A Senate Journal 1943-1945, page 53
On the international front hell also popped this afternoon. Forced out of the White House after 47 days of discreet silence, one of those “other little things” the President told us about at the joint session on Yalta has finally come into the open. It seems Britain has been promised 6 votes in the General Assembly, and Russia and the United States are going to get 3 each because of it. The reaction has been profound on the Hill, and must be equally profound among the smaller nations abroad. Criticism is sharp and follows two lines. There are those who demand that the United States have a vote equal to Britain’s. And there are those, more perceptive of the ultimate issue, who demand that the nonsense be stopped and each nation be given one and one only. Essentially, however, the basic criticism common to all is the manner in which the news was divulged: by a carefully planted leak to the New York Herald-Tribune which finally forced the White House to come clean. Joe Ball, clutching his ideals desperately in a howling gale, is at least consistent with them. Sharply he calls it “a gratuitous slap at the smaller nations.” Vandenberg is equally sharp, although more circumspect. Connally says the President told the San Francisco delegation about it last Friday, and indicates that he thinks one of them let it leak to the Herald-Tribune in order to smoke out the White House. Barkley and Lister Hill, good, obedient, loyal servants, rationalize and excuse and speak smoothly about “little details” which “must not be allowed to endanger the larger objectives”—not realizing, apparently, that the larger objectives may eventually be completely destroyed by the little details. But whatever the stupidity, and whatever the justification, one thing is certain today. More bitterness, more mistrust, more suspicion have been created between the White House and the Hill. Giving all the breaks one can, and being as fair as it is possible to be, it is nonetheless true that this is one more clear-cut time when the blame for it is in no way the responsibility of the Congress.
March 31, 1945. Tonight Jimmy Byrnes will issue his second report as Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion. Asked to comment for an advance story, Ed Johnson gave us a rather historic piece of paper. On it he had written:
“Justice Byrnes has effectively destroyed all chances for Senate adoption of the Manpower Conference Report by his grotesque statement that ‘the need for manpower legislation continues … not only for war production but also for the production of essential civilian goods; and later to facilitate reconversion.’
“It has been understood all along that this was very definitely war legislation and not as its opponents contended, ‘for the permanent regimentation of American manpower.’ The conference report is dead.”
This he gave to us rather grimly, and when we asked him “Will you yourself vote for it, Senator?” the author of the motion that sent the conference bill to the floor replied bluntly, “Hell, no. I wouldn’t vote to give Jimmy Byrnes or anybody else that much control over manpower in peacetime. He said it was necessary for the war. Now he wants it for civilian goods and reconversion. That does it.” In the game of mate and checkmate that goes on here on so many issues, the Senator from Colorado, as he often does, has ended up with checkmate. The ex-Senator from South Carolina gave him his chance and he took it. With his statement, if there had been any doubt, the life of the conference report did come to an end. All that remains now is the formal burial. It will be interesting to see if other proponents are as shrewd at finding an out for themselves as Big Ed Johnson has been.
Elbert Thomas, game to the end, refused to comment on Johnson’s statement. However, he said that “Senator Byrnes is ill-advised and ill-informed. The bill is not a peacetime measure, it is a wartime measure. It expressly provides for termination. No, he’s mistaken on that.” And he added, “I don’t think it will affect the chances of the bill.”
O’Mahoney, told of Ed’s decision, gave a brief, sardonic chortle and refused to comment.
April 1, 1945. From one who knows comes an interesting picture of the discussions that produced the manpower conference report. Nobody, he maintains stoutly, wanted a bill that could, even inadvertently, be used to shackle the American nation on into peacetime. To that effect, he said, Joe O’Mahoney made “an impassioned speech.” “Senator,” said Andy May, “I agree with you 100 per cent. But this is war.” Apparently nobody had any idea, or at any rate would admit it, that the bill would be used as a weapon of reconversion. “That’s terrific power,” our informant said thoughtfully. “My, that’s terrific.” “Well, Senator,” we said, “that’s what’s puzzled all of us reporters about this. If you felt that way about it, how did you ever produce such a thing?” “Well, they told us they had to have it,” he said. He gave a wondering little laugh. “Hasn’t this been the damnedest thing?” he said. “Have you ever seen anything like it?” “No, Senator,” we said, “we never have.”
