Election 1944: Pre-convention news

[NormanStewart]

Midwest cool to fourth term, Wallace admits

But Vice President adds that he believes Roosevelt will win in November; in doubt on own position
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace, back from a transcontinental renomination campaign trip, reports the Midwest the most dangerous hazard to a fourth term for President Roosevelt.

Mr. Wallace cited that situation to press conference questioners here, but reported that sentiment was improving. He is convinced that the improvement will be such that Mr. Roosevelt will win again next November.

His report on Midwest sentiment substantially conforms with some more independent estimates of the situation there, but the question whether sentiment is swinging back toward the administration is sharply disputed.

Slipping in Farm Belt

The 1942-43 voting record shows the administration slipping in the Farm Belt.

At the press conference, Mr. Wallace for the most part answered the same questions he had been asked as he traveled to the West Coast and back making speeches calculated to make him an indispensable 1944 running mate for Mr. Roosevelt.

He reported a swelling liberal sentiment in general, and especially on the West Coast. He said he thought Mr. Roosevelt would prefer to retire to private life if he consulted his personal desires for comfort.

Retard war effort?

But he explained that Mr. Roosevelt’s retirement would retard the war effort because a new man would require so long to obtain the President’s perspective on the problems of all groups – agriculture, labor and business.

Mr. Wallace said he had been discussing politics with soldiers aboard trains and found them in favor of a fourth term. He represented them as taking the attitude: “Let him run the show and win the war.”

He described himself as “sitting in the lap of the gods,” which was interpreted to mean that Mr. Roosevelt has not told his 1940 ticket mate whether he is to have another fling.

AFL leader praises Willkie, hits Bricker

Washington (UP) –
An AFL spokesman today joined other labor leaders offering campaign advice to the Republicans by coupling praise for Wendell Willkie with criticism of Ohio’s Governor John W. Bricker.

Writing in the AFL News Service, editor Philip Pearl contrasted recent statements by the two Republican presidential aspirants and recommended that the party follow Mr. Willkie’s advice instead of Mr. Bricker’s.

He said Mr. Bricker’s record was “undistinguished by exceptional ability, forceful leadership or brilliant statesmanship” and that Mr. Bricker hade decided to take “a sock at labor” in an attempt to capture headlines in his Washington speech last week recommending legislation to prohibit strikes.

The next day, Mr. Pearl said, Mr. Willkie asserted there was no irrepressible conflict between business and labor and that “no man should be elected President who hated either.” Mr. Pearl interpreted these remarks as a “severe reprimand” to Mr. Bricker.

Martin takes hat from GOP ring

Washington (UP) –
House Republican Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. (R-MA) today gingerly removed his hat from the presidential ring where it had been tossed by his friends in Congress.

A poll of Republican members favored Mr. Martin as “the most able dark horse” in event of a deadlock over a presidential nominee at the Republican National Convention.

Mr. Martin said:

I appreciate this gesture of good will… but I’m not looking for any more headaches…

[NormanStewart]

Roosevelt dodges fourth-term query

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt’s batting average in knocking down inquiries about his fourth-term plans continued perfect today in the face of renewed news conference pitching.

A questioner told the President:

The Vice President says you will be elected in 1944 – do you think he is a very good prophet?

At it again, the President said with a laugh.

The questioner added that Vice President Wallace was “not so sure of himself” as the No. 2 Democratic candidate this year, Mr. Roosevelt chuckled.

Incidentally, Mr. Roosevelt scheduled a luncheon conference today with Mr. Wallace, who returned to Washington from a Western tour yesterday.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 19, 1944)

Soldier vote hopes

Washington (UP) –
The germ of hope for enactment of compromise soldier-vote legislation was kept alive today as states’ rights adherents and federal ballot supporters mulled over three compromise proposals – but it was a feeble germ.

House and Senate conferees were to consider the proposals when they meet again Monday, but there was no indication that the House conferees would back down from their adamant opposition to any form of federal ballot. They voted 3–2 against considering any plan whatsoever.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: ‘Scarcity economics’

Vice President Henry Wallace is warning the country against the danger of what he terms the “American fascists of Wall Street” who, he contends, believe in “scarcity economics.”

This philosophy of scarcity economics, he adds, must be displaced by a doctrine of “economic abundance.”

But doesn’t Mr. Wallace recall the days, not so long ago, when pigs and cotton were being plowed under in America on grounds that such “scarcity economics” would end the Depression and lead us to prosperity?

And wasn’t that policy of scarcity economics being administered not from Wall Street, but from Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington – through the office of Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace?

Perhaps there is something to the old saying that the memory of man is short-lived.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 21, 1944)

Soldier-vote bill bogs down

Washington (UP) –
Senate-House conferees resumed discussions on the soldier-vote bill today amid reports that the issue was so “hopelessly deadlocked” that an agreement may never be reached.

