Election 1944: Pre-convention news

[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.

[NormanStewart]

4 leading GOP candidates line up for Wisconsin test

Willkie only one to enter full slate of delegates, but Stassen, MacArthur and Dewey are ‘in’

Madison, Wisconsin (UP) –
Four camps were lined up in Wisconsin today to battle for delegates to the Republican National Convention in the April 4 presidential primary, the first real test of strength for presidential aspirants, but Wendell L. Willkie, the 1940 GOP standard bearer, had the only full slate of 24 candidates in the race.

The others were well-armed, however, and the expiration of the deadline for filing petitions last night left Gen. Douglas MacArthur, boosted as a “favorite son” by supporters who listed his address as Milwaukee, running a close second to Mr. Willkie with 22 candidates in the field.

Willkie plans tour

Supporters of LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, had 20 candidates pledged to his support and Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, had 15, despite his request that his name be withheld. In addition to 20 candidates pledged to LtCdr. Stassen, Minnesota’s former chief executive had the unofficial support of Acting Governor Walter S. Goodland.

Obviously, Mr. Willkie will be the only one of the four who will make an out-and-out bid for support in the primary. He is scheduled to spend 12 days stumping the state.

Governor Dewey’s repudiation of the slate bearing his name apparently had little effect, with the exception of cutting the number of candidates to 15. Two of those who dropped out filed as uninstructed delegates, but let it be known they still backed the New York Governor. The Dewey-for-President committee counted two more supporters in another uninstructed delegate and one anti-Willkie candidate.

Bricker bides his time

Standing on the sidelines in the race was Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio, who is seeking Wisconsin’s second-choice convention votes. His backers have had some success among Dewey forces and Governor Bricker planned to better his support with a two-day speaking tour of the state in June.

In the Democratic race, 33 candidates pledged to re-nominate President Roosevelt, as approved at the state convention, are seeking that party’s 26 votes at the national convention.

In addition, 14 independents, who “deplored attempts of various extremists to invade the party,” filed petitions under the label “Stop politics – win the war.”

[NormanStewart]

Next job for MacArthur poses political problem

Americans in Pacific are on the move, and new decisions must be made soon
By George Weller

George Weller is recuperating in the United States from illness suffered after spending several years in the Southwest Pacific.

Gen. MacArthur

The two MacArthurs – presidential possibility and Pacific generalissimo – are moving solely into a new focus as a result of the transpacific drive toward Truk by the U.S. Navy.

While adherents of the general’s presidential candidacy are driving hard on his behalf in the United States, the changing pattern of war is throwing into question what his new duties in the Pacific will be.

However separate they ought to be, Pacific and presidential drives are commencing to mesh wheels.

As long as Gen. MacArthur’s forces had not yet reached Rabaul in their two drives up the Solomons and the island of New Britain, it might with justice be said that he had not yet attained milestone No. 1 on his journey back to the Philippines.

Japs weakening

But now Rabaul is weakening.

Fighters over its volcanic harbor are growing less, none having been seen in the last seven daily raids.

And in the Navy’s vicious strike at Truk, there is an anticipation that this stronghold may soon be taken by the hard driving task force under Adm. Nimitz which the Japs have left unchallenged.

As Truk approaches neutralization, Rabaul’s defenses against Gen. MacArthur decline.

Most, if not all the Jap fighters – the yardstick of resistance in airpower – come down the system of island stepping stones from Japan through the Bonins and Carolines, via Truk to Rabaul. If Truk goes, Rabaul cannot be far behind.

Political aspects

When Rabaul goes, two elements begin to appear in the campaign by Gen. MacArthur’s supporters for the Presidency which have hitherto been lacking, namely:

• From having been a hero only, Gen. MacArthur becomes a victorious hero.

• The immediate aim in a military sense of Gen. MacArthur’s drive for the past two years is achieved, and it becomes a matter of decision on the part of his superiors, Gen. Marshall and President Roosevelt, what duties are to be assigned to him next.

The first element is most important to those Republicans who are anxious to have a strong, and not merely a martyred MacArthur, as their candidate.

It is the second element which deserves closer study.

