Election 1944: Pre-convention news

[NormanStewart]

Oppose propaganda, Bricker tells editors

Columbus, Ohio (UP) –
Newspapers must meet the New Deal’s “calculated purpose to discredit the press” with a threefold attack on government propaganda, censorship and centralization of power in the executive branch, Governor John W. Bricker said last night.

In an address hailed by his campaign headquarters as “the strongest” since he announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, Mr. Bricker warned members of the Ohio Newspaper Association of three “dangers” threatening freedom of the press:

First, the use of the press for propaganda “in the nature of a trial balloon for political purposes.”

Second, censorship:

…the road down which the people of Germany, Italy and Japan were led to slavery and ultimate defeat.

Third, concentration of power in the executive branch of the government, making “the danger to a free press more and more imminent.”

[NormanStewart]

Background of news –
Soldier votes and some statistics

By Bertram Benedict, editorial research reports

From present indications, the number of men and women in the Armed Forces and the Merchant Marine will be around 11 million by Election Day, 1944. Of this total, perhaps 7.5 million will be outside the continental United States.

President Roosevelt, in his soldier-vote message to Congress Jan. 26, put the number overseas by Election Day as “more than five million,” but the President evidently slipped up on his mathematics, for that is the estimate given for the Army alone.

Of the 7.5 million overseas on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November 1944, perhaps 1,200,000 will be under 21 (Georgia is so far the only state which has reduced the voting age to 18). Perhaps another 300,000 will be non-citizens, so that the potential voting strength of the Armed Forces overseas will be in the neighborhood of six million.

That is only about 7% of the total potential voting population. It is slightly more than President Roosevelt’s popular majority over Wendell Willkie in 1940, considerably less than his majority over Alf M. Landon in 1936, slightly less than his majority over President Hoover in 1932.

Not likely to be decisive

Some of the six million soldiers eligible will certainly not bother to vote, whatever the facilities provided. Of those who do vote, the division among the two major party candidates is not likely to be much greater than 75–25. In other words, the overseas soldier vote could not decide the 1944 election unless the election should otherwise be considerably closer than the election of 1940, when almost 50 million ballots were cast for President.

From the above statistics, it appears that the overseas soldier vote is not likely to provide either major party presidential candidate a margin of more than 5% of the total vote cast. Under the electoral system of the United States, that must be broken down by states, to gauge its effect.

The Democrats are maintaining that most of the soldier vote will go to the Commander-in-Chief, so that if most of the soldiers are prevented from voting, the Democrats may charge that the election was stolen from them. However, the loss of 5% of his votes in 1940 would mean the loss of only four additional states from Mr. Roosevelt, if the Republican vote were the same as in 1940. These four states are among the largest in the Union – New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Wisconsin – and together they account for 104 electoral votes.

Would have made no difference

Mr. Roosevelt received 449 electoral votes in 1940, and the loss of 104 would still leave him 345, considerably more than enough to elect. So, if the Democrats were to lose the 1944 election with most of the overseas soldiers not voting, the loss would be due only in part to the absence of soldier votes, much more to a shift of civilian votes away from the Democratic column since 1940.

Chairman Spangler of the Republican National Committee has reported that informal polls taken by his friends indicate that most soldiers overseas are inclined toward the Republican ticket. If that be true the Republican presidential candidate will suffer if most of the soldiers don’t vote.

The states, with their electoral votes, carried by Mr. Willkie in 1940 by less than a 5% margin were as follows:

Colorado	6
Indiana	14
Iowa	11
Maine	5
Michigan	19

These five states accounted for about two-thirds of the total electoral vote for Mr. Willkie.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 6, 1944)

Pennsylvania politics –
Myers, Davis likely to be November foes

Neither is expected to have opposition in April primary
By Robert Taylor, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – (Feb. 5)
The harmony program ratified here by the Democratic State Committee has forecast a race in the November election for U.S. Senator between Rep. Francis J. Myers, Philadelphia New Dealer, and Senator James J. Davis, seeking election to a third full term, as the Republican nominee.

Mr. Myers is assured the Democratic nomination in the April 25 primary by the withdrawal of all opposition just before the State Committee endorsed his candidacy yesterday, and he will run on a ticket headed, Democrats confidently expect, by President Roosevelt.

May avoid primary contest

Failure of Republican leaders to settle on a candidate to oppose Senator Davis in the primary, with the backing of Joseph R. Grundy and Joseph N. Pew Jr., left political circles believing that they may not give Mr. Davis serious opposition in the primary.

