Election 1944: Pre-convention news

[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.

[NormanStewart]

Communists lose their ballot plea

San Francisco, California (UP) –
The State Supreme Court today denied an application brought by the Communist Party which sought to restrain Secretary of State Frank M. Jordan from removing the party from the California state primary ballot May 16.

The court’s ruling upheld the constitutionality of the election code which provides that whenever the registration of any political party falls below one-tenth of one percent of the total state registration, that party shall not be qualified to participate in the next primary election.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Soldier votes in the primary

Congress is still engaged in a political wrangle over the enactment of a law which will enable the members of the Armed Forces to cast a ballot in this year’s election.

But whatever Congress does, if anything, it is unlikely that any federal legislation will be applied to the primaries, which will take place over a period of seven or eight months, according to varying state laws.

Pennsylvanians in the Armed Forces, if they are to vote in the April 25 primary, must vote under the Pennsylvania Military Ballot Act. This law, while cumbersome and circumscribed with a certain amount of red tape, does give the soldier a chance to vote.

However, the man or woman in the Armed Forces who wishes a military ballot for the primary must apply for that ballot within a prescribed time. The first day to apply is March 6. The last day to apply is March 25. Postmarks govern in all cases.

Voters who apply for military ballots must have been previously registered. If they were registered voters when they were inducted into the service, that registration still stands. If they were not registered, they may apply to their home registration commission for a card, which has to be returned.

It is highly improbable that many members of the Armed Forces, especially those overseas, will be able to comply with all the requirements of the Military Ballot Act.

They will not remember, it they ever knew, the dates within which applications may be made for ballots.

But the families and friends at home can help them by writing letters of reminder. Suggest in them that they apply to the County Board of Elections for a military ballot – if they are registered. If they are not registered, tell them to ask for registration by writing to the Pittsburgh Registration Commission, if they live in Pittsburgh, or to the County Elections Board if they live elsewhere.

[NormanStewart]

Ex-Governor of Oklahoma recalls last soldier vote

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (UP) –
Former Oklahoma Governor Robert L. Williams, who was governor during World War I, says men in uniform voted heavily by absentee ballot during his term of office.

Mr. Williams, now a retired Circuit Court of Appeals judge, believed men overseas and on home soil should be permitted to vote, but he is not sure the absentee ballot would be the best method.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 26, 1944)

Senators put next move up to Roosevelt

Democrats seeking truce rather than jeopardize election chances

Washington (UP) –
Senate Democrats, having demonstrated their independence, are ready to make political peace with President Roosevelt if he will meet them halfway.

They would rather compromise their differences with the President than have the White House-Congress fight jeopardize the party’s chances for victory in November.

The general feeling is that if the President will work more closely with Congress, submit various phases of the war and post-war programs for Congressional approval and desist from further caustic criticism, he can win almost solid Congressional support – even for a fourth term.

Up to Roosevelt

If the President won’t compromise, however, he can expect the campaign year to be marked with further rebellion such as the one this week which saw Senate Democrats win Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY) from his control and overwhelmingly reject his veto of the $2,315,000,000 tax bill.

A majority of those who participated in this week’s rebellion hope, for the good of the party as well as their own political futures, that the episode has ended. They realize that Republicans could make political capital of a lengthy fight between the President and his own party members in Congress.

Virtually all of them expect Mr. Roosevelt to be a candidate for a fourth term.

Even the most vigorous administration opponents despair of keeping the nomination from Mr. Roosevelt if he wants it, and they’d rather have a fourth term than get a Republican President and see their party swept completely out of national control.

Wants his aid

Some of those who opposed the third term in 1940, but now are up for reelection themselves, have been soft-pedaling their opposition to Mr. Roosevelt of late.

They don’t want to change Presidents while the war is on. They also figure they might reap some advantage from having his name at the top of the ticket.

Of the 39 Democrats who voted in the Senate yesterday to override the tax bill veto, the President probably could count on better than two-thirds of them to make speeches for a fourth term.

[NormanStewart]

Background of news –
President, party and Congress

By Bertram Benedict, editorial research reports

Gen. Washington, Woodrow Wilson has pointed out:

…set an example which few of his successors seem to have followed… he made constant and intimate use of his colleagues in every matter that he handled, seeking their assistance and advice by letter when they were at a distance.

The record shows that President Roosevelt, even in the pre-war years of his administration, consulted very sparingly with his party leaders.

The “soak-the-wealth” administration tax program of 1935 was sprung without warning upon a Congress which had been led to believe that the President desired no new general revenue bill in that year. The undistributed-profits tax program was placed before Congress in 1936 without Congressional leaders having been consulted, and in the following year, revision of the tax was demanded by Chairman Harrison of the Senate Finance Committee.

Senator Robinson, then Senate Majority Leader, complained that he had not been consulted on the President’s Supreme Court plan of 1937, and Chairman Farley of the Democratic National Committee was not a party to the President’s purge attempt of 1938.

