Election 1944: Pre-convention news

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: Willkie runs true to form as question mark in GOP

By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Cleveland, Ohio –
True to form, Wendell Willkie provided the country with a couple of sensations in one day by his devastating defeat in the Wisconsin presidential primary and his almost-immediate recognition of that personal political debacle by his withdrawal from the race for the Republican nomination upon which he had set his heart.

This double-barreled action created two interesting situations, on as to the nomination, the other as to Mr. Willkie himself.

The way seemed clear for the nomination of Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York and, some were forecasting confidently, on the first ballot. For, in the same primary, the young governor topped off the popular swing toward him among rank-and-file Republicans, matched by general support among organization leaders so hostile to Mr. Willkie, by beating the 1940 candidate on his own selected field and without raising a finger.

What about Willkie?

What about Mr. Willkie?

From his own statement of renunciation last night and from sources close to Mr. Willkie, the immediate situation is about as follows:

He will cease activity looking toward the nomination but he will confine himself to a discussion of principles. He believes the Republican Party must adopt to win and will indulge in no personalities, will attack no other candidate.

After convention

What he does after the convention will depend upon the nominee and the platform.

If he does not approve the candidate and the platform, he has three courses open:

• He could bolt the party and lead an independent movement.

• He could refuse to support the nominee and campaign actively against him, either independently or in an open alliance with the Democrats.

• He could refuse to support the nominee and do nothing – “Take a walk,” as Al Smith once expressed it.

He’s not saying

He is not saying. He is not saying on purpose. He wants to keep the GOP leaders worried for the effect it may have on them in chartering a course that would be satisfactory to him. He still has a considerable nuisance value. He knows that.

He has stepped now into the role so long occupied by William Jennings Bryan in the Democratic Party and the late Senator William E. Borah of Idaho in the Republican Party – the man always in the wings, ready to step out and raise hell at inconvenient moments.

Both those remained in their respective parties.

Little room in party

Mr. Willkie is not leaving himself much room in which to move around in the Republican Party. He sees hardly anyone beside himself who would fit the prescription he has written in his Wisconsin campaign. Governor Dewey does not seem to suit him, and certainly not Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio.

Governor Saltonstall of Massachusetts, or perhaps Senator Burton of Ohio, might satisfy him, but they are distinctly dark horses, and LtCdr. Stassen, whose general political philosophy is akin to that of Mr. Willkie, is also in the dark horse class. Mr. Willkie is feeling somewhat resentful at Cdr. Stassen, once a close ally and ex-Governor of Minnesota, who ran ahead of him in Wisconsin.

Mr. Willkie is going to be hard to satisfy.

[NormanStewart]

Roosevelt-Willkie ticket is rumored

Boston, Massachusetts (UP) –
The Boston Post, in a dispatch from Washington, said today that some political observers predict that President Roosevelt would propose Wendell Willkie as the vice-presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket. The Post said the idea was to form a coalition government while the war was on and for settlement of the peace.

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Ely calls Democrats

Boston, Massachusetts –
Former Massachusetts Governor Joseph B. Ely announced today that the state’s anti-Roosevelt Democrats will hold a mass meeting here next Thursday in preparation for the April 25 presidential primaries in which 50 Ely-for-President delegates and alternates will appear on the ballot.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Willkie’s opportunity

Wendell Willkie’s withdrawal as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is a bow to the inevitable. He chose to make the Wisconsin primary, in which he was the only active candidate, a personal test. Crushing defeat was the result. As he admitted last night with commendable candor: “It is obvious now that I cannot be nominated.”

He says:

I earnestly hope that the Republicans will nominate a candidate and write a platform which really represents the views which I have advocated and which I believe are shared by millions of Americans. I shall continue to work for these principles and policies for which I have fought during the last five years.

As an American, he knows the meaning of sportsmanship. As a politician, he knows the public has no use for a poor loser.

This defeat is at once a test of his character and a new opportunity. In losing his chance to be the Republican nominee, Mr. Willkie by good sportsmanship may get a better chance to serve the ideals he professes. Now that the personal ambition barrier has been removed, the people may hear him more readily than ever. If he believes in his crusade enough to serve in the ranks, he may yet achieve in another way the results and the popularity he missed.

He has been fighting against the administration’s excesses and failures on the one hand, and against “economic Toryism and narrow nationalism” on the other. Well, that fight goes on. It will go on with or without Mr. Willkie.

But Mr. Willkie can help in the fight. He can help very much, for he has a great deal to give. We hope he will.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (April 7, 1944)

GOP rivals scramble for Willkie vote

Governor Bricker first to woo supporters

Washington (UP) –
The scramble for the Republican presidential support cast loose by Wendell L. Willkie was underway today with Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio the first in the field.

Governor Bricker, the only remaining announced candidate among the top contenders, told the Indianapolis Press Club last night that Mr. Willkie’s withdrawal would intensify his own campaign for delegates to the GOP National Convention at Chicago late in June.