Below the spearhead of the Navy’s transpacific drive, whose goal Adm. Nimitz says is “bases in China” and which necessarily involves first bases in the Philippines, there are two zones of Jap conflict, the “Southwest Pacific,” which takes in all Australia and the Dutch East Indies, and the “South Pacific” which takes in New Zealand and the intervening islands up to the Solomons. Two years ago, Gen. MacArthur was ordered out of the Philippines to take command of the former and last year the latter was also committed to his care, as the two zones converged on Rabaul.

What is next?

However, Gen. MacArthur’s drive has never recovered any territory west of Australian-mandated New Guinea.

The entire left flank of the Southwest Pacific has remained exploited only by harassing raids by long-range bombers.

Being topped by the Navy’s drive on his right flank, with Adm. Nimitz moving westward in between him and the Philippines, what will Gen, MacArthur next be told, after the fall of Rabaul, to do?

It is almost certain that whatever his next orders tell him to aim at, they can be interpreted, by those who wish to do so, as having political significance.

Three possibilities

There are, roughly, only three possibilities of what may be done by Washington with Gen. MacArthur:

If progress by the Navy continues to be rapid into the mandated islands, he may be assigned the Army and air side, possibly even a stronger command in this drive toward the Philippines.

He may be asked to mount an offensive on his western flank, through the Arafura Sea and Indian Ocean where Timor and the Kei, Aroe and Tenimbar Islands were all captured by the Japs after the general had assumed command in Melbourne. This assignment would be important, for it eventually would involve cutting off the Japs from important oil sources. But it would be difficult, for the western and northern coasts of Australia are inhospitable places for mounting an amphibious invasion.

Gen. MacArthur might be transferred out of the Southwest Pacific and given a command elsewhere. Such a command, to be in line with the general’s only expressed military hopes, would have to be on a Jap front.

Short of an overall command of the whole Pacific War – a step that could not be taken without a careful sounding of Navy susceptibilities – the only front left is China.

[NormanStewart]

American First conclave

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania –
Gerald L. K. Smith, national director of the America First Party, said today the party would hold its first national convention in St. Louis March 25.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 5, 1944)

Attorney appointed McNary’s successor

Salem, Oregon (UP) – (March 4)
Governor Earl Snell today appointed Guy Cordon, Republican attorney from Rosenburg, to the interim vacancy in the U.S. Senate, succeeding Charles L. McNary, Republican floor leader who died last week in Florida.

Mr. Cordon will serve only until November, when an election will determine who will fill the four remaining years of Mr. McNary’s term.

Mr. Cordon, 53, has spent a major portion of his time in recent years in Washington as attorney for a group of Southern Oregon land grant counties and for interstate association of public lands counties, composed of 11 Western states.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: It’s up to the states

House and Senate conferees, under the tireless flailing of Mr. Rankin of Mississippi, have now compromised and re-compromised the soldier-ballot bill until it is acceptable even to Mr. Rankin, which is passable evidence that the hodgepodge measure falls far short of making it easy for the troops to vote.

The responsibility is thrown back upon the state legislatures.

It may be that most men in uniform are not overly excited today about voting. Other, and urgent, matters are on their minds. But it is reasonable to suppose that as the nominating conventions come and go, and the election draws near, the Armed Forces will work up an active interest in the outcome.

If we were politicians, we would not like to risk letting the idea get around that we had helped either actively or passively to prevent the fighting men from voting.

Some think that those soldiers and sailors who are permitted to vote will vote preponderantly for the Commander-in-Chief. Some think they will vote more or less the same way as the folks back home. As far as we are concerned, such considerations are not appropriate to the issue.

The issue, as we see it, is simply this: If anybody is entitled to vote in a presidential election in a war year, it is the men who are fighting the war.

Congress having flopped its job, it’s up to the legislatures to get busy to that end.

[NormanStewart]

Perkins: Labor in the election

By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania –
This is a report on results of a trip through much of the Midwest, which included interviews with a cross-section of labor leaders on the political situation, particularly the 1944 presidential part of it.

These “galloping” endeavors produce the conclusion that the Roosevelt support is considerably down among the rank-and-file in certain important segments of organized labor, including the railway brotherhoods and some big units of the American Federation of Labor. A recession is reported even in parts of the CIO, but the men who ought to know this sentiment best declare that, in the end, organized labor as a whole will go almost as solidly for a fourth term as it did for the second and third terms.

Another conclusion is that the only Republican, among the men now being discussed as the nominee of that party, who has a chance of cracking the labor vote enough to bring about an approximate balance, is Wendell Willkie. That was the only Republican name which did not produce jeers among the interviewed labor leaders.

