Senator managers to keep state from riding front seat on Truman bandwagon
By Kermit McFarland, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
Chicago, Illinois –
The CIO took a licking, politically, in the Democratic Convention which ended here last night, but it and Senator Joseph F. Guffey managed to hold off the Pennsylvania delegation long enough to keep their intramural rivals from riding a front seat in the Truman bandwagon.
The defeat of Vice President Henry A. Wallace was a serious blow to Senator Guffey’s political self-respect, as well as it was to the political potency of the CIO.
But the fact that the Pennsylvania delegation failed to time its conversion to Senator Harry S. Truman’s nomination served to diminish somewhat the prestige accumulated by Democratic State Chairman David L. Lawrence by his long and arduous efforts on behalf of the Missouri Senator.
On the second ballot for the vice-presidential nomination, which Senator Truman carried, the original Pennsylvania vote stood 46 for Mr. Wallace to 24 for Mr. Truman – two of the 72 delegates being absent.
On this original count, Senator Truman only had 477½ votes, while Mr. Wallace polled 475, the rest being scattered among sundry favorite sons. Then the favorite-son delegations began to switch to the Missouri Senator.
But Pennsylvania remained silent. Among the delegates and in the press row, they began to think of the 1940 Republican Convention, when the Pennsylvania delegation missed the Willkie bandwagon.
It was West Virginia which really sank the final shot for Mr. Truman. When the Mountaineer State’s delegation changed its second ballot vote by switching 13 votes for Mr. Wallace and Senator John H. Bankhead to Senator Truman, the nomination was clinched.
Twelve other states had changed over before Senator Guffey himself, usurping the floor microphone from the delegation’s chairman, former Judge John H. Wilson of Butler, arose to move that the nomination be made unanimous. He was ruled out of order. Eight more states shifted and Mr. Guffey got up again, this time to record 72 Pennsylvania votes for Mr. Truman.
By that time, Senator Truman had 350½ votes – only 589 were needed for the nomination.
Massachusetts saves them
On the first ballot, Pennsylvania voted 48½ to 23½ for Mr. Wallace against Senator Truman. This resulted from a closed caucus taken just after the nominating speeches were completed.
Right there, in fact, Pennsylvania almost missed the boat, as per the Republicans in 1940. The roll call was well underway while the Pennsylvanians were in caucus. But a poll of the Massachusetts delegation took so long that the Pennsylvania delegation managed to untangle its caucus confusion and scramble back to the auditorium in time to register the vote.
Scully switches
On this first ballot, delegates voting for Mr. Wallace included Senator Guffey, his sister Mrs. Emma Guffey Miller, CIO President Philip Murray, Attorney General Francis Biddle, Clerk of Courts John J. McLean, McKeesport Mayor Frank Buchanan, Register of Wills John M. Huston, Coroner William B. McClelland, Record of Deeds Anthony J. Gerard (an alternate voting for delegate Marguerite McNaughton, who was absent), Irwin D. Wolf, and Mayor Cornelius D. Scully.
Voting for Mr. Truman were County Commissioner John J. Kane, Postmaster General Frank C. Walker, Mr. Lawrence, County Commissioner George Rankin, chief clerk of the City Public Safety Department Edward D. Johnson, and City Treasurer James P. Kirk.
On the second ballot, Mr. Scully switched to Senator Truman, while Matthew H. McCloskey, Philadelphia contractor and a delegate-at-large, changed his half-vote from Mr. Truman to Mr. Wallace. This made a net change of a half-vote in the Pennsylvania delegation.
Kane seconds Truman
Prior to the first caucus, Mr. Kane had made a seconding speech for Senator Truman and Mrs. Miller had seconded the nomination of Mr. Wallace.
In his speech, delivered extemporaneously, Commissioner Kane declared:
We didn’t have to come to Chicago to learn about the greatness of Senator Truman. We learned about him by following his record.
We had a wholesome respect for the splendid contribution he made to the protection of our sons and daughters in the fighting forces all over the world.
Mr. Kane referred to the senatorial committee investigating the war effort, which Senator Truman heads.
The commissioner said the Missouri Senator had “made the greatest contribution toward the protection of the Armed Forces of any man in the United States.”
Mrs. Miller, in her praise of Mr. Wallace, said:
As a thoroughgoing Democrat, I never have been one to accept the advice of the reactionary Republicans when it comes to nominating Democratic candidates. Neither have I been an advocate of appeasement. No party nor government ever gained thereby.
This was a crack at the chief Truman backers whom the Wallace forces called “reactionaries.”
Sees Republican plot
Mrs. Miller said:
The knees of the Old Gray Mare of Pennsylvania [meaning herself] may have grown stiff from a quarter century of service, but she still knows which road to take to victory. And that road is the road of positive and active liberalism from which the standpat and machine Republicans are not attempting to drive the Democratic candidate for the Vice Presidency [Mr. Wallace].
When the opposition saw how successful he was [as Secretary of Agriculture], they immediately set about through Republican-controlled farm organizations and papers to thwart and ruin his plans. We Pennsylvania Democrats know this to be a fact, for Joe Pew, the high priest of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, has spent millions toward this end.