Election 1944: Pre-convention news

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

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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

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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.”

americavotes1944

Simms: British worry no longer over U.S. election

Roosevelt or Dewey, they’re confident
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard staff writer

London, England –
The feeling no longer exists among the British, as it once did, that Roosevelt and the Democratic Party somehow owned a copyright on the American war effort.

It is now clear to them that the will to see this thing through has nothing to do with personalities or parties, but is 100% American.

This new attitude is of recent date. The past few months – in fact, the past couple of weeks – have witnessed a remarkable shift regarding the American political scene. It began when both parties in Congress gave their overwhelming endorsement not only to war measures, but to a post-war peace setup based on the pacts of Moscow. It gathered momentum as GOP leaders, one after another, made it plain that the conduct of the war was not an issue.

But perhaps the most noticeable change has taken place since New York’s Governor Dewey made his forthright speech approving the basic principles of American foreign policy as enunciated by Secretary Hull.

Still root for Roosevelt

British leaders are no longer worried over possibility of a Republican victory in the coming elections. They know now that Britain’s partner in the war is America, not merely the Democratic Party, or more specifically, the President.

However, assuming as most everybody does that Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Dewey will be the candidates, British officials are still rooting for Mr. Roosevelt.

No responsible British authority was willing to be quoted on the subject though privately they talked readily enough. They are scared lest they be accused of meddling in the American elections.

But if Britain could vote, she would go for President Roosevelt.

He is hauled over here as a “sincere internationalist.” People say he entered the war before the United States did. they recall his shipment of arms to Britain at the time of Dunkerque; his destroyers-for-bases deal; his moral declaration of war long before the “shooting war” began. They thank him for Lend-Lease.

Dewey’s stock rises

Governor Dewey, the British feel, is less committed. His stock has risen tremendously since his New York speech and no one doubts that a Dewey administration would have one with less determination or ability than a Roosevelt administration to push the war to a successful conclusion.

The only question concerns his post-war policy.

On that point opinion has not crystalized, but this week’s Economist warns that it won’t make much difference which is elected. American public opinion reacting on Congress after the elections, it said, is what will determine whether the United States collaborates fully with the rest of the world or not.

americavotes1944

Democrats train their big guns on Governor Dewey

New Yorker’s statements on Russian and American production are cited

New York (UP) –
Robert E. Hannegan, chairman of the Femocratic National Committee, intimated last night that the party’s high command believes the Republicans will nominate Governor Thomas E. Dewey to oppose President Roosevelt, but asserted that the President would be reelected “to complete the assignment which destiny has given him.”

In his first public prediction linking the President with a fourth term candidacy, the Democratic National Chairman told a Thomas Jefferson dinner that he had not discussed the coming convention and campaign with Mr. Roosevelt, but added:

The people of the United States are determined that Franklin D. Roosevelt shall complete the assignment which destiny has given him.

Barkley raps Dewey

Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley (D-KY) credited “a Democratic administration, headed by a Democratic President,” with the success of organizing the nation for war.

Mr. Hannegan, while criticizing the Republican Party as a whole, mentioned no other possible GOP nominee than Mr. Dewey, and he devoted part of his speech to a resume of the New York Governor’s utterances in recent years on Russian recognition and American production for war.

Mr. Hannegan said:

There is among our people a firm conviction that the Republican Party… 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.

Experience cited

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.

‘Most unfortunate’

Discussing Republican leaders who he said “run with the hares and bark with the hounds,” Mr. Hannegan recalled a statement by Mr. Dewey in January 1940 deploring the New Deal administration’s recognition of Russia.

Mr. Hannegan commented:

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.

‘Has shown insight’

Our President, by his actions before and since that time… 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.

Mr. Hannegan continued:

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.

…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.

Another statement recalled

Mr. Hannegan recalled that Mr. Dewey four years ago said American industry could not produce 50,000 airplanes.

The Democratic leader said:

He had all the figures to show how and why it could not be done.

He said Mr. Dewey had pointed out that an air force of 750,000 men would be necessary and that “these are sobering facts.”

Four years later, Mr. Hannegan said, American industry has produced 184,000 planes and has built an air force of 2,385,000 men.

americavotes1944

Negro vote test to come in Georgia

Many register for July 4 primary
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Atlanta, Georgia –
Here, symbolically on July 4, Independence Day, will come a test which will be watched all over the nation to see how far the South will go in accepting the Supreme Court’s decision that Negroes are entitled to vote in primary elections.

