Election 1944: Pre-convention news

americavotes1944

Change of political pace –
Roosevelt keeps hands off as ‘purged’ Senators run

By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt has apparently changed his political tactics since 1938 when he undertook to purge from the Democratic Party a number of members of Congress whom he regarded as too conservative for the New Deal.

Regardless of fourth-term intentions, Mr. Roosevelt now appears to be willing to accept Democratic Congressional candidates as primary voters select them in this presidential election year.

This attitude is accepted by some persons here as further evidence that he is reconciled to the evident determination of most of his party colleagues to draft him for another term. A man who foresees himself about to begin a campaign is not likely to undertake to read anybody out of his own party.

Senator Millard E. Tydings (D-MD) was renominated this week in a moderately spirited primary and by an overwhelming margin over his several opponents. No word from the White House challenged Mr. Tydings’ fitness to remain in the Senate this time.

Conducted personal fight

Mr. Tydings was one of four members of Congress Mr. Roosevelt himself sought to defeat in primary contests in 1938. The President conducted the fight himself against renomination of Tydings, Senator Ellison D. “Cotton Ed” Smith (D-SC), Senator Walter F. George (D-GA) and Rep. John J. O’Connor (D-NY). Senators Tydings, Smith and George were triumphantly renominated and they are up again this year.

Another whom the White House sought to purge in 1938 was Senator Guy M. Gillette (D-IA). The job was handed to Harry L. Hopkins – then, as now, a close personal and political friend of Mr. Roosevelt’s. Mr. Hopkins was born in Iowa and he backed a candidate against Mr. Gillette in the Iowa Democratic primaries. But Mr. Gillette came through with votes to spare. This year, Mr. Gillette has received a presidential blessing.

Transcontinental journey

Mr. Gillette’s primary comes this year June 5. South Carolina votes Aug. 29 and Georgia’s primary comes July 4.

Mr. Roosevelt made his extraordinary incursion into Democratic primaries in July 1938 in a transcontinental journey which broke political seismographs throughout the country.

Mr. Roosevelt was greatly moved in his direct and indirect action against various Democrats in 1938 by resentment of their opposition to his attempt to reorganize the Supreme Court by legislative process. But after the coast-to-coast journey was completed, one of his closest associates explained that the long-range objective was “control of the Democratic Party by the liberal elements in preparation for the 1940 campaign.”

“That means, naturally,” he said, “reducing the strength of the conservatives.”

For whatever it is worth, some men regarded as too conservative for renomination in 1938 apparently will not be opposed on that or any other grounds this year.

The Pittsburgh Press (May 4, 1944)

americavotes1944

Politics charged in ration move

Washington (UP) –
Lifting of ration restrictions from all but the better cuts of beef today provoked the cry of “politics.”

“The administration is preparing for the fall elections by a program of appeasement,” was the way Rep. August H. Andersen (R-MN) put it. It was “purely a political move,” he added.

The Congressional farm bloc continued to criticize the lowered hog support price. Senator Clyde M. Reed (R-KS) said he and other farm state Senators were “on the warpath” until prices were restored. War Food Administration officials said, however, the feed situation would not warrant any such move, since it would divert corn from war industries to hog troughs.

americavotes1944

Stokes: New Dealers heartened by wins in South

Roosevelt’s true strength not shown
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Birmingham, Alabama –
Any lingering doubt about the standing of President Roosevelt and the New Deal along the Southern front was dispelled by the victories here and in Florida of Senators Lister Hill and Claude Pepper.

Everything in the unexpurgated edition of the Southern political catalog was hurled at the New Deal Senators, including wads of big money and the racial issue.

For that reason, the effect of their victories will spread over the country, reviving the hopes of Democrats and New Dealers for success in the presidential election.

Republicans were not pleased by the Alabama-Florida returns, the United Press reports. Senator Homer Ferguson (R-MI) said:

There are still a lot of people who won’t vote against Santa Claus, although there aren’t so many as there used to be.

Big anti-New Deal interests elsewhere had anxious eyes on this state and Florida and there is evidence that they had their finger in the situation through absentee-owned holdings.

But those who work in the mines and mills still have the most votes.

Both Senators knew they had been through a tough fight. Their margins were not too comfortably large. They learned that there is a substantial percentage of their constituencies dissatisfied with New Deal domestic trends.

Largely anti-vote

Neither Senator had particularly attractive or effective candidates in opposition, and it was largely an anti-vote.

In assessing the strength of this protest vote, however, it must be kept in mind, in trying to apply it as a formula outside the south, that the vote in both states is not truly representative of the whole people. This is especially true in Alabama, where the poll tax disenfranchises many thousands of voters. Florida has no poll tax and therefore cast a much larger vote, though it has only two-thirds as many people as this state.

Stayed at home

The vote here in Alabama was light. Farmers are behind with their work here, and apparently many of them stayed at home Tuesday.

President Roosevelt’s personal popularity in both states undoubtedly had an appreciable effect. Both Senators capitalized it to the limit, that and the war. Yet their vote did not represent by any means the full Roosevelt strength.

Those who deplored injection of the racial issue in the campaigns are hopeful that the defeat of those who raised it will minimize it in politics hereafter elsewhere in the South.

americavotes1944

Editorial: More of same

Them-what-has-gits seems to be the rule in the primaries. Fourth-term advocates won in Florida and Alabama, while in South Dakota the Dewey supporters beat the Stassen boys. Of course, the leadership of Mr. Dewey and Mr. Roosevelt is such – despite the fact that neither is an avowed candidate – that this week’s primaries could not have made much difference.

In the case of Mr. Dewey, the South Dakota Republican primary indicates the bandwagon is rolling so fast that a first ballot nomination is probable and that even most of the usual favorite-son ritual may be dispensed with.

The weak Stop-Roosevelt movement within the Democratic Party had its best chance in Florida and Alabama. Senators Pepper and Hill are New Deal symbols and made their primary campaigns as such. In addition to the anti-bureaucracy cry, the opposition raised the race issue in a particularly dirty way. But not even the usually-surefire “white supremacy” appeal was strong enough to rout the administration forces.

Most of the Democratic politicians who dislike the President think he has made it impossible to build up any other candidate at this late date – that he is their best bet in November. But he may be their best vote-getter and still be not good enough.

The Pittsburgh Press (May 5, 1944)

americavotes1944

In Washington –
Republican charges meat ration lifting is ‘purely political’

Congressman Andresen sees restrictions made even tighter if Roosevelt wins again

Washington (UP) –
Accusing the administration of playing “politics” with rationing, Rep. August H. Andresen (R-MN) predicted today that almost all rationing will be lifted before the November elections and then be made tighter than ever if the “New Deal elects its fourth-term candidate.”

He charged in a speech prepared for delivery on the House floor that the new OPA order ending rationing of all meat except certain beef cuts were “purely political” and motivated by either of two factors:

  • To “remove the odor” of the seizure of Montgomery Ward properties by military force, or

  • “Political expediency properly timed to end food rationing a few months before the presidential elections” Nov. 7.

