The Pittsburgh Press (March 28, 1944)
Trial balloon election held in Oklahoma
GOP tries to win Democratic district
Muskogee, Oklahoma (UP) –
Voters in Oklahoma’s traditionally Democratic 2nd district today chose between a Republican and Democratic Congressman in a hotly-contested special election that may prove a trial balloon for both parties.
The race for the House seat vacated by Democrat Jack Nichols was climaxed last night with speeches by Senator Alben W. Barkley, Democratic Majority Leader, on behalf of his party’s candidate, W. G. Stigler, and Senator E. H. Moore (R-OK), who spoke for the GOP nominee, E. O. Clark.
Cooperation stressed
Mr. Barkley, who spoke here and at Okmulgee yesterday, called for the election of a Congressman “who is in sympathy with the great objectives” of the administration and said that Congress must in future months give Mr. Roosevelt “a maximum amount of cooperation.”
Mr. Moore attacked the record of the Democratic Party, repeating his charges that bureaucracy threatens the foundations of American political and business life.
Mr. Barkley criticized Republicans for attempting “to mobilize every sore toe into an army of opposition,” by capitalizing on such war inconveniences as rationing, price control and heavy taxes, and branded his party’s opponents “diehards,” “obstructionists,” and “lying partisans” who “rail out as if they were permanent inhabitants of a national wailing wall.”
Elected only one GOP
The 2nd district gave Mr. Nichols a 20,000-vote majority over Mr. Clark in the 1940 campaign, but this was pared to 385 ballots in 1942 when Mr. Clark was again the Republican candidate.
The district has elected only one GOP representative. That was in the Republican landslide of 1920 when Miss Alice M. Robertson of Muskogee defeated the incumbent by 209 votes.