The Pittsburgh Press (January 30, 1944)
War program investigator is outstanding, says commissioner
By Kermit McFarland
County Commissioner John J. Kane yesterday advocated the nomination of Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO) as the Democratic candidate for Vice President.
Mr. Kane said he thought it could be assumed that President Roosevelt would be renominated for a fourth term and that the principal job of the nominating convention which will meet in Chicago in June will the selection of a candidate for Vice President.
Vice President Henry A. Wallace apparently will not be slated on the 1944 Democratic ticket.
Outstanding service
Mr. Kane said:
Senator Truman, as chairman of the committee investigating the national defense program, has performed an outstanding war service.
I do not know whether Senator Truman has even been thinking of this idea, but he certainly deserves consideration for the nomination.
He and his committee have done a first-class job of seeing that the men in the Armed Forces, who are doing the fighting, get the kind of materials and equipment they need.
State meeting Friday
Mr. Kane’s suggestion, so far as is known here, is the first linking the Missouri Senator’s name with the vice-presidential nomination. Previously, Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX) of the House of Representatives and War Mobilization Director James F. Byrnes have been the most prominently mentioned possibilities.
Meanwhile, the Democratic State Committee prepared to meet Friday in Harrisburg to complete a slate of candidates for state offices.
Mr. Kane is backing federal judge Charles Alvin Jones of Edgeworth – the 1938 Democratic nominee for Governor – for the Supreme Court nomination. Another federal judge, Guy K. Bard of Lancaster County, has also been proposed.
Guffey backing Black
If U.S. Senator Joseph F. Guffey is unsuccessful in his efforts to slate Ramsay S. Black of Harrisburg, third Assistant Postmaster General, for the U.S. Senate nomination, the candidate will probably come from Philadelphia.
Congressman Michael J. Bradley and former Congressman James F. McGranery are avowed candidates.
Auditor General F. Clair Ross of Butler is a potential candidate for one of the two Superior Court nominations. Superior Court Judge Chester Rhodes of Stroudsburg, the only Democrat on either appellate bench, will be slated for a second 10-year term.
Democratic leaders virtually have agreed on State Treasurer G. Harold Wagner of Wilkes-Barre to succeed Mr. Ross as Auditor General. Under the Pennsylvania Constitution, neither the State Treasurer nor the Auditor General may succeed himself.
Senator Byrd reopens feud with Guffey
Pennsylvanian’s job demand for surgeon starts latest fight
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent
Washington – (Jan. 29)
Senator Harry F. Byrd (D-VA) today reopened the still-smoldering feud with Senator Joseph F. Guffey (D-PA) with a prediction that Mr. Guffey will be ousted as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Mr. Byrd charged that Mr. Guffey has been using his influence as head of the committee “to advance his demands upon the various agencies of the government.”
He said:
Senator Guffey was never and is not now the choice of the Democratic membership of the Senate for this position. He was appointed and not elected. As soon as a caucus can be held, unless he first reigns, I make the confident prediction that Senator Guffey will be removed as chairman of the committee.
Guffey admits threat
The Virginia Senator made his complaint against the Pennsylvania New Dealer in a letter to District of Columbia’s Commissioner Guy Mason,. Who became involved in a dispute this week with Mr. Guffey over failure of the District officials to appoint a Guffey protégé as a hospital surgeon.
Mr. Guffey admitted authorship of letters threatening a Senate investigation unless his friend and personal physician, Russian-born Dr. Eugene de Savitsch, was appointed a surgeon at Glenn Dale Tuberculosis Sanatorium.
District officials retorted that the Guffey-sponsored physician was not qualified for the type of work he proposed to do.
Called ‘reprehensible’
Mr. Byrd, in his letter to Commissioner Mason, called Mr. Guffey’s attempt to bet a surgical post for his personal physician:
…especially reprehensible because it was proposed that Savitsch would only perform operations on indigent patients who could not protect themselves.
Mr. Byrd’s letter said:
This is a question of life and death. Yet a U.S. Senator used his political power even to the extent of threats of reprisals against the District Commissioners unless his protégé was permitted to perform experimental operations on the poor people who could have no protection against being operated upon by one who is incompetent, in the opinion of those in authority.
I do not think I have ever heard of a kore contemptible act.
Stand firm, Byrd says
Mr. Byrd urged the District officials to stand firm against Mr. Guffey’s effort to get a job for his physician, and predicted that if Mr. Guffey succeeds in getting an investigation “neither the Senate nor the House would permit you or your subordinates to be coerced in this manner.”
Mr. Guffey aroused Mr. Byrd’s enmity when he identified him as leader of Southern Democratic Senate members, who, he charged, teamed up with Northern Republicans in an “unholy alliance” to defeat the federal soldier-vote bill.
Another speech planned
Mr. Byrd replied, on the Senate floor, with a demand that Mr. Guffey prove or withdraw his charges, promising to speak further on the Pennsylvania Senator’s past record, if he doesn’t do so.
The Virginia Senator has reportedly prepared another speech on the subject of Mr. Guffey.