Election 1944: Pre-convention news

[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.

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: Dewey’s challenge

By Thomas L. Stokes

Washington –
Governor Dewey seemed to be talking very much like a candidate when he went out of his way to denounce the administration and its proposals for a federal ballot for soldiers in his message to the New York Legislature outlining a plan for state ballots.

He backed up the “states’ rights” position of a majority of his party in Congress and of Southern Democrats against that of President Roosevelt and, incidentally, of Wendell L. Willkie.

What cheered Republicans most was the Governor’s vigorous language when he swapped epithets with President Roosevelt, the old epithet master. Governor Dewey called the federal ballot “a blank piece of paper,” as against the term “fraud” which Mr. Roosevelt applied to the original state ballot bill.

Republicans have been looking for somebody who could “tell” President Roosevelt.

Welcomed as GOP champion

They were glad to have their position justified by the Governor because he is now the man voted in the polls as the most likely to succeed as candidate at the Chicago convention in June.

It is no secret here that Republicans moved rather hesitantly and nervously to their strong “states’ rights” position on the soldier vote issue. They now await President Roosevelt’s next move. They do not expect him to drop it; certainly not since Governor Dewey has chosen to challenge him.

The more comfortable feeling of Republicans over the soldier vote issue, should be linked up to other events on the political front, for example, the Republican victory in a Denver Congressional district that had been Democratic for 14 years, another in a chain of byelection successes.

They are beginning to feel so good about these developments that they are worrying less about individual issues, observing signs of a strong trend reflecting dissatisfaction with the administration.

Denver victory encouraging

Perhaps the most cheerful aspect of the Denver victory was that Democrats could not check the Republican tide even with a famous war hero. An inclination to throw war heroes into the breach seems to be a part of Democratic strategy in this tough year. The result in Denver was encouraging to members of Congress who have been quaking in their boots about war veteran opponents and who, to offset it, have been rushing forward with bounteous legislative offerings for the benefit of veterans.

The Republican trend inures to Governor Dewey’s benefit as it does to that of his party. It makes the Republican nomination more of a prize than it appeared some months ago when he announced he was not a candidate, which accounts for the willingness of a Governor now, so it is made known, to accept a convention “draft.”

Everybody knows he is a “candidate” in this sense.

His gratuitous intervention in the soldier vote issue gives the appearance that he is talking like a candidate. Does this mean that, henceforth, he will seize the occasion to discuss the issues?

He is getting demands that he make his position plain on all the issues on the ground that he owes it to his party since he seems headed for the nomination.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 10, 1944)

Gen. MacArthur ‘smear’ charged

Vandenberg scores Army reading list

Washington (UP) –
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson today agreed with Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-MI) that the War Department should be “scrupulously careful to avoid the official distribution of partisan or prejudicial material to the Army.”

Mr. Stimson made the statement in reply to a protest by Mr. Vandenberg that a list of recommended magazine articles circulated by the Army War College library included a “smear” article against Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Senator’s favorite for the 1944 Republican presidential nomination.

List to be eliminated

Mr. Stimson wrote Mr. Vandenberg that the list of magazine articles henceforth would be eliminated from the library bulletin.

Mr. Vandenberg protested that the War Department list referred to the article, printed in the American Mercury, as:

…a comprehensive and objective appraisal of the general as presidential timber, with special reference to the character of his backers and an analysis of his military reputation before Pearl Harbor and after.

Mr. Stimson wrote Mr. Vandenberg that the War College library reprinted the list from a poster sent out each month by Harper & Bros. to public libraries and that the comments reprinted under the title of each article were reproduced exactly from the power.

Selections not approved

Mr. Stimson wrote:

There has been no intent to imply War Department approval of these selections. The sponsorship by a council of librarians is indicated as part of the heading. Monthly circulation of this publication represents fewer than 500 copies.

In order that there may be no opportunity for misunderstanding of the War Department’s position, however, I have directed that the list be eliminated from future issues of the library bulletin.

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: GOP problem

By Thomas L. Stokes

Washington –
The optimistic state of mind among Republicans over November election prospects shows itself in the current disagreement among them in the Senate over election of a successor to the late Senator Charles L. McNary as party leader in that body.