April 2, 1945. Wayne Morse, acting with an assurance and an obvious ability which annoyed some Senators who opposed him and consequently chose to regard him as an upstart (Senators on his side were very approving) made his maiden speech today against the manpower bill. With a disconcerting bluntness he went straight to the heart of it. The Administration, he charged, demands the bill because it is afraid of unemployment, has no cure for it, and hopes to stave it off by forcing people to move about from job to job at the whim of the government. To this Elbert Thomas replied gently from time to time. At one point when Morse pointed out that the Director of War Mobilization might turn over the writing of regulations to persons who would misuse the power for “a program which I believe to be not in the best interests of representative democratic government,” Thomas got up and answered with his patient, rather embarrassed, kindly smile. “The American government just doesn’t function that way,” he said quietly. “The Senator is mistaken. This bill is a people’s bill, and it will be administered in the spirit of a free people.” Morse, confronted by an idealism and faith almost beyond belief, looked momentarily frustrated but returned to the attack. The remark, however, was typical of the many Thomas has made throughout the debate. Disliking the bill himself, he dislikes it on other grounds. It is never the dangers to freedom in it which concern him, for this is America and in America such things could never happen.
Killing the bill even further, Jimmy Byrnes resigned today and Fred Vinson was immediately nominated to succeed him. The move has cost possibly two or three votes, although the bill is dead already. Most Senators have reasons much deeper than Jimmy Byrnes to be for or against it, but in a very few wavering cases, Jimmy Byrnes has helped. Now even this is gone. We asked Barkley after the session how he was getting along. “Well,” he said, with his easy chuckle rippling through him, “it reminds me of trying to drive chickens through a picket fence. You think you’ve got ’em all corralled and then some old hen runs back through and they all follow her.” He too has perhaps some doubts about the wisdom of the bill, but he is going along like the good soldier he is. That phrase, in fact, would make a good epitaph for some of the good-and-faithfuls on the Hill: Here lies So-and-So. He went along.
April 3, 1945. Forty-six Senators decided today that the country should not go under dictatorship. The House of Representatives was against them, 29 of their colleagues were against them, all the agencies of the executive branch of the government were against them, the President was against them, the Army and Navy were against them, a sizable, unthinking portion of the press was against them. They stood firm. They knew where the ultimate necessity lay, and they voted accordingly. Their responsibility was for the preservation of the freedom of America, whatever the passing storm, and they maintained it. But there were only 46. Out of all the people of power in America, there were only 46. It was not a large margin to save the work of 160 years. Yet it sufficed.
Of course there were some few who had other reasons. “You don’t know my state,” said one New Dealer drily when he was challenged later on his vote. A handful more were subject to similar pressures. In the main, however, a majority of the 46 Senators who voted against the manpower bill were sincerely convinced that its adoption could only mean the loss of the American heritage. Confronted by the alliance between the big industrialists and the military, a pattern which if carried just a little farther—as far as the conference bill would permit—would be the perfect pattern of the fascist state, they rebelled and voted it down. Had they not done so, the chances of their being able to end the threat of tyranny in the future by an act so simple as the one word “no” might almost certainly have been placed in jeopardy beyond recall.
Afterwards some of us talked to Elbert Thomas. He was, we told him, the happiest unhappy man we had seen in some time. “Oh, the Senate bill was better,” he said softly. “The Senate bill was infinitely better. But we were confronted with the situation. The conference report was the bill before us. We didn’t really have a choice.” And what of the future? What of the proposed nurses’ draft? “Well, we’ll report it out. But it hardly seems fair to draft one segment of the population when you refuse to draft all.” “Senator,” someone said with a laugh, “you really would have been much happier if you’d stayed on as chairman of Education and Labor, wouldn’t you?” He gave a quizzical little smile, and when he spoke it was with the very soft but very definite irony he sometimes uses. “Oh,” he said, “I’ve been a great success in Military Affairs. We’ve made nine generals and investigated a dog. Elliott Roosevelt’s a brigadier general. We’ve accomplished a great deal. Yes. We’ve accomplished a great deal.”
