Election 1944: Interval news

[NormanStewart]

The Free Lance-Star (July 5, 1944)

Wagner declines vital party post

Refuses chairmanship of Democratic Platform Committee; another is sought

Senator Robert F. Wagner (D-NY), two-time chairman of the platform-making Resolutions committee at Democratic National Conventions, has declined the job again and party leaders were reported today to have offered it to a prominent House member.

The Democratic National Committee expects to announce the name of the new chairman before the weekend. That will permit appointment of a subcommittee which will assemble in Chicago before July 17, hold hearings, and put up a scaffolding for erection of the 1944 national party platform.

The subcommittee will have no power to act. The convention itself, which begins July 19, must create the resolutions and other major committees.

Scrap may develop

It will be in the Credentials Committee that a scrap may develop over seating fourth-term or anti-fourth-term delegates from some order of business will have to pass on Southern demands for the restoration of a rule that a two-third vote is necessary to nominate.

One reason Wagner turned down the resolutions chairmanship is that he is attending an international monetary conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The conference will probably overlap the Democratic candidate picking.

Except for the Democrats’ planning, the Fourth of July was largely a holiday politically. New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican presidential nominee, took things easy.

George renominated

In Georgia, a quiet Democratic primary was marked by the efforts of Negroes to vote. They were refused permission, but their efforts laid the basis for a court test.

Senator Walter F. George easily won renomination. Rep. Cox of Georgia’s 2nd Congressional district, a critic of the Federal Communications Commission, was apparently headed for return to the House and Reps. Peterson of the 1st district and Gibson of the 8th district held commanding leads over their opponents.

In Mississippi, Rep. John E. Rankin held a strong lead in the state’s 1st district congressional race, heading his opponents by about eight to one. Rep. Whitten held a three-to-one lead in the 2nd district while Rep. Abernathy held a lead of about 4,000–300 in the 4th district with half the precincts counted.

[NormanStewart]

FDR overseas trip called conjecture

Washington (AP) –
Presidential Secretary Stephen Early today characterized as “pure speculation” published conjecture that President Roosevelt may be planning another overseas trip which might lead to his acceptance of a fourth-term nomination from abroad.

Some of Mr. Roosevelt’s recent news conference comment has given rise to speculation on another foreign trip but in each instance, the President has accompanied his remarks with laughter or gestures which left reporters unable to decide whether he was teasing them or dropping a hint.

[NormanStewart]

The Free Lance-Star (July 6, 1944)

Dewey criticized by South Carolina Governor

Anderson, South Carolina (AP) –
Governor Olin D. Johnston of South Carolina criticized Governor Thomas E. Dewey last night for Dewey’s attendance at what Johnson termed “a Negro drinking party.”

In a radio address at Anderson, Johnston declared:

If additional proof is needed that South Carolinians should remain Democratic, look at the Republican presidential nominee as he attended a Negro drinking party as pictured in the issue of LIFE Magazine of July 3, 1944. President Roosevelt has never been pictured at a Negro liquor party.

In Albany, Dewey declined comment.

The pictures to which Johnston referred were those taken at a gathering of Negro newspaper publishers and editors in New York a week before the Republican National Convention.

Johnston is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat from South Carolina now held by Senator Ellison D. “Cotton Ed” Smith.

Neither picture showed Dewey drinking or with a drink in his hand.

[NormanStewart]

McCormack to be platform writer

Washington (AP) –
House Majority Leader McCormack (D-MA) was reported to be the choice to head the Resolutions Subcommittee that will write the Democratic Party platform.

His selection is expected to be announced late today by the Democratic National Committee, along with the rest of the subcommittee memberships. As head of the subcommittee, McCormack would be in line for chairmanship of the full Resolutions Committee at the convention opening July 19 in Chicago.

McCormack, now in Massachusetts, is expected to get the subcommittee together in Chicago a few days before the convention opens for preliminary work on the platform.

[NormanStewart]

Republicans seek Willkie support

Backing is sought by campaigners for Governor Dewey; weeks approached

Albany, New York (AP) –
An oblique effort to draw Wendell L. Willie into camp moved forward today as supporters of Governor Thomas E. Dewey bid publicly for campaign cooperation from Congressional and senatorial candidates.