The proposal not to put organized opposition in the field against the veteran Republican Senator, who has been on unfriendly terms with the Grundy-Pew leadership for years was credited to Governor Edward Martin.

If this change in Republican plans materializes, both parties will avoid a contest in the primary election and will keep their ranks intact for the presidential election.

Democrats jubilant

For the Democrats, it will be the first harmonious primary since 1936, due to healing of the political breach between Senator Guffey and State Chairman David L. Lawrence, which has kept party affairs in a turmoil since 1938.

For the Republicans, it would be the first time since 1930 that Mr. Davis has sought a senatorial nomination without encountering a determined attempt by the party organization to defeat him.

Democrats were jubilant today over the outcome of the harmony program by which they named, virtually unopposed, a state slate to serve as a “supporting cast” to the President in the November election.

All seasoned campaigners

Each of the slated candidates is a seasoned campaigner. Rep. Myers, a 42-year-old Philadelphia attorney, is a third-term Congressman. U.S. Circuit Judge Charles Alvin Jones of Pittsburgh, designated candidate for the State Supreme Court, was the party’s 1938 nominee for Governor.

Superior Court Judge Chester H. Rhodes, originally elected in 1934, was designated a candidate for one of two Superior Court posts and his running mate, F. Clair Ross, has been elected State Treasurer and Auditor General and was the Democratic nominee for Governor in 1942.

Call on Roosevelt

Third Assistant Postmaster General Ramsey S. Black, slated for the nomination for State Treasurer, has been active in politics in Central Pennsylvania for years and G. Harold Wagner of Luzerne County, slated for Auditor General, was elected State Treasurer four years ago.

Speakers at the Democratic State Committee meeting set the keynote of the campaign as “victory and a just and lasting peace,” and the committee adopted a resolution demanding that President Roosevelt “carry the burdens of his great tasks until the war is won and a secure peace assured.”

Home front issues

Mr. Lawrence told the assembled committee:

He must continue his masterly direction of the war, because the plans that are shaped are his, the men that direct are his, the team that is winning is his, and no other man could take over in the middle of the game and call the plays correctly and without a hitch.

The Democratic leaders didn’t forget home front issues in marking out the terms on which they will fight the campaign. The committee adopted a resolution denouncing Pennsylvania’s Republican Congressmen for opposing a “stand up and be counted” roll call on the federal soldier ballot bill and urged approval by Congress of a soldier ballot.

Mr. Lawrence charged Republican Congressmen with fighting price control and boosting inflation on behalf of pressure groups and against the interests of labor.

He said:

The fight against food subsidies has been a Republican fight to raise the cost of living of the city dweller to curry favor with the organized farm bloc. Then, when labor felt the pinch of rising living costs, Republican politicians would point to the wage control agencies of government and tell working people that the Roosevelt administration has turned against them.

Labor represented

As in previous presidential years, labor will be represented on the Pennsylvania slate of delegates at large to the national convention, to serve with the state’s leading Democrats.

Philip Murray, CIO and United Steel Workers president, and James L. McDevitt, president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor (AFL), were designated as delegates at large, and John A. Philips, president of the Pennsylvania Industrial Union Council (CIO), as an alternate. Mr. Black, designated for the state treasurer nomination, is a former railroad worker with widespread support among rail unions.

[NormanStewart]

Senate delays showdown on soldier vote

Washington (UP) – (Feb. 5)
Senate showdown on the bitterly-contested soldier vote issue was postponed today until next week when an epidemic of “hooky” playing forced adjournment of a special Saturday session shortly after it opened.

The chamber met today on motion of Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY), who hoped for passage of administration-supported legislation to provide federal ballots for voting by service personnel this November.

But Mr. Barkley’s hope was in vain. When the gavel fell at 11:00 a.m. ET, seven Senators were present. Twenty minutes and two roll calls later when only 44 members – four less than a quorum – had answered present, Mr. Barkley gave up and moved an adjournment until Monday.

Foes cheered

Spokesmen for the anti-administration coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats who are opposing provision of federal ballots hailed today’s fiasco as a victory. They contended that if a vote had been possible, they would have had a 24–20 victory.

They based that claim on the fact that, of 44 Senators present, 24 voted against the administration in a test yesterday on an amendment which would have sharply restricted use of federal ballots. The amendment, opposed by the administration, lost by a 46–42 tally.

James O. Eastland (D-MS), a leader of the Republican-Southern Democrat coalition, viewed the adjournment as a good omen for the “states’ rights” legislation favored by his group, which would simply call on states to provide adequate absentee balloting procedure.

