Election 1944: Pre-convention news

[NormanStewart]

Background of news –
Other presidential spats

By Bertram Benedict, editorial research reports

Senator Barkley’s charge, and Mr. Roosevelt’s denial, that the President has impugned the integrity of Congress recalls a similar incident during the administration of the first Roosevelt.

On Dec. 8, 1908, Theodore Roosevelt, then a lame-duck President, sent his last annual message to Congress. In it, he declared that a law of the previous year curtailing the activities of the Secret Service “was of benefit to no one except the criminal classes.” Recalling that the Secret Service had been “partly responsible” for the indictment and conviction of a Senator and Representative for land frauds in Oregon, the President blandly observed:

The chief argument in favor of the provision was that the Congressmen did not themselves wish to be investigated by Secret Servicemen.

Congress hit the roof. On Dec. 17, the House called upon the President, by resolution, to submit evidence that in restricting the Secret Service Congress had been actuated by fear of being investigated the resolution also called for proof that any representative was guilty of corruption.

The President came back on Jan. 4, 1909, with a long message insisting that the House had misinterpreted his words, and citing the Congressional Record to prove that in limiting the Secret Service Congress had considered its investigation of Congressmen.

‘Invasion of its privileges’

That only added fuel to the flames. The House solemnly passed a new resolution. This one called the Secret Service section of the annual message a “reflection of the integrity” of the House membership. It said that the President’s denial of any such intent would be judged “according to the accepted interpretations of the English language.”

Calling the Secret Service section of the annual message a “breach of the privileges of the House,” the House voted to lay on the table not only that section but also the presidential message of Jan. 4, 1909, as unresponsive to the inquiry of the House and as an “invasion of its privileges.”

Earlier Presidents had had similar experiences. In March 28, 1834, the Senate by vote of 24–20 resolved that President Andrew Jackson, in ordering federal funds removed from the Bank of the United States, after dismissing Secretary of the Treasury Duane for refusing to remove them, had acted illegally and unconstitutionally.

Jackson’s followers managed, over the opposition of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, to get a later Senate to vote to expunge the resolution. On Jan. 16, 1837, a line was drawn around the resolution in the Senate Journal, and across the words of censure were written” “Expunged by order.”

Tyler disowned by Whigs

In 1841, on the death of President Harrison, anti-Jackson Democrat John Tyler found himself at the head of a Whig administration. When he vetoes a bill for re-chartering the Bank of the United States, the Whig leadership in Congress disowned him, and all members of his Cabinet resigned in a body except Secretary of State Daniel Webster.

When Tyler vetoed a tariff bill in 1842, the House, on motion by ex-President John Quincy Adams, referred his objections to a committee. The committee submitted a report, adopted by the House, impugning the President’s motives and declaring that he ought to be impeached for opposing the clear will of Congress. Tyler submitted a firm protest to the House against its censure of him; the House refused to let the protest be entered on its journal.

Among the few defenders of the President in the Congress was a Representative from New York City named James Roosevelt (D), uncle of an uncle of Theodore Roosevelt.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 1, 1944)

Soldiers’ vote hits new snag

Compromise reached once, but debate goes on

Washington (UP) –
Senate and House soldier-vote conferees – who yesterday voted 9–1 for a compromise federal war ballot plan – ran into another snag today.

Today’s meeting was to have been merely a routine windup to straighten out technical language of the compromise bill before issuing a conference report to the two chambers. But the morning session ended in what appeared to be merely an extension of the argument which has kept the conference deadlocked for nearly three weeks. The conferees agreed to meet again this afternoon.

Senator Carl A. Hatch (D-NM) told reporters the House conferees are now balking on extending the restricted federal ballot to service personnel within this country as well as overseas. Yesterday’s agreement provided that the federal ballot should be given all men who certify that they have applied for, but by Oct. 1 had not received, a state absentee ballot.

Senate conferees understood this was acceptable to the House, and regarded the 9–1 vote as binding.

He said:

We don’t know where we are. The Senate thought yesterday that everything was settled, but now it apparently isn’t.

Rep. John E. Rankin (D-MS), leading opponent of any federal ballot plan, had declared he would fight vigorously to defeat the once-approved compromise.

[NormanStewart]

A moral victory –
New York vote heartens GOP

Democrats squeezes by with ALP and CIO aid
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
New York City’s Tammany-controlled 21st Congressional district remains Democratic today after a presidential year byelection that cut machine majorities from a fat two-to-one to a skimpy fraction.

Republicans claimed everything from a moral victory to evidence that the country will “repudiate the Democratic leadership next November.” They estimated a 12% GOP gain in the byelection.

With the help of ALP

Democrats could point out that their men won. Yesterday’s returns had been awaited for indications of New York State political trends. The aggregate vote was light. By percentages, the trend definitely and substantially was against the Democrats.

James H. Torrens, Democrat and American Labor Party candidate, polled 11,707 votes to 10,136 for Republican William S. Bennet. Democrats suffered some intraparty differences, but both the Wendell L. Willkie and Governor Thomas E. Dewey factions of the Republican Party backed the GOP candidate. Of Torrens’ aggregate. 3,226 votes were from the American Labor Party. His majority was 1,571.