Although the GOP presidential nominee carefully avoided any appearance of soliciting Willkie’s backing, he gave the strategy left-handed approval by including Senator Sinclair Weeks, longtime Willkie enthusiast, in a list of Massachusetts Republicans invited to confer with him here Monday on campaign plans.

Headed by House Majority Leader Joseph Martin, the list of Massachusetts visitors includes Congressmen seeking reelection and candidates such as Governor Leverett Saltonstall. The latter is running from the seat vacated by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., when he went into the Army and filled temporarily by Weeks. Weeks is not a candidate.

Cake is chosen

Dewey insisted there was no significance in the Weeks invitation, but in New York, National Chairman Herbert Brownell Jr. capped this move by naming both Weeks and Ralph Cake of Oregon on a 15-member executive committee. Cake was Willkie’s campaign manager before the latter quit the presidential race after the April Wisconsin primary.

Appraised of this action, Weeks said both he and Clarke had told Governor Dewey they would do anything they could to help him win the election.

Sprague heads group

The executive group named by Brownell is headed by New York National Committeeman J. Russell Sprague, who is generally regarded as Dewey’s No. 1 strategist and is one of the few of the inner circle of Dewey advisers who has maintained cordial relations with Willkie.

Other executive committee members include Mrs. Worthington Scranton of Pennsylvania, Mrs. Reeve Schley of New Jersey, Mrs. Robert F. Archibald Jr. of Colorado, Clarence J. Brown of Ohio, Mrs. Chris Carlson of Minnesota, Col. R. B. Creager of Texas, Harry Darby of Kansas, Mrs. W. P. Few of North Carolina, Harvey Jewett Jr. of South Dakota, Barak T. Mattingly of Missouri, Carroll Reece of Tennessee and Mrs. Jessie Williamson of California.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (July 7, 1944)

Keynoter’s son not impressed

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (UP) –
Governor Robert S. Kerr said today he hoped the Democratic delegates to the National Convention would appreciate his keynote address more than his six-year-old son, Billy.

Mr. Kerr quoted this exchange of questions and answers after he had read part of his address to Billy:

“How many pages to your keynote speech?”
“About 20.”

“How many did you read to me?”
“Three.”

“Do I have to go to the convention?”
“No, son, you don’t.”

Mr. Kerr said he had whittled another two and a half minutes off the keynote address, to be delivered July 19 in Chicago, but said it was “still five minutes too long.” He refused to estimate length of the address in minutes.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Young Harry at the front

Governor Dewey, with his “accent on youth,” spoke in his acceptance speech of “stubborn men, grown old and tired and quarrelsome in office” at Washington. There are such.

But we cite you one old man in office who is neither tired nor quarrelsome, and only stubborn about things that involve principle.

Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of War, will be 77 come September. He has just flown to Italy and is now inspecting our troops there.

He is a Republican. Over some protest from fellow Republicans, he took a hard job in his old age. He has served in a statesmanlike manner, without partisanship.

We wish him a safe return from the front.

[NormanStewart]

Heath: Candidate Dewey will pick out his own issues

By S. Burton Heath

S. Burton Heath is substituting for Peter Edson, regular conductor of the Washington Column, who is absent from Washington for a few days.

Washington –
Political oratory is tricky stuff. It is designed to sound like a lot but say as little as possible. Its purpose is to enthuse party workers, give slogans to supporters, create doubt and discontent among opponents, and provide a minimum of ammunition for the enemy’s counterattacks.

Speakers at the Republican convention from Keynoter Warren to Governor Dewey followed the pattern. They secreted their nuggets of wisdom carefully in long strings of pretty words. Yet nuggets were there – if not wisdom, at least of information for those who were curious what Candidate Dewey would try to make the issues of the coming campaign.

In sifting the wheat from the chaff, it is helpful to bear in mind that, unlike Alf Landon in 1936, Tom Dewey is not going to let others dictate his strategy and select his issues. There having been no meeting of minds in advance, one should not seek clues to the issues in what was said by Herbert Hoover or Clare Luce or Joe Martin or even by John Bricker, who in the interest of party unity was given the vice-presidential nomination.

