Election 1944: Pre-convention news

[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.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Pennsylvania and Dewey

Legally, the Pennsylvania delegation to the Republican presidential convention is not bound to support any particular candidate for the Republican nomination.

But logically, there is sound moral reason why the delegation should support Governor Thomas E. Dewey.

The 70 delegates to the Republican convention are not legally bound to vote for Mr. Dewey because, through the manipulation of the Republican organization, nearly all of them ran as unpledged candidates.

Under each name of the ballot, they frankly told the voters: “Does not promise to support popular choice.”

Bu, as it turned out, few of these delegates were opposed at the April 2 primary. And in many cases where there were contests for delegate, the opposing delegates likewise dodged any commitment.

So Pennsylvania voters, by and large, had no choice. There were no Dewey candidates, nor Willkie candidates, nor MacArthur candidates, nor Stassen candidates. And very few agreed to abide by the preference of the voters.

As a result, the voters utilized the next best means of demonstrating their choice.

They wrote in the names of the candidates they favored. An overwhelming majority of them said they favored Governor Dewey. The write-in vote he received in Pennsylvania was spontaneous and proportionally large. No other candidate was fairly in the running.

While delegates to the national conventions are elected under pretty loose instructions from the voters, they are, nevertheless, representatives of the electors in their party. As such, they have a moral obligation to represent the views of those voters.

The Pennsylvania delegation has a moral duty to vote for Mr. Dewey.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (May 15, 1944)

Ferguson: Fair play in politics

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Political campaigns always bring out the worst in us. This year some of the stuff we read doesn’t make sense to me. For example, here’s a gem from the New Republic:

There has been a flood of talk in the press regarding a lack of visible American foreign policy. Some of this talk has come from sources hostile to the Roosevelt administration and can be discounted for that reason. Some of it, however, comes from supporters of the President who are genuinely alarmed over the way things are going.

Maybe, I don’t understand English, but the writer seems to be saying that criticism from anti-New Dealers must be regarded as unwarranted, insincere and irrelevant, while that which issues from the opposite camp is wise and constructive and therefore merits attention.

In plain terms, it means that no one except friends of the administration should be considered worthy to criticize its policies. Other Americans, we suppose, should keep their mouths shut and take what comes.

There is a steady effort to discredit the opinions of those who oppose the present Washington regime.

Harsher words have often been spoken by political rivals in the history of our nation. Mudslinging is an old device for winning campaigns. But never in modern times have so many honest Americans been smeared with charges of treason because of political differences. In the interest of national unity, this ought to stop.

The man who whoops it up for a fourth term does not necessarily want to sell out his country to the Communists. By the same reasoning, the person who disagrees with the administration or even hates Mr. Roosevelt, cannot be justly accused of Fascist leanings. Or do we have no rules for civilized warfare in political campaigns?

[NormanStewart]

Roosevelt and Dewey to go over the top in week’s primaries

Warren is boomed for No. 2 GOP spot
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
It looks today as though Governor Earl Warren of California can have the Republican vice-presidential nomination if he wants it, but Republicans statesmen wish they knew whether the Governor means it or is not a candidate.

No one seems to doubt that Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York will accept the Republican presidential nomination if it is offered despite his refusal to make a pre-convention campaign. None of the Democrats – not even those who oppose the administration – seems to doubt that President Roosevelt will accept a fourth term renomination.

Appeal is geographical

But Governor Warren has the politicos guessing. Most of them do not know him but have read about the Warren family. They her that Governor Warren wants to earn a lot of money. They are beginning to be afraid that he intends to do just that by returning to private law practice.

The Governor’s appeal is strictly geographical. He demonstrated that he could carry California for the Republicans after long years of Democratic rule. California casts 22 electoral college votes.

Furthermore, the Republican presidential nominee probably will be from New York and surely will not come from farther west than Ohio. Presto! Governor Warren, from a doubtful state, becomes the ideal vice-presidential running mate for 1944.

Bricker is strong

As delegate sentiment is recorded so far, Governor Dewey may be a first ballot nominee at Chicago. He and Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio are not far apart in actually pledged delegates, though on the basis of various informal commitments Governor Dewey has a claim of one kind or another on close to 500 delegates.

