State’s Democrats hope to ride with Roosevelt
Name candidates with full expectation of being running mates of President
By Robert Taylor, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Keynoting their campaign with “Victory and a just and lasting peace,” Pennsylvania Democrats have named a slate of candidates for state offices with the full expectation that they will be running mates of President Roosevelt in a fourth-term campaign.
Members of the Democratic State Committee yesterday took the first organized action toward a fourth-term campaign when they adopted a resolution asserting that:
The people of this state and of every other state look to Franklin D. Roosevelt for continued leadership.
The Committee instructed State Chairman David L. Lawrence and other committee officers to circulate primary petitions for Mr. Roosevelt and place his name on the ballot in Pennsylvania’s preferential primary April 25.
Speakers at the Committee’s biennial meeting left no doubt that they expected to fight the 1944 campaign on the international issues as both Chairman Lawrence and Rep. Francis J. Myers of Philadelphia, who emerged as the slated candidate for the party’s senatorial nomination, spoke on that theme.
Mr. Lawrence told the 109 members of the Committee:
What we do in the next election and the next administration will determine the speed of victory, the preservation of that victory and its translation into lasting peace, and the security and prosperity of the American people including the 11 million men and women in service in this war.
After receiving the committee’s designation for Senator, Mr. Myers said:
We can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of 1918, 1919 and 1920. If we do, the sons of the men now fighting will fight again in 25 or 30 years.
Mr. Myers, 42, a third-term Congressman and former deputy state attorney general, has been an administration follower throughout his service in Congress. His final selection as the senatorial candidate came in a backroom conference nearly two hours after the committee was scheduled to meet.
Complete harmony
The committee members, meanwhile, waited for word from their leaders and endorsed the selection without opposition.
Complete harmony in the Democratic primary, for the first time since 1936, was assured when Rep. Michael J. Bradley of Philadelphia, who had announced an independent campaign with labor backing for the Democratic senatorial nomination withdrew from the race.
The only opposition in the committee occurred when Westmoreland County Democrats, seeking a state judicial nomination for Common Pleas Judge George H. McWherter of Westmoreland County opposed designation of U.S. Circuit Judge Charles Alvin Jones for a State Supreme Court nomination.
Opposition voted down
The Westmoreland Countians, led by State Senator John H. Dent, were voted down, 86–16.
The committee filled out the state slate by designating Superior Court Judge Chester H. Rhodes of Monroe County, auditor general, and F. Clair Ross of Butler, for nominations to the Superior Court; Third Assistant Postmaster General Ramsey S. Black of Harrisburg, for state treasurer, and State Treasurer G. Harold Wagner of Luzerne Country, for auditor general.