Willkie program

Mr. Willkie is said to have mapped out a program that might prove attractive to the rank-and-file of labor, but he has not announced it in full. It is based on a full recognition of all the rights that labor won under the New Deal, plus more tangible recognition for labor in the government.

In Chicago, Raymond McKeough, former ardent New Deal Congressman and late unsuccessful candidate for the Senate, was found busily forming a “grassroots” organization on behalf of the CIO Political Action Committee. He is regional director for Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.

Mr. McKeough admitted he faced a stiff fight – “the toughest in the country,” he said – to insure the electoral votes of the three states for the probable Democratic nominee.

He said that in the Midwest as in the rest of the country where it will operate politically the CIO will address its appeal to the farmers and the public in general – will try to prove the theory that what helps labor helps everybody.

They’ll ‘come around’

Cincinnati furnished reliable information that the rank-and-file of railway workers are still displeased with Mr. Roosevelt because of the administration’s handling of their recent age controversy and strike threats. An authority on this subject told of being almost thrown out of the kitchen of a railway dining car when he suggested to the half-dozen chefs and their helpers that he supposed they were still for Mr. Roosevelt as in the past.

But this authority thought these men eventually would “come around.”

Cleveland provided the most tangible evidence of an effort to subordinate the internal troubles or organized labor on behalf of a united political front. Jack Gill, a leader in the international setup of the Typographical Union (not affiliated with either AFL or CIO), was one of the main promoters of a meeting Thursday night on behalf of political unity.

Mr. Gill expressed the view that labor unions would make “a tragic mistake” if they allowed their internal differences to divide their political support.

He pointed out:

For nearly 12 years, the national Congress was doing things for or on behalf of organized labor. Now, as shown by the Connally-Smith law, it has started to do things TO labor.

He said:

I believe labor as a whole will support Roosevelt, but if I had to take a Republican, I’d choose Willkie.

Farther south in Ohio, at Columbus, the CIO State Industrial Council has announced formation for the first time of all branches of organized labor in “a broad political front.”

Pittsburgh dope

John L. Lewis, international president of the Mine Workers, is not expected to be in any way favorable to Mr. Roosevelt. He supported Willkie in 1940, but the precinct results indicate the miners didn’t follow him. Mr. Lewis will not support Mr. Willkie this year, which is said to be all right with Mr. Willkie.

In Pittsburgh, “Chick” Federoff, head of the Steel City Industrial Union Council, said he favored a union for political purposes with the AFL, and that his group will try to make plans in a meeting next Tuesday. But John A. Stackhouse, secretary of the Pittsburgh Central Labor Union, said that organization had just decided to set up its own political committees, with no plans for active cooperation with any other labor group.

At the other end of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia groups of both the AFL and CIO organized a “united front” last year, and hope to continue it.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 6, 1944)

Anti-New Deal Democrats can’t decide on strategy

Program to block fourth term is developing along two different and almost opposite lines
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington (UP) –
Anti-New Deal Democrats appear today unable to make up their minds on strategy to prevent President Roosevelt’s renomination for a fourth term.

The belief that he will seek renomination is sufficiently indicated by the organization of pre-convention machinery to block him. But the program is developing along two different and almost opposing lines.

Former Secretary of War Harry H. Woodring, who left the Roosevelt Cabinet in 1940, is promoting a “third party” movement or general conservative Democratic bolt of Mr. Roosevelt’s candidacy, should he be renominated.

Indicates plan solidly founded

To this end, Mr. Woodring helped set up a Jeffersonian Democratic Conference which met last month in Chicago. After conferences last week in New York, he indicated that the third-party plan was solidly founded and that there were half a dozen or so Democrats who would be available to contest the presidential election as a Jeffersonian Democrat.

It is obvious that any Jeffersonian-Democratic presidential candidate who could take 100 or so electoral votes from Mr. Roosevelt next November would have obtained his defeat if the election were at all close.

Mentioned by Mr. Woodring as potential candidates are former Democratic National Committee Chairman James A. Farley, Senator Harry F. Byrd and former Massachusetts Governor Joseph B. Ely. Inclusion of these men among potential third-party candidates appears to shadow the whole program. Mr. Farley has told intimates that he would not bolt the Democratic Party even if Mr. Roosevelt were renominated.

