A Senate Journal 1943-1945, page 17
Homer Bone made his point of order, which under the rules is not debatable. Instead of ruling on it promptly as he should have done, Wallace delayed. McKellar immediately jumped up and asked that it be “considered.” Millard Tydings, remarking innocently as he so often does that “in the interests of clarification” he wanted to make a point of order himself, thereupon raised the point that the Bone motion was not germane to the subject under discussion. Wallace, suddenly waking up to the situation, ruled that Tydings was out of order, and McKellar again jumped up and appealed Wallace’s ruling to the Senate. There then ensued nearly an hour of parliamentary argument—simply an extended back-and-forth clatter about the rules of the Senate. Finally in exasperation the Vice President remarked that he regarded the appeal of his ruling as “a parliamentary trick,” and then the fat was in the fire. Old Mack surged to his feet roaring. The Chair had called his action a parliamentary trick. The Chair knew he was not the sort of man to trick people! The Chair knew he would never do such a thing. He regarded the Chair’s statement as unfair and unwarranted. More than that, it was downright damnable! He demanded that the Chair retract that statement! Wallace, who had tried without success several times to interrupt this tirade, remarked in some disgust that he would withdraw his remark. After an hour of this sort of thing the Senate voted 47–16 to override his ruling. Comments on the V.P. in the halls and elevators afterwards were scathing. No matter what he does, he gets it in the neck—and this time quite unjustly, for he simply got caught in the path of the McKellar steamroller and wasn’t nimble enough to jump aside.
Following that, Dick Russell’s amendment to ban transfer of appropriated funds from established agencies to executive-order agencies which have been in existence for more than a year, without direct appropriation by Congress, was brought up. The Republicans then did some interesting flipflops. First C. Douglass Buck of Delaware, a tall innocuous man with a little black mustache, offered an amendment to the amendment which would specifically exempt the President’s Fair Employment Practices Committee. This passed 37–31, nearly all the Republicans voting for it. Bennett Champ Clark arose in great indignation to denounce the pressure that had been put upon the Senate to retain FEPC. Lobbyist Edgar Brown, a tall ascetic Negro with a beard like Haile Selassie’s who is always hanging around the Capitol, had buttonholed him, Clark cried, and told him that “the Senate is going to exempt FEPC.” “Why are we?” Bennett wanted to know. “Because we want you to,” replied Brown with serene arrogance. This is no way to handle Bennett Champ, or indeed any Senator, and the reaction on the floor to this little story was immediate. Dick Russell also took occasion to point out scathingly to the Republicans, and he was joined by Walter George, that for a party which condemned bureaucracy they were certainly inconsistent in wanting to leave FEPC unchecked. This was a nicely calculated line of attack by a Southerner who wants to get rid of FEPC for reasons of his own, and it successfully embarrassed the Republicans. When Ed Johnson moved to reconsider the vote, the motion was upheld 30–28, and presently by a vote of 32–35, after being amended to put FEPC back in and widened by Styles Bridges to include agencies set up as subsidiaries of government corporations, the Russell amendment carried. The Republicans in the space of an hour had made a voting record on both sides of the Negro question. Rather inadvertently, all things considered.
Before the session ended at 7:14 the Senate had also come within an inch of requiring a General Accounting Office audit of some 30 government corporations. It failed by a handful of votes on Aiken’s motion to suspend the rules, the necessary two-thirds couldn’t quite be mustered. All in all, however, the Senate had done pretty well for one day in its drive against the Executive. On few occasions has it ever passed so many restrictive measures in one legislative session—a significant enough indication as to just how far the spurious good fellowship of the post-Barkley era extends on the Hill. No farther, apparently, than it does downtown.
The Lost Crusade
March 25, 1944. Twenty-five Republicans from the House met with Cordell Hull yesterday for a vague, inconclusive, useless two-and-a-half hours of doubletalk. From it they emerged embittered a little more, feeling (and rightly so, considering they have supported the Administration consistently) that they should have been told much more. They commented again, and bitterly, upon Hull’s “evident distrust of the people”—an attitude which in any other land would precede active fear of the people, followed by active suppression of the people, but here only means that the people, instead of being told the truth, will just be lied to with bland and paternal condescension.
More and more it becomes apparent that perhaps the major thing wrong with our war and our foreign policy is age. The men at the top are old, without imagination, without enthusiasm, without heart. It is an old man’s war in which all the young men are permitted to do is the dying, and it will be an old man’s peace in which all the young men will be permitted to do is prepare their sons for dying.
March 26, 1944. The Truman Committee is beginning to succumb like everything else to the virus of politics, an unfortunate occurrence, and one which time and the passage of the election may heal. Certainly it is to be hoped, for it would be no small matter if the committee’s fine work should be hampered permanently by partisanship.