Of the speakers in Chicago, three have long been in close accord in their political philosophies. It is safe to say that what Governors Warren and Griswold said comes close to what Mr. Dewey thinks. If you will analyze the speeches, they will fall into two quite dissimilar groups – those of Messrs. Warren, Griswold and Dewey in one, all the rest in another. The first may be assumed to forecast the general tenor of the campaign.

One-man government

If that is so, you won’t hear much about New Deal totalitarianism in terms of European ideology. You will hear a lot about one-man government (New Deal) versus the teamwork that would be substituted by Mr. Dewey.

You will hear a lot about the vigorous, forward-looking mental youth that the GOP wants to substitute for an administration that “has grown tired, complacent and cynical… quarrelsome… decadent” – beset with squabbles among Cabinet members, feuds among department heads, bitterness between the President and his own party leaders – “wrangling, bungling and confusion.”

For this Mr. Dewey will propose to substitute a Cabinet made up of the ablest experts he can find, in the various fields, to whom he will promise to delegate full powers under his general leadership.

You will be told that when 11 million men and women are mustered out of uniform they will want real jobs, not charity or made work. That the nation’s economic history up to the moment war created an artificial prosperity will be cited to demonstrate Mr. Dewey’s contention that northing yet down in 11 years of the New Deal indicated the incumbent administration’s ability to create work and opportunity for the use of individual initiative.

No secrets

The Republicans will seek to keep the war out of the campaign. There will be no question whether we should be in, and fully agreement that we must not only whip Axis armies and navies but wholly destroy the will of the Axis peoples to fight wars.

Insofar as international relations are brought in by the Republicans, it will probably be through accusations that the President is playing power politics, which have failed in the past to preserve peace and, in the opinion of many, have led to war.

The Republicans can be expected to inquire what commitments the President may have made, other than purely military, to Messrs. Churchill and Stalin and Chiang, and to promise that if Mr. Dewey is elected, there won’t be any secrets from the people, and from Congress about what they are being let in for.

These are generalizations, of course. They are like the main topic-headings, in Roman numerals, with which the material is subdivided before even the broad detail is filled in. They are subject to change. But, in the main, you will find them fairly accurate.

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: Wooing Willkie among Dewey’s chief projects

Candidate disregards personal feelings
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Albany, New York –
The wooing of Wendell Willkie has become a major project with Governor Thomas E. Dewey and the managers of his campaign for the Presidency.

Just what is Mr. Willkie’s political value to the Republican Party, measured in influence and votes, is a matter for argument. But the Dewey forces would rather have him on their side, plugging for the ticket, than outside, either in a passive or an actively belligerent role.

Governor Dewey is trying to become President and he’s going about it in a very businesslike manner, without emotion, and without regard for personal feelings. It’s no secret that the two men don’t care much for each other, which is not unusual between politicians who are rivals for public favor.

Score about even

The 1940 candidate got quite a shoving around at Chicago, or rather he was just locked out coldly, but he did a little shoving around on his own when he issued his rather caustic statement about the foreign affairs plank in the platform. The party and Mr. Willkie are about even now.

But Governor Dewey, since his nomination, has made several gestures in Mr. Willkie’s direction which are plain enough in their intent. At his first press conference in Chicago, he announced that he expected to consult Mr. Willkie along with other party leaders about his campaign. And now two of the Willkie satellites, National Committeeman Ralph H. Cake of Oregon, his pre-convention campaign manager, and Sinclair Weeks of Massachusetts have been included on the newly-appointed executive committee selected by Governor Dewey and National Chairman Herbert Brownell Jr.

Willkie’s future in doubt

Mr. Weeks, likewise, was among the first invited here to confer with the candidate, as a member of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation which will see Governor Dewey here Monday. Indirect overtures through go-betweens are also now going on.

Involved basically in Mr. Willkie’s decision as to his course is whether he wants to continue in politics. This raises another question: What is Mr. Willkie’s political future? Some count him out as far as actual public office is concerned. Some think he may yet come into his own. Most agree that he is likely to keep his hand in.