Ely in different position

Mr. Byrd has already announced that he is not a candidate for the presidential nomination. Mr. Ely is in a somewhat different position. Moving boldly in Massachusetts against a fourth term, anti-New Deal Democrats have entered a slate of convention delegate candidates who would be pledged to Mr. Ely’s nomination for the Presidency. That was announced Feb. 20. It looked like a bolt or third-party threat.

But it appears now that Mr. Ely will not permit his name to go before presidential preference primaries in other states. therefore, the strategy in Massachusetts seems to coincide less with Mr. Woodring’s third-party plan than with the effort of other anti-New Dealers to obtain control of a big block of convention delegates for a convention floor fight against Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination and a do-or-die effort to prevent a New Dealer being nominated for Vice President in the event Mr. Roosevelt heads the ticket again.

Many Democrats, especially Southerners, who might be willing to fight Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination in the convention would not bolt the party to vote against him.

A leader of the Stop-Roosevelt group believes that there is some hope of preventing the President’s renomination by the strategy of preventing his supporters from lining up solid blocks of Roosevelt-instructed delegates and defeating him on the convention floor. He estimated that eight and possibly nine Southern states would send uninstructed delegations to the Democratic convention.

It is on that strategy of uninstructed or favorite-son candidates that non-bolting anti-New Dealers are relying. If they can’t lick Mr. Roosevelt in the convention, they will probably not vote against him.

Bricker: Local government No. 1 issue

Jacksonville, Florida (UP) –
Governor John Bricker of Ohio, candidate for the Republican nomination for President, said today that the big issue in the 1944 presidential election was whether local self-government shall prevail or “shall we continue the trend toward central autocratic control by the federal government.”

In Jacksonville to address the Florida State Republican Convention, he advocated simplification of the tax laws and a reduction in taxes.

Governor Bricker said that we must reduce the national debt. He said reduction of the national debt could start now with the elimination of needless boards and bureaucrats and that reduction in the federal payroll would not hurt the prosecution of the war but would help it.

Governor Bricker added:

Congress long ago should have provided laws to prohibit strikes during wartime. Congress should have provided a board before which misunderstandings could be adjudicated with fairness to both sides.

Advocating limitation upon presidential tenure, Governor Bricker said:

…continued occupancy of the highest seat in the land is a powerful weapon in the hands of the “ins” because of the desire of federal employees to hold their jobs and increase their authority.

[NormanStewart]

Soldier vote compromise scored by CIO

Much disputed measure is headed back into new trouble in Senate

Washington (UP) –
The CIO joined the attack against the pending compromise soldier vote bill today as the measure, fresh from a three-week dispute between Senate and House conferees, headed right back into trouble in the Senate.

The bill appeared to satisfy neither advocates of state or federal ballots and both factions promised to make their sentiments known when it comes up before the Senate Thursday. The House takes up the conference report next week.

‘Technical absurdity’

CIO president Philip Murray wrote all Congressmen demanding a “simple, uniform federal ballot” instead of what he called the “technical absurdity” that emerged from conference. The net effect of the pending bill, he said, would be to disenfranchise the few soldiers who were enfranchised by the Soldier Voting Act of 1942.

He said:

This issue is a simple one – how to place a ballot in the hands of every serviceman and woman. No cloak of “states’ rights” can obscure the fact that this latest form of the bill would deny some 11 million Americans one of the great rights for which they are fighting – the right to vote.

Veto possible

The compromise, he said, is unworkable and:

Its obvious effect will be to harass the bedevil the serviceman to the point where he will give up in despair of achieving his democratic right to vote.

The pending bill restricts use of federal ballots to overseas servicemen who apply for but fail to receive state absentee ballots by Oct. 1. Another restriction provides that governors must specify by Aug. 1 that the federal ballot is acceptable to their states.

President Roosevelt has indicated he will veto the bill if he believes it would decrease rather than increase the number of men and women eligible to vote.

[NormanStewart]

Labor policy listed by MacArthur group

New York (UP) –
A labor policy, calling for federal jurisdiction over all labor organizations and maintaining the rights both of unions to organize and of individuals to join them or not, will be presented to the Republican National Convention by the MacArthur National Associates.

If they are successful in their attempt to have Gen. Douglas MacArthur drafted as the presidential candidate, the Associates said, the proposed labor plank will be submitted for his endorsement.