Governor Bricker’s forthright campaign for the nomination is in no way belittled by the fact that he is frequently mentioned as a possible running mate for Governor Dewey.

Governor Dewey’s early ballot nomination would enable him practically to dictate the vice-presidential nomination. That is where Governor Warren’s reluctance may be put to the test. Some persons believe the Dewey supporters eagerly want the Californian on the ticket.

Stassen also supported

Former Governor Harold E. Stassen of Minnesota would have considerable support. He is a lieutenant commander serving in the South Pacific. The Farmer-Laborites and Democrats have merged in Minnesota after years of courtship which began in 1936.

But do not overlook Rep. Everett Dirksen, a smart Illinois Republican, who is campaigning for a place on the ticket, or Eric Johnston, the West Coast industrialist who has just been reelected president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Johnston daily behaves more like a candidate for office. He is regarded as a spokesman for enlightened capitalism. He writes books and he travels like Wendell L. Willkie. Mr. Johnston leaves this week for Moscow to talk with Marshal Joseph Stalin.

If Mr. Johnston’s presence in Russia soon is impressively brought to your attention – do not be surprised.

[NormanStewart]

Delegate majorities are in the offing

By Russell Turner, United Press staff writer

Washington (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York and President Franklin D. Roosevelt were expected to emerge at the end of this week as the opposing candidates for the next four years in the White House as the result of new state conventions and primaries this week in four states.

Though neither “candidate” has said he would run, the President’s improved health and Governor Dewey’s heavy backing by already chosen delegates to the GOP convention are taken as general indications that neither will refuse to be “drafted.”

Mr. Roosevelt is already assured of a fourth term nomination if he decides to run. A United Press survey of primaries and conventions already held shows that he has 662 delegates pledged – many more than the majority needed for selection on the first ballot.

Dewey is also strong

Governor Dewey now has 436 delegates pledged or prepared to support him, which is only 94 short of the 530 needed to win the nomination.

With 208 more GOP delegates to be chosen this week, Governor Dewey is almost certain to win a large block of votes which should give him the nomination – barring an unforeseen convention upset – either on the first or at least the second ballot.

Governor Dewey’s biggest gain this week is expected in California, where a 50-man Republican delegation is scheduled to go to Governor Earl Warren, a Dewey man and himself vice-presidential timber.

Mr. Roosevelt already has an advance pledge of California’s 52 Democratic delegates.

Schedule for the week

The dates and contests this week in each state are as follows:

MAY 15
Oklahoma Democratic State Convention. Delegation of 22 already pledged to Mr. Roosevelt.

MAY 16

• California state and presidential preference primary, with President Roosevelt’s domestic policies the main issues. Seat of Senator Sheridan Downey (D-CA) is at stake, along with 23 House seats.

• Montana Democratic and Republican State Conventions. Eleven Democratic delegates pledged to the President if he runs. Eight Republican delegates will be uninstructed and will be contested by supporters of Governor Dewey and Governor John W. Bicker of Ohio who is actively campaigning against Governor Dewey.

• New Jersey state and presidential preference primary. Republicans will name 34 convention delegates and the Democrats 3, each block probably going to Governor Dewey and Mr. Roosevelt, respectively.

• Delaware Democratic Convention. Expected to be pro-Roosevelt. Delaware GOP convention delegates meet May 20 to determine whom they will back.

MAY 17

• Arkansas Democratic Convention. Twenty delegates already pledged to Mr. Roosevelt.

• South Carolina, first of three Democratic conventions.

• Vermont Republican Convention. Delegation of nine will be traditionally unpledged. Vermont Democrats meet the next day to choose six convention delegates.

MAY 18

• Mississippi Independent Republicans (so-called lily whites) meet to choose convention slate which will be contested by regular Republican organization. The latter does not meet formally until June 7.

• Illinois State GOP Convention meets to choose delegates-at-large to fill out state delegation of 59 at national convention. Delegation originally leaned toward Gen. Douglas MacArthur but now appears to favor Governor Dewey.