Whatever are his political prospects, it also seems agreed that he probably would improve his positions with the politicians by getting into the game actively, that is, by seeking some public office below the Presidency. If he should be successful, he would have an advantageous position from which to try to advance himself to his heart’s desire, the Presidency.

May run for Senate

There is a good deal of talk about the possibility of him seeking the Republican nomination for the Senate from New York to run against Senator Robert Wagner in November.

This would offer an avenue of rapprochement with Governor Dewey and the party, and his presence on the ticket might help Republicans to swing this state against Mr. Roosevelt, with Mr. Willkie’s appeal to liberals Republicans, some Democrats, and to left-wing elements, particularly on the score of foreign policy.

Mr. Willkie has made his fight on principle on the question of international collaboration. For that reason, he attacked the platform plank. But that plank, in the end, will mean what Governor Dewey says it means, and if he satisfies Mr. Willkie, this would clear the way for the latter’s acceptance of the ticket and its program, foreign and domestic.

[NormanStewart]

Democrats map work on platform

Subcommittee named; women included

Washington (UP) –
The Democrats were ready to begin spade work on their proposed “thumbnail” platform today with appointment of a 23-member Platform Subcommittee headed jointly by House Democratic Leader John W. McCormack (D-MA) and Rep. Mary J. Norton (D-NJ).

The appointments were made by Chairman Robert E. Hannegan of the Democratic National Committee. He said that the group would start immediately to formulate tentative planks for submittal to the full committee, which will be named after the convention opens July 19. The subcommittee will meet in Chicago two days before the convention gets underway.

Women to have big voice

Women will be given a big voice in drafting the platform. Eleven were appointed to the subcommittee. Those named:

• Senators Robert F. Wagner (D-NY), Carl A. Hatch (D-NM), Joseph O’Mahoney (D-WY), Harry S. Truman (D-MO), Claude Pepper (D-FL), Theodore F. Green (D-RI) and James M. Tunnell (D-DE).

• Reps. McCormack, Norton, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. (D-MD), George J. Burke (D-MI) and Ed W. Izac (D-CA).

• Doris I. Byrne of New York, Mrs. W. T. Bost of North Carolina, Mrs. Albert E. Hill of Tennessee, Mrs. Scott Stewart of Utah, Mrs. Lucille Stewart of Kansas, Mrs. Charles G. Ryan of Nebraska, Mrs. Nellie T. Ross of Wyoming, Mrs. Sue Ruble of Oklahoma, Mrs. Fred M. Vinson of Kentucky (wife of the economic stabilization director), Mrs. Julia Porter of California and Joseph Daniels (presidential secretary).

Platform to be short

Senator Tunnell said the platform would be “short like the Ten Commandments, with a good many ditto marks at that.”

The Democrats will require less than the 4,600 words used by the Republicans, he said, “because we have a long record platform that reaches back to the end of the Hoover era.”

He acknowledged that a brief platform would relieve his party from spelling out a stand on racial issues which might antagonize the South.

“But,” he said, “I shouldn’t pay much attention to the Republican platform in that regard. They don’t.” The GOP adopted a plank advocating a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee.

[NormanStewart]

Dewey confers with Congressmen

Seeks views of Republican leaders

Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey began a series of conferences with Republican Congressional leaders today to discuss the issues of his campaign for the Presidency.

The Governor said he plans to obtain the views of as many Republican Congressmen as possible and, at the same time, offer his own ideas on important problems facing the country.

Mr. Dewey talked with Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) on foreign policy for two hours at the Executive Mansion last night, indicating that international affairs will play an important part in his drive to oust the Democratic administration in Washington.

Ten-word policy

Mr. Vandenberg, Republican expert on foreign policy, said he and the Governor were in complete accord and that the GOP position could be stated in 10 words: “We intend to preserve America and cooperate with the world.”

The Michigan Senator, second Republican Congressman to talk with Mr. Dewey, said the Governor’s acceptance speech “went over big in the Midwest” and predicted his election in November. He said Mr. Dewey was sure of 300 of the 531 electoral votes, but declined to explain how he arrived at that figure.