Senator Carl A. Hatch (D-NM), a Senate conferee, said he and other advocates of the federal war ballot approved by the Senate had made every possible concession to supporters of the state’s-rights plan, but were doubtful that it would help a compromise.

Rep. Harris Ellsworth (R-OR) said the best solution would be to adopt the state’s-rights bill approved by the House to give the states some specific plan on which to work.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Where is the plot?

Congressman Rankin of Mississippi, who is the most talkative of the anti-soldier-vote bloc in Congress, says any form of simple, uniform ballot which may be devised for the Army and Navy would be “the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon the members of our Armed Forces.”

He also claims it “might mark the beginning of the end of constitutional government in America.”

He says:

I realize that is what the Communist Party and its sympathizers want. They want to wipe out the states and set up a system of Sovietized regions.

Mr. Rankin often is tiresome, but seldom even he gets quite so hysterical.

There is no “fraud” in giving the members of the Armed Forces the right and opportunity to vote – providing the system which is adopted is honest and as efficient as circumstances will permit.

By no stretch of the imagination can a simple, uniform ballot, merely because it is set up by Congress, the constitutional representatives of the people, be construed as a threat to constitutional government. On the contrary. What is more constitutional than the right to vote?

As for the attitude of the Communist Party, it is not of consequence in this issue – or any other issue. Establishment of an emergency plan which will enable the Armed Forces to vote while they are overseas fighting a war does not in any manner smack of communism or anything faintly resembling it.

It will not wipe out the states or in any respect interfere with their normal functions. The ballots will be counted, along with the ballots cast by civilians at home, in the home districts of the men and women in the Armed Forces.

The only reason for proposing a simple, uniform ballot, to be provided by Congress, is that it is impossible for the Armed Forces to vote in any strength under existing state laws and it would be impossible for all 48 states to enact, in unison, such a ballot.

If there is any merit in Mr. Rankin’s opposition to legislation which will enable soldiers and sailors to vote, he is not developing it by resorting to such hysterical scare statements.

Mr. Rankin is either seeing something under the bed, or he is hiding something there.

There is no plot nor conspiracy in making it possible for the free citizens of the United States to exercise a right given them by the Constitution.

[NormanStewart]

Background of news –
The farce of presidential primaries

By Bertram Benedict, editorial research reports

With the first of the 1944 presidential preference primaries – in New Hampshire, March 14 – less than a month away, the leading possibilities for the presidential nomination, President Roosevelt and Governor Dewey, are still not avowed candidates. If they continue to disavow active candidacies, the presidential primaries this year will be a farce. In fact, the record shows that the primaries were a farce in 1940 and in 1936.

With only 13 states now holding presidential preferential primaries by law, the results cannot go far toward determining the presidential nominations (in four other states, primaries are optional with the party organizations).

Also, in some of the primaries, delegates will be elected without being pledged to any candidate. In Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio and South Dakota, a candidate or his official agent must authorize the use of his name before his name or the name of delegates pledged to him can be printed on the ballot.

Roosevelt silent in 1940

In 1940, with President Roosevelt silent on another term up to the very hour of his nomination, he won by default in some of the primaries. That is, his name was printed on the ballot without word from him, or his name was written in, or pro-third-term delegates were elected.

In California, Illinois, Oregon and Wisconsin, a Roosevelt slate defeated a Garner slate, and in New Hampshire, a Roosevelt slate defeated a Farley slate, but in some of these contests the anti-Roosevelt forces did not run the full number of delegates.

In Wisconsin, Vice President Garner won delegates in two districts, and in Massachusetts, the delegates were pledged to James A. Farley in case Mr. Roosevelt did not run.

On the Republican side, the winning candidate, Wendell L. Willkie, was not entered in a single primary. There were real contests in only two primaries – Mr. Dewey won over Senator Vandenberg in Nebraska and Wisconsin. Mr. Dewey was unopposed in Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey.

In Massachusetts, an uninstructed slate defeated the Dewey slate. Senator Taft was unopposed in Ohio, Senator McNary in Oregon. The theoretically uninstructed slate in New Hampshire was actually pledged to Senator Bridges. In California, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, there was no contest.

Some 1940 results

Republican primary results in certain states and votes from those states in the convention were as follows:

ILLINOIS: Dewey got most of the delegates in the primary. Most of them voted for Dewey for three ballots; on the fourth, Taft got a plurality; on the fifth, a majority. The vote on the sixth and final ballot was:

Taft	33
Willkie	24
Dewey	1

MARYLAND: Dewey won the primary, and got all the votes on the first ballot. On the second ballot, four votes broke away to Willkie, who had a majority of the votes on all following ballots.

NEBRASKA: Dewey won the primary. He received all 16 votes on the first ballot, only five on the second; on the fifth, Taft had a majority.

NEW JERSEY: Dewey got most of the delegates in the primary, and had a majority of the votes on the first ballot. On the second, most of the votes went to Willkie.

