Election 1944: Democratic National Convention

[NormanStewart]

Address by Helen Gahagan Douglas, National Committeewoman from California
July 20, 1944

We the people are engaged in an enterprise of freedom. We turn our attention in the midst of a global war to a national election. No nation that had lost any part of freedom could engage in an election No nation, not free, would be having this convention, oh could have held the convention which took place here three weeks ago.

We the people know tonight, proudly and triumphantly, that ours is a free land, and no motivated part of us can tell us otherwise. At this hour our freedom brings high responsibility. The people of America cannot afford to make, a mistake. We cannot afford to endanger our future by: muddy thinking or limited vision.

We are a free people. But freedom is not something that can be inherited – taken from the shoulders of one generation and placed on the shoulders of another. We must earn freedom so that we may prize it – know when it is in jeopardy, for we can lose our freedom not only from without our shores but from within ourselves.

Freedom demands self-discipline, sacrifices and a high choice of leadership. Freedom demands daily intelligence and moral tests of people who would enjoy its glorious blessings. The two-party system is the American device by which those tests are posed most severely for us. We cherish that system. In this year of years, we welcome that test.

Tonight, we will select the man who as President of these United States for the next four years will have greater responsibilities than any other man has ever had.

As Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces the next President will have enormous influence in bringing the war to complete victory. As the head of the nation, charged by the Constitution with the conduct of foreign affairs, he will have more influence on the peace terms than any other person in this world. As Chief Executive he will be required to take the lead in shaping domestic affairs during the period of demobilization and after.

We must not commit the lives and the future of the American people to inexperience and negation.

We must have a man – broad visioned – one who is wholly capable and entirely familiar with the intricate and multitudinous problems that must be met and solved in wartime. We must have a man of high ability to deal with the great problems of diplomacy – to sit with the representatives of the nations of the world on familiar and confident terms. We must choose a humanitarian with practical and proven plans, for insuring a post-war period of high production and equitable distribution.

We the people want no bread lines as a result of the peace we all long for.

We want the man whose every act over twelve years shows that he hates and loathes bread lines with every fiber of his being. We want the man who has taken more concentrated abuse from the few than any other man in American history, because he has refused to consign any part of the American people to poverty.

Here, tonight, we are keenly aware of our men and women on battlefronts all over the world. We have in our hearts the deepest gratitude for their sacrifices.

We are of stern determination to give each and every one of them not just lip service but full opportunity for rehabilitation, for education, for jobs, for advancement, in a full and happy life when this war is over.

We each see our own, you and I, the ones we love best, in relation to this war. There is scarcely a home across the length and breadth of this country that has not been touched by it. But you belittle your son, your daughter, your husband and I belittle my husband and we imperil our children unless’ we see our dear ones now serving overseas in relation to their country, their world, their future.

It is with this future in mind that this convention makes its choice tonight.

We know that this country, mindful of the quickening pulse of social change the world over, will choose a President who will lead us to a fuller and richer life.

We know this because we are the party of the people. The Democratic Party has no interests apart from the interests of the American people. It has no interests apart from the interests of the American soldiers – the millions of American workers – and of American business.

There is no conflict between what the Democratic Party wants and what the majority of the people of America want, for they want the same.

America wanted an efficient army. Ours is the best equipped army ever sent into battle; ours is the best clothed army ever sent into battle; ours is the best cared for army ever sent into battle. The reason is short, simple and clear. This administration has no interests apart from the fighting sons, daughters, fathers and mothers of America.

This is the first of America’s wars in which there has not been a scandalous inflation. This administration has no interest in runaway prices, because the Democratic Party has no interest apart from the people who must pay the prices for food, clothing and shelter.

This administration is the instrument of the people. It has been forged by them in three successive campaigns, as their tool for obtaining what they want – what they need – what they must have in order to live.

The people of America have made the Democratic Party as they have made the railroads and the highways, the bridges and the tall buildings of America. They have made the Democratic Party to conserve their heritage.

The Democratic Party is the true conservative party. We have conserved hope and ambition in the hearts of our people. We are the conservative party. We have conserved the skills of their hands. We have husbanded our natural resources. We have saved millions of homes and farms from foreclosure and conserved the family stake in democracy.

We have rescued banks and trust companies, insured crops and people’s savings. We have built schools. We have checked the flooding rivers and turned them into power.

We have begun a program to free men and women from the constant nagging fear of unemployment, sickness, accident – and the dread of insecure old age.

We have turned a once isolated, flood-ravished, poverty-stricken valley, the home of four and a half million people, into what is now a productive, happy place to live – the Tennessee River Valley.

We have replanted the forest, re-fertilized the soil. Ours is the conservative party.

We have guarded children, protected them by labor laws, planned school-lunch programs, provided clinics. Our is the conservative party.

Ours is the party that has created laws which have given dignity and protection to the working men and women of this country.

Ours is the party that has made the individual aware of the need for his participation in a true democracy. We are the conservative party.

We have conserved the people’s faith in a people’s government – democracy.

Because we are the conservative party, we reject the hazy Republican dream that this country can get along with its government dismantled, its housing programs destroyed, its wage and price controls thrown out the window. The Republican leaders are the dreamers. They have no contact with the people or with the realities of their wants and needs.

Their program is a dream, a nightmare of muddle and confusion. In their bankruptcy they have turned to this dream because they have nothing to offer in their platform except a series of contradictions, and what the Bible calls “wicked imaginations.” What interests us are the dreams of the young men and women of America for jobs, for homes, for families – and we are determined to make these dreams a reality.

It is because the Democratic Party has no ambitions apart from the ambitions of the American people that we disdain to talk to you in contradictory terms or what is known as double-talk.

The Republican candidate has pledged himself to carry to Japan a defeat so crushing and complete that every last man among them will know that he has been beaten.

And at the same time the Republican platform does not indicate by a single line or a single word that there is any need for further war sacrifice.

That is double-talk.

The Republican Party has pledged itself to reduce taxes to the normal expenditures of government as soon as the war ends and also has pledged itself to reduce the national debt. It has not explained how taxes and debt can be so reduced at the same time. That is double-talk.

The Republican Party has pledged itself to support farm prices, but in the same breath tells the farmers that federal subsidies are un-American. That is double-talk. The Republican leadership demands that barriers to world trade be reduced, and also that foreign goods be kept out of this country. And that is double-talk.

The Republican leadership declares that we need vigorous young men in Washington, because of the hard jobs that lie ahead, and it also declares that Washington is going to have nothing to do when this war is over. All government will be returned to the States. And that is double-talk.

The Republican Party declares that it is the party of the Constitution, but its nominee declares that he will not participate in the active management of the war.

This thoughtless and inept argument ignores the fact that our Founding Fathers carefully provided for civilian control of the military as the only possible safeguard of democratic life. The Constitution gave the people the right to elect a civilian Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

Yet the Republican nominee runs for the office of Commander-in-Chief on the solemn pledge that if elected he will not fulfill his duties. That is double-talk.

In the early days of the war, when the choice of the top positions of the Armed Forces had to be made, when the choice of theaters in which to concentrate our effectiveness had to be made, the Republican leaders complained that the war was being managed poorly by our Commander-in-Chief.

Now that we are on the threshold of victory, now that every military fact in the world testifies to the magnificence with which President Roosevelt has performed his duties as Commander-in-Chief, the Republicans have changed their arguments, and their tune is now that the American armies and navies need no Commander-in-Chief and that the war will run itself. And that is more double-talk.

The leadership of the Republican Party, lacking sufficient vision and stature, has made a miserable attempt to discredit President Roosevelt’s work in flying personally to the far places of the world… to sit down with the heads of the British, Chinese and Russian states. These conferences, which have built mutual respect and confidence between our President and other leaders of the United Nations have been the greatest demonstration in history of working unity on the part of the peoples of this world – a unity and understanding that will prove to be the foundation for action to prevent future wars.

The Republican nominee implies that he will participate in no such conferences. He declares that he will delegate the conduct of foreign policy to a secretary whose name we do not even know. It is the President, however, under the American Constitution, who is responsible for foreign policy. He is responsible to the people. Once again, the Republican candidate seeks to divest himself of a duty.

The reason, of course, for the Republican attempt to divest the office of the Presidency of these vital constitutional duties is clear. The Republican leaders realize that the people of America suspect that the Republican candidate is not properly equipped for the tremendous tasks ahead.

The Republican leaders realize that the people of America know that President Roosevelt has shown himself to be equal to such tasks and all emergencies.

The powers of leadership, vision and statesmanship of President Roosevelt are universally recognized.

Whoever becomes President succeeds in doing so because he has won the confidence of a majority of the voters regardless of party. There aren’t enough Democrats to elect a President – nor are there enough Republicans to do so. Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been elected President for three successive terms – and each time the Republicans have helped to put him in office.

The last three elections have shown that the Democratic Party has been the best friend the Republican rank and file voter has ever had: He knows it and he has voted accordingly.

And that, again, is because he knows that the Democratic Party has no secret aspirations of its own – it has no private goals which are different from the goals of the American people.