Harry Truman has taken it upon himself to issue a statement urging support of “present leadership” until “the crisis” is over. In extremely careful phraseology he urges this thesis for about 250 words: so careful, in fact, that nearly everyone in the Press Gallery has concluded that this is the tip-off on the invasion. Few have interpreted the statement as another endorsement of the fourth term, even though the Senator is one of its most industrious backers. Perhaps the timing more than anything else, the fact that there is no good excuse for it right now—so far as we know officially—leads to this belief. At any rate the feeling is quite general.
Owen Brewster, however, one of the touchiest men in the Senate when it comes to anything implying Democratic favoritism, has decided that this is just one more declaration of war on the third front, and has persuaded Burton and Joe Ball to join him in a stern reminder to the chairman that he can back Roosevelt as a Senator if he wants to, but not as chairman of the committee. What effect this has had on Truman no one knows, for he has left for Seattle where the amiable Mon Wallgren is already on the ground getting ready to blow the Liberty Ships out of the water with another investigation. Perhaps when he returns oil will flow on the waters and all will be well. This is not too certain, however.
Aubrey Williams, one of the most double-dyed of New Dealers, had dinner with the President the other night and then returned to Atlanta to write a signed article about it for the Atlanta Journal. In it he says he was shocked at the President’s poor appearance and very evident weariness, and came away with the “very strong impression” that he will not be a candidate. For the record it should be noted somewhere now that a good many people in Washington are beginning to have that hunch and have had it in varying degrees of intensity for months. For the record, though, let it be said that it is only a hunch. Only one man knows, and he isn’t talking.
March 27, 1944. Eric Johnston of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce came up today to testify in favor of continuing OPA; a neat, trim, efficient and forceful young man; “Candidate Johnston,” as one Republican Senator remarked drily afterwards. In looks he suggests Robert Taylor of the movies, without the blacks and whites—done in halftone, as it were, on a somewhat smaller scale. There is something rather deliberate about the emphasis and the forcefulness, also; the word, I think, is “practiced.” The charm goes on and off with brisk precision, lost, sad to say, on Taft and a line of stern-faced GOP cohorts, none of whom seemed overly impressed. All in all, despite characteristics which are vulnerable to a certain amount of attack, Johnston is a sound and capable fellow. Somehow I got the impression from watching the Senators look him over, however, that what they want this year is not someone young, not some-one dynamic or forceful or imaginative. Just somebody safe. Somebody good and safe.
March 28, 1944. Wendell Willkie, shadow-boxing in Wisconsin, has found his issue if he only has sense enough to stick with it. He hit upon it yesterday, and it is foreign policy—the only kind of foreign-policy issue the Republicans can pursue and still not seriously endanger the country. In a slashing speech he attacked the Darlan deal, the Vichy deal, the Badoglio deal, the Polish deal, lighting into the hypocrisy that has already come close to destroying the moral prestige and good name of the United States. The practice of fighting a war so that you can reestablish the very thing you were against when someone else wanted to do it has become Mr. Willkie’s target. If he can stick to that, holding firm to the higher objectives of a truly international policy but flaying for all he is worth the tragic, deliberate stupidities which have characterized our policy to date in the war, then he may really have something.
A wistful letter from Bernard Baruch, released this morning, points out that although more than a month has passed since he filed his report on reconversion, and although the Congress had much to say at the time about the bypassing of the legislative branch, nothing at all has been done on the Hill. The point is well taken, especially since everybody is getting ready to go home on March 31 and not come back until April 17. Why, nobody knows—except that there is an “agreement.” Barkley has agreed with White and Joe Martin has agreed with John McCormack and everyone else has agreed that that’s just dandy. In actual cold fact it is inexcusable. Reconversion is hanging fire and a terrific rumpus has been raised because “Congress was being bypassed”—yet here goes Congress off home. There are many annoying things about the way the institution operates, but they are human mistakes, mostly, and they can be understood and suffered without too much protest. But there is one thing absolutely and truly inexcusable, and that is willful delay.
March 29, 1944. The Democrats won in the Oklahoma Second District by around 4000 votes, despite the valiant efforts of Ed Moore and Pappy O’Daniel. Barkley returned today from his successful stump-tour in behalf of the Democratic candidate, exhilarated by the smell of the hustings. “You don’t realize,” he told us dreamily, “how much I enjoyed it, to get out there and talk to the people after sitting around here. You just don’t realize.…” If there has been any doubt in his mind about his own campaign—and there has perhaps been a little—this has probably settled it. Politics, besides being a great many other things, is also fun. If his decision to run again hadn’t already been made, it is probably made now. They are after him to go into New York state and campaign for a candidate there, he said, but (with a sudden chuckle) “Maybe I’d better quit while my rep is still good.” It is a rather interesting contrast with the old days, when the official endorsement came from 1600 Pennsylvania. Barkley seems to be the star performer now.