More drastic later

Mr. Andresen said other items he expected to be removed from rationing before the elections were beef steak, sugar, butter, canned fruits, gasoline, fuel oil and auto tires, but added:

I am convinced that should the New Deal elect its fourth term candidate Nov. 7, the Office of Price Administration will shortly thereafter reinstate and make more drastic all rationing policies to further regiment and socialize the economy of our country.

He said that for more than a year, beef and pork producers pleaded with OPA to lift rationing to prevent a glutted market, but the proposals, not being “geared to proper New Deal timing,” fell on “deaf ears.”

Who ordered it?

Mr. Andresen said he was especially interested in knowing who ordered Price Chief Chester Bowles “to virtually discontinue” meat rationing, in view of the fact that a national magazine just five days before circulated an article in which Mr. Bowles, discussing meat rationing, said there would be “some relief in 1945 (with luck) and possibly end when the war is over.”

Meanwhile, Food Administrator Marvin Jones hinted that steaks and beef roasts – the only meats still requiring red points – may be made point-free by fall, but warned that the present abundant supplies of food may be only temporary.

He said there is now an abundance of cattle and that as soon as the movement into processing plants is sufficient, everyone should be able to have a good supply of beef. But again, he warned that the feed shortage, and possibly bad weather, hang over the future food outlook, and pointed out that farmers are faced with labor and machinery shortages.

americavotes1944

pegler

Pegler: On the election

By Westbrook Pegler

New York –
Some of us seem to think that our British and Russian friends, as a matter of politeness, tact and good sense, ought to put out of their minds entirely the subject of the presidential election in the USA this year or, if that is impossible, to say nothing about it.

This is asking too much, because this decision of the American people is very important to them as well as to us.

Naturally, they favor President Roosevelt, because he has been extremely cooperative since the fall of France and before, and they know him well and are pretty sure what he will do.

Tom Dewey they know only by reputation, and he might have some new ideas which would trim some of Mr. Roosevelt’s open-handed generosity to the rest of the world and might want to get positive commitments from our allies as to what we are to get back for what we give.

He is definite where Mr. Roosevelt is vague and would want to put something down in writing in place of the emotional, political generalities exchanged hitherto by men whose word is not necessarily binding on their peoples after they die or lose office, such as Mr. Churchill’s gaudy promises of everlasting cooperation given at an hour when things were going very badly for Britain and he had to do a job of salesmanship.

Communist intrusion

This interest is not an intrusion in our domestic politics, except in the case of the Communists. Naturally, they will raise a fuss for the President because he is so good to them on the home front, permitting them to dirty up our labor relations, and they can be sure that if and when Governor Dewey should take over, he would give the entire government a thorough delousing of the fellow travelers.

Nor do I accept as a fact the pretense that the international Communist organization has been dissolved or that Stalin has abandoned the old custom, admitted in our treaty of recognition, of maintaining agents among us to promote his interests. It is just that this is a normal condition among us, encouraged by the New Deal for all these years, and not a special impudence in this election year.

The Communists are gluttons for humiliation. Stalin boots them around, slams doors on them and leaves them out on a limb every few weeks, but they love the guy with the suffering submission of a drunkard’s dog and whimper for more of the same.

So far, we have always handled this Communist interference like an easy infield out, and their noisy support of Mr. Roosevelt’s more outrageous moves, such as the Montgomery Ward case, probably makes more votes for Governor Dewey than for their man.

Churchill’s experience

Churchill is one who really knows what foreign interference is. He was a victim of it himself back in the ‘30s when his anti-Nazi potboilers pecked out in the role of journalist had earned him a high priority on Hitler’s blacklist and he couldn’t get anything to do in the government lest this be taken by the Führer as a deliberately unfriendly act. He is in no position to try anything like that on us in this campaign, but there is no reason why an Englishman shouldn’t say he hopes President Roosevelt will be reelected.

That we should be sensitive about such expressions will seem inconsistent to other peoples who see us now in Italy fumbling around trying to invent some new form of government for the lower part of the boot and hear our pundits muttering about the re-education of the Germans toward democracy and freedom which they hate. We are even going to try the miracle of unifying France, whether with a club or through bribery we haven’t yet made up our minds.

Just so they say what they have to say in their own countries, our gallant allies should have our permission to sound off at will. And Republicans should be the last to complain, because such expressions are sure to favor Mr. Roosevelt and the more emphatic they are, the more sales-resistance they arouse to the detriment of their own purpose.

The Pittsburgh Press (May 6, 1944)

americavotes1944

Background of news –
The South stays in line

By Jay G. Hayden

Washington –
The prospect of Southern opposition to a fourth term for President Roosevelt, either in the Democratic nominating convention or the November election, all but vanished when Senators Claude Pepper of Florida and Lister Hill of Alabama won easy renomination this week.

Anti-Roosevelt leaders in the South, including a majority of its businessmen and editors and a fair sprinkling of top-flight Democratic officeholders, have insisted that their section was thirsting for New Deal blood if only it could find a way to express itself, short of going Republican.

The significance of the Florida and Alabama senatorial contests was that they squarely met their specification. Senator Pepper had stuck to the New Deal line, even to the point of favoring enfranchisement of Southern Negroes, and Senator Hill had done likewise, with the single notable exception of the race issue.

Participants in these primaries, both candidates and voters, all were Democrats. The sole difference was that Messrs. Pepper and Hill stood squarely on their pro-Roosevelt records and their opponents just as definitely opposed the President and all of his domestic works.

Both clear-cut winners

In a straight two-man contest against James A. Simpson, president pro tempore of the State Senate and a leading Birmingham lawyer, Mr. Hill won with approximately 55% of the votes cast.

Mr. Pepper’s victory is even more decisive in that he appears to have won the clear majority of votes necessary to insure his reelection as against four opponents. With three-fourths of the state heard from, Mr. Pepper had an overall majority of 10,000 and was 46,000 ahead of the next best runner, Judge J. Ollie Edmunds.

In addition to these senatorial results, Roosevelt adherents are crowing over the lead in Florida of delegates pledged to the President, as against a slate entered in the name of Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, and the defeat of Rep. Joe Starnes for renomination in Alabama’s 5th district.

Incomplete returns indicate that a minority of Byrd delegates may have been elected in Florida, but in light of the Pepper and Hill victories, nothing short of a Byrd sweep of the state could have given encouragement to the Southern anti-fourth term movement.

Rep. Starnes has been known chiefly as the first assistant of Rep. Martin Dies in the much-controverted Special Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities. His votes in the House have frequently been anti-New Deal.

What Alabama likes

One of Mr. Starnes’ Alabama colleagues, asked the reason for his defeat, said he thought it was not so much that his constituents disagreed with the findings of the Dies Committee as that Mr. Starnes’ name was printed so frequently in connection with it.

