Election 1944: Pre-convention news

[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.

[NormanStewart]

Davis ‘willing’ to run again for Senate post

Washington (UP) –
Senator James J. Davis (R-PA) today announced his willingness to run for reelection.

Mr. Davis said:

If the Republican Party leaders feel that by reason of my years of experience I can be of service to our country and Pennsylvania at this critical time, I am willing to be a candidate for reelection.

Mr. Davis was first elected to the Senate in 1932 and reelected in 1938.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Soldiers must vote

There is still hope that the Senate can work out some practicable compromise in the soldier-vote fight.

The so-called states’-rights measure passed by the House does not do the job. Under it, most servicemen abroad would be disfranchised, because not all states can or will make the necessary changes in their laws and constitutions to facilitate absentee voting. There should be a federal ballot as a substitute, leaving to the states their constitutional function of counting all ballots.

The issue will be determined chiefly by the Republicans. Their almost-solid party vote – more than 9 to 1 – put over the states’-rights bill in the House. Some Republican leaders in the Senate have been more farsighted in seeking a compromise. Such a compromise probably would become an amendment to the House bill, and would permit both state and federal ballots.

Why should Republicans in the House suddenly become the states’-rights party, and at the risk of alienating soldiers? There seem to be three reasons for this paradox:

One is the real constitutional difficulty in any federal ballot, and the possibility that this will invite contested elections. But some of the suggested compromises eliminate most, though not all, of this danger.

A second reason probably arises from the harsh language used by President Roosevelt in trying to force Congress to act. While what he said about the need for an adequate law and the descriptive terms he applied to the House bill were apropos, his statement was received by many as an unjust smear and as a partisan campaign blast.

The third reason is the Republican fear that the President is accurate in his guess that the soldier vote will be heavily pro-Roosevelt. Of course such partisan considerations do not touch the inalienable right of the eligible soldier to vote. But, unfortunately, both the President and House Republican leaders seem to be thinking more about party politics than about the soldiers’ rights.

There is probably no way to make soldier voting absolutely fair as between a Republican candidate and Mr. Roosevelt. As Commander-in-Chief, and as one far better known to the troops than any Republican candidate can be, Mr. Roosevelt will have an advantage.

That should force the drafters of any federal ballot law, and the War and Navy Departments in handling the ballots, and the states in facilitating absentee voting and counting the results, to lean over backward to prevent the result from being rigged.

But it does not provide reason for disfranchising servicemen.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 9, 1944)

Soldier vote bill sent to conference

House rejects federal plan adopted by Senate; deadlock seen

Washington (UP) –
The House today rejected the Senate’s federal ballot amendments to the soldier vote bill and sent the disputed legislation to conference for attempt at some final settlement.

The action, by voice vote, had been predicted inasmuch as the House last Thursday rejected by a vote of 215–164 an attempt to write federal ballot provision onto the states’-rights bill which it subsequently passed.

In view of that House margin against federal ballots, the House conferees were expected to stand steadfast against the Senate efforts to incorporate such a system into the bill.

House conferees named

Chairman Eugene Worley (D-TX) of the House Elections Committee, although a proponent of federal ballot legislation, moved to bring the bill before the House and then asked that the House turn down the Senate amendments.

The House agreed, and Speaker Sam Rayburn named the following House conferees: Mr. Worley, John E. Rankin (D-MS), Herbert C. Bonner (D-NC), Karl M. LeCompte (R-IA) and Harris Ellsworth (R-OR).

The House conferees stand 3–1 in favor of a purely states’-rights bill. Mr. Worley and Mr. Bonner are the only two administration supporters.

Second bill to committee

The Senate in addition to amending the state’s-rights bill had passed a separate federal ballot measure. Chairman Rayburn said he would send this second bill to the House Elections Committee. This would be merely a formality, inasmuch as it was expected no effort would be made to bring it out of committee unless the administration, if defeated in conference, decides to make a final attempt to provide a federal ballot.

There were indications that the amended bill was headed into a tangle that might block final passage of any new system of voting by members of the Armed Forces.

Something must give

If any legislation is to be enacted either the House or Senate will have to give in. it appeared that if there is any yielding it more likely would be in the Senate. The margin against the federal ballot in the House was considered large enough to defeat any compromise attempt there.