Heart of the Manpower Conference Report,
passed by the House 167–160, March 27, 1945;
killed by the Senate 46-29, April 3, 1945
Sec. 5(a) To the extent deemed by the Director [of War Mobilization] to be necessary and appropriate to carry out the purposes and means declared in section 2 of this act and also for the purpose of keeping activities and places of employment essential to the war effort in productive operation, the Director is authorized, by regulation—
(1) to prescribe employment ceilings in designated areas, activities, or places of employment, fixing the maximum number of workers by age, sex, or occupational qualifications, who may be there employed, and prohibiting the employment of workers beyond such maximum numbers;
(2) to prohibit or regulate the hiring, rehiring, solicitation or recruitment of new workers by employers and the acceptance of employment by workers; and
(3) to prohibit the individuals employed in designated areas, activities, plants, facilities and farms, which the Director deems are essential to the war effort, from voluntarily discontinuing such employment unless, in the case of any individual so employed, the Director determines that it is no longer necessary to the interest of the war effort for him to remain in such employment or that he has a justifiable reason for leaving such employment.
(b) Whoever willfully violates the provisions of any regulation made under subsection (a) shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than twelve months or by a fine not to exceed $10,000, or both.
If Newspapermen Ever Pray
April 4, 1945. Two new items to increase mistrust. The State Department announced that it has concluded an agreement with Chile at Mexico City to retire American nitrate plants so as not to compete with Chile’s. A week ago Tom Connally and Warren Austin assured Taft in entire good faith that no such agreements were made at Mexico City. That was where they reckoned without the State Department. Out of that smart gesture have come some really good, some really get-in-the-international-groove-and-let’s-have-unity dividends. Taft is made more suspicious, Connally and Austin, confronted with the knowledge that they have unwittingly told a lie, more troubled. “Damn it,” said Connally bitterly, “they didn’t have any authority to do that.” With just such bricks as these do the architects of tomorrow busily build their house of peace. If it does not topple on their heads it will be through no fault of theirs.
The second item is the President’s decision to ask for only one vote at San Francisco. Some praised it—or dismissed it with a rather tired disgust that passed for praise when you saw it in print—but Bob La Follette said bluntly what they all knew, that “it makes a confused situation more confounded.” All the rosy haze of Yalta has vanished, rather more quickly than has been usual on such occasions. The attitude on the Hill now is, Well, what next?
April 5, 1945. The Navy, now that it has lost the manpower bill, announces blandly that its draft quotas for the coming month will be cut one-half. Strangely, the manpower crisis seems to be all gone from the minds of our mimeograph admirals.
April 6, 1945. The Mexican water-treaty debate is dragging along on the floor with Downey and Millikin carrying the ball. Connally and the Administration are attempting to make great capital out of the thesis that it is necessary as “proof of our willingness to cooperate with the rest of the world.” All we have done, of course, is send our armies to the ends of the earth and donate $40,000,000,000, but we must still give “proof of our willingness to cooperate with the rest of the world.” This is an interesting theory that is nonetheless effective despite its palpable absurdity: there is a certain pride of reputation in the Senate and it still smarts under the lacerating charges of the post-Versailles era. A good many Senators incline to be influenced by the idea of redeeming their international prestige.
Sheridan Downey, able and never at a loss for words, carries the fight for the opponents of the treaty. Hiram Johnson sits beside him with his cane and jabs him in the leg whenever he thinks an opposition argument needs answering. Downey jumps up obediently.
April 7, 1945. Connally, forced into it by his scene-stealing fellow delegate, Arthur Vandenberg, says that of course “some minor amendments” may be made to the Dumbarton Oaks proposals at San Francisco. He doesn’t sound as though he will be disposed to accept very many of them, however. Van, making speeches right and left and issuing suggestions in the same fashion, has effectively taken the play away from Connally, who doesn’t like it one little bit.
April 8, 1945. The President plans to go to San Francisco to address the delegates in person and open the conference. Apparently husbanding his strength for the journey, he has gone to Warm Springs. His fortunes have rarely been at so low an ebb in the Senate which must ratify the treaty he will send to it. The bitter aftermath of Yalta, the destruction of one more hope, the knowledge that Stalin has refused to dignify his delegation by sending Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov to the conference, the knowledge that Roosevelt is apparently helpless to do anything about it, the whole general atmosphere in the Senate toward the White House—all bode ill for Dumbarton Oaks. The old touch is gone and only a memory remains. It is a moot question at this point whether