What interested politicians here was a comparison of Mr. Torrens’ margin yesterday with the votes by which Democrats have won in the past three elections. Here are the figures:

	Democratic	Republican	Majority
1938	84,000	36,000	48,000
1940	108,000	46,000	62,000
1942	60,000	30,000	30,000

Campaigning on a pro-Roosevelt platform and to win-the-war, Mr. Torrens charged Mr. Bennet’s election would send to Congress an opponent of the administration. Mr. Bennet also campaigned for win-the-war and bore down heavily on tax simplification.

A normal vote

The small number of votes case was normal for such a byelection but it seemed to support the American Labor Party contention that it holds a balance of power in New York City. Furthermore, some political observers believe that the sharp reduction in the ratio of Democratic victory is an indication that President Roosevelt’s hold on his home state has been broken where it was strongest.

The vacancy was created by resignation of Democrat James A. Gavagan. The 21st is an Upper Manhattan district going deep into Harlem and about 35% of its voters are Negroes. It is an area in which a Democratic supporter of Mr. Roosevelt should be as safe as any statesman seeking office could expect to be anywhere.

Had left-wing backing

Metropolitan papers except the liberal and left-wing press uniformly supported the Republican candidate.

The Daily Worker, New York organ of the Communist Party, has been conducting front-page editorial campaign for Mr. Torrens, warning its readers that “it would be a fatal mistake for labor and other supporters for FDR to take this byelection casually or to be at all overconfident because the district happens to be Democratic.

The Worker also emphasized the opportunity for the American Labor Party to roll up a comparatively large vote for Mr. Torrens to “give it added weight in the political councils of the state and greater prestige among the people.”

The returns show that the ALP did very well.

Mr. Torrens was further aided by support of the Congress of Industrial Organizations Council. The Republican candidate, however, had support of the Central Trades and Labor Council.

Democratic House membership will total 217 when Mr. Torrens takes the oath. It would have totaled 218 except for the death last night of Rep. Thomas H. Cullen, Democrat from New York’s 4th district.

Republicans now number 209; Progressives 2; Farmer-Labor 1; and ALP 1. There are five vacancies, four of them formerly held by Democrats in New York, Illinois, Colorado and Oklahoma.

The fifth vacancy, in Illinois, was held by a Republican.

GOP expects gains

Republicans confidently expect byelection gains in Oklahoma and Colorado and to retain the Republican seat in Illinois. The other Illinois vacancy was created this month by death of Repo. Leonard W. Schuetz, a Democrat from the 7th Congressional district in Cook County, the political domain of Mayor Edward J. Kelly.

Mr. Kelly has a powerful machine, but Mr. Schuetz won last time by only 1,975 votes out of 357,837 cast.

Mr. Cullen’s death gave the Republicans another opening to fight for an additional seat. He polled 21,456 votes to 10,070 for his Republican opponent in the 1942 elections.

Jukebox candidate leads in Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana (UP) –
James H. “Jimmie” Davis, jukebox song composer and actor in Western movies, piled up a commanding lead and appears assured of the Democratic nomination for Governor of Louisiana today, after one of the most bitter campaigns in the political history of this one-time kingdom of the late Huey P. Long.

Mr. Davis of Shreveport held more than a 27,000-vote lead over his opponent, Lewis L. Morgan of Covington, in a runoff primary. Democratic nomination is tantamount to election.

With 1,639 of the state’s 1,864 precincts reporting, the unofficial vote was:

Davis	204,940
Morgan	175,292

Not only was Mr. Davis apparently headed towards the Governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge, but he was also handling the old regular machine bossed by New Orleans Mayor Robert Maestri the worst beating in its recent history.

Fred Leblanc, mayor of Baton Rouge, running on the Davis ticket for state’s attorney general, was leading State Senator Joe T. Cawthorn of Mansfield. J. Emile Verret, running mate for Lieutenant Governor, held a lead of almost 20,000 votes in his race against former Governor Earl K. Long, brother of the late “Kingfish.”

[NormanStewart]

Dewey seeks peace based on fellowship

New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey said last night that the peace which follows this war “must not be a rigid, inflexible thing,” but must “provide peoples everywhere with simple, understandable means of bringing an end to the horror of war.”

Mr. Dewey, speaking before 18,000 persons at a Red Cross rally opening the New York City drive for funds said the peace “must not be the dictated result of personal conferences.”

He said:

It must be the constant, daily beneficiary of the labors of men of goodwill, striving to make it work and sacrificing to make it endure. Most of all, it must be based on a growing sense of fellowship between peoples.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: So soldiers may vote–

Governor Martin has announced he will call a special session of the Legislature to amend Pennsylvania’s military ballot law so members of the Armed Forces may vote in this year’s election.

The Governor thus is taking rightful notice of the obvious need for a simplification of the election laws in this respect. And he is recognizing the basic justice of giving the Armed Forces a maximum opportunity to cast a ballot.