In adding the federal ballot to the House-approved Eastland-Rankin states’-rights bill yesterday, the Senate vote was 46–40.

Some quarters believed that eventually Congress would merely pass legislation amending the 1942 soldier-vote act to provide that the Army and Navy shall expedite transmission and return of state ballots. But both administration and coalition groups said such proposals would be premature at this time.

How they stood up to be counted

Washington (UP) –
The roll call vote on a motion by Senator Alben W. Barkley (D-KY), by which the Senate wrote the federal ballot provision into the House-approved “states’-rights” soldier vote bill was:

YEAs – 46

Aiken (R-VT)
Andrews (D-FL)
Austin (R-VT)
Barkley (D-KY)
Bone (D-WA)
Burton (R-OH)
Chandler (D-KY)
Chávez (D-NM)
Clark (D-ID)
Clark (D-MO)
Danaher (R-CT)
Davis (R-PA)
Downey (D-CA)
Ellender (D-LA)
Ferguson (R-MI)
Green (D-RI)
Guffey (D-PA)
Hatch (D-NM)
Hayden (D-AZ)
Jackson (D-IN)
Johnson (D-CO)
Kilgore (D-WV)
La Follette (PR-WI)
Langer (R-ND)
Lucas (D-IL)
Maloney (D-CT)
Maybank (D-SC)
McFarland (D-AZ)
Mead (D-NY)
Murdock (D-UT)
Murray (D-MT)
Pepper (D-FL)
Radcliffe (D-MD)
Stewart (D-TN)
Thomas (D-OK)
Thomas (D-UT)
Tobey (R-NH)
Truman (D-MO)
Tunnell (D-DE)
Tydings (D-MD)
Vandenberg (R-MI)
Wagner (D-NY)
Wallgren (D-WA)
Walsh (D-MA)
Walsh (D-NJ)
Wiley (R-WI)

NAYs – 40

Bailey (D-NC)
Ball (R-MN)
Bankhead (D-AL)
Bilbo (D-MS)
Brewster (R-ME)
Bridges (R-NH)
Brooks (R-IL)
Buck (R-DE)
Bushfield (R-SD)
Butler (R-NE)
Byrd (D-VA)
Capper (R-KS)
Caraway (D-AR)
Connally (D-TX)
Eastland (D-MS)
George (D-GA)
Gerry (D-RI)
Gurney (R-SD)
Hawkes (R-NJ)
Hill (D-AL)
Holman (R-OR)
McClellan (D-AR)
Millikin (R-CO)
Moore (R-OK)
Nye (R-ND)
O’Daniel (D-TX)
Overton (D-LA)
Reed (R-KS)
Revercomb (R-WV)
Reynolds (D-NC)
Russell (D-GA)
Shipstead (R-MN)
Smith (D-SC)
Taft (R-OH)
Thomas (R-ID)
Wherry (R-NE)
White (R-ME)
Willis (R-IN)
Wilson (R-IA)

[NormanStewart]

GOP gives Davis an open field in Senate race

State leaders fear fight in primary would impair strength of party

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania –
Governor Edward Martin, in a statement here last night, disclosed that his campaign to prevent a Republican fight in the April primary had been successful.

He said the Republican organization, led by himself, Joseph R. Grundy and Joseph N. Pew, will not oppose U.S. Senator James J. Davis for renomination.

This will be the first time in the five campaigns Senator Davis has made that he has not been opposed by one or more potent factors in the Republican Party.

Primary fight feared

The Governor for weeks has been arguing against trying to defeat Mr. Davis in the primary. The Senator and the Governor were primary opponents in the 1942 primary for the governorship nomination, Mr. Davis losing for the first time in his career.

Mr. Martin’s main objective is to carry Pennsylvania over the New Deal ticket in November – something the Republicans haven’t done since 1932 – and he fears a primary fight would imperil that objective.

The Governor also announced that the Republican leadership (meaning Messrs. Martin, Pew and Grundy) had agreed to support former Governor Arthur H. James for one of two nominations for the State Superior Court. At the same time, Mr. Martin disclosed his appointment of Mr. James to this bench to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Judge Joseph Stadtfeld. The appointment will run until January.

