Election 1944: Interval news

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

The Pittsburgh Press (July 8, 1944)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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‘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.”

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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.

The Pittsburgh Press (July 9, 1944)

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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.

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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.

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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.”

Report on Trip to Siberia and China by Vice President Wallace
July 9, 1944, 6:30 p.m. EWT

Since I left the skies above America seven weeks ago, I have visited two great countries – Soviet Asia and China; I have not stood upon the threshold of these countries like a stranger. I have been honored with the confidence of those who are working to shape their countries’ destinies. I have been privileged to look behind the scenes.

Today I want to tell you something of my experiences of the past weeks.

In the first place, I am today more than ever an American. The more I examine other countries, the more convinced I am that the American way of life is the best way for us. In the second place, we can and should fit our own way of life to cooperation with other nations and other peoples whose way of life is different from ours but who need our cooperation Quite as much as we need theirs, and who are not only willing but eager to cooperate with us. to In the third place, I am convinced that main area of new development after this war – new enterprise, new investment, new trade, new accomplishments – will be in the new world of the North Pacific and Eastern Asia.

This will give to our Pacific Coast an importance greater than it has ever had before, and I am glad, returning from Soviet Asia and China, that Seattle is my port of entry. No city is more American in spirit and action than Seattle. But no city has shown itself more alive to the importance of our relations with the other areas of the North Pacific.

The spirit is well exemplified, not only in your active peacetime trade with Asia, but also in the University of Washington, where for several years you have worked on integrating the study of the languages, cultures, history, politics and economics of the Pacific.

We shall need all our resources of knowledge and all our American readiness to think out new ways of tackling new problems when we have won the war in the Pacific.

The day will come when the Pacific will be cleared of Japs and our boys, coming home from Tokyo, will land at Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Then we shall think more and more of our West as a link with the East of Asia.

Those who say that East is East and West is West and that the two shall never meet are wrong. The East of Asia, both Chinese and Russian, is on the move in a way which is easy for any American to understand who sees these great areas at firsthand for himself. The rapid agricultural and industrial development of this great area means so much to the peace and prosperity of the post-war world that I am glad on my return to America to give my impressions of the manifest destiny of the west of America and the east of Asia.

Here in Northwest United States, we were long held back by unfair freight rates and by failure to develop the power inherent in the great rivers. But more and more we are perceiving the importance of strengthening our West and especially our Northwest.

Thanks to men like Norris, McNary, Bone and Roosevelt, the Northwest during the past ten years has rapidly expanded. This expansion must continue to the limit of its agricultural, industrial and commercial potentialities. This includes Alaska, which has not yet begun to measure up to its possibilities. Our growth must be not merely in terms of ourselves, but also in terms of Asia. Vigorous two-way trade with Soviet Asia and China will greatly increase the population and prosperity of our Northwest.

All of this I knew in a theoretical way before going to Asia. After having seen as much of the industry and agriculture of East Asia as any American has seen in such a short time, I am more than ever convinced that we are entering upon what might be called “the Era of the Pacific.”

One characteristic of the Pacific era will be the building of great airports in parts of the world now very thinly inhabited. The extent to which the Russians have already developed runways and servicing for airplanes in East Asia amazed me. We landed at perhaps a dozen airports in Soviet Asia, the names of which not one in a thousand Americans ever heard.

It is quite possible that for 15 or 20 years after this war the air route to Asia via Fairbanks, Alaska, will not be a moneymaking one. But it is also certain that our national future requires that we, in cooperation with Russia and the Chinese, maintain such a route. Soviet Asia during the past 15 years has more than doubled its population. It is quite possible that the next 50 years will see a further increase of more than 30 million people.

I am convinced from what I saw of the Amur River region that in the southern part of that area there will be a great increase in population. Russia, as a result of her experience with this war will certainly shift much of her industry east of the Urals. Most of the people who moved to Siberia with their factories will stay there.

Everywhere, from Magadan on the Pacific Ocean to Tashkent in central Asia, I found the Russian people producing to the limit in the factory and on the farm. About two-thirds of the work on farms and one-third of the work in the factories is being done by women.

In the factories everywhere I found American machinery, some purchased before the war but most of it obtained under Lend-Lease. The way in which American industry through Lend-Lease has helped Russia to expand production in Soviet Asia has given me an increased admiration both for the United States and for Russia.

