Election 1944: Pre-convention news

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (May 9, 1944)

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.”

[NormanStewart]

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.

[NormanStewart]

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.

[NormanStewart]

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.

[NormanStewart]

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.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (May 10, 1944)

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.

[NormanStewart]

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.

[NormanStewart]

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.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (May 11, 1944)

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.

[NormanStewart]

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.

[NormanStewart]

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.

[NormanStewart]

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?

[NormanStewart]

Hannegan denies any Dewey smear

Claims criticism was objective

New York –
Robert E. Hannegan, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, denied today that his address at the Jackson Day dinner castigating Governor Thomas E. Dewey was in any way intended as a “smear” of the leading Republican presidential contender.

Mr. Hannegan said in an interview today:

I felt that as long as I was speaking in New York, I should dwell on Governor Dewey’s record and his qualifications for the Presidency. I don’t think anything I said can be considered a “smear.”

Wrote own speech

Mr. Hannegan admitted that Charles Michelson, known as an astute political manipulator and often charged with engineering “smear campaigns” in the past, was taking an active part in the preconvention drive of the Democrats, but denied that Mr. Michelson was the author of the speech the national chairman made at the Hotel Commodore dinner.

He said:

I consulted with several people about my speech. But I wrote it myself.

Mr. Hannegan said that he was convinced that for the welfare of the country and of the Democratic Party the President must run for a fourth term. In reply to a question that if the war was won this year, would the President feel obligated to remain in power to insure a victory in the peace conference. Mr. Hannegan declared, “That might be a different story. He refused to enlarge on his point.”

The national chairman reiterated assertions made in his address last night that he had not discussed with the President his own desires or intentions with regard to the presidential race this year.

He said:

But in my trips through the country, I have talked with all kinds of people and they are unanimous in demanding the fourth term.

Mr. Hannegan declined to comment on assertions made by Harrison E. Spangler, chairman of the Republican National Committee, that the speech here Tuesday night was the opening barrage in the fourth-term drive.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (May 12, 1944)

A revolt is broken –
Ex-New Deal critic seeks reelection

And he announces he favors fourth term
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
Another bit of evidence is at hand to demonstrate that the back of the anti-New Deal revolt in the South has been broken, as far as any practical results are concerned, to add to the substantive proof in the recent Florida and Alabama primary victories of New Deal Senators Pepper and Hill.

Senator Andrews (D-FL), in a surprising announcement that he would seek reelection in 1946, urged a fourth term for President Roosevelt in an interview at Orlando.

This is not earthquaking news, but it’s significant, for the Florida Senator has been generally anti-New Dealish in his voting, lining up with the Southern Conservatives. And he was against a third term for the President.

Opposition from governor

The Senator will probably face stiff opposition two years from now, much stiffer than Senator Pepper had May 2, from the present Governor Spessard L. Holland, who has made quite a record. Presumably Senator Andrews thinks it wise to tie up with the President, and well ahead of time, for that turned out to be the wise thing to do in the case of Senator Pepper.

Senator Andrews put the fourth term urgency on the war, speaking of the President as a leader who is needed “in the winning of the war and the making of the peace.” This is the tack being taken by Democrats normally cool to the New Deal as a way out of their dilemma.

Democrats are also drawing comfort from the Ohio primary, even though the total vote rolled up in the Republican primary was substantially larger than the Democrats.

Republican race bitter

Their optimism derives from the character and the vote-getting ability of the successful candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Mayor Frank Lausche of Cleveland, plus an aftermath of bitterness from the hot contest among Republican candidates for the nomination.

Mayor James Garfield Stewart of Cincinnati won the Republican nomination by only a slim margin over Attorney General Tom Herbert so slim that Mr. Herbert has indicated he will contest it.

Mayor Stewart was the candidate of Ed Schorr of Cincinnati, state Republican boss. If he weathers a contest and is the candidate in November, the issue of bossism will be raised against him by the Democrats, and Mayor Lausche is the sort of candidate to make this type of campaign effective.

