sat near a radio.

A few more routine motions, and Mr. Byrnes offered the sine die motion at 1:05 a.m. (CST).

The delegates whooped once more, and the Democratic Convention of 1940 was over.

[NormanStewart]

ADDRESS OF ROOSEVELT ACCEPTING NOMINATION
…
President Regards Third Term Race as Personal Call to Service Of the United States
…
Washington, July 19 –

President Roosevelt, answering his party’s nomination for a third term in the White House, said early today that he cannot turn his back upon a call to service.

The President said in a radio address to the Democratic National Convention that if the American people accept his party’s verdict and draft him for four more years in the Presidency, he will, “with God’s help, continue to serve with the best of my ability and the fullness of my strength.”

He gave his fateful answer to his party and the nation a few minutes after the convention had nominated Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace as his running mate for the 1940 campaign.

Members of the Convention — my friends:

It is very late; but I have felt that you would rather that I speak to you now than wait until tomorrow.

It is with a very full heart that I speak tonight. I must confess that I do so with mixed feelings—because I find myself, as almost everyone does sooner or later in his lifetime, in a conflict between deep personal desire for retirement on the one hand, and that quiet, invisible thing called “conscience” on the other.

Because there are self-appointed commentators and interpreters who will seek to misinterpret or question motives, I speak in a somewhat personal vein; and I must trust to the good faith and common sense of the American people to accept my own good faith—and to do their own interpreting.

When, in 1936, I was chosen by the voters for a second time as President, it was my firm intention to turn over the responsibilities of Government to other hands at the end of my term. That conviction remained with me. Eight years in the Presidency, following a period of bleak depression, and covering one world crisis after another, would normally entitle any man to the relaxation that comes from honorable retirement.

During the spring of 1939, world events made it clear to all but the blind or the partisan that a great war in Europe had become not merely a possibility but a probability, and that such a war would of necessity deeply affect the future of this nation.

When the conflict first broke out last September, it was still my intention to announce clearly and simply, at an early date, that under no conditions would I accept reelection. This fact was well known to my friends, and I think was understood by many citizens.

It soon became evident, however, that such a public statement on my part would be unwise from the point of view of sheer public duty. As President of the United States, it was my clear duty, with the aid of the Congress, to preserve our neutrality, to shape our program of defense, to meet rapid changes, to keep our domestic affairs adjusted to shifting world conditions, and to sustain the policy of the Good Neighbor.

It was also my obvious duty to maintain to the utmost the influence of this mighty nation in our effort to prevent the spread of war, and to sustain by all legal means those governments threatened by other governments which had rejected the principles of democracy.

Swiftly moving foreign events made necessary swift action at home and beyond the seas. Plans for national defense had to be expanded and adjusted to meet new forms of warfare. American citizens and their welfare had to be safeguarded in many foreign zones of danger. National unity in the United States became a crying essential in the face of the development of unbelievable types of espionage and international treachery.

Every day that passed called for the postponement of personal plans and partisan debate until the latest possible moment. The normal conditions under which I would have made public declaration of my personal desires were wholly gone.

And so, thinking solely of the national good and of the international scene, I came to the reluctant conclusion that such declaration should not be made before the national Convention. It was accordingly made to you within an hour after the permanent organization of this Convention.

Like any other man, I am complimented by the honor you have done me. But I know you will understand the spirit in which I say that no call of Party alone would prevail upon me to accept reelection to the Presidency.

The real decision to be made in these circumstances is not the acceptance of a nomination, but rather an ultimate willingness to serve if chosen by the electorate of the United States. Many considerations enter into this decision.

During the past few months, with due Congressional approval, we in the United States have been taking steps to implement the total defense of America. I cannot forget that in carrying out this program I have drafted into the service of the nation many men and women, taking them away from important private affairs, calling them suddenly from their homes and their businesses. I have asked them to leave their own work, and to contribute their skill and experience to the cause of their nation.

