Barkley still a progressive –
Revolt gives little comfort to anti-Roosevelt forces
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Washington –
A second look at the “Barkley Affair” indicates that the anti-Roosevelt forces have perhaps drawn mote comfort than is justified from it. Already the Senate Democratic Leader’s deft of President Roosevelt has been toned down somewhat by the exchange of friendly letters between the two.
In judging the incident, this has been overlooked: Senator Barkley has never been among the conservatives, is not among them now, and is not likely to be found among them.
Anybody who expects him to abandon the progressivism that he has followed during his 31 years in Congress and overnight step out as the front man of the conservatives and anti-Roosevelt forces is due for a letdown. That is, unless the basic character of the man is other than it has appeared to close friends and associates for years.
“Alben Barkley was a progressive long before President Roosevelt,” is the wat one of them out it, pointing back to the Kentucky Senator’s record years ago in the House.
He has never aligned himself in the Senate with the Byrds, the Georges, the Baileys, the “Cotton Ed” Smiths.
Nor does he seem to possess the temperament of other outstanding men who, along the war and through the years, have “broken” with President Roosevelt and become deeply embittered as a consequence – Al Smith, James A. Farley, Senator Burton K. Wheeler, to mention three. They have joined up with the anti-Roosevelt forces to topple the President from the White House.
Learned to adjust himself
Senator Barkley has weathered all the vicissitudes of politics. He’s been in the minority and in the majority. He has learned to adjust himself, to roll with the punch, to compromise personal differences of opinion, to take orders and to accommodate himself to party discipline.
The difficulties of his job as leader during the last few years can be appreciated only by those who are familiar with the day-by-day, week-by-week ordeal.
There are two things that might work to sour Senator Barkley, a naturally genial gentleman, and throw him into the camp of the enemy.
One would be an attack of ambition, and that means one ambition, the Presidency. That was at the back of the clash between President Roosevelt and Al Smith, and between the President and Jim Farley, though other factors were also involved. This ambition seems to change the whole scheme of a man’s thinking – toward himself and toward others.
Mentioned for Presidency
Senator Barkley is being mentioned for the Presidency now. How seriously he takes it has not been revealed.
The other thing would be the species of persecution of which some of the zealous New Deal aides have shown themselves capable when someone raised his hand against the President. They work up a vengeance that the President himself undoubtedly never felt.
One disagreement on fundamental policy with the President, one speech of protest, and this group classifies the dissenter as 100% in the enemy’s camp.
This noisy and vicious little claque thus carried on their vendetta against Jim Farley and Burt Wheeler and others. It might happen with Senator Barkley.