Several thousand Negroes have registered in Atlanta to vote in the first real test since the Supreme Court’s decision invalidating the Texas “white primary” law. The Mississippi primary is the same day, but apparently little is being done there to force a showdown.

A handful of Negroes voted in the Florida and Alabama primaries, and some few others who tried were stopped in one way or another.

But here, under the supervision of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, lines of Negroes might be seen filing up to register at the county courthouse here. The books closed yesterday.

Given courteous treatment

They were given courteous treatment, and there was no challenge of the registration.

It is generally believed that there will be a challenge from election officials on July 4 to actual voting because of a statement by J. Lon Duckworth, State Democratic chairman. He said the Court’s decision did not mean that Negroes would be allowed to vote in Georgia’s primary.

However, an organization which has its headquarters here, the Southern Regional Council, is active in the interest of acceptance of the Supreme Court decision and is trying to create a public opinion receptive to voting by the Negroes.

The Council is composed of influential Southerners of both races, including churchmen, teachers, editors and some few businessmen and lawyers. It was created the first of this year when it absorbed the Commission of Interracial Cooperation, Inc.

Requires courage to join

Its president is Dr. Howard W. Odum of the University of North Carolina, distinguished educator and author of numerous books on the South and its problems. Dr. Guy B. Johnson, for many years at the University of North Carolina, is executive director, with Dr. Ira De A. Reid, Negro professor at Atlanta University, as associate executive director.

Only one familiar with the South can realize what courage it requires to join and work with an organization of this sort. It faces an uphill job. But it proceeds with the knowledge that there are many Southerners sympathetic to its aims, even if they do not dare to come out into the open.

The Council is making approaches to city and police officials on behalf of peace and order at the polls in the numerous primary elections still to be held.

americavotes1944

Fourth-termers raise sights on unanimous renomination

Washington (UP) –
Fourth-term campaigners are raising their sights today toward an approximately-unanimous renomination of President Roosevelt by the Democratic National Convention.

Democratic National Committee chairman Robert E. Hannegan told a New York City audience last night that it was his “firm conviction” that Mr. Roosevelt would be renominated and reelected.

Mr. Hannegan, Senator Alben W. Barkley (D-KY) and former DNC chairman James A. Farley addressed a Thomas Jefferson dinner gathering.

Mr. Hannegan’s confidence that Mr. Roosevelt would be reelected was bolstered by computations showing that a score of states or state leaders have already pledged or in some degree committed more than 500 convention votes to a fourth term. A bare majority of 589 of the 1,176 convention votes is necessary to nominate.

A total of 136 Democratic delegates will be selected this week in six states. the President is expected to have an actual convention majority behind him when those contests are settled.

Missouri Democrats named their 32 delegates yesterday. Other states selecting delegates this week are North Dakota, West Virginia, Ohio, Washington and Wyoming.

Chairman Harrison Spangler of the Republican National Committee answered Mr. Hannegan’s speech with a charge that a fourth term campaign under Mr. Roosevelt’s direction had been brought out “into the open by his campaign manager.”

Spangler said the fourth-term movement heretofore had been veiled or apologetic, but added:

Even now, to keep up the fiction, his manager tells us that the announcement is made without consultation with Mr. Roosevelt. Where has his manager been? It is generally known that this fourth-term ambition has been the subject of almost daily discussion at the White House for many months.

The Pittsburgh Press (May 10, 1944)

americavotes1944

Holt turned back by West Virginia

By the United Press

Former U.S. Senator Rush D. Holt, attempting a political comeback in West Virginia, trailed by more than 3 to 1, in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, while in Ohio, mayors of the state’s two largest cities led their respective tickets for nomination for governor, incomplete returns from yesterday’s primaries showed today.

In addition, West Virginia Democrats selected 18 delegates to the national nominating convention, unpledged but reportedly favoring a fourth term for President Roosevelt, and Republicans “named” 19 delegates, divided between New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey and Ohio Governor John W. Bricker.

Ohio Democrats selected 52 delegates, 51 of whom were nominally pledged to State Auditor Joseph T. Ferguson. But who actually will back Mr. Roosevelt. The 52nd delegate selected at Akron was pledged to Forest Myers, who has also announced his support of President Roosevelt. Fifty Republican delegates named will back Governor Bricker.