I, as the head of their Government, have asked them to do this. Regardless of party, regardless of personal convenience, they came—they answered the call. Every single one of them, with one exception, has come to the nation’s Capital to serve the nation.

These people, who have placed patriotism above all else, represent those who have made their way to what might be called the top of their professions or industries through their proven skill and experience.

But they alone could not be enough to meet the needs of the times.

Just as a system of national defense based on man power alone, without the mechanized equipment of modern warfare, is totally insufficient for adequate national defense, so also planes and guns and tanks are wholly insufficient unless they are implemented by the power of men trained to use them.

Such man power consists not only of pilots and gunners and infantry and those who operate tanks. For every individual in actual combat service, it is necessary for adequate defense that we have ready at hand at least four or five other trained individuals organized for non-combat services.

Because of the millions of citizens involved in the conduct of defense, most right thinking persons are agreed that some form of selection by draft is as necessary and fair today as it was in 1917 and 1918.

Nearly every American is willing to do his share or her share to defend the United States. It is neither just nor efficient to permit that task to fall upon any one section or any one group. For every section and every group depend for their existence upon the survival of the nation as a whole.

Lying awake, as I have, on many nights, I have asked myself whether I have the right, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to call on men and women to serve their country or to train themselves to serve and, at the same time, decline to serve my country in my own personal capacity, if I am called upon to do so by the people of my country.

In times like these—in times of great tension, of great crisis-the compass of the world narrows to a single fact. The fact which dominates our world is the fact of armed aggression, the fact of successful armed aggression, aimed at the form of Government, the kind of society that we in the United States have chosen and established for ourselves. It is a fact which no one longer doubts -which no one is longer able to ignore.

It is not an ordinary war. It is a revolution imposed by force of arms, which threatens all men everywhere. It is a revolution which proposes not to set men free but to reduce them to slavery—to reduce them to slavery in the interest of a dictatorship which has already shown the nature and the extent of the advantage which it hopes to obtain.

That is the fact which dominates our world and which dominates the lives of all of us, each and every one of us. In the face of the danger which confronts our time, no individual retains or can hope to retain, the right of personal choice which free men enjoy in times of peace. He has a first obligation to serve in the defense of our institutions of freedom—a first obligation to serve his country in whatever capacity his country finds him useful.

Like most men of my age, I had made plans for myself, plans for a private life of my own choice and for my own satisfaction, a life of that kind to begin in January, 1941. These plans, like so many other plans, had been made in a world which now seems as distant as another planet. Today all private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger. In the face of that public danger all those who can be of service to the Republic have no choice but to offer themselves for service in those capacities for which they may be fitted.

Those, my friends, are the reasons why I have had to admit to myself, and now to state to you, that my conscience will not let me turn my back upon a call to service.

The right to make that call rests with the people through the American method of a free election. Only the people themselves can draft a President. If such a draft should be made upon me, I say to you, in the utmost simplicity, I will, with God’s help, continue to serve with the best of my ability and with the fullness of my strength.

To you, the delegates of this Convention, I express my gratitude for the selection of Henry Wallace for the high office of Vice President of the United States. His first-hand knowledge of the problems of Government in every sphere of life and in every single part of the nation—and indeed of the whole world—qualifies him without reservation. His practical idealism will be of great service to me individually and to the nation as a whole.

And to the Chairman of the National Committee, the Postmaster General of the United States—my old friend Jim Farley-I send, as I have often before and shall many times again, my most affectionate greetings. All of us are sure that he will continue to give all the leadership and support that he possibly can to the cause of American democracy.

In some respects, as I think my good wife suggested an hour or so ago—the next few months will be different from the usual national campaigns of recent years.

Most of you know how important it is that the President of the United States in these days remain close to the seat of Government. Since last Summer I have been compelled to abandon proposed journeys to inspect many of our great national projects from the Alleghenies to the Pacific Coast.