More conferences scheduled

Mr. Dewey will hold one more conference with Congressional representatives today before leaving for a weekend visit to his Pawling, New York, farm. Senators Warren R. Austin and George D. Aiken and Rep. Charles A. Plumley (R-VT) will lunch with Mr. Dewey. They will discuss campaign issues.

Mr. Dewey will resume conferences with Republican Congressional representatives Monday, when the Massachusetts delegation, including House Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin and Governor Leverett Saltonstall (a candidate for the U.S. Senate), visit him.

[NormanStewart]

Is Dewey strong opponent? President declines to say

Mr. Roosevelt also refuses to answer query whether he’s found a running mate

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt was peppered with political questions at his news conference today, but wouldn’t give any information.

He said the answers probably would be evident sometime around next November – or maybe this month (the Democratic Convention meets July 19).

Meeting with reporters for the first time since the Republican Party nominated New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey for President, Mr. Roosevelt faced a barrage of political questions.

“Have you found a candidate for Vice President yet?” he was asked. This, the President said, sounded like an unfriendly question. He smiled, declined to answer it.

Not writing platform

Another reporter wanted to know what views Mr. Roosevelt, “as head of the Democratic Party,” had about the 1944 party platform. The President replied that he was not writing any platforms.

The question “Would you care to say whether you think Governor Dewey will be a strong opponent?” produced a roar of laughter in which Mr. Roosevelt joined.

Instead of answering, he said he was making notes for history on the procedure and methods of White House correspondents.

“Do you mean you don’t want to answer the question?” the reporter persisted. The President shook his head, chiding the reporter, a woman, for being a Pollyanna and a cheerful little girl.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (July 8, 1944)

Vice Presidency still studied

Democrats completing convention plans

Washington (UP) –
Democrats were completing final plans today for their forthcoming National Convention in Chicago July 19 with the question of who should be the candidate for the Vice Presidency reportedly still undecided.

It is generally believed that President Roosevelt will be offered, and will accept, the presidential nomination and that he consequently will have the determining voice in choosing a running mate.

There has been considerable objection within the party to the renaming of Vice President Henry A. Wallace, and the names of War Mobilization Director James F. Byrnes and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas are being prominently mentioned for the post.

Democratic National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan spent an hour with the President yesterday and was close-mouthed when he emerged. He wouldn’t even admit politics had been discussed.

It is presumed, however, that they discussed final plans for the convention.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Dewey and the British

Our British allies are not at all disturbed by Governor Dewey’s nomination and possible election, William Philip Simms recently reported from London. The normal American reaction to that would be: Why should they? But remembering the astonishing British statement in the spring, craving a Roosevelt fourth term, London’s second-thought wisdom is welcome.

Nothing could be more disastrous to Anglo-American friendship than London interference in an American presidential election. At first, the Churchill government did think that only Roosevelt’s reelection could guarantee American war effort and post-war international cooperation. Though it had the good sense not to publicize that absurd myth, some British citizens and journals were less discreet.

Two things, apparently, cause intelligent Britons now to observe the possibility of Mr. Dewey’s election without worry – if not with pleasure. One is the Republican attitude: The Mackinac Declaration, the vote on the Connally Resolution, and the Dewey pledges. The other is fear – born of Woodrow Wilson’s experience – of what a hostile Congress might do to a Roosevelt treaty, compared with the chance that Mr. Dewey and a friendly Congress could accomplish more.

Doubtless also the Dewey and Chicago platform praise of the present Chiefs of Staff, and emphasis on political noninterference with military conduct of the war, have clarified some muddy thinking abroad as well as here at home.

Since the blundering British cracks of some months ago, and the London government’s effective efforts to prevent repetition by any responsible spokesman, there probably has been little danger of even the appearance of English meddling in American politics. But more than meddling is involved; there is also the matter of British confidence in us,

The British have a right – as any ally – to absolute assurance that America is determined to do its full share in winning the war and winning the peace. Any doubts of that, however unfounded, could have a cruel effect on those who have fought so long and suffered so much. So for their sake, as well as outs, we are happy they understand that our basic policy is neither Democratic nor Republican but American; that no change in administration will change this policy.

[NormanStewart]

Background of news –
Senate seats for ex-Presidents?