Mr. Martin also exercised his common sense in deciding to withhold his call for the special session until Congress either enacts a federal soldier-vote law or abandons the project altogether.

Some states have already held special sessions and passed soldier-vote laws of their own.

But it would seem wiser to await Congress’ action, if there is to be any, since it then will be easier to make the state’s law dovetail with the federal statute.

Prompt action is essential, so full preparations may be made for handling the immense job of getting ballots to the Armed Forces overseas, marked and returned in time for tabulation after the November election.

But the Governor believes, with apparent justification, that the Legislature can amend the Pennsylvania law in no more than two weeks.

Mr. Martin is practical and wise in deciding to call the special session, in delaying the call until Congress makes up its mind and in keeping the legislative program restricted to this issue.

When the Governor does call the special session, he plans to have ready for the lawmakers a program of legislation which will meet the needs and coincide with the federal law. This should expedite the session.

In developing amendments to the military ballot law, the Governor, the Attorney General’s office, the State Elections Bureau and the Legislature should keep uppermost in mind one main objective: Making it as easy and simple as possible for the man in the Armed Forces to vote.

The present Pennsylvania law is inadequate even for the use of voters in the military and naval forces in this country. It was written for peacetime mobilization when there was no immediate prospect of more than a relatively small number of voters being called into the services.

But with hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania voters in training camps, its cumbersome procedure is far too involved, both for the men in the services and for the agencies at home which must handle the job.

As a wartime voting measure, with many thousands of Pennsylvania voters in scattered and distant posts overseas, it is impossible.

The law needs drastic simplification, in accordance with a mandate of the Pennsylvania Constitution which says that electors in the military services shall be provided with the means of exercising their suffrage “as fully as if they were present at their usual places of election.”

[NormanStewart]

Edson: Washington unity at lowest ebb as need is greatest

By Peter Edson

Washington –
Up to the time of Kentucky Senator Not-So-Dear Alben W. Barkley’s histrionic resignation as leader of the Democratic majority in the upper chamber of Congress, the two 1944 pre-election bets most frequently offered around Washington have been (1) the President will be reelected for a fourth term; (2) both Houses of Congress will go Republican.

In capital cocktail it has been difficult to get takers for either of these offers, but since the Barkley incident, maybe the odds will come down.

The political prospect which this Roosevelt-Republican Congress election result would offer is, of course, one of continual strife between the White House and Capitol.

From 1945 to 1949 is admittedly going to be one of those things the editorial writers call “the most critical period in American history.” The pitfalls of this period of reconversion and readjustment after World War II will be broader and deeper than were those after World War I, after any of the great panic years of the 1800s, or in the terrible times of Reconstruction after the Civil War between the states.

Big question raised

Faced by this tough outlook, the need for cooperation between legislative and executive departments would appear to be greater than it ever was before, and it raises the embarrassing pre-election question of whether the country would not be better off with a President and a Congressional majority of the same political party, than it would be with a President and a Congressional majority of opposing parties – even thought that might mean swapping hoses in the middle of the well-known crick by retiring from office a Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief under whose leadership a foreign war is being fought to a victorious end.

Naming a name, would Mr. Roosevelt with a Republican Congress be worse for the country than four years more of Mr. Roosevelt with a Democratic Congress? Following the Barkley affair, it might appear that four years more of Mr. Roosevelt with a Democratic Congress couldn’t be worse than anything.

Cooperation between President and Congress perhaps has never been at a lower ebb. On every important domestic issue today – taxes, the soldier vote, food subsidies, taking the excess profits out of war through renegotiation of contracts, the stabilization program – Congress seems determined not to give the President what he recommends and the President seems unwilling to accept what Congress gives him.

Even where they do see eye-to-eye, they look daggers.

And while the American system of government is based on the principle of free speech and full argument on every controversial question of public interest, it is hard for a sideline rooter in Washington to see how this present capital turmoil helps win the war or solve the perplexities of peace.

Recommendations

In the Baruch report on war and post-war adjustment policies there are three short sentences that today might well be postered on the walls of every executive office, printed in headletter type on the cover of the Congressional Record every day, billboarded in boxcar letters along the malls and on the lawns at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, where public servants might look out of their broad windows to read:

We recommend unifying the government forces dealing with the human problems of demobilization on two fronts – the Executive and Congress.

Everything being done by the executive branch of the government should be brought together under a single, unforgetful mind; the Congress to merge the activities of its many committees into a single committee in the Senate and in the House, or, if it can be effected, into a joint committee of both Houses.

The unified executive and Congressional groups should then work together on a combined program of legislation and operation that will carry out the objectives that all of us share.

Sure. Why not?

[NormanStewart]

Background of news –
Costs of soldier voting

By Burt P. Garnett

In connection with the Soldier Voting Act of 1942, Congress appropriated $1,200,000 to assist the states in meeting the cost of handling the large number of absentee ballots expected from servicemen and women in the Congressional and state elections of that year. The final enactment of the soldier voting bill, however, was held up until September and relatively few votes were cast by servicepeople in the November election.