Justice Hughes endorsed

Also included in Mr. Martin’s announcement was Old Guard endorsement of Justice Howard W. Hughes of Washington for the State Supreme Court nomination and Common Pleas Judge J. Frank Graff of Armstrong County for the second Superior Court nomination. Justice Hughes is now serving by appointment.

He and Republican State Chairman M. Harvey Taylor, who held a joint press conference, declined to name the candidates on the rest of the Martin-Pew Grundy slate.

But it is apparently well settled that City Treasurer Edgar W. Baird of Philadelphia will be on the ticket for the State Treasurer nomination, and State Senator G. Harold Watkins of Frackville, Schuylkill County, will be picked for Auditor General.

Decision ‘almost unanimous’

The Governor said the decision to drop all opposition to Senator Davis was “almost unanimous.” He did not identify any who did not approve the plan, although obviously Mr. Grundy accepted it reluctantly.

Mr. Martin said:

I am for Senator Davis for reelection because we need in Congress men who are imbued with sound American ideals and who believe in the American way of life.

The Democrats have already rounded out a slate consisting of Congressman Francis J. Myers of Philadelphia for the U.S. Senate, Federal Judge Charles Alvin Jones for the State Supreme Court, Superior Court Judge Chester H. Rhodes and Auditor General F. Clair Ross for the Superior Court, State Treasurer G. Harold Wagner for Auditor General, and Ramsay S. Black, third assistant postmaster general, for State Treasurer.

Judge Graff slated for GOP race

By Kermit McFarland

Common Pleas Court Judge J. Frank Graff of Kittanning will be a candidate for the State Superior Court on the Grundy-Pew ticket now being formulated for the Republican primary in April.

This will be his second try for the Superior Court. He served a few months on this bench by appointment of the late Governor John S. Fisher in 1930, but was defeated in the ensuing primary and reappointed by Mr. Fisher to the Armstrong County Common Pleas Court.

Judge Graff is almost as well known in Allegheny County as in his own district, since he has been one of the most frequent visiting judges on the local Criminal Court bench.

To run with James

As an organization candidate for the Superior Court, Judge Graff will run with former Governor Arthur H. James of Plymouth, who yesterday was appointed to the vacancy on this court caused by the death of Judge Joseph Stadtfeld in December. Mr. James sat on this bench six years before he became Governor in 1939.

Two judges will be elected to the Superior Court this year because of the vacancy and the fact that the term of Judge Chester H. Rhodes of Stroudsburg, the only Democrat on either appellate bench, expires.

The Democratic organization has already slated Judge Rhodes for renomination and Auditor General F. Clair Ross for the vacancy.

May fill vacancy

Judge Graff is 56, graduated from Princeton University and the University of Pittsburgh Law School, was a major in the 28th Division in the last war and became a judge in Armstrong County in 1924.

In 1930, after the death of President Judge William D. Porter, Judge Graff was appointed to the vacancy. He served from Feb. 18 to May 22, in the meantime losing the Republican nomination at the May 20 primary, and when Judge Graff was defeated, reappointed him to that bench. He was elected to a new 10-year term in 1931 and reelected in 1941.

The Pew-Grundy organization will back Supreme Court Justice Howard W. Hughes of Washington for nomination to a full 21-year term. He was appointed by Governor Martin last month. The Democrats have slated Federal Circuit Judge Charles Alvin Jones of Pittsburgh for this post.

[NormanStewart]

Guffey denies he sought job for physician

Says he wanted doctor to be given work after he had been appointed

Washington –
U.S. Senator Joseph F. Guffey (D-PA) today explained that those letters he sent to District of Columbia officials in 1942 were not for the purpose of getting his personal physician a job, but to get some work for him to do after he got the job.

Mr. Guffey came under fire of some of his Senate colleagues when it became known that he had threatened an investigation of the District’s hospitals and used “pressure” on behalf of Dr. Eugene de Savitsch, in two letters to DC officials, authorship of which Mr. Guffey admitted. The Senator issued a statement today to clear up “misstatements and a large amount of misinformation concerning these letters.”