Every program of our administration has been one for all of America; every bit of social legislation we have favored has been designed to help Americans on the basis of their need.

Never before in American history have the people of both parties been so long united on one man. They have been united in support of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who believes the wealth of a nation is its people; and the people will elect him again because they know that he has no ambition that is not for all of America.

[NormanStewart]

Address by Senator Alben W. Barkley (D-KY)
July 20, 1944

Mr. Chairman, members and guests of the convention:

It has been my privilege to serve you in responsible capacities in three preceding national conventions.

To none of these did I bring a deeper sense of personal pleasure or public duty than that which actuates me on this occasion.

I come to the fulfillment of this assignment not simply a Democrat, but as an American, seeking to promote the welfare of my country and the enduring happiness of her people.

As we assemble here, evil forces stalk across the stage of human affairs whose power must be annihilated lest the whole course of civilization be reversed and mankind be reconsigned to the miseries of total slavery.

In such a posture we must rise above the level of the petty and the inconsequential.

We must look beyond the horizon of temporary expedients and contemplate the larger opportunity and the larger challenge.

Eleven years ago, standing before an eager and distraught multitude, a new President of this republic was heard to say: “This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”

Some of those who listened looked upon it as a handsome figure of speech uttered in the course of an inaugural address.

The speaker perhaps was thinking of our domestic problems chiefly, then in utter chaos and disorder; thinking of the sixteen millions whose feet were treading upon the unresponsive pavements in town and city, seeking work; thinking of the anxious eyes and hungry mouths of women and children; thinking of the toilers in the fields who dare to cope with nature and her seasons to feed and clothe the world; thinking of the incomparably low prices marking the reward of the nation’s farmers; of burned crops and mounting debts and unpaid mortgages, and dried-up credit and broken promises quadrennially made by those who had the power but not the will to keep them.

Perhaps he thought also of the smokeless smokestacks and the silent wheels of industry; of our lost traffic with the nations of the world; of the motionless turbines of out merchant marine, tied up in harbors for lack of cargoes; of the billions lost by innocent investors in the speculative orgy fostered and inspired from the portals of the Treasury by “the greatest Secretary since Alexander Hamilton;” of the collapse of our financial institutions, the loss of other billions of the people’s deposits and the loss of their faith and confidence in these institutions.

In all likelihood he saw the insecurity of old age, the hazards of sickness and unemployment, the sordid record of financial exploitation among our neighbors in the Western world under the alliterative aegis of dollar diplomacy, and the fear and suspicion and hatred that policy had inspired.

He saw the wasting soil reserves washing to the sea; the idle natural resources of the nation unharnessed for the use of man; the devastating floods destroying life and property and uprooting the happiness of whole communities and valleys.

Looking across two oceans, proclaimed by some as the unassailable fortresses of our protection and security, he beheld the beginnings of Japanese aggression in Asia and the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Europe.

Surveying these national and world perplexities, is it strange that this dauntless man uttered the prophetic sentence, “This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny? What a destiny! What a rendezvous!”

Centering his searching mind and great abilities upon our own domestic problems, he restored our financial institutions; strengthened them beyond any previous stability; and rekindled the people’s confidence in them to the end that today they hold larger deposits of their funds than at any other time in their history.

He built anew the basis of agricultural prosperity, restored the farmer’s credit, lowered his interest rates, electrified his homes, lifted a portion of the drudgery from the backs of housewives, organized a program of soil conservation, expanded the field for the use of agricultural products, increased the annual income of farmers by more than 300 per cent, and contributed more to the stability of farm life in America than was ever before accomplished in three times the length of time, if ever at all.

While the war has brought hardships to farm life, those strides made by agriculture under the guidance of this man of whom I speak laid the foundations for the magnificent contributions being made by the farmers and their families to the victory we shall ere long achieve against our enemies and the enemies of all freedom.

In his address from this platform three weeks ago, the Governor of California asserted that under this administration the farmer works all day and keeps books all night.

He paid to this administration an unintentional compliment. For under the administration of its predecessor the farmer worked all day and worked all night and had no books to keep; or, if he kept any at all he made his entries in the crimson liquid of bankruptcy and despair.

Truly enough, he keeps books now, and he makes his entries in the jet-black liquid of cancelled mortgages and saving deposits and improved farms and war bonds.

The man of whom I speak set in motion the machinery for the employment of the idle. In four years, he reduced unemployment from 16 millions to less than ten. And in four more years to less than six millions.

Three weeks ago, from this platform, the nominee of the Republican Convention complained with glee that this administration had not solved completely the unemployment problem.

He should have said with greater frankness that this administration did not create but inherited that problem from the administration of his own political mentor, guide and counselor; that neither that administration nor any of its apologists then or since have ever offered a sane or understandable remedy for the chronic malady which they bequeathed to the American economic system.

In addition to the reduction of unemployment, this Democratic administration gave to labor the boon of collective bargaining, the reassuring balance wheel of minimum wages and maximum hours, the stimulating guarantee of unemployment insurance and compensation, the tardy inauguration of old-age subsistence and the abolition of child labor.

Under the driving power of the head of this administration, the market for securities was made a safe and honest place for the transaction of business, and the small home owner was saved from eviction and enabled to preserve the tradition of his vine and fig tree.

For the sordid emblem of the dollar on the escutcheon of our diplomatic relations he substituted the symbol of the good neighbor.

For the log-rolling, corrupt methods of tariff legislation he substituted mutual trade agreements, restoring to a material extent the natural flow of commerce with other nations.

By these and other great measures of similar importance the American people, the American economic system and the American conception and way of life were fortified for the impact of war and the defense of our land.

What will our opponents do with this modern vehicle we have created? They have not said. Having neither the foresight nor the creative genius to conceive or construct it, they now admit the virtue of most of it, but say they could have done it better if they had thought of it and known how.

Their platform looks in all directions and sees nothing. It is like the exhortation of the devout minister who concluded as follows a sermon on “sin”: “I say unto you, brethren, repent of your sins, more or less. Ask forgiveness, in a measure; or you will be damned, to some extent.”

Before this gloomy prospect the baffled intellect must pause and kneel for guidance and direction.

To one intelligent observer it is “the pattern for chaos.” To another it is “the tired old platform.” To nobody is it either the “substance of things hoped for, or the evidence of things unseen.”

Against this nebulous Milky Way, we shall present a record of constructive accomplishment unique in American history.

We shall present a candidate who inspired and guided and drove that record to certain consummation.

We shall present a candidate who not only traveled but constructed the highway which leads to a fuller and happier life.

When the new foundations for this sounder American economy were advancing toward completion, disorder was on its way in other parts oi the world. Fear began to grip the hearts of millions who remembered or learned the tragic horrors of the last world conflict.

The cloud which at first seemed but a fleck upon the rim of heaven grew until it covered the earth with its fore bodings and obscured the sun of man’s hopes for peace and life.

The past rose before us like a nightmare. We heard the sound of preparation and the noise of boisterous drums. We saw hundreds of assemblages and heard the raucous voice of the diabolical agitator across the sea.

In all of this, though the domestic task was yet unfinished, the President of the United States saw the import of the gathering storm and sought to avert it.

Through every channel of diplomacy, every weapon of official and personal persuasion, every resort to logic and reason, he appealed to egocentric and distorted minds to forego the butchery oi another world war, another selfish and ambitious design upon the peace of nations, another reversion to the barbarism of the dark ages, multiplied a thousand times.

And he appealed to his own country not to dwell too, long in a fool’s paradise; not to indulge the fancy that we could be safe from the fires that might consume other peoples. For this foresight and forthrightness, he was denounced as a warmonger, and assailed as the friend of the war profiteer; and he became the object of partisan and personal vilification like unto that from which Washington suffered and which Lincoln endured.

Whose was the voice then that cried from the wilderness? Who became the major prophet – the man who saw and warned the people against approaching danger, or those who fulminated their jeremiads against him because he had the clarity of vision to see and the courage to proclaim our profound interest in the world’s developments?

When the treachery of Pearl Harbor came, we were not ready. The shock of it blasted us from our complacency, as the previous shock of Hitler’s attack on Europe blasted his neighbors out of theirs.

No democracy is ever ready for war at the drop of a hat. That is true of Europe and Asia, no less than of America. And because the people themselves who live in those democracies have not wanted war, because they believed in the good faith of treaties made to prevent war, they were unwilling to believe that war would come or to be ready for it.

Thus happened the world’s narrow escape from complete and bitter subjugation.

But war came nevertheless to Asia, to Europe and to America. And though unready for it when it came, we have gone farther and faster, and with more profound temporary readjustments in our lives than was ever true of any others nation in the whole history of nations.

Our industry, our labor, our agriculture, our finances, our manpower, our homes, yea, the moral and spiritual fiber of a mighty people have all been fused into an irresistible stream whose momentum will drive the war lords of the Nazi and the Nipponese back into the war hatchery from which they were spewed to become the world’s supreme scourge.

We have raised and trained, and through these agencies; have equipped, the ablest fighting force that ever flew the sky, sailed the sea or marched beneath a banner.