The President said in his recent message to Congress, in which he urged provision of a federal ballot for the election of 1944, that “out of 5,700,000 men in our Armed Forces at the time of the general election of 1942, only 28,000 servicemen’s votes were counted under the federal statute.” The President’s figure was off about one thousand; records of the War and Navy Departments show that the actual number of servicepeople who voted under the federal law in 1942 was only 27,074.

Total payments to the states out of the $1,200,000 provided by Congress to meet extra expenses under the 1942 Soldier Voting Act came to $71,907.99 – or about $2.65 per service vote. States were reimbursed for printing of special instructions and payment of extra clerical help; they were required to meet the cost of printing extra ballots for servicepeople out of their own funds. Three states – Louisiana, South Dakota and Wisconsin – paid their own expenses in full. Of the $1,200,000 appropriated by Congress, $1,128,092 remained unexpended after all expenses chargeable to the federal government had been met.

State cost to be low

No estimate can yet be made of the cost of polling the very much larger number of servicepeople expected to participate in the presidential election of 1944. The total cost will depend not only upon the number of votes cast by members of the Armed Forces, but also upon the nature of the ballot to be provided under the revised Soldier Voting Act now awaiting final action by Congress. If it turns out to be a federal ballot, as desired by the administration, permitting a vote only for candidates for federal office, the state share of the cost of soldier voting will be negligible.

If a combination scheme using both state and federal ballots is finally adopted (as now seems more likely), the cost will be higher, but still far from prohibitive. Assuming that Congress follows the precedent established in 1942., the direct cost to the states will be confined in the main to the expense of printing extra absentee ballots.

Indirect costs will include the expenses incident to holding special sessions of state legislatures to ensure new soldier voting legislation. Here the chief cost will be payment of mileage to legislators for an extra trip to the state capital. Total direct and indirect costs of soldier voting to the states should not exceed 10% for each man and woman from the state serving in the Armed Forces.

O’Daniel voted down

A proposal advanced by Senator O’Daniel (D-TX) while the tax bill was before the Senate, would have made soldier voting a source of revenue to the eight Southern poll tax states. Senator O’Daniel pointed out that the poll tax as a voting requirement had been written into the Texas Constitution and could not be waived by the legislature. If Congress was going to exempt servicepeople from payment of poll taxes, he said, it should provide for payment of such taxes on their behalf out of the Treasury. He offered an amendment to the tax bill for this purpose, but it was quickly rejected by the Senate.

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (March 2, 1944)

Die gigantischen Schulden der USA –
Willkie mit der Steuerschraube

dnb. Stockholm, 1. März –
Willkie hat, wie die Time vom 14. Februar meldet, in einer Rede in Neuyork die Steuerpolitik der USA angegriffen. Er fragte:

Was sollen wir den Soldaten sagen? Während sie draußen kämpfen, häufen wir zu Hause Schulden an, und zwar so gewaltig, daß die Soldaten, wenn sie heimkommen, ihr ganzes Leben lang die Zinsen für diese Riesenschulden tragen müssen.

Willkie verlangte dann, daß noch über die von Roosevelt geforderten großen Steuererhöhungen hinausgegangen werden solle und daß jeder Dollar bis zu einer Maximalgrenze besteuert werden müsse. Diese ungeheuren Steuern seien unbedingt notwendig, denn sonst würden die USA nach dem Krieg eine öffentliche Schuld von 300 Milliarden Dollar haben. Allein die Zinsen würden dann 6 Milliarden Dollar ausmachen, also fast ebenso viel wie der gesamte Haushalt des Jahres 1943. Die Amerikaner müßten dann ihren Lebensstandard auf ein Minimum herabschrauben.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 2, 1944)

President is alone on Nebraska ticket

Lincoln, Nebraska (UP) –
President Roosevelt’s name and a slate of national convention delegates pledged to his nomination for a fourth term were entered in Nebraska’s preferential primary late yesterday. Mr. Roosevelt is expected to be the only candidate in the April 11 Democratic primary.

Wendell Willkie and LtCdr. Harold Stassen have been entered in the Republican primary.

---

Roosevelt entered in Wisconsin race

Madison, Wisconsin (UP) –
President Roosevelt’s name was entered in Wisconsin’s presidential preferential primary today by Thomas R. King, Democratic National Committeeman and state party chairman. Under Wisconsin law, consent of a presidential candidate is not requited for entering his name in a preferential primary. No other Democratic candidates have been entered.

[NormanStewart]

AFL indicates support for Davis

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Strong indications that the State Federation of Labor (AFL) will support U.S. Senator James J. Davis for reelection were hailed by Pennsylvania Republican leaders today as proof of the GOP’s wisdom in picking Mr. Davis.

AFL President William Green got on the Davis bandwagon more than three months ago at a time when the Republican state leadership had no apparent thought of backing the 70-year-old Pittsburgher and when “Puddler Jim” was refusing to comment on probability of his candidacy.