• Alabama GOP Convention to choose 14 delegates.

• Oregon state primary. Included in offices at stake is the seat of Senator Rufus Holman (R-OR).

MAY 20

• Pennsylvania GOP delegation of 70 meets in caucus in Philadelphia.
• Utah Republican Convention. Eight delegates to be chosen.

[NormanStewart]

Hillman forecasts fourth term plea

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
A demand for a fourth term for President Roosevelt will be made before a special meeting of the CIO Political Action Committee here tomorrow, its chairman, Sidney Hillman, predicted today.

Mr. Hillman, general president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, which opened its 14th biennial convention today, said the convention is expected to “give some time” to the CIO Political Action Committee.

Mr. Hillman was asked:

Is the Political Action Committee interested in who the Republican nominee will be?

He replied:

Yes, in a sense, we’d like to know who’s going to lose for the Republicans.

Mr. Hillman denied reports that the Political Action Committee had been out to beat Rep. Martin Dies (D-TX), who announced last week that he would not seek reelection.

Mr. Hillman said:

Mr. Dies has made wild statements that we were spending $250,000 to beat him in his home district. We haven’t spent seven cents to beat Dies.

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Communists leery of Governor Dewey

New York (UP) –
Israel Amter, state chairman of the New York Communist Party, asserted yesterday that Governor Thomas E. Dewey has expressed “hope” of post-war collaboration with Russia because “he knows that a candidate daring to question it has no chance whatever of election.”

Mr. Amter told nearly 1,000 delegates attending the party convention that Governor Dewey is the “most likely candidate” of the Republican Party for the Presidency.

Recalling that Governor Dewey criticized American recognition of Russia four years ago, Mr. Amter said, “Mr. Dewey has not, as reported, widened his outlook.”

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (May 16, 1944)

Polls indicate a close race for President

Danger signals found for Democrats
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
Public opinion polls forecast the closest presidential election contest this year since 1916 when California’s 22 electoral votes for Woodrow Wilson kept Charles Evans Hughes out of the White House.

There has not been a presidential contest since then whose result was not fairly obvious prior to Election Day.

Assuming even that President Roosevelt is the Democratic nominee again, there are some danger signals for the Democratic ticket in recent polls. The polls must be read, however, in light of an allowable error of some 4%.

The National Opinion Research Center, with headquarters at the University of Denver, Colorado, spotlights a couple of them in a poll survey.

Businessmen favor Dewey

There is nothing surprising, nor likely to disturb Mr. Roosevelt, in the report of the magazine Fortune poll that among a representative list of top-ranking business executives fewer than nine of each 100 wanted Mr. Roosevelt reelected.

This business and management group favored Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York of the four men suggested to them.

A Gallup poll was predicated on the European war still being on next November but under circumstances indicating it shortly would be over. The question was limited to Mr. Roosevelt and Governor Dewey.

Trouble signs for Democrats

Business and professional groups gave Governor Dewey 58% of their vote and the remaining 42% to the President.

The Roosevelt 42% was six points less than he received in 1936 from that strata of voters. But it was a 6% increase over the percentage of business and professional voters who supported the President in 1940. That represents a substantial gain which might be vital in a close contest.

The most alarming development from the Democratic standpoint is indicated in Gallup’s survey of farm sentiment. On Election Day 1940, it is estimated that 51% of farmers outside the South were for Mr. Roosevelt. By August 1943, a Gallup poll reported that support had shrunk to 39%. As of now, it has slumped further to 35%.

That means political trouble for the Democrats in the Farm Belt and in the so-called farm states which, prior to the New Deal, had been considered traditionally Republican.

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22 for Roosevelt

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (UP) –
Oklahoma’s 22 delegates to the Democratic National Convention had instructions today to support President Roosevelt for a fourth term at Chicago in July.

Democrats at the State Convention so instructed their delegates last night after Robert Hannegan, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, predicted that Mr. Roosevelt will accept a fourth term nomination “when he weighs the national security against his personal feelings.”

Mr. Hannegan insisted, however, that he was not speaking for the President.