In order to pay in part for this titanic effort the American people are paying in taxes into the Treasury of the United States annually six billion dollars more than their total income from all sources in 1932, and have left in their pockets more than a hundred billion dollars with which to buy the bonds of their government and meet the other obligations of a nation and a people.

On all of the battlefronts these efforts, these gifts of blood and treasure, are being justified and sanctified by the incomparable bravery which brings glory everywhere and victory ever nearer to our cause.

But we are told by the nominee of our opponents that those in charge of our government have grown old and tired in office and that they are young and fresh. Life is not measured by figures on a dial. This administration and the Democratic Party have done more for the youth of America than was ever done before by any combination of administrations or political parties.

In this struggle to emancipate humanity, men and women of all ages, political beliefs, religions, races, colors and conditions have the power and the obligation to serve, and they are serving in every imaginable capacity.

None of those who are in charge of the government of the United States are as old as the Old Guard which dominated the convention which met in this place three weeks ago.

The President of the United States has not been the head of this government as long as the Generalissimo has been head of the Chinese government, or as long as Joseph Stalin has been head of the Russian government, or as long as Winston Churchill has held high office in the British government.

Yet with what dismay and consternation would the people of America receive news that any or all of these had been banished from office by the people of their respective countries!

In this hour of tragedy, when the lives of innocent men, women and children all over the world hang in the balance; when blood and treasure beyond calculation are being poured out to save civilization; when hearts and minds and tongues that think and feel and speak in every language cry out for peace and deliverance and the leadership of experience in war and in its aftermath, no birth certificate, whether inscribed on the crisp new page of the latest volume of vital statistics, or whether it is slightly faded from longer use and service, can or will constitute the prime qualification for the Presidency of these United States.

Shakespeare must have had our opponents in mind when he said: “Heat not a furnace for thy foe that it do not singe thyself.”

In their platform, and thus far in their public statements, they have attempted to compromise the convictions of Willkie with the underground of isolationism. They neither take the ground nor abandon it. They neither fly nor light. They hover.

The Democratic Party goes before the American people on its record, and it will not become a fugitive from the truth.

It has pushed outward the frontiers of enterprise, enlarged the boundaries of human endeavor, quickened the spirit of the man who earns his bread by the sweat of his face and opened new routes to the hopes of mankind.

Democracy knows that in a free land there are some things never to be tolerated, and one of them is intolerance.

Democracy must make mistakes. Ours has been no exception to this rule, and we freely admit that we have made them.

But all progress among men is a residuum of a multitude of mistakes. Only through error does man or nation come to know the truth. And how often have we come to realize in this administration that questions once objects of great debate and controversy are now accepted as indisputable facts. We must preserve the continuity of democracy by bringing together the experiences of yesterday and tasks of today and the aspirations of tomorrow.

We know that in our struggle as a people through the years we have kept this ideal before us, and it is our beacon light today.

Though we do not know the day or the hour when it will come, we know that the sum total of all our past and present devotions will bring success to the cause of justice in the war and peace and healing to the souls of men when it is over.

Already we are preparing for the return of our national economy to the practices and conditions of peace.

Already we are laying the solid groundwork for the demobilization of men and materials and plants and for their gainful employment in private enterprise.

Already we have provided for the just and helpful transition of men and women in the service; for the education, rehabilitation and compensation of those who bear the heat of battle and for their dependents; for the reintegration of men and women and industrial and agricultural enterprises into the jobs and activities of post-war readjustments.

We propose to create no economic stalemate which will make it necessary for men and women in the service to march on Washington to petition the government under the Constitution, only to be driven out with the very instruments with which they have saved the nation.

Already the foundations for victory; for a just, honorable and durable peace, and for the organization of the world for peace when its organization for war is no longer needed, have (been set deep m the soil of the United Nations.

Already the American people have made up their minds that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; that it will not seek to avoid its solemn responsibilities in the family of nations, and that it shall pledge its experience, influence, and cooperation to the end that no other generation shall be driven through the slaughterhouse through which this one is passing in order that human liberty may be preserved.

Under whose leadership have these things moved forward to accomplishment?

Under whose leadership? Have we as a nation marched from the valley of depression to the peak of national well-being?

Under whose guiding hand have we made the long journey from military impotence to power unrivalled in human history?

Whose hand has moved the throttle of our productive engine?

Whose touch at the pilot’s wheel has steered our stately ship through the treacherous waters of international controversy and intrigue, and brings us now within sight of the harbor and its impregnable shores?

Whose name among all the millions of dejected and disheartened men and women stands today as the symbol of freedom and deliverance?

I have not always agreed with this man who has been honored beyond his fellows. Though recognizing his more intimate knowledge and greater responsibility, I have on occasion found myself in disagreement with him over the substance or the method of some course of action in which we were concerned. Under similar conditions again I would not feel at liberty to pursue a different course.

But it is one thing to differ from a friend, though he be President, on some course of action that seems fundamental.

It is quite another thing to discard, or seem to discard, a leadership unsurpassed if ever equaled in the annals of American history, or to repudiate a record of achievement in national and international affairs so amazing and successful that his friends proclaim it and his enemies dare not threaten it with destruction.

Like all true believers in liberty, the President fights, and has always fought, not doggedly for opinions but for the right to entertain and express them.

From time to time my views may change. In the light of broader knowledge or modified conditions my opinions may be altered. So may his. We both fight now and have all our lives fought for the right to harbor our opinions, to express and defend them and to change them when convinced of error.

This is the essence of democracy. It was this conception of democracy which made Jefferson the premier among the defenders of freedom of thought, of the press, of education, of speech and religion.

It is this atmosphere of freedom that gives validity to the immortal words of Voltaire to Helvetius: “I wholly disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Because I believe in these eternal truths, and because they have been the sheet anchor of his faith and the guideposts of his conduct in public and in private station, I present to this assembly for the office of President of these United States the name of one who is endowed with the intellectual boldness of Thomas Jefferson, the indomitable courage of Andrew Jackson, the faith and patience of Abraham Lincoln, the rugged integrity of Grover Cleveland, and the scholarly vision of Woodrow Wilson – Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

[NormanStewart]

Address by Vice President Wallace
July 20, 1944

As chairman of the Iowa delegation, I am deeply honored to second the nomination of the greatest living American – Franklin D. Roosevelt. The strength of the Democratic Party has always been the people – plain people like so many of those here in this convention – ordinary folks, farmers, workers and businessmen along main street. Jefferson, Jackson and Woodrow Wilson knew the power of the plain people. All three laid down the thesis that the Democratic Party can win only if and when it is the liberal party.

Now we have come to the most extraordinary election in the history of our country. Three times the Democratic Party has been led to victory by the greatest liberal in the history of the United States. The name Roosevelt is revered in the remotest corners of this earth. The name Roosevelt is cursed only by Germans, Japs and certain American troglodytes.

The first issue which transcends all others is that complete victory be won quickly. Roosevelt, in a world sense, is the most experienced military strategist who has ever been President of the United States. Roosevelt is the only person in the United States who can meet on even terms the other great leaders in discussions of war and peace. The voice of our new world liberalism must carry on.

It is appropriate that Roosevelt should run on the basis of his record as a war leader. He is successfully conducting a war bigger than all the rest of our wars put together. He must finish this job before the nation can breathe in safety. The boys at the front know this better than anyone else.

The future belongs to those who go down the line unswervingly for the liberal principles of both political democracy and economic democracy regardless of race, color or religion. In a political, educational and economic sense there must be no inferior races. The poll tax must go. Equal educational opportunities must come. The future must bring equal wages for equal work regardless of sex or race.

Roosevelt stands for all this. That is why certain people hate him so. That also is one of the outstanding reasons why Roosevelt will be elected for a fourth time.

President Roosevelt has long known that the Democratic Party in order to survive must serve men first and dollars second. That does not mean that the Democratic Party is against business – quite the contrary. But if we want more small businessmen, as the Democratic Party undoubtedly does, we must modify our taxation system to encourage risk capital to invest in all rapidly growing small business.

We want both a taxation system and a railroad rate structure which will encourage new business and the development of the newer industrial regions of the South and West. Rate discrimination must go.

The Democratic Party in convention assembled is about to demonstrate that it is not only a free party but a liberal party. The Democratic Party cannot long survive as a conservative party. The Republican Party has a monopoly on the conservative brains and the conservative dollars. Democrats who try to play the Republican game inside the Democratic Party always find that it just can’t work on a national scale.

In like manner Republicans who try to play the Democratic game inside the Republican Party find that while it may work on a state basis it can never work nationally. I know because my own father tried it. Perhaps Wendell Willkie may have learned in 1944 a little of that which my own father learned in 1924. The old elephant never changes and never forgives.

By nominating Franklin Roosevelt, the Democratic Party is again declaring its faith in liberalism. Roosevelt is a greater liberal today than he has ever been. His soul is pure. The high quality of Roosevelt liberalism will become more apparent as the war emergency passes. The only question ever in Roosevelt’s mind is how best to serve the cause of liberalism in the long run. He thinks big. He sees far.