Aside from the question of who it should be – and the rivalry is lively – the Republican Senators are divided over whether they should choose a leader now or wait until after the election.

One group, which includes the nine “freshmen” members swept into office in 1942, wants to elect a vigorous leader, carry the fight aggressively on every issue to the Democrats from now until election, and perfect a smooth-working party organization that would function effectively if the party captures the White House.

Other group wants to wait

The other group, which includes some, but not all of the older members, prefers to wait until after election to see if their optimism about victory is borne out, meanwhile retaining their temporary organization with Senator Wallace H. White (R-ME) as acting leader.

In the event they capture the White House, they might want to choose a different type of leader than if the party were still a minority party. They would want as leader a man who would work well with their President and no one knows now who this might be, or what the party situation might be, it is pointed out.

They want no repetition of their last experience with Senate Republican leadership when they were in power. Senate Republican Leader Jim Watson, who had little regard for President Hoover, was constantly crossing up the President and making light cracks about him. One of his favorite quips about the President was:

How’re you going to follow a man who has St. Vilus dance?

Senator McNary, rather than “Sunny Jim,” became the liaison with the White House when the Depression began to pile trouble high.

Should the Republicans capture the Senate, which looks now to be a long-shot bet, the Senate Leader would assume commanding influence in the party councils.

Even should Republicans fail to get control of the Senate, they are certain to make gains and narrow the margin between the parties. There are now 58 Democrats, 37 Republicans and one Progressive. With a Republican President and a Senate nominally under control of the Democrats, a skillful leader would be needed who could work with the Democrats as far as possible to the best interests of the administration, particularly with the country at war.

Conference to decide course

The group which wants to wait leans toward caution. Among them are some who would not go too strong in opposition now, depending rather upon the present trend picking up momentum of its own weight, without any continuous running fight that might produce tactical errors of which President Roosevelt could take advantage.

Republicans will decide on their course at a party conference next Wednesday, with the advantage on the wait-and-see side.

Mentioned for the leadership are Senators Robert Taft (R-OH), Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI), John A. Danaher (R-CT) and Styles Bridges (R-NH).

Senator Taft takes the position among his friends that he would step aside if Senator Vandenberg wants the post. The Michigan Senator, it is reported, would like the job as long as the party is in the minority, but if it won control of the Senate, he would prefer to be President pro tempore and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on which he is now ranking Republican member.

Senators Danaher and Bridges are younger men who have taken an active role in the Senate. Each has a following.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 11, 1944)

Stokes: A vote joker

By Thomas L. Stokes

Washington –
A joker which may not be so funny to state treasuries has been discovered in the soldier vote bill now awaiting final action by Congress. It may complicate still further the problem of soldier balloting.

Under a last-minute change in the bill made by the House-Senate conference committee, states will have to pay postage for sending out instructions for voting procedures and lists of candidates. As originally provided, these were to be postage free, that is, paid for by the federal government.

Free postage is still provided for postcards which the soldiers must mail back in order to get a ballot, for mailing the ballots, themselves, to the soldiers, and for envelopes in which the soldiers will mail back their ballots.

Some states do not carry voting instructions on the ballots. This means that if they want to send out instructions or lists of candidates, they cannot put them in the envelope with the ballots, unless they want to pay the postage on the whole package. Instead, they would have to mail the instructions or lists in a separate package, making just that much more mail, on which they must pay the postage.

Before Dewey spoke

Instructions on how to mark the ballot are regarded as important in some cases, because of peculiarities of state laws, particularly for soldiers who have come of age since they went into the service and are voting for the first time. Also lists of candidates will be necessary in some cases.

The provision for free postage for voting instructions and lists of candidates was stricken from the measure by the conferees at the tag end of their long and wearing ordeal over the measure, when someone brought in the report that voting instructions for New York State made up quite a sizeable volume.

Why, it was asked, should the federal government foot the bill for such bulky mail? Nobody knew whether New York actually had any idea of sending out anything like this. That was before Governor Dewey had presented his plan for state ballots to the New York Legislature which, he said, would call for a ballot package weighing only six-tenths of an ounce, well under the eight-tenths of an ounce prescribed by the bill.