Whether Governor Bricker can assemble enough strength before the convention to outstrip Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, generally accepted as frontrunner at the moment, remained problematical.

Johnston mentioned

Meanwhile, the name of Eric A. Johnston, president of the Chamber of Commerce, was projected into the picture as a possible dark horse contender.

Mr. Johnston’s name was suggested by a New England Senator, a supporter of Mr. Willkie’s policies on international affairs. He said he had been sounded out recently by influential persons on his attitude toward the Chamber of Commerce president.

Some believed that Mr. Willkie, instead of accepting Governor Dewey, might get behind the candidacy of someone with a foreign policy more nearly like his own, such as LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen, who was his 1940 convention floor manager, or a dark horse such as Mr. Johnston.

Appeal of winner

There was some argument that a large segment would fall to Governor Dewey because of his leading opposition and the “human desire to ride a winner.” But this was countered by the contention that some of the Willkie supporters would never side with what they consider the isolationist elements that have joined in backing the New York Governor.

Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-MI), the Senate’s principal advocate of Gen. Douglas MacArthur for the nomination, insisted that the convention will be dominated by uninstructed delegates and “the result, therefore, still is in the laps of the gods.”

Senator Vandenberg, now in Florida, said the Wisconsin primary showed “a spectacular testimonial to his [Dewey’s] 1944 popularity,” but he believed Gen. MacArthur’s showing likewise was “remarkable, with the candidate not only silent but 10,000 miles away.”

Pace-setter Dewey has ‘no comment’

Albany, New York (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey sidestepped questions regarding his presidential aspirations at his first press conference since Wendell L. Willkie’s withdrawal from the GOP nomination race.

He added:

I have discussed that subject so many times that my position in it is entirely clear. There won’t be any comment on any political question. I’m wholly engaged in attempting to dispose of some 900 bills left by the Legislature.

Governor Dewey likewise declined comment on a statement by Mayor Theodore R. Keldin of Baltimore that Governor Dewey was a “100% candidate.” Mr. Keldin’s statement was made following a visit with the Governor in New York City.

Bricker prepares to press campaign

Indianapolis, Indiana (UP) –
Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio today prepared to redouble “my efforts to fully inform the nation of my position on all the important questions confronting the people of the country today.”

Governor Bricker said later in Chicago he does not believe Wendell Willkie will bolt the Republican Party. At a press conference, he said he was “fairly certain” Mr. Willkie would not form a third party or return to the Democratic Party.

Governor Bricker, making his initial bid for support of the Hoosier delegation at the Republican National Convention, spoke at the Press Club last night shortly after Indiana GOP leaders indicated they would support Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York for the presidential nomination.

He said:

I am convinced that the Republican convention will be a deliberative one and that it will select as the Republican nominee the man that it determines represents the thinking of the Republicans of the entire country, and the man who can defeat in November the New Deal philosophy of government.

I have in the past few months spoken before hundreds of interested groups of Republicans and real Democrats alike in the East, South and Midwest, and in the next two weeks will carry my campaign to the Far West.

[NormanStewart]

I DARE SAY —
Travesty

By Florence Fisher Parry

Wendell Willkie is through. That’s what people are saying, the stunned ones and the gloating ones alike.

The Republican Party does not want him. Four years ago, it did. Four years ago, 22,304,755 people voted for him – the greatest number of people who ever cast their votes for any one man, except Franklin D. Roosevelt, for President. No Republican total for any elected President had ever been so high.

But that was four years ago. How could an honest man, a forthright and outspoken man, not afraid to speak the unpopular truth, think for a moment that he could last four years?

Now he is through at 52 years. He finds himself repudiated, denied, unwanted by American people who four years ago whipped themselves into a frenzy of determination that he was to be their President.

It is an American trait. It can happen only here. It is one of the oldest traits in human nature, but elsewhere it has not the opportunity to function so unimpededly. Only here, only in this free, unbridled land, can fickleness function with such utter ruthlessness.

Suicide

There are those, of course, who even now are saying he brought it on himself. He would not listen. And they are speaking truly. That is so. Wendell Willkie is an unmanageable man. His party could not manage him. Even the small and dedicated coterie of disciples who were so willing to work and die for him could not manage him.

Always there were those who were saying to him, “But Wendell, you can’t afford to do this and you cannot afford to say that.”

Looking back upon it now, one might have known he was bound to fail, for, realist though he was, he possessed one fatal trait. He believed with an almighty passion in the American people’s basic common sense; and that belief led him into making the fatal mistake of putting that common sense to too severe a test. He overestimated our intelligence. He lost out because he believed us faithful.

I knew. I knew on the last day of March what would happen in that Wisconsin primary. I knew it by a simple token. This is how and why I knew it:

I was standing by my window looking down at the shoppers. The streets were as crowded as they had been on Christmas Eve. Swarms of people were jamming into the stores and emerging from them heavy with bundles. The streetcars sagged with their human loads. The restaurants were packed. No merchant, no restauranteur, no salesgirl, no policeman had ever known such an Easter shopping frenzy. It was the day before the new tax on luxuries went into effect.