There is no question about the renomination of President Roosevelt by this convention. The only question is whether the convention and the party workers believe wholeheartedly in the liberal policies for which Roosevelt has always stood.

Our problem is not to sell Roosevelt to the Democratic Convention but to sell the Democratic Party and the Democratic Convention to the people of the United States.

The world is peculiarly fortunate that in times like these the United States should be blessed with a leader of the caliber of Roosevelt. With the spirit of Woodrow Wilson, but avoiding the pitfalls which beset that great statesman, Roosevelt can and will lead the United States in cooperation with the rest of the world toward that type of peace which will prevent World War III. It is this peace for which the mothers and fathers of America hope and work.

Issues that will be with us for a generation – perhaps even for a hundred years – will take form at this convention and at the November election. The Democratic Party and the independent voters will give Roosevelt their wholehearted support because of his record in peace and war.

As head of the Iowa delegation, in the cause of liberalism, and with a prayer for prompt victory in this war, permanent peace and full employment, I give you Franklin D. Roosevelt.

[NormanStewart]

DEMOCRATIC PARTY NOMINATES ROOSEVELT FOR THE FOURTH TIME

Franklin Delano Roosevelt for President!

[NormanStewart]

Address by President Roosevelt Accepting the Democratic Nomination
July 20, 1944, 8:20 p.m. PWT

Delivered from a Pacific Coast naval base

Broadcast audio:

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen of the Convention, my friends:

I have already indicated to you why I accept the nomination that you have offered me – in spite of my desire to retire to the quiet of private life.

You in this Convention are aware of what I have sought to gain for the nation, and you have asked me to continue.

It seems wholly likely that within the next four years our Armed Forces, and those of our allies, will have gained a complete victory over Germany and Japan, sooner or later, and that the world once more will be at peace – under a system, we hope that will prevent a new world war. In an event, whenever that time comes, new hands will then have full opportunity to realize the ideals which we seek.

In the last three elections, the people of the United States have transcended party affiliation. Not only Democrats but also forward-looking Republicans and millions of independent voters have turned to progressive leadership – a leadership which has sought consistently – and with fair success – to advance the lot of the average American citizen who had been so forgotten during the period after the last war. I am confident that they will continue to look to that same kind of liberalism to build our safer economy for the future.

I am sure that you will understand me when I say that my decision, expressed to you formally tonight, is based solely on a sense of obligation to serve if called upon to do so by the people of the United States.

I shall not campaign, in the usual sense, for the office. In these days of tragic sorrow, I do not consider it fitting. And besides, in these days of global warfare, I shall not be able to find the time. I shall, however, feel free to report to the people the facts about matters of concern to them and especially to correct any misrepresentations.

During the past few days, I have been coming across the whole width of the continent, to a naval base where I am speaking to you now from the train.

As I was crossing the fertile lands and the wide plains and the Great Divide, I could not fail to think of the new relationship between the people of our farms and cities and villages and the people of the rest of the world overseas – on the islands of the Pacific, in the Far East, and in the other Americas, in Britain and Normandy and Germany and Poland and Russia itself.

For Oklahoma and California, for example, are becoming a part of all these distant spots as greatly as Massachusetts and Virginia were a part of the European picture in 1778. Today, Oklahoma and California are being defended in Normandy and on Saipan; and they must be defended there – for what happens in Normandy and Saipan vitally affects the security and wellbeing of every human being in Oklahoma and California.

Mankind changes the scope and the breadth of its thought and vision slowly indeed. In the days of the Roman Empire eyes were focused on Europe and the Mediterranean area. The civilization in the Far East was barely known. The American continents were unheard of.

And even after the people of Europe began to spill over to other continents, the people of North America in Colonial days knew only their Atlantic seaboard and a tiny portion of the other Americas, and they turned mostly for trade and international relationship to Europe. Africa, at that time, was considered only as the provider of human chattels. Asia was essentially unknown to our ancestors.

During the 19th century, during that era of development and expansion on this continent, we felt a natural isolation – geographic, economic, and political – an isolation from the vast world which lay overseas.

Not until this generation – roughly this century – have people here and elsewhere been compelled more and more to widen the orbit of their vision to include every part of the world. Yes, it has been a wrench perhaps – but a very necessary one.

It is good that we are all getting that broader vision. For we shall need it after the war. The isolationists and the ostriches who plagued our thinking before Pearl Harbor are becoming slowly extinct. The American people now know that all nations of the world – large and small – will have to play their appropriate part in keeping the peace by force, and in deciding peacefully the disputes which might lead to war.

We all know how truly the world has become one – that if Germany and Japan, for example, were to come through this war with their philosophies established and their armies intact, our own grandchildren would again have to be fighting in their day for their liberties and their lives.

Someday soon we shall all be able to fly to any other part of the world within 24 hours. Oceans will no longer figure as greatly in our physical defense as they have in the past. For our own safety and for our own economic good, therefore – if for no other reason – we must take a leading part in the maintenance of peace and in the increase of trade among all the nations of the world.

And that is why your government for many, many months has been laying plans, and studying the problems of the near future – preparing itself to act so that the people of the United States may not suffer hardships after the war, may continue constantly to improve their standards, and may join with other nations in doing the same. There are even now working toward that end, the best staff in all our history – men and women of all parties and from every part of the nation. I realize that planning is a word which in some places brings forth sneers. But, for example, before our entry into the war it was planning, which made possible the magnificent organization and equipment of the Army and Navy of the United States which are fighting for us and for our civilization today.

Improvement through planning is the order of the day. Even military affairs, things do not stand still. An army or a navy trained and equipped and fighting according to a 1932 model would not have been a safe reliance in 1944. And if we are to progress in our civilization, improvement is necessary in other fields – in the physical things that are a part of our daily lives, and also in the concepts of social justice at home and abroad.

I am now at this naval base in the performance of my duties under the Constitution. The war waits for no elections. Decisions must be made – plans must be laid – strategy must be carried out. They do not concern merely a party or a group. They will affect the daily lives of Americans for generations to come.

What is the job before us in 1944? First, to win the war – to win the war fast, to win it overpoweringly. Second, to form worldwide international organizations, and to arrange to use the armed forces of the sovereign nations of the world to make another war impossible within the foreseeable future. And third, to build an economy for our returning veterans and for all Americans – which will provide employment and provide decent standards of living.

The people of the United States will decide this fall whether they wish to turn over this 1944 job – this worldwide job – to inexperienced or immature hands, to those who opposed Lend-Lease and international cooperation against the forces of aggression and tyranny, until they could read the polls of popular sentiment; or whether they wish to leave it to those who saw the danger from abroad, who met it head-on, and who now have seized the offensive and carried the war to its present stages of success – to those who, by international conferences and united actions have begun to build that kind of common understanding and cooperative experience which will be so necessary in the world to come.

They will also decide, these people of ours, whether they will entrust the task of postwar reconversion to those who offered the veterans of the last war breadlines and apple-selling and who finally led the American people down to the abyss of 1932; or whether they will leave it to those who rescued American business, agriculture, industry, finance, and labor in 1933, and who have already planned and put through much legislation to help our veterans resume their normal occupations in a well-ordered reconversion process.

They will not decide these questions by reading glowing words or platform pledges – the mouthings of those who are willing to promise anything and everything – contradictions, inconsistencies, impossibilities – anything which might snare a few votes here and a few votes there.

They will decide on the record – the record written on the seas, on the land, and in the skies.

They will decide on the record of our domestic accomplishments in recovery and reform since March 4, 1933.

And they will decide on the record of our war production and food production – unparalleled in all history, in spite of the doubts and sneers of those in high places who said it cannot be done.

They will decide on the record of the International Food Conference, of UNRRA, of the International Labor Conference, of the International Education Conference, of the International Monetary Conference.

And they will decide on the record written in the Atlantic Charter, at Casablanca, at Cairo, at Moscow, and at Tehran.

We have made mistakes. Who has not?

Things will not always be perfect. Are they ever perfect, in human affairs?

But the objective at home and abroad has always been clear before us. Constantly, we have made steady, sure progress toward that objective. The record is plain and unmistakable as to that – a record for everyone to read.

The greatest wartime President in our history, after a wartime election which he called the “most reliable indication of public purpose in this country,” set the goal for the United States, a goal in terms as applicable today as they were in 1865 – terms which the human mind cannot improve “with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”

[NormanStewart]

Friday, July 21
12:30 p.m.: Selection of vice-presidential candidate
9:15 p.m.: Final session – Adoption of resolutions of thanks to the host city

The Pittsburgh Press (July 21, 1944)

Wallace-Truman race a tossup as dozen hopefuls are named

Missouri Senator claims 600 first-ballot votes as New York swings to him
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Chicago Stadium, Chicago, Illinois –
Strong-lunged party orators placed a dozen or so vice-presidential candidates in nomination at the Democratic National Convention today while friends of Henry A. Wallace and Senator Harry S. Truman hastily canvassed delegations for first-ballot votes.

The fight for a place on the ticket as President Roosevelt’s 1944 running mate centered around the larger delegations as the New York group, with 96 votes to cast adopted a resolution favoring the Missouri Senator.