The plank proposes that every labor organization shall file a copy of its constitution and bylaws with the Labor Department, that an annual report including a complete financial statement shall be made by each union to the Secretary of Labor, that union business agents be licensed by the Secretary of Labor, and that all records shall be available for public examination.

[NormanStewart]

Roosevelt in good shape

Baltimore, Maryland –
VAdm. Ross T. McIntire, President Roosevelt’s personal physician, said today that the Chief Executive was “in perfect shape” after his recent brief rest.

[NormanStewart]

Ferguson: Voting privileges

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Considering the many rights a nation takes away from its soldiers, the right to vote must seem trivial to fighting men. They’ve been asked to give up their rights to a normal life, business, education, careers, even their lives, yet a great many people talk as if justice will be theirs if only they can mark a ballot in 1944. I dare say this sounds fantastic to one who ventures daily over enemy territory or plods through mud in the face of shellfire.

We’re up against a tough problem. Millions of qualified voters will be away from home on election day. No matter what sort of scheme is worked out, a great many will be unable to vote. And there’s nothing we can do about it except go to the polls ourselves.

Here is a responsibility the civilian must be ready to carry. Instead of wasting so much talk about getting ballots to the boys it would be better, I think, to pledge ourselves to approach this election without party prejudice.

Women will have the preponderance of voting power this year. Yet thousands have never taken an interest in politics. While Johnny is off saving the USA in many an instance, his mother is complacent to let the Republican get along without her taking the trouble to vote intelligently.

This is no way for Americans to perform, especially in such crucial times. Love of country can be proved in no better way than by a study of pending political issues, and by voting for what one believes to be the right ones.

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: Molding planks

By Thomas L. Stokes

Washington –
Republicans are trying something new in platform-making this year which reflects the stern and changing times and a sense of responsibility in looking forward to possible control of the government.

Already they are beginning to explore the issues, preparatory to outlining the party’s stand, instead of following the procedure customary in both parties of waiting until the convention assembles and then, under tense and wearying conditions, throwing together a jumble of words that few read and fewer pay any attention to afterward.

This new procedure grew out of the Mackinac Conference last September at which the Republican Post-war Advisory Council appointed eight committees to study current problems and draft reports and recommendations for the guidance of the resolutions committee at the convention. Since that time, a crew of researchers has been busy.

Over the weekend there came from National Chairman Harrison E. Spangler the announcement that the Committee on Agriculture, headed by Governor Hickenlooper of Iowa, will hold public hearings in Chicago April 3 and 4 in its search for facts.

Assembled there to present their viewpoints and be questioned about farm programs and policies will be representatives of the National Grange, American Farm Bureau Federation, Farmers’ Union, National Council of Co-Operatives and National Co-Operative Milk Producers Federation.

This is the first of such meetings by the eight committees. The others deal with foreign policy and international relations; social welfare and security; post-war enterprises, industry and employment; finance, taxation and money; reform of government administration; labor, and international economic problems.

Through this procedure the party has an opportunity to perform a real service, if it capitalizes upon the earnest work of the committees, and does not brush them aside as it did the work of the Glenn Frank Committee several years ago.

The late Glenn Frank, then president of the University of Wisconsin, headed a committee which drafted a comprehensible report – some 200 pages – on the issues of that time, with recommendations, but it was politely laid aside. It did have some effect through publicity of its findings.

If the other committees this year follow the example set by the one on agriculture and hold public hearings, so that publicity may be given their findings and recommendations, the convention may feel some effects through enlightenment and pressure that will make the platform an illuminating document that means something.

The public seems in a mood this year to demand frankness and explicitness, with little patience for meaningless and glittering phrases.

The Republican Party might very well throw away what looks like an excellent opportunity to return to power if it does not follow through with this opportunity to make its position clear.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 7, 1944)

Soldier vote bill agreement by conferees due

State ballot advocates expected to consent to amendment

Washington (UP) –
Senator Theodore F. Green (D-RI) said today there was a good possibility that Senate and House conferees would reach final agreement on the soldier vote bill before nightfall.

State ballot advocates were expected to agree to an amendment under which the federal ballot, restricted now to overseas troops, could be used within the United States by servicemen whose states do not have absentee ballots – Kentucky and New Mexico.

