Election 1944: Pre-convention news

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 24, 1944)

South barred in preparing 4th term plea

Guffey backed resolution urging President to run again
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington (UP) –
Democratic National Committee records showed today that the South was not represented on the Resolutions Committee which proposed at the meeting here a surprise solicitation that President Roosevelt seek a fourth term.

The National Committee adopted the resolution unanimously.

There is no Democratic Party rule that the South must be recognized in allocating such positions of responsibility at party meetings but it has uniformly been the practice to include Southerners on any such group authorized to propose party policy.

Feeds ill feeling

Exclusion of Southerners from the Resolutions Committee will probably aggravate further the ill feeling between the old-line party members and the newcomers among Mr. Roosevelt’s associates whom they term “New Dealers.”

The Resolutions Committee, six men and one woman, was heavily weighted with fourth-term sentiment. The big industrial states and notably the Democratic machines of Mayor Edward J. Kelly of Chicago, Mayor Frank Hague of Jersey City, and Senator Joseph F. Guffey in Pennsylvania were well represented.

Senator Guffey, the most active advocate of the fourth term, is not a National Committee member and therefore could not have been on the Resolutions Committee. But his Pennsylvania organization was well represented with two of the seven members by his sister, Mrs. Emma Guffey Miller and David L. Lawrence.

Other members

Resolutions Committee chairman was Senator Theodore F. Green (D-RI). Mayor Hague was not a member, but was represented by Rep. Mary T. Norton (D-NJ). The other members were Mr. Kelly, boss of the Illinois Democratic machine, former Governor Keen Johnson of Kentucky, a member of the Roosevelt faction, and O. S. Warden from Montana.

The National Committee adopted the fourth-term resolution with neither debate not dissent. Veteran political observers ascribed the actions in part to the belief that the President is the only Democrat who would have even a remote chance of being elected this year.

Willkie won’t run in California

New York (UP) –
Wendell L. Willkie, who announced yesterday that he would not enter the California presidential preference primary in May, was expected today to place his name before Republican primary voters in four and possibly five other states.

His name definitely will be entered in Wisconsin, Nebraska, Oregon and Pennsylvania, his associates said, and possibly in New Hampshire.

Mr. Willkie announced his decision after a telephone conversation with California Governor Earl Warren.

He issued a statement saying:

In the last few days, I have discussed this situation fully by telephone with Governor Warren. He assures me that he is not and will not be a candidate for the presidential nomination and that he has no agreement, arrangement or understanding with any candidate or potential candidate that he is not and will not become associated with any Stop-Willkie movement.

4th term support pledged by CIO

New York (UP) –
Calling upon President Roosevelt to seek reelection, 2,500 CIO leaders were on record today with a formal pledge to support a fourth term.

Meeting under the auspices of the Greater New York CIO Council, the officials also adopted a resolution endorsing the President’s five-point home front program, including passing of a national service act.

The conference also adopted a resolution demanding that the War Labor Board permit wage increases of 20%.

[NormanStewart]

Slav group refuses to endorse 4th term

Full endorsement was given President Roosevelt’s war policies at the closing session of state presidents and secretaries of the American Slav Congress, but delegates declined to adopt a resolution favoring a fourth term.

Announcing the action of the congress, Judge Blair F. Gunther, chairman, said that although “the American Slav Congress tries to avoid European politics as much as possible,” sometimes some of the issues cannot be ignored.

One of these was the solution of the Polish-Russian boundary problem, which delegates said could not be solved by Russia alone, but must be settled by a conference of British, American and Polish government-in-exile leaders.

[NormanStewart]

Soldier vote speeded

Washington (UP) –
Administration forces in the Senate today defeated a Republican attempt to prevent immediate consideration of soldier-vote legislation.

The decision to take up the legislation ahead of food subsidies was reached by Democratic Party leaders in caucus. When the Senate convened, Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH), an opponent of the administration-sponsored bill, tried to upset the Democratic program by moving to consider subsidies first, but the Senate rejected his motion 38–33.

Five Democrats voted with Senator Taft.

Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY) said the committee discussed only the legislative program – the order in which the two issues would be taken up – and did not try to bind party members to any particular side on either question.

Democratic ranks are split on both subjects. Southern Senators have resisted the administration-favored soldier-vote bill on the ground that the federal ballot it provides amounts to an invasion of state’s rights. Democrats are also split on the subsidy issue, with farm state Senators leading a fight to outlaw the present food subsidy program.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 25, 1944)

In Washington –
‘State’s rights’ supporters outfox federal vote leaders

By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
Even if the fighting men could watch the show Congress is putting on in connection with the soldier-vote bill, they probably couldn’t understand it. Parliamentary maneuvers, filibustering and tricky amendments are being used by the coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats trying to defeat the Green-Lucas-Worley Bill with its simple ballot.

Some members themselves are not clear about what is going on, beyond observing that the coalition backing the Eastland-Rankin “states’-rights” bill seems to have the advantage in slick maneuvers. Administration leaders appear inept.

To add to the confusion, a race has started between House and Senate to pass a bill first.

Adjournment of the Senate today out of respect to the memory of Senator Frederick Van Nuys (D-IN), who died last night, delayed its showdown vote on the bills.

The Senate took up the new Green-Lucas Bill yesterday. Immediately, Republicans led by Senator Taft (R-OH), with the connivance of Southern Democrats, started a filibuster to hold up passage until the House acts first on the states’-rights bill sponsored by two Mississippians, Senator Eastland and Rep. Rankin.