By midday, several names had been placed in nomination. The first was Senator John H. Bankhead (D-AL), who was named by Senator Lister Hill a few minutes after the roll call started. The second was Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO) whose name was placed in nomination by Senator Bennett C. Clark when Arizona yielded to Missouri amid a chorus of boos from Wallace supporters.

The third name placed in nomination was that of Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney (D-WY) who was named by Wyoming Governor Lester C. Hunt.

After Mr. Hunt’s speech, delegate Martin V. Coffey of Ohio made his seconding speech for Senator Truman, although the poll had shown more Wallace than Truman voted in the delegation.

Mitchell nominates Wallace

Iowa’s former Chief Justice, Richard F. Mitchell of Fort Dodge, made the nominating speech for Mr. Wallace.

Mrs. Emma Guffey Miller, Democratic committeewoman from Pennsylvania, saying. “I guess I’m what the Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey would call a tired old woman,” seconded the nomination of Mr. Wallace.

“Mr. Wallace made that office what the Founding Fathers intended, ‘First assistant to the President,’” Mr. Mitchell told the Convention today in his speech to renominate his fellow Iowan.

‘Did not sit by’

Mr. Wallace deserves renomination, he said, because “the Democratic Party does not give the Vice Presidency as a consolation prize,” but to a man who sees clearly his role as a leader and a man of action.

Mr. Mitchell said:

He [Wallace] did not sit idly by and let his Commander-in-Chief carry the whole burden of war forced upon us by a treacherous foe. No, instead he became the special messenger of the President, taking the American way of life to the peoples of other countries.

When the name of Vice President Wallace went into nomination, the convention raised its banners in a crazy dance and ignored Chairman Samuel Jackson. Three big white balloons carried aloft the sign, “the People Want Wallace.”

Band strikes up

Wallace signs blossomed all over the floor, in the balcony, and in the halls. The band struck up “Iowa, Where the Tall Corn Grows” and the marchers made more noise for Mr. Wallace than they did yesterday for President Roosevelt.

Four years ago, when Mr. Wallace was nominated at Mr. Roosevelt’s insistence, the angry convention gave him no chance to make the acceptance speech he had prepared. The demonstration lasted 11 minutes.

‘Not going to Munich’

Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall, seconding the nomination of Vice President Henry A. Wallace, declared today that this is not the time for compromise and that the Democratic Party is not going to Munich to appease those who abhor its policies.

Mr. Arnall said:

The enemies of Franklin Roosevelt, unable today to assail the President, have sought through vicious attacks upon his friend and comrade to weaken the forces of Democratic liberalism.

Mr. Wallace, he said, had been true to the policies and the ideals that saved America from chaos in 1933 and he has been faithful to the man whom Americans in three elections have chosen as President.

Defends farm policies

Mr. Arnall defended the Vice President against criticism that he is a dreamer, a visionary, an idealist. These are not damning words, he said, because “where there is no vision, the people perish.”

Mr. Arnall said Mr. Wallace’s farm policies had restored to usefulness 30 million acres of land, had doubled the cash income of farmers, and had provided the food and raw materials with which we are winning the war.

Repudiation of Mr. Wallace, Mr. Arnall said, would be a rejection of the party’s domestic policies which averted calamity in America and restored prosperity.

Mayor Edward J. Kelly, on behalf of the Illinois delegation, nominated Senator Scott W. Lucas (D-IL).

Truman claims 600 votes

Senator Truman’s aides said he had been promised Massachusetts’ 34 first-ballot votes, bringing to 600 the total they claim have been pledged to the Missourian. A “good chunk” of Illinois’ votes were also pledged for Truman, but on the second ballot.

With Mr. Roosevelt nominated for a fourth term, it remained for the delegates to settle a contest between the left and right wings of the New Deal-Democratic Party and either renominate Mr. Wallace or retire him to Iowa.

Wallace claims of strength were voiced by Harold Young, the Vice President’s secretary and campaign manager, who said that since yesterday, his man had increased his total of promised votes to 580, nine votes short of a majority.

The Massachusetts decision to go for Senator Truman on the first ballot was the best of news for the Missourian. This was one of the largest blocs of votes that had been uncommitted on the first ballot.

The President accepted his fourth-term renomination last night after a routine process of afternoon balloting. The score was:

Roosevelt	1086
Byrd	89
Farley	1

The surprised delegates learned, as the President talked, that his radio speech was being made from a West Coast naval station. They will be more surprised to read in the papers today that the President passed through Chicago last Saturday and conferred with Chairman Robert E. Hannegan of the National Committee.

The President directly answered the campaign charge of New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican presidential nominee, that he and his administration are tired and quarrelsome old men.

He told the jam-packed stadium crowd:

The people of the United States will decide this fall whether they wish to turn over this 1944 job – this worldwide job – to the inexperienced and immature hands, to those who opposed Lend-Lease and international cooperation against the forces of aggression and tyranny, until they could read the polls of popular sentiment; or whether they wish to leave it to those who saw the danger from abroad, who met it head-on, and who now have seized the offensive and carried the war to its present stages of success, to those who, by international conferences and united action have begun to build that kind of common understanding and cooperative experience which will be so necessary in the world to come.

Mr. Roosevelt said the “1944 job” was to win the war fast and overpoweringly, to form international worldwide organizations including provision for the use of armed force to prevent war, and to build an adequate national economy for returning veterans and all Americans. He said his administration had been working on all of those projects.

President is calm

Not long before he spoke, his great ideological adversary, Hitler, was telling a startled world that some of his army officers had been tossing bombs at him. The Hitler speech was a substantial background for the President’s sure confidence in victory.

But the President’s voice was the only calm note around this convention. The left-right wing contestants are set for battle and have begun to slug. Mr. Hannegan talked to President Roosevelt by telephone from the Blackstone Hotel in midafternoon yesterday and subsequently summoned an evening press conference at which he made public the document which has come to be known here as “The Letter.” It was short and to the point, dated from Washington on July 19:

Dear Bob:

You have written me about Harry Truman and Bill Douglas. I should, of course, be very glad to run with either of them and believe that either one of them would bring real strength to the ticket.

Always sincerely,
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Letters are a mystery

The letter raised a number of unanswered questions, principally as to the time and place it was written. Mr. Roosevelt was not in the White House in Washington on July 19, even though the letter as released by Mr. Hannegan was so dated. Actually, in the early morning of that day, the President was arriving at the West Coast naval station from which he addressed the convention last night.

The thought occurred to some here that he may have written the letter welcoming either Mr. Truman or Justice Douglas as a running mate at the same time and place that he composed another famous letter received here. This other letter was addressed to Senator Samuel D. Jackson (D-IN), permanent convention chairman, and was made public on July 18.

[NormanStewart]

Race issue plank put in platform

Program also calls for ‘peace forces’
By Dean W. Dittmer, United Press staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
A 1,200-word platform calling for an international alliance of nations “with power to employ armed forces when necessary” to preserve peace, and a mandate to Congress to exert its full powers to protect the right of minorities “to live, develop and vote equally with all citizens” was approved by the Democratic National Convention last night.

The racial equality plank, approved by the Platform and Resolutions Committee over the opposition of Southern states, declared:

We believe that racial and religious minorities have the right to live, develop and vote equally with all citizens and share the rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. Congress should exert its constitutional powers to protect those rights.

The foreign policy plank pledged this country to join “with the other United Nations in the establishment of an international organization based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states… for the prevention of aggression and the maintenance of international peace and security.”

To enforce the peace, “the nations would maintain adequate forces to meet the needs of preventing war and of making impossible the preparation for war,” and “with power to employ armed forces when necessary to prevent aggression and preserve peace.”

Other planks include:

• Maintenance of an international court for the settlement of disputes between nations.

• Support of the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms and the principles enunciated therein.

• Opening of Palestine to Jewish immigration and for “a free and democratic Jewish commonwealth.”

• Legislation to assure equal pay for equal work for women, and a recommendation for submission of a constitutional amendment on equal rights for women.

• Federal legislation to assure stability of production, employment, prices and distribution in the bituminous coal industry.

• Federal aid to education administered by the states.

• Endorsement of President Roosevelt’s use of water in arid land states for irrigation.

• Non-discriminatory transportation charges and a request for early correction of inequities.

• Enactment of legislation giving fullest self-government to Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and the eventual statehood of Alaska and Hawaii; and extension of the right of suffrage to residents of the Districts of Columbia.

Post-war program

For post-war programs, the committee recommended:

• Full benefits to servicemen and women with special consideration for disabled, to assure employment and economic security.

• Price guarantees and crop insurance to farmers; parity for agriculture with labor and industry, promotion of success of small independent farmers, aid to home-ownership of family-sized farms, and extension of rural electrification and broader domestic and foreign markets for agricultural products.

• Adequate compensation for workers during demobilization.

• Enactment of additional humanitarian, labor, social and farm legislation as may be needed and repeal of “any law enacted in recent years which has failed to accomplish its purpose.”

• Promotion of small business, and earliest possible release of business from wartime controls.