He said:

In the first place, the letters were not written in any effort to get anybody a job. At the time they were written, Dr. de Savitsch was and had been for two years a consulting surgeon at Glenn Dale Sanitarium, a position to which Dr. [George C.] Ruhland [district health officer] appointed him.

In the second place, there was no question of getting anyone on the payroll. In the three years of his association with Glenn Dale Sanitarium, Dr. de Savitsch drew three checks for $15 each and in each case, he turned the checks over to indigent patients. Dr. de Savitsch has a large private practice and doesn’t need to get on a public payroll.

Mr. Guffey added that the physician was never given anything to do, because of Dr. Ruhland’s policies, and the letters were written in an attempt to correct the situation. He cited Dr. de Savitsch’s medical qualifications.

[NormanStewart]

Sinclair Weeks takes Lodge’s Senate seat

Boston, Massachusetts (UP) –
Sinclair Weeks, treasurer of the Republican National Committee, prepared today to fill the vacancy in the U.S. Senate caused by the resignation of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. until a successor is elected next November for the unexpired four-year term.

Governor Leverett Saltonstall, in announcing Mr. Weeks’ appointment last night, also disclosed his own intention of running for Mr. Lodge’s unfilled term at the November elections.

Mr. Lodge retired from the Senate last week to become an Army officer after serving only two years of his six-year term. Mr. Weeks was defeated by Mr. Lodge for the Republican nomination in 1942. He is a supporter of Wendell Willkie.

Mr. Weeks is the son of the late John W. Weeks, a Boston banker, former Representative and Senator from Massachusetts and Secretary of War in the cabinets of Presidents Harding and Coolidge.

[NormanStewart]

President’s ‘no’ only fourth term bar

By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

U.S. so sensitive, London editor says

London, England (UP) –
The London Daily Mail carried a large cartoon on its editorial page today depicting a gymnasium in which President Roosevelt, Wendell Willkie and Governor Thomas E. Dewey were training.

Mr. Roosevelt was punching two bags bearing the likeliness of Hitler and Hirohito. Mr. Willkie was punching a bag labeled “McCormick.” Governor Dewey was in a corner skipping rope, standing by the door, Uncle Sam, in gym clothes, was telling a man peeking in to “Scram – This Is Private.”

In an adjoining column, the paper advised Britishers that:

If we want Roosevelt to carry on in the White House, we should shun advice-giving to the American electorate.

It said:

You have no idea how sensitive the people are.

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt’s progress toward a fourth-term nomination is gaining such momentum today that only an abrupt and public disavowal from the White House could stop it.

Under those circumstances, Mr. Roosevelt’s refusal to reveal his political plans is accepted generally by politicians and political writers here as demonstrating his willingness or desire again to be drafted by the Democratic National Convention.

Asked directly at his press and radio conference yesterday whether he would accept renomination, Mr. Roosevelt replied there was no news on that subject. But the fourth-term campaign conducted by his associates has been making news for some time.

The Democratic National Committee last month did some precedented-smashing itself in adopting a resolution soliciting the President to stay on the job.

New Hampshire and California party leaders have nominated slates of Democratic National Convention delegates pledged to Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination. That gives the President a head start of 62 convention votes.

The Illinois Democratic organization announced yesterday it would enter Mr. Roosevelt’s name in the state’s April 11 presidential preference primary. Mayor Frank Hague of Jersey City, who rules the New Jersey Democratic machine, is out for a fourth term.

Vice Chairman Oscar R. Ewing of the Democratic National Committee told Portland, Oregon, questioners this week that Mr. Roosevelt’s reelection to a fourth term had been assured within the past six weeks by public realization that the war would last for a long time.

Vice President Henry A. Wallace held a San Francisco press conference this week and said:

I suspect President Roosevelt will run for a fourth term. As for me – I am in the lap of the gods.

Washington gave Mr. Wallace top marks for accuracy on both statements. The facts are that the Democratic organization with a few notable exceptions

Former Governor J former Senator James A. Reed of Missouri are trying to raise the anti-Roosevelt battle standard in the Midwest. James A. Farley is struggling against powerful Roosevelt forces in New York. Senator W. Lee O’Daniel (D-TX) and some other Southerners are off the fourth-term reservations.