Another effort planned

Meanwhile, there was some talk that the anti-administration bloc might make another attempt Monday to settle the entire issue by a parliamentary maneuver which they tried but failed to bring off on Friday.

The maneuver involved a motion to lay aside the pending Lucas-Green federal ballot bill and take up the so-called “states’ rights” measure passed by the Senate last December and by the House Thursday night.

If those two steps were successful, the bloc would then move to accept the minor revisions made by the House and, if that motion carried, the bill would then be on the way to the White House – without any provision for federal ballots.

[NormanStewart]

Pennsylvania soldiers get data on absentee voting

But they must qualify under state law and have opportunity to get ballots

Washington (UP) – (Feb. 5)
The War Department has informed soldiers from Pennsylvania, Illinois, Nebraska and Louisiana that they have some voting to do this April – if they’re qualified under state laws and if they have the time, patience and opportunity to do what it takes to get and cast ballots.

In a preview of what will happen on a tremendously larger scale in advance of the November presidential election if no new soldier vote legislation is enacted, the department set in motion machinery to “facilitate” voting in Illinois, Nebraska and Pennsylvania primaries and in Louisiana’s general election.

Inform serviceman

Commanding officers at all military installations have been instructed to call the elections to the attention of men from the four states and to provide those who wish to vote with postage-free postcard applications for ballots. With the postcards go special instructions for each state.

Under Public Law 712 enacted in 1942, the armed services must do what they can to help service personnel obtain absentee ballots. Voting qualifications and the validity of ballots are determined by the states.

The War Department reminded prospective voters of “certain important factors,” including:

• A soldier must be at least 21 to vote.

• In certain states just filing application for an absentee ballot is not enough; there are other steps.

• If a soldier doesn’t know whether he is qualified to vote, “he should immediately inquire by letter to the Secretary of State of the state of his voting residence as to whether it is necessary to register, pay taxes or meet other requirements.”

• Upon receiving his absentee ballot, the soldier should execute it and return it immediately.

Instructions given

The War Department issued the following special information:

Pennsylvania primary, April 25: Soldiers may apply for “official war ballots” covering only federal offices, or for state absentee ballots covering all offices. The former may be obtained from the Secretary of State, Harrisburg, by use of Army postcard forms.

[NormanStewart]

Willkie will stump Wisconsin 2 weeks

Milwaukee, Wisconsin (UP) – (Feb. 5)
Wendell L. Willkie announced today that he will spend two weeks in March campaigning for the election of delegates in Wisconsin pledged to support him for the Republican presidential nomination.

He said:

I look upon the Wisconsin primary as one of the most important tests in the whole pre-nomination struggle.

The primary will be held April 4 and is the first in which leading candidates for the GOP nomination will be directly opposed. Delegate slates so far are entered for Mr. Willkie, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commander of Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific.

Mr. Willkie made his announcement to newspapermen after conferring with 22 of the 24 delegates entered in the primary as pledged to him.

The Wisconsin primary is particularly important, he said, because of leadership in the state of the Progressive Party and of widespread circulation of The Chicago Tribune.

He also welcomed the entrance of the name of Col. Robert McCormick, publisher of the Tribune, in the Illinois primaries. This, he said, would bring the real issues of the campaign before the public.

[NormanStewart]

Wallace rouses unions

Los Angeles, California (UP) – (Feb. 5)
Organized labor must raise its voice in post-warn planning to equal that of industry, Vice President Henry A. Wallace today urged a meeting of American Federation of Labor members.

Mr. Wallace said:

It is so easy in government to put the dollar and the plant before the man.

This is a fascistic idea. Yet unless labor makes itself heard among Congressional and government committees which will have so much to do with problems of reconversion of industry and post-war activity, we shall see a tendency for property rights to be placed ahead of human rights.

Earlier, during a short speech to some 3,500 assembled workers at the Wilmington yard of California Shipbuilding Corporation, Mr. Wallace emphasized that government would have to take an active part in reconversion of war industries back to peacetime production.

[NormanStewart]

Miss Sumner to run again, she says, changing mind

Washington (UP) – (Feb. 5)
Rep. Jessie Sumner (R-IL), who announced during the Christmas holidays that she would not seek reelection, said tonight that she has changed her mind, because messages from friends “made me feel like a rat leaving the sinking ship of state.”

Her intention to retire had “discouraged a substantial number of Americans whose patriotic efforts I should do what I can to encourage,” Miss Sumner said in a statement.

An outspoken opponent of U.S. participation in the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, Miss Sumner said she was afraid:

…to leave now when steps are being taken that will surely cause another war in Europe and lock our country into a world union from which we cannot secede without causing a world civil war.