The nightclubs and hotels could not understand such Lenten business! For this, dear reader, was Lent in wartime, on the zero hour of our Allied invasion in Europe. Lent. Invasion. And a frenzied spending spree. And the Red Cross couldn’t meet its quota.

And there was Wendell Willkie up in Wisconsin, pumping his heart out hoarsening his voice again, trying to be heard, trying to make them listen, telling them what they were going to be in for in sacrifice and taxes and post-war burdens. Warning them. Telling them the truth. Exhorting them to face and prepare for what was to follow the war and its crushing, unavoidable, unending cost. Trying to sell them the fantastic idea that I-am-my-brother’s-keeper. Trying to sell them a map of One World.

Campaigning like that! Can you beat it? Pumping his heart out, ruining his chances, killing himself, this American, this man Willkie!

The great loss

Well, they say he had it coming to him. Didn’t he know when to shut up? Would he never know what was good for him?

Look at that man Dewey now, for example. Close-mouthed, noncommittal, Tom Dewey. Now there’s a candidate for you… a man who knew how to avoid taking risks, a man so slick that he couldn’t make a damaging statement or offend a voter! Tom Dewey, our Republican No. 1 prospect for the office of the President of the United States. A wonder boy. The Manhattan go-getter. The GOP’s pet, now.

But I and millions of others are unreconciled. We have not so many great men in this world that we can afford to render one impotent for the work that is ahead.

His prophetic warning should burn into our hearts, pound at our ears, and give our minds no peace, the fearless and honest speech of a man who knows no fear who will not be intimidated, who counts his country’s welfare greater than his own. And who in a moment of his acknowledged defeat, stands still among the great Americans we have today.

[NormanStewart]

‘All or nothing,’ Bricker says of his presidential campaign

Ohioan shuns second place, says main concern is defeat of New Deal policies
By S. Burton Heath

Columbus, Ohio –
John W. Bricker, Ohio’s first Republican three-term governor, says that he is after all or nothing. He isn’t interested in the GOP’s vice presidential nomination.

He told me:

I’m a candidate for the nomination for President – and nothing else.

Back in his office between campaign trips, Governor Bricker had just three days between a nine-day tour just ended and a projected 15-day swing to the Pacific Coast.

Leaning back in his chair, puffing a light brier pipe, he was deliberately positive in expressing dislike for the entire New Deal philosophy, to which, he said, everything that has been is wrong, and should be changed. But he declined to discuss nomination, or their qualifications his rivals for the Republican nomination, or their qualifications or their philosophies.

He said:

I’m concerned only with my own effort to build up the Republican Party, to strengthen its position, to implant my ideas in the ranks of the party’s leadership.

I’m more concerned over defeating the New Deal and its trend toward absolutism than I am in becoming President myself. I’ll join any of the other candidates for nomination in building up the party and carrying its position to the country.

That was when – reminding him of a Washington news poll that counted him out for the presidential nomination. But mildly suggested his availability for second place – I inquired if he would consent. The answer was calm but firm.

In an attempt to get Governor Bricker’s platform boiled down into tabloid, I asked him if he would tell me first, in 1-2-3 order of importance, the things he had against the Roosevelt administration, and then, as to each, what he would do to rectify the conditions of which he disapproved.

The answers fail to consider some things which many persons consider issues. But I present, briefly, Governor Bricker’s answers, on the theory that both what he said and what he left unsaid are significant in testing his candidacy.

His first complaint was:

There’s too much concentration of power in the federal government. That takes in blanket authorizations to administrative boards, blank check appropriations, expansion of regimentation, etc.

Congress subordinated

In the second place, too much power has been taken over by the executive, subordinating Congress, relegating the states to an inferior role, and there has been too much reckless expenditure of money on non-war purposes.

The great number of appointments by one man to the federal bench, for adherence to the New Deal philosophy of government, creates a tendency to overbalance the judgment of the courts in favor of a particular philosophy of government.

In international affairs, the people have been kept in the dark – were before the days of the war – as to the seriousness of the situation in the Pacific, which it now appears the administration knew something about and should have known completely.

If Americans had known

If the American people had known, they would have demanded that we make Japan comply with her international obligations, and that we stop selling munitions to those who would use them against us.

What can be done about it?

I’d cut the expanded personnel of bureaucracy. I’d call into service in the various divisions of the government the best men of the nation. The administration of domestic affairs ought to be carried out through the various Cabinet departments.

Would limit censorship

I would do away with censorship except insofar as it affects the conduct of the war, and then take the judgment of military leaders and not of politicians.

I asked Governor Bricker to enumerate bureaus which he would eliminate or reduce, but he declined on the ground that to name some would be to concede the invulnerability of others, and would bring down upon him the fire of those named.