There are mutterings in Ohio and elsewhere. But the President had similar pre-convention opposition in 1940 and his fourth-term campaigners promise that he will roll it flat again. There seems to be willingness to concede, however, that the 1944 presidential nomination will be considerably closer than any since 1916.

Willkie tour opens in Idaho

Twin Falls, Idaho (UP) –
A change of administration would be “less disturbing in wartime than during the Reconstruction period,” Wendell L. Willkie declared last night in an address in which he charged the present government with keeping the people ignorant of foreign affairs t increase the impression it is indispensable.

Army officers are directing the war, he said, and they would continue to do this with a new administration.

Mr. Willkie’s address was the first of his tour of the West, generally recognized as a test of his popularity as the GOP standard-bearer this year.

He said:

As a matter of fact, our relations with other nations would be strengthened and clarified through new leadership – leadership not grown too tired and cynical to lead; leadership less enamored of the panoply and show of power; leadership fresh from the people.

Mr. Willkie, scheduled to confer with Republicans in Boise today, will continue to Portland, Oregon, and Tacoma, Washington. He will deliver a Lincoln Day address at Tacoma Saturday.

Wallace advocates high peace aims

Portland, Oregon (UP) –
This world was made to be one world, and unless a lasting peace is evolved, the newly developed destructive forces of warfare will make it unsafe to live anywhere, Vice President Henry A. Wallace told a Jackson Day dinner audience in Portland last night.

Mr. Wallace said:

My trips through western war plants, and what I am hearing about rocket planes and high-powered explosives, has convinced me we must set our sights high at the peace table to avoid another war.

Mr. Wallace left last night for Seattle and then Wisconsin.

[NormanStewart]

Fourth term market gets bullish again

By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
Every flick of President Roosevelt’s cigarette, every flicker of the eyelash, the tone of his voice – all these little signs are interpreted these days when he is asked at his press conferences about a fourth term.

Therefore, it may be reported today the market is bullish again for a fourth-term try.

Not that the President said so. But he didn’t deny it. No longer, as a month ago, did he dismiss it as a “picayune” question.

He enjoys repartee

It was one of those things, he said, and there was no news on it.

But he was not blunt or brusque, as sometimes in the part, to the political inquiries put by reporters when they saw that he did not mind them. Instead, he seemed to welcome them and enjoy the repartee.

The inevitable question was raised again in connection with Vice President Henry A. Wallace’s statement in San Francisco that he “suspected” Mr. Roosevelt would run again.

Mr. Wallace’s “suspicions” are worth nothing. For he boasts that he knew in March 1940, before even the President himself knew, that Mr. Roosevelt would be a candidate for a third term.

Soldier-vote victory

Mr. Roosevelt may have been elated at his press conference by the Senate action in tacking the Green-Lucas federal ballot bill on the House’s “states’-rights” measure, which assures at least consideration of a short federal ballot for soldier voting in the conference between the two branches.

It was a partial victory for the administration.

[NormanStewart]

Smith: Roosevelt secret weapon – Double talk

By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt has unveiled his secret weapon for use against those trying to pry out his 1944 political plans – double talk.

In 1940, reporters who asked him about his third-term intentions were told to wear dunce caps and go stand in the corner. His strategy this year, however, is to talk all around the lot, leaving the reporters breathless from the chase and more than mildly confused.

Like something from the realm of snasafran and biddleclip was his reaction to fourth-term questions at his news conference yesterday. A woman reporter sounded the keynote when she frankly told the Chief Executive: “I’m confused.”

So is everybody else, the President agreed.

Another victim of the cruppletub and blimplerip was a reporter who planned to ask the President for his views of the Democratic vice-presidential possibilities. Instead, he said “presidential.” But Mr. Roosevelt got the idea, anyway.

The reporter noted that Vice President Henry A. Wallace had been touring the country making what some people construed as political speeches. In view of these statements, the newsmen asked, what did the President think of the Democratic candidacy for the Presidency?

The air was heavy with quirmadil and falantopery as the President started to speak. When he finished it was strictly pluddlestan and number four.