• Simplification of tax structure and reduction or repeal of wartime taxes as soon as possible.

• Encouragement of risk capital new enterprise and development of natural resources in the West and other parts of the country and reopening of Western gold and saver mines “as soon as manpower is available.”

Race issue raised

Also declaring for a free and untrammeled press, the committee expressed its belief “in the world right of all men to write, send and publish news at uniform communication rates and without interference by governmental or private monopoly and that right should be protected by treaty.”

At the Platform Committee meeting, Southern Democrats, led by former Texas Governor Dan Moody, sought to bring a minority report on the racial equality plank before the convention, but the plan was thwarted when only eight of the necessary 12 states signed the minority report. States signing the report were Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina.

The group sought to add to the committee language a clause reserving the authority to determine “qualifications of their voters and to regulate their public schools and attendance therein” solely in the states “in the absence of a constitutional amendment ceding such powers to the federal government.”

[NormanStewart]

Roosevelt speech broadcast from West Coast naval base

President crosses nation leisurely in special train; stops at Hyde Park and Chicago
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer

With President Roosevelt at a Pacific Coast naval base –
President Franklin D. Roosevelt began his formal fourth-term campaign here last night in the heavily armed might of this Navy base in a manner that underlined his plans to seek reelection as a wartime Commander-in-Chief.

Mr. Roosevelt came cross-country by train, traveling in strictest wartime secrecy and broadcasting his acceptance speech to the Chicago Democratic Convention from his special train. He was surrounded only by his top military and naval commanders and, aside from a special train, his leisurely transcontinental trip had none of the usual campaign year trappings.

Wartime security regulations prevent exact description of the President’s whereabouts, but he explained to the convention and a nationwide radio audience in his address that he was at a West Coast naval base “in the performance of my duties under the Constitution.”

His broadcast was made tonight from a spacious railroad car. The President’s microphones were placed on a small table at one end of the car. When he finished his speech, he ran through the highlight passages again for newsreel cameramen.

Because of the secrecy surrounding the trip cross-country, there were no crowds at waystations except a few railroad people.

Members of the President’s party included his wife, Adm. William D. Leahy (chief of staff to the Commander-in-Chief), VAdm. Ross T. McIntire (Mr. Roosevelt’s physician and Surgeon General of the Navy), Maj, Gen, Edwin M. Warson (secretary and military aide), RAdm. Wilson Brown (naval aide), Judge Samuel I. Rosenman (counsel to the President), Elmer Davis (Director of the Office of War Information), and Miss Grace Tully (the President’s private secretary).

White House correspondents for the United Press, Associated Press and International News Service were also with the President.

Fala is a giveaway

As in previous secret wartime trips, Fala, the President’s Scottie, was a dead giveaway. People staring at the train during service stops got the idea quickly when they saw Fala trotting up and down beside the train. At the stop in Chicago, a railroad yard worker said to a member of the President’s party, “If I’m getting nosey, tell me, but isn’t that Fala?” The word spread quickly that Mr. Roosevelt was aboard.

As an added precaution against premature disclosure of the President’s whereabouts, the name of the railroad company was painted off the cars. This is because the train consisted of Baltimore & Ohio equipment and it would have seemed strange to see a B&O train on the West Coast.

It required 30 tons of ice every 24 hours to operate the air conditioning system on the presidential train.

Stops at Chicago

Mr. Roosevelt left Washington July 13 and swung through 16 states at a loafing 30-mile clip, resting and handling a lot of paperwork, including the composition of his address. During the trip he made two major stops – one on July 14 for nine hours at his Hyde Park, New York, home and again in Chicago on July 15 for a few minutes when he saw Robert E. Hannegan, National Democratic Chairman.

While traveling, Mr. Roosevelt remained in constant touch with Washington and probably Mr. Hannegan, too. Special telephones were put aboard his car several times a day.

The President’s activity at this base, aside from working on his speech, included few official engagements. One was inspection of training activities in the vicinity. Mr. Roosevelt arrived here before dawn on July 19 and a cordon of sentries quickly took up positions around the train. Otherwise, there was little to indicate his presence.

[NormanStewart]

Army works out ballot details

Rome, Italy (UP) –
U.S. Army authorities have completed preparation for conducting a presidential election among the soldiers in all commands of the North African and Italian theaters of war.

Three hundred voting officers have been appointed and by Tuesday, it was said, there will be 500 commissioned officers prepared to handle the many complications of conducting an election more than 3,000 miles from home. Each officer will receive two days of special training in the soldier ballot and voting procedure.

Army authorities are maintaining the strictest of political neutrality in making certain that every soldier learns how to properly cast his ballot. In this connection, it was announce, “the first big job will be the distribution of postcard applications for state ballots during the first week of August.”

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Candidate Roosevelt accepts

Mr. Roosevelt can be either a wartime President and Commander-in-Chief above partisanship, or he can misuse that position as a candidate for a fourth term. Last night, he took advantage of his office to launch a political campaign from a naval base. For months the Republicans had predicted that he would do something like that. We did not believe he would be so crude. We were wrong.

Not that there was anything new in his formal acceptance speech. He used the same I-am-above-politics pose in his advance acceptance from the White House earlier this month, the same Commander-in-Chief excuse for his candidacy. But that he would time a military inspection trop for a partisan appeal to his party convention did not seem quite up to his protestations as expressed in his letter to Chairman Hannegan.

“I shall not campaign in the usual sense for the office,” he said last night. “In these days of tragic sorrow, I do not consider it fitting. In these days of global warfare, I shall not be able to find the time.”

But he found time to route his military train through Chicago for a secret conference with his political chief of staff. He found time to dictate the party platform. He found time from his naval base inspection to run the partisan convention by phone through his party henchmen. He found time to make a partisan campaign speech.

Fortunately, the conduct of the war will not suffer too much. For our real military commanders are forbidden to be political candidates and do not run parties for personal power.

Of course, Mr. Roosevelt does not think he is being partisan. Granted the indispensable idea, the only partisanship is opposition to him. If you vote for him, you transcend party. As he said last night, “in the last three elections the people of the United States have transcended party affiliation.” Or as his spokesman, Convention Chairman Jackson, put it in warning against a Roosevelt defeat: “We must not allow the American ballot box to be made Hitler’s secret weapon.”

Certainly, that is not a “campaign in the usual sense.”

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Playing politics with war

If you hadn’t heard or read it, you could hardly believe it.

Senator Samuel D. Jackson, Democratic Convention Chairman, went the full limit to make a party issue of the war. Here are his exact words:

A change in national administration in time of war… is frightening to contemplate. It is dangerous to make… [It] might well prove to be the tragedy of this generation… Our people will not gamble with the lives of their sons…

But how many battleships would a Democratic defeat be worth to Tōjō? How many Nazi legions would it be worth to Adolf Hitler? Frankly, could Goebbels himself do better to bolster Axis morale than the word that the American people had upset this administration… We must not allow the American ballot box to be made Hitler’s secret weapon!

There it is. If you dare vote against a fourth term, you “gamble with the lives” of our sons, you give aid to the enemy, you make the election “Hitler’s secret weapon.” Treason?

Isn’t that going just a little too far even for a spokesman of the indispensable Commander-in-Chief?

[NormanStewart]

Jackson calls change now ‘dangerous’

Says enemies of U.S. would profit by it

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Senator Samuel D. Jackson, Democratic nominee for Governor of Indiana, told the Democratic National Convention yesterday that a change in national administration in time of war was “frightening to contemplate” and that it was “dangerous to make.”

Mr. Jackson said the Republican Party, “to counteract the disadvantage of having such an unusually young and unpracticed candidate” (New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey), was attempting to make “an asset of a liability” by stressing Mr. Dewey’s youth against the “decadence” of the present administration.

Mr. Jackson said:

That last word “decadence” is an indecent slander, if intended for the President. Roosevelt is in full vigor and in the flower of his energy. He has more rugged vitality in him today than any two men the opposition has to offer.

The opposition offered weak and unwholesome pap to the American voters three campaigns in succession. The American voters would not take it from Hoover in 1932. They would not take it from Landon in 1936. They would not take it in 1940, and they will not take it in 1944.

‘To carry New York’

Mr. Jackson asserted that Mr. Dewey was selected as a nominee in the hope that the 47 New York State electoral votes would carry the Old Guard back to the White House.

“What a fantastically vain hope that is,” he declared. “But in that hope, they are willing to take the risk of his obvious inexperience…”

‘Wisdom is needed’

He said:

What the Presidency demands now, is not so much a bright young man, as a man of wisdom and experience with depth and breadth of vision.

America will win this war finally and completely, no matter who is elected President of the United States next November.

But how many battleships would a Democratic defeat be worth to Tōjō? How many Nazi legions would it be worth to Adolf Hitler?

Frankly, could Goebbels himself do better to bolster Axis morale than the word that the American people had upset this administration – the administration that made it possible for the Russians to drive the Nazis back to the Prussian border?

We must not allow the American ballot box to be made Hitler’s secret weapon.