Events move so fast in other parts of the world that it has become my duty to remain either in the White House itself or at some near-by point where I can reach Washington and even Europe and Asia by direct telephone—where, if need be, I can be back at my desk in the space of a very few hours. And in addition, the splendid work of the new defense machinery will require me to spend vastly more time in conference with the responsible administration heads under me. Finally, the added task which the present crisis has imposed also upon the Congress, compelling them to forego their usual adjournment, calls for constant cooperation between the Executive and Legislative branches, to the efficiency of which I am glad indeed now to pay tribute.

I do expect, of course, during the coming months to make my usual periodic reports to the country through the medium of press conferences and radio talks. I shall not have the time or the inclination to engage in purely political debate. But I shall never be loath to call the attention of the nation to deliberate or unwitting falsifications of fact, which are sometimes made by political candidates.

I have spoken to you in a very informal and personal way. The exigencies of the day require, however, that I also talk with you about things which transcend any personality and go very deeply to the roots of American civilization.

Our lives have been based on those fundamental freedoms and liberties which we Americans have cherished for a century and a half. The establishment of them and the preservation of them in each succeeding generation have been accomplished through the processes of free elective Government—the democratic-republican form, based on the representative system and the coordination of the executive, the legislative and the judicial branches.

The task of safeguarding our institutions seems to me to be twofold. One must be accomplished, if it becomes necessary, by the armed defense forces of the nation. The other, by the united effort of the men and women of the country to make our Federal and State and local Governments responsive to the growing requirements of modern democracy.

There have been occasions, as we remember, when reactions in the march of democracy have set in, and forward-looking progress has seemed to stop.

But such periods have been followed by liberal and progressive times which have enabled the nation to catch up with new developments in fulfilling new human needs. Such a time has been the past seven years. Because we had seemed to lag in previous years, we have had to develop, speedily and efficiently, the answers to aspirations which had come from every State and every family in the land.

We have sometimes called it social legislation; we have sometimes called it legislation to end the abuses of the past; we have sometimes called it legislation for human security; and we have sometimes called it legislation to better the condition of life of the many millions of our fellow citizens, who could not have the essentials of life or hope for an American standard of living.

Some of us have labeled it a wider and more equitable distribution of wealth in our land. It has included among its aims, to liberalize and broaden the control of vast industries—lodged today in the hands of a relatively small group of individuals of very great financial power.

But all of these definitions and labels are essentially the expression of one consistent thought. They represent a constantly growing sense of human decency, human decency throughout our nation.

This sense of human decency is happily confined to no group or class. You find it in the humblest home. You find it among those who toil, and among the shopkeepers and the farmers of the nation. You find it, to a growing degree, even among those who are listed in that top group which has so much control over the industrial and financial structure of the nation. Therefore, this urge of humanity can by no means be labeled a war of class against class. It is rather a war against poverty and suffering and ill-health and insecurity, a war in which all classes are joining in the interest of a sound and enduring democracy.

I do not believe for a moment, and I know that you do not believe either, that we have fully answered all the needs of human security. But we have covered much of the road. I need not catalogue the milestones of seven years. For every individual and every family in the whole land know that the average of their personal lives has been made safer and sounder and happier than it has ever been before. I do not think they want the gains in these directions to be repealed or even to be placed in the charge of those who would give them mere lip-service with no heart service.

Yes, very much more remains to be done, and I think the voters want the task entrusted to those who believe that the words “human betterment” apply to poor and rich alike.

And I have a sneaking suspicion too, that voters will smile at charges of inefficiency against a Government which has boldly met the enormous problems of banking, and finance and industry which the great efficient bankers and industrialists of the Republican Party left in such hopeless chaos in the famous year 1933.

But we all know that our progress at home and in the other American nations toward this realization of a better human decency—progress along free lines— is gravely endangered by what is happening on other continents. In Europe, many nations, through dictatorships or invasions, have been compelled to abandon normal democratic processes. They have been compelled to adopt forms of government which some call “new and efficient.”