As for the New Deal social program, Governor Bricker said that the SEC should be continued, but made into an agency for helping good business while restricting bad business; that he would not touch either the Wagner Act or social security at present, though the former, he thinks, may have to be amended after the war.

Social Security

He would resist any further attempts to put Social Security on a national basis, because he believes that the closer it is kept to the people, the better it will function.

There will have to be a stable financial basis after the war, with a balanced budget as soon as possible. Control over the value of the dollar must be taken from the hands of the executive. Business ought to be given some protection in a stable currency and stable taxation, to make possible its return to a peacetime basis.

And finally:

The first duty of any administration is to prosecute the war. So far as I am concerned, there would be no shift in leadership. I have the greatest confidence in Adm. King and in Gen. Marshall, whom I know very well. There must be no politics in the conduct of the war.

[NormanStewart]

He talked himself out –
Stokes: Ups and downs of Willkie are amazing political saga

Professionals never quite trusted him, and rank-and-file lost admiration
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Columbus, Ohio –
Consider the case of Wendell L. Willkie, one of the most dramatic, amazing and intriguing in American political history.

Four years ago – resigned from the presidency of a great electric power corporation – nominated for President by the Republicans in the political miracle of the 20th century – recipient of 22 million votes though he had never served in public office nor even run for one.

A new phase is due

Why?

A Willkie phase Has ended, and we may inquire what happened before another begins – and one is sure to begin.

Essentially Mr. Willkie turned out to be the kind of a guy that regular Republican politicians just couldn’t understand or tolerate, and this opinion seems to have percolated down to the rank and file, proving that politicians must have a sure instinct after all.

Suspicious of him

They were suspicious of him from the start, such a free-swinging, free-talking man, but he looked so good to them standing up there with his hair mussed and his arms waving – and they just had to have somebody who could beat That Man in the White House.

They soon found out he was not their kind. He wouldn’t take their advice. He wouldn’t do the political thing. They sent Joe Martin, House Republican floor leader, to Colorado Springs, where Mr. Willkie had retreated to do his heavy thinking, to tell him for the party’s sake not to come out for the draft bill in his acceptance speech.

He listened to Joe. Then he came out for the draft act.

Wendell ‘in step’

Republicans in Congress, for the most part, went the other way. Everybody was in step but Wendell.

They so wanted him to be nice to the politicians. He snubbed the party elders, like Herbert Hoover and Alf M. Landon, and he snubbed the little fellows who handled the precincts and the wards, the counties and the cities. He just didn’t care much for the political breed.

He was defeated. And naturally, they blamed him.

Can’t keep quiet

He might have settled down and kept quiet. But no, look at him. He goes rushing off to England, some sort of an emissary for President Roosevelt. Just a Democrat, they whispered. Then he comes home and proves it to them by coming out for President Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease bill.

That’s not enough. He goes gallivanting around the world then – yep, just an emissary of Franklin D., just a Democrat, and he hobnobs with dictators and prime ministers, away out of range of the lowly politician.

Gradually the professional politicians dropped away from him. He knew it. So, he would go out among the people and talk to them. He’d show the politicians.

Politicians right

But the folks didn’t rally around. The politicians were right. He talked and he talked, he pleaded and he pleaded. The people weren’t moved.

One man on a train looked up from his newspaper and chortled: “The more he talks, the lower he gets.”

For he’s a great human being, generously endowed with what is commonly called guts.

[NormanStewart]

Dewey polls half of Wisconsin GOP

Milwaukee, Wisconsin (UP) –
More than 50% of the 260,468 Republican votes cast in the Wisconsin primary election Tuesday were for Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, unofficial returns from 2,845 of the state’s 3,075 precincts showed today.

The total number of Dewey votes was131,740, the number cast for Wisconsin Secretary of State Fred Zimmerman, the leading candidate for delegate-at-large. Mr. Zimmerman’s total was more than the combined number of votes cast for the leading candidates for delegate-at-large for LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen (former Governor of Minnesota), Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Wendell L. Willkie.

The total Republican vote was 61% of the 426,996 ballots cast by both sides in the precincts reported.

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Willkie to close his headquarters

New York (UP) –
Wendell L. Willkie, declaring that he felt “fine,” arrived in New York today and announced that his national campaign headquarters would be closed “immediately” as the result of his withdrawal from the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Mr. Willkie, accompanied by his wife, laughed off any specific questions as to his future political moves.

Asked whether he intended to make any political trips or speeches in the near future, Mr. Willkie said:

Not that I know of. I’m going to devote all of my time to running my office and practicing law. This is my home, you know.

Mr. Willkie, for the most part, appeared less jovial than usual and appeared tired.