Nothing can be done about the joker unless one branch or the other should reject the whole conference report and send it back for further consideration.

Another example of confusion

This is just another example of the muddling on the soldier vote bill. Confusion exists about some of its provisions. Already inquiries are coming in from secretaries of state, particularly as to whether poll tax and registration requirements are waived. No one is clear about this.

They were waived specifically in the existing law, passed in September 1942, which would remain in effect if President Roosevelt vetoed the pending measure. For this and other reasons, the belief is growing here that President Roosevelt will veto the bill and, in so doing, seize the opportunity to reply to Governor Dewey’s attack on the administration.

A probable tipoff was seen when Speaker Sam Rayburn withdrew his first endorsement of the conference agreement and said that he had not made up his mind whether he would support it.

The Senate will take up the conference report on the measure Tuesday.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 12, 1944)

Usurpation of power laid to Roosevelt

Indianapolis, Indiana (UP) – (March 11)
Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH) charged tonight that “usurpation of power by the President” is transforming the courts and legislature into “a mere shell” and declared that a fourth term would cause steady enlargement of the executive power.

Addressing the Republican Editorial Association, Mr. Taft denied that the President had any legal right to many of the powers which he has assumed.

Mr. Taft said:

If the President is elected to a fourth term, with a Congress disposed to do his bidding, the people can only expect one course to be pursued – that is the course of steady enlargement of the executive power.

[NormanStewart]

Woman starts beating drums for Willkie

Idealism, charm are stressed
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington – (March 11)
Change the “We Want Willkie” battle cry of 1940 to “Women Want Willkie: and you have the situation as depicted today by the politically-wise woman who is heading the Women’s Division of the 1944 Willkie pre-convention campaign.

She is Mrs. Grace Reynolds, Republican committeewoman for Indiana, who is attending a women’s meeting at party headquarters here. She is a vice chairman of the Republican National Committee and member of the Executive Board.

Mrs. Reynolds expects shortly to open a Willkie headquarters for women in New York.

Anyone who watched Wendell campaign in 1940 could readily see how he won over the women voters, Mrs. Reynolds said.

Personality cited

The reason is that he is a great idealist and combines that with a sincere and charming personality. With men at war, the woman vote will be of great significance. I am convinced that the majority of American women are for Willkie and against a fourth term.

A lovely looking lady of middle years, Mrs. Reynolds is experienced in Republican politics. She was twice elected Indiana state treasurer and has been national committeewoman since 1936.

Hoosiers get hot about politics, even in off years. When a President is to be chosen, they drop practically everything to attend to it. However, the Republican organization in the state has not come out for Mr. Willkie as its “favorite son.”

For there are plenty of old-line party members in the state who put Mr. Willkie even ahead of President Roosevelt when listing their political hatreds. Mrs. Reynolds knew all of that when she took the assignment to boost the New York Hoosier with the women.

Wants ‘open’ corporation

She asserted:

Republican hatred of Mr. Willkie is senseless. When you pin people down to expressing a reason for their anti-Willkie feelings, they have very slight foundation. In fact, the basic underlying cause of that hatred is because he once was a Democrat.

How does that make any sense? Surely the Republican Party cannot come back into power if it is to be a closed corporation from which persons are barred from active participation unless they can show that they have been Republicans from birth, or at least from the time they cast their first ballot.

Mr. Willkie made us lifelong Republicans think in terms of the world of today. He has prodded us forward and convinced us we cannot turn back. In that way, he already has done a great service to his party and the country.

I believe that he can win renomination by demonstrating in state primaries that he is the most popular leader we have. The rank and file, particularly the women, are for him. He can beat Roosevelt or any other Democrat this time.

[NormanStewart]

Fourth term foe to run again

Washington (UP) – (March 11)
Senator Guy M. Gillette (D-IA), who opposed a third term for President Roosevelt, yesterday announced that he was opposed to a fourth-term nomination.

Mr. Gillette’s announcement came a few hours after he had revealed that despite an earlier decision to retire, he would accept renomination if Iowa Democrats want him.