OHIO: Taft won the primary, got all votes on all ballots.

In 1936, Governor Landon won the Republican primaries in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Dakota. In California, Mr. Landon lost to an uninstructed slate. Senator Borah won in Nebraska, Oregon, Pennsylvania (no other candidate), West Virginia and Wisconsin. Frank Knox won in Illinois, Mr. Taft in Ohio. At the convention, Mr. Landon’s was the only name placed in nomination.

[NormanStewart]

Democratic 4th term foes bring campaign into open

Ex-Governor Ely of Massachusetts seeks nomination in home state
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
Moving boldly in Massachusetts against President Roosevelt’s renomination, anti-New Deal Democrats are out in the open today with their threat to bolt the party if necessary to block a fourth term.

Success of this anti-fourth-term strategy would inevitably obtain election of a Republican President next November.

The Democrats who hope to het Mr. Roosevelt out of the White House are reconciled to that., they seek, primarily. To eliminate the President as party leader and to regain control of the organization foe regular Democrats.

The movement was formally launched in Boston last night with announcement that former Governor Joseph B. Ely was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in that state only. His name will not be entered in other states.

The maneuver frankly was acknowledged to be designed to block a fourth term. The Massachusetts presidential preference primary is on April 25.

Third party planned

The pattern sketched by Mr. Ely’s manager envisages a conservative Democratic bolt, organization of a third party and nomination of a Jeffersonian Democratic presidential and vice-presidential ticket if Mr. Roosevelt is nominated against at Chicago next July.

Mr. Ely led the Alfred E. Smith Stop-Roosevelt movement at the 1932 convention. He participated in the futile 1936 convention of Jeffersonian Democrats in Detroit. He opposed a third term.

Most significantly, the 1944 Stop-Roosevelt movement has cemented roots. Senator David I. Walsh (D-MA) is reliably reported to be backing Mr. Ely. It is in the Senate that any national conservative Democratic movement probably have to be originated.

Somewhat the same strategy has been tried before in half-hearted fashion. Mr. Smith “took a walk” in 1936. It got nowhere.

To succeed this year, it would require bold cooperation in other states and so far, the Stop-Roosevelt movement has been more word than action throughout the country. It is known, however, that former Postmaster General James A. Farley has been hopeful that several Southern and other states would put up favorite-son candidates who would withhold delegate votes from Mr. Roosevelt at the Chicago convention.

Difficult job faced

If enough did so, considerable shine would be removed from the Draft-Roosevelt movement begun here last month by the Democratic National Committee.

To make the plan work, the difficult business of setting up a third party would have to be undertaken in the event of Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination and it should present a ticket which would allay the fears of Southern Democrats at the idea of a bolt.

Senator Ellison D. Smith (D-SC) has already proposed Senator Harry F. Byrd (D-VA) as the ideal candidate of the south for the presidential nomination. Senator Edwin C. Johnson (D-CO) recently proposed that Mr. Roosevelt retire and that the Democrats nominate Gen. George C. Marshall.

There is bitter feeling in the South against the administration on some issues, notably those raised by the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practices which is endeavoring to give Negroes a better position in industry.

Unrest in North

And there is conservative Democratic unrest in the North and, generally, throughout the country. Vice President Henry A. Wallace, who feels sure Mr. Roosevelt will be reelected this year, has just returned to Washington acknowledging that the Midwest is inclined to be off the reservation.

But against these factors is the unanimous action of the Democratic National Committee last month in urging Mr. Roosevelt to run again. Likewise, the great Democratic political machines in Chicago, New Jersey and New York are whooping it up for a fourth term.

Furthermore, the Democrats have no other candidate who would have a chance to be elected, according to the best judgment of most observers hereabouts.

The opening of the anti-fourth-term campaign, for those reasons, does not throw any great shadow over Mr. Roosevelt’s prospects.

How serious the threat may actually be depends on developments and, for instance, how Mr. Ely and any other anti-Roosevelt candidates run in their own states. It also depends on how real is the threat to form a third party if the President is renominated.

Charles H. McGlue, Mr. Ely’s campaign manager:

It is entirely possible that if Mr. Roosevelt is nominated, the Ely forces would join with other “Jeffersonian Democrats” in the country to nominate a separate slate for President and Vice President.

‘America Firster’ challenges Wallace

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Gerald L. K. Smith, head of the America First Party, today offered to debate with Vice President Henry A. Wallace on the necessity of the United States taking “suggestions of philosophical help from Communist Russia” on its post-war problems.

Mr. Smith issued the challenge in a telegram to Mr. Wallace last night and said he would meet Mr. Wallace at St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh or Philadelphia.

Mr. Smith said in the telegram:

You are quoted as praising the Communist regime of Stalin’s Russia. You represent a substantial number of American people who are pro-Communist and in agreement with your philosophies. I represent several million Americans whom you are now attacking. Because we are America Firsters and because we recruit our followers from the right and center you call us Fascists.