They are not new, my friends, they are only a relapse—a relapse into ancient history. The omnipotent rulers of the greater part of modern Europe have guaranteed efficiency, and work, and a type of security.

But the slaves who built the pyramids for the glory of the dictator Pharaohs of Egypt had that kind of security, that kind of efficiency, that kind of corporative state.

So did the inhabitants of that world which extended from Britain to Persia under the undisputed rule of the proconsuls sent out from Rome.

So did the henchmen, the tradesmen, the mercenaries and the slaves of the feudal system which dominated Europe a thousand years ago.

So did the people of those nations of Europe who received their kings and their government at the whim of the conquering Napoleon.

Whatever its new trappings and new slogans, tyranny is the oldest and most discredited rule known to history. And whenever tyranny has replaced a more human form of Government it has been due more to internal causes than external. Democracy can thrive only when it enlists the devotion of those whom Lincoln called the common people. Democracy can hold that devotion only when it adequately respects their dignity by so ordering society as to assure to the masses of men and women reasonable security and hope for themselves and for their children.

We in our democracy, and those who live in still unconquered democracies, will never willingly descend to any form of this so-called security of efficiency which calls for the abandonment of other securities more vital to the dignity of man. It is our credo-unshakable to the end—that we must live under the liberties that were first heralded by Magna Carta and placed into glorious operation through the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

The Government of the United States for the past seven years has had the courage openly to oppose by every peaceful means the spread of the dictator form of Government. If our Government should pass to other hands next January-untried hands, inexperienced hands—we can merely hope and pray that they will not substitute appeasement and compromise with those who seek to destroy all democracies everywhere, including here.

I would not undo, if I could, the efforts I made to prevent war from the moment it was threatened and to restrict the area of carnage, down to the last minute. I do not now soften the condemnation expressed by Secretary Hull and myself from time to time for the acts of aggression that have wiped out ancient liberty-loving, peace-pursuing countries which had scrupulously maintained neutrality. I do not recant the sentiments of sympathy with all free peoples resisting such aggression, or begrudge the material aid that we have given to them. I do not regret my consistent endeavor to awaken this country to the menace for us and for all we hold dear.

I have pursued these efforts in the face of appeaser fifth columnists who charged me with hysteria and war-mongering. But I felt it my duty, my simple, plain, inescapable duty, to arouse my countrymen to the danger of the new forces let loose in the world.

So long as I am President, I will do all I can to insure that that foreign policy remain our foreign policy.

All that I have done to maintain the peace of this country and to prepare it morally, as well as physically, for whatever contingencies may be in store, I submit to the judgment of my countrymen. We face one of the great choices of history.

It is not alone a choice of Government by the people versus dictatorship.

It is not alone a choice of freedom versus slavery.

It is not alone a choice between moving forward or falling back. It is all of these rolled into one.

It is the continuance of civilization as we know it versus the ultimate destruction of all that we have held dear—religion against godlessness; the ideal of justice against the practice of force; moral decency versus the firing squad; courage to speak out, and to act, versus the false lullaby of appeasement.

But it has been well said that a selfish and greedy people cannot be free.

The American people must decide whether these things are worth making sacrifices of money, of energy, and of self. They will not decide by listening to mere words or by reading mere pledges, interpretations and claims. They will decide on the record—the record as it has been made—the record of things as they are.

The American people will sustain the progress of a representative democracy, asking the Divine Blessing as they face the future with courage and with faith.

[NormanStewart]

Third Term Effort Called an Outrage

Calling the renomination of President Roosevelt an “outrage to American decency,” Congressman Robert J. Corbett last night urged that the voters “give him such a thorough thrashing…that no man ever again will seek a third term.”

Mr. Corbett, a Republican, addressed Allegheny County G.O.P. leaders at an organization meeting at the Pines, Perry Highway.