Senator Carl A. Hatch (D-NM) approved the amendment as the only step outside of a special session by his state’s legislature that would enable New Mexico servicemen to vote.

While most conferees favored the amendment, Senator Green objected, saying it discriminated in favor of New Mexicans as against men from other states.

Under the bill, the federal ballot would be used by servicemen overseas who apply for a state absentee ballot by Sept. 1 but do not receive it by Oct. 1.

A minor change made yesterday fixed July 15 instead of Aug, 1 as the date by which state governors must certify that federal ballots will be accepted for counting under their state law.

Dewey calls for law to give soldiers vote

Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey called upon the Republican-controlled legislature today to pass a soldier-vote law which will assure men and women in the Armed Forces the right to mark ballots “free from partisan exploitation or perversion.”

In a special message to the Senate and Assembly, Governor Dewey asked enactment of a plan which calls for:

• Every member of the armed services desiring to vote would simply send to the Secretary of State of New York, his name, home address and service address.

• The War Ballot Commission to forward the postcards to the local election boards.

• The election boards would then mail directly to the soldier voter, a ballot and a self-addressed return envelope, all of a size and weight complying with the wishes of the Army and Navy.

• The soldier or sailor upon receiving his ballot would mark it for any or every officer and mail it to the War Ballot Commission which would forward all the ballots to the proper election boards to be counted.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 8, 1944)

Denver upset gives GOP Congress seat

War hero defeated in special election

Denver, Colorado (UP) –
The 1st Congressional district of Colorado, traditional Democratic stronghold, swung into the Republican ranks today with the election of Dean M. Gillespie, the 59-year-old businessman, to the national House of Representatives.

Mr. Gillespie won by less than 3,000 votes over Maj. Carl Wuertele, the disabled bomber pilot whose brilliant war record was emphasized by the Democrats. Unofficial returns from Denver’s 4,0002 precincts gave Mr. Gillespie a total of 41,447 votes compared with 38,524 for Maj. Wuertele.

Election significant

The Republican victory was the GOP’s first Congressional triumph in Denver since 1930. It was also considered particularly significant in view of the fact the district gave President Roosevelt a 10,000-vote margin over Wendell Willkie in 1940, although Colorado as a whole went Republican.

Maj. Wuertele had pledged support of administration war and home front policies and had endorsed a fourth term.

Attacked ‘bungling’

Mr. Gillespie had attacked “bureaucracy and bungling” of the New Deal and had called for private business to be given an opportunity to show what it could do in the reemployment of an estimated 20 million servicemen and women and war workers after the war.

He said he was going to Congress with no set determination to “hamstring the New Deal.”

There was pathos in the defeat of the handsome Maj. Wuertele, whose foot was almost severed by flak as he piloted his well-known bomber, Hel-En-Wings – named after his wife – on his 205th combat mission against the Japs.

Will keep on fighting

The 30-year-old flier was the only man to get a bomber off the ground during the Pearl Harbor attack and was decorated nine times by the War Department.

Maj, Wuertele said:

Although I lost, I’ll keep on fighting for our American ideals and Constitution, our way of life, our boys and girls in uniform. I will lend my aid in every way to win the war and to uniting the people behind our new Congressman.

Mr. Gillespie’s election gives the Republicans 210 delegates in the House against 217 Democrats with minor parties holding four places.

[NormanStewart]

Soldier vote is headed for new battles

States’ rights bloc wins in compromise

Washington (UP) –
Prospects of a renewed Senate fight and a possible presidential veto threatened today to prolong the soldier vote controversy.

House and Senate conferees reached final agreement yesterday after 25 days of struggle between states’ rights and federal ballot proponents. The states’ rights forces emerged largely triumphant.

The conference report, accepted by an 8–2 vote, permits restricted use of a federal ballot for troops overseas. However, servicemen within the United States whose home states do not provide for absentee voting – at present Kentucky and New Mexico – will also be eligible for a federal ballot.

Federal ballot restricted

Use of the federal ballot for overseas troops is restricted to men who apply for a state ballot by Sept. 1 and certify that they have not received it by Oct. 1. In addition, in order to be counted the federal ballots must be legalized by state governors on the authorization of their legislatures by July 15.

The House conferees accepted the report unanimously, and Rep. John E. Rankin (D-MS), leader of the states’ rights faction, hailed it as a victory.

Senate fight certain

He said:

The House is going to take it because we’ve got what we wanted.