Asked whether he had any plans to meet with Governor Thomas E. Dewey, now considered the leading Republican candidate, Mr. Willkie laughed and declined to answer.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: No circus

Republican Chairman Harrison Spangler has urged political convention fans to stay away from the party’s Chicago meeting in June. With travel and hotel accommodations what they are, the request will probably be heeded. With no cheering, booing, whistling bedlam in the packed galleries this year, the distinction between the elephant as the symbol of the GOP and the elephant as the symbol of the circus is going to be painfully apparent.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (April 8, 1944)

Secret diplomacy scored by Bricker

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio, Republican presidential aspirant, denounced secret diplomacy as un-American in an address here last night in which he said “the public must be advised of the facts.”

He told a Union League Club audience:

If, before the war, the people had been advised what was happening in the Pacific, the executive branch and Congress would have been forced to take adequate action.

The administration either knew or should have known what was taking place and if it had acted in time, Pearl Harbor never would have happened. It is not enough that the facts are known in Washington, but the people also must know them.

Mr. Bricker, en route to the West Coast on a campaign tour, also urged:

…the retention of strategic bases and installations throughout the world which we have built with our sweat and substance and for which we have fought with the blood and lives of our boys.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Britain worries about Willkie

London reports that the British are concerned over Wendell Willkie’s withdrawal and its effect on the presidential election. So far, however, their officials have observed the ban against comments which could be interpreted here as foreign interference in American affairs.

Nevertheless, as long as there is no British effort to fish in our political waters, their interest is as legitimate as it is inevitable. Their future and ours are closely interrelated in war and peace. They are watching the Willkie development for the same reason we are observing reports that Anthony Eden will or will not resign as Foreign Minister, and that he is being groomed as Prime Minister Churchill’s successor.

In the Willkie case, however, the British apparently are not only interested but worried. That is unnecessary. It is based on a misunderstanding. Oversimplification, confusion of old labels with present realities, and propaganda have given the British the absurd notion that American cooperation in world affairs depends on the election of either Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Willkie.

If they wish to read future American foreign policy in terms of personalities, a rather superficial pastime, they should get the personal record straight. Four years ago, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Willkie, as candidates, and Mr. Dewey and Mr. Taft, as aspirants for the nomination, all publicly favored keeping the United States out of war if possible. Since Pearl Harbor, all have favored all-out war for total victory.

On post-war policy, all favored the Senate resolution of last November, which incorporated the Moscow four-power pact for:

…establishing at the earliest practicable date a general international organization, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states, and open to all such states, large and small, for the maintenance of international peace and security.

But the British overestimate the power of a President to dictate American foreign policy. The man in the White House, whatever his personality or platform or party, cannot move beyond Congressional and public opinion – as Woodrow Wilson and others have learned to their sorrow.

America’s world policy, and relations with Britain, during the next four years will be determined by American public opinion on the basis of the success or the failure of present American efforts to achieve the international organization and democratic peace pledged by the Atlantic Charter and Moscow Pact. The overwhelming passage of the Fulbright and Connally resolutions proves that both parties and the American public are committed to that policy.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (April 9, 1944)

Both parties plan drives to get out vote

Migratory workers and women wooed

Washington (UP) – (April 8)
Republican and Democratic leaders, confronted by reports of possibly light balloting in the November elections, tonight directed “get-out-the-vote” campaigns at two groups capable of influencing the outcome of the White House race – women and migratory war workers.

The importance of these groups is heightened by uncertainty among party chieftains over the soldier vote.

A GOP spokesman estimated that 85 million civilians would be eligible – but not necessarily qualified – to vote in the coming elections.

GOP woos women

In an obvious nod to the new regard with which women are regarded by the Republican Party, a special committee appointed by National Chairman Harrison E. Spangler has agreed to recommend to the party’s nominating convention – which opens in Chicago June 26 – that there be equal representation of men and women on the Resolutions Committee. The plan would place women in a position of influencing the party platform generally.

The number of migratory war workers who will cast votes is problematical and of concern to leaders of both parties. Thousands, for example, have moved from the Democratic Solid South to borderline states in the Midwest. In a close vote, their ballots would be decisive.

Difficulties faced

However, it was conceded that state laws would render some ineligible and general apathy toward registration would cut deeper into this potential vote which Democratic spokesmen say will go for President Roosevelt if he seeks a fourth term.

Republicans do not concede the possible loss of these potential voters, however, and workers in the field are actively at work in registration efforts.

It is no secret that Democratic bigwigs want as heavy a vote as possible in the presidential contest. Generally light votes are cited by the Democratic National Committee as an important reason for repeated reversals which the party has suffered at byelections since 1940.

[NormanStewart]

Primary election interest lagging

Most candidates are lying low
By Kermit McFarland

Although the primary election is only a little more than two weeks away, there is little evidence to show that more than a handful are aware of it.

Even the professional politicians are looking beyond the April 25 date and, with a scant few exceptions, the candidates are lying low.

There are no “contests” in Allegheny County, in the sense that they have developed into active fights.

Republicans in dispute

In three of the five Congressional districts, the Republican Congressional nominations are in dispute, with five candidates in each of the three districts. But even in these “races,” activity is at a minimum.

The Republicans also present one contest for a State Senate seat and contests for legislative nominations in eight of the 13 districts.