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California votes

Sacramento, California (UP) –
Californians went to the polls in a consolidated wartime primary today, to ratify unopposed presidential delegate slates pledged to President Roosevelt and Governor Earl Warren and select nominees for one U.S. Senate seat, 23 posts in the House and for state legislative offices.

President Roosevelt was assured of 56 unopposed delegates to the Democratic National Convention, while Governor Earl Warren automatically will win 50 delegates to the Republican convention. The Warren delegates are expected to switch later to Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York.

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New Jersey votes

Trenton, New Jersey (UP) –
Voters in New Jersey went to the polls today to select delegates to the national presidential nominating conventions and to nominate candidates for the U.S. Senate and House.

The state Republican organization had a full slate of convention delegates, including seven for delegates-at-large and two from each of the state’s 14 Congressional districts. Governor Walter E. Edge, former supporter of Wendell L. Willkie, heads this slate. An opposing faction, pledged to draft Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York entered a slate for the delegates-at-large seats, and also contested state organization choices in three Congressional districts.

Delegates supporting President Roosevelt for a fourth term had no opposition.

[NormanStewart]

Jackson to pinch hit for Truman here

Washington –
Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO), chairman of the special Senate Committee Investigating the War Program, had to cancel his scheduled address at Pittsburgh’s Jackson Day dinner tomorrow because of the press of committee business, his office said today.

Mr. Truman is the reported choice of a number of State Democratic leaders for the party nomination for Vice President, in place of Henry A. Wallace, and his Pittsburgh visit was expected to develop further support for such a move.

Senator Joseph F. Guffey (D-PA), who entertained for Vice President Wallace at a garden party here last week, advised Allegheny County Democrats of Mr. Truman’s inability to appear and obtain Senator Samuel Jackson (D-IN) instead.

Senator Jackson, appointed Jan. 28 to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Senator Frederick Van Nuys, has been an administration supporter in Senate votes.

[NormanStewart]

CIO woos the Democrats –
Guaranteed weekly wage pledge asked of party

Union group wants backing for revolutionary change in American industry practices
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
CIO union leaders, now out in front of the Roosevelt fourth term movement, hope to get a Democratic National Platform Commitment that would indorse a revolutionary change in industry practices.

They want the Democratic Party to sponsor their proposal that every workingman ve guaranteed a specific weekly wage, in good times and bad, come hell or high water.

This was learned today from sources close to CIO president Philip Murray, who has made the wage guarantee a principal demand in the big wage case of the United Steelworkers before the War Labor Board.

In last week’s Cleveland convention of the steel union the statements of Mr. Murray and other officers gave the wage guarantee question an importance equal to that of the union’s demand that the Little Steel wage formula be broken to allow a pay boost of 17 cents an hour for the more than half a million employees of this industry.

The steel union, on the 17-cent demand, is up against the facts that President Roosevelt wants to make no change in wartime wage-control policies, and that under present law the War Labor Board says it cannot change its pay yardstick.

Roosevelt backing hinted

But the wage-guarantee issue is one that Mr. Roosevelt is said to be ready to regard as part of a general social security program, and the CIO forces might accept victory on this front as recompense for failure on the pay-boost question.

If the wage-guarantee theory should be enforced in one industry, it inevitably would spread through others, with the result that employers of non-white collar workers would have to revamp their financing plans. The wage would have to be paid all qualified employees during times when, according to past history of depressions, plants would be shut down.

The steel union’s proposal is that an employee’s average hourly straight-time earnings be averaged for the preceding year, be multiplied by 40 (for the legislated 40-hour week), and that the resulting sum be his weekly guarantee.

The union proposal said:

For each week during life of this contract that the employee, for reasons beyond his control, does not receive a sum equal to this minimum amount, the company shall make up the difference.

Ups and downs cited

The union pointed out that the steel industry has been subject to sharp ups and downs in activity and employment, and therefore:

There is the imperative social need to assure steelworkers that the prince and pauper era is at an end. Economic security through full employment, thereby creating freedom from want and freedom from fear, can and must be accomplished for this basic industry. This objective is not attained through the pitiful unemployment compensation payments.