The Democrats can submit to a dictatorship, but the American people don’t have to…If the American people re-elect this man, whose record consists of failures, then America don’t deserve a democracy.

The organization lauded County Chairman Frank J. Harris for his support of Wendell L. Willkie at the Republican convention and invited both Mr. Willkie and his campaign chairman, Joseph W. Martin of Massachusetts, to speak in Pittsburgh.

British Papers Differ On Nomination Views
London, July 19 (UP) –

British newspapers emphasized widely different aspects of President Roosevelt’s renomination in their editorials today.

The mass circulation, independent conservative Daily Mail in its headline said, “Roosevelt Keeps Free Hand,” but in its editorial, it said:

Mr. Willkie’s comparative youth and vigor and proclaimed American objections to a third term may once more send representatives of the “Grand Old Party” to the White House.

The Times, conservative and regarded as often reflecting the view of official quarters, said:

Delegates at Chicago evidently thought that these are no times to be bound by precedents, however venerable, and that the only thing which matters is to make sure of experience and effective leadership in the troublous days ahead.

The News Chronicle, organ of the Liberal Party, said:

Our own experience teaches us that an election program may be a very inaccurate guide to post-election policy. If President Roosevelt is elected, he will wield immense power and will have considerable power in his interpretation of the “platform.”

The independent Daily Sketch said:

The present condition in the rest of the world compels the United States to break with a tradition which is as old as they are and almost as sacred to them as the Declaration of Independence.

In their comment on Britain’s decision to halt the flow of supplies to China through empire territory, the newspapers inclined to argue that the United States shared blame for what they regarded as a forced move.

The conservative Daily Telegraph and regarded as close to the Foreign Office, said:

This country’s heavy commitments in Europe preclude her at present from pursuing an independent course in the Far East in the absence of that strong support which America alone is in position to render in that quarter.

The Daily Mirror, independent, said:

We cannot take on Japan. Only too true! Particularly if (as we understand) America is inclined not to intervene, however indirectly, by any effective form of pressure in the Far East.

WILLKIE SILENT ON ACCEPTANCE
…
Merely Calls Roosevelt’s Speech ‘Interesting’
…
Colorado Springs, Colo. July 19 –

Wendell L. Willkie, the Republican Presidential nominee, had “no comment” today on the acceptance speech of his Democratic opponent, President Roosevelt.

He heard the President’s speech last night in his characteristic pose – lolling on a couch and surrounded by friends and newspaper reporters. He chuckled occasionally at the President’s phrases. As the President concluded his address, the Republican nominee said:

Very, very interesting.

It was his only remark on Mr. Roosevelt’s speech. He declined also to comment on the selection of Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace as Mr. Roosevelt Vice Presidential running mate.

He had predicted some time ago that Mr. Roosevelt would accept renomination for a third term. He had expressed a desire to run against the President rather than some other Democratic candidate so that the question of perpetuation of the New Deal would be a clean-cut one.

Mr. Willkie went to Denver today to meet with cattlemen of five western states and discuss the Administration’s reciprocal trade treaties. Western cattlemen generally have opposed the treaties as permitting unfavorable competition by South American cattle raisers.

Mr. Willkie also will study sugar producers’ problems when he visits a farm and sugar beet factory at Brighton, Colo. later today.

The Pittsburgh Press (July 19, 1940)

I DARE SAY ―
…
The great American hoax
…
By Florence Fisher Parry

The mystery is solved at last. The answer to the question:

Oh, who will be the nominee?
The question baffles all;
Will it be Franklin or F. D.?
Will Roosevelt get the call?

May Frank D. R. become the choice,
Or Hyde Park’s favorite son?
Will Groton heed the Peepul’s [sic] voice?
Will Harvard make the run?

Oh, will he wear a sailor hat?
Or will the nominee
Be Father of the Fireside Chat?
It’s such a mystery!