A national America First rally is scheduled to be held at St. Louis March 30.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 22, 1944)

Soldier vote may hold keys to 1944 election

Middle class also big factor in approaching campaign
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
Campaign-year political polls strongly suggest that the 1944 presidential contest will be decided among the preferences of the great middle classes of town and farm and of the armed services.

The soldier vote could swing a close election this year. That is one reason statesmen of all parties are so urgently interested in the soldier-vote machinery.

The American Institute of Public Opinion in a weekend poll reported that a sampling indicated 51% of the voters want the Democrats to win this year, 49% favoring the Republicans.

Democrats slump

That figure is weighted with the preponderant Democratic preferences of the South. Eliminating those states, the score for 37 others is 52% Republican to 48% Democratic.

The figures reflect a Democratic slump from the 55% of the vote polled by President Roosevelt in 1940. The loss has apparently been among the middle classes because those in the higher income levels in general may be regarded as opposed to the administration, but there is no evidence of any general desertion by labor.

The New York newspaper PM has also dome some polling. It comes up with returns from 100 selected labor leaders representing all the big organizations and some of the independents.

Take big lead

Mr. Roosevelt and Vice President Henry A. Wallace were overwhelmingly favored to head the Democratic ticket again this year.

This PM poll appears to challenge the reports now rapidly gaining currency that labor is turning on the President, that the railway brotherhoods are angry because the railways were seized, that union labor is generally talking a bolt in protest against wage-freeze orders and increased living costs.

An American Institute of Public Opinion poll last month, however, reported that Mr. Roosevelt had lost some labor ground to the Republicans. A 1940 poll showed 72% of trade unionists favoring Mr. Roosevelt, whereas this year the tally had slumped to 64%.

[NormanStewart]

New soldier-vote plan

Washington (UP) –
Senate-House conferees turned their attention today to a new compromise soldier-vote plan which pointed to a possible settlement of the complicated issue that has kept Congress in uproar for almost three months.

The plan, offered by Rep. Worley (D-TX), a House conferee, would abolish the anti-poll tax provisions of the 1942 soldier-vote law but would retain a federal war ballot.

Rep. John E. Rankin (D-MS), leader of the fight for the House-approved states’-rights plan, indicated that Mr. Worley’s proposal would prove the way out. He said modification of the 1942 law to eliminate restrictions against state poll tax and registration requirements would “remove the constitutional issue” from debate.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Primaries are for voters

Local leaders of the Republican and Democratic Party organizations, taking their cues from statewide leaders, are conferring, dickering and bargaining to eliminate all “opposition” in the April 25 primaries.

For the sake of “harmony” they are endeavoring to patch up a slate on which a majority of them can agree – and then run everybody else out of the race.

In this enterprise, they are warmly, and even forcefully, encouraged by the big leaders.

The purpose is to avoid party splits, to set up solidarity for the main contest in November.

Some of the motives behind this program may have merit. The “harmony” slate may be helpful to party discipline. It may prevent the kind of mudslinging contests which have characterized factional disputes in so many recent primaries. And probably it will enable the two parties to hoard their campaign funds for the big battles in the fall.

But this backroom slate-making defeats the purpose of primary elections.

Years ago, Pennsylvania, and a great many other states, abandoned the convention form of choosing party candidates for local, state and Congressional officers. The convention system was abolished because it became rotten and anything but democratic. The desires of the voters were ignored. Instead of candidates freely nominated by the people, the voters in November were confronted by candidates handpicked by whatever bosses could control or buy the party conventions. The election became a contest between two cliques of bosses, rather than two parties.

The open primary has not cured that condition entirely. Bosses still control nominations, often by force of fat purses or political patronage rather than by any qualities of leadership.

But the worst of the evils inherent in the convention system have been eliminated, or at least curtailed.

The primary offers any candidate the opportunity to present himself to the people. And political bosses frequently have been defeated in primaries.

In this campaign, the bosses, operating under the guise of party “harmony,” are attempting to restore the old convention system.

This system may be more subtle than the convention plan, but it smacks of the same dangers.

A few party leaders, many of them self-appointed, summon potential candidates behind closed doors and decide this candidate may run and that candidate may not.

In some cases, the leaders have called in the elected party committeemen from the precincts and allowed them a determining voice. This perhaps gives the slate-making an air of democratic processes, but the principle of the primary is still being violated.

Primaries were created to give the people a chance to pick their own candidates. The people don’t get that chance unless there is a free entry of candidates, unhampered by pressure from bosses, or office-holders or professional politicians.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Model for a President

This year of decision, in which the American people will determine the course and character of their government for the next four fateful years, will have need of every possible guidepost.

The election of a President is alone one of the most crucial steps ever to confront any people. Who the nominees will be cannot now be foretold. Fate has a strange way of taking a hand in decisions of such moment, and hardly indeed would be the prophet daring to make a flat prediction now.