The House took up that measure today, operating under a special rule, framed by the coalition, which bars a record vote on the Worley Bill for a federal ballot, which Rep. Worley (D-TX) will offer as a substitute.

This was designed so that constituents of Republicans cannot find out how their Congressmen voted on this issue of giving servicemen an opportunity to vote easily. Southern supporters of the Eastland-Rankin Bill do not care who knows how they vote, but they are helping their Republican allies to keep their votes secret.

The coalition hopes to rush through this measure, which Secretaries Stimson and Knox say cannot be administered effectively since it is complicated by 48 state laws, in an effort to confuse the legislative situation in the Senate so that it will be difficult to act on the Green-Lucas Bill for a federal ballot.

The Senate situation is confused by the fact that the Senate itself once passed, a few weeks ago, the Eastland “states’-rights” bill.

Sponsors of the new Green-Lucas Bill, Senators Lucas (D-IL) and Green (D-RI), are anxious to get their measure passed first in the Senate, with the hope of a psychological effect in the House, but the coalition filibuster will apparently prevent that.

Republicans in the Senate revealed their new strategy, which is to insist that ballots for state as well as federal offices must be distributed to every soldier, even though Secretaries Stimson and Knox say the services can guarantee delivery and return only of a simplified ballot for President, Vice President and members of Congress.

The new Green-Lucas Bill provides that transportation shall be provided for these state ballots, as well as the simple ballot, as far as may be possible, but with priority given to the simple ballot.

The Republican spleen against the two Republican Cabinet members broke into the open yesterday when Senator Taft accused them of “running for a fourth term” so they could continue in office, and said he did not believe what they said about delivering state ballots.

---

Governor Bricker to address Spanish War veterans

United Spanish War Veterans of Western Pennsylvania will have John W. Bricker, Governor of Ohio and Republican presidential candidate, as guest speaker at the annual McKinley Day dinner Thursday night in the William Penn Hotel.

John F. Barry, national inspector general of the USWV, announced the dinner is a sellout.

Other guests will include County Commissioner John J. Kane, Col. Robert G. Woodside (past national commander of the VPW), Guy V. Boyle of Indianapolis (national head of the USWV), Charles I. Shaffer of Somerset (department president), Hattie B. Frazenfield (national president of the Auxiliary), County Legion Commander Michael A. Fisher and Dr. William A. Knoer (Allegheny County commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars).

Edward S. Mathias, judge of the Ohio Supreme Court and a past commander of the USWV, will accompany Governor Bricker here for the dinner.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: A ‘simple, uniform’ ballot

Secretary Stimson gives every evidence of being sincerely concerned about the problem of providing members of the Armed Forces with a vote in the 1944 elections.

He also gives every evidence of being wholly non-political in his interest.

Mr. Stimson, along with Secretary of the Navy Knox, has presented to Congress a specific outline of the problems involved in the job of getting ballots to the Armed Forces and back to the proper election boards for counting.

The two secretaries have pledged the Army and Navy to exert every effort to do the job as speedily and efficiently as circumstances permit.

But Mr. Stimson says the so-called “states’ rights” compromise bill which is now before the House will “interfere with the prosecution of the war” and he requests Congress to provide a “simple, uniform” ballot.

And that is exactly what Congress ought to do.

And the states ought to cooperate with it, even to the extent of calling special sessions of their legislatures if necessary.

The sooner Congress acts, the sooner the states will know what changes in procedure, if any are necessary, and the sooner they will be able to make them.

Obviously, there are some complex problems, legal and mechanical, in providing the Armed Forces with a vote. But they are not problems which cannot be surmounted if Congress, the Army and the Navy and state administrations will put their brains to them.

Any failure in giving the Armed Forces the utmost opportunity to vote is a breach of the right to suffrage – the highest privilege of an American citizen. That is like saying to the Armed Forces:

You may fight and die, if need be, for the right to vote; but you may not participate in that right.

[NormanStewart]

Background of news –
The South and the Democrats

By Bertram Benedict, editorial research reports

Talk of a Southern anti-New Deal candidate – like Senator Byrd of Virginia – for the 1944 presidential nomination got exactly nowhere at Saturday’s Democratic National Committee gathering in Washington, at which President Roosevelt was endorsed for a fourth term.

The Civil War and secession may have died out as political issues, but the Negro question has not, and the Democratic Party will need to retain in 1944 as many Negro votes as it can. Also, the party will need to retain as much of the labor vote as possible, and most Southern Democrats have records which do not sit well with the trade unions.

Also, the party can count upon the South without nominating a Southerner. Only when it named Al Smith in 1928 did the party lose states in the “Solid South” – Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Texas. And only in out-and-out Republican landslides do the Democrats lose Southern states outside of the Solid South – Kentucky in 1924 and 1928, Oklahoma and Tennessee in 1920 and 1928.

No Southerners since Civil War

The Democrats have not nominated a Southerner for President since the Civil War, although Woodrow Wilson was born in Virginia. In fact, even before the Civil War, the party had deemed it best, to minimize sectional feeling, to name a non-Southerner – in 1860 Douglas of Illinois (a rump convention named Breckinridge of Kentucky), in 1856 Buchanan of Pennsylvania, in 1852 Pierce of New Hampshire, in 1848 Cass of Michigan.

On the other hand, five of the seven Democratic nominees prior to 1848 had come from the South, and in 1824, John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts was a minority choice, with a majority of the Democratic electoral votes split among three Southerners, while Van Buren in 1836 and 1840 was the faithful lieutenant of Andrew Jackson of Tennessee.