Industry leaders have charged that both the political and war situations are being used by the CIO union to force adoption of a government policy that might not be attainable under ordinary conditions.

Fairless quoted

B. F. Fairless, president of U.S. Steel Corporation, testified:

A guaranteed annual minimum wage would not ensure employment, but would inevitably destroy the financial ability of the steel industry to employ. In fact, the demand for such a revolutionary change becomes fantastic unless the eventual insolvency of the steel industry is the desire.

War experience in planned production, asserted the union, makes the wage-guarantee plan feasible.

The future of every man and woman who works on a wage basis, rather than on a fixed salary, may be affected by outcome of this phase of the steel case. So may the planning of industrial operations.

The War Labor Board proceedings resume today after a two-week recess.

[NormanStewart]

New Deal secrecy hit by Landon

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Alf M. Landon, the 1936 Republican standard-bearer, said today that the most important qualification for a President was ability to formulate a clear domestic policy and provide the leadership to carry it through.

Mr. Landon told the 147th Rotary International District Conference:

A man can’t be a “statesman” abroad and a failure at home and be of much use in the period ahead, either to America or to the world.

Mr. Landon charged that:

The everlasting confusion over manpower and the draft – to mention only two items out of a long list – brings the realization of the great need for an efficient administrator in the White House.

The Kansan said:

There is a marked difference between Woodrow Wilson’s publicized diplomatic exchanges and the personal secrecy of President Roosevelt.

We should have had long ago the promised report from the President on his conferences, and agreements with Stalin and Churchill. We do not know whether we are headed in the direction of a super international state – a league of nations – a federation of nations – a world court – or a balance of power alliance, or a direction not yet made known.

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Tammany strife taken to court

New York (UP) –
A court order obtained by foes of the Tammany Hall regime of Edward V. Loughlin forced the organization’s leaders to call off a meeting of 1,000 county committee members last night and to delay adoption of a resolution endorsing a fourth term for President Roosevelt.

Mr. Loughlin charged that the motive behind the move by John L. Buckley and Dennis J. Mahon, members of Tammany’s Executive Committee, was to prevent passage of the resolution.

Mr. Buckley and Mr. Mahon, who obtained the order, alleged that the rules the committee was scheduled to adopt were not formulated properly. The proposed rules changes, they said, would have had the effect of strengthening the present leadership of Tammany.

The order is returnable next Monday.

[NormanStewart]

Background of news –
New York and the election

By Bertram Benedict

In the election in November, the state of New York will have 47 (17%) of the 266 electoral votes necessary to elect a President. This is more than the combined electoral vote of 12 other states. No wonder, then, that most of those who expect the election to be close are prophesying: “The man who carries New York will win,” nor that the Governor of New York now seems about to walk away with the Republican nomination.

For Mr. Dewey looks like a remarkably good vote-getter in New York, even if he was born and reared in Michigan. In 1938, he ran against Governor Lehman for the New York governorship and came within a hair’s breadth of winning. Mr. Lehman received 1,971,000 votes on the Democratic ticket and 420,000 on the American Labor Party ticket, for a total of 2,391,000. Mr. Dewey, receiving 2,327,000, was defeated by only 64,000 votes out of more than 4,700,000 cast.

In the same year, the two Republican candidates for U.S. Senator from New York (one for an unexpired term) lost by 438,000 votes and 355,000 votes, respectively. Two years before, the Republican gubernatorial candidate had lost by 521,000 votes. And in 1942, Mr. Dewey defeated the Democratic candidate and the American Labor Party candidate by a clear majority of 245,000.

Opposed by Willkie in 1942

Mr. Dewey received the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1942 over the ill-disguised opposition of Wendell L. Willkie. When the state Republican leaders were obviously about to swing the party nominating convention over to Mr. Dewey, Mr. Willkie came out for a free-for-all nomination race, although disclaiming any ambitions for himself and any participation in a Stop-Dewey movement.

Mr. Willkie was understood to have warned the party leaders privately that Mr. Dewey would be defeated because of his alleged isolationism prior to Pearl Harbor. But Mr. Dewey got the nomination hands down.