He said:

You know, folks down in Alabama don’t want their representatives to be bothering about any of these big national things. When they hear their man talk about things going on in New York, they just think it would be better if he tended more to getting things for his home district.

In their overall meaning, the present Southern primary results seem to beat out the notion, held by any political observers all along, that while the upper crust elements in the South are violently anti-Roosevelt, this sentiment has not penetrated very deeply into the voting mass.

Also, the administration still has its vast civilian bureaucracy, numbering into the hundreds of thousands in single states, now supplemented by the military and naval bureaucracies. There is no doubt that the Washington administration did everything in its power to marshal these forces in behalf of Mr. Hill, Mr. Pepper and all others of its recognized supporters in Alabama and Florida.

The Pittsburgh Press (May 7, 1944)

americavotes1944

Labor Party backs 4th term

New York (UP) – (May 6)
The American Labor Party dedicated itself today to the “task of assuring the nomination and election of President Roosevelt” in its 1944 national election program, chairman Sidney Hillman announced.

A 4,000-word platform, distributed by Mr. Hillman after a meeting of the Executive Committee, did not mention Vice President Henry A. Wallace, but Mr. Hillman said the party favored him for renomination.

The CIO Political Action Committee platforms and ALP policy on state and municipal issues will be drafted later, Mr. Hillman, also chairman of the CIO committee, said.

The national platform called for full labor representation at the peace table and encouragement of worldwide democracy as the goal of U.S. foreign policy.

americavotes1944

Editorial: The men lose a champion

We know nothing of the issues, personalities or the local cross currents that contributed to the defeat of Rep. Joe Starnes in the Alabama primary. Albert Raines, the man who took Mr. Starnes to the cleaners, may prove to be a good lawmaker.

Yet for one reason at least we can’t help mourning the unseating of Congressman Starnes. Mr. Starnes is the author of legislation to give war veterans and their dependents preferred status in getting government jobs after the war – which legislation contains one interesting, unique and highly courageous provision, namely: That the widowers of WACs, WAVES, WASPs, SPARS and Lady Marines shall have the same preference as that given to the widows of soldiers, sailors and male Marines – which is by way of being a very stout stand for the oft-neglected principle of equal rights for men.

Völkischer Beobachter (May 8, 1944)

Diktator Roosevelt in Nöten

vb. Wien, 7. Mai –
Aus einem an sich zunächst harmlosen Lohnkonflikt bei der großen Chikagoer Postversandfirma Montgomery Ward hat sich eine hochpolitische Affäre entwickelt, durch die die Diktaturmethoden der Roosevelt-Regierung ins Licht der Öffentlichkeit gezerrt wurden. Dies ist für die Regierung umso peinlicher, als die dem Präsidenten vom Kongreß erteilten besonderen Kriegsvollmachten (Eingreifen in Betriebe im Sinne der Aufrechterhaltung der Kriegs Produktion) am 30. Juni ablaufen und vom Kongreß verlängert werden sollen.

Die Belegschaft der Firma Montgomery Ward war wegen unerfüllter Lohnforderungen in den Streik getreten, woraufhin die Regierung, weil sie der Ansicht war, daß die Betriebsleitung eine Teilschuld an dem Konflikt trug, die Beschlagnahme des Betriebes durch das Handelsministerium anordnete. Der 69jährige Leiter der Firma verweigerte die Herausgabe der Bücher und wurde schließlich, nachdem die Regierung den Betrieb durch Truppen besetzen ließ, förmlich aus seinem Büro herausgezerrt. Dieser peinlichen Szene wohnte der Justizminister Francis Biddle persönlich bei. Die Firma legte nun vor Gericht eine Protesterklärung nieder, in der die Regierung der Überschreitung ihrer Kriegs Vollmachten unter Anwendung ungesetzlicher Methoden beschuldigt wurde. Der Präsident sei durch seine Kriegsvollmachten jederzeit in der Lage, grundlegende Verfassungsrechte zu ignorieren. Besonders unangenehm wirkte die Schlußfolgerung des Protestschreibens, in der es hieß, die logische Folge der Machtbefugnisse der Regierung wäre die Einführung des totalitären Systems.

In Erkenntnis des politischen „Dynamits,“ das in dieser Beschuldigung gegen die Regierung lag, rief die Regierung schleunigst die Truppen ab und forderte die Belegschaft der Firma zu einer geheimen Abstimmung über den Lohnstreit auf.

Im Bundeskongreß entstand durch den Zwischenfall eine derartige Erregung, daß es die Roosevelttreuen Parlamentarier vorzogen, ihren Widerstand gegen eine von der Opposition geforderte parlamentarische Untersuchung der Vorgänge aufzugeben. Die Untersuchung wird also nun wahrscheinlich stattfinden, und zwar unter dem Gesichtspunkt, ob unter solchen Umständen die Kriegsvollmachten des Präsidenten in ihrer jetzigen Form aufrechterhalten oder revidiert werden sollten.

Es ist klar, daß diese Zwischenfälle der Regierung Roosevelt im Hinblick auf die kommenden Kongreß- und Präsidentschafts- Wahlen besonders unangenehm sind. Sie werden Wasser auf die Mühlen der republikanischen Opposition gießen, die ja stets mit dem Argument operierte, daß die demokratische Regierung die freie Wirtschaft in eine totalitäre Zwangsjacke zu stecken drohe und damit den Weg zu einer Diktatur Roosevelts ebne. Wenn nun Roosevelt zum vierten Male gewählt würde, würde diese Gefahr immer größer werden.

The Pittsburgh Press (May 8, 1944)

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Roosevelt ends his vacation in Southland

Ready to defend seizure of Ward’s
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer

Washington –
President Roosevelt, rested and eager for government tasks after four weeks in South Carolina, waded into his White House deskwork today ready to defend his seizure of Montgomery Ward & Co.

He returned to Washington by train yesterday from Hobcaw Barony, Bernard M. Baruch’s 23,000-acre seacoast plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina.

His vacation was one of sunbathing, much sleep and poor fishing. White House physician VAdm. Ross T. McIntire was enthusiastic over his patient’s recuperation.

Confers with leaders

The first major White House business today was a conference with Democratic Congressional leaders – the Big Four.

Speaker Sam Rayburn, House Majority Leader John W. McCormack (D-MA), Senate Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY), and Vice President Henry A. Wallace attended the conference and Mr. Barkley later said that the President “recommended no new legislation.”

Adm. McIntire said Mr. Roosevelt was in “perfectly fine” health and, in his opinion, had thrown off all traces of the bronchial and sinus irritations which plagued him through the winter and early spring.

Hull meets him

Hardly had the special presidential train stopped rolling yesterday morning than Secretary of State Cordell Hull went abroad Mr. Roosevelt’s car to welcome him home. Mr. Hull rode with the President to the White House. They had an opportunity to canvass some of the more pressing international problems.