Even the Democratic vice presidential nomination did not go to a Southerner until more than 60 years after the Civil War – Robinson in 1928, Garner in 1932 and 1936.

In 1936, the Democratic convention in Philadelphia abolished the two-thirds rule, which up to that time had governed all Democratic national conventions (the Republicans have never used it). The two-thirds rule had in effect given a veto power over the nominations to the 13 Southern states, which accounted, on the average, for about 25% of the delegates to the national conventions. In 1944, the 13 Southern states will have 27%.

Wouldn’t support Wallace

In 1940, most Southern delegates rebelled against the administration command to nominate Henry A. Wallace for Vice President, and got behind Speaker Bankhead. The Southern states gave 224 votes to Mr. Bankhead, 66 to Mr. Wallace, 8½ to other candidates. Mr. Wallace was nominated with 627 votes. If the two-thirds rule had been in effect, he would have needed 734.

In 1940, to compensate the South for the abrogation of the two-thirds rule, the Democratic convention voted to give two additional delegates to every state which went Democratic in the preceding elections. That will really decrease the proportionate Southern strength in the 1944 convention, because in 1940, Mr. Roosevelt carried 25 non-Southern states, 13 Southern ones. The new system will benefit the Southern states in conventions following Republican victories, when the Democratic ticket probably will do better in the South than elsewhere.

As a result of the midterm elections in 1942, the South held slightly less than half (25 out of 57) of the Democratic seats in the Senate, more than half (116 out of 219) of those in the House. The 13 Southern states have 28% of the votes in the Electoral College.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 26, 1944)

ROOSEVELT URGES FEDERAL SERVICE VOTE
State ballot called fraud by President

Special message demands Congressmen stand up, be counted

Washington –
President Roosevelt today assailed as a “fraud” on service personnel the so-called states’ rights soldier-vote legislation. He called upon Congress to provide a single federal ballot, which he said would enable all members of the Armed Forces to vote for federal officials this November.

In a special message to Congress, the President specifically endorsed a compromise bill now pending in the Senate which would provide for distribution of federal ballots to servicemen and women, with states retaining the right to determine whether the voters are qualified and whether their votes are valid.

Wants a record vote

Mr. Roosevelt also noted that Congress might act on the matter without a record vote.

That, he said, is entirely a legislative matter, but he added that:

I think that most Americans will agree with me that every member of the two Houses of Congress ought to be willing in justice “to stand up and be counted”!

The bill passed by the Senate on Dec. 3, Mr. Roosevelt said, was a “fraud on the soldiers and sailors and Marines now training and fighting.”

Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH) arose immediately after the President’s message was read in the Senate to protest against what he termed the Chief Executive’s “insult.”

Senator Taft objects

Senator Taft said:

It is most unfortunate that the President should again see fit to inject himself into legislative matters. It is an insult to the members of Congress.

The existing soldier-vote law enacted in 1942 would permit soldiers to vote, Senator Taft said, and the Senate-approved bill pending in the House would enable soldiers to vote.

He introduced a substitute bill which would retain state ballots but set up federal machinery for their distribution and collection, and promised that he would later discuss the President’s message on the grounds that Mr. Roosevelt’s arguments were “untrue and unsound.”

Mr. Roosevelt in his message said the bill passed by the Senate was a fraud upon the people as well as on service personnel.

He continued:

It would not enable any soldier to vote with any greater facility than was provided by Public Law 712 under which only a negligible number of soldier’s votes were cast.

The bill condemned by Mr. Roosevelt called upon the states to enact legislation to facilitate absentee balloting by members of the Armed Forces.

On House calendar

It was adopted by the Senate in place of a bill which had been approved by the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee and which would have provided for voting by members of the Armed Forces on federal ballots under direction of a War Ballot Commission.

The bill is now on the House calendar, after being slightly revised by the House Elections Committee.

The Senate, meanwhile, is considering the soldier vote issue anew. Pending on the floor is a compromise bill sponsored by Senators Scott Lucas (D-IL) and Theodore F. Green (D-RI), which would provide for distribution of federal ballots on which service personnel would write in the name of their choices for President, Vice President, Senator and Representative.

Lucas bill favored

Mr. Roosevelt endorsed the pending Lucas-Green Senate bill – which has been introduced in the House by Elections Committee Chairman Eugene Worley (D-TX) – because, he said, it “seems to me” that it would furnish to service personnel an opportunity to vote.

The new Lucas-Green and Worley bills set up proper and efficient machinery for absentee balloting, Mr. Roosevelt said.

Each state, under the bills, would determine for itself whether or not the voter is qualified to vote under the laws of his state.

The President said:

There is nothing in such a proposed statute which violates the rights of the states. The federal government merely provides quick machinery for getting the ballots to the troops and back again.

He said that he spoke as the Commander-in-Chief of the men in the armed services and that:

I am sure that I can express their wishes in this matter and their resentment against the discrimination which is being practiced against them.

The nation’s fighting men, Mr. Roosevelt asserted, do not have a lobby or pressure group on Capitol Hill “to see that justice is done for them.”

Can’t use ads

He added:

They are not ordinarily permitted to write their Congressman on pending legislation, nor do they put ads in the papers or stimulate editorial writers or columnists to make special appeals for them.

It certainly would appear unnecessary that our soldiers and sailors and Merchant Marine have to make a special effort to retain their right to vote.