Well, the President started out, those people–. He paused for a split second as if to let his drummolt sink in. he continued by saying there was only one thing for him to do and that was get out and make a speech. Of course, he added, all this criticism about Henry Wallace–.

Somebody in the back shouted “louder.” Raising his voice, Mr. Roosevelt said: Read the sermon on the Mount – is that political? Then he answered his own question by saying that some people would say that it was.

Clearing the tropodgas from his mind and brushing the hornstrawp from his notes, this correspondent asked Mr. Roosevelt: “Would you accept a fourth-term nomination?”

With an expression that seemed to say “I-realize-you-have-to-do-this-sort-of-thing-for-a-living,” the President explained that that was one of them things. It goes back, he said, to the killer of stories – there’s no news on that today.

It was here that the young lady injected her classic cry: “I’m confused.” The President agreed with her.

This seemed to make everybody feel better. Most of the newspapermen thought the doubletalk would be more pleasant to cope with until the President’s fourth-term candidacy is an official fact than the old dunce cap and stand-in-the-corner routine.

As one veteran correspondent put it, “the geigensplock will hemdurndyl better than ever.”

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 10, 1944)

Nunan is nominated to succeed Hannegan

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt today nominated Joseph D. Nunan Jr. of Douglaston, New York, to be Commissioner of Internal Revenue, succeeding Robert E. Hannegan of St. Louis who resigned to become Democratic National Chairman.

Mr. Nunan has been collector of internal revenue in Brooklyn, New York.

[NormanStewart]

Bricker favors Army vote by states

Ohio Governor tells capital questioners he’s for more federal economy; thinks GOP will surely win
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio, bringing to the capital his campaign for the 1944 Republican presidential nomination, today put himself on record as favoring regular state ballots for service personnel and called for drastic reduction in federal payrolls.

Displaying his political wares to a press conference shortly after arriving here, he described the soldier vote controversy as strictly a political issue which he thought should be solved by using regular state ballots rather than the federal ballots advocated by President Roosevelt.

Wants no outside help

He also took occasion to protest against interference with the coming presidential campaign by foreign sources. One of the 50-odd political writers present asked what he thought of recent comment in the British press that Mr. Roosevelt should be reelected.

Mr. Bricker replied:

I think we ought to elect our own President. It is none of their business. We can take care of our own affairs.

Governor Bricker declined to say how much taxes he thought Congress should impose at this time, saying only that he hoped the measure recently approved by Congress a few days ago would be adequate. The need, he added, is not now so much for additional taxes as it is for effecting a drastic saving in government.

Federal payroll too big

“Where would you cut first?” he was asked.

He replied that there are roughly 3.5 million employees of the federal government, and hundreds of thousands of them could be dispensed with.

Governor Bricker said he was also opposed to federal housing, declaring that he saw no reason why the government should go in competition with private builders. Asked if he believed that there could be effective slum clearance under the direction of private enterprise, Governor Bricker replied:

Yes. If there can’t be, then the country is hopeless. We would have to change our system of government. and I certainly don’t want to do that.

‘Any Republican can win’

On other subjects, Governor Bricker:

• Saw no reason for a federal work program to absorb unemployment after the war.

• Was supremely confident that the Republicans would win the Presidency in November regardless of who the nominee may be.

• Thought the Republicans were better equipped than the Democrats to handle post-war problems.

• Said the Republican Party foreign policy plank – would probably be formulated along the lines of the policy drafted by GOP leaders last year at Mackinac Island.

• Denounced the administration’s food subsidy play as “unsound.”

• Described the winning of the war as the most important single issue in the coming political campaign, and said the war is being conducted in a way which all Americans can be proud.

Gives Roosevelt credit

“Do you give Roosevelt any credit for that?” he was asked.

He replied:

Certainly. And I believed the armed services should be allowed to continue to wage the war as they are doing now.

Governor Bricker will speak tonight at the first of some 2,000 Lincoln Day celebrations scheduled throughout the nation by Republicans to spark their effort to regain control of the White House and Congress.

The Ohio Governor goes to the National Press Club tomorrow for a luncheon speaking engagement.