GOP leaders considered it a tipoff that the state labor group will follow Mr. Green’s lead when James L. McDevitt of Philadelphia, president of the State Federation, announced formally last week that he would not be a candidate for delegate-at-large to the Democratic National Convention.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Republican trend?

Republicans are happier about results of the special election in the New York 21st district which they lose, than over some of their victories in recent off-year elections in Kentucky and Pennsylvania. They think the New York test was even a better indication of a possible national Republican trend by next November, because the GOP vote jumped from 33% of the total in 1942 to almost 48% Tuesday in that normally heavy Democratic district.

Significantly, the Republican candidate polled more than the Democratic, who barely slipped in with American Labor Party votes. So, the Tammany leader’s statement that this “is an endorsement by the voters of President Roosevelt’s” record, sounds like the quavering whistle of a boy passing a graveyard.

Certainly, all signs indicate the electorate is swinging away from the administration now. But there is plenty of time for reverse trends before November. If the Republicans count on easy victory and stumble around, they probably will lose. If they provide leadership in Congress, unite on a strong presidential candidate, and keep their campaign on a high level of national interests, they have a chance to win.

[NormanStewart]

In Washington –
OWI will give ‘known facts’ on candidates

Alleged slight to Bricker brings new policy for campaign

Washington (UP) –
War Information Director Elmer Davis has issued a new policy directive for propaganda handling of 1944 campaign news, instructing OWI employees to “get as close to the facts as the facts are known” in identifying candidates for the presidential nominations, it was learned today.

The new policy was an outgrowth of a recent incident in which an OWI news dispatch aboard, concerning Ohio Governor John W. Bricker failed to mention that he was a candidate for the Republican nomination.

Not made public

Under the new directive, the full text of which OWI refuses to make public, only those who have officially announced their presidential aspirations will be designated flatly as candidates. In the case of those being “mentioned” for the nominations of either party, that fact and no more will be stated.

The OWI will have little difficulty in interpreting the policy so far as the Democratic Party is concerned. The only formal Democratic candidate is anti-fourth-termer Governor Joseph B. Ely of Massachusetts, although President Roosevelt is receiving more than “mention” as an aspirant for a fourth term.

Dewey description

As a result of the new directive, foreigners who have OWI news available either by radio or newspapers have learned that Thomas E. Dewey is:

The Republican Governor of New York State whose candidacy for the Republican nomination for President is being pushed by many supporters…

Wendell Willkie has been referred to in the past week as:

A Republican presidential candidate in 1940 and candidate for the Republican Party’s nomination in the 1944 election…

In the same story, OWI described Governor Bricker as:

Governor of Ohio and candidate for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination…

---

Vote visibility low

Washington (UP) –
The now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t federal war ballot for servicemen was a little less visible today as Senate and House conferees moved into the final stages of work on a controversial soldier vote bill.

House conferees, dominated by advocates of state ballots, won another concession yesterday which curtailed even further the use of the short-form federal ballot backed by the Senate group.

The conferees agreed to write into the measure a provision under which the federal ballot will go only to overseas servicemen who ask for a state absentee ballot but fail to receive it by Oct. 1.

Senator Theodore F. Green (D-RI), a Senate conferee, said work would probably be completed today so that the House and Senate could act on it early next week.

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: Who is Roosevelt’s ‘ghost’?

By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
Who writes President Roosevelt’s messages to Congress has become an apparently important side issue in the bigger issue between himself and Congress because of the tart, stinging phrases sprinkled through recent communications.

Both Democrats and Republicans would like to blame the much-belabored corps of assistants who are lumped together by the opposition as “the palace guard.”

Some Democrats, in self-defense, would like to place responsibility on the President’s numerous aides, for whom they have little more love than the Republicans.

Degrees, no sense

Republicans would like to create the fiction that a bunch of smart young fellows, dripping with college degrees, but bereft of common sense, are running the government. This is all good politics and good fun, with some grains of truth, for we have those young fellows about and some of them are about as described.

But the real truth is that the author of President Roosevelt’s messages to Congress, in the usually accepted sense, is a fellow named Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Asks for drafts

He gets help, of course. He calls for suggestions, asked for memoranda from various officials and departments and even asks for sample drafts of portions of his messages. All Presidents do that in drafting messages.

Mr. Roosevelt takes all this and then dictates his own version, so that it has, in the end, what is known as “the Roosevelt touch,” and it is a Roosevelt product, branded and stamped.

Sometimes he may lift a sentence or a paragraph or more from something prepared for him, and, occasionally you may run into the author, bragging about his contribution at some cocktail bar.

‘Fraud’ is his own

It took only a cursory examination of President Roosevelt’s message on the soldier vote bill to see that someone else had prepared the technical passages, but that the short, ugly word “fraud” was his own.