The President said that he has been informed that it would be possible, under Congressional parliamentary rules, for a soldier’s vote bill to be rejected or passed without a roll call. He said he had hesitated to say anything to the Congress on this matter because the making of these rules is closely within the discretion of the two Houses.

But he added:

I think that there would be widespread resentment on the part of the people of the nation if they were unable to find out how their individual representatives had expressed themselves on this legislation – which goes to the root of citizenship.

The President said there will be more than five million Americans outside the United States in our Armed Forces and Merchant Marine when the 194 elections are held. He noted that they, and millions more who will be stationed within the country awaiting shipment overseas, will be subject to frequent, rapid and unpredictable transfer to other points outside the inside the United States.

‘Tongues in cheek’

The President said:

Some people – I am sure with their tongues in their cheeks – say that the solution to this problem is simply that the respective states improve their own absentee ballot machinery.

In fact, there is now pending before the House of Representatives a meaningless bill, passed by the Senate Dec. 3, 1943, which presumes to meet this complicated and difficult situation by some futile language which recommends to the several states the immediate enactment of appropriate legislation…

This recommendation is itself a proof of the unworkability of existing state laws. I consider such proposed legislation a fraud on the soldiers and sailors and Marines now training and fighting for us and for our sacred rights.

The recommendation in that bill, Mr. Roosevelt said, may be heeded by a few states but will not and cannot be carried out by all the states.

The President said that he was convinced that if all the states tried to carry out the recommendations contained in the bill passed by the Senate, the most practical method would be to authorize the Army and Navy to distribute and collect ballots prepared by the states in response to post card requests from servicemen.

But this very procedure, he added, is set forth in Public Law 712 which he said “has been such a failure.”

The law to which he referred was enacted in 1942 to facilitate absentee voting by servicemen, but even opponents of federal balloting legislation have conceded that it was adequate.

[NormanStewart]

Eberharter urges genuine vote bill

Washington –
Presidential candidates ought to inform the public whether they favor “the enactment of a genuine soldiers’ vote bill or the “innocuous and spurious Rankin-Eastland bill,” Rep. Herman P. Eberharter (D-PA) told the House of Representatives.

Mr. Eberharter noted that Wendell Willkie, Republican presidential possibility, had declared for a full soldier vote and had said it was impracticable to poll the soldier vote under laws of individual states.

The Congressman added:

Also, the soldiers and sailors and Marines will want to know, and they will remember in the future, how each member of Congress votes as between the genuine and the counterfeit.

[NormanStewart]

Bricker speaks here tomorrow

He will address veterans at William Penn

Ohio Governor Bricker

Governor John W. Bricker, the only announced candidate for the Republican nomination for President, will arrive in Pittsburgh tomorrow morning.

Governor Bricker, the first Republican in the history of Ohio to be elected governor for three consecutive terms, will be the main speaker at the annual McKinley Day banquet to be held at 7:00 p.m. ET in the William Penn Hotel. The banquet is under the sponsorship of the United Spanish War Veterans.

In appearing here, Governor Bricker will be making his initial appearance in Pennsylvania since he announced his candidacy. He recently returned to Ohio from a tour of Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma.

Accompanying Governor Bricker will be John W. Galbreath (campaign director and treasurer), Robert L. Barton (the Governor’s secretary) and Jack Flanagan (press secretary).

Others who will speak at the banquet include Guy V. Boyle of Indianapolis (the veterans’ commander-in-chief), Mrs. Hettie B. Trazenfeld of Philadelphia (national president of the Women’s Auxiliary), Department Commander Dr. Charles I. Shaeffer, and Mrs. Helen R. Hawk (auxiliary department president).

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Soldiers are voters first

The public is getting dizzy watching Congress weave in and out with measures for soldier voting. The issue has many technical complications, constitutional and otherwise. But the politicians have compounded the complications with every known brand of joker and parliamentary trickery, until the situation almost defies comprehension.

In this, the politicians are outsmarting themselves. If they maneuver this so that many soldier ballots will not be counted – as some of them seem to desire – the public kickback will be so hard they won’t know what hit them.

For one thing is so clear that not even Congressional gyrations can obscure it: The country is determined that servicemen and women overseas shall vote. That determination is all the greater because the soldiers abroad are not here to speak for themselves.

Congress is aware that the public is supersensitive on this subject; hence the effort to cover up tracks. Thus the House has a special rule which if it prevails will bar a roll call on the controversial amendment proposing a federal ballot.

The legal and practical trouble in soldier suffrage arises because normal voting is on state ballots, and many states have no adequate machinery for absentee soldier voting. Added to this is the difficulty of distributing the bulky state documents abroad – which the Secretaries of War and Navy say cannot be done effectively unless the states simplify certain requirements.

On the political side is the fear of certain Southerners that sectional voting restrictions, such as the poll tax, will be undermined. Also, some Northern Republicans think the servicemen may return a Democratic majority because of the Commander-in-Chief, and using the states’ rights issue for obstruction.

A compromise is necessary. Since not all 48 states can guarantee the absent serviceman a ballot, there should be a substitute federal short ballot allowing a choice of presidential, vice presidential and Congressional candidates – leaving it to state election officials to count the votes returned.

To disfranchise eligible voters among the five and a half million fighting overseas for the preservation of American democracy would be a crime – and a costly crime.

[NormanStewart]

Background of news –
Democrats united on fourth term

By Jay G. Hayden, North American Newspaper Alliance

Washington –
One thing unmistakably demonstrated in the Democratic 1944 campaign curtain-raiser on Saturday is that President Roosevelt either must accept a fourth nomination or leave his party so hopelessly debilitated as to be unable even to stir up a respectable scrap within its own ranks.