Mr. Willkie himself had run well in New York against President Roosevelt in 1940. There Mr. Willkie had 48% of the major party vote, as against 45% in the nation as a whole. If one in every 25 New Yorkers who voted for Mr. Roosevelt in 1940 should vote for the Republican candidate this year, the Republicans will carry the state.

However, the fact that Mr. Dewey ran well for Governor does not necessarily mean that he will run as well for President in the Empire State. Alfred E. Smith was also a great gubernatorial vote-getter, but the state which sent him to the Governor’s Mansion in Albany four times (once in a Republican landslide year, 1924), would not vote to send him to the White House in 1928.

Yet while New York was voting against Mr. Smith as the Democratic presidential candidate, it was voting for Franklin D. Roosevelt as the Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

Hughes wins – but loses

In 1916, the Republicans nominated for the Presidency Justice Charles E. Hughes of New York, largely because he was expected to carry, in what looked like a close election, the state in which he had been elected Governor in 1906 and 1908. The expectation was realized, for Mr. Hughes carried New York by a substantial margin, but he lost the election by 23 electoral votes (Woodrow Wilson, the winner, lost his state, New Jersey).

That was really the only time since the Civil War in which the country did not vote as New York voted. True, in 1876, New York voted for its governor, Samuel J. Tilden, only to see Hayes elected, but probably Tilden was unfairly counted out; as it was, he had a popular majority.

If it is Dewey vs. Roosevelt in November, it will be the first time since 1904 (Theodore Roosevelt vs. Alton B. Parker) that both major party candidates have been New Yorkers. In the year 1884, Governor Grover Cleveland of New York carried the state and was elected President; in 1888, he lost the state and the Presidency; in 1892, he carried the state and the nation again.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (May 17, 1944)

Roosevelt, Dewey win in primaries

Downey comes back in California vote
By the United Press

President Roosevelt and Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York gained additional support for the forthcoming presidential nominating conventions yesterday, returns from primaries in New Jersey and California showed today.

In New Jersey, candidates pledged to support a fourth term for the President were uncontested for 40 seats and 34 votes at the Democratic National Convention. Mr. Dewey picked up 35 potential votes in the New Jersey Republican primary in a contest in which the state GOP organization, headed by Governor Walter E. Edge, piled up almost a six to one lead over a slate which campaigned on a “Draft Dewey” campaign. Mr. Edge, former backer of Wendell L. Willkie, has said he favored Mr. Dewey, but desired the state delegation to be uninstructed.

Fourth term endorsed

California’s 56 delegates, with 52 votes to the Democratic convention, favoring a fourth term for the President, were unopposed, while a 50-member GOP delegation, also unopposed, was pledged to Governor Earl Warren, as a favorite son. Mr. Warren, however, was not an announced candidate for the presidential nomination, but has been mentioned frequently as a possible running mate for Mr. Dewey and his delegates were expected to support the New York Governor after the first ballot at the convention.

The Democratic state committee in Delaware closed a meeting last night by instructing its eight-member delegation to support Mr. Roosevelt for a fourth term.

Dewey has 529 votes

Montana political parties, closing a two-day convention, pledged 10 delegates to the President and eight for Mr. Dewey.

In all, President Roosevelt added 104 convention votes to swell his total to 788 – 199 more than necessary for nomination. Mr. Dewey added 93 pledged and potential delegates to give him a possible 529 delegates on the first or second ballots at the Republican convention, only one vote shy of nomination.

In New Jersey, returns from 2,157 of 3,645 precincts gave the Republican organization delegates-at-large slate, headed by Governor Edge (115,378 votes), compared with 20,186 for the opposing slate headed by former State Senator Lloyd Schroeder.

GOP National Committeemen H. Alexander Smith continued to pile up an overwhelming lead over his rival for the party’s designation for U.S. Senate in New Jersey.

Senate seat fight

In 2,471 precincts, Mr. Smith had 128,748 votes compared to 23,076 for Jersey City attorney Andrey O. Wittreich.