‘Intrusion’ resented

Party leaders complain that at the same time President Roosevelt has intruded into what should be their private province. His “Dear Alben” letter to Senator Barkley in 1937 was supposed to have shown presidential preference for Mr. Barkley over Mr. Harrison for the post of Senate Majority Leader, and in 1940, the President forced the nomination of Henry A. Wallace for Vice President.

Party leaders have also complained that when they have wrung concessions from the President, he does not stay put. In November 1941, the House, bitter at strikes in defense plants, passed by a narrow margin the administration-supported revision of the Neutrality Act only after Speaker Rayburn had read aloud a letter from the President interpreted as promising immediate action against such strikes. The House leaders felt the promise was not kept.

The record also shows that even at the beginning of the New Deal, an overwhelmingly-Democratic Congress refused to follow the new President in all issues, though the President sent Congress in 1933 a letter thanking it for “a more sincere and more wholehearted cooperation” than had existed between the executive and the legislative branches for many years.

Congress in 1933 toned down the administration’s draft of the NRA Act, forced concessions in the administration’s original economy program, and rejected several presidential appointments. In 1934, Congress overrode a presidential veto in order to restore cuts made in government salaries and veterans’ payments.

Wilson’s method recalled

Older members of Congress recall nostalgically that Woodrow Wilson put through his program in his first term largely by working hand-in-glove with the party leaders and caucuses. Yet in 1916, when the party leaders rejected Wilson’s defense program, he went over their heads by appealing to the public in a speaking tour.

Wilson also called upon Democratic voters to purge, in the party primaries, certain outstanding Democratic members of Congress who had been anti-administration.

Most strong Democratic Presidents have had party revolts on their hands in Congress.

In Cleveland’s second term, Democratic leaders in Congress joined with the Republican minority to emasculate the administration’s low-tariff bill. In terms not unlike Roosevelt’s attack on the tax bill of 1944, Cleveland denounced the bill as “party perfidy and party dishonor” and an “abandonment of Democratic principle.” In terms not unlike Barkley’s attack upon Roosevelt in 1944, Senator Gorman of Maryland, leader of the Democrats in the Senate, thereupon delivered on the floor of the Senate a bitter personal attack on the President.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 27, 1944)

Dewey urges firm Congress

Ominous trend is seen in current fight

Albany, New York (UP) – (Feb. 26)
Governor Thomas E. Dewey warned today that the “very existence” of Congress is at stake.

In a letter to William S. Bennet, New York City Republican who will seek the 21st Congressional seat at a special election next Tuesday, Mr. Dewey said:

Now, if ever, Congress needs all the strength it can obtain. No citizen can fail to reach the conclusion after reading the ominous trend in the news of the fight against Congress, that its very existence, its very function in the plan of American constitutional government, is at stake.

The Governor endorsed Bennet, a former representative, and expressed hope he would be elected.

Mr. Dewey wrote:

This is the time when it is the duty of the citizens to send experienced and capable legislators to the halls of Congress.

I wish you well in the election.

[NormanStewart]

Roosevelt’s pleas to voting masses arouse Congress

President adept at blaming Senate and House for failure of his programs; ‘clever strategy’ deplored
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington – (Feb. 26)
The noisy fanfare over the personal clash between President Roosevelt and Senate Democratic Leader Alben Barkley, all done with Klieg-light dramatics, has submerged the underlying political strategy which has governed Mr. Roosevelt.

The tax bill veto, with its accompanying sharp message which provoked Senator Barkley’s act, was only one phase.

A definite pattern emerges from a series of events beginning with the President’s message to Congress in January which all add up to strengthening him with the mass of voters who have contributed the chief support in the three previous triumphs.

It also represents a shift of presidential attention from the foreign field which has hitherto engrossed him to the somewhat-neglected field of domestic affairs upon which Republicans have concentrated.

Roosevelt’s groundwork

Mr. Roosevelt laid the ground for his attack in his annual message by calling upon Congress for certain specific measures, among them, a national service act, a simple federal ballot for soldier voting, continuation of subsidies to keep down the price of food, an adequate tax bill to raise $10 billion

His apparent idea was to make the record for himself and, when Congress failed to come through, to call that to the attention of the people repeatedly, blaming Congress, and thus setting himself up against Congress with the people.

Already he has been able to exploit some of the issues. Undoubtedly, they will bob up later, even into the campaign.

Could accuse Congress

If prices should go up, if inflation should set in, of there should be strikes and manpower troubles – then he can point back to his program and charge Congress with responsibility.

It’s not all as simple as that but a President has a sounding board not enjoyed to the same degree by Congress, and he can simplify issues, because he speaks with a single voice while Congress often resembles a meaningless babble.

Mr. Roosevelt seemingly has lost some labor support. Also, Republicans are trying to lure back the Negro vote, a decisive factor in big Eastern and Midwestern states.

Called a ‘fraud’

The President made capital with both pf these groups, as well as with families of soldiers by calling the state ballot bill passed originally by Congress, with Republican and Southern Democratic support, a “fraud.” It would disenfranchise Negro soldiers in many Southern states.

He appealed to consumers generally, to labor and white-collar workers, in his veto of the bill which would ban food subsidies, calling the bill “an inflation measure, a higher-cost-of-living measure, a food-shortage measure.”