Obviously, however, an election determined by discord, disunity and noisy, bitter argument is not what the country wants. The task must be faced with calm, with dignity, with informed judgment. And history provides us with more than one example of the type of man required by the times.

One hundred and twelve years ago, in observance of the centennial anniversary of Washington’s birth, Daniel Webster summed up the characteristics of the first President which fitted him so eminently for his all-important role in the shaping of the Republic. These words were spoken of Washington, and they describe a lofty standard. But read them with the nation’s present-day need in mind and, as the year progresses, measure each candidate against them:

In the first place, all his measures were right in their intent. To commanding talents, and to success, the common elements of such greatness, he added a disregard of self, a spotlessness of motive, a steady submission to every public and private duty, which threw far into the shade the whole crowd of vulgar great.

The object of his regard was the whole country. No part of it was enough to fill his enlarged patriotism. His love of glory, so far as that may be supposed to have influenced him at all, spurned everything short of general approbation. It would have been nothing to him that his partisans or his favorites outnumbered, or outvoted, or outmanaged, or outclamored, those of other leaders.

His principle it was to act right, and to trust the people for support; his principle it was not to follow the lead of sinister and selfish ends, nor to rely on the little arts of party delusion to obtain public sanction for such a course. Born for his country and for the world, he did not give up to party what was meant for mankind.

There is a model of political virtue which no crisis could dominate or conquer.

[NormanStewart]

Edson: Political hokum starts campaign in usual manner

By Peter Edson

Washington –
Everyone has his own ideas about what the fifth, sixth or umpteenth freedoms should be after the first four, but even this early in a presidential campaign, you begin to long for a day when there might be freedom from political bunk.

Maybe that’s asking for too much.

Freedom from fear and from want seem easy of attainment when stacked up alongside the ideal of achieving freedom from hokum and hooey out of the mouths of people running for office.

All you have to do to get a line on the 1944 brand of political palaver in platitude is to read, consecutively, the speeches of those citizens who, inspired solely by the highest of motives, have put personal ambition to one side in order to save their country.

No one party has a corner on this malarkey. If you have the idea that the Republicans are dishing out more demagoguery than the Democrats, that’s simply because there appear to be more Republicans running for high office.

Thus far, Henry Wallace has been doing most of the open field running for his side, as against a half-dozen opponents – Dewey, Willkie, Bricker, Dirksen, and the party spokesmen, Landon, Bud Kelland, Joe Martin and Chairman Harrison Spangler.

‘Deathless’ driblets

Examples? Paste these on the leaves of your scrapbook of recipes on how to make applesauce:

Henry Wallace in Seattle:

American Fascists [are] those who believe that Wall Street comes first and the country second and who are willing to go to any length… to keep Wall Street sitting on top of the country.

Ohio Governor John W. Bricker in Washington:

The Republican Party is the liberal party in America. The New Deal is reactionary.

Wendell Willkie in Portland:

I am sick – sick at heart – at our transferring our problems to one who by legerdemain has created the impression that he is able to handle our problems better than we can ourselves.

Kansas Ex-Governor Alf M. Landon in Nashville:

…the national socialistic state… is the object of the New Dealer.

New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey in New York:

The first attempt to establish an American autocracy took place [on March 4, 1933] as the result of the election of what used to be known as the Democratic Party.

But–

Enough? This is just one day’s catch, hooked, of all times, on the anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, who made a reputation on his honesty, who was something of an orator himself, and who calls to mind that crack about not being able to fool all the people all the time.

In American political campaigns, the politicians have come to believe that the people expect hyperbole, twisted reasoning, glittering generality, name calling, appeal to the emotions. Maybe those qualities in a political speech do liven up a campaign and make it interesting.

It is still comforting to think, however, that the American people are smarter than their politicians and see through illogical utterance like an X-ray finding the rat tail in a baloney.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 23, 1944)

Deadlock on soldier vote

Washington (UP) –
Senate-House conferees, who have been trying for a week to resolve the soldier-vote bill dispute today, were right back where they started – deadlocked.

A comparative suggestion which state ballot plan advocates originally found acceptable was rejected by them without explanation during the fifth meeting of the conferees.

It appeared that the conference would end in complete disagreement, with members reporting to their respective chambers for further instructions.

[NormanStewart]

Norman Thomas bows to Maynard Krueger

Madison, Wisconsin (UP) –
Norman Thomas, four-time Socialist Party presidential candidate, said today that he preferred to sidestep the party’s nomination this year in favor of Prof. Maynard Kreuger of Chicago.

Dr. Krueger was the Socialist Party vice-presidential nominee in 1940. However, despite his “strong desire” not to run this year, Mr. Thomas declined to say positively that he would not be a candidate again.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 24, 1944)

Tax revolt packs punch at 4th term

Resignation of Barkley viewed as a major party rift
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
The political compact between President Roosevelt and his handpicked Senate Democratic Leader has blown up with a boom that will echo right through this year’s fourth term debate.

