The New York Times (June 27, 1944)
Disputes over platform; Dewey avalanche piles up, with Californian unchallenged as his running mate
By Turner Catledge
Chicago, Illinois –
A triple pledge to bring the boys back home quickly and “victorious,” to reopen the doors of opportunity to “all Americans,” and to guard the peace in the future, was sounded yesterday as the Republican battle cry at the opening of the party’s 23rd national convention.
While it was being uttered by Governor Earl Warren of California, temporary chairman, in his keynote address to a cheering throng in the Chicago Stadium, The New York Times gained access to a plank which policy writers had evolved Saturday, pledging the party to a post-war cooperative organization “among sovereign nations,” to prevent military aggression and attain permanent peace in the future.
Meanwhile, word had come from Wendell L. Willkie, the nominee of 1940, that he considered the foreign policy plank, as he understood it, ambiguous, and therefore was disappointed in it.
Willkie’s backer upset
This note of controversy came as a distinct shock to a group of former backers of Mr. Willkie who have been attempting these last few days to bring him in line with the platform, and with a ticker of Thomas E. Dewey of New York for President and Governor Warren for Vice President, which is considered certain of nomination by tomorrow night.
Meanwhile, another complication appeared in the hitherto placid convention picture when the 17 governors who are delegates demanded opportunity to examine and possibly suggest changes in the platform before it is submitted to the convention, probably tonight, for ratification.
The governors did not protest any particular item in the platform as it was agreed to in principle last night. They did protest the fact, however, that one of them put it, an “oligarchy” of Senators, members of the House and other party leaders, had assumed the prerogative of speaking for the party.
The governors feel, as Governor Warren reflected in his keynote address, that they have been the spearhead, more than members of Congress, for the resurgence of Republicanism during the last three years. What happened here when the governors demanded and obtained permission to appear before the Resolutions Committee was another chapter in a protest which first came to light at the Mackinac Island conference in September.
Led by New Englanders
The action was led, as was the move at Mackinac, largely by a New England group, in which Connecticut Governor Raymond E. Baldwin and Maine Governor Sumner Sewall were active.
These new possibilities of trouble ahead did not divert the main line of appeal upon which the party was centering – an appeal to the soldier vote, to those Americans who are weary of the New Deal, and, above all, to those wanting to avoid the tragedy of war in the future.
It was the note on which Governor Dwight Green of Illinois opened the meeting with a welcoming address yesterday morning. It was also the basic tone which members of the Resolutions Committee were attempting to write into the platform. Their troubles were inherent in the task of trying to retain the tone, while using phraseology to appeal to the greatest number, and offend the fewest voters.
The prospect of a Dewey-Warren ticket reached the virtually-certain stage during the day. These are the men who the assembled Republicans are determined will carry to the country a demand for a change of administration, even in the midst of war.
Says New Deal song changes
Governor Warren told his eager audience:
The New Deal came to power with a song on its lips: “Happy Days Are Here Again.” That song is ended. Even the melody does not linger on. Now we are being conditioned for a new song: “Don’t Change Horses in the Middle of a Stream.”
For eleven long years we have been in the middle of the stream. We are not amphibious. We want to get across. We want to feel dry and solid ground under our feet again.
Governor Warren’s address gave a decided stimulus to a convention which opened to the rather listless first session and was not otherwise lifted up during the day because of the cut-and-dried nature of the proceedings.
Standing before the vast stadium audience and the merciless glare of klieg lights and speaking into microphones which transmitted his words throughout the country, Governor Warren first of all summoned his own party to its task. He pledged it to success by the substitution of “indispensable principles” or “indispensable men.” And while he delivered one epigrammatic thrust after another at the New Deal, he admonished the members of the party that their task lay in the future.
Says party looks to future
Governor Warren said:
We do not propose to deny the progress that has been made during the last decade. Neither do we aim to repeal it. Neither do we aim to turn the clock back and make an issue of every administration mistake in the past eleven years. We are less concerned about these past errors than about the direction in which, for the future, we are going.
The Republicans simply believe, he said, that the New Deal is leading the country “away from representative government.” They believe, he continued, that it is destroying the two-party system, that the New Deal is no longer the Democratic Party.
Mr. Warren said:
It [the New Deal] Is an incongruous critique within that party.It talks of idealism and seeks its votes from the most corrupt political machines in this country.
The leaders of its inner circle are not representatives of the people. They are the personal agents of one man. Their appointments to office are on the basis of loyalty to the clique. Under their rule, the Constitution has been short-circuited. Both Congress and the judiciary have been intimidated and bludgeoned to make them servile.
His outline of party’s job
Mr. Warren emphasized through his speech that the Republican Party had the responsibility not primarily to criticize, but to recognize and get to work on its own job, set forth thus:
To get our boys back home again – victorious and with all speed.
To open the door for all Americans – to open it, not just to jobs, but to opportunity!
To make and guard the peace so wisely and so well that this time will be the last time that American homes are called to give their sons and daughters to the agony and tragedy of war.
Thus, in guarding the peace, Governor Warren said, the Republicans were prepared to take a definite stand against aggression, “not merely to denounce it, but to resist and restrain it.” That, he said, calls for “effective cooperation with all the peace-loving nations of the world, for the establishment of a tribunal for the settlement of international disputes which otherwise might lead to war.”
The Republicans agreed, he added, that if international cooperation were to be effective, “the friendly cooperation of the war’s principal allied combatants – the United States, Great Britain, Russia and China – is as essential as the keystone of an arch.” But the party stood ready, he said, to welcome every nation that is prepared “in honesty and goodwill” to join in the accomplishment of the purposes of peace and world rehabilitation.
Republicans should also insist, he added, that America must be kept strong if this country is to keep its own commitments.
The job the party had to do, he went on, was too great for “petty politics,” name-calling or hate-making.
He said:
There is no place among us for malcontents. We are in no mood for torchlight jubilation. Whether we win as a party is of less importance to us than whether we win as a people.
The Governor excited his audience, sitting in intense heat, with his attacks on the New Deal and the “indispensable man,” by whom he obviously meant President Roosevelt.
Enthusiasm also greeted his assertions of the party’s aspirations for the soldiers and sailors when they come home. The reception otherwise was comparatively mild, except now and then when some particular epigram caught the fancy of the crowd. There were numerous vacant seats in the galleries, but it was a huge crowd nevertheless. The Californian delivered his speech rapidly, and so passed up applause he otherwise might have received.
Rep. Joseph W. Martin, House Minority Leader, will be chosen permanent chairman today to guide the convention through the business of nominating candidates. Mr. Martin will address the meeting upon his election.
Former President Herbert Hoover is to speak to the convention tonight, as is Rep. Clare Boothe Luce (R-CT).
Dewey leaders proceeded with detailed plans for the nomination and notification of the Governor as additional state caucuses added to the avalanche of delegate support for him.
Governor Dwight Griswold of Nebraska was chosen as the man to put the New York Governor’s name formally before the convention, probably tomorrow. Under a plan worked out yesterday, Alabama, the first on the list, will yield to Nebraska when the roll call of states is ordered.