The President came home to a turbulent labor situation and before the week is out, he will probably have something to say on the complicated situation arising from government seizure of Montgomery Ward, an action already under Congressional investigation.

In the field of foreign affairs, he scheduled early conferences with Under Secretary of State E. R. Stettinius Jr., just back from London, and Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, who was a surprise arrival last week from his post in Moscow.

Health ‘perfectly fine’

Adm. McIntire declined to answer when asked whether, should the President decide to run for reelection, he is physically ready for a political campaign.

The doctor did say Mr. Roosevelt’s health was “perfectly fine” and that he was going to check his personal observations against medical science by giving the President a thorough physical examination within a few days. That probably will be at the Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Maryland.

This was the longest actual vacation the President has taken since entering the White House. Mr. Roosevelt left Washington April 8.

americavotes1944

All 48 governors may attend parley

Hershey, Pennsylvania (UP) –
The unprecedented situation of all 48 state governors being brought together for a study of problems facing the nation was foreseen today.

Headquarters of the 36th annual U.S. Conference of Governors, meeting here and at the State Capitol, May 28-31, announced that 45 chief executives have already decided to come.

The governors will be given an opportunity to question Bernard Baruch, advisor of the War Mobilization Office, on his plan for post-war industrial reconversion. Mr. Baruch will be a guest at a May 30 round at the capitol.

A highlight will be Memorial Day ceremonies on the Civil War battlefield at nearby Gettysburg. Addresses will be delivered by Governors Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts and J. Melville Broughton of North Carolina, representing the “Old North” and the “Old South” respectively.

At regular sessions here, Governors Thomas E. Dewey of New York and John W. Bricker of Ohio, prominently mentioned possibilities for GOP presidential nomination, will speak. Mr. Dewey will talk on “organizing the states for the future,” and Mr. Bricker will discuss “A Tax and Fiscal Policy.”

Other speakers will include Governor Earl Warren of California, keynoter of the Republican National Convention, whose conference topic will be “Industrial Reconversion.”

americavotes1944

Court’s primary ruling stands

Texas denies review of Negro voting

900px-Seal_of_the_United_States_Supreme_Court.svg

Washington (UP) –
The Supreme Court today refused to reconsider its recent decision that Negroes are entitled under the Constitution to cast ballots in state primaries – a ruling which has provoked widespread criticism throughout the South.

The reconsideration was requested by Texas, the state involved in the original decision, and the two Houston election judges who were defendants in the suit. Democratic Party leaders in Texas and several other Southern states have said they plan to find some means of barring Negroes from voting in primaries.

The high court today agreed to review lower court decisions in three other cases of general interest, and announced that it will adjourn its 1943-44 term May 29. It will sit on each of the next three Mondays, but only to hand down decisions.

The cases which the court agreed to review in the fall:

  • The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York decision in the government’s antitrust suit against the Associated Press, holding that the AP must modify its bylaws with respect to admission of new members. The high court noted “probable jurisdiction” in the government’s cross-appeal for a stronger injunction against the AP, as well as in the AP’s appeal that the lower decree be set aside.

  • The Western Union Telegraph Company’s appeal for reversal of a Southern New York U.S. District Court decision that it must not employ messengers under 16 years of age. Calling attention to the importance of its telegraphic service to the war effort, the firm said, “If forbidden to fill gaps in the ranks of younger boys, the present delays will be accentuated and prolonged.”

  • The legal efforts of Mitsuye Endo, a 22-year-old American of Japanese ancestry, to obtain release from a War Relocation Authority center at Camp Newell, California. She contended she was being deprived of her constitutional rights even though she has been classified as a “loyal” U.S. citizen.

americavotes1944

Stokes: South may delay giving Negroes vote in primary

South Carolina leads way by abolishing preliminary elections; others may follow
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Atlanta, Georgia –
The South is in a ferment over the Supreme Court’s mandate that Negroes must be allowed, under the Constitution, to vote in Democratic primary elections from which they hitherto have been barred by laws making those elections exclusively “white” primaries.

The court’s decision, specifically applicable to the Texas “white primary” law, invalidates similar statutes in other Southern states which kept Negroes from participating in the only elections in the South which count – the primaries. Because of the lack of a strong second party, primary nomination is tantamount to election.

No clear, South-wide program of action yet has evolved. A majority of the people have adopted an attitude of passive resistance.

South Carolina leads off

South Carolina has led off, as in pre-Civil War days, with enactment of a doctrine of nullification by stripping from its statutes all authorization for primaries. All this done in a bitter atmosphere and with cries of “white supremacy.” A convention system will be instituted, with Negroes excluded.

This pattern may be followed elsewhere. Meanwhile, until a decision is reached on procedure, it is obvious that dilatory tactics will be pursued. It is likely that in some cases Negroes who try to vote in remaining primaries will be challenged. This will only postpone, for the Supreme Court has decided.

The convention system, itself, will inevitably be tested before the Supreme Court.

South at crossroads

This pattern of resistance appears now the probable course unless the South should be prevailed upon by a minority which is yet small and lacks substantial organization, but numbers some courageous and influential people.

This minority seeks the Supreme Court decision as the long-awaited opportunity for the Deep South to stir itself; break its ancient chains of tradition, and boldly take the first step. It holds that those Southern states should accept the decision without further legal to-do.

Some among this minority feel the South has reached a crossroads, that the Texas case may be comparable in its ultimate effects to the Dred Scott decision, that another movement for race freedom, like that which led to the abolition of slavery, is slowly gathering momentum, and that the South might as well accept it and accommodate its thinking to it.

Alert to opportunity

Negro leaders in the South are alert to their opportunity and are active to take advantage of it.

Campaigns of registration of Negroes are going on under the prodding of Negro newspapers, Negro schoolteachers, Negro ministers. In Atlanta, the aim is to get 15,000 Negroes on the books for the July 4 primary. It is doubtful that the total will be anything like that large. Negroes are busy registering in South Carolina.

The objective in South Carolina is to vote, in a separate Negro Democratic party, in the November election. Negroes can vote in the regular election.

This Negro registration has alarmed the whites. A negligible vote is cast in South Carolina in the regular election – 12,000 two years ago – so that the whites are compelled to take precautions that they won’t be outvoted.

americavotes1944

Editorial: Welcome back, Mr. President!

The nation is happy over the President’s return to Washington after a month of richly earned vacation. He is reported tanned and rested.

During the winter and early spring, he suffered from the recurrent influenza, bronchitis and sinus infections which have afflicted so many Americans this year. But his physicians say he is now in good shape.

Hitherto the President’s great physical vigor, and ability to snap back after an illness, has been the marvel of a weary officialdom.

With the big offensive planned in Europe and the Pacific, not to mention labor troubles and other problems on the home front, the President will need every ounce of his strength.