Senator Alben W. Barkley’s break with the President is no minor fracture. It could start Congress on a rampaging rebellion which would make recent uprisings seem feeble. It might carry that rebellion right onto the floor of the Democratic National Convention.

In defense of Congress

But while Republicans and plenty of Democratic political hats are still in the air in celebration of a major breach in the administration breastworks, it remains a fact that Senator Barkley did not bolt the New Deal nor disavow its record.

Senator Barkley balked and bolted because President Roosevelt has been dealing roughly with Congress. The division between the Senate Democratic Leader and Mr. Roosevelt so far has not reached the question of a fourth term.

What Senator Barkley said yesterday in protest against Mr. Roosevelt’s veto of the 1944 tax bill is what Congress has been telling itself for some months – that the President has become harsh and abrupt in dealing with Congress when it failed to carry out his proposals.

Nor does it impugn Senator Barkley’s motives in any way to recall that Kentucky last November swung sharply from its Democratic moorings and, further, that this swing was interpreted as unfriendly to the Roosevelt administration.

May win votes

Senator Barkley was last elected to the Senate in 1938 with the active assistance of Mr. Roosevelt, who went into Kentucky to support his candidacy against that of A. B. “Happy” Chandler in the Democratic primary. Mr. Chandler subsequently got a Senate seat.

Now Senator Barkley is up again. If he seeks reelection, yesterday’s challenge to Mr. Roosevelt scarcely could lose him any votes and might attract more than a few to the Barkley standard.

Whether Senator Barkley dropped a blockbuster in resigning from the Senate Democratic Leadership or merely a canister of political events develop, he could become the rallying point for a Congressional Democratic effort to organize against the Draft-Roosevelt movement, which is now far advanced.

Smoldering fire

This Congress has been moving rapidly toward a political explosion of protests against what some legislators regard as Mr. Roosevelt’s effort to impose his will on the legislative branch.

Last month, the President indicted Congress on charges of “fraud” in devising a soldier vote bill. This week, he accused the House and Senate of enacting tax legislation which would impoverish the needy and enrich the greedy.

Congress was fighting mad.

But few expected the explosion to come on the leadership quarterdeck.

Even fewer believed that Barkley will follow other notable bolters, into political opposition to the President’s renomination. The list is long – John N. Garner, James A. Farley, Harry H. Woodring, John L. Lewis, to name some who were once White House intimates.

But there is a whirlwind of speculation on the effect Senator Barkley’s defection may have within the New Deal-Democratic Party where he has been a notable figure.

Senator John H. Overton (D-LA) said:

Senator Barkley’s speech places in jeopardy Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination for President. It should have a salutary influence upon arresting the alarming increase of authority in the Executive branch which is rapidly tending toward a dictatorship in the United States.

Rep. Wesley E. Disney (D-OK) said:

This is an anti-Congress fight. This was an anti-Congress [veto] message designed for the 1944 campaign.

Senator Harry S. Truman said he was “backing Barkley to the limit.”

Former Secretary of War Woodring, a Kansan, is attempting to organize anti-New Deal Democrats against a fourth term. He said Senator Barkley was moved by resentment against Mr. Roosevelt’s “contemptuous” attitude toward Congress.

Senator Ellison D. “Cotton Ed” Smith (D-SC) found Senator Barkley’s rebellion the occasion to propose a third-party coalition of “real” Democrats with Republicans. But Senator Smith warned, too, that Southerners could not vote for anyone with a Republican label. Yet he was hopeful and remarked:

If we can get “Dear Alben” away from Roosevelt, we can get anybody away.

There was on Capitol Hill some disposition to agree with that latter sentiment.

These may be merely partisan, anti-Roosevelt statements. But there appeared to be something deeper than that when Senator Barkley spoke yesterday. The chamber was full, with a standee line of House members against the walls. Republicans sat relaxed and smiling. The Democrats were grim.

Speaks for Senate

But it soon became evident that Senator Barkley was no longer talking for the Democrats or as their leader. He was speaking for the Senate as a whole. As he proceeded, the grimness spread from Democrats on the left to Republicans on the right. Legs uncrossed and Senators straightened in their chairs.

Senator Barkley wept. He had dictated his speech in 45 minutes and his delivery was halting. It was being typed and hurried to him a page at a time as he spoke. Often, he outran the manuscript and had to pause.

Great friendships were being broken and others were being cemented again. There was Senator Kenneth McKellar (D-TN), 75 years old and a hater of no small attainments.

Last year, Barkley had ordered his old friend, Senator McKellar arrested by the Senate sergeant-at-arms and their friendship had not cooled – it had frozen. The arrest was ordered when Senators refused to come to the chamber to vote on an anti-poll tax bill.