March 30, 1944. A couple of the powers of Washington came up to testify on the OPA today. President Edward O’Neal of the Farm Bureau, a shaky, sly old man with an innocent expression and a Texas voice, and Albert Goss, master of the Grange, a pink-cheeked, small, grandfatherly old gentleman with an air of gentle reproof for all who consider his motives questionable, came up to see their boys and talk the situation over with them. O’Neal, whose quivering conversation is filled with “I was down at the White House the other day talking to Jimmy—,” “I was down talking to Don the other day—,” “I saw Fred Vinson about that, and he said—,” conducts himself with the bland assurance years of cooperation from Capitol Hill have given him. “You do think price control will work all right for another year, then?” Bob Wagner of New York asked him. “If you will make the amendments we suggest and write in the changes we advocate, perhaps it will,” O’Neal replied with serene self-confidence.
Goss, who took a much more reasonable view on the whole, said that the Grange was still against subsidies but that in order to be “realistic” about the situation it would probably be necessary to continue them, and consequently he urged a limitation of $1,500,000,000. Maloney said that he was delighted to hear that, because that was exactly what he had tried to get through the Senate a month ago. Goss then backed water abruptly, emphasizing that he was not in favor of subsidies—just embracing them out of necessity. “So am I,” said Maloney promptly in his squawky, humorous voice. “I’m entirely against them, and I think it’s too bad we have to have them, but—here we are.” Maloney and Danaher, in fact, working with the cooperation which often distinguishes them, were rather inclined to take Mr. Goss apart and strew the pieces around the committee table. The firm of Danaher and Maloney is not one to tangle with unprepared. Both partners are shrewd, witty, keen-minded, sincerely patriotic and thoroughly capable. Nor is either one above a little blarney when the occasion calls for it. After he got through reducing the Goss logic, Maloney added, “Of course I want you to know that I am very proud indeed of my membership in the Grange.” “And we’re proud to have you, Senator,” replied Goss with equal blandness. Maloney must have noted a certain amount of amusement at the press table, for he glanced over at us quickly with an impish grin and muttered, “Well, I have one apple tree.”
The Senate met for an hour or so, principally so that it could recess again until Saturday. Technically the President has until midnight Friday to decide on the soldier-vote bill, and if Congress should be in recess by then and he had not signed it, there would be a pocket veto. Inasmuch as they want to give him ample opportunity to do whichever of the three things he is going to do—veto it, sign it, or let it become law without his signature—they decided to delay the start of their vacation for a day. The tall, heavy, broad-faced, white-haired Swede from Minnesota, Henrik Shipstead, finally got approval for his resolution to investigate the legal authority for Executive orders. Barkley supported it, but suggested that it be amended to restrict it to the legal basis for them and not to the occasion which gave rise to each one, something the Republicans rather wanted to go into. On second thought, however, they seem to have agreed that to do so would consume entirely too much time and get into political controversy in a field where they don’t particularly care to go. After all, other Presidents will be issuing Executive orders after this one is gone, and you don’t want to tie your own hands by being too particular—the same theory, in fact, which has prevented the Republicans, in this year in which they have virtual control of both branches, from doing anything about the amendment to limit the President to two terms.
March 31, 1944. ’Way off in Wisconsin, so remote that only its faintest echoes reach the Hill, seeming to have nothing to do with the affairs of the country as they function here, a familiar husky voice is crying in the wilderness. The campaign to let Willkie talk himself to death in a vacuum is nearing the end of its second week. Next Tuesday will decide whether or not it has been successful. It was a shrewd move, a combination of circumstance, strategy and his own desire to join the issue and fight it out. The issue has been joined—with empty air. The battle is being fought out—with nothingness. If he can survive that, he will deserve to survive anything.
Ever since he entered public life four years ago, he has acted like a man who is not a politician but knows he ought to be and consequently is doing his damnedest. But politics is a good deal more than rules and formulas. It is an instinct, and Willkie apparently doesn’t have it. If he does win the nomination and election he will still have to deal with a Congress dominated by leaders in whose faces barely a scant six months ago he threw the arrogant statement, “I can have the Republican nomination if I want it.” On that day he came very close to guaranteeing that he would never be President of the United States. Politics is an instinct for handling people. You don’t handle them that way.
As for the Republican Party, on the other hand, it will in all probability be muffing the best chance it has had for a long, long time if it turns him down and accepts a trimmer, a do-nothing, or a general. At least he is constructive, at least he is progressive, at least he represents an aggressive hope. At least he possesses the ability to grow to a stature somewhat commensurate with the office to which he aspires. The same cannot be said for most of his opponents within the party.
All over the country there is a great instinctive protest against the continuation of Roosevelt in power. It shows itself in a million places, and as noticeably as anywhere else in the liberal journals which are hopefully urging the Republicans to nominate somebody to whom progressive opinion can turn. Deep down under, America is restless under a domination which has continued too long: it just doesn’t feel right about it. And yet unless the Republicans meet the challenge with a really good man, the country will turn once more to Roosevelt.
It is a curious thing, this vast psychological protest, unthinking, unvocal, truly instinctive, with which people are hoping so desperately that the Republicans will give them the answer. But people will know whether or not the Republicans have given them the answer, and they will vote accordingly. If the party comes forward with a trumped-up legend, an empty head and a platform of platitudes, it will have missed the great chance to return to power with a truly democratic and liberal administration.