Judged by the flood of individual and group complaints it has been receiving, the party high command expected trouble from several directions.

A group of Midwesterners, headed by James C. Quigley of Nebraska, staged a rumpus at the National Committee meeting in Chicago last year and arrived for the present session ahead of time ostensibly to repeat this performance.

Early last week, also, a flock of Southern governors came to town, breathing fire and brimstone against alleged federal discriminations affecting their section. In this group were several governors who had talked openly of the possibility of Southern bolt against a fourth term.

President Roosevelt’s call for a national service act to end strikes seemingly had antagonized all but an extreme left wing of organized labor.

Farley attends session

Most disturbing of all to the party managers must have been the news that James A. Farley, leader of Democratic opposition to the third term and reported even more opposed to a fourth, had slipped into the headquarters hotel and was busily finagling among the committeemen.

What eventuated from these rumblings of dissension?

Exactly nothing. The supposed Western insurgents were the first of all to plunk for a fourth term. The Southern governors left town, if not placated at least effectually silenced. If dissident labor unionists and farmers were present, they did not disclose themselves by even so much as an off-key peep. Mr. Farley left before the formal meeting began, tiptoeing, as he came.

The reason for all this abnegation is plain enough. It is that Democratic aspirants for office, from would-be Vice Presidents of the United Staters down to town constables, cannot discern a glimmer of 1944 hope anywhere except in another ride on Mr. Roosevelt’s coattails.

The kingpin of all present abnegators is Vice President Henry A. Wallace, Mr. Garner probably could have had a third vice presidential nomination if he had continued to play a harmonious second fiddle. But not so Mr. Wallace. The skidoo sign was handed him quietly several months ago, and at the Jackson Day dinner it was hung out for everybody to see.

The Rayburn-Wallace byplay

With the President absent the top billing for this gatherings logically should have gone to the Vice President. Instead, Speaker Sam Rayburn got it and he, all along, has been touted as the man Mr. Roosevelt had picked for his 1944 running mate.

This play between Messrs. Wallace and Rayburn was easily the most intriguing feature of the Jackson Day program, and it also may be indicative of one intra-Democratic danger lying ahead for the President.

While Mr. Rayburn monopolized the radio time with a speech strictly in Mr. Roosevelt’s new “Win-the-War” mold, Mr. Wallace clung to the cast-off “New Deal” and played it for all it was worth.

He asserted:

The New Deal is not dead. If it was dead, the Democratic Party would be dead, and well dead… The New Deal is Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Mr. Wallace, like every other Democratic office seeker, is plainly hanging on for dear life to Mr. Roosevelt’s coattails, but also he is hanging on to the “New Deal” policies with all of their old-time implication respecting organized labor, impecunious farmers and “big business” villains.

Implied in Mr. Wallace’s remarks is just the suspicion of a threat that if he is finally shoved from his coattail perch, a lot of other New Deal supporters may slide off with him.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 27, 1944)

Gen. MacArthur: Soldier-President can shorten war

But private advices from the South Pacific picture general as very willing to let events take course
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Gen. MacArthur

Washington –
A recent visitor to Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters in the Southwest Pacific has sent me a report on political sentiment in that outpost which will be of unusual interest to Americans who have been wondering whether the general will be a candidate for President.

The summary is by an experienced observer, and those who are interested in the MacArthur boom undoubtedly will be impressed by the fact that it was passed through the general’s own military censorship.

**Probably the most striking part of this report is the suggestion that Gen. MacArthur believes an experienced soldier in the White House would bring an earlier victory in the war.

The report says at one point:

It would not be surprising if Gen. MacArthur felt – as do a good many here – that the shortest way to victory would be to place an experienced military man in the White House.

The report reflects the impression at his headquarters that Gen. MacArthur will neither declare his availability for the Republican nomination nor withdraw his name from consideration, preferring to “let events take their course.” It is emphasized that he is not taking any time out from war for politics, but that no one should assume this to mean that he would not be receptive to the presidential nomination.

The report continues:

Even if he were nominated, sources here believe it entirely possible that Gen. MacArthur would not leave his post to campaign. Talking to MacArthur supporters of whom there are many here, I get the impression they foresee the possibilities about this way:

MacArthur will maintain complete silence on political matters pending the Republican National Convention, but his supporters will go into the convention with a fair bloc of votes from the Midwest. One figure mentioned is 125 delegates. This presumably would place his third behind Governor Thomas E. Dewey and Wendell L. Willkie. They believe Dewey and Willkie are likely to deadlock whereupon MacArthur might emerge as a compromise candidate since he likely to have considerable second choice strength among both Dewey and Willkie supporters.

If nominated, it is believed MacArthur might accept by cable, explaining that his job of beating the Japs was too important to permit him to campaign. The campaign would be the responsibility of party leaders at home with the general-tossing in an occasional radio speech or public statement.

The report continues that in “some quarters here” there is a suggestion that Gen. MacArthur might be nominated for vice president on a ticket headed by Mr. Dewey.

According to this report:

But it is felt that the general probably would not be receptive to such suggestions and would scorn any pre-convention deal with Dewey, Willkie or any other candidate.

But whether he actually would refuse the vice presidency should the convention offer it is entirely unknown. Such a ticket might be as attractive as anything the Republicans could offer, especially if the presidential nominee announced that he planned to let MacArthur handle the job of winning the war.