Apart from his need for a physical rest, doubtless his absence from Washington has also given him new objectivity and perspective.

americavotes1944

Background of news –
GOP and the farm vote

By Bertram Benedict

The Republican Party’s subcommittee on a farm plank for the 1944 platform, of which Iowa Governor Hickenlooper is chairman, will meet in New York this week.

Just as the Democrats count upon the Solid South as a bedrock foundation in the 1944 campaign, the Republicans are counting upon all the predominantly rural states east of the Rocky Mountains as safe for the GOP.

Seven of the 10 states carried by Wendell Willkie in 1940 fall in this category – Maine, Vermont, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota. Of the other three Willkie states in 1940, two are classified in the 1940 census as about half rural, half urban – Colorado and Indiana. Only one is predominantly industrial – Michigan.

All the rural states carried by President Roosevelt in 1940 are in the South or the Rocky Mountains. Six non-Southern states carried by Mr. Roosevelt in 1940 are listed as half rural, half urban – Delaware, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Washington and Oregon.

1942 figures recalled

The 1940 census lists a dozen states, all of them outside of the South, as having 56% or more of their population as urban. These 12 account for 235 votes in the Electoral College, 21 short of the majority necessary to elect. Hence the importance of the farm vote or the rural vote (the rural non-farm population) in the election next November.

In the elections for Congress in 1942, the Republican Party carried more states than in the election for President in 1940. The GOP retained all its states of 1940 (in Colorado, a Democratic Senator was elected for an unexpired term, but by a narrow margin, whereas a Republican Senator was elected for a full term by a large majority, and the total Republican vote for members of the House was much larger than the total Democratic vote).

In addition, the GOP won senatorial elections or had the better of House elections in the following states which had voted for Roosevelt in 1940: Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Population shifts cited

These 15 states, together with the 10 states which Mr. Willkie carried in 1940, have a total of 274 electoral votes – eight more than necessary to elect a President.

The rub in using the 1942 figures as a basis for estimating the 1944 results is, if course, the fact of large population shifts – into the Armed Forces or into industry. In general, the rural states show a loss of population as compared with the urban or the rural-urban states.

The 1940 Republican platform endorsed benefit payments to farmers, “based upon a widely applied, constructive soil-conservation program free from government-dominated production control, but administered, as far as possible, by the farmers themselves.”

The platform promised to continue the present payments until the GOP long-range program equalizing the condition of agriculture, labor, and industry became effective. The platform came out for tariff protection for these three groups, and condemned the manner in which the administration tariff reciprocity agreements had been put into effect.

The Democratic platform, naturally claiming credit for having put the farmer on his feet, charged the Republicans with “allegiance to those who exploit him.”

americavotes1944

Dewey tightens lead position

Washington (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York has a substantial claim on first or second ballot votes of upward of 480 delegates of those so far elected to the Republican National Convention.

His nomination daily becomes more likely.

Some of Mr. Dewey’s supports insist he will have a comfortable majority of first ballot votes when the delegate-election process is completed and before the convention meets. There will be 1,058 votes in the convention.

530 votes needed

A bare majority of 530 is sufficient to nominate a Republican presidential candidate.

Formally committed Dewey delegates, however, number between 50 and 60. This year has been notable for less formal although persuasive commitments. Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio will about equal Mr. Dewey in committed delegates after tomorrow’s Ohio primaries. Mr. Bricker will get the entire 50-vote Ohio delegation. The 52 Ohio delegates to the Democratic National Convention will be for a fourth term.

Stassen receptive

LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, remains an avowedly receptive candidate and Rep. Everett Dirksen (R-IL) is campaigning but has entered no primaries. There is a long shot scattering of favorite sons.

Mr. Bricker, however, is the principal challenger to a Dewey walkover and his backers concede nothing to the New Yorker. The Ohioan is conducting the only sustained campaign and this week will speak in Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, it was disclosed that a Bricker-for-President headquarters will be opened here Thursday under the direction of Canton publisher Roy D. Moore, assisted by Arthur Leedle, former secretary to Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH).

Other states watched

Meanwhile, political interest this week turns to Ohio, West Virginia, Texas and Wyoming, where presidential preference or state primaries and conventions will afford new slants on the pre-election outlook.

Tomorrow, Ohio will nominate candidates for the Senate and 23 seats in the House and chooses delegates to the national conventions. West Virginia will also choose candidates for six House seats. Wyoming will name delegates to the national conventions, and Texas Democratic county conventions select national delegates.

Address by DNC Chairman Robert E. Hannegan
May 8, 1944

Delivered at the Democratic Jefferson Day Dinner, New York City

robhannegan

Since accepting the assignment as chairman of the Democratic National Committee last January, I have visited twenty states and talked with hundreds of American citizens in every walk of life.

Tonight, I want to report to the Democrats of New York that it is my firm conviction that the Democratic Party will win the national elections in November and that our standard-bearer will be New York’s greatest son – Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Everywhere I have been, I find that there is in the hearts and minds of the American people the resolute determination that our great President must lead us to the conclusion of the relentless war against the enemies of liberty and then utilize his leadership and vision to establish a just and lasting peace.

There is also among our people a firm conviction that the Republican Party, irrespective of the promises and the utterances of its leaders, cannot be given another opportunity to destroy or confuse the hope of mankind that we will have both victory and peace in the great war that is now reaching its climax. Yes, I am certain that the American people have learned the lesson of history. They are determined that the vision and idealism of Woodrow Wilson shall not again be submerged by the cynicism and the opportunism of another Harding.

The people of the United States are determined that Franklin D. Roosevelt shall complete the assignment which destiny has given him, and I can say to his fellow Democrats of New York that, whatever might be the purely personal desires of the President, the Democrats of the United States and millions of other Americans will demand that a great historical process be completed without interruption. And despite the malicious whispers to the contrary, I can assure you that the President is fit and ready for the fight.

I wish to make it clear that I have not discussed with the President the question of his own desires or intentions with respect to these demands of the people that he again become a candidate. I am only reporting to you my personal opinion and the conclusions which I have reached after discussions with hundreds of persons throughout the nation.

It is my personal opinion that the people of America, always the masters of their nation’s destiny, want to finish the job now on hand with the same leadership that has taken them so far towards ultimate victory.

It it my personal opinion that our people have adjudged the life-and-death risks of total war too great to entrust the responsibility of waging it from here on, to a novice or a lesser soldier of freedom.

It is my personal opinion that the mothers and fathers, the wives and sweethearts of the men serving in the Armed Forces, the workers in our factories and shipyards, the owners of farms and the enlightened leaders of our great industries, alike are coming to a single great realization: That the future, not only of their own private interests but of their country, is at stake, and that the stakes are too large, the penalty of inexperience too heavy, to shift the tasks that lie ahead to an unpracticed hand.

And it is my personal opinion, ladies and gentlemen, that we must and shall, over the next four years, retain our great leader who is able to tackle those jobs with the practiced hand – Franklin D. Roosevelt.

