The Pittsburgh Press (October 24, 1944)
Vote fight is close in hard coal area; Luzerne is ‘pivotal’
Union seeks to swing miners for Dewey and GOP leaders are mildly hopeful
By Kermit McFarland, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania –
The political prophets are beginning to think that the result of the presidential election may well hang on how the two candidates do in Pennsylvania and New York.
And the result in Pennsylvania will depend in part on how the vote goes in this county of Luzerne – the third most populous in the state and a county the politicians believe to be “pivotal.” That is, they see a chance for Luzerne to swing either way.
By rule of thumb, this and the other counties in the anthracite area are Roosevelt counties. But there is some evidence to show that the rule of thumb may be no good this time.
Miner vote important
The way the county goes, you get to feel after you have explored the possibilities with the leading political minds of the area, will depend a great deal on how much the Republicans can dent the miner vote, up to now pretty solid for Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The prospect is not appealing to the Dewey backers here. So far, there is no evidence to show that it has been dented appreciably.
But the officers of the United Mine Workers, at the instance of John L. Lewis, are pro-Dewey.
Most of them, to date, have contributed nothing to the Dewey campaign except hip service and the gesture of wearing a Dewey-Bricker button on their coat lapels.
GOP hopeful
A few have been trying actively to round up Dewey votes among the miners, apparently with not much success at this writing. But the Republicans have hopes that, just before the election, the union officials will turn on the heat.
They point out that the assignment of work in the mines is no longer under the control of the mine bosses. It is under the control of the union. And, they think, if the union officials will go to work in genuine style, they will be able to deflect a sufficient percentage of the mine vote to Governor Dewey to turn the Roosevelt majority here into a slight Dewey majority.
Perhaps they are too wistful about it, but some of them, experienced political workers in the coal patches, believe they can achieve that “dent.” They don’t hope for much more.
Want Lewis to act
Whether or not the union officials will make a real effort to produce, they are not saying. Republicans hope John L. Lewis quietly will put out the word, that he will do this with no fanfare and that he will do it just before election, too late for countermoves to take effect.
The Republicans all seem to feel that their situation in the coal patches is not quite as bad, whatever the United Mine Workers officials eventually do, as it was four years ago.
What mild defections do exist among the miners are not due, it is apparent, to the influence of Mr. Lewis. They are due to other factors which have worked to the advantage of the Republicans among the older generations of “nationals” who have developed an opposition to the President because of shortcomings they think they see in his policies toward their ancestral lands. This is more apparent among the people of Italian extraction than any others.
Polish question is issue
So far, there is nothing to indicate any material opposition to Mr. Roosevelt among the Polish groups. The most the Republicans have accomplished, they themselves believe, has been to create some doubt in the minds of a segment of these groups.
They are directing an intensive campaign at the Polish sections. Among other things they are arguing that the President, in his Saturday night speech to the Foreign Policy Association, did not mention the Polish question.
Editorial quoted
An editorial in a Republican newspaper here summed up the Republican argument: “What is America’s foreign policy, if any, relative to the status of Poland?”
And:
The emphasis for Roosevelt laid on the recognition his administration extended to the Soviet government in 1933 assumes added significance in view of his silence on the Polish question.
That is the Republican line with respect to the large and potent Polish groups.
Whether or not it will work, the Republicans don’t know. Up to now, it hasn’t done much good.