Mr. Gillette said:

As a Democrat, I reserve the right to support for the nomination a candidate of my own choice. After the nomination is made, it becomes another matter.

He declined to say whom he would favor for the Democratic presidential nomination.

[NormanStewart]

Campaign rules draw approval

Backers of officers seem satisfied

Washington (UP) – (March 11)
Congressional sponsors of military men for the 1944 Republican presidential nomination expressed general satisfaction today with the Army-Navy agreement outlining conditions under which members of the Armed Forces on active duty may seek and accept election to public offices.

The agreement, approved by President Roosevelt, gave preferential treatment to reservists over Regular Army and Navy men. A regular must be “drafted.” He must be offered the nomination without direct or indirect activity or solicitation on his part.

No campaigning

Reservists do not have to wait for a draft. They are authorized to file evidence of their candidacy as required by local laws without the tender of a nomination.

Neither regulars nor reservists, however, may engage in any way in political management or political campaigns.

Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-MI), one of the first sponsors of Gen. Douglas MacArthur for the Republican presidential nomination, said the agreement was “satisfactory.”

Comments show approval

Senator Joseph H. Ball (R-MN), backing LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota now on active duty in the South Pacific, for the nomination, said that as far as he was concerned, the agreement “is OK.”

Chairman Andrew J. May (D-KY) of the House Military Affairs Committee expressed confidence that the agreement wouldn’t raise political issues or create political disturbances in the armed services.

Rep. Eugene Worley (D-TX), who resigned a naval commission when elected to the House, described the agreement as a “fine thing.”

Coloradoan objects

Objections were voiced by Senator Edwin C. Johnson (D-CO), who favors Gen. George C. Marshall for the Democratic presidential nomination.

He said:

If a man wants to be a candidate and the people want him, let him go to it. Personally, I think being an officer is the biggest job a man can hold now. But if an officer does not feel that way, I think he should be free to become a candidate for office.

Observers noticed that no provision was made in the agreement for determination of a military man’s active or inactive status between the time he is nominated and the time of his election or defeat.

[NormanStewart]

Cobb called Willkie ‘the only Democrat’

New York – (March 11)
Despite the fact that he was in ill health in 1940, Irvin S. Cobb campaigned vigorously for Wendell L. Willkie.

One of his statements follows:

I am supporting Wendell Willkie for President because I am a lifelong Democrat and he is the only Democrat running for President this year. There are at least 12 other reasons why I am for him – one is Madame Perkins and Harold Ickes is the other 11.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Servicemen in politics

Members of the Armed Forces who are not in the “regular components” of the Army or Navy may become candidates for political officer, but they may not solicit votes, make speeches or otherwise campaign in their own behalf. And if elected, they must leave the service. For regular officers, the regulations are even more stringent.

This old military regulation was emphasized by the President Friday in making public a joint Army-Navy agreement.

In short, when you elect a soldier or sailor to office you vote him out of the war – and the government loses all it has invested in training and equipping him. This loss is particularly heavy when it involves officers.

This is something Republicans should consider carefully in the case of Lt. James G. Fulton of Dormont, a candidate for the Republican congressional nomination in the 31st district.

Quite aside from his qualifications, Lt. Fulton voluntarily entered the Navy and has received extensive and expensive training. There is no reason to believe that he could perform in Congress more valuable service than he is now performing. Moreover, of the others entered in the same contest, several are capable men.

If Lt. Fulton wanted to run for Congress, he shouldn’t have entered the Navy. But he did so, voluntarily – receiving a commission.

Lt. Fulton attended a meeting of 31st district leaders Friday night, spoke on behalf of his candidacy and outlined some of the policies he will support if elected – this on the same day that the Army-Navy prohibition of active participation in a campaign was issued.

We predict that as the public considers this problem – particularly families with members in service – they will be extremely reluctant to vote candidates out of the war. After all, the veteran will enjoy great political advantage when the war is over – and the more who wait until then, instead of leaving now, the sooner it will end.

[NormanStewart]

McFarland: Soldier votes and the Constitution

By Kermit McFarland

In the soldier-vote controversy now embroiling Congress, the opposing sides agree – so they say – that it is essential to provide a method by which the Armed Forces may vote in this year’s election. Both sides protest that it would be an outrage if the Armed Forces were deprived of a vote merely because of their absence from the country.