[NormanStewart]

History repeating itself –
Presidential election year parallels situation in 1864

Demand for ‘military man’ and soldier vote were issues when Lincoln ran 80 years ago
By Homer D. Place

For the first time in 80 years, a presidential election will be held while America is at war.

Mr. Roosevelt cannot continue as President after Jan. 20, 1945, unless he is reelected and the election cannot be put off because of the war.

The Constitution of the United States calls for the election of a President every four years. It does not take into account whether there is war or peace.

The previous presidential election in wartime in American history was that of Abraham Lincoln who was reelected on Nov. 8, 1864, during the critical period of the Civil War.

Army morale low

Early in June of that year, reports of the Union disaster at Cold Harbor began to filter into Washington.

Against a backdrop of this and other military defeats, the National Union Convention was staged in Baltimore June 7, and Lincoln was nominated for a second term.

As a gesture to the South, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee was picked as Lincoln’s running mate, no doubt, with little expectation that Mr. Johnson would ever become the Chief Executive. He had been military governor of his home state for two years and was an ardent Unionist.

Democrats name McClellan

The Democratic Party belatedly held its national convention at Chicago Aug. 29, 1864, and nominated as its standard bearer, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, “the idol of the Army of the Potomac” and successor to the aged Gen. Winfield Scott as general-in-chief of the U.S. Army.

One of the key planks in the Democratic platform declared “the war has been a failure.” This clause in the platform put Gen. McClellan in a difficult position. He had been the popular commander of an important segment of the Union Army which his party declared had failed. He repudiated the platform and took the stump depending largely for success on his personal popularity.

Open season for snipers

The bitter campaign was marked by flagrant disloyalty. It was an open season for snipers. They fired on the administration from the vantage points of high office and from the muffled corners of Congressional cloakrooms. Some high officials publicly denounced the administration and called for new leadership.

One of the most outspoken critics of the President was a member of his Cabinet, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, who openly announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President. Another was Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, whose radical tendencies became so evident that President Lincoln asked for his resignation.

‘Military man’ urged

Members of Lincoln’s party demanded the President withdraw as the nominee on the ground that a military man was needed in the White House.

The President told a delegation from the Union League which came to serenade him after his nomination:

I have never permitted myself to conclude that I am the best man in America. I am reminded in this connection of a story of an old Dutch farmer who remarked, “It is not best to swap horses while crossing the stream.”

President Roosevelt recently demanded of Congress passage of the Green-Lucas-Worley soldier-vote bill.

It’s an old story

This program has irked the Republican leaders now as it did the Democrats 80 years ago.

The October elections of 1864 in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana were watched as indicative of the drift of political sentiment. Soldiers from the first of these states were enabled by law to vote in the field. From barracks and the hospitals of the Capital district, ballots were collected.

The Republican majority was swelled by shipping home about 10,000 Pennsylvania soldier from Sheridan’s Army, because Pennsylvania was a doubtful state.

Army backs President

Even with the help of soldiers rushed home at the last minute to vote, the administration carried Pennsylvania by only a small majority.

The whole power of the War Department was thrown behind the President. Officers known to the admirers of Gen. McClellan were declined promotion. Furloughs were granted soldiers known to be Republicans and thousands jammed the Northbound trains which carried them to doubtful districts. Democratic ballots were seized by administration workers and never reached New York to be counted.

Lincoln reelected

The election was held Nov. 8. On Nov. 10, when the reelection of President Lincoln seemed assured, he told a delegation which came to serenade him:

A presidential election, occurring in regular course during the Rebellion, added not a little to the strain. If the loyal people. United, were put to the utmost of their strength by the Rebellion, must they not fail when divided and partially paralyzed by a political war among themselves?

But the election was a necessity. We cannot have a free government without elections; and if the Rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. The election, along with its incidental and undesirable strife… has demonstrated that a people’s government can sustain a national election in the midst of a great civil war.

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (February 7, 1944)

Washington demonstriert die ‚Freiheit für Freibeuter‘

Ungeheuerlicher Raub der Ölmagnaten mit Hilfe der US-Regierung

vb. Wien, 6. Februar –
Der Vizepräsident der Vereinigten Staaten, Henry Wallace, hat sich in einer Rede in Los Angeles gegen die „großen Geschäftsleute, die die Wall Street an die erste und die Nation an die zweite Stelle setzen,“ gewandt.

Sie stellen ihre Besitzrechte über die Menschenrechte und bekämpfen mit gleichbleibendem Haß durch Presse und Rundfunk jede Regierung, die die Menschenrechte über die kapitalistischen stellt. Wenn diese Leute von der Freiheit für geschäftliche Unternehmen sprechen, dann meinen sie Freiheit für Freibeuter.