MacArthur backer charges favoritism

Milwaukee, Wisconsin (UP) –
Lansing Hoyt, state chairman of the MacArthur-for-President club, today accused the national administration of discriminating against Republicans because of a ruling that Lt. Col. Philip F. La Follette could not run as a GOP convention delegate candidate pledged to Gen. MacArthur.

Maj. Gen. J. A. Ulio, Adjutant General of the Army, informed Hoyt of Col. La Follette’s standing. He had asked whether servicemen could run as delegate candidates for the national party conventions.

Gen. Ulio said:

The War Department cannot permit a member of the Army on active duty to participate in the convention of a political party.

Col. La Follette is serving on Gen. MacArthur’s staff in the Southwest Pacific.

Mr. Hoyt said he could see no difference between running for delegate or for President and pointed out that the War Department had consented to the naming of an Army man as a presidential candidate.

[NormanStewart]

Roosevelt’s blunt demand for soldier vote irks GOP

President spoke to people over head of Congress; majority support for bill probable
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
President Roosevelt’s blunt message to Congress demanding passage of the Green-Lucas-Worley soldier-vote bill was a shock that reacted in many questions.

The first-blush reaction in some quarters was that it might hurt rather than help the bill for a federal ballot because of the President’s plain language, particularly the brand of “fraud” which he stamped on the Eastland-Rankin “states’-rights” bill supported by a coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats.

But the second thought was that the President’s intercession probably would help in the long run, since he was talking over the heads of Congress to the people, and the public reaction might be potent.

The message made Republicans so mad that they exploded in a direction which some of them, on cooling off, thought might have been poor strategy.

Senators Taft (R-OH) and Bridges (R-NH) broke out immediately with charges that the President was using the federal-ballot bill to help win a fourth term.

Hitherto Republicans have been trying to keep the argument on the high ground of constitutionality. Some of them have confessed privately a fear that the Democrats would get more of the soldier vote than the Democrats.

Southern Democrats, privately resentful, kept their mouths closed, for the President, by bearing down on the Republicans, had made the bill a party issue.

He exposed the plan of Republicans to avoid a record vote in the House on the Worley Bill – a plan which a group of Democrats headed by Rep. Anderson (D-NM) are trying to circumvent. Some Southern Democrats have joined in this attempt to put everybody in the House on record.

Democratic leaders, seeking to reap the full benefit of the President’s message, postponed House consideration of the Rankin Bill until Tuesday.

Senate Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-KY) said he was ready to put the issue to a test in the Senate at any time and hoped to get a vote before the weekend. “It looks pretty good,” he said.

A partial poll of those who voted against the administration last time indicated that the new Lucas-Green Bill has won over enough Southern Democrats to reverse the outcome.

Most of them are basing their shift in a section of the new Lucas-Green bill which stipulates that validity of absentee ballots shall be determined by state and local officials. Thus, the responsibility for throwing out a soldier’s ballot because he had not registered, paid a poll tax or voted on the regular form of state ballot would not rest with the federal government.

[NormanStewart]

Bricker raps labor draft, administration

Coverup for bungling, Ohio presidential candidate calls proposal

Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio brought his campaign for the Presidency into Pennsylvania today with a blast against the National Service Act proposed by President Roosevelt for the drafting of men and women for war work.

In a press conference in his William Penn Hotel suite preliminary to a McKinley Day address before United Spanish War Veterans at the hotel tonight, Governor Bricker declared there has been no necessity shown for the proposed labor draft.

He charged that the act:

…is only a smokescreen to cover up the administration’s bungling and failure to cope with and handle the muddled condition in industry that has led to many strikes.

On soldier vote

He characterized the labor draft proposal as an extension of bureaucratic control and asserted:

There is no reason to put American men and women workers under the jurisdiction of draft boards.

Commenting on the soldier vote bill before Congress, Governor Bricker said there should be federal-enabling legislation passed, but that our soldiers should be entitled to vote the same kind of ballot they would receive if they were at home.

He suggested the soldier vote be handled by the Army and Navy, but that it be kept on a state basis as well as national.

Soldier bonus die

Governor Bricker said his program toward erasing the federal deficit would be to reduce taxes, to slice federal payrolls to a necessary working number and to slice salaries where they were far out of proportion.

Regarding the mustering-out pay for soldiers, Governor Bricker said it was entirely fair and certainly no more than soldiers deserve for their sacrifice of income and opportunities.

He charged that what the nation needs most today is a change in the philosophy of government as well as a change in the administration.

Visited nine states

He declared:

We must make the people masters of their government, rather than servants to it.

Governor Bricker said it had not yet been determined whether he will enter any of the state preferential primaries. He has visited nine states thus far since announcing his presidential candidacy in Chicago last December.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Guffey and Southerners

Led mainly by Senator Byrd of Virginia, a backsliding bloc of Southern Senators has revived the idea that Senator Joe Guffey, Pennsylvania’s leading coattail rider, should step out as chairman of the 1944 senatorial campaign committee.

Offhand, we can’t get much excited about whether Mr. Guffey steps down from this job or not.

As a matter of fact, we doubt that his presence as chairman of the senatorial campaign committee will make a whole lot of difference. By our standards, his name at the top of the committee’s stationery would not be regarded as exactly an asset.

But Mr. Guffey has been chairman of this committee in several campaigns. Up to now, there has been no complaint from Senators Byrd, Bailey of North Carolina or Smith of South Carolina, chief characters in the act of being incensed about Senator Guffey.