What is happening is that President Roosevelt is injecting into his messages to Congress those pungent and biting phrases that can be found all through his political speeches. For he obviously is running for reelection, and he overlooks no opportunity.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 3, 1944)

GOP chairmen hit sour note in 29th slate

Fight starts over names of delegates to convention
By Kermit McFarland

Republican leaders in the 29th Congressional district held a more or less riotous meeting in the Penn-Lincoln Hotel, Wilkinsburg, last night and picked a “harmony” slate for the April 25 primary which will have to be made over or there will be no harmony in the district.

The chairmen and vice chairmen of the wards, boroughs and townships in the district overwhelmingly ratified the choice of the county leaders for the Republican Congressional nomination – Howard E. Campbell, East Liberty real estate dealer.

The fight developed, unexpectedly, over the candidates for delegate and alternate delegate to the Republican presidential convention.

Secret ballot taken

Republican County Chairman John S. Herron and the county vice chairman, Mrs. Nelle G. Dressler, were chosen as delegate and alternate, respectively, by acclamation.

But on the selection of the second delegate candidate and the second alternate candidate, there was a secret ballot.

As announced, the result of this balloting gave William P. Witherow, president of the Blawnox Company, 11 votes for delegate and Thomas E. Whitten, Wilkinsburg attorney, 10. For alternate, the vote was: Robert L. Cook, Republican chairman of the 14th Ward, 12, and Adelaide Coly, Young Republican leader, 9.

There was some dispute about the accuracy of this count.

Up to committee

As a result, both the Young Republicans and the Whitten backers are up in the air. They charge that Mr. Herron and Mrs. Dressler picked themselves and that a deal which had previously been made was not kept.

In a previous conference, it was decided that the Old Guard faction would name one delegate and one alternate candidate, and the Young Republicans would name one each. The Young Republicans decided on Mr. Witherow and Mrs. Conly.

Unless the so-called “harmony” committee which has been busy with slate-making for several weeks can patch up the confusion at a meeting tonight, a wide-open contest for delegate may develop in this district.

Local Republican leaders from the boroughs and townships in the 10th legislative district also met last night and selected a slate of candidates for the four Republican legislative nominations at stake in the April 25 primary.

The four candidates are Paul M. Bardes of Oakmont (former legislator), Dr. Walter Feick (Glassport dentist), Albert E. Beech of Wilkinsburg (an employee of the State Labor & Industry Department) and William P. H. Johnston of Penn Township (an auto salesman).

[NormanStewart]

Veto is hinted of new plans for Army vote

President says existing law may give ballot to more men

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt said today the crux of the soldier vote issue is whether more soldiers could vote under existing law or under the proposed legislation evolved by House and Senate conferees.

His press conference comment was interpreted as indicating that he might veto the new legislation if it reaches him in such form that he believes it will reduce, rather than increase, the number of servicemen who will be entitled to voice.

Mr. Roosevelt was asked to express his attitude toward the compromise soldier ballot measure. He said he could not go into details because he had not seen the actual language of the new measure.

Meanwhile, it appeared that the entire issue may be reopened on the floor of the Senate.

Senate-House conferees, by an 8–2 vote, reached final agreement on the issue by restricting use of the federal war ballot to overseas servicemen who have applied for but not received a state absentee ballot by Oct. 1.

*A further restriction provides that the federal ballot will go to such servicemen only if their governors, “as authorized by” the laws of their states, have declared the federal ballot acceptable for counting.

The conference report now goes to both Houses for final action – perhaps next week.

The much-amended bill was denounced by two Senate conferees – Theodore Francis Green (D-RI) and Carl A. Hatch (D-NM).

Senator Green said it would have been better “to have no bill at all than one like that” and indicated he would fight actively against Senate acceptance.

Senator Hatch said:

It does not simplify, but complicate and does not extend the federal ballot but curtails it.

In the voting, three federal ballot proponents – Senator Warren R. Austin (R-VT) and Rep. Eugene Worley (D-TX) and Rep. Herbert C. Bonner (D-NC) – joined with the five original states’ rights adherents in approving the conference report. The others were Senators Tom Connally (D-TX) and Hugh Butler (R-NE) and Reps. John E. Rankin (D-MS), Harris Ellsworth (R-OR) and Karl M. LeCompte (R-IA).

[NormanStewart]

4th term ‘if’ put on issue of ‘emergency’

Democrats’ former publicity chief discusses Roosevelt candidacy
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
Charles Michelson, publicity director emeritus and now adviser to the Democratic National Committee, is significantly on record again today as believing President Roosevelt will seek another term if emergency seems to demand it.

Mr. Michelson’s first recording of that opinion was on Aug. 7, 1938, in a paragraph in his weekly political column, Dispelling the Fog, which is reproduced now in the body of an article published in the current American Magazine. He was talking about a third term that time. Now he refers to a fourth.

The magazine article, entitled “Roosevelt, the Enigma,” discusses a number of things, including the probable political plans of former Committee Chairman James A. Farley.

Bolt doubted

Mr. Michelson predicts that Mr. Farley will not bolt the party if Mr. Roosevelt is renominated but will attempt to prevent his nomination at the convention. Failing that, Mr. Michelson says Mr. Farley will announce that he will vote the Democratic ticket straight and take no further part in the campaign.