I found American flour in the Soviet Far East, American aluminum in Soviet airplane factories, American steel in truck and railway repair shops, American machine tools in shipbuilding yards, American compressors and electrical equipment on Soviet naval vessels, American electric shovels in open-cut coal mines, American core drills in copper mines of central Asia, and American trucks and planes performing strategic transportation functions in supplying remote bases.

I found the people, both in positions of management and at the work benches, appreciative of the aid rendered by the United States and the other Allies. While it is misleading to make any comparison between the huge Soviet industrial effort and the amount of Lend-Lease aid we have been able to give the USSR, I am convinced from what I saw in Siberia and central Asia that Lend-Lease has helped the Russians in many difficult and even critical situations on the industrial front, as well as on the military front.

On the rich irrigated land of central Asia, a strong cotton industry is being rapidly developed. At Tashkent, a city of a million people, I found experimental work in cotton which for its originality and practical effectiveness compares most favorably with the best in the United States. Modern industry was also flourishing at this ancient seat of Eastern culture.

From Tashkent, my farthest point west, we turned east to Alma Ata, my last stop before entering China. There I found not only excellent scientific work with apples but also the beginnings of a moving-picture industry which may make Alma Ata the Hollywood of central Asia. Located at the foot of the Tien Shan – Heavenly Mountains – the city is blessed with a superb climate, almost as good as that of southern California.

China is totally different from Soviet Asia. While she is eager and anxious to enter the machine age, she has not yet been able to turn out, in either modern war materials or heavy goods, more than a small fraction of her needs. This situation should not long continue.

China, with her 450 million people and her great resources, should sooner or later produce a large portion oi her requirements in the way of heavy and light industrial goods and also consumer goods. But to modernize her industry and train her people, China needs help. We have thousands of technical and businessmen in the United States who are able to furnish that help. But the businessmen in particular want to be sure of one thing. They want to be Certain, before they lay the foundations and make the necessary outlay, that there is no foreseeable likelihood of conflict within China or between China and Russia.

I am glad to say that I found among those with whom I talked an outspoken desire for good understanding, and personally I am convinced that China and the USSR will take the necessary steps to ensure continuing peace and to promote cultural and commercial exchanges among the nations of the Pacific to the benefit of all.

Asia is the center of the greatest land and population masses of the world. It is our business to be friends with both Russia and China and exchange with both Russia and China the goods and information which will raise the standard of living of all our peoples. I found the leaders in both Soviet Asia and China anxious for the most friendly relationship with the United States and expressing the utmost confidence in the leadership of President Roosevelt. Living standards can be raised. Causes of war can be removed.

Failure to concern ourselves with problems of this sort after World War I is costing us today hundreds of billions of dollars and a terrible toll of human life. To avoid a recurrence of the scourge of war, it is essential insofar as the Pacific basin is concerned, that relations among the four principal powers in the Pacific – China, the Soviet Union, the British Commonwealth and the United States – be cordial and collaborative.

Post-war stability in China is dependent upon economic reconstruction – agricultural as well as industrial – and reconstruction in China is dependent upon trade. It became clear to me during my visit to China that reconstruction is going to depend in large measure on imports from abroad. It will require technical and material assistance from us given on a businesslike basis.

We hear much about industrial reconstruction in China. I found the Chinese anxious for industrialization. China should be industrialized. But any industrialization of China must be based upon agricultural reconstruction, agrarian reform, because China is predominately a nation of farmers. They are good farmers, as I observed during my stay there, but they need a break – a New Deal.

China should make the necessary reform but we can help by furnishing technicians and scientific information and, on the trade level, by selling the Chinese agricultural implements, fertilizers and insecticides. Ultimately of course, China should make these things for herself.

China should be self-sufficient in foods but I can foresee that for many years the Chinese will continue to import food products from our West – wheat, flour and fruits for instance. In fact, it is not unreasonable to anticipate that, with an increase in the standard of living of China’s consumers, a healthy exchange of food products peculiar to China and our West will develop and endure. Northwest lumber should play an important part in the China of the future as it has in the China of the past.

The industrialization of China will require machines, and the materials of which machines are made. During recent years our West has been developing facilities for the production of steel and machinery. These will be in demand in China to produce the consumer goods which will be needed by the masses of East Asia.