[NormanStewart]

Mrs. Emma Guffey Miller wins equal rights fight

Constitutional amendment battle won against Mrs. Roosevelt’s, Frances Perkins’ opposition
By Robert Taylor, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
Mrs. Emma Guffey Miller, sister of U.S. Senator Joseph F. Guffey and Democratic National Committeewoman for Pennsylvania, won a hard-fought victory in the drafting of the 1944 Democratic platform. She obtained the adoption by the Platform Committee and the ratification by the party convention late yesterday, of a plank advocating approval by Congress of a constitutional amendment on equal rights for women.

Her opposition included Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt (wife of the President), Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, half a dozen leading women’s organizations, and a sizable part of the Platform Committee itself, who preferred to duck the issue.

Mrs. Miller, however, had taken steps to see that she got a voice on the Platform Committee. The Pennsylvania delegation had designated Mrs. Miller and Senator Guffey as the state’s representatives on the committee.

Senator Guffey was busy handling details of Vice President Wallace’s campaign for renomination during most of the platform discussions, but Mrs. Miller sat in on committee discussions and also appeared as a witness before her own committee.

Mrs. Miller, active in political affairs for years, is a legislative chairman of the National Woman’s Party, chief proponent of the Equal Rights Amendment, but said she appeared in her witness role as a national committee member.

The National Woman’s Party contends that, despite legal guarantees, women still don’t have equal rights under many state laws in matters regarding property, employment, jury service and marital affairs, and that the way to correct the condition is by constitutional amendment.

Opponents objected that the amendment would sweep away laws for the protection of women in industry. Mrs. Roosevelt sent a message saying that, until they were more highly unionized, it would be a hardship on women in industry. Secretary Perkins called the proposed amendment “drastic and ill-considered.”

Mrs. Miller, however, pointed out that the Republican Convention last month adopted an equal-rights-for-women plank, and although other committee members tried to develop an acceptable substitute, she stood her ground.

“This is the happiest day for me,” she said as the convention approved the platform with her plank in it, saying:

We favor legislation assuring equal pay for equal work, regardless of sex. We recommend to Congress the submission of a constitutional amendment on equal rights for women.

[NormanStewart]

Helen Gahagan accuses GOP of doubletalk

Says Democrats are conservative party

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Mrs. Helen Gahagan Douglas, national committeewoman from California, said last night in an address to the Democratic Convention that the Democratic Party is “the true conservative party” and the Republican leaders “are the dreamers.”

Mrs. Douglas, actress wife of movie actor Melvin Douglas, accused the Republicans of “doubletalk” and said the Democratic Party had conserved hope and ambition “in the hearts of our people.”

She said:

We have conserved the skills of their hands. We have husbanded our national resources. We have saved millions of homes and farms from foreclosure and conserved the family stake and democracy.

Conserve faith in government

We have rescued banks and trust companies, insured crops and people’s savings. We have built schools. We have checked the flooding rivers and turned them into power.

We have replanted the forest, re-fertilize the soil. Ours is the conservative party. We have conserved the people’s faith in a people’s government – a democracy.

‘GOP leaders are dreamers’

Mrs. Douglas said that because they are the conservative party, the Democrats reject “the hazy Republican dream” that the nation can get along “with its government dismantled, its housing programs destroyed, its wage and price controls thrown out the window.”

“The Republican leaders are the dreamers,” she said. “They have no contact with the people or with the realities of their wants and needs.”

Mrs. Douglas said the Republican program is a dream, “a nightmare of muddle and confusion.” She said there are not enough Democrats to elect a President, nor enough Republicans.

Best friend of GOP

She said:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been elected President for three successive terms – and each time the Republicans have helped put him into office.

The last three elections have shown that the Democratic Party has been the best friend the Republican rank-and-file voter has ever had: He knows it, and he has voted accordingly.

‘It’s doubletalk’

Criticizing the Republican presidential nominee, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, and the Republican platform, Mrs. Douglas said:

The Republican candidate has pledged himself to carry to Japan a defeat so crushing and complete that every last man among them will know that he has been beaten.

And at the same time, the Republican platform does not indicate by a single line – or a single word that there is any need for further sacrifice. That is doubletalk.

The Republican Party has pledged itself to reduce taxes to the normal expenditures of the government as soon as the war ends, and also has pledged itself to reduce the national debt. It has not explained how taxes and debts can be so reduced at the same time. That is doubletalk.

The Republican Party declares that it is the party of the Constitution, but its nominee declares that he will not participate in the active management of the war.

Argument called inept

This thoughtless and inept argument ignores the fact that our Founding Fathers carefully provided for civilian control of the military as the only possible safeguard of democratic life. The Constitution gave the people the right to elect a civilian Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

Yet the Republican nominee runs for the office of Commander-in-Chief on the solemn pledge that, if elected, he will not fulfill his duties. That is doubletalk.

[NormanStewart]

It’s no foreign war, Reynolds tells conclave

Correspondent replies to Clare Luce speech

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
War correspondent Quentin Reynolds told the Democratic National Convention last night that American servicemen have learned “this was no foreign war,” and on foreign soils have discovered “an outpost of America where there are no barriers.”

“They learned this was no foreign war when they first landed in England,” he said.

There, he said, when American men saw the scars of war on the House of Commons, which “has always been the symbol of free speech in Britain,” and Westminster Abbey, which “has been the symbol of the Christian way of life,” they knew that Hitler was waging war against “our ideals and our way of life.”

Answer to Mrs. Luce

Apparently referring to Rep. Clare Boothe Luce’s “G.I. Jim” speech at the Republican Convention, Mr. Reynolds said:

I do not propose to speak for your son abroad, and I never would commit the unholy sacrilege of speaking for his dead brother who has been killed in combat. No man – or woman – can speak for him. We can only accept his sacrifice humbly and not presume to speak for him with our unworthy tongues.

No barriers at fronts

Mr. Reynolds, who has toured many of the battlefronts, said American men overseas had found out one thing about war… “There are no barriers at the front.”

He said:

Kids here at home grow up surrounded by barriers… all man-made.

Neighborhood barriers, city barriers, state barriers, social barriers, racial barriers, political barriers, barriers of wealth. You climb over one barrier only to find another ahead of you.

Then you find yourself at the front, thousands of miles from home. And suddenly, perhaps for the first time in your life, you realize that here on American soil, as an outpost of America, where there are no barriers. This was always the dream you’d had of America, a dream that never before has come quite true.

There are no Democrats or Republicans at the front; there are no Italian-Americans or Polish-Americans; there are no New Yorkers or Californians or Texans or New Englanders… Only Americans… Only Americans purged of the artificial barriers we still make so much of here at home.

A ‘G.I.’ has the answer

Mr. Reynolds warned that the nation’s fighting men abroad are so proud of their country they would “hate to see it tarnished by the sad spectacle of fellow Americans indulging in the childish pastime of name calling.” He said the reaction of men in uniform to a “smear campaign” by either party would be unfavorable.

Aboard a troopship on the way into Salerno last September, Mr. Reynolds said, a soldier best expressed what Americans are fighting for when he said:

“Added all together, and it means we’re fighting for the right to bawl out the umpire.”

[NormanStewart]

GOP, Democratic platforms have great deal in common

Comparison shows that trend of times has put its mark on both parties’ policymakers
By Raymond Lahr, United Press staff writer

Chicago, Illinois –
The Democratic Party hopes to win the 1944 campaign on its record of 12 years in power during war and peace and on a terse platform of 1,200 words set against a 4,000-word Republican declaration.

The party platform, adopted by the National Convention yesterday, began:

The Democratic Party stands on its record in peace and in war. To speed victory, establish and maintain peace, guarantee full employment and provide prosperity – this is its platform. We do not here detail scores of planks. We cite action.

That contrasted with this paragraph of the Republican platform:

Four more years of New Deal policy would centralize all power in the President, and would daily subject every act of every citizen to regulation by his henchmen; and this country could remain a Republic only in name.

Contain common pledges

The two platforms contain some common pledges, some divergent ones and some in sharp conflict. Here is a comparison of some of the planks.

Foreign policy

DEMOCRATIC: The party pledged “to join with the other United Nations and the establishment of an international organization based on the principle of sovereign equality of all peace-loving states… to make all necessary and effective agreements through which the nations would maintain adequate forces to meet the needs of preventing war and of making impossible the preparation for war and which would have such forces available for joint action when necessary. Such organization must be endowed with power to employ armed forces when necessary to prevent aggression and preserve peace.”

REPUBLICAN:

We favor responsible participation by the United States in post-war cooperative organization among sovereign nations to prevent military aggression and to attain permanent peace with organized justice in a free world. Such organization should develop effective cooperative means to direct peace forces to prevent or repel military aggression.

Race problems

DEMOCRATIC:

We believe that racial and religious minorities have the right to live, develop and vote equally with all citizens and share the rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. Congress should exert its full constitutional powers to protect those rights.

REPUBLICAN: The party endorsed a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee, anti-poll tax and anti-lynching legislation, and an inquiry into discrimination in the Armed Forces.