Wallace wies abschließend warnend darauf hin, daß die Soldaten in Wut geraten würden, wenn sie bei ihrer Rückkehr von der Front in die Heimat dort sehen müßten, wie die Großkapitalisten statt für die Nation für ihre eigenen Interessen und Privilegien kämpften.

Die Großverdiener der Wall Street werden diesen sozialen Auftrag des Vizepräsidenten mit wissendem Augenzwinkern begleitet haben. Denn am gleichen Tag, an dem Wallace für den inneren Hausgebrauch und für die Täuschung ahnungsloser, neutraler Zeitgenossen draußen sich an fremdem Gedankengut vergriff, gab der US-Innenminister Ickes, in seiner Eigenschaft als Erdöladministrator einen neuen großen Fischzug des nordamerikanischen Erdölkapitals bekannt, der den Ölmagnaten der Wall Street dank der Hilfe des Weißen Hauses riesige Kriegsgewinne sichern wird. Die Sonntagsausgabe der Neuyorker Zeitung PM hat dieses Kombinationsgeschäft von Regierung und Standard Oil mit folgendem Kommentar versehen:

Ickes hat ein Geheimabkommen mit zwei großen amerikanischen Ölgesellschaften für die Erschließung des Saudi-arabischen Öls gutgeheißen, das Hunderte von Millionen Dollar Reingewinn für die Gesellschaften verspricht. Dieses Abkommen schließt das Risiko in sich, daß die amerikanische Militärmacht zum Einsatz gebracht werden muß, um die Investierungen zu schützen. Dieses Geschäft ist zwischen Ickes, der Petroleum-Reserve Corporation und den beiden amerikanischen Ölgesellschaften, die arabisches öl besitzen, nämlich der Standard Oil of California und der Texas Company, ausgehandelt worden. Dies würde eine Ausgabe von etwa 160 Millionen Dollar öffentlicher Gelder zum Bau der Ölleitungen bedeuten, und zwar unter Bedingungen, die den Gesellschaften mindestens 650 Millionen Dollar und vielleicht noch ein Vielfaches dieser Summe bei der Investierung von 20 Millionen Dollar erbringen würden.

Das wirkliche Geschäft

Aus einem Washingtoner Reuters-Bericht ist jetzt klarer zu entnehmen, als es bei der ersten Mitteilung möglich war, um was es sich bei diesem Geschäft handelt. Während gestern nur die Rede von dem Bau einer Petroleumraffinerie in Saudi-Arabien durch die zur Standard Oil-Gruppe gehörende Arabian American Oil Co. und von Erweiterungsplänen für die Anlagen auf den Bahreininseln in Abdan am Persischen Golf und in Haifa war, wird jetzt bekannt, daß Ickes außerdem den Plan der US-Regierung für den Bau einer Ölleitung vom Persischen Golf bis zur Ostküste des Mittelmeeres mitgeteilt hat. Diese Ölleitung, die etwa 1.250 Meilen lang sein wird und für die mit von der Washingtoner Regierung aufzubringenden Kosten von 160 Millionen Dollar gerechnet wird, ist für die Zwecke des US-Imperialismus im Nahen Osten bestimmt. Um über diese Zweckbestimmung keinen Zweifel aufkommen zu lassen, erklärte Ickes:

Die bekannten Reserven der USA sind nach unseren Schätzungen für den Bedarf des Landes nur für verhältnismäßig wenige Jahre ausreichend. Der Bau der Ölleitung wird die riesigen Ölmengen des Gebietes am Persischen Golf den USA zugänglich machen, falls und sobald dies erforderlich ist.

Das Abkommen sieht außerdem vor, daß die Gesellschaften Öl an eine Regierung nicht verkaufen, wenn nach Meinung des Außenministeriums ein derartiger Verkauf der US-Außenpolitik schaden würde. Ickes sagte, das Abkommen habe die Billigung Roosevelts und des Außenministeriums und fügte hinzu:

Die Ölleitung wird das Öl der so geschaffenen Reserve der Regierung jederzeit zum Kauf für militärische oder Marinezwecke zu einem Preise von 25 Prozent unter dem Marktpreis, der in der Gegend des Persischen Golfes oder in den USA für gleichwertiges Rohöl gezahlt wird, anbieten, und zwar je nachdem, welcher der beiden genannten Preise niedriger ist.