(From the Sun Dial)

New York –
By the time this column appears, all will be over, even the shouting. Yes, even the shouting; as strange a specimen of shouting as ever filled an American convention hall. Long after we stilled the radio it still went on; we could hear it from every open window on this street.

A few blocks away, the New York Times band of news was still proclaiming the glad synthetic tidings. Up Harlem way, the streets were jammed with dark devotees singing “Franklin D. Roosevelt Jones.”

There was no register to record the secret feelings of millions of good Democrats all over America – and hundreds of good Democrats assembled at Chicago – and no diagram or graph to indicate what must have been the disappointment of James A. Farley, Cordell Hull and many other sincere Democrats who even more than Mr. Roosevelt’s actual enemies, realize the enormity and danger of the hoax that has been perpetuated upon the American system by the President’s unprecedented abuse of power politics.

The alibi

There are many of us who believe that President Roosevelt’s manipulation of his third term nomination has been affected with a sharp long-range eye upon the history books of the future. What interpretation of his actions may be given by his contemporaries is so little moment to him, compared with what interpretation POSTERITY will place upon them. He will appear to be the unwilling but resigned martyr to a call too overwhelming and united to be resisted. Compared with this gesture of renunciation of all personal desires, the selflessness of the Father of His Country and the humanitarianism of the Great Emancipator will seem orthodox and routine. Unprecedented times will be matched with unprecedented sacrifice; and the First Third Termite is assured a niche in history which will survive the ages.

Posterity might stomach this. But can we? We of this day and hour? We who have been destined to live a generation into which more history has been packed than in any former century? We who have seen the rise of the dark unknowns to devastating power; who have seen the collapse of dynasties, the rape of nations and the toppling of empires, and who have had to expand our capacities of acceptance to embrace ANY eventuality, knowing that ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN NOW – ANYTHING!

To most of us, the President’s sanction to go ahead and “make way with tradition” was not a surprise. We knew it was coming. We would have been given the surprise of our lives if Mr. Roosevelt had “refused” to run. Yet in spite of this general assumption, the actual work of the President came as a shock. It is a tribute to our innate Americanism that in spite of all indications that Mr. Roosevelt was manipulating his own nomination, the fact itself was too much to absorb.

Shocking manipulation

Now it is curious but true that as foreign to our American concept of government as a third term is, it is not the break with precedent and tradition that has shocked us so much as the manner in which the third term nomination was manipulated.

There is a widespread suspicion, gathering in momentum and indignation, that the third term, however spontaneously conceived by the New Deal rank and file, has been taken out of their hands and put into the practiced palms of privy councils and that what was originally meant to be a spontaneous combustion on the part of the people, has been secretly maneuvered, shaped and polished in the White House itself.

This has resulted in a most unfortunate boomerang. The White House has outsmarted itself, in its effort to give the history books an innocent chapter on the First Third Termite.

Now it is quite conceivable that had Abraham Lincoln lived, the enormous task of Reconstruction may have imposed upon him the terrible alternative of breaking with precedent and accepting a third term, or leaving an unfinished term, or leaving an unfinished task with no worthy successor available. But no one could conceive his manipulating the issue behind the secret doors of political device.

This our present President has been guilty of none, not even his closest friends, can in all truth deny it. In consequence, the present Democratic convention will go down in history as the most hypocritical, manipulated and cowed nominating body ever assembled in America!

[NormanStewart]

Who would the TimeGhost Army think be the leader of the free world in 1941? Don’t forget to share your opinions in this poll here.

Election 1940: Presidential Election Poll for TimeGhost Army

[Untitled] The presidential election of 1940 will be one of the most consequential elections in American and probably world history. Now the TimeGhost Army has the chance to decide the leader of the free world in 1941 and openly express opinions. The poll will close the day before the election, November 4 – 22:00 EST. If the presidential election were held today, who would you vote for? poll