I wish I could tell you more. I wish I could have come to you tonight with something more to report than the will of the people, for it is true that any man, no matter how vital his services may be to his country, must himself give the final answer to the call of his party and his country.

I can say to you, and certainly I shall say to him, that both his party and his country are making the demand that there shall be continuity of leadership in this crisis. And for myself, I am convinced that whatever his judgment in the matter may be, the good of his country will come first, the safety of our people will dictate the decision that he makes.

I can go further with you tonight. I can give you an idea of the case that we, the Democratic Party organization, are preparing to lay before the President. I shall be pleased to know whether it convinces you.

We shall state at the outset our candid opinion that, through service rendered, President Roosevelt, more than any other man in America today, has earned the confidence of the American people.

I have the best reason in the world for believing that the people are ready to express that confidence overwhelmingly at the polls next November. I have talked to a considerable and representative sample of them and they have told me so.

It follows, therefore, that our President, better than any other man in America today, stands as the bulwark against opposition views which, if put into practice, would endanger our country both in war and in peace.

What are those views?

First, on the matter of winning the war. Looking back today, every American knows how dangerous were the views, when war threatened us, of certain Republican leaders in the Congress, who opposed preparing the island of Guam for use by our Navy, who were against changing the Neutrality Act, who opposed appropriations for fighting planes, who were against Lend-Lease, and in most cases opposed Selective Service.

No one can predict what the world situation would be today if the views of these obstructionists prevailed. The American people not only have the right, but the duty to inquire into their records before political decisions are made. The electorate knows that, instead of marching to ultimate victory, we should be facing the possible humiliation of a shameless deal with the Fascist oppressors if the nation had not had leadership with the courage to prepare swiftly to meet the forces of aggression.

Looking ahead today, nobody knows better than does President Roosevelt how dangerous to the peace are the views of those Republican leaders who run with the hares and bark with the hounds, who cry out between elections against the other great powers that are fighting this war side by side with us, and who smoothly declare, as election time draws near, their newly inflamed passion for the principle of international cooperation.

Nobody knows better than does President Roosevelt how dangerous to the world of tomorrow it would be to entrust the peace of that world to men who learn their lessons late. And such lessons as these Republican leaders have learned, at all they have learned very late indeed.

The Governor of this state, the Hon. Thomas E. Dewey, who copies down the answers on his little slate after the examination is all over, gravely told the people of America on January 20, 1940:

Insofar as the present administration has adhered to the policies of its predecessors, it has met with the general approval of the American people. But it has occasionally strayed from the path. A conspicuous and most unfortunate departure was the recognition by the New Deal of Soviet Russia.

You folks in the audience cannot see the underlining of that last sentence in the notes I have here, but the italics are mine.

It was “most unfortunate,” said the Governor of New York, that our President recognized Soviet Russia. Of course, he said that four years ago. And at that time, unless a person was gifted with a rare insight into the play of great forces in the world, unless he had in him the quality of statesmanship which would enable him to judge accurately of the pull and direction of those forces, he could not have known, could not have realized the great peril in which our country stood in 1940, he could not have recognized the heroic roles which the people of Great Britain, the people of China and the people of Russia were to play, he could not have foreseen how, in fulfilling their own destinies, they were to halt the menace that threatened us.

Our President, by his actions before and since that time, move by move, play by play in this grim game of checkmating a worldwide aggression, has shown that insight, that quality of statesmanship. And those characteristics go far toward explaining today the steady march of the United Nations toward final victory.

By the same contrast between the abilities of men, the minds of men, we may explain many a similar masterpiece of miscalculation which can be credited to the present Governor of New York. They bejewel his utterances in those reckless days when he forgot to wait for the teacher to give out the answers before copying them down on his own little slate.

“At last,” he said, again in 1940, and again I am quoting, “at last I think our administration will stop trying to make deals with Russia. We need no such partnerships.”

A few days ago, speaking his piece this time after the answers had been given out and the examination was all over, Governor Dewey said:

No initial measures against Germany and Japan, however drastic, will have permanent value unless they fall within the setting of a durable cohesion between Great Britain and ourselves, together, I hope, with Russia and China.

Now, perhaps I do not have a proper understanding of what a “durable cohesion” is. Perhaps a “durable cohesion” is not a “deal” or a partnership.

But I do know the historical fact that the government of Russia with which Governor Dewey wanted to have no truck in 1940 is the same government with which he hopes we shall have a durable cohesion in 1944. The only major change pertinent to this question that has taken place inside Russia since that time is the elimination of somewhere around eight million Germans.

To borrow from the Governor’s bright lexicon, I, for one, would be better able to understand these gems of statesmanship that he is scattering among us plain Americans if they fell within the setting of a durable cohesion between one phase of this crisis and the next.

But perhaps this uncohesive record is a part of the Governor’s studied technique. Perhaps he considers it good politics. You know, in modern warfare, the strategists strive to maintain a “fluid front.” Well, the Governor was plenty fluid when he analyzed the question of national defense four years ago. Perhaps some of you will remember his brilliant exposition proving that we could not possibly produce 50,000 airplanes. He had all the figures to show how and why it could not be done and how even the plant to build that many airplanes would take us at least four years to construct.

Then he cinched the argument and boxed it in an ironbound coffin of defeatism by warning us that, “To use airplanes you have to have an air force. To maintain and fly 50,000 planes, an air force of about 750,000 men is necessary.”

These, the Governor continued, “are sobering facts.” Today the present Governor of New York must be very sober indeed. Today, four years after he showed us how 50,000 planes could not be built, how an air force to man them could not be trained, America has produced for the Armed Forces 184,000 planes, and we have an air force of 2,385,000 fighting men.

Again, the difference between men’s abilities, men’s minds. And I suspect, too, a little of the difference between men who have vision and set their sights high and men who lack this quality and keep them low.

Let us remember that difference. To the people of this country, it is something more than a casual observation on the human species. To our children and our children’s children, that difference will mean something more than a paragraph or a chapter in their history books. If we, the electorate of 1944, are not sufficiently aware of this difference, the history that will interest our children could be tragically different.

What new dangers are there going to be, what pitfalls shall we be threading our way through, after the last shot is fired on the battlefield of World War II? And in dealing with the delicate problems that will arise among nations, the dangers that may threaten our own and all other free peoples, in anticipating the world of 1948, will the Governor of New York show the same great lack of comprehension that he has exhibited for the four-year stretch since 1940?

In calling on President Roosevelt once again to lead his party and his country, we shall continue to review this record of defeatism of the opposition.

We shall point out to him the distaste of the people for campaign tactics which, even at this early stage, the Republican opposition has already adopted. We shall point out to him the recklessness, the desperation, of a political party so utterly bereft of an issue that it must comb through the newspapers from day to day and catch as catch can their issues out of the emergencies of this war.