Tonight’s appearance is in effect a trial run for Governor Bricker before the appraising eyes of top drawer party leaders, some of whom have other favorites but are willing to be convinced. He will speak at a $5-a-plate dinner which, the GOP emphasizes, is not a money-raising affair.

KDKA will broadcast the address at 10:30 ET tonight.

Wallace standards are 40% higher

Seattle, Washington (UP) –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace said last night America’s biggest job after the war will be to supply a standard of living at least 40% higher than ever before.

This can be done only through full employment of resources, manpower and skills, Mr. Wallace said in an address in the civic auditorium in which he denounced the “scarcity economics” of “the American fascists of Wall Street.”

American fascists, he added, are those “who believe that Wall Street comes first and the country second.”

He cited Russia as a country where nearly everyone feels:

He is directly working for the welfare of the whole nation.

Mr. Wallace said post-war taxation should be aimed more skillfully at economic objectives and implied that heavy taxes should be applied to large corporate reserves.

He said:

By our taxation system, we must encourage the small and rapidly growing enterprise because such enterprises are the seedbed of the employment of the future.

In an impromptu address to the Washington Press Club earlier in the day, Mr. Wallace predicted further development of Alaska after the war and advocated the construction of another Alaska highway.

He said:

Our transportation routes to Alaska should be continued across the Bering Sea to Russia and the Orient.

Willkie outlines his farm program

Boise, Idaho (UP) –
Wendell L. Willkie today took President Roosevelt has not made known his plans for a possible fourth term.

Mr. Willkie told Idaho Republican leaders at a meeting here:

The President in press conferences kids, dodges and laughs. About what? On a question involving your future happiness, your life, your wellbeing.

The 1940 Republican presidential nominee who is aspiring for the GOP bid again this year said that:

If I have the power – and perhaps I won’t – I am going to force a discussion in America of the questions America had to decide in 1944.

I find some people talking about evading the issues, when what America does at this time will determine not only her future, but the future of mankind.

Many of the Idaho Republican Party officers to whom Mr. Willkie spoke have already gone on record as favoring New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey for this year’s GOP nomination. However, after the meeting, Governor C. A. Bottolfsen praised Willkie’s “fine, straight-forward talk” and said he thought Mr. Willkie “made many friends.”

Writing in the March issue of Successful Farming, Mr. Willkie outlined his own farm program for the first time in the 1944 campaign.

Briefly, it is:

First, correct the glaring administrative weaknesses in the war effort on the farm front.

Then move onward to a program based on expanding markets.

Drop production control and produce to the limit.

Develop a sound national conservation program.

Support farm prices at a fair level and maintain basic-commodity loans.

Pursue every scientific possibility to expand the farmers’ market.

Finally, cooperate with the world to make a prosperous agriculture at home.

[NormanStewart]

Dewey petitions started

Morristown, New Jersey –
Petitions were being circulated today to enter the name of Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York in the New Jersey presidential preference primary on May 16. Petitions must have 1,500 signatures.

[NormanStewart]

In Washington –
Soldier-vote conferee list shows 5 and 5

Three federal ballot backers placed on Senate lineup

Washington (UP) –
The Senate today unanimously agreed to a compromise slate of conferees on soldier-vote legislation after anti-administration forces protested proposed selections which would have been four to one for a federal ballot measure.

The compromise slate included three Senators who voted for the federal ballot plan in the numerous Senate tests of the last two weeks and two who voted for a state ballot plan.

The compromise slate finally agreed upon after almost an hour of floor wrangling included Senators Warren R. Austin (R-VT), Hugh A. Butler (R-NE), Tom Connally (D-TX), Theodore F. Green (D-RI) and Carl A. Hatch (D-NM).

Senators Green, Hatch and Austin voted for the federal ballot in the Senate tests, and Senators Connally and Butler against it.

They will meet with five House conferees in an effort to settle differences between House and Senate versions of soldier-vote legislation.

Three House conferees are states’ rights proponents – Reps. John E. Rankin (D-MS), Karl M. LeCompte (R-IA) and Harris Ellsworth (R-OR). The other two – Chairman Eugene Worley (D-TX) of the House Elections Committee and Rep. Herbert C. Bonner (D-NC) – are federal ballot backers. In the conferees lineup, this shows five on each side of the question.