The Pittsburgh Press (February 18, 1946)
Showdown due tomorrow on Wallace’s Red candidate
East Sider bucks the Democrats
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
NEW YORK (UP) – A Communist-endorsed candidate for the House of Representatives who has the support also of Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace winds up his campaign today in New York’s 19th congressional district. The election takes place tomorrow.
The contest is a by-election in which the American Labor Party bucks the two older party organizations in a polyglot East Side Manhattan district.
The candidates are:
-
Johannes Steel, American Labor Party, for whom the Communists have organized a party-line campaign. Besides Mr. Wallace, Mr. Steel is endorsed also by former Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, by the Congress of Industrial Organizations and by the Citizens Political Action Committee.
-
Former Rep. Arthur G. Klein, Democrat, who is supported by Manhattan’s Tammany organization and by the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party is a labor group, which seceded from the American Labor Party when Communists obtained a substantial and possibly controlling position in the latter.
-
Capt. William S. Shea, Republican, a war veteran now on terminal leave.
Overwhelmingly Democratic
The district has been overwhelmingly Democratic. In the 1944 election, the Democrats polled 52,834 votes, the American Labor Party cast 17,373 for the Democratic candidate whom it had endorsed, and the Republicans cast about 17,300 votes.
Although the Democratic candidate has a substantial edge in tomorrow’s polling, there is great interest in the by-election because it will be the first time that the ALP has bucked the Democratic Party in New York City for a congressional seat. Heretofore the ALP has supported Democratic candidates except in one district where the ALP organization prevails.
As a former member of the House, Mr. Klein has a record of consistent support of the policies of the late Franklin D. Roosevelt. Capt. Shea has no political background.
Born in Germany
Mr. Steel is a naturalized citizen of German birth. He obtained his papers in 1938. He is an author, lecturer and radio commentator whose point of view has been notably consistent with the Communist Party line.
His candidacy is a further development in the breakaway of extreme left wingers from the Truman administration. Some of Mr. Steel’s supporters seek his election as a means of rebuke to the administration for what they regard as a departure from politics of the late President Roosevelt.
Mr. Wallace’s endorsement of Mr. Steel was somewhat of a shock to Washington. The commerce secretary put it in a letter in which he said men of Mr. Steel’s pattern were needed in public life. The endorsement highlights the fact that Mr. Wallace is the lone remaining New Dealer in the Truman Cabinet.
Like Harold L. Ickes, who has just resigned as secretary of the interior, Mr. Wallace formerly was a Republican.
His election doubtful
Mr. Steel’s election, which is wholly doubtful, would double congressional ALP representation. The lone ALP member now in the House is Rep. Vito Marcantonio, also of New York City. Mr. Marcantonio has an upper East Side constituency where he gets not only his own ALP nomination but also the Republican and Democratic nominations. The older party organizations are unable to stop him.
Mr. Marcantonio’s congressional voting record is 100 percent in accord with the Communist Party line.