The differences on which the issue has hung, more than three months now, are based, so the antagonists say, on varied interpretations of the Constitution. Opponents of a federal ballot for the Armed Forces – necessary only in the interest of uniformity and simplification – say control of the ballot is reserved exclusively to the states by the Constitution. Advocates of the federal ballot deny this.

So far, the so-called “states’ rights” group has had the controlling hand.

Justice Stone’s opinion

But there is another authority on the Constitution – the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Supreme Court has not passed on the soldier-vote issue, as such. But in 1940, Justice Harlan F. Stone wrote an opinion which some eminent legal authorities, not engaged in the Congressional controversy, consider immediately applicated to this issue.

In this opinion, the Justice, now Chief Justice, said:

While, in a loose sense, the right to vote for representatives in Congress is sometimes spoken of as a right derived from the states, this statement is true only in the sense that the states are authorized by the Constitution to legislate on the subject… to the extent that Congress has not restricted state action by exercise of its powers to regulate elections…

Mr. Justice Stone, with the Court majority, even held that Congress could regulate primary elections.

And that is precisely what the Constitution says in Section 4 of Article I: The states may prescribe the rules, but Congress, “may at any time by law make or alter such regulations.”

This Supreme Court opinion, in the judgement of high-ranking legal authorities, effectively takes care of the issue.

Presidential electors

But the “states’ rights” lawyers in Congress probably will answer that this is applicable merely to elections involving representatives in Congress. They will point to Section 2 of Article II which says that each state shall provide the manner of choosing its own presidential electors.

And since a federal ballot would involve the election of a President and Vice President as well as Senators and Congressmen, a federal ballot, they will say, is unconstitutional.

But the states have already provided a method for choosing presidential electors, who in turn technically elect a President. And that method is the ballot. There is nothing in the Constitution which says the federal government ay not provide the ballot.

The federal ballot in no way interferes with the methods already prescribed by the states for choosing presidential electors.

And Mr. Justice Stone, in his opinion, repeated an old dictum of the Supreme Court that matters which are “appropriate” to the Constitution, which are “not prohibited” by the Constitution and which are consistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution are constitutional.

He said:

That principle extends to the Congressional power, by appropriate legislation, to safeguard the right of choice by the people of representatives in Congress secured by Section 2 of Article I.

And Mr. Justice Douglas, in the same case, said the Constitution was “designed not only for temporary needs but for the vicissitudes of time.”

The absence of millions of voters in the Armed Forces is certainly a “vicissitude.”

[NormanStewart]

Perkins: Comment on fourth term

By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent

Washington –
Rev. William J. Smith, a Jesuit priest who heads the Crown Heights School of Catholic Workmen, in Brooklyn, New York, distributes his thoughts on public affairs regularly in the mimeographed Crown Heights Comment, and this writer, who has been on the mailing list for some time, finds them interesting, provocative and independent. Father Smith’s writings give the impression of a calm mind far enough removed from the daily tumult to give him an objective view of what is going on, but not far enough away to keep him from having a very good idea of what it is all about.

The latest Comment shows that Father Smith is against a fourth term for President Roosevelt. Most of his reasons are the usual ones – too much “one indispensable man” stifling of the aspirations of other capable men, corrosion of the two-party system, development of a tremendous body of government employees and governmentally-aided citizens. But he gives another reason on which he bases an opinion that the best service the President could render to the nation at this time would be “to declare himself as definitely opposed to a fourth term.”

Father Smith doesn’t say so in so many words, but this particular reason is apparently based on the obvious possibility that if Mr. Roosevelt runs again, he might be defeated. He seems to think it would be a tremendous personal tragedy for him to fail at the summit of a great career, and there might be a national tragedy as well.

Predicts ‘chaos’

If the President is nominated and defeated, writes Father Smith:

…the effect of such an event would echo around the world. Friends and enemies alike would see in it a repudiation, on the part of the American electorate, not merely of the things in the present administration against which the voters rebelled but a rejection of everything good and bad that the President has advocated at home and abroad. It would create chaos in international circles to the utter delight of our enemies with whom we are at war.

