16 governors fail in platform plea
Win demand to see draft, but gain no change for stronger foreign plank
Chicago, Illinois –
Sixteen Republican Governors, delegates to the National Convention, who demanded last night that they be made better acquainted with the platform, apparently succeeded early today in inspecting the proposed planks, but not in changing any of them substantially.
Their chief objective was a stronger plank on foreign affairs, one which would call for joining with the United Nations in the use of “economic sanctions backed by force” to maintain peace instead of the plank recommended by the Austin committee, which offers a general formula of “participation in post-war cooperative organization by sovereign nations.”
A conference of the Governors yesterday named a subcommittee, comprising Governors Raymond E. Baldwin of Connecticut, Sumner Sewall of Maine, and Bourke B. Hickenlooper of Iowa, to inform Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH), chairman of the Resolutions Committee, of their demands. In response, he had them meet with his drafting subcommittee at 10:00 last night.
After this meeting, Senator Taft, in the presence of the Governors, faced a press conference at 1:00 this morning. He told the reporters that no important changes had been made in the foreign policy plank since the original Vandenberg draft, that no final draft had been made, and that redrafting of the entire platform would continue through the night and possibly into the day.
Mr. Taft denied knowledge of any mention of “economic sanctions,” but Governor Baldwin insisted that “economic sanctions backed by force” had been discussed.
The Governor declared that the foreign affairs plank should be forthright, “one that says what it means and means what it says.” He made it clear that the Governors were fighting for a plank which was closer to the Mackinac Declaration.
But questioning by reporters did not elicit that the Governors had attained their aim. In fact, all had the contrary impression.
The Governors attending all or part of the conference, besides those already mentioned, were Blood of New Hampshire, Wills of Vermont, Saltonstall of Massachusetts, Edge of New Jersey, Martin of Pennsylvania, Kelly of Michigan, Bacon of Delaware, Thye of Minnesota, Schoppel of Kansas, Griswold of Nebraska, Willis of Kentucky, Warren of California and Donnell of Missouri. The absentees were Governors Bricker of Ohio and Green of Illinois.
At a meeting yesterday, Governor Griswold offered a resolution endorsing Governor Dewey, but his fellow Governors rejected it as wrongly timed, holding that it should follow the nomination.