By Bertram Benedict

Herbert Hoover, our only living ex-President, was listened to with considerable respect by the 1944 Republican National Convention. The reemergence of Mr. Hoover has reawakened proposals that former Presidents be given seats without votes in the Senate, where theirs would be the voice of experience.

Rep. Canfield (R-NJ) has introduced the bill to make former Presidents voteless members of the Senate. They would receive the same remuneration as elected members. Mr. Canfield points out:

President rate high in their ability to voice with force and accuracy the views and aspirations of a great number of their fellow-citizens. Congress is itself the nation’s sounding board of public opinion.

A precedent exists in Congress for voteless members. The House has four such – a delegate each from the Territories of Hawaii and Alaska, a resident commissioner each from the possession Puerto Rico and the Commonwealth of the Philippines. The two delegates are elected for two years, the commissioner from Puerto Rico for four years; the commissioner from the Philippines is appointed by the President of the Commonwealth. The four traditionally speak only on subjects affecting their constituencies.

Example of John Quincy Adams

Only two former Presidents of the United States have been elected to Congress. One was John Quincy Adams, who was elected to the House for nine terms beginning two years after his retirement from the Presidency and lasting until his death.

The second Adams as a member of the House fulfilled the purpose for which seats in the Senate are now sought for all ex-Presidents. Disdaining partisanship, he spoke out fearlessly on almost all topics of the day. A former Secretary of State, he became chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House.

Prof. W. E. Ford has written of him as a member of the House:

At the time of his election, no member has sat in the House who possessed such varied experience and appropriate qualities. He was familiar with the inside political history of 40 years abroad and at home… As a debater, he was listened to with respect and, when aroused, with nearly as great fear, for his integrity was unquestioned his information vast and ready… His Congressional service [was] quite the most important part of his career.

Johnson member of Senate

Andrew Johnson, leaving the White House on March 4, 1869, came close to being elected to the U.S. Senate by the Tennessee Legislature in that year. In 1872, he was defeated for election to the House, but in 1874 was sent to the Senate. He served during the brief special session of 1875, in the course of which he denounced President Grant for aspiring to a third successive term. Johnson died before the Senate met for regular session in December 1875.

Grant left the Presidency a poor man, and for a time subsisted on income from a trust fund set up for him by friends. That may have been one reason why he tried for a third term. When his trust income dwindled, he joined a brokerage firm; its failure in 1884 threw him into personal bankruptcy, and ultimately Congress had to revive for him the rank of general, with salary. His memoirs brought in large sums only after his death.

Some of our recent Presidents (Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Hoover) could fall back upon private means after leaving the White House. Others, like Coolidge, found remunerative pursuits open to them. Taft became Chief Justice. In Great Britain, a retiring Prime Minister almost always remains in Parliament.

[NormanStewart]

‘Pappy’ O’Daniel told to explain

Washington (UP) –
The War Production Board today asked Senator W. Lee “Pass the Biscuits, Pappy” O’Daniel, anti-New Deal Texas Democrat, to explain how and where he obtained newsprint for his revived W. Lee O’Daniel News, now being issued as an anti-fourth-term organ.

Arthur R. Treanor, director of the WPB’s Printing and Publishing Division, write the Texan asking him to state whether he had complied with WPB newsprint regulations and to send the WPB “a copy of a typical issue” of the paper.

Earlier this week, Mr. O’Daniel disclosed that he had acquired enough newsprint “for at least 150,000 copies” and said he had stored it “in my own warehouse under lock and key and day and night guards before I started publication on the glorious Fourth of July.”

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: ‘Farmer’ Dewey welcomed home by friendly neighbors

Celebration rubs off presidential glitter in nonpartisan way; he greets ‘em by name
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Pawling, New York –
Over the weekend, Governor Thomas E. Dewey was going through the transformation seemingly essential to a presidential candidate at his 486-acre farm here, well-equipped with the usual things, including cows and ducks and corn and hay.

It’s the American way – and nonpartisan.

The result, as usual, was to rub off the glitter and glit of the crusading District Attorney tracking down crime in the big city, the smooth efficiency of the Governor of New York, even the glamor of the Republican presidential candidate. It made him, for the time, the owner of a farm, concerned most of all with getting in the hay.