The advantages that the Roosevelt personality enjoys over his prospective political rivals are not great enough to subject the nation to such a risk.

Father Smith’s work places him in close contact with working men, and he has definite views on their place in the political picture. He writes:

The one specific segment of the population said to be overanxious for a fourth term for Mr. Roosevelt is that collection of citizens commonly described as “labor.” It is far from certain that the majority of all the working people are of such a mind. Sidney Hillman’s CIO Committee for Political Action is leaving no stone unturned to accomplish that aim. An estimated million dollars will be spent for the purpose, and a common front with any and all groups will be attempted to put across their plan.

We fear very much that the experiment may be a boomerang. It has been so in the past. The American Federation of Labor has found that it does not pay to hitch your star to the coattail of one man. John L. Lewis learned the lesson to his sorrow. He might hand over a sizable lump of the miners’ treasury, but he could not hand over the miners’ votes with the same facility.

Agrees with Dies

In some of his writings, Father Smith has shown a distaste for the methods of Rep. Martin Dies, head of the investigating committee known by his name, but the following from the Comment is not much different from what the Texas Congressman has had to say on the same subject:

Hillman’s dictatorial tendencies run along the same lines as those of Lewis, and the violent upheaval in the American Labor Party of New York City is but an indication of the reaction that occurs when freeborn American citizens are told how to vote or else. We expect just as great a rebellion from many individual voters in the CIO as has been shown by the organized Social Democrats [Socialists] in New York City.

The CIO trade unionists have no choice but to go along with the decision of the national body in contributing to the Political Action Committee in their locals. When they get into the voting booth, they will ballot as they please and they have a perfect right to do so.

Father Smith thinks the labor forces might well try to do some collective bargaining outside the Democratic Party – with the Republicans, for instance.

He says:

Social thinking and social progress have reached such a stage of public development in this country that no candidate on any ticket can afford to ignore the legitimate and just demands of the working people. The political power of “labor” has become a well-established fact.

That new ascendancy has been due in great measure to one man – Franklin D. Roosevelt. We do not believe the truth should be veiled in that regard, nor on the other hand do we think that we should preempt the divine prerogative of endeavoring to make his return for that service an eternal reward.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 13, 1944)

Governor Bricker cites need for jobs

Boston, Massachusetts (UP) –
Close cooperation between industry, labor and government will be needed to solve the problem of post-war employment, Ohio Governor John W. Bricker said last night.

Speaking at the Boston University Institute of Post-War Problems, he said government and business must make certain that there are 10 million more jobs available after the war than there were in 1940.

Governor Bricker said:

However, no honest person will say that government alone will solve this problem.

To reach the 10 million extra job goal, he said, the federal government must establish a dynamic economy, eliminate bureaucracy and develop a constructive post-war tax program.

[NormanStewart]

Soldier vote given Senate for debate

Connally backs conference result

Washington (UP) –
Senator Tom Connally (D-TX) formally reported to the Senate the conference version of the soldier-vote bill today and opened debate by telling his colleagues that it “represents the best possible bill that can be secured.”

Opening the third Senate debate on the controversial service vote issue, Senator Connally declared that it is his:

…earnest belief that more soldiers and sailors will be entitled to vote under the pending bill than under any measure proposed or possible of adoption.

Bill’s provisions

As drafted during three weeks of joint conferences between Senate and House spokesmen, the bill would extend the federal war ballot to servicemen overseas whose state legislatures and governors have certified by July 15 that the federal ballot will be acceptable for counting under their laws. All other servicemen, with the exception of those from Kentucky and New Mexico which have no state absentee ballot laws, must use state procedures.

Senator Connally said:

The primary responsibility with respect to election and voting therein rests with the states… If members of the Armed Forces are enabled to vote, state legislatures and state authorities must discharge their high responsibilities. State rights require state obligations and responsibilities.

The Senate originally passed a bill calling on the states to expedite the soldier vote but later adopted a measure providing for a uniform federal ballot. The House, however, endorsed the principle of the first states’ rights measure and the two chambers had to call a conference to find a compromise.