We shall call attention to the character of a so-called “loyal opposition” which lashes out blindly at its Commander-in-Chief in time of war and prejudges any measure he may take to save the home front from weakness or from chaos.

In only one respect have I been able to observe any improvement in the intemperate character of recent utterances of the various elements opposed to the President and his policies.

We have recently been provided with certain very vital statistics, politically speaking, from the states of Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Florida and Alabama. And since that time, I have not heard repeated the prediction that the Republican Party could win with anybody.

The victories of our two valiant warriors, Senators Claude Pepper and Lister Hill, appear to have silenced the Republican talk of a “trend.” They had been talking for a long time about a “trend.”

I think the publishers of Webster might well point out, under the definitions of that word, that a “trend” is something the Republicans see only when the Democrats don’t get out and vote.

If there is any trend running through the months and years that lie ahead of us, it will be the trend to victory, and may that trend reach upward, sharp and high.

It will be the trend to a peace that will prevail over a world of free peoples.

It will be a trend to a better life for our people, a trend to those freedoms for which one man, Franklin D. Roosevelt, has worked so long and fought so wisely and so well.

Address by Senator Alben Barkley (D-KY)
May 8, 1944

Delivered at the Democratic Jefferson Day Dinner, New York City

Mr. Toastmaster: It is fortunate that in these tragic days of struggle and sacrifice we can meet in the name and under the continuing inspiration of Thomas Jefferson.

The struggle of which I speak is one that is being waged not only for the preservation of the human rights which Jefferson did so much to establish, but also the right to assemble as we are assembled here, to discuss and debate them.

No such right exists now anywhere in that part of the world controlled by our enemies; and no such right will exist here if our enemies should triumph in this war. We meet, therefore, with a background of a century and a half of political, economic and social development for which Jefferson’s philosophy prepared the way.

Faced as we are with the most stupendous and world-embracing battle to preserve a world in which the mind and soul of man may flourish and be free, poised for the impending stroke which may determine its length and final issue, we confront three problems, none of which can be separated from the others.

First, we must win this war so crushingly and overwhelmingly that no class or clique in any part of the Axis nations may again delude their people with the claim that they had not been defeated.

Second, we must work for and help to secure a peace which will be just; a peace that may be durable because it is just.

Third, we must organize the world for peace, so that the peace which we shall earn and set up may be preserved by the united and cooperative activities of those who have brought the enemies of peace to their knees and ushered in some form of world order in which the arts of peace and the will for peace may flourish.

Regarding the first of these three tasks, there is no important or substantial disagreement among the American people.

And there is no substantial disagreement that in the two and a half years since Pearl Harbor the United States, as a government and as a people, have gone farther and faster in getting ready to fight than any nation ever went in the whole history of nations.

That we were not wholly prepared for this war when the Japanese treachery of December 7, 1941 broke upon us, there is no point in denying.

That we were as well prepared as we were is due to the foresight, the warnings, and the insistence of the Democratic Party and the Democratic administration presided over by President Franklin Roosevelt.

I do not like to become partisan in the midst of war, even at a Democratic gathering like this. But a few days ago, I read a speech by a prominent candidate for a presidential nomination on the other side of the political fence in which he claimed that our military and naval weakness were due to the negligence of the present administration.

It is necessary to refute this only by recalling that from 1921 to 1933, twelve years, during which the Democratic Party was not in power, not a single battleship was laid down for construction in the American Navy.

It might be well for some of these ambitious governors to do a little cramming on American history between now and next November.

But while we were not prepared for all-out war when war was forced upon us, the same can be said of every war in which we ever engaged, beginning with the Revolutionary War itself.

The same can be said of every democracy in the world, including those which lay all around Germany and could look over the back fence and see what was going on under Hitler.

Democracies are never prepared for war at the drop of a hat. If they were, they would not be democracies, but would be the kind of autocracy against which we are fighting to protect ourselves and the world.

Under these circumstances, we, as well as our friends among the United Nations, have been compelled to fight the enemy back and hold him off with one hand, while preparing with feverish intensity with the other to forge the instruments with which to drive him back and crush him utterly and fatally.

In this process, we have transformed our nation from a peace to a war economy. We had done some things before we were drawn into the war. But in the war effort itself we have exceeded in many respects what we hoped to accomplish in the training and equipment of the largest army and navy that ever fought under a single banner. And the quality of this army and navy is in every way commensurate with their numbers.

Now in the performance of this task, and in the incredible progress we have made toward victory, there has been no distinction of politics, religion, race or color. Industry, labor, agriculture and finance have put on the uniform and shouldered a gun, and turned out the instruments with which men must fight.

This program required organization and concentration of energy. It required the delegation of power to somebody who could use it. For democracies cannot fight against aggression with a sprawling, disjointed, heterogeneous outfit without form and void.

I presume that even our opponents, those who are most critical and most partisan, will concede that this organization, this concentration, this transformation and the magnificent results which have flowed from them took place under the guidance of a Democratic administration, headed by a Democratic President, chosen for the task by the people in a free election.

Again let me say that I prefer not to speak in a partisan vein even at a partisan assembly. But I do not propose that those whose chief business at present is the fomentation of partisan hatred shall fill our backyard with political hand grenades, even though none of them explodes. I shall at least contend for the right to call attention to their presence and their intent.

Some of these things have made it necessary to put into effect restrictions and regulations which have been irksome and irritating. Politicians bent on office and disunity, will undertake to magnify and capitalize these disarrangements.

But the American people know what is involved in this war. They are not children. But even if they were, as some loquacious and mendacious persons seem to think, they would still know that the inconveniences and hardships being experienced by those of us who still live in comparative comfort are not to be mentioned in the same breath with those being endured by the fighting men and women who are honoring the name of America all over the world.

Through all these energies and these efforts, we shall win this war. We shall win it so completely along with our friends of Great Britain, Russia, China, and other peoples who are fighting by our side, that the world will not be bothered by another debate as to who won the war.

We cannot afford to allow the controversies and disunity growing out of a nationwide election to retard by a single item or moment the momentum which we are gathering and shall soon display.

There are some among us who deplore the fact that in the midst of war we must undergo a campaign and an election.

I am not one of them. The people have a right to pass judgment on their government, in war as in peace. We welcome the people’s judgment upon our record, in peace and war alike. We entertain no fears upon that score.

The only thing we ask is that the American people search and assess that record for themselves, without prejudice, without malice, without heat, but with all the light they need to enable them to see, keeping in their memories the conditions we inherited, what we have done to alleviate those conditions, and keeping in mind our present task and its final and glorious consummation.

When the war shall end, our task will not be over. In some respects, it will have just begun.

We shall reconvert our war economy hack to a peace economy. We shall re-transform our factories, our farms, our financial institutions, our manpower, back to the pursuits of peace.

We shall undertake to do this with speed and care.

We are already beginning this process so far as possible without impeding the war effort.