Machines for land, sea, and air transportation will also be needed. Our West is in a particularly strategic position to produce for the east of Asia airships and sea ships, and the timber, steel and aluminum of which they are made.

Trade is not a one-way affair – it is a swap, sometimes direct and sometimes complicated. It seems evident that credits will have to be employed to finance economic development in East Asia. But those credits must be repaid, and the most satisfactory way to repay is with goods. So, speaking particularly of China, we should plan to buy as well as to sell.

Such typical commodities as wood oil, silks, tea, hides ana metals, which formed the bulk of China’s exports to us before the war, should form the basis of an expanding Chinese export to the United States after the war.

There is a great future for trade between East Asia and ourselves. To bring this to pass will take not only a sympathetic understanding of each other’s conditions and a farsighted determination to make trade what it should be – a mutually beneficial transaction.

Day after tomorrow, I hope to report to President Roosevelt certain definite facts which I am not at liberty to discuss here. But I can say that everywhere I went in Eastern Asia I found rapid changes. Even in Mongolia, one of the most remote regions of the world, I found that the changes of the past twenty years had been very great. The United States, together with Russia and Great Britain, has a profound interest in the rapid, peaceful change of Eastern Asia to the more fruitful use of her vast natural and human resources.

Here is a great new frontier to which Seattle can furnish much in the way of leadership. Our scientists must cooperate with the Russian and Canadian scientists in learning how to lick the problems of the permanently frozen ground of Alaska, Canada and the north of Siberia. We must exchange agricultural and weather information.

I have found a splendid disposition on the part of Russian scientists to cooperate in agricultural matters and a frank readiness on the part of Chinese administrators to consider America’s position as well as China’s in discussing future economic cooperation. This gives me great hope for the long future.

The American businessman of tomorrow should have a broad world outlook. I have faith that American economic leadership will confer on the Pacific region a great material benefit and on the world a great blessing. The new frontier extends from Minneapolis via the Coast States and Alaska through Siberia and China all the way to Central Asia.

Here are vast resources of minerals and manpower to be developed by democratic, peaceful methods – the methods not of exploitation, but, on the contrary, the more profitable method of creating higher living standards for hundreds of millions of people.

It was a wonderful trip. I am grateful to President Roosevelt for giving me an opportunity to talk with people in every walk of life in Asia who are aiding us in winning this war. With victory we can continue to work together in peace.

We want a higher standard of living in America. We want full production, jobs for our boys who come home, and peacetime jobs for those who are now employed. Trade with Russia and China will help keep the factories of America busy in the days which lie ahead. We are on our way.

The Pittsburgh Press (July 10, 1944)

americavotes1944

Roosevelt on spot on Wallace fate

Ultimate control of party at stake
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington (UP) –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace returned today from his 23,000-mile roundtrip to Asia, and the White House announced that he would confer this afternoon with President Roosevelt, who must decide whether Mr. Wallace will be on the Democratic ticket again this year.

The necessity of so deciding confronts Mr. Roosevelt with one of the momentous problems of his career – whether it compel the Democratic National Convention to renominate the Vice President. The convention starts July 19 in Chicago.

On his return here, as on his arrival in Seattle yesterday, Mr. Wallace had nothing to say about his own political destiny. He issued a statement that he was glad to be back and said that “this is the first time I have liked Washington weather.”

In a 20-minute radio address in Seattle, he had urged a “New Deal” for China and close collaboration between this country and “the new world of the Northern Pacific and Eastern Asia.”

It was reported in Seattle that Mr. Wallace has made no plans to attend the Democratic convention.

Mr. Roosevelt’s ability to control the convention and to have Mr. Wallace on the ticket is unquestioned.

What the President must decide is whether it would be wiser to avoid the bitterness that Mr. Wallace’s renomination would create or to accept some other running mate who might surrender to the Conservative Democratic organization if Mr. Roosevelt died in office and were succeeded by the Vice President.

That is about all there is to the uproar about Mr. Wallace, although in the public dispute now raging over the vice-presidential nomination there is little if any acknowledgment that all hands are thinking about ultimate control of the party organization.

1940 bitterness recalled

Mr. Roosevelt is 62 and if reelected, he would be 66 on leaving office. The possibility of his death in office, therefore, is something both he and his Democratic opponents consider in approaching the vice-presidential problem.