The sponsors of the federal ballot bill – Senators Scott Lucas (D-IL) and Theodore F. Green (D-RI) – have called for defeat of the compromise version on grounds it rejected the principle of the federal ballot and was too restrictive.

GOP women

Meanwhile, a Republican letters-to-servicemen campaign aimed at capturing the soldier vote was urged today by Rep. Charles A. Halleck (R-IN), who dared the administration to censor such mail.

He called on all Republican women to:

…tell the boys the truth about the manner in which the administration has misused its powers, how it has fight to kill representative government, how it has tried to make over America while real Americans were busy working to win the war.

Mr. Halleck, chairman of the GOP Congressional campaign committee, offered his plan at the closing session of a three-day advisory board meeting of the National Federation of Women’s Republican Clubs.

GOP National Committee Chairman Harrison E. Spangler warned:

Echoing a campaign theme noted in recent Republican speeches – “usurpation of power by the President” – he said:

On every hand we see instances of tampering with the Constitution, with undermining the faith of the people in the legislative branch of our government; of tighter regulation and regimentation of our daily life by executive decree. Our ship of state is manned by a crew of seasick landlubbers which has America literally hanging over the rail.

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: Real draft

By Thomas L. Stokes

Washington –
A subtle change has occurred in regard to the fourth term question and President Roosevelt’s relation to it which is important in developing political events.

The fact is that it is not now a matter of whether President Roosevelt want to run or not. That is largely out of his hands. Party leaders have decided that he will have to run again, since there’s nobody else who could win. The decision is theirs, not Mr. Roosevelt’s.

If he shows any reluctance, feels later like balking, they are in a position to say to him, in effect:

We have stood by you, have followed you, worked for you, three times. Now it’s your turn to stand by us. No other candidate has been permitted to build himself up, which could be done only with your consent and help. You’ll have to be ‘it,’ like it or not.

Democrats would like to retain the Presidency, but the politicians, state and local, are interested equally in holding their machines together, and for this they need the strongest candidate, whether he can win nationally or not.

Strategy is obvious

The strategy of the politicians was obvious at the January meeting here of the Democratic National Committee which adopted that unprecedented resolution asking the President to run again. The phrases were sweet and generous, but the purpose was stern. It was sponsored by his friends, but endorsed by some not so friendly – not out of love, but necessity. That was the start of the “draft” and it will be a real “draft” this time, with none of the synthetic aspects of the third term draft with its vaudeville atmosphere.

So, it does not really matter how cryptically President Roosevelt replies to the “picayune” inquiries at press conferences, nor what Mr. Roosevelt said in his Nov. 3, 1940, speech in Cleveland about there being “another President” in the White House four years later, nor what he said in a speech to the homefolks at Hyde Park in 1940 about that being the last time he would appear before them as a candidate.

The politicians in the party are deciding this one.

This looks like a year of Democratic desperation and the politicians have taken over with Mr. Roosevelt’s acquiescence, which is apparent not only as regards the fourth term, but as regards practical political operations.

Purge plans purged

There will be, for example, no “purge” this year, no choice by the White House between Democrats in primaries, though this is the year when those Senators whom President Roosevelt sought to purge in 1938 are up again – George of Georgia, Smith of South Carolina, Tydings of Maryland, McCarran of Nevada, Clark of Missouri, among others.

Support of the Supreme Court “packing bill” was the test applied that year. Mr. Roosevelt would have even more tests to apply this year, if he were choosing to do so. Senator George bucked him on the tax bill. “Cotton Ed” Smith talked brashly about a third party. Senator Clark of Missouri was one of the “isolationist” leaders. Senator Gillette who has just announced he would run again and with the blessing of National Democratic Chairman Hannegan, said bluntly that he would “oppose my own father if he ran for a fourth term.”

Senator O’Mahoney of Wyoming fought the Supreme Court “packing” bill and Mr. Roosevelt would like to have achieved his defeat in 1938. But Joe O’Mahoney is now chairman of the Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Things are changed, for Democrats are going to need everything to win. Nobody is going to pry behind the party label this year to see the cut of a fellow’s thinking, or whether he combs his hair on the right or the left side.