Rep. Elmer H. Wene, Vineland poultryman, was unopposed for the Democratic Senatorial nomination in New Jersey. The primary winners will fight it out for the Senate seat now occupied by Senator Arthur Walsh, who was appointed by Governor Edge to succeed the late Senator W. Warren Barbour. Mr. Walsh did not seek the nomination.

There were no major contests for the Democratic Congressional nominations, and Republican organization candidates won easily in the four contests in their primary.

Downey triumphs

In California, Democrats by inference endorsed the Roosevelt administration in a consolidated primary by giving U.S. Senator Sheridan Downey, a New Deal supporter, a 3–1 lead over his nearest opponent for Democratic renomination.

Republican votes gave Lieutenant Governor Frederick F. Houser, a critic of the President’s domestic policies, a commanding lead in the contest to name a GOP nominee.

Returns from 8,277 precincts gave leading Senatorial candidates:

REPUBLICAN

Houser	124,348
Downey	61,536
Philip Bancroft	50,044
William G. Bonelli	23,503
Justus Craemer	20,062
Charles G. Johnson	24,001

DEMOCRATIC

Downey	243,601
Houser	62,026
Bonelli	30,639
Bancroft	27,750
Jack B. Tenney	14,670

Under California law, candidates are permitted to run for both Democratic and Republican nominations regardless of their party affiliations.

No campaign made

Mr. Downey remained in Washington and did no active campaigning in the last few weeks preceding the election. Mr. Houser, a State Assemblyman and an unsuccessful candidate for Congress before he was elected Lieutenant Governor in the 1942 Republican sweep in California, campaigned in most counties of the state.

Five Republican and five Democratic representatives of the 23 in the California delegation held leads for both major party nominations which, if maintained, would send them into the November general election unopposed.

Los Angeles Rep. John M. Costello, a Democrat, was trailing behind Hal Styles, a Los Angeles radio commentator, for his own party nomination although he was leading for the Republican nomination. He will be disqualified for any nomination if he fails to win his own party bid.

GOP voters lead

A heavy Republican turnout gave the unopposed Warren presidential ticket a larger early count than that won by the fourth term Roosevelt delegation, although the state’s registration is Democratic 3–2.

Representatives who held leads for both major party nominations were Clarence Lea, leader of the delegation, John H. Tolan, Alfred J. Elliott, Cecil King and Chet Hollifield, all Democrats, and Leroy Johnson. John Z. Anderson, Bertrand W. Gearhart, Carl Hinshaw and John Phillips, Rep. Richard J. Welch (R-San Francisco) had no opposition for major party nomination.

In the 14th district, being vacated by Thomas F. Ford, a Democrat, Helen Gahagan Douglas, a former actress and Democratic National Committeewoman, led for Democratic nomination and William D. Campbell for the Republican bid. Ellis E. Patterson, a former lieutenant governor, led for Democratic nomination in the 16th district being vacated by Will Rogers Jr. and the Rev. Jesse R. Kellems, a state assemblyman led for the Republican nomination.

[NormanStewart]

CIO for 4th term, Wallace

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
The CIO Political Action Committee and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America has endorsed President Roosevelt for a fourth term.

The Political Action Committee, meeting in special session, passed a resolution saying that the members “felt confident that the people will reelect” the President.

ACWA delegates, meeting here in their 14th biennial convention, approved a fourth term for President Roosevelt and Vice President Henry Wallace by unanimous acclaim.

Philip Murray, president of the CIO, told the convention that labor must get behind the drive for President Roosevelt’s fourth term.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (May 18, 1944)

Fourth term strategy gets workout here

Democrats’ gunsights leveled at Tom Dewey
By Kermit McFarland

Paced by two new stars of the campaign circuit, the Democratic high command last night outlined its fourth term strategy at the fundraising Jefferson Day dinner of the local Democratic organization.

To a crowd of 1,200 which paid $10 a plate for a $3 meal, Democratic National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan and U.S. Senator Samuel D. Jackson (D-IN) blueprinted the 1944 battlefront on which President Roosevelt will attempt to stand off Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York.

