The Evening Star (February 7, 1946)
Lawrence: Left wing campaign against Truman
Is PAC behind Ickes attack on Pauley?
By David Lawrence
Has the “left wing” group of radicals who fought the selection of Harry Truman as vice president in 1944 begun a drive to discredit him and prevent his nomination by the Democratic party in 1948? Or does the left wing hope to force Mr. Truman to withdraw from the race?
Political observers might answer the foregoing question in the affirmative today when they see a member of Mr. Truman’s own cabinet furnishing “aid and comfort” to the Republican opposition by testifying against the appointment by the president of a man selected eventually to be secretary of the Navy.
On the surface it is made to appear that the testimony was elicited from a reluctant witness who simply had to answer the questions of a congressional committee. But it seems passing strange that the president would not be aware of all that one member of his own cabinet knows about a prospective appointee or would not be able to keep harmony in his own political family.
Does it mean that there will be a new secretary of the interior soon and that the present incumbent will shortly become the head of the Political Action Committee with its CIO sponsorship? Does it mean that the PAC is applying this threat now while Mr. Truman is under pressure to use his office to help the unions get their 30 percent demands or as much of it as he can possibly get for them, either through price increases or pressure upon the employers?
Average man puzzled
The average man will find himself puzzled by these maneuvers and will wonder what real difference there is between the special privileges which Mr. Pauley is alleged to have sought in exchange for campaign contributions – something he vigorously denies – and the open support given by the PAC in the last campaign to the Democratic party nominees through the use of labor union funds in violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Federal Corrupt Practices Act?
The ways of politics are devious and Mr. Pauley is now being denounced as not qualified to be undersecretary of the Navy because, while treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, he tried to get some campaign funds from the “big boys” of the West. By the same token, anyone who was mixed up with the political campaigns of the last Democratic administration and got campaign funds for the Democrats from any businessmen might be held up for questioning. But the Senate did not disapprove of the nomination, as postmaster general, of Robert Hannegan, who now is the president’s most intimate adviser and who must have had a lot to do with fund-raising in one form or another.
It is, of course, conceivable that Mr. Pauley, because he is an oil man, might decide, if he eventually became secretary of the Navy, never to touch the oil-lands problem but might insist that the President assign some other official to handle it exclusively. Public men with previous connections or stock interests that might embarrass them in office have been known to exhibit as much ethics and integrity in such matters as others who never had previous relationships with the world of materialism.
GOP chuckles seen
Whether Mr. Pauley will or will not make a good secretary of the Navy depends, first, on whether he is likely to administer fairly the department and also whether he goes in there committed to scuttle the Navy Department and make it a subordinate agency of the already top-heavy and overburdened War Department as recommended, in effect, by the Truman message to Congress.
No one seems to have thought to ask Mr. Pauley whether he believes in the proposed submerging of the Navy, if he does, then what’s the use of making him secretary of the Navy for a few months, only to have him pushed out of office by the proposed merger, which calls for a secretary of defense? And certainly Mr. Truman can’t be thinking of making Mr. Pauley the big secretary of all armed services.
It is enough to make the Republicans chuckle with delight as they look toward 1948. What a chance for a man of the brains and vision of Harold Stassen to come in as president on the Republican ticket and clean out those special-privilege parasites who seem to have infested the government for the last decade or more and made it a private preserve for the dispensing of personal favors and rewards.
The only trouble is that there is also a group of “special privilege” parasites in the Republican party who will do everything in their power to block Mr. Stassen in the hope of getting their hands on the Government so that they may select a reactionary to take care of their interests in the White House.
Maybe the “left-wing” Democrats aren’t so inept after all in trying to get a left-wing Democrat nominated for the presidency.