Die US-Regierung dürfe jede Menge dieses Öls für einen Zeitraum von 50 Jahren für sich in Anspruch nehmen und im Krisenfalle das gesamte Rohöl erwerben, das die Gesellschaften produzieren.

Die Ölmagnaten haben großmütig der Regierung die Rückzahlung der Baukosten plus Zinsen innerhalb von 25 Jahren zugesagt, „mit einem Nettogewinn für die Regierung, über den man sich noch einigen muß.“ Nach Abzug der Spesen für Ickes und die anderen beamteten Washingtoner Helfershelfer bei diesem ungeheuren Fischzug wird bei den zu erwartenden Riesengewinnen sicherlich auch für die „Regierung“ eine Kleinigkeit abfallen.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 7, 1944)

In soldier-vote fight –
States’-rights backers score

Force consideration of amended House measure

Washington (UP) –
Senate opponents of the administration’s federal ballot plan for soldier-voting succeeded today in forcing consideration of the amended state ballot measure approved by the House.

The vote to take up the state ballot bill was 50–38. It came on a motion by Senator John H. Overton (D-LA) after the Senate had progressed right up to the point of a final vote on the administration-backed Green-Lucas federal ballot bill.

Senator Overton’s previous efforts to take up the state bill had been defeated narrowly.

Earlier, administration forces had defeated, 44–42, an attempt by states’-rights advocates to sidetrack the federal ballot soldier-vote bill in favor of a state ballot measure.

The administration strategy is to delay action on the state ballot bill until it can perfect and offer as an amendment the federal-ballot provisions of the pending Green-Lucas measure. This would send the issue back to the House of Representatives for another test before Congress takes final action.

Senate Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley said he was confident that when Congress finally completes action on the legislation, there would be some form of federal ballot provision.

[NormanStewart]

Wallace ‘suspects’ fourth-term race

San Francisco, California (UP) –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace today said, “I suspect President Roosevelt will run for a fourth term,” after an address outlining a broad post-war program.

[NormanStewart]

Varga Girl wins servicemen’s vote

Washington (UP) –
Postmaster General Frank C. Walker may attempt to ban the Varga Girl’s curvaceous likeness from the mails, but he can’t keep servicemen from using the mails to petition Congress on her behalf.

Rep. Ranulf Compton (R-CT), one of the many Varga Girl defenders, reported today that he has found her appeal rates 7–1 over the soldier vote and 14–1 over the national service issue among the servicemen who write him.

Some letter writers, of course, disagreed. Some even called her a hussy capable of the degrading in fluence attributed to her by Mr. Walker.

[NormanStewart]

Gen. MacArthur placed on spot in Illinois test

Word from him awaited on his view as presidential candidate

Washington (UP) –
Enthusiastic supporters in Illinois have put somewhat directly to Gen. Douglas MacArthur the question whether he envisages himself as a possible Republican presidential nominee this year.

The names of Gen. MacArthur and Col. Robert R. McCormick, publisher of The Chicago Tribune, have been entered in the April 11 Republican presidential preference primary. The entry was by petition and did not require the consent of the candidate.

Reaction awaited

But if Gen. MacArthur permits his name to go before the Illinois electorate without dissent, it may be assumed here – as dispatches from his headquarters have suggested – that he is not adverse to making a presidential campaign this year.

Wendell L. Willkie had threatened to enter his name in Illinois if Mr. McCormick became a contestant, but he told weekend questioners that he would do so only “if the colonel would travel up and down the state debating the issues with me.”

Col. McCormick has intimated, however, that he is not a candidate, and it was assumed that her will withdraw his name.

Willkie in Wisconsin race

But Mr. Willkie is going after delegate support in Wisconsin where voters are likely to have the first chance to express an official preference between him and New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey. Dewey and Willkie slates of delegates have been filed for Wisconsin’s April 4 primary.

There are reports that Gen. MacArthur ad Lt. Cdr. Harold E. Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, may also be represented. Consent of the candidate is not required in Wisconsin.

Newspaper urges bipartisan ticket

Buffalo, New York (UP) –
The independent Courier Express suggested a bipartisan agreement calling for the nomination of Franklin D. Roosevelt for President and an outstanding Republican for Vice President on both major party tickets and a complete holiday from national party politics in 1944.

The editorial suggests:

The nomination by both parties of Franklin D. Roosevelt for a fourth term in the Presidency, with a hard and fast agreement that when the European armistice is signed, he shall resign to heads the American delegation to the peace conference, leaving to his successor the task of carrying through to victory the Asiatic phase of the war – and of handling the domestic problems attending the return to peace.