Lausche strong downstate

The ill feeling engendered in this contest may carry over to handicap the Republicans in November. The Republicans also have a ticket top-heavy, with Cincinnati candidates, with Senator Taft, who is up for reelection. Mayor Stewart and the candidate for Secretary of State all from that city.

Mayor Lausche showed surprising strength in downstate rural districts. He literally gobbled up Cleveland and Democrats are depending on his strength there to offset Republican downstate strongholds and, incidentally, to bolster up the national ticket in November.

Sponsors of the presidential nomination candidacy of Governor John W. Bricker have seized this situation to argue that the Governor, who ran well ahead of President Roosevelt in Ohio in 1940, will be needed on the national ticket to hold Ohio in the Republican column.

[NormanStewart]

Bricker scores farm policies

Omaha, Nebraska (UP) –
Utilization of new crops and general farm conservation have been hampered by the bureaucratic administration of the nation’s farm program, Ohio Governor John W. Bricker, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, said today.

Mr. Bricker, en route to Lincoln, Nebraska, for an address, called for an end to “pig killing,” asserting that “you cannot convert scarcity to plenty.”

Farmers must be free to produce to capacity, he said, and must be given full information and instruction from proper authorities.

[NormanStewart]

Dies to retire from Congress

Beaumont, Texas (UP) –
Rep. Martin Dies (D-TX), chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, said today in a telegram to Beaumont friends that he would not seek reelection.

Mr. Dies has spent the last several days in a Galveston hospital for treatment of a throat ailment. It was understood he planes to enter the May Clinic at Rochester, Minnesota, for an operation. After that, he said he would reenter the private practice of law.

[NormanStewart]

Barkley backs Roosevelt as best qualified for job

Washington (UP) –
Senate Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley (DKY) today unequivocally endorsed a fourth term for President Roosevelt with the assertion that a vast knowledge of the war and close relations with Allied leaders make him best qualified to guide the nation through the “treacherous cross-currents” it must traverse to achieve victory and write a lasting peace.

Mr. Barkley, who recently submitted his resignation as Senate Majority Leader after the President vetoed the tax bill, prefaced a glowing testimonial to Mr. Roosevelt by emphasizing that he had not discussed a fourth term with him and did not know whether he would accept renomination. He added, however, that he thought the President would do so.

He said in an article in the current issue of Collier’s Magazine:

Nothing that I shall say in this discussion… is to be construed as indicating that he will seek a fourth term or permit a fourth term to seek him. I do not know what his intentions are and I may never know until events reveal them.

Any man, honored already beyond any other American, might well prefer the quiet and refreshing shades of individual peace amid his books and memories. Or he might infinitely prefer to spend his remaining years making an accurate chronicle of the events in which he has played so great a part.

Can he do it? Can he voluntarily renounce any obligation or opportunity to complete the job? I do not think so.

Defends Roosevelt

He unfolded a staunch defense of some of the charges brought by the President’s critics.

• That a fourth term would lead to “dictatorship:”

There can be no such thing as dictatorship which some honest people fear and others pretend to fear, so long as the American people have the right of free choice. There is no pretense anywhere that they do not have a free choice. No sort of coercion of the individual voter is possible or would be attempted or countenanced.

• That the President has violated propriety by breaking the no third term precedent: In accepting a third term, he said, Mr. Roosevelt “fulfilled the very conditions which George Washington Gave in his farewell address as the reason for his own retirement, to wit, that the conditions existing in the country no longer required him to serve as President…” He said he believed Mr. Roosevelt would have liked to retire after his second term but could not, because “the conflagration against which he had warned the people was upon us.

• The President’s use of wartime powers:

There was no way to avoid this enormous and unprecedented delegation of power.

• Mr. Roosevelt’s personal traits:

There are some who say that the President is stubborn now and then, and sometimes unforgiving. He may give way to the impulse to look at the political implications involved in a given course of action. He may even listen too much to the advise of those who always agree with him… So did Theodore Roosevelt; so did Andrew Jackson; so did Grant; so did Hoover.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (May 13, 1944)

Bricker attacks finance policies

Omaha, Nebraska (UP) –
Governor John W. Bricker, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, believes the nation’s finances must be put in order and the public appraised of the exact purposes for which its money is spent.