WEST VIRGINIA

In the gubernatorial race, returns from 1,439 of the state’s 2,796 precincts gave:

Democratic

Judge Clarence Meadows 94,732
Rush D. Holt 30,067

Republican

Mayor D. Boone Dawson 47,650
R. J. Funkhouser 40,927

OHIO

In the gubernatorial race, 8,223 of the state’s 9,180 polling places gave:

Democratic

Mayor Frank J. Lausche 136,498
Martin L. Sweeney 55,746
James Huffman 33,472
Franzier Reams 19,029
Frank Dye 10,197
Walter Baertschi 7,987

Republican

Mayor James Garfield Stewart 147,057
Thomas J. Herbert 137,360
Paul Herbert 128,535
Alkert Payne 14,231

In the two primaries, President Roosevelt picked up 70 delegates. He is expected to pick up 66 more this week and they will be enough to give him an actual convention majority.

A Wyoming Democratic delegation of 16, selected Monday night in convention at Casper, will support Mr. Roosevelt. Texas Democrats met in county conventions yesterday, but the state convention will not be held until May 23.

Governor Bricker, with 50 certain votes, is the favorite son from Ohio, and an undetermined number from West Virginia is in second place in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination behind Governor Dewey, who although still an unavowed candidate, was far in the lead.

Senator Robert A. Taft was unopposed for renomination in the Ohio Republican primary.

Returns are slow

Ohio voters also chose a complete state ticket, nominees for county officers, and Congressional seats, although returns were slow in coming in.

In West Virginia, nominees were chosen for the state’s Congressional representation in five districts.

Governor M. M. Neely, who cannot succeed himself, and the incumbent Republican, Andrew Schiffler of Wheeling, were unopposed for their respective nominations in the 1st district.

americavotes1944

4th term, wages linked by union

Steelworkers want them both
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Hillman favors a fourth term

Cleveland, Ohio (UP) –
Sidney Hillman, chairman of the CIO’s National Political Action Committee, added his endorsement today to a fourth term for President Roosevelt.

Mr. Hillman told 2,400 delegates to the convention of the United Steelworkers Union:

In these days of Selected Service, a person, regardless of his own desires, must and will be elected. We must make sure that Franklin D. Roosevelt is reelected.

Cleveland, Ohio –
When the big convention of the United Steelworkers of America (CIO) winds up here late this week, it will have asked President Roosevelt to do two things:

  • Run for a fourth term.

  • Look sympathetically upon the union’s attempt to get a wage boost for its members through smashing the government’s wartime wage controls.

No member of the convention has shown any feeling that the combination of these objectives involves any impropriety or the risk of a charge from Republican critics that they embody an offer of political support in return for a pay raise.

Philip Murray, president of the Steelworkers and also of the CIO, made it plain that he does not regard Mr. Roosevelt as responsible for a situation in which the union asserts “wages have been stabilized, but nothing else.”

Congress blamed

He blames Congress with allegations that it has neglected to curb corporation profits and has favored the farmer over the industrial worker.

The steelworkers are getting out in front on the fourth term question earlier than had been expected. But it was regarded as “inevitable, so why not now?”

Both the CIO and its Political Action Committee are expected to hold conventions in advance of the November election, and to back up the imminent declaration of the steel union.

Thus, a substantial part of the labor vote will be pledged to go the same way it did in 1936 and 1940.

Murray quoted

While talking politics, Mr. Murray declared that the object of the CIO Political Action Committee is merely to “disseminate educational material on important issues of the day.” He continued:

To those saboteurs of our national welfare who are attempting to destroy this movement by calling it subversive, I wish to say to them that they lie. This is an American movement. It is not going to be adulterated by any ideology – nor is it going to allow itself to be destroyed by a Howard Smith or a Congressman Dies.

Rep. Smith (D-VA) has complained to Attorney General Biddle that the CIO unions are violating the War Labor Disputes Act through contribution to a campaign fund. Rep. Dies (D-TX) has charged the CIO Political Action Committee with including a number of Communist sympathizers.

americavotes1944

Roosevelt greets reporters with word on how to read

By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer

Washington (UP) –
“How did he look to you?” was the question on many lips after President Roosevelt’s first news conference since his return from a month’s vacation in the South.

Three press association reporters had accompanied the President on his holiday at Bernard M. Baruch’s plantation on the South Carolina coast. They came back to Washington with the word of Mr. Roosevelt’s doctor, VAdm. Ross T. McIntire, that his health was back up to par after a winter of nagging illnesses.