But it was Senator McKellar from an adjacent seat who first saw Senator Barkley’s plight, and understood. Thereafter it was the senior Senator from Tennessee and not a knee pants page boy who brought the speech page by page from the typist to Senator Barkley’s desk. The Senate and the press galleries saw that and knew that a broken friendship was being resumed.

Even the visitors’ galleries sensed that something was up. Then Barkley was through. He has told them of his 31 years in Congress and that now he might be stepping down. Certainly, he might resign the Senate leadership. Whether he would run for the Senate again he did not say.

He finished:

The record will speak for itself. I would not change it. But there is something more precious to me than any honor from the Senate, from the State of Kentucky or from the President of the Republic. That is the approval of my conscience; my own self-respect.

What happened then has not been seen in the memory of the oldest Senate attaché.

Mark Sullivan said he had never seen the like.

The Senate cheered.

The Senate gave Senator Barkley a rising vote of confidence.

The Senate applauded long and loud.

That is, almost all of the Senate did. There were three dissenters.

[NormanStewart]

Dewey withdraws in Wisconsin

Albany, New York (UP) –
The drive on behalf of Governor Thomas E. Dewey for the Republican presidential nomination continued today despite his withdrawal from the Wisconsin primaries.

New York supporters said Governor Dewey’s request that his name be withheld from the Wisconsin fight for delegates had not changed their position and that they would continue their campaign.

Governor Dewey in telegrams to each of the 24 Wisconsin delegates who had filed petitions in his support, said the use of his name met his “strongest disapproval.”

Some political observers interpreted it as a move to avoid a showdown with Wendell L. Willkie, who defeated him for the Republican nomination in Philadelphia four years ago. Mr. Willkie, it was pointed out, is in a position to make a personal campaign for support in Wisconsin while Governor Dewey is tied up with state affairs. These observers also placed significance in the fact that Governor Dewey did not withdraw from the New Jersey primaries or give a reason for his Wisconsin withdrawal.

[NormanStewart]

Soldier-vote conferees locked

Washington (UP) –
House-Senate conferees resume discussions tomorrow on the soldier-vote bill with still no sign of a break in the long deadlock between advocates of state and federal ballots.

Senator Theodore F. Green (D-RI), a Senate conferee, indicated the status of the talks by saying that the nearest thing to an agreement yet came yesterday when conferees “came very close to voting to disagree.”

At tomorrow’s session, Rep. John E. Rankin (D-MS), ardent advocate of a state ballot, will offer a proposal to give the federal ballot only to soldiers from states with no absentee voting laws – New Mexico and Kentucky – provided their legislatures confirm they will accept it.

This would in effect kill the federal ballot plan “with kindness” and Senate conferees were not expected to accept it.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 25, 1944)

Taking a rest –
President goes to ‘hideaway’

Roosevelt relaxes from press and public

With President Roosevelt’s party (UP) –
President Roosevelt was relaxing today away from Washington and in seclusion from the press and public of the country.

The apparent reason for his absence from the White House at this time was that his physician, VAdm. Ross T. McIntire, has urged the President since his winter attack of influenza to get away from Washington for a rest. There was no official explanation available here, however.

The voluntary censorship code prohibits detailed reporting of Mr. Roosevelt’s movements outside Washington without an appropriate official authority.

Reporters not invited

Correspondents for seven newspapers and two press associations – men whose regular assignment is reporting the activities of the Chief Executive – followed him to the vicinity of his retreat.

They were not invited by the White House staff, but made the trip nevertheless to be near as possible to the President in the event of major developments involving the war in general and particularly because of the political crisis touched off by Senator Alben W. Barkley (D-KY).

The newspapermen were told soon after their arrival here that they could expect no contact whatever with the President; that no inquiries could be received or answered; that all the news involving the President would come from Washington through the White House Press Secretary Stephen T. Early.

Has own communications

While the President maintained no contact with the press at his retreat, he had facilities for instantaneous communication with Washington. Although out of town, he was able to follow closely the political turmoil on Capitol Hill which followed his tax bill veto and Mr. Barkley’s denunciation of the veto message.

Despite the stringent official secrecy covering the President’s whereabouts and movements, it was the Chief Executive himself who first disclosed that he was “out of town” when he sent Mr. Barkley a letter asking him not to resign as Senate Democratic Leader.

First rebuff

Mr. Roosevelt has made numerous trips since Pearl Harbor, and on a few of them, reporters have been invited to accompany him. This occasion was the first time since the war began that the White House correspondents followed the President without official sanction.

Reporters criticized by Roosevelt aide

Washington (UP) –
White House Secretary Stephen T. Early said today that President Roosevelt is out of the city for a rest, but emphasized that his basic health is “good – very good.”

Commenting on dispatches which said the President apparently left Washington because of his health, Mr. Early said:

About 100 newspaper reporters saw him at a press conference on Tuesday. He looked all right then, didn’t he? Well, he is all right. Nothing has happened since the press conference to change the situation. His health is good – very good.