Mr. Bricker spoke at a banquet sponsored by the Nebraska Bricker-for-President Committee last night.

He condemned “New Deal bureaucracy,” “deficit spending” and “absolutism” and said that if he is elected President, he will work for restoration of representative government, abolition of “needless bureaus” and “super-czars,” and for distribution of as much present federal activity as possible “back into the hands of state and local governments – where it belongs.”

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (May 14, 1944)

Stokes: CIO’s strength in politics is spotlighted

Conservative camp showing alarm
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
The CIO, by taking a couple of scalps in the South, where they used to chase labor organizers out of town, has suddenly attracted attention as a political force to be reckoned with in this uncertain political year.

It is being given some credit for the defeat in the recent Alabama primary of Rep. Joe Starnes, member of the Dies Committee, for which the CIO has no affection. On the heels of this success, the word went around that the CIO was out to get the head man himself, Rep. Martin Dies

Now. Mr. Dies suddenly announces he is not going to run again. The reason given was ill health, but the CIO likes to think perhaps the threat of a campaign against the Texas Congressman had something to do with it. Whatever the reason, the jubilation was fervent.

Effective politically

The CIO’s unfriendliness to the Dies Committee was intensified recently when a Committee report attacked the CIO Political Action Committee because of alleged Communist affiliations.

It is news when a labor organization can be effective politically in the South, and the CIO claimed a share, too, in the victories of New Deal Senators Pepper in Florida and Hill in Alabama.

Only nine years ago, a labor organizer friend of the writer was shot in a Southern mill town and was chased away in a shower of bullets falling around the auto driven by his wife, who had to take him 7 miles to a hospital. There were mill towns where this organizer had to sneak down backstreets and slip furtively into the officers or homes of sympathizers.

This has all been changed now.

30 on ‘purge’ list

Emboldened by its success in the South, the CIO Political Action Committee has drawn up a “purge” list of 30 Southern Congressmen and Senators, which was read into the Congressional Record yesterday by Senator Eastland (D-MS) during debate on the anti-poll tax bill.

The organization’s apparent headway in the South is beginning to open the eyes of politicians elsewhere, particularly Republicans, for the CIO Political Action Committee, directed by Sidney Hillman, is going down the line for President Roosevelt and the New Deal.

Its theory is that it may prove the decisive factor in the big urban centers in the East and the industrial Midwest, which are touch and go this year. It is putting on an intensive campaign to register workers, particularly those who have moved into Eastern and Midwestern centers to work in war industries.

Conservatives alarmed

Labor is learning the primary lessons of precinct politics, with well-organized, doorbell ringing brigades. Checks are being made in war plants on registration, and workers are being pressed to become eligible. Labor leaders woke up after the 1942 Congressional elections to discover that many thousands of workers who had migrated to key Midwestern states had not qualified themselves to vote.

The fear of shrewd politicians in the conservative camp is already manifest in the noise they are making about the CIO Political Action Committee and by their attempts to circumscribe the use of a $750,000 fund subscribed by union members for use all over the country. The conservatives contend this is in violation of the Connally-Smith Act’s prohibition against acceptance of contributions by a political committee from a labor union or corporations.

Attorney General Biddle has held there is no violation of law by the CIO political adjunct.

Incidentally, that $70,000 probably would not cover the amount spent in only two states, Florida and Alabama, by anti-New Deal interests in the recent primary elections, which obviously came, although deviously, from corporate interests.

[NormanStewart]

Bricker charges U.S. needs change

Milwaukee, Wisconsin (UP) – (May 13)
Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio said tonight that the United States needs a “change in leadership – a new President who is not afraid to speak for America.”

The Governor, who is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, said:

We want a President who will speak for America’s rights, her convictions and ideals with the same force, the same sturdy voice and the same staunch determination with which Churchill speaks for England and Stalin speaks for Russia.

“If I am elected, that will be my policy,” he told Milwaukee’s Sunday Morning Breakfast Club, which sponsored the address.

He said:

We want cooperation with all friendly powers and are proud to fight beside our friends for freedom of the world. But we do not intend to underwrite any alien empire nor further any nation’s imperialistic ambition.