Washington correspondents in general had their first chance to see the President late yesterday. One hundred and seventy-three of them, plus 16 out-of-town visitors, packed his office for a news conference – during which he criticized press and radio for not having given what he considered complete accounts of the Montgomery Ward case.

Ready for a fight

Afterward the United Press polled a representative group of correspondents for their answers to the “How did he look to you?” questions. The replies:

  • Bert Andrews of The New York Herald-Tribune:

I thought he looked good, much better than on April 7, when I thought he looked ghastly. I thought his face was perceptibly thinner, but clearly a lot of lines of care in his face were gone.

  • John H. Crider of The New York Times:

I thought he looked very much better than I have seen him for many months. His voice seemed natural, he looked rested and he had a good coat of tan.

  • William H. Mylander of The Des Moines Register and Tribune: “The champ is back spoiling for a fight.”

  • Elisabeth May Craig of the Garnett papers in Maine: “He looked swell.”

  • Fred Pasley of The New York Daily News:

I think he didn’t possess the high physical buoyancy and abounding vitality that hitherto have marked him at the conclusion of a long respite from the cares of office. He seemed a rather tired man, going through the paces of a… magnificent attempt at verve.

  • Walter Trohan of The Chicago Tribune:

I though he looked tanned and had some of the heavy lines out of his face. He was much more spirited than he was in the press conferences before he went away.

  • Thomas F. Reynolds of The Chicago Sun:

His health is apparently pretty good, but his temper definitely very bad. His return this time is quite reminiscent of his return after the first war plant inspection tour in late 1942.

The President was ready for a question about the Montgomery Ward case yesterday. He ruffled a two-page memorandum in front of him and pitched in to recite its history. He made it clear that he did not feel the press and radio had presented the full account to the public.

A reading lesson

When he was through, Mrs. Craig brought the Chief Executive up sharply by telling him that she had seen and heard most of what he had said many days before in newspapers and over the air.

Mr. Roosevelt stuck to his criticism of press and radio.

He told Mrs. Craig that he had specialized in reading newspapers; that she ought to read papers like he does.

President expected to emulate sphinx

By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
President Roosevelt’s latest refusal to discuss his 1944 political plans was accepted today as meaning he would not disclose whether he will accept a fourth term nomination until the Democratic National Convention meets in July.

An identical course of action led in 1940 to his third nomination. It is regarded as virtually certain to lead to a fourth this year.

The President was asked at his news conference yesterday about the New York speech in which DNC Chairman Robert E. Hannegan predicted that Mr. Roosevelt would be renominated and reelected.

The President replied that he was not going to talk about it, adding that he had not read Mr. Hannegan’s speech but that when he did read it, he would still not talk about it. That is the third time in as many months that he has parried news conference fourth term questions.

Reminded that the Democratic National Convention is only 10 weeks away, the President replied only that he had not been counting the days.

The Pittsburgh Press (May 11, 1944)

americavotes1944

Martin hints GOP may hold back on Dewey

May urge delegates to withhold decision
By Kermit McFarland

Governor Edward Martin has indicated the Republican state organization will not be in too much of a hurry to get aboard Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s bandwagon.

He said in a press conference that he was undecided whether or not the 70 Republican delegates to the presidential convention should endorse a presidential candidate prior to the convention, June 26.

The Governor said:

But if I were to make up my mind today, I’d say “No.”

Caucus set for May 20

Mr. Martin said “the question of getting on the right bandwagon at the proper time” is insignificant in importance as compared to the importance of nominating a candidate.

The Republican delegates, elected at the April 25 primary, will caucus in Philadelphia May 20, the same day the newly-elected Republican State Committee meets to reorganize.

Mr. Martin’s plan to keep the Pennsylvania delegation non-committal until they arrive in Chicago for the presidential convention may meet opposition from some of the delegates who feel that the write-in vote given Mr. Dewey at the primary provides a compelling reason for the delegation to back the New York Governor early in the game.

Most delegates unpledged

There are also some who are apprehensive about the possibility of the Pennsylvania delegation “missing the bandwagon,” as it did at the Willkie convention in Philadelphia four years ago.

Virtually all of the delegates, however, are unpledged, having submitted their candidacies to the voters with the proviso, “Does not promise to support the popular choice.”

Mr. Dewey is the unquestioned popular choice of Pennsylvania Republicans, having polled more than 150,000 votes although his name did not appear on the ballot.