California delegates back fourth term

San Francisco, California (UP) –
California’s 56-member delegation to the 1944 Democratic National Convention today pledged itself to support President Roosevelt for a fourth term.

Stassen enters Wisconsin primary

Madison, Wisconsin (UP) –
The name of Lt. Cdr. Harold E. Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota on duty with the Navy, was entered today in the Wisconsin presidential preferential primary election April 4.

Slates of delegates for Wendell Willkie and Governor Thomas E. Dewey have already been filed for the primary.

Governor Dewey leads in Senate poll

Washington (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York is the leading choice for Republican presidential candidate in 1944 among Republican Senators who are willing to express a choice now, a United Press poll revealed today. Twenty of the Senate’s 37 Republicans registered their choices.

Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio was second, Gen. Douglas MacArthur third, and Wendell L. Willkie fourth.

Governor Earl Warren of California was mentioned most frequently as a choice for the vice-presidential spot on the 1944 ticket.

Committee to shun state disputes

Washington (UP) –
Robert E. Hannegan, new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said today that his organization will keep hands off the forthcoming primary elections, stay out of state party fights and work tirelessly for the election of Democratic nominees for the Presidency and Congress.

Willkie to enter Nebraska primary

Ogden, Utah (UP) –
Wendell L. Willkie, the 1940 Republican presidential nominee, said today on his arrival here for the opening of a western tour that he would enter the Nebraska presidential preference primary April 11.

[JackPekoyama]

Astonished Willkie’s still in the fight in spite of his deteriorating condition.

[NormanStewart]

Vengeance for 1940, though looking at it now, he might as well run with Roosevelt by this point.

[JackPekoyama]

Porky b@$t@rd should get out more

[NormanStewart]

Martin group may yield to Senator Davis

Move seen as serious attempt to avoid GOP primary squabble
By Kermit McFarland

Influential figures within the Martin administration at Harrisburg are making a serious attempt to avoid a party squabble in the April primary.

They are willing to hand the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate to Senator James J. Davis “on a silver platter.”

While there is no love lost between Governor Edward Martin’s camp and the 70-year-old senior Senator from Pennsylvania, these administration officials profess to believe the Republicans have a real chance to carry this state in November and that a primary battle would dangerously menace that prospect.

Grundy not sold yet

To date, the move to let Senator Davis win with a fourth senatorial nomination by forfeit is restricted to the Governor’s circle. Joseph R. Grundy, 80-year-old Bristol manufacturer and the most effective single influence in the state administration, has not been sold on the idea.

Mr. Grundy has opposed Senator Davis every time the Senator has become a candidate.

In 1930, when Mr. Grundy was holding a temporary appointment to the U.S. Senate, Mr. Davis beat him for a two-year nomination. Senator Davis was renominated for six years in 1932, this time over the opposition of the late Gen. Smedley Butler, put up by former Governor Gifford Pinchot, with whom Mr. Grundy had a working arrangement.

Livengood a possibility

In 1938, Mr. Davis defeated one of Mr. Grundy’s fair-haired boys, former State Senator G. Mason Owlett, now president of Mr. Grundy’s Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association. And two years ago, Mr. Grundy was the prime factor behind the defeat of Senator Davis’ ambition to become Governor.

Whether the Governor can prevail on Mr. Grundy to suppress his bitter feeling toward Senator Davis remains doubtful. If he can’t the Senator will have opposition in the primary, Secretary of Internal Affairs Williams S. Livengood of Somerset is the leading possibility at the moment.

Lieutenant Governor John C. Bell, favorite of Joseph N. Pew, Philadelphia oil millionaire, for the senatorial nomination, has been edged from the picture in the backroom manipulations going on the last few weeks. Mr. Livengood, however, is acceptable to Mr. Pew.

The only catch in the Livengood plan is that the Secretary of Internal Affairs, only 43, now serving a second term, is a reluctant candidate. He has his cap set for the governorship race two years from now.

[NormanStewart]

Pegler: More on Dewey’s record

By Westbrook Pegler

New York –
Some of Tom Dewey’s friends and neighbors are beginning to mutter he owes it to them to say now, somehow, that he will accept the nomination so they will have something to offer the Republicans around the country in competition with Mr. Willkie.

I agree that this bashfulness can be overdone and has just about served its purpose, but I take it for granted that Dewey will not only accept, but put up a fight for the nomination because to his kind of Republican, Willkie is just an imitation Roosevelt and his policies a plagiarized New Deal.

It has got to be Dewey or Willkie for no other Republican running against Mr. Roosevelt would be worth the investment in train fares, wire tolls and printing. Moreover, Dewey is so sore at Willkie for cutting him down in 1940 that you may be sure he would be very happy to accept if only to square matters.