As a matter of fact, the chief cause for this demand for Senator’s Guffey’s scalp comes, not so much from base opinions these Southern gentlemen may have of Pennsylvania’s junior Senator, as from the fact that he said hard things about their opposition to a soldier-vote bill.

Senator Smith is the only one of this incensed trio who is a candidate for reelection this year. And if Senator Guffey’s position as chairman of the senatorial campaign committee turns out to be a liability to Senator Smith, it seems to us Senator Guffey, for once, will be performing a genuine public service.

The truth is that Senator Guffey was not too objectionable to these colleagues until he let loose with several blasts at an “unholy alliance” of Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans which he said was responsible for defeat of a soldier-vote bill.

Whether or not the alliance was “unholy” may be a matter of opinion, but any group which deprives the Armed Forces of a vote of achieving an “unholy” purpose.

On that issue, Senator Guffey can make no mistake if he maintains an unyielding obstinacy.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 28, 1944)

Dry party candidate’s kin called drunken driver

Los Angeles, California (UP) –
C. Arthur Watson, brother of the candidate for President on the Prohibition Party ticket, awaited a hearing today on a drunk driving charge.

Watson, a radiographer, did not say whether he would vote for his brother in the next election.

Watson’s attorney said he hadn’t realized what the effects of a cocktail taken after cough drops would be. The effects included an auto accident.

[NormanStewart]

Stokes: 4th term issue linked by GOP to soldier vote

And Democrats are quick to capitalize on Republican anxiety that Roosevelt will run again
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Washington –
The fourth-term issue is befogging consideration of the soldier-vote bill.

Republicans dragged it up in their first burst of anger over President Roosevelt’s message to Congress. Democrats pick it up, whenever it is offered, to capitalize on the apparent Republican anxiety that Mr. Roosevelt is going to run.

A few Republicans, including Senators Taft (R-OH) and Bridges (R-NH), have attracted so much publicity with their charge that the simple federal ballot in the Green-Lucas-Worley Bill is merely a device to get a solid soldier vote for the President, that it might appear this is a “party line.”

The President came out flatly for the federal-ballot bill and denounced as a “fraud” the Eastland-Rankin Bill, which leaves voting under state law, and which is supported by a majority of Republicans in Congress and by most Southern Democrats.

Some surprised

But it is not the case that Republicans have adopted the “fourth-term-plot” line as a party policy.

Some Republican leaders, notably Senator Vandenberg (R-MI), have been chagrined over this tack because of its defeatist taint. Mr. Vandenberg paced the center aisle, rubbing his chin in perplexity, when another outburst was precipitated yesterday by Senator Holman (R-OR).

He conferred with Senator White (R-ME), Acting Minority Leader, but nothing came of it, at least immediately.

The truth is that Senate Republicans have been lacking in real leadership since Senator McNary (R-OR), the Minority Leader, was compelled by illness to relinquish his duties.

Unable to agree

Their failure to adopt a party policy, and the resultant floundering, have been the subject of much comment. They were unable to agree at a party conference.

Republicans on both sides of the Capitol opened themselves up to the President’s pointed attack – particularly the House Republican leadership, which chose to ally itself with Southern Democrats in a scheme to support the “states’-rights” bill and to prevent a record vote in the House on the Worley Bill similar to the Green-Lucas measure in the Senate.

They find themselves in a dilemma.

The President sought to put them in the position of trying to keep the soldiers from voting, and by virtue of his office he has a much larger public hearing and can more easily dramatize and oversimplify an issue.

Public reaction feared

House Minority Leader Martin (R-MA) is trying to hold his Republicans in line against the public reaction which is expected from the President’s message. A few Republicans had already taken a position for the Worley Bill with its federal ballot, but the majority were backing the Rankin “states’-rights” measure.

A few days ago, it seemed certain that the Rankin Bill would pass in the House, which will take it up next week, but the President’ message may change this. The issue is closely drawn in the Senate, which resumes consideration of the legislation next week.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (January 29, 1944)

Political repercussion seen over atrocities

Washington (UP) –
Rep. Gerald W. Landis (R-IN) believes the report of Jap atrocities will have an effect on domestic politics.

He predicted yesterday that President Roosevelt “will not run for a fourth term because of the exposure of the Japanese atrocities on the men of Bataan.”

He charged:

Mr. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins are directly responsible for not getting supplies to Gen. Douglas MacArthur that would have saved those men.

[NormanStewart]

Background of news –
Willkie and the primaries

By Jay G. Hayden, North American Newspaper Alliance

Washington –
By withdrawing his name from the California presidential primary, Wendell L. Willkie has just about ended any chance he might have had to demonstrate popular strength sufficient to induce the Republican National Convention to nominate him.

California was important for many reasons. With 50 delegates, it is exceeded in voting power by only four states – New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio. It is the ne primary state where the full block of delegates goes with the preference vote and the commitment to stand by the popular choice to the last ditch is irrevocable.

California is one of very few states where Mr. Willkie has run ahead in the straw votes. And most important of all, in California he was offered a straight-out contest against the combination that has set out to beat him by creating an uninstructed convention.

Governor Earl Warren, while declaring himself not a candidate, consented to become a figurehead for the purpose of keeping the delegation free from commitment. Supporters of all the other leading candidates – Dewey, Bricker, Stassen and MacArthur – had agreed to this plan.