Although Mr. Dewey is not an announced candidate, let alone the Republican nominee, the Democratic leaders accepted him as Mr. Roosevelt’s opponent and uncorked the barrage which they hope will send him to join Herbert Hoover, Alf Landon and Wendell Willkie in the ranks of Republican nominees beaten by the President.

Counts against Dewey

Mr. Hannegan, who took over the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee in January, lined up these counts against Mr. Dewey:

• Inexperience.

• His opposition to Lend-Lease in 1941.

• A statement Mr. Hannegan said the New York Governor made in 1940 in which he said it would be “impossible” to produce 50,000 warplanes in a year.

• A statement Mr. Hannegan said Mr. Dewey made in the same year in which he said it would be “impossible” to train 75,000 pilots.

• His alleged hookup with former President Hoover.

• His alleged tie-in with the big financial interests.

To which Senator Jackson added:

• The election of Mr. Dewey would be a throwback to Presidents Harding and Coolidge.
• An isolationist tag for Mr. Dewey.
• The abortive peace efforts of 1920, which he blamed on the Republicans.

On the more positive side, Mr. Hannegan urged the reelection of Mr. Roosevelt as a means of guaranteeing the Four Freedoms. And Senator Jackson warned that a “change of horses in mid-stream” might lead to a change in the grand military strategy, in the military command and in foreign policy generally.

Campaign chest swelled

The dinner must have netted the Democrats more than $20,000 for the campaign chest.

The 1,200 persons Democratic State Chairman David L. Lawrence said were present paid $10 a plate. Expenses were estimated not to exceed $5 per, leaving a net profit of $5 each, or a total of $6,000. This will be split 50% to national headquarters, 25% to state headquarters and the balance to local headquarters.

In addition, the dinner committee distributed a slick-paper “program” consisting of 162 pages of advertising, at $100 a page, and three pages of program. What with half-, quarter-, eighth-, and sixteenth-page ads are intermediate rates and $5 for merely a name, the book should have netted upwards of $16,000.

Notables are present

Democratic notables from over the state were present, including all the candidates in this year’s election – save State Treasurer G. Harold Wagner, nominee for Auditor General, reported ill in Harrisburg – local public officials and party officers.

Aside from the two visiting notables, the only speaker was Mr. Lawrence who warned the Democrats that since 1932 some of them have become “statesmen and fat cats,” that this is the most crucial election since 1864 and they had better get out and plug.

Mr. Hannegan, saying the “identities of the two probable candidates are by this time foreshadowed clearly enough,” waded into Mr. Dewey, whom he termed “the Great Republican Unmentionable.”

‘Defeatism’ charged

Mr. Hannegan said:

Read him three years ago, and two years ago, and up to the time when the dream of becoming President of our country began to put a new cast in his thinking and a new color in his public utterances.

Read those speeches – speeches of defeatism, of helplessness, of narrow jealousies and suspicions – and then ask yourself, had we followed the pattern traced out then, where would our country be today?

He said the Republicans were trying to make his references to Mr. Dewey’s earlier statements appear as a “smear” and asserted:

We are being asked by the minority party to trust to luck, to the chance that an inexperienced, unpracticed leader will guess right. We are being asked to make him President and then hope that among the wavering, varying and contradictory policies to which he has already subscribed at one time or another, he will pull out the long straw.

Hoover ‘issue’ enters in

He said Mr. Hoover is Mr. Dewey’s “political guardian.” He said:

As far as the people of America are concerned, the Great Engineer and the Great Republican Unmentionable are interchangeable.

Senator Jackson – serving in the Senate by appointment, but the current Democratic nominee for Governor of Indiana – answered his self-propelled question as to how long the Democrats would stay in Washington:

Until the escutcheons of this government shall have been cleansed of the debauchery of the administration of Warren G. Harding. Until the economic and financial structure of this Republic shall have been healed of the rampant and unchecked pirating during the do-nothing administration of Calvin Coolidge. Until the last farmer, businessman and worker shall have been made whole of the devastation wrought by the unfortunate and unsung administration of Herbert Hoover. Until that permanent peace promised to the heroes of World War I shall have been kept in spirit and in truth.

He said there is not a “mustard seed” of hope in Mr. Dewey.