Political attention mostly looks beyond the primary to the special session of the Legislature which will convene in Harrisburg May 1 and to the Republican National Convention which starts in Chicago June 26.

Short special session

Governor Edward Martin and legislative and political leaders in both parties are apparently in accord on a soldier vote law and both sides expect the sessions to be dispatched in a minimum of time.

Unless a snag develops, the session can be completed in less than five days. By starting the soldier vote bill through one branch of the Legislature Monday, May 1, it can be sent to the Governor’s desk shortly after midnight Friday morning.

Some effort is being made to induce Mr. Martin to include other subjects in the call for the special session, but he has insisted on limiting the call to the one issue.

Two other items asked

Rep. Thomas J. Heatherington (D-Versailles Township) yesterday urged the Governor to add two items to his call, providing for action on legislation to permit municipalities to spend “post-war surplus accumulations” wherever “local emergencies arise,” and to permit local governments to buy federal war surplus property without advertising for bids.

The main topic of debate in local political circles in the presidential nomination.

While most political leaders are confident Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York will be nominated on an early ballot, there is still some fear that Mr. Dewey may decide not to be a candidate.

Little interest in Vice President

There is little interest, at the moment, in possible candidates for the nomination of Vice President, although Chief Justice George W. Maxey of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is reportedly active as a candidate for this nomination.

On the Democratic side, there is some evidence of support for Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO), chairman of the committee investigating the war effort, as a running mate for President Roosevelt. Senator Truman will speak to a meeting of the Allegheny County Motor Truck Association here Friday and will return in May to address the Democratic Jackson Day dinner.

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: Poker is made political issue in Indianapolis

GOP blamed for raid on New Dealer’s game
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Indianapolis, Indiana – (April 8)
If you are politically minded, it’s always a delight to come into these precincts, for they take their politics between meals here as well.

They like their poker, too. And when you can mix poker and politics, that’s superfine.

That’s a concoction being served up in the gossip in the lobby of the Claypool Hotel, the political hangout.

It all has to do with a police raid here a few days ago on the Claypool apartment of John K. Jennings, a Democrat, state War Manpower Commission director, who was entertaining five friends, also local bigshots, at their weekly poker party. They were all taken to police headquarters.

Poker’s ‘patron saint’

Mr. Jennings, formerly state WPA director, was pretty indignant, particularly at the rough tactics – they bashed in the door – and at the invasion of his home. He refused bond, saying he was willing to become “the patron saint of poker.”

The police captain sent them home, and the next day the judge dismissed the case. It was all a mistake – or so it was said they were looking for a well-known confidence man who was supposed to be running a game, it was explained.

But the poker fans are making this a cause celebre, and are blaming the city Republican administrations and Mayor Robert Tyndall, a former Army officer. Some say it may react badly against Republicans.

Won’t swing election

But it’s very doubtful that even a poker revolution would be enough to swing this state Democratic this fall – at least that’s what the politically wise say.

There’s one place you can get a different opinion – and quite naturally. That’s over in the Capitol in the office of Governor Henry Schricker – “Hank” they call him. The Governor, a folksy fellow and the greatest vote-getter of modern times in this state, has a right to the extreme view.

He was the only Democrat who survived the Republican avalanche four years ago.

He is being pressed to run for Senator, with the idea that maybe his name on the ballot might help the President, and maybe some way or other add up to a Democratic victory. It’s just a chance. He hasn’t announced formally yet, but it’s pretty certain he’ll run.

President stands good chance

He spun his theory of why he thinks President Roosevelt can carry the state. Wendell Willkie, he says, would run the best race in Indiana among Republicans. Mr. Willkie now is out. He says there is no real enthusiasm for either Governor Thomas E. Dewey or Governor John Bricker among the people. In the end, he thinks the people of Indiana – or enough of them – are going to decide that President Roosevelt had better be left there to finish the war and manage the peace.

A hot contest is on for the Republican senatorial nomination, to be decided at the convention in early May, between Homer Capehart, who rolled into rich on the jukebox, and 26-year-old James M. Tucker, former Indiana Secretary of State, who was recently discharged from active service as a naval lieutenant because of a wound incurred at Salerno.

[NormanStewart]

Perkins: Dewey and labor unions

By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent

Washington –
Some weeks ago, this writer reported conversations with Midwest labor leaders as meaning that Wendell Willkie had the best chance among Republican presidential possibilities of cracking the labor vote that has gone predominantly to President Roosevelt in three elections.

But now that Mr. Willkie is apparently extinguished as a possibility, opinions may be found among Washington leaders of the American Federation of Labor that Thomas E. Dewey is capable of winning considerable support from this part of the electorate. The same opinion has not been found among leaders of the CIO – that organization being apparently as determined as ever to go down the line for a fourth term.

A nationally known power in the AFL who declined to be quoted directly because of his organization’s policy of not becoming active in party politics, says:

I’ll not try to kid you – most of our people are likely to support Roosevelt again. But Dewey will have strong support among our membership.