Mr. Roosevelt rammed the former Iowa Republican down the throat of the 1940 Democratic Convention with the explanation that he wanted a man of “that turn of mind” on the ticket with him. The compelling factor, however, was the President’s intimation that he would not accept the nomination himself unless Mr. Wallace was on the ticket.

It was a bitter show in 1940, with Mr. Wallace sitting grimly on the platform, blistering under the boos and clutching the speech of acceptance which he was never permitted to deliver.

Identical conditions today

Almost identical conditions now prevail except that the anti-fourth-term, anti-Wallace forces are more angry this time. They have been frustrated in their effort to get rid of Mr. Roosevelt and have settled upon Mr. Wallace as a compromise sacrifice.

The final pre-convention gesture of opposition to Mr. Wallace came over the weekend from the Virginia State Democratic Convention which instructed delegates to Chicago to vote against his renomination. The delegates have no presidential instructions.

No one here doubts that Mr. Roosevelt will control the convention in every respect. But it is equally certain that there will be bitter minority opposition not only to Mr. Wallace, but to the President’s renomination.

Some may take a walk

The Credentials Committee will seethe in contests, notable whether pro- or anti-Roosevelt delegates from Texas shall be seated. The South wants to restore the rule requiring nominations be made by a minimum two-thirds majority. There is angry fear in the South that the Northern Democrats, allied with labor and controlling great city organizations, will try to write into the platform a commitment on racial equality.

It is possible that some delegates may take a walk – as Senator Ellison D “Cotton Ed” Smith (D-SC) did in 1936 when a Negro preacher offered a convention prayer. But the majority of the delegates will vote for Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination, unless he forbids it, and for anything else he wants, including Mr. Wallace – if he wants him.


Oregon to vote for Wallace

Washington (UP) –
Willis Mahoney, former mayor of Klamath Falls, Oregon, and Democratic candidate for Senator from Oregon, predicted today that a majority of delegates to the Democratic National Convention from his state will vote for the renomination of Vice President Henry A. Wallace.

Mr. Mahoney also predicted that President Roosevelt will “overwhelmingly carry the Pacific Northwest” if he seeks a fourth term.

Although Mr. Wallace’s name did not appear on the ballot in the May Democratic primary in Oregon, some 11,800 Democrats wrote his name in for the vice-presidential nomination, Mr. Mahoney said.

americavotes1944

Labor paper raps Wallace’s Russian talks

Ignorance of state of affairs charged
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace’s Russian speeches were as inept as some he has made here, contends David J. Dallin, writing in the New Leader, liberal-labor weekly.

Mr. Dallin said:

Mr. Wallace’s speeches, although delivered in Russian, sounded like Wallace-English all the same. He not only promoted the American cause; what he said sounded perhaps a bit strange to his audience. After visiting industrial plants in Magadan, Komsomolsk and elsewhere in eastern Siberia, again and again he said, “I can bear witness to the willingness with which your citizens give their utmost efforts in mines, aircraft factories, metallurgical works.”

It so happens that the recently-emerged industry of this region has been built and is being operated largely by the manpower of the labor camps of eastern Siberia.

These camps, consisting of deportees, convicts, and “socially dangerous” elements, are among the saddest features of our sad times. Mr. Wallace, speaking of the inmates’ “willingness” to work, was unwittingly ironical.

Smuggled report cited

A report allegedly smuggled from Magadan forced labor camps, giving details of the wretched conditions there, is then cited by the writer. It says:

Half-decayed wooden barracks inside a ruin of wooden bunks, dilapidated fireplaces in which things could hardly be warmed up. No lighting after sundown. Food less than scanty.

One of the women’s camps in Magadan is being run by two young women leaders from the NKVD [formerly GPU], both very pretty, energetic but hellishly bad and hard. This camp is surrounded by barbed wire. During the summer, prisoners live in tents, men and women together. Women who keep to themselves are teased by the men.

People are extremely weakened, exhausted by the heavy labor. Most suffer from kidney trouble, from swelling of legs, from open wounds, from scurvy. Men often go blind. There are many cases of frostbite. Illnesses are spread because of the lack of recreation and of any signs of civilized life. Many die from diarrhea and general exhaustion…

‘Was it necessary?’