Lowell Thomas, the radio announcer and also one of the New York “farmers” in this community, in his welcome home talk here yesterday kidded the Governor about staying away so long, gadding off to big cities like Chicago, and all the time there’s that hay standing, and it looks like rain.

Mr. Thomas boasted about how he had finished tossing his own hay and, nice neighbor that he is, had gone over and pitched a bit at the Dewey place. To which the Governor retorted that if that had happened, it was the first work Lowell Thomas had done in 21 years.

Friendly and neighborly

The two of them kidded the hokum, and yet there was something friendly and American and neighborly about the reception given by several hundred of his townsfolk and farmfolk who gathered in the little park back of the butcher house here on the main stem. Under its sheltering trees were some men, more women, and lots of children who looked with natural envy at the two slicked-up Dewey boys – Tom, 11, and John, 7.

Lowell Thomas emphasized the nonpartisan nature of the welcome home, how Democrats, too, were included, and, once he had opened the subject, a couple of Democrats made themselves known – both drunk. They carried on an undertone of comment from the sidelines. Their champion, Squire Roosevelt, also lives in Dutchess County.

Dewey calls ‘em by name

Mayor Bert Green, who presided at the welcome-home ceremonies, told about how Neighbor Dewey and his beautiful wife had gone off to Chicago and came back with something really handsome for a Pawling citizen, but he said they in Pawling liked to think of the Governor as the farmer who keeps his buildings and fields in good order.

The Governor fell in with the mood and paid tribute to the folks here who had been so nice to him, the druggist, the butcher, the baker, the doctor – he called their names and they nodded, smiling.

This neighborly spirit, the Governor said, was what distinguished America, what made it great. It’s what we are fighting for, he said.

And one of the nicest things was when one speaker referred to Mrs. Dewey, and son John, at her side, turned and smiled up at her.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (July 9, 1944)

Barkley hinted as leading call for 4th term

May make speech nominating Roosevelt

Wallace to talk from Seattle tomorrow

Great Falls, Montana (UP) – (July 8)
Vice President Henry A. Wallace was here today en route from China to Washington, DC, where he will make a confidential report to President Roosevelt, Public Relations Officer Edward F. Carr of the Great Falls Army Air Base announced.

Mr. Wallace is en route to Seattle, where he plans to make a radio address, tomorrow afternoon at 6:30 p.m. ET, telling of his tour.

Washington (UP) – (July 8)
Democratic circles, in the throes of fresh speculation over vice-presidential prospects at the party’s national convention, circulated a report tonight that Senator Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY) would make the speech nominating President Roosevelt for a fourth term.

There were some who believed that the President would insist on the renomination of Vice President Henry A. Wallace. But there were others who felt that Mr. Roosevelt would not remain adamant if opposition threatened to destroy convention unity. All, however, eagerly awaited Wallace’s radio address from Seattle tomorrow in the hope that he might drop some hint as to his own future plans.

Meanwhile, new names were listed as added starters in the vice-presidential speculative sweepstakes – a game that was being played by Democrats and Republicans alike. These were War Mobilization Director James F. Byrnes and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. Others previously mentioned include House Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX), Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO) and Barkley.

Mr. Barkley was at his home in Paducah, Kentucky, and was not available for comment on the report that he would take the convention lead in calling for a fourth term. DNC officials here professed to have no knowledge of Barkley’s plan, but at least one of them said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the report were true that the Kentuckian would place Mr. Roosevelt in nomination.

Such an act by Senator Barkley would be final proof of his full reconciliation with the President following the Majority Leader’s angry reaction to the tax bill veto.

Democratic National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan, who conferred for an hour with the President last night, leaves for Chicago with his staff tomorrow to open headquarters and complete final plans for the convention July 19.

At Democratic headquarters here, it was indicated that this committee plans to draft a short platform in which emphasis will be placed on a clear, forthright foreign policy plank and on the past record of the administration.

---

Byrd: Radicals threaten party

Roanoke, Virginia (UP) – (July 8)
Senator Harry F. Byrd (D-VA) today called upon the Democratic Party to return to “the greatest Democratic declaration in existence” – the party’s 1932 platform – and to reinstate the two-thirds vote in national conventions.