This leader said Governor Dewey had won many labor friends through public opposition to certain “anti-labor” bills that were introduced in the last session of the New York Legislature – similar to laws which were enacted in nearly a dozen states. he declared it was largely due to the Governor’s influence that these bills were allowed to die in New York legislative committees.

Friendly to labor

The AFL leader said it will not be possible to hang an anti-labor tag on Mr. Dewey merely because of his prosecution of labor racketeers in New York City. The same thought apparently was in the mind of Thomas A. Murray, president of the New York State Federal of Labor, when he introduced the Governor at the convention of that organization last August.

Mr. Murray said of him:

As a federal prosecutor and as the District Attorney of New York County, he made a reputation for brilliant and fearless crusading in the cause of justice, which won for him the highest honor our state can bestow. As Governor of the State of New York, he has demonstrated a friendly and sympathetic attitude to the cause of organized labor and to the program of social and economic legislation to which we have dedicated ourselves.

Governor Dewey also addressed last year’s convention of the New York State CIO, and the two speeches now are being scanned for indication of the labor attitude of the unannounced candidate. Together they seem to furnish a more definite idea of the Dewey ideas on the labor subject than on some other important questions.

To the CIO, he said:

It is true that we still have labor organizations that are run along undemocratic lines. We still have instances of the misuse of union funds, of careless and slipshod accounting, or no accounting at all to the members of their hard-earned dues.

We still encounter instances of unjustified strikes, violent and unfair picketing and destructive raiding by one union of the membership of a rival union. But on the other hand, only a fool in management would wish to destroy the sense of security and usefulness which comes to workingmen when they are ably represented by honest labor leadership which believes in the American enterprise system.

Regimentation

The Governor’s AFL speech, which has been highly commended by AFL leaders, contained a statement which will please people outside the labor movement who contend that no strike, for whatever reason, can be justified when the country is in a great war. It was:

We know that winning the war is greater than the issue involved in any strike, yet it is too easy to let little issues become big issues which roll up and multiply into strikes.

To the AFL, Mr. Dewey also said:

Under the pressure of war, we have all willingly submitted to restraints by the national government which are foreign to our most vital principles… A multiplicity of federal regulations have been promulgated governing hours, wages and conditions of employment. In large measure these regulations supersede the functions of collective bargaining and take its place. They have superseded private management, too, and in some cases they have even take the plants away from the owners when they were admittedly without fault.

In time of war such an abridgement of the rights of everyone is probably inescapable, but it is a condition which can only be justified by the sacrifices of war. We are fighting to make sure that such totalitarian conditions cannot exist in time of peace.

Is this a kind of fighting with windmills? Some people in high places have already advocated that wartime controls be made a permanent part of government.

The Governor continued:

So that we shall truly regain and keep the vital freedoms for which we fight today. I invite you to join with all your vigor in the struggle to restore them at the end of the war. We can be neither free nor strong in a peacetime regimented economy. We can be both free and strong if we recover for labor and enterprise the dignity and unfettered strength which only free men can enjoy.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (April 10, 1944)

Critic praised by Roosevelt

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt recently made a gesture of good will toward one of his strongest Democratic critics – Senator Guy M. Gillette (D-IA).

In a letter dated March 10, when Mr. Gillette was determined not to seek reelection this year, the President urged him to reconsider. He asked Mr. Gillette to run again the grounds that men like him are urgently needed in the Senate.

Mr. Gillette subsequently said he had been advised by the Iowa Democratic state organization that thousands of names had been obtained on petitions on behalf of his candidacy. For that reason, he said he would run again if the people insisted.

Mr. Gillette has been antagonistic toward the administration since 1938 when Harry L. Hopkins, the President’s adviser, tried to prevent his reelection.

Recently, Mr. Gillette said he does not favor a fourth term. He has been a frequent critic of “New Dealers.”

[NormanStewart]

Willkie likely to adopt passive role

May limit talks to GOP platform
By Lyle C. Wilson

New York –
Wendell L. Willkie was reported today by his closest associates to believe that it is best for him to take no part in the selection of a Republican presidential nominee either before or during the party’s national convention in Chicago in June.

But he is determined to measure carefully the men, their records and the platform which emerge from that gathering. Prior to the convention, however, he probably will speak clearly on the type of platform he believes should be adopted.

To speak more freely

On the first weekend after his spectacular withdrawal from the presidential contest, associates described Mr. Willkie as feeling that he has recaptured his independence. Henceforth, he is expected to speak his mind even more freely than prior to last week’s Wisconsin primary which swamped his 1944 presidential aspirations.

Some weeks probably will pass before Mr. Willkie resumes discussion of political issues. His plans are understood to be to so a great deal of listening – especially to the men most prominently mentioned for the Republican nomination – and to undertake to measure them and their records against the issues of the day as he sees them.