Agriculture

Both parties endorsed support prices and crop insurance. The Democrats promised “to foster the success of the small independent farmer” and “to aid the home ownership of the family-sized farm.” The Republicans endorsed measures “to make life more attractive” on the family farm. The Republicans condemned the Roosevelt administration for “confused, unreliable, impractical price and production” policy during the war and implicitly accused it of regimenting farmers.

Labor

DEMOCRATIC: The Democratic platform contained no specific plank on labor, but promised adequate compensation to demobilized war workers and enactment of additional legislation or the amendment or repeal of existing laws as experience indicated the need.

REPUBLICAN: The Republicans charged the administration with “selfish and partisan control” over government labor agencies, with perverting the National Labor Relations Act, emasculating the Labor Department and undermining collective bargaining. They “accepted the purposes” of the labor relations, wage-hour, Social Security and other laws for the protection of workers.

Miscellaneous

Both parties pledged to support submission of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal rights for women; equal pay to women for equal work; free access to world news; encouragement for risk capital; liberal benefits for war veterans; reduction in wartime taxes as soon as possible; encouragement for little business; expansion of foreign trade through reciprocal agreements (with the Republicans adding a proviso requiring approval by Congress); development of self-government in Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and the opening of Palestine to unrestricted Jewish immigration.

[NormanStewart]

Defiant Texas delegates assail ‘power politics’

‘Regulars,’ pushed around in convention, say CIO and Communists ousted them

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
“We ran into a buzzsaw of power politics,” members of the Texas delegation at the Democratic National Convention who walked out of the convention said today.

They made the comment in a statement addressed through Texas Democrats. A copy was sent to the Democratic National Committee. It was signed by the dissident members of the delegation who left the Chicago Stadium yesterday after the convention voted to split Texas’ votes between the “Regular” (anti-fourth-term) delegation and the rump delegation, which supported President Roosevelt.

Hot under the collar

The Texans said:

The bureaucrats, the CIO Political Action Committee, and a liberal sprinkling of Communists joined forces to tell Texas Democrats where they stand in national politics. The action of the Texas convention was thwarted by the Hillman, Tobin, and Browder followers who carried the ball behind the perfect interference of an army of bureaucrats.

The action of the Credentials Committee [which recommended splitting the state’s votes] was a deliberate slap at duly constituted authority. The trouble was the Regulars were not under the domination of the powerful elements that had control of the National Convention.

For this reason, it was necessary to discipline the Regulars and show Texas Democrats the consequence of disobedience to boss rule. That is exactly what the convention proceeded to do in a most arrogant and dictatorial manner.

A complaint was made that the convention’s Rules Committee turned “thumbs down” on the reinstatement of the two-thirds rule for nominations, and that the platform adopted by the convention was written “designed to secure the support of Negroes, the CIO, the Communists, and other radical groups.”

Texas planks turned down

Noting that every plank proposed by the Texas delegation was rejected, the statement complained specifically of refusal to recognize “reserved power of states to determine qualification of voters and to regulate public school attendance without interference from the federal government.”

“Worst of all,” it said, was refusal to approve passage of a law to prohibit management-labor contracts from requiring any war veteran to join an organization or pay a fee to get employment.

A special train leaving tomorrow will carry most of the Texas delegates from both Texas factions.

[NormanStewart]

Pegler: Democratic Convention Day 2

By Westbrook Pegler

Chicago, Illinois –
Up on the flying bridge which juts out from the platform where the giants sit to watch the antics of the little people, Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky, according to ancient formula, was viewing with pride and pointing with alarm.

The little people stirred restlessly like things on the quiet surface of a harbor. Down in the alley, beneath the stands, amid the picnic little of that ribald and yet solemn American political rite, the national nominating convention, the members of the band were disappearing around the bend to fall in for the great spontaneous ovation to the man-than-whom. The statesman on the bridge had been going on for a long time and the surprise was due any minute.

Senator Barkley is a man roughhewn like a preliminary study of one of Gutzon Borglum’s monumental great stone faces. He was standing to the microphones, gleaming with the sweat of his devotion and reading in enormous roars the script of a fateful act of American history, already confirmed by Frank Roosevelt’s demure acceptance of his fourth nomination. He was now getting around to the painful part in which he had to humiliate himself by eating the most awful words of his entire career, blurted last winter in honest anger at an insult to Congress delivered by the man whom he now had the privilege to nominate for an honor without precedent in the life of the American nation.

On that occasion, Mr. Roosevelt, rejecting the tax bill, for once went so far that even the docile Barkley, dull but hitherto always reliable, snarled back with an angry speech and, for a few hours, quit his position as Majority Leader of the Senate. In this sharp and sudden test of courage and conviction, both quit miserably.

The President, having fetched a calculated insult, crawled back, denying his obvious intention. And Barkley, reconsidering, accepted a sorry excuse instead of an apology.

Dispute well back in oration

Barkley was coming to that now. He had postponed the issue well back into his oration so that, in the published accounts, it would occur far down the text where few would read it.

Senator Barley might hesitate with his great leader on minor matters, he was explaining, in general terms, and he might disagree on procedure or method, for, thank God, in this great democracy, a man had a right to hold and express an opinion. As Voltaire had said, he might disagree with what you said but he would defend to the death your right to say it. A few words more and the insult to the legislative branch had been swallowed with a muscular gulp in public, diluted to be sure, with prideless phrases, in a scene so abject that a stranger could pity the man and fear for a country in such hands.

He whopped on now and, at the close, his nomination of “Franklin Delano Roosevelt” left the little people momentarily unprepared. They were not allowed to cheer a nomination. They could only cheer a fact accomplished long ago and acknowledged by the President in a letter last week to Robert E. Hannegan, the puppet chairman of the party, an affable handshaker in an empty job.

The music came on with a crash and they began to stretch in the aisles, carrying their blue and white legends on the winning of the war and the winning of the peace with Mr. Roosevelt, and bouncing their state standards on high in a trudging procession whose duration the reporters began to clock from force of habit. Barkley swabbed his face, stepped back and then stepped again to the fore to pose for the photographers standing on the press benches and clamoring, “Senator, this way, Senator. Just one more, Senator.”

Jackson gets into pictures

Barkley was good at this. He would throw out his right hand in an oratorial sweep and part his rugged features in a reasonably convincing grin. Now to the left of the bridge, for the photographers over there. Now back to the fight, with a different placard in his left hand. “Hold it higher, Senator, it hides your face. A little this way, Senator.”

Sam Jackson, another obscurity like Hannegan, hailing from Indiana, crowded the old hack for a place in the pictures. He is new and this convention gave him a miraculous chance to get into the papers. He smiled importantly, imitating Barkley’s wave and, once when Barkley paused for a drink of water, pulled our a low-comedy brown derby which he cocked on his head to solemnize a historical even while the little people shuffled by below.

The little people do not know how very little they were. Many of them never had seen a convention before and they came determined to enact their spontaneous demonstration. They seemed to believe literally that they were deciding nominations and policies not knowing that Sidney Hillman and Philip Murray long ago determined that they should nominate Henry Wallace for Vice President and were insisting on this choice against any other preference of the little people.

[NormanStewart]

Allen: Texas afraid Roosevelt will steal Lone Star title

Good thing GOP held convention first, may not be Stadium when Democrats finish
By Gracie Allen

Chicago, Illinois –
Wow… It’s a good thing the Republicans held a convention first… There might not have been any stadium left for them to meet in. Those Democrats really lifted the roof and made the walls bulge when Senator Barkley nominated President Roosevelt for a fourth term. But for some reason, the Texas delegation didn’t exactly approve. In fact, they got up and walked out, led by Mr. Moody. As they filed past, I got to look at Mr. Moody – and he certainly was.

I don’t know enough about politics to be able to tell you just why the Texas delegation doesn’t approve of Roosevelt, but maybe they’re afraid he’ll steal their title. After all, if he’s President for 16 years, he’ll have been the “Lone Star” almost as long as Texas.

Democrats livelier

It’s a shame that President Roosevelt couldn’t have been here in person to make his acceptance speech. But then I guess he could make a fine acceptance speech from almost any place – he’s had so much experience.

As a reporter, I’m completely nonpartisan and nonpolitical. But I must say the Democratic Convention is much livelier than the Republican Convention was. The donkey is giving a more exciting show than the elephant did. In fact, one Democrat told me he had a new answer to the old question – “Where do elephants go to die?” The answer – “Chicago.”

Very disquieting rumor

There are some wonderful personalities here for the convention. I was particularly interested in talking with Helen Gahagan Douglas. She’s the wife of movie star Melvyn Douglas. Believe me, I know what it’s like to have a career and also be married to a handsome, talented star… Mrs. Douglas told me. By the way, I just heard a very disquieting rumor. Someone said that if Dewey wins the election, the Roosevelts will have to move to Hyde Park. My goodness, I didn’t dream they were so bad off they’d have to live in a park.

That’s all for now – more political news tomorrow.

[NormanStewart]

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

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

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

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

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

Associate of Browder

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

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

Collects $2 million

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

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

Group changes name

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

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

Leaders come to call

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

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

Guffey in attendance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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