Discusses departure

Mr. Early took occasion at his morning press conference to also comment on the departure of a group of newspaper and press-association correspondents, regularly assigned to cover the President, to a place near which the Chief Executive is resting.

The group left Wednesday after Senate Leader Alben W. Barkley precipitated a political crisis with his announcement that he would resign.

Dispatches from some of the correspondents today bore the dateline “With President Roosevelt” and others “With the President’s party.” Mr. Early said these datelines are incorrect.

‘Miles from President’

He said:

The correspondents are miles away from the President.

Mr. Early also said the correspondents who left the capital did not deserve great credit for going near the President.

He said:

They were told in confidence by this office where the President was. They knew, therefore, where to go. They were also told that if the President had any news to give out, it would be given out here and not by the staff accompanying the President.

The correspondents left strictly on their own, with the knowledge that there would be no news where they were going and that any news would be given out here. The news has been given out here.

No appointments

The correspondents also were told, as were all correspondents regularly covering the White House, that the President had no appointments: that he was going away only for a rest.

Mr. Early explained that it was not feasible for William D. Hassett, newly-appointed White House secretary, or other members of the White House staff who are with the President to issue any news.

He said that if either Mr. Hassett or any other accredited staff member made a statement to the correspondents, it would be recognized as coming from a competent authority and therefore subject to publication under the censorship code.

‘Security involved’

Mr. Early said:

Thus, President Roosevelt’s whereabouts would be revealed to the world. Let’s not forget that this is wartime, and that the question of security is involved. The newspaper code recognizes these questions of security.

We will comply with the code and give President Roosevelt the security to which he is entitled and will not reveal his whereabouts.

Mr. Early said that it was only right to point out that the correspondents who “left Washington uninvited to travel to a point nearby the President’s abode” did not advise his office in advance of their departure.

‘In face of the fact’

Mr. Early said:

This was in the face of the fact that they had been told before the President left Washington that he was going away for a rest and would have no appointments.

The President is in instantaneous and immediate communication with the White House. Developments here of a news nature have been given out immediately to the press and would have been given to the correspondents who left Washington if they had remained here.

As you know, the White House is the only news outlet for the President while he is off the record.

[NormanStewart]

Marcantonio has his joke –
Fourth-term decision awaits further tests

Jittery House thrown into a political dither at rumor of Roosevelt withdrawal
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
Much of the talk about Senate Democratic Leader Barkley’s defiance of President Roosevelt over the tax bill veto, and the resultant stiffened backbone of Democrats in Congress, concerns the possible effect on a fourth-term nomination for the President.

Nobody can tell now, of course.

No great activity developed immediately, however, among those Democrats in Congress who would like to stop renomination.

The practical situation in the party is well illustrated by a little incident in the House. Rep. Vito Marcantonio (AL-NY) sidled up to a group of Democrats and remarked that news had just come over the wires that President Roosevelt had announced he would not run for a fourth term.

It was like a bombshell. Their faces fell several feet. The New Yorker walked away. Later he went into the cloakroom. Members asked for more details. He thought he had carried this joke far enough and said:

He also named his successor – Joe Martin.

Time alone can tell

But still it wasn’t such a funny joke.

The consensus about the Capitol is that the effect on the Democratic Party and on renomination of the President depends on whether the conflict develops further to the stage of bitterness and no retreat, or whether it is adjusted amicably.

This, of course, must await the raising of another issue to see how both sides react. It might come if Congress sent to the President a soldier-vote bill that eliminated the short federal ballot and left only state ballots. A conference of House and Senate is still debating this issue.

Benefits are expected

Mr. Roosevelt previously characterized the state ballot bill passed by the House “a fraud,” which incensed Republicans and Southern Democrats – the incipiently explosive wings of the party – who sponsored it.

After Senator Barkley had been vindicated by his colleagues by unanimous reelection as leader, there was a feeling that the eventual result might be beneficial to the party now that Congress had had its say through the Kentucky Senator.

There was a feeling that President Roosevelt hereafter might be more conciliatory, which he seemed to indicate in the letter to the Senator, and that he might be more considerate of Congress.

Orders FOR the White House

The Senator, himself, in his reply to the President, opened the way for future cooperation by saying he hoped his resignation and reelection would work toward closer harmony between the White House and Congress. But he emphasized that he had retained his leadership only at the insistence of the Senate.

Senator Barkley has at least for the time being, shifted his role. He is now responsible to the Senate rather than to the White House, and henceforth would be expected to speak up for the Senate at the White House, rather than acting merely as the bearer of presidential orders from the White House to the Senate.

Reports from Kentucky, which went Republican in November in the Governor’s race, are that the Senator is facing an uphill fight, and the view about the Senate is that his show of independence may help in his race for reelection.