Clear-cut test avoided

Thus Mr. Willkie was presented with the opportunity to strike squarely at the “smoke-filled room” conception, and to get a clean-cut decision on it from the voters of a major state.

After much cogitation Mr. Willkie refused this test. The point, as most political observers see it, is that Mr. Willkie cannot hope to win by any such timid method. He hasn’t a chance if the party leaders have their way, and the only means by which he can upset them is to prove that he is the popular choice.

Mr. Willkie has previously indicated that he would not enter the primaries in three other of the five biggest states – New York, Illinois and Ohio. Of the remaining nine states that have some sort of popular participation in selection or instruction of presidential delegates, Mr. Willkie so far has definitely entered in only one – Wisconsin.

In New Hampshire, the Willkie managers are still backing and filling. early last fall Mr. Willkie definitely threatened that unless New Hampshire leaders agreed to a delegate slate favorable to him he would make a fight.

This led to a convergence of elements in favor of an uninstructed delegation, which as finally entered includes George H. Moses and Huntley Spaulding, former Senator and Governor, respectively, definitely anti-Willkie, and Robert Burroughs, present national committeeman, who is pro-Willkie. Others in this slate are non-committal, but most of them are suspected of being anti-Willkie.

First showdown in Wisconsin

Four pro-Willkie candidates meanwhile have filed in an apparent attempt to force the hand of the “uninstructed” group. Mr. Burroughs has made a proposition that if the while delegation will agree to vote for Mr. Willkie through two ballots, all opposition to it will be withdrawn.

The first big primary showdown will come in Wisconsin where delegate lists pledged to four candidates – Willkie, Dewey, MacArthur and Stassen – seem sure to be entered.

In this contest Mr. Willkie will be running against three shadows, in that not one of his opponents is in the open. Gen. MacArthur and Lt. Cdr. Harold E. Stassen are barred from active campaigning by their service connections and Mr. Dewey continues to insist he is not a candidate.

And in spite of the fact that the Willkie campaign in Wisconsin has been going forward for some time, with strong newspaper support, a Gallup Poll Wednesday showed Mr. Dewey with 40% of the state’s Republican vote, as against 20% for Mr. Willkie, 15% for Gen. MacArthur and 11% for Mr. Stassen.

[NormanStewart]

Pegler: Fourth term

By Westbrook Pegler

New York –
A fourth term for President Roosevelt would just about finish off the form of government under which we lived when he took office in 1933, but even though the men and women in the services undoubtedly would give him a big bulge over Tom Dewey in the autumn election, I say Congress had better find some way to let them have their say.

In thus nominating Governor Dewey, I am anticipating the Republican Convention, but I suppose nobody is going to dispute me.

Congress had better find a way to let these people vote because they would be awful sore at Congress if not, and in the event that Dewey were elected by a strict home-guard vote, he would take office under a handicap of resentment and suspicion in the fighting forces and his authority and prestige as Commander-in-Chief would be badly impaired.

There is some dissatisfaction with the conduct of the home-guard already, mostly because of the strikes.

This annoyance should be directed against Mr. Roosevelt himself, because he is ultimately responsible and the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Merchantmen, WACs and WAVES undoubtedly know it in a subconscious way.

Lewis also blamed

However, in their immediate view, John L. Lewis was the devil in the coal strike and old Green and Murray and the racketeering Fays and de Lorenzos are responsible for the five thousand and odd walkouts since Pearl Harbor.

Most of these people grew up under President Roosevelt. A fellow of say 25 years fighting in Italy or the South Pacific was only a leggedy, bucktoothed kid when Mr. Big walked in and had no mature appreciation of the nature of the American system.

He has no perspective on the changes toward fascism wrought in those 12 years and he is going to feel that he has been gypped of a very important and precious right if he doesn’t get a chance to vote.

Moreover, in addition to the other advantages which Mr. Roosevelt enjoys with this great block of voters, he now appears before them as their champion against a lot of no-good Republicans whose very sincere and valid arguments on the question of states’ rights will seem mean and tricky and inspired by no other consideration than low politics.

A handicap for Dewey

And just as Hitler and Mussolini raised a generation in their own beliefs, the younger Americans whose whole conscious or intelligent life has been spent under the influence of the New Deal were taught not to be fastidious about strict observance of the Constitution and the laws of their own country, the less so when strict observance would subject them to a plain injustice and leave the election of the next President to civilians who have made little or no sacrifice and felt no physical pain.

This will be an awful handicap to Dewey even if he should hop up in Albany this very day with a loud declaration in favor of letting the fighters vote the federal ballot at least.

They all know Mr. Roosevelt.

He has shaped their lives to a great extent, he is their C-in-C and a gaudy showman and they will be more afraid of a change of command in a war which, in the military way and in the matter of production at home, has been going amazingly well, than of changes in their form of government and the status of the civilian under government at home.

They don’t know Dewey, they won’t be able to read his campaign speeches and he won’t be able to get around among them to stand inspection, so the choice in their minds is bound to be one between Mr. Big and Mr. Who.

Like the Democratic National Committee, I am anticipating the Democratic Convention in nominating Mr. Roosevelt for a fourth term and assuming he will run, and for like reasons.

If Mr. Roosevelt doesn’t accept the nomination, he will defeat his own party because there just isn’t any other Democrat who could like Dewey.

And if Dewey, the best vote-getter the Republicans have, should refuse to run, he would be throwing down his party and millions of people who really believe in him and regard him as the only hope of saving what is left of constitutional government under law and restoring some of that which was done away with in the adolescent days of the generation which is now fighting the war.