This correspondent understands Mr. Farley’s intention to be precisely that.

Mr. Michelson relates a conversation with Mr. Roosevelt as follows:

He said to the President prior to 1940:

I think that you will agree with me that no Democrat but yourself can be elected this year. Would it not be better – in the event of your not being a candidate – to let Jim Farley have the nomination?

If he was defeated, that defeat would be attributed to religious prejudice. If almost any other of the aspirants was nominated and lost, that defeat would be hailed as a repudiation of your administration and the New Deal.

Farley praised

The President replied:

No, that would be most unfair to him. He is too fine a person to be subjected to the humiliation of a bad defeat and the setback that would involve to prospects and career. I do not agree that our party is destitute of available candidates. There is Cordell Hull, for example.

In same position

Mr. Michelson of 1944 writes:

As to Roosevelt’s intentions, I am in the same position as I was five years ago when I wrote:

Of course, I am entitled to a guess, and my guess is that Franklin D. Roosevelt would take a case of the hives rather than four years more of the headache that being President means. It will not be so easy a choice at that.

Circumstances might arise that would make it impossible for him to lay down the burden.

The world may be at war with or without threat of our involvement, or some other equally acute emergency may eventuate that would forbid a change of administration; and the man in the White House is not the kind of an individual who would let his personal desires interfere with what seems to him his duty.

Part left out

There was more to the paragraph in 1938, according to this correspondent’s files, and Mr. Michelson seems to have left out a fairly pertinent final sentence, as follows:

He could not say today, even if he were so inclined, that he would or would not be a candidate in 1940.

GOP internal unity urged by Willkie

New York (UP) –
Wendell L. Willkie said in a radio speech last night that the Democratic Party was “falling to pieces” and warned that the Republican Party “must achieve internal unity.”

In his first nationwide network talk since he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President, Mr. Willkie said:

The New Deal Executive Department is becoming increasingly petty in its relationship to Congress.

Regarding the GOP, he said:

The Republican Party already has come to many basic conclusions, and it is apparent that steady progress has been made in both foreign and domestic fields. The problem now is to come to definite conclusions and agreements which will be the salvation, not only to the party itself, but to the nation.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: The compromise is compromised

After almost interminable wrangling, House and Senate conferees on the soldier-vote issue have come up with a compromise plan which nine of the 10 members of the joint committee approve.

But in compromising the extreme views in this controversy, the compromisers virtually compromised out of the picture anything like a simple, uniform system of voting for the Armed Forces.

The new scheme may be better than nothing, but not much.

It does not offer the Armed Forces a maximum opportunity to vote. It does not provide a uniform system, and it is complex and confusing.

The patched-up compromise applies only to overseas forces.

It leaves the garrisons and trainees at home to what are now widely varying state voting laws.

Even so, Rep. Rankin, Mississippi’s tireless obstructionist, continues to shed glycerin tears for the Constitution and to shout against any kind of federal ballot.

Under the compromise as it now stands, federal ballots will be available to:

• Overseas troops from the two or three states which have no absentee-voting laws, and

• Overseas troops from other states who apply by Sept. 1 for state absentee ballots and do not receive them by Oct. 1.

But in earlier case, federal ballots will be furnished only if the governor has certified that the federal ballot is acceptable under state law.

The result is approximately what it was before Congress started to battle over this issue – the state legislatures which gave not already done so will be required to convene and enact new soldier voting laws, meet the overseas problem in particular, and there will be a multitude of different systems, or no system at all in some instances.

This will complicate the Army and Navy delivery problem and make it next to impossible for many in the Armed Forces to vote.

As applied to Pennsylvania, the compromise measure is doubly confusing.

It practically repeals the Pennsylvania law without providing a reasonable substitute.

The compromise says the federal ballot will be distributed to soldiers who do not apply for state ballots before Sept. 1. Under Pennsylvania law, no member of the Armed Forces may apply for a state military ballot before Sept. 18.

The compromise provides for the use of federal ballots in cases where the voters in the Armed Forces do not receive state ballots before Oct. 1. The deadline for Pennsylvania voters to apply for military ballots is Oct. 7, and the present procedure effectively prevents elections authorities from mailing out military ballots much before Oct. 20.

The only ameliorating circumstance on the whole situation is the announced determination of Governor Martin to summon a special legislative session to amend the present law so members of the Armed Forces may vote as conveniently as it is possible for the State to permit them.

[NormanStewart]

Background of news –
Roosevelt-Congress test due

By Jay G. Hayden, North American Newspaper Alliance

Washington –
President Roosevelt confronts at least two issues calculated to disclose whether he is chastened by the Congressional uprising against his tax veto or infuriated by it to the point of precipitating an all-out conflict with the legislative branch.

These issues are (1) the compromise soldier-vote bill, which likely will be sent to the White House next week, and (2) the Slattery-Daniels affairs, which involves both the President’s right to discharge administrative officials and the validity of a Senate subpoena, directed to one of his close personal assistants.

