The Pittsburgh Press (October 21, 1940)
WILLKIE LIKELY TO GET SUPPORT OF HOME STATE
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Senator Minton’s Pessimism Is Tip-Off to Indiana’s G.O.P. Complexion
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By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard Staff Writer
Indianapolis, Oct. 21 –
Wendell L. Willkie seems to have the edge in the contest for his native state’s 14 electoral votes.
This impression from political soundings is intensified by a tour through Democratic and Republican headquarters here in the Claypool Hotel, where you can find politicians standing about at any hour. Democratic leaders seen the more uneasy.
Symptomatic was the succinct size-up – “It’s a horse race, neck and neck” – made by Senator Sherman Minton, a leading New Dealer whose political future is at stake, as he bit into a sandwich at a headquarters’ office. That’s pessimism – if you know the Senator.
Thousands Undecided
A strain of anxiety runs through both political maps because of the apparent existence of more undecided voters in Indiana than in a long time. Sound observers think the Nov. 5 decision will lie with this undecided group, which some estimate as high as 100,000. Hard and fast forecasts are unwise, therefore, in this most politically-minded state in the Union.
A decisive factor in the end may be the “war issue” – that is, the charge now being injected by Republicans with some subtlety that a vote for President Roosevelt is a vote for war. This has suddenly become a major issue, if not the chief issue.
That this is the most dangerous issue Democrats have to meet in the final two weeks is conceded by Senator Minton and Fred F. Bays, Democratic State Chairman, and Democrats are devising a line of defense.
Mr. Bays predicts a Democratic victory, though he declines to specify by what majority. In forecasting Republican victory by “a substantial majority,” Republican State Chairman Arch N. Bobbitt says secret polls made recently reveal a Willkie trend among independent or doubtful voters. It appears to be a reversal of the 1932 trend of independents toward President Roosevelt, he said, a trend discovered then by Republicans in the same manner.
This year, as then, he pointed out, many people are not saying publicly how they will vote.
President Roosevelt carried Indiana by 243,404 in 1936, when the vote was Roosevelt 934,974; Landon 691,570.
Democrats Use Radio
Democratic strength is concentrated in this city, in industrial areas in the Southwest and Northwest and among the less prosperous farmers south of here. Lacking support of most newspapers in the state. Democrats are making large use of the radio and are distributing pamphlets and leaflets in snowfall proportions.
As usual Indiana is witnessing the spectacle of the pot calling the kettle black – to wit, two groups of machine politicians, neither with a savory record, throwing mud at each other and each with justification.
Republicans are carrying the dead weight of the old Ku Klux Klan element, which has wormed its way back into the party management. Many Indianans remember with horror the Republican Klan era. This may scare votes from the Republican ticket, and hurt Mr. Willkie, especially among minority and racial groups – Catholics, Jews and Negroes.
Favors Under Fire
Republicans are holding up to scorn the favors of all sorts which have been passed out by the Democratic state machine in recent years. This focuses attention also on the Two Per Cent Clubs – the system of assessing all state employees 2% of their salaries for a political fund.
This scheme splashed into national notice when Paul V. McNutt, former Governor and now Federal Security Administrator, began his campaign for the presidential nomination months ago. The two husky Democratic bosses who were the powers behind the throne in the McNutt regimes and who managed his presidential campaign. Frank McHale and Bowman Elder, are keeping in the background in this campaign in order to minimize this issue, but both are very active behind the scenes.
They are determined to keep the state Democratic if possible, because their eyes – like Mr. McNutt’s – are fastened on 1944.
Republicans are not making too much of the Two Per Cent Club issue. They are being reminded that they had a similar system when they were in power – though the clip was 5% instead of 2% – and they figure that if they return to power they’ll need it again.
Privately they are not taking too seriously the plank in their party platform pledging abolition of the Two Per Cent Clubs, which the Democrats legalized by statute.
In short, Indiana politics is about the same as ever.