The Pittsburgh Press (February 13, 1944)
In honor of Lincoln –
New Deal foes told to rally to GOP cause
Governor Martin makes plea for ‘American way’ for veterans
GOP Lincoln Day orators called on dissident Democrats last night to help Republicans unseat the Roosevelt administration, win the war, abolish bureaucratic restrictions, and “restore” constitutional government.
They accused President Roosevelt of bungling foreign and domestic affairs, destroying American liberties, and creating a set of conditions which only Republicans can correct.
Not a few hurled the word “fascist” at him, all said he was seeking a fourth term, and all predicted a Republican victory in November.
Governor Martin speaks
Only once did the soldier vote issue rate a prominent place in the Republican discussions.
Speaking from the same platform with Ohio Governor John W. Bricker, Pennsylvania Governor Edward Martin said that:
This is no time to play politics with the Armed Forces who are fighting on nearly 100 fronts and have fought a thousand battles in the air and on the land and sea.
Governor Martin said:
They are not thinking of political alignments. They want and we want a free government of men. There will be times when peace can be maintained only by force. It may be necessary for America to supply that force to save ourselves from another day of blood, terror and tears.
Insolvency to be avoided
A government to win the war and also win a lasting power must be financially strong with budgets balanced and debts under control, the Pennsylvania executive said.
Governor Martin continued:
Our federal debt is alarming. On June 30, 1933, it announced to $22,500,000. It promises, by the end of the war, to reach the astronomical total of $300 billion, an amount greater than the combined debt of all our Allies and all our enemies.
Great sums for making war are imperative, but prudence and patriotism demand elimination of all waste and unnecessary governmental activity. This war must be won without national insolvency.
Generals, admirals praised
Governor Martin found no fault with the conduct of the war in the field. He said:
Our war strategy has been magnificent. This has been in the hands of our high-ranking military and naval men. The President deserves full credit for selecting them. But our home front strategy has not been magnificent. Chaos and confusion have marked our policies.
The Pennsylvania executive pointed out that the government has been taking over the lands of the people and that “federal tax-eaters and drones are overwhelming us.”
He said:
In June 1930, we had 500,000 federal employees. Today we have more than three million, or three times the peak number in the First World War.
The federal government is doing more labor “feather-bedding” and is hoarding and wasting more manpower than any industry or group of industries. Administration labor policies have broken down. Buying off strikes is un-American.
We all want to win the war quickly and decisively, but we intend at the same time to keep our American way of life.
Speaking at Wheeling, West Virginia, House Republican Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. (R-MA) said Republicans had to assume the burdens of reconstruction after the war last and, having done it before, “We can do it again.”
Calling for stripping the war effort of “political maneuvering,” Mr. Martin pledged Republicans to winning the war, defending the Constitution, abolishing waste, tax simplification, employment and care for veterans, preservation of free enterprise, reduction of bureaucracy and regimentation, better care of the aged and elimination of “class prejudices and class preferences.”
Called failure
Speaking at Columbus, Ohio, Senator Chapman Revercomb (R-WV) accused the President of “dismal and tragic failure” in the field of foreign relations and of failing “in any step that should have been taken to avert war.”
Mr. Revercomb denounced “government by group” and accused the administration of playing politics with organized labor. Once the war is over, he added:
OPA must end and the bureaucrats at Washington must fold their tents and seek employment elsewhere.
Senator E. H. Moore (R-OK), speaking at Charleston, West Virginia, accused President Roosevelt of being “a fascist at heart.” Senator Moore, a Democrat until he ran for the Senate, called for a coalition campaign against the administration.
Federal vote assailed
Like Mr. Martin and Mr. Revercomb, Mr. Moore denounced the administration’s efforts to set up a federal soldier vote ballot. Such a ballot would be an unconstitutional invasion of states’ rights, he said, and the administration is proposing it in “an effort to steal this election.”
Senator Kenneth S. Wherry (R-NE), speaking at Huntington, West Virginia, said, “We must break this reign of Franklin D. Roosevelt” and called for lifting of “regimentation” and business restrictions the moment the war is over.
Novelist Clarence Budington Kelland, speaking as Republican National Committeeman for Arizona, declared at Dallas, Texas, that the administration has debauched American self-respect.
God and the New Deal
If Abraham Lincoln were alive today, Mr. Kelland told Lincoln Day dinner guests:
The thing that would arouse him to rage and denunciation would be the deliberate undermining of the American people by the New Deal administration. It would be the vicious teachings of this administration whose purpose it to destroy the self-reliance of our people and substitute for it a helpless, hapless, despicable belief that God, in the guise of the New Deal administration, will provide.
In New York City, Governor Thomas E. Dewey declared that the American people are rallying to the Republican Party to rescue the constitutional system of government from a menace as grave as that which faced it during Lincoln’s administration.
Governor Dewey said:
The menace Lincoln faced was violent; ours was subtle. He faced secession by the states. in our time, we have seen abdication by the states.
The New York executive declared the people were turning to the Republican Party before the war, and have been turning to it “at an accelerated pace since” because they are “desperately anxious” that “we built well and strongly in international cooperation after this war.”
Governor Dewey concluded:
The people realize that the only hope for America for world peace is that it be won by an administration which they know is not seeking power for the sake of power.
One speaker, however – Connecticut Governor Raymond E. Baldwin – warned his party against “wishful thinking” and told it bluntly that it has not thus far offered the nation an election-winning program.
Speaking at Boston, Governor Baldwin urged Republicans to explore the home front for constructive policies that would win votes. He suggested, for example, that the party “can offer a better and sounder method” for preventing inflation than the Democrats have been able to produce.
Palmer Hoyt, publisher of the Portland Oregonian, who has just returned from a six-month stay in Washington as head of the Domestic Branch of the Office of War Production, shared the platform with Wendell Willkie, at a Portland dinner.
Mr. Hoyt declared:
The Republican Party must know what its leaders are thinking and it can follow no leaders who lack the courage to face the problems of the day.
Too many Republican candidates today lack faith, both in themselves and in America. I refer to no candidate in particular, but it is obvious that too many candidates today with “rather be President than right.”
Mr. Willkie announced that he would file as a Republican nominee in the Oregon preferential primary May 19, and told northwest party leaders that “now is the time to change horses in the middle of the stream.”
Mr. Willkie declared:
Now is the time and not in the post-war era. Right now, the war is being waged under expert guidance of the Army and Navy. It would be easy to change horses now but it would be difficult after the war when conditions are bound to become uncertain.