And, in that tax bill, he pleased labor with his veto because of the provision requiring labor unions to report to the Internal Revenue Bureau the source of their income, though he omitted any mention of this provision in his veto message. His praise describing the bill as “a relief bill providing not for the needy but for the greedy” was also designed for mass consumption.

Tactics deplored

His decision becomes clear.

It is clear, too, to members of Congress, clear and offensive, even to some who have followed his program through the years. They now deplore his tactics because of the critical period and the need for unity. One such expressed himself thus:

It’s very clever strategy. He gets the country to the point where it thinks every member of Congress comes in every morning, weighs his mail to see how he will vote that day, gets a free shave, a free whisky sour–

He threw up his hands.

But is that the kind of strategy to employ when the country is in a war and needs unity, and is that the kind of strategy that’s going to be helpful after the war in getting measures of international cooperation through the Senate, and in getting post-war domestic measures approved by Congress?

I don’t think so, and lots of others don’t think so.

[NormanStewart]

In Washington –
Federal vote for soldiers appears dead

Conferees show weariness after 7 meetings on once-hot issue

Washington (UP) – (Feb. 26)
Chances for the enactment of new federal soldier-vote legislation today appeared to be virtually nil.

After each meeting of the Senate-House conference on the measure, members indicate an increasing weariness with the whole issue, which scarcely a month ago was the hottest in Washington. Their attitude suggests that delay and disinterest may yet put the quietus on all federal ballot plans.

The conferees broke up yesterday for the weekend. In the words of Chairman Theodore F. Green (D-RI) of the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee, conferees will “retire and pray for guidance” on the future course of their deliberations, which by now have comprised seven meetings stretching into their third week.

The latest proposal the conferees will consider over the weekend was suggested yesterday by Reps. Herbert C. Bonner (D-NC) and Karl M. LeCompte (R-IA). It would provide a federal ballot for all soldiers who had applied for a state absentee ballot and had not received it by Oct. 1 – providing their states had agreed to accept the federal ballot.

The state-certification provision is opposed by the Senate conferees, who have consistently maintained the federal ballot should be accepted if voted by the soldier, regardless of whether or not it conforms to state law.

[NormanStewart]

Democrats willing to end their fight with Roosevelt

Era of good feeling may result if both sides profit by week’s lessons

Washington (UP) – (Feb. 26)
Congressional Democrats believed tonight that an “era of good feeling” may be in prospect between President Roosevelt and his party colleagues in the House and Senate if both sides profit by this week’s lessons.

If the President adopts a more conciliatory attitude – if there are no more White House blasts charging legislative fraud and bad faith – if Mr. Roosevelt will work more closely with Congress on war and post-war programs, the recent exchange of blow may prove beneficial in the long run to all involved, many observers believed.

Willing to end row

Democratic legislators appeared willing, now that they have proclaimed their independence, to make peace with the President. And his message to Senate Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley last Wednesday appeared to indicate belated realization on the President’s part that the tone of his tax bill veto message was unpalatably tart.

There appeared little doubt, however, that Mr. Roosevelt – having taken one major beating when Congress overrode his veto of the tax bill – must swallow at least one more cup of defeat before getting back on an even keel with Congress.

Soldier vote bill

Congress still has a score to settle with him on the soldier-vote bill, and the odds are that it will settle the score by refusing to enact any form of the administration-supported federal ballot measure.

It was the “states’ rights” ballot bill passed by the House which touched off the showdown battle climaxed this week with Congressional enactment of the tax bill. Mr. Roosevelt called the House measure, banning federal machinery for conducting balloting among service personnel, a “fraud.”

The Senate subsequently squeezed through a compromise measure, providing for limited use of a federal ballot, but House and Senate conferees have since been unable to reach an agreement. The result probably will be no bill at all.

Two factors faced

For the future, however, there was reason to believe that efforts will be made to heal the breach and bring about peace between the President and the Congressional majority. Uppermost in Congressional minds was realization that:

• This is a campaign year, and Mr. Roosevelt is admittedly the party’s strongest possible candidate for President, despite whatever liability there may be in the fact that he will be seeking a fourth term.

• Wartime cleavage between the President and Congress can only be harmful to the nation, and could be disastrous.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: OWI’s ‘mistake’

Just after Elmer Davis, director of the Office of War Information, settled a family row with his Overseas Branch and admonished that branch to keep out of public trouble, the Republicans jumped all over the same outfit for failing to identify Governor Bricker of Ohio as a candidate for President.

Mr. Bricker was one of two men in United States about whom such a mistake is unpardonable.

He is an announced candidate. So is Wendell Willkie.

But if OWI had failed to mention that Governor Dewey, for instance, is a candidate, it could easily have been forgiven. Or if it had omitted saying anything about President Roosevelt being a candidate, no fault could be found with it.

Presidential aspiration is no longer a matter of thumped chests, bellowed challenges and brass bands. The modest blush, the averted eye, the indecisive answer, the coy humor seem to be the marks of a candidate.