Sure of GOP success

Governor Martin, despite his reticence about the Republican candidates for President, was enthusiastic in his prediction that the Republican, whoever he is, will carry the state “even if Mr. Roosevelt runs again.”

He forecasts the Republicans will carry at least 46 of the state’s 67 counties.

He said:

I don’t believe there is anything to this business about people being reluctant to change horses in the middle of the stream. They’ll be glad to change when they have an opportunity to get a younger, more efficient “horse.”

Doubtful about county

We are going to carry Philadelphia, but I don’t know about Allegheny. However, Allegheny County is in the best position politically from the Republican standpoint it has ever been in.

The enormous cost of government and the interference with the rights of individuals have become so apparent that the great middle class wants to make a change. They feel they can make the change without interfering with the war effort.

americavotes1944

Most soldiers to shun voting

With U.S. forces, the Solomon Islands (UP) –
A United Press poll of a cross section of 500 servicemen – both enlisted men and officers in all service branches – showed today that less than one in 10 of them planned to vote by means of absentee ballots in the November elections.

Most of the 45 men who said they were attempting to vote, were officers. A majority of those questioned said they were uncertain of the voting requirements of their states.

Many men who said they would not vote because casting a ballot involved “too much red tape.” Others said it would be “foolish” to vote when they knew nothing about candidates except on national tickets. Most men have been away from home more than two years.

americavotes1944

Roosevelt’s renomination virtually sure

Tentative vote now exceeds majority
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
President Roosevelt has a tentative majority of Democratic National Convention votes sufficient for a fourth term nomination, barring substantial defections in the big New York delegation where James A. Farley’s strength is still to be determined.

Ohio, West Virginia, Missouri, North Dakota and Wyoming have been added to the Roosevelt column this week despite what is termed by Ohio experts here as a nominal favorite son commitment to State Auditor Joseph T. Ferguson. Washington is to select delegates this week, probably to Mr. Roosevelt’s further advantage.

More votes picked up

The fourth term campaign picked up 118 convention votes in five states this week. Washington has 18 votes. If Mr. Roosevelt could depend on the entire New York delegation, he would be reasonably certain now of 600 convention votes variously pledged, informally committed or reasonably sure. A bare majority in the Democratic convention will be 589 votes.

Of the 21 states and territories from which delegates contribute so far to the Roosevelt total, few have far to the Roosevelt total, few have formally bound their representatives to the President’s renomination. But by convention action, write-ins, commitments by party leaders or otherwise, the votes appear to be safe for the administration.

Pennsylvania in bag

Among the larger states which have already acted, there is no doubt about Pennsylvania’s 72 votes and Ohio’s 52. There is little doubt about Illinois, which casts 58. The favorite son commitment in Ohio is reported to be merely a technicality to conform with state law.

The situation in New York is more difficult to determine. The state casts 96 convention votes. That Roosevelt supporters control most of those votes goes without saying. Mr. Farley is the unknown quantity. He was against a third term and he will be a convention opponent of a fourth, although none doubts that if Mr. Roosevelt is renominated, Mr. Farley will vote for him and reveal such intention publicly.

americavotes1944

Editorial: Names in the news

Robert E. Hannegan, Democratic National Chairman, says it is his firm conviction that FDR will run again. We suspect so too. We also suspect that Mr. Hannegan doesn’t know any more about it than we do, and we don’t know anything about it for sure.

John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers, breaks his engagement to remarry the AFL and demands the return of what Fred Perkins calls John’s $60,000 engagement ring – the check he deposited as a warrant of good faith when he applied for reaffiliation of the Mine Workers with the AFL. John reminds us of the boy who goes home with the baseball bat when the rest of the kids won’t let him be pitcher.

Capt. Robert S. Johnson knocks over his 26th and 27th enemy planes in combat over Germany, tying Maj. Richard I. Bong’s Southwest Pacific score. That’s one victory for each of Capt. Johnson’s years, and three to boot, he being 24. Maj. Bong is 23. Oh decadent American youth, oh effete democracy!

Francis Biddle, Attorney General of the United States, dines on crow at Chicago, confessing in effect that he talked too big the other day when he said that in wartime “no business or property is immune” to a presidential seizure. Can it be that somebody has called Mr. Biddle’s attention to a document known as the Constitution – or to a little matter known as public opinion – or to an event scheduled for November?