The soldier-voting bill, accepted by all but one of the Senate and House conferees, varies little in its practical effects from the measure which Mr. Roosevelt branded, in a special message to Congress, “a fraud on the soldiers, sailors and Marines.”

The substance of the President’s contention was that reliance on state ballots would disfranchise “the vast majority of the 11 million members of the Armed Forces.” This condition, he said, could be corrected with nothing short of the Green-Lucas-Worley nameless federal ballot bill, which would permit soldiers:

…to cast their ballots without time-consuming correspondence and without waiting for each separate state to hold its primary, print its ballots, and send them out for voting.

Veto threatened repeatedly

All of the latter principles, which the present compromise bill retains, plus the provision for a federal ballot, is applicable to states which have no absentee voting law and to individual soldiers who swear that they applied for state ballots and failed to receive them before Oct. 1. Even in these contingencies, federal ballots would be good only if state governors certify in advance that they will be counted.

In the course of the Senate and House debates, the President’s spokesmen threatened repeatedly that Mr. Roosevelt would veto any bill that did not provide an effective federal ballot, and there is little doubt that this was his settled intention.

The happening since, which may have changed Mr. Roosevelt’s mind, is the tax bill revolt, led by Senator Alben W. Barkley. This development undoubtedly hastened agreement on the state ballot bill. Convinced that if the President vetoes this bill he will be overridden, Republicans were anxious to out it up to him. and it is a foregone conclusion that such a veto would find Senator Barkley again leading the van of opposition.

Coincidentally, it is certain that unless Jonathan Daniels, one of the President’s secretarial “selfless six,” recants his refusal to testify before a Senate agricultural subcommittee, he will be cited for contempt by overwhelming vote of the whole Senate next week.

Further, the Senate may try Mr. Daniels and sentence him, if convicted, to its own basement lockup – a course which Congressional lawyers say would put him beyond reach of a presidential pardon.

Precedent recalled

A precedent for this course was provided in the case of William McCracken, whose trial and conviction by the Senate itself on a charge of contempt of one of its committees in 1934 was sustained by the Supreme Court.

More often the Senate has preferred to turn its contumacious witnesses over for prosecution by the Attorney General in the regular courts. That procedure was rendered ridiculous in this instance when Ugo Carusi, executive assistant to Attorney General Francis Biddle, appeared as legal counsel for Mr. Daniels, while he defied the senatorial questions.

An even more interesting court clash will eventuate if the President follows through with an attempt to remove Harry Slattery, the rural electrification administrator whose testimony got Mr. Daniels into hot water. Mr. Slattery declared that Mr. Daniels three times tried to persuade him to quit, once offering him a lucrative State Department job abroad as an inducement.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 4, 1944)

McNary’s successor to be named today

Salem, Oregon (UP) –
Governor Earl Snell of Oregon said he would announced an interim appointment to the senatorial vacancy created by the death of Senator Charles L. McNary (R-OE) later today.

It was believed Governor Snell had considered resigning to accept the appointment. He is expected to be a candidate for the GOP senatorial nomination in the May primaries.

[NormanStewart]

Soldiers’ vote likely to feed discord fires

President’s test for bill rules out compromise of Congress
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
The issue between President Roosevelt and Congress is likely to be raised again over the soldier-vote bill.

Congress is expected to complete action on the measure late next week by approving the conference agreement compromising differences between House and Senate versions, and it will then go to President Roosevelt to sign or to veto.

Mr. Roosevelt has seemingly prescribed his test for the bill by saying that the crux of the matter is whether more soldiers will be given a chance to vote under existing law, passed in 1942, or by the new bill.

More then than now

Two of the Senate leaders in the fight for a federal ballot, Senators Green (D-RI) and Hatch (D-NM), claim that more soldiers would get a chance to vote under present law than under the new bill.

An analysis of the bill shows it is not much of an improvement on the original “states’ rights” measure passed by the House which President Roosevelt bluntly labeled “a fraud.” Congress evidently won’t be able to work up much public sympathy, for this reason, and also because of the devious course it took to arrive at this solution, after long delay.

Closer than tax bill

The bill has a closer personal relationship to more people than did the last tax bill, the veto of which was made a cause célèbre when Senator Barkley, the administration leader, became the champion of Congress against the President.

Senator Barkley, incidentally, is a staunch ally of the President on the soldier-vote issue. Both Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Knox expressed skepticism about administering voting under diverse and complicated state laws.

The soldier-vote bill would give the President another opportunity to make political capital against Republicans, for a majority of them in both branches joined with Southern Democrats behind the “states’ rights” bill.

At home and abroad

Under the conference bill, no soldier in this country could get the simple federal ballot, but would have to vote under absentee voting laws of his state. The 1942 act waived payment of poll tax and registration, but the present bill leaves the judging of votes strictly to the states.

Soldiers abroad can get a federal ballot only if they have applied before Sept. 1 for a state ballot and have failed to get one by Oct. 1. But they can’t get a federal ballot then unless they have applied for a state ballot.

Congress has failed, after all these weeks, to make voting by soldiers simple and easy.