But a sharp contest on the conference report in the Senate is certain. Four Senators, two of them the conferees who voted against the compromise, have already announced that they will oppose it on the floor.

If the compromise does pass both House and Senate, there is a possibility of a veto that would reopen the whole issue and delay final solution.

Soldier vote session cost cited by Governor Martin

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Governor Edward Martin said today the state would save about $360,000 if ways can be found to simplify the Pennsylvania soldier voting law without convening a special session of the Legislature.

Governor Martin said he believed all of the Commonwealth’s servicemen, even those stationed in remote sections of the globe, would be guaranteed their right of franchise “if we could just lift the time element and party registration requirements from the present law.”

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: Hatch Act

By Thomas L. Stokes

Washington –
New reform bills to amend the Hatch Act are cropping up in Congress to make politics more pure, both as to expenditure of money and expenditure of venom, vitriol and plain dirt.

They presage an expected hard-fought campaign, with purse strings likely to be relaxed and pen and ink and oratory flowing freely, perhaps bitterly, from an excess of zeal.

Senate Gillette (D-IA) went today before the Privileges and Elections Committee to discuss three proposed amendments to the Hatch and Corrupt Practices Acts, relating both to a tighter curb on expenditures and possible prevention of scurrilous campaign documents, especially of the anonymous, poison-pen variety.

He speaks with authority. He learned a lot about campaign tricks as chairman of the Senate Campaign Investigating Committee which operated in the 1940 presidential election. His main objective is to limit contributions and expenditures, from all sources, to $2 million for a presidential candidate, and $1 million for a vice-presidential candidate, with a limit of $10,000 on individual contributions.

Would plug loopholes

He would plug loopholes in the Hatch Act. That act, sponsored by Senator Hatch (D-NM), forbids contributions to, and expenditures by, a political committee of more than $3 million and limits individual contributions to $5,000.

Senator Hatch’s aim was to limit total expenditures by a political party altogether to $3 million for the presidential campaign. As for individual contributions, he specified that the $5,000 limit did not include contributions made to a state or local committee.

The loophole there was as big as the entrance to Mammoth Cave. Henry P. Fletcher, counsel of the Republican National Committee, bounced gaily through it. He drafted an opinion in 1940 which he took to Wendell Willkie.

He held that the National Committee could spend $3 million and other national groups could spend as much. He also held that individuals could give $5,000 to the national campaign ands as much more to state and local committees. There was practically no limit under his interpretation.

Mr. Willkie blew up over this proposed evasion. He announced that he expected all expenditures to be held within $3 million. They weren’t. It was estimated that total expenditures of both parties closely approached $20 million.

Mr. Fletcher apparently was sound legally.

Raises individual ante

In his proposed amendment, Senator Gillette would limit contributions and expenditures to an overall $2 million for President and $1 million for Vice President. He raised the ante on individual contributions to $10,000, but with a limit of $5,000 to any one committee.

The Senate acknowledged that his attempt to squelch scurrilous campaign material might infringe upon free speech and free press, and said he is offering two bills merely to raise the question for discussion.

They would forbid publication or distribution of matter about candidates for President, Vice President or Congress “tending to incite arson, murder, assassination or riot” or “of a fraudulent or scurrilous character tending to incite hatred against any religious sect or creed or against any race.”

They would also require that any printed matter circulated about candidates must carry the name of the writer and by whom published.

An office of minority relations would be created in the Interior Department to police scurrilous campaign literature affecting minorities.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 9, 1944)

Soldier vote bill back in Senate

Washington (UP) –
The soldier vote issue will return to the Senate today in form of a bill bearing only slight resemblance to the federal war ballot measure passed and sent to conference with the House some weeks ago.

Senator Tom Connally (D-TX) will file with the Senate the agreement finally reached by the conferees after prolonged discussions in which so many restrictions were placed on the federal ballot that the entire issue may again have to be thrashed out in the Senate.

Rayburn favors measure

Convinced that the new soldier vote bill will enable more service personnel to vote this year than were able to do so in 1942, Speaker Sam Rayburn said he would support the measure when it reaches the House.

Mr. Rayburn told reporters that Chairman Eugene Worley (D-TX) of the House Elections Committee, and Rep. Herbert C. Bonner (D-NC), both members of the House conference delegation, had assured him that the measure would make it possible for more soldiers to vote this year.