Shuns ‘stop’ campaign

Mr. Willkie has told his friends that he does not intend to participate in any “stop” movements directed against any candidate nor to promote the candidacy of any man. but repeatedly in conversations with his friends, Willkie has said he intends to “say what I think.”

His friends were hopeful, but Mr. Willkie had few illusions during the latter weeks of his pre-convention campaign. Associates explained that Mr. Willkie had recognized for months that powerful forces in the Republican organization hoped to repudiate his candidacy.

Local organizations were generally uneasy over Willkie’s stand on post-war international affairs. But the Willkie camp feels that this doubt was stimulated to outright opposition by the organized effort of a group of powerful party leaders including Joseph N. Pew Jr. and Ernest T. Weir of Pennsylvania and the New York State and Illinois party organizations.

Dewey, Stassen backed

They say this opposition backed delegates pledged to New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey and delegates pledged to LtCdr. Harold Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, particularly in those Wisconsin districts in which no Dewey delegates were entered.

Wisconsin returns were so overwhelmingly against Mr. Willkie’s candidacy that no single issue could be cited as the central factor. But the Madison, Wisconsin, speech of Senator Joseph H. Ball (R-MN) is counted by Willkie adherents among the hardest blows struck in that campaign.

Mr. Ball was Cdr. Stassen’s manager and chief campaigner. He is reported to have told a Madison audience that his man was committed to the post-war territorial integrity of Germany – that there should be no post-war political dismemberment of that country.

[NormanStewart]

Chicago Tribune backs Gen. MacArthur

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
The Chicago Tribune today endorsed Gen. Douglas MacArthur as Republican candidate for the Presidency.

Gen. MacArthur, one of the two Republican candidates entered in the Illinois presidential preference primary Tuesday, was entered in the Illinois primary by the MacArthur-for-President Club. Gen. MacArthur did not indicate his desire to be a candidate.

Gen. MacArthur’s opponent is Riley A. Bender, former Illinois state prison warden.

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: Circuit-riding Bricker may be doing ‘a Willkie’

Talking tour through Midwest to coast has been exuberant but unimpressive
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Columbus, Ohio –
Governor John W. Bricker has become almost a stranger in this capital city.

He’s away a good deal of the time in his quest of the Republican presidential nomination. He’s just dashed off on a two-week tour that took him first to Indianapolis, then to Chicago and the West Coast.

The big, handsome fellow is working hard. He is doing on the national circuit what Wendell Willkie tried to do in Wisconsin. Thus far – and it is getting late – there is little indication that Governor Bricker is doing any better.

The Bricker campaign has all the exuberance of a campaign conducted by amateurs, which it is largely.

This is manifest, not only in their methods, but in their current reaction – or professed reaction – that the withdrawal of Wendell Willkie has helped the cause of Governor Bricker. Practical political considerations would, it seems, point in the opposite direction.

Governor Bricker was never more than a dark horse chance, in a deadlocked convention, judging from the analysis of expert politicians. The only chance for a deadlocked convention was a contest between Mr. Willkie and Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York. But Wisconsin ended Mr. Willkie’s candidacy.

Dewey, the unknown

This is not to deny that there are not still, among the GOP leaders, some who are not quite sure of young Governor Dewey. Some would like to have a nominee perhaps a little more tractable, a little less of an unknown quantity. But Governor Dewey has stepped so far out in front, not only in popularity polls but in his showing as a vote-getter in Wisconsin, that these people are hesitant to start anything.

If they were still determined to try to stop Governor Dewey, they would have to find someone to do it.

Governor Bricker doesn’t seem to have the necessary spark to set off public enthusiasm.

Taft is more likely

If the opportunity offered itself where there might be a chance to stop Governor Dewey, the candidate selected to try to job rather would be Senator Taft, runner-up to Mr. Willkie in the 1940 convention, than Governor Bricker, it is believed. He is much better grounded in national and international affairs than is Governor Bricker and enjoys more confidence for this reason.

Governor Bricker is put forward as a Midwest candidate and his appeal would be expected to lie there, to start. But in a tour which covered Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Nebraska, this writer failed to discover, either among the politicians, or among the rank and file, any noticeable enthusiasm for him.

Good governor, but…

In Ohio, his home state, he is well regarded as a governor, but most people here find it hard to consider him as a possible President in these times.

There’s been some talk of him getting the Willkie strength, whatever that is. But it is difficult to see how Governor Bricker would fall heir to any of whatever it is, considering the divergent views of the two men on almost every subject.

[NormanStewart]

Bricker pledges ‘needed platform’

Deer Lodge, Montana (UP) –
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker, campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, says he will “proceed to build a platform and conduct a campaign that will meet the need of America” because the American people “are determined to remain free and self-governing.”

Governor Bricker, who passed through here yesterday en route to Spokane and a campaign tour of the West, said Wendell L. Willkie’s withdrawal from the race for the GOP nomination, had not changed his plans or those of the Republican Party.

He criticized the administration for its “encroachment of government on private lives.”