In a surprise address before the Virginia State Democratic Convention, Mr. Byrd said that disunity is threatening the Democratic Party as never before, and that a “return to sound principles of government” would do much to reassure the American people.

The delegates, later in the day, adopted a unanimous resolution to oppose a renomination of Henry A. Wallace as Vice President. The resolution asserted that Mr. Wallace “has become a convert to doctrines and ideologies foreign to the faith and traditions of Virginia.”

Mentioned by some Southern Democrats as a possible anti-Roosevelt presidential candidate, Mr. Byrd said the present cleavage in Democratic ranks was one “of basic principles.”

He said the Party could never be destroyed by a defeat from the Republican Party, but only by “the infiltration of alien philosophies” into its ranks. He said that repeal of the two-thirds rule had “stripped the South of its real power and voice in Democratic councils.”

Mr. Byrd said:

Communist-dominated radicals, who seek to infiltrate our party, were working for the abandonment of the American Constitution and the propagation of class and racial discrimination.

[NormanStewart]

New Deal’s policy on food assailed

GOP group charges ‘chaos, confusion’

Washington (UP) – (July 8)
The Republican Congressional Food Study Committee charged tonight that the administration’s handling of the nation’s food problems has resulted in “chaos and confusion” and demanded that the now-widely dispersed control over food production be placed in the hands of a single administrator.

The committee carried out studies of various phases of the food situation and held public meetings to hear the views of producers, processors, distributors and consumers.

The committee’s report said:

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the New Deal is that it seeks to regiment under federal and bureaucratic control all of the industrial and human activities of the nation.

At least 10 separate government agencies assumed jurisdiction over some phases of the producing, processing and distribution of food. These various agencies, functioning under widely different and sometimes contradictory directives and executive orders, duplicated their efforts and thereby harassed the public in many ways. The result was confusion and chaos everywhere.

Other phases of the report charged:

• That the hearings developed a sordid story of the black market in poultry, beef and pork, onions, fish and other commodities: “The insidious illegal black markets are the unmistakable result of inefficiency in administration.”

• That through poor administration, the government is wasting huge qualities of food and feed.

• That rationing and price-fixing policies as exercised by the administration have placed a penalty on quality and incentive to produce the best, and placed a premium upon the lowering of quality.

[NormanStewart]

O’Daniel raps New Deal in paper inquiry

Senator is asked to explain reply

Washington (UP) – (July 8)
“The New Deal squad operates like skunks and dogs,” Senator W. Lee O’Daniel (D-TX) retorted today when informed that the War Production Board was asking how he got the newsprint to begin publication of an anti-New Deal newspaper July 4.

He asserted his paper, the W. Lee O’Daniel News, had been given a “clean bill of health” by the WPB Regional Board in Dallas, Texas, and added:

It clipped the New Deal’s ears back twice in Texas and it’s going to do it again. That’s what it’s for.

Letter awaited

Mr. O’Daniel said he had not yet received the letter which Arthur Treanor, director of WPB’s Printing and Publishing Division, addressed to him yesterday asking when and where O’Daniel bought a year’s supply of critically short newsprint to start publication of the News at 100,000 copies an issue.

He said:

It’s the New Deal fashion to turn news over to newspapers to start a smear campaign before an addressee receives his letter. The New Deal squad operates like skunks and dogs, you know that old game. The dog can run faster than the skunk but he can never catch up to it – and you know why.

Regional chief quoted

He said he had received a letter from George L. Noble Jr. of the WPB Regional Office in Dallas in which Mr. Noble, replying to a Fort Worth publisher, said inquiries by his office “failed to reveal any evidence of violation of the WPB limitation order” by Mr. O’Daniel’s newspaper.

The publisher, D. E. Weaver of the Fort Worth Press, had asked Mr. Noble to find out how Mr. O’Daniel obtained “several carloads” of newsprint and stored a year’s supply in a warehouse in Fort Worth.

Mr. O’Daniel quoted Mr. Noble’s reply to Mr. Weaver to the effect that “inquiries made failed to reveal any evidence of the violation of the WPB limitation order.”