We shall bring back to their homes and families eleven or twelve million men and women. We shall be confronted with the duty of seeing that these men and women obtain work at fair wages. We shall see to it that they are reintegrated into the social and economic life from which they departed to serve their country. We must make sure that they do not return to an economic situation which requires them to sell apples and lead pencils on the streets in order to eat and sleep and support their families in a land that they have saved.

This great cause cannot be served by a resort to political heroics. It cannot be solved by appeals to ignorance or prejudice.

The kind of life to which our nation and the world will return will be determined by the degree of cooperation, tolerance, patience and understanding that may be brought about between government and business, agriculture, finance, labor, and all other elements of our wonderful people.

None of these can do the job alone. All of them, working together with the same unity and determination which has characterized the war effort, can and will accomplish it.

Along with these national and economic readjustments, the peace itself poses a question of major consideration. Indeed, the kind of peace which will follow this war may determine not only the real outcome and effectiveness of this war, but whether another is to follow soon upon its heels.

Already the groundwork is being laid in a most nonpartisan atmosphere, for our return to economic stability and for our return to peace.

In both houses of the Congress men of all political parties are serving upon Committees to look in advance at the postwar probabilities, and be prepared to meet them. We have made much progress in preparing for peace. In the international field, conferences have been and are being constantly held, that much of the underbrush in the thickets and jungles and forests of international relationships may be cleared away.

In this undertaking the heads of our government are utilizing the ability, experience and patriotism of men of all political persuasions.

Under our Constitution our President is charged with the conduct of our foreign relations. This is true no matter who is President or to what party he belongs.

President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull have worked together in not only conducting our relations with other nations, but in the formation of the consistent policy of our government.

Sometimes they have conferred separately with the representatives of other governments, as at Moscow, Québec, Casablanca, Tehran, and in the Atlantic, as well as in London and Washington.

To say that they have worked at cross purposes, or that their right hands are ignorant of what their left hands are doing is a preposterous and fantastic misrepresentation.

It was disappointing, and somewhat disillusioning to hear such a claim come from one who became dry behind the ears on any kind of foreign policy after he had perceptibly slowed down his own synthetic flight from a presidential nomination.

Out of this war must come a peace that is just and honorable. A peace to which all fair-minded men and men of good will can subscribe.

In order that such a peace may be ordained, the economic problems of impoverished and overrun nations cannot be Ignored. Chaos and disorder cannot be the breeding ground of a durable peace. Hunger, starvation and disease cannot constitute the fertilizer for a healthy growth of peaceful restoration.

It will not be necessary to set up an international WPA as some prominent political candidates now pretend to fear. Nor is it necessary for our own salvation, nor will it shorten the war or hasten the peace, nor make a better peace, for such candidates to seek to destroy the confidence of our people in our allies for some local and temporary purpose.

When peace comes it must come as the result of confidence among the peoples who must win this war.

No blueprint of a peace treaty can now be exhibited. But we are looking and preparing for the day when the peoples of the earth may throw from their backs the burdens of war, stand erect again, and demand that all peoples and all nations that now assert their desire and intention to pursue the arts of peace shall do so in good faith.

When that peace shall come, it must be preserved.

Whether any discussed or projected organization to preserve world peace shall be launched before any treaty of peace is concluded, or shall become a part of it, or shall come afterwards and separately, is a question of details and mechanics. Many nations will have to be consulted and will have to agree.

But the substance is what will count ultimately in determining the value of any organized effort to preserve world peace.

We have learned now that when storm clouds gather over the world, threatening our own and the security of all peace-loving nations, we cannot rush into a storm cellar thinking that when the storm subsides and passes, we may emerge to find our homes and institutions and our traditions untouched.

There is no such thing as individual freedom from flames when the world is on fire. We know that now, and only folly could dictate that we seek to shirk our share of responsibility for the peace of mankind.

I do not wish to disinter the bones of the Versailles Treaty or the League of Nations.

But a coy, demure, unannounced, but palpitating candidate for President a few days ago startled the world by revealing that the defects of the Treaty of Versailles grew out of the fact it was written by a group of tired old men who had enough life left in them to win a war but were too feeble to write a treaty of peace.

The petty implications in this observation are too obvious to need photographic exhibition or blueprint delineation.

That the Treaty of Versailles had defects no one will deny. So have all treaties contained defects and many of them contained the seeds of future wars.

The Treaty of Versailles failed not because it was written by tired old men who had won a war, but it failed because a group of men, some of them malicious, some of them old, and some of them young, destroyed it before it had a fair chance to work or to have its defects cured.

In our own country it became the football of partisan politics and as a result we got nothing but a separate peace with Germany.

It does not serve our present generation, nor compensate for the enormous sacrifice which we are suffering in this war to reflect either upon those who wrote that treaty or those who opposed it. Our task now is to avoid such mistakes as were then made, if we can detect them.

It is our duty to protect future generations from the necessity of going through another slaughterhouse in order to preserve a decent civilization, elevate the ideals of the world in general, develop the resources with which God has endowed the earth, give remunerative labor to all who are able and desire to work, provide an opportunity for profitable investment by those who are able and willing to invest, lay the groundwork for a higher and more universal education, and cultivate the moral and spiritual values which exalt a nation in its own eyes and in the eyes of the world.

In behalf of such a concept of life the Democratic Party has fought for a hundred and fifty years. In behalf of such a concept it calls now for the earnest and devoted aid and cooperation of men and women of all ages, religions, colors, conditions and political persuasions.

A few local or temporary political victories or defeats may inflate or depress minds which look upon them as the supreme object of all life.

But–

Truth crushed to earth
Shall rise again.
The eternal years of
God are hers.
But error, wounded,
Writhes in pain
And dies amid its worshipers.

The Pittsburgh Press (May 9, 1944)

americavotes1944

Murray urges fourth term

Steel union roars Roosevelt approval

Cleveland, Ohio (UP) –
CIO President Philip Murray today endorsed President Roosevelt for a fourth term amid thunderous applause of 2,300 delegates attending the opening session of the second biennial convention of the United Steelworkers of America (CIO).

Mr. Murray, who also heads the steel union, said that “the overwhelming majority of the people of this nation… regardless of political affiliation… demand his [Mr. Roosevelt’s] reelection.”

He said:

No man in our lifetime has rendered greater service to his nation than the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces – the President of the United States.

In an attack on the “Little Steel” wage formula, Mr. Murray recalled that when it was formulated two years ago, he said then that it was “unworkable, impractical and that time would prove its application would develop wider discrimination in the wage structure of the nation.”

Without specific reference to the union’s current demand for a 17-cent-an-hour wage increase over the formula, Mr. Murray said:

I attended its baptism, I participated in its confirmation and with the grace of God I hope to attend its wake.

Mr. Murray reaffirmed the CIO’s no-strike pledge and said his organization would never justify a strike “while an American is in a foxhole.”