Ballot’s use restricted

As it emerged from conference, the measure provides a federal ballot for overseas personnel only if they apply for a state absentee ballot by Sept. 1 and fail to get it by Oct. 1. Use of the ballot within the United States is limited to servicemen whose states have no absentee voting laws – namely, Kentucky and New Mexico.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Another Republican victory

Republicans have scored another victory in a special Congressional election, raising their hopes for national success in November. Colorado’s 1st Congressional district is the latest. Before that, it was districts in Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Even more encouraging to Republicans was the result last week in New York City, where they polled more votes than the Democrats in a heavily Democratic district and were nosed out only by American Labor Party ballots.

In Denver on Tuesday, a GOP businessman took away from the Democrats a seat they have held since 1932. When Colorado went Republican in 1940, that district remained Democratic by almost 10,000. In 1942, its Democratic margin was 8,000. This week’s reversal was the more remarkable because the defeated candidate was a disabled bomber pilot with all the political glamor of a brilliant war record.

Politicians in Washington were watching this Denver test as an indication of urban trends. Democrats admit that the Roosevelt administration is weak in the rural areas of the North and West, and that it must depend largely on the city vote in November. Hence the Republican joy and Democratic gloom over results in Denver, following the show of GOP strength in Philadelphia and New York.

To lick the Democratic war hero, the Republicans campaigned on the national issue of “less government in business and more business in government.”

When an ordinary businessman, with no previous political experience and no campaign “it” can lick a wounded war hero on that plea, it must have a lot of public support.

[NormanStewart]

Background of news –
The West and the GOP

By Bertram Benedict

Republican victory in the special Congressional election in the traditionally-Democratic 1st district of Colorado on Tuesday may be the most significant of the special elections prior to next November.

In a New York district last week, the Republicans made substantial gains but did not win the seat at stake.

Within the last three months, they have taken two House seats from the Democrats: In the Pennsylvania 2nd (in Philadelphia) and the Kentucky 4th. But in the former, the Republican candidate had a 1942 Democratic majority of only 713 votes to overcome, and in the latter the Republican had a 1942 Democratic plurality of less than 5,000 to overcome and was aided by a factional fight in the Democratic ranks. Moreover, the Kentucky district is made up entirely of rural territory, where Democratic strength is admittedly weaker than in 1942.

On the other hand, the Colorado 1st lies entirely in the city and county of Denver. It elected a Democratic Representative in 1942 by an 8,060 majority, and gave President Roosevelt a majority of 9,600 in 1940, although the states as a whole went for Wendell Willkie. And the Democrats hope Mr. Roosevelt has lost less popularity in the West than in the East.

Chances look bright

The Republican gain of a House seat from the Democrats in Denver make GOP chances look bright for November. In 1940, Roosevelt carried every city of over 4000,000 except Cincinnati. In New York, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, a pro-Willkie vote in rural territory was more than counterbalanced by a pro-Roosevelt urban vote.

The Republican insurgency which wrecked the Taft administration was largely a conflict of West vs. East. It was largely Republicans from beyond the Mississippi who followed Theodore Roosevelt out of the Republican Party in 1912.

Throughout the 1920s, Republican members of Congress from west of the Alleghenies bedeviled the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations with agitation for special farm relief legislation.

The split was signalized when Senator Moses, an Eastern Republican, called the Western insurgents “sons of the wild jackass,” and Senator Grundy, another Easterner, complained that too much legislation was affected by member of Congress from “backward” states.

Most Republican leaders who abandoned Hoover in 1932 and came out for Roosevelt were from west of the Mississippi.

Party of semi-discord

A combination of Midwest Republicans and Southern Democrats enacted the anti-strike bill over President Roosevelt’s veto last year. But in the House, almost one-fourth of the Republicans voted to sustain the veto, and they were mostly from large cities.

In fact, the Republican Party has always been an organization of semi-discordant elements. At its birth in 1854-56, it held together anti-alien “Know-Nothingers” and recent German immigrants, farmers who wanted free land and workmen who wanted a protective tariff, hardboiled Whig politicians and idealistic abolitionists and Prohibitionists.

The GOP usually has developed more party discipline in holding together discordant elements than have the Democrats – probably because many Republican candidates for Congress need a presidential victory to be elected, while most Democratic candidates from the South can be elected without victory for the national ticket.