Of course, he should be grateful because Mr. Roosevelt was a bull for strength that year and would have knocked the brash young man right through the skylight, but politicians are peculiar and he thought he had a good chance and was cut off by an interloper.

Willkie evasive on labor

But if Mr. Dewey is being coy, I submit that Brother Willkie is also simpering on an important issue while tearing around to meetings and pelting himself with compliments at close range.

How stands Brother Willkie on labor? That is one of the greatest domestic issues and grows graver day by day. It is not a mere matter of wartime strikes which may abate under the pressure of public opinion communicated to Congress and the bosses of the big organizations, and, in some cases have undoubtedly been provoked by dumb and stiff-necked or incompetent industrial management.

It involved fundamentals, the right of the citizen to join a private lodge, his right not to pay an income tax to a political organization as Sidney Hillman has had the effrontery to propose that he should, his right to bargain through the agent of his own choice as proposed in the Wagner Act and not through an agent thrust upon him by either his employer or the government.

These rights have been flouted in the most cynical way for several years and will wither away if they are not reestablished soon. Another four years of Mr. Roosevelt’s policy would cancel them entirely and if we can assume his administration would continue its creeping encroachments on the freedom and dignity of the individual, we can also foresee a convincing imitation in the country of the labor controls which Mussolini founded in Italy and Hitler adopted in the land of the chosen, but faceless people of the master race.

Dewey fair to labor

I will concede that Mr. Dewey has not declared himself strongly. But, for one thing, not being a candidate thus far, he hasn’t had to and, for another, he did prove as prosecutor in New York that he is at least opposed to criminality in union leadership and that he has a wide knowledge of those union practices which are not criminal but are antisocial.

And notwithstanding his prosecution of crooks in union office, the intelligent labor men have been glad to admit that he was fair and not in any sense the enemy either of unions or labor. In politics he has had the support of many such men.

Willkie’s thoughts on taxes and the American standard of living which he would debase, though reluctantly, in the interests of war efforts, and his foreign policy have been very bold and interesting. He will be accused of a number of sinful ideas against that which we call the American way, but it will have to be allowed that he has not trimmed on those politically dangerous issues.

Therefore, it is hard to understand why he ignores the whole great problem of labor and unionism as though it didn’t exist. It is there all right as prominent as something extremely dead and I can assure him on the basis of, I should say, at least 100,000 letters from laborers and other American toilers in the last few years that it is no minor concern.

These people and many more are thinking of some very precious liberties that have been taken from them at home by a government which has been glib with promises of unwonted and, in some areas, unwanted freedoms, everywhere else in the world.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 8, 1944)

SENATE PASSES FEDERAL SOLDIER VOTE BILL
States’-rights group beaten in showdown

Administration forces, however, face another fight in House

Washington (UP) –
The Senate today approved the administration’s federal ballot soldier vote bill after rejecting repeated last-ditch efforts by a coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats to impose at least restrictive amendments.

The measure was sent back to the House, where a similar coalition succeeded in defeating a federal ballot plan last Thursday.

The federal ballot provision was written into previous House and Senate soldier vote legislation by a Senate vote of 46–40, on motion of Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY).

Taft’s plan defeated

Mr. Barkley’s motion carried after the Senate rejected, 45–41, restrictions on federal ballot use proposed by Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH) and the Republican-Democratic coalition.

The Taft amendment would have authorized a federal ballot only for absentee voters whose home states failed to make available, upon application, a lightweight state ballot.

After the adoption of Mr. Barkley’s motion, Mr. Taft made another attempt to keep his amendment alive by moving that it be taken to conference between the House and Senate. He lost again, by the same vote of 45–41.

House must act

With the defeat of this motion, Senate action on the federal ballot plan – in the form of an amendment to the varying state ballot plans passed by both Senate and House – was automatically completed without further votes. It was an unusual thing for the Senate to amend a bill it had previously passed, but the parliamentarian ruled it could be done.

The House now must act on the Senate federal ballot provisions. In view of last week’s overwhelming vote for state ballots, it will presumably reject the Senate plan and throw the matter into conference.

Separate bill approved

However, to guard against the possibility that the House would kill the federal ballot provisions in the pending measure, the Senate also put its federal ballot provisions into an entirely new and separate bill. This was passed, 47–38.

The new measure also goes to the House, where the administration hopes to keep it on tap as a final resort to keep federal ballot legislation alive. No federal ballot legislation can become effective without affirmative House action on the Senate provisions in one bill or the other.