Mr. Hannegan has decreed that. And Mr. Hannegan is a big boy who means business. It looks like he’s going to have free rein to run the show.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (March 14, 1944)

Senate passes soldier vote bill

House expected to okay compromise

Washington (UP) –
The Senate today approved the compromise soldier vote bill 47–31, despite the opposition of Democratic Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY). Twenty-three Democrats joined with 24 Republicans to pass the bill. Twenty-four Democrats, six Republicans and one Progressive opposed it.

The vote came after two days of debate on the controversial measure. House approval of the bill was considered assured. It then would go to President Roosevelt for veto or signature.

Denounced by Barkley

Just before the veto, Mr. Barkley denounced the measure as a restrictive bill which would deny the vote to many servicemen.

Mr. Barkley said the bill would repeal, “not directly but by implication and necessary interpretation.” The waiver in the 1942 law of poll taxes and registration for servicemen voting in federal elections.

He said:

Under this conference report, no serviceman or woman would be allowed to vote unless registered according to the requirements of state law and unless he or she had paid a poll tax if state law requires.

Obligation cited

He added that he thought Congress has an obligation as well as the power to make it easy for members of the Armed Forces to vote for President, Vice President and members of Congress despite the challenges of states’ rights advocates.

Senator Styles Bridges (R-NH) said that if President Roosevelt vetoes the bill:

He and he alone must assume full responsibility for the disfranchisement of millions of our soldiers, sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen.

The approved bill provides that a federal war ballot will be sent only to servicemen overseas whose state legislatures and governors have certified by July 15 that they will accept the federal ballots for counting. The servicemen would also be required to certify that by Sept. 1 they had applied for a state absentee ballot, but by Oct. 1 had not received it.

To name commission

Servicemen within the country would be required to use state absentee ballots.

A War Ballot Commission composed of the Secretary of War, Secretary of the Navy and War Shipping Administrator would distribute the federal ballots overseas, collect them and send them to the states.

The President “cannot shirk his responsibility,” Mr. Bridges said.

The boys in the foxholes of Italy, in the swamps of the South Pacific, on the ships plowing the seven seas, in planes in the air, will demand an accounting – and get one!

Senator Bridges claimed the pending bill “will enable every member of the Armed Forces, who is otherwise eligible, to cast a ballot in the November elections.” He added:

A barrage of misrepresentation has been leveled at opponents of the federal ballot.

Fourth term fear

Administration supporters such as Chairman Theodore F. Green (D-RI) of the Senate Elections Committee, and Senators Carl A. Hatch (D-NM), Scott Lucas (D-IL) and Joseph f. Guffey (D-PA) shared the belief the new measure would reduce the soldier vote.

Senator Guffey, the Senate’s most outspoken advocate of a fourth term for President Roosevelt, declared that fear of a fourth term and opposition to Negro voting were behind much of the opposition to a simplified federal ballot proposal.

Guffey calls it steal

Senator Guffey said:

Between those who are afraid to let our colored citizens and poor white citizens vote at all, and those who are afraid to let the soldiers vote for fear they will vote for Roosevelt, the Congress, if this bill becomes a law, is perpetrating the greatest organized election steal since 1876, when the Republican Party were the beneficiaries of the presidential election which was stolen from Samuel J. Tilden.

In the 1876 election, Tilden apparently had won, but the electoral votes of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Oregon were contested. An electoral commission of five Senators, five House members and five Supreme Court justices decided, 8–7, that the electoral votes of these states should go to Rutherford B. Hayes, and Hayes was elected.

Senator Guffey said members of the Armed Forces would be entitled to:

…resent strongly and to combat the policies which may be adopted as a result of this outrageous fraud and deliberate betrayal of democracy.

Another march on Washington

Recalling the 1932 Bonus March on Washington, Senator Guffey predicted that veterans of World War II:

…may come to Washington and demand an accounting from a Congress which refused to allow them to exercise the right to vote and denied them a voice in the selection of federal officers who will adopt the policies which will govern the veterans of this war on their return to civil life.

He said:

This measure is not a service voting bill. It is a bill to disenfranchise 12 million American citizens in the Armed Forces.