Mr. Dallin then concludes with this advice:

It certainly was no part of Mr. Wallace’s task, especially in wartime, to take up these problems with Russia, either publicly or privately. But he ought to be acquainted with the state of affairs, just as was Wendell Willkie who, after his visit to Russia in 1942, mentioned the problem in his reports.

Was it really necessary for Mr. Wallace to exclaim in Irkutsk that “men born in wide free spaces will not brook injustice” and that “they will not even temporarily live in slavery”?

Collaboration with Russia hardly requires statements of this kind before a well-informed audience in the Russian Far East.

americavotes1944

Editorial: A two-term limit?

The fact that 66% of the public favors a two-term limit for Presidents after this year’s election, as shown by the Gallup Poll, indicates that although prior to 1940 the two-term limit was only a tradition, it was nevertheless a tradition that the people approved of.

When the Constitution was written, many different suggestions concerning presidential tenure were put forth. Alexander Hamilton favored life tenure. Other proposals of single seven-year and five-year terms were made. None was accepted, other than the provision that the term be for four years. Not a word was said about reelection, or about how many reelections were desirable.

The two-term tradition was instituted by the first occupant of the office, President Washington. It took on the strength of an accepted limit principally by Jefferson’s insistence that two terms were enough, and that for any man to seek to exceed that limit would stamp him as an enemy of free government. It was one of Jefferson’s opinions on the subject, quoted by Senator Carter Glass in nominating Jim Farley, that drew resounding boos at the convention of Jefferson’s party in 1940.

The tradition was cast aside in 1940, however, by the people themselves. The issue was clear-cut and the third-term candidate won by a decisive, though not overwhelming, majority. The decision was reached constitutionally and legally, by the court of last resort in a republic – the voters.

But it is a different matter if now the same people seek to prevent a repetition. The only method possible to prevent it is by amendment to the Constitution which the Gallup survey finds that 66% of the people are for.

That does not necessarily mean that a majority which voted for a third term in 1940 is so disappointed in the experiences that it regrets its vote of four years ago. It may mean only that it is willing to accept this one exception, but is aware of the potential danger of unlimited tenure and believes a legal limit should be established.

Be that as it may, the tradition itself is dead. If the two-term principle is to be reestablished, an amendment is the only recourse. And if 66% of the people want it, it likely will be adopted – perhaps not at once, but in times to prevent a longer-than-two-term issue ever arising again.

americavotes1944

America Firster demands Bricker

Gerald L. K. Smith wants Dewey to quit

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Gerald L. K. Smith, chairman of the America First Committee, said today he would ask his organization to approve a resolution calling on Governor Thomas E. Dewey to withdraw in favor of Governor John W. Bricker as the Republican presidential candidate.

Mr. Smith said the meeting will be held here July 17 and that 2,000 of his “people” would attend, including “numerous delegates to the Democratic Convention.”

He added:

We are hoping that Senator Reynolds can be present. Should his duties as Chairman of the Military Affairs Committee of the Senate prevent his presence, a message from him will be read at the rally.

He said his organization would call on the Democrats to nominate Senator Burton Wheeler (D-MT) for President.

He said:

If the Democrats go internationalist and nominate Roosevelt, we will call a national convention of America First people and nominate our own candidate for President unless Dewey resigns in favor of Bricker, as he should. If we call our own convention, I am convinced that our people will attempt to draft Charles A. Lindbergh for President.

Governor Dewey waws unpopular when nominated by the GOP, due to his mistreatment of our people, the America Firsters, and I prophesy that his stock will show a big slump in the coming reports of those who poll public opinion.


Light vote forecast in Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota (UP) –
The lightest vote of any primary election in recent years was predicted today in Minnesota where voters choose candidates for Congress, Governor, Lieutenant Governor and other state offices on the Republican and Democratic-Farmer-Labor ticket.

The election followed one of the dullest political campaigns in a state noted for its interest in politics. Lack of issues and personalities were expected to produce a vote far less than the 580,000 ballots cast two years ago.

Tobin becomes ‘problem child’ for Democrats

He’s Labor Committee head – hostile to CIO
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Stokes: Deweys living a ‘glass house’ life

Governor, family put through paces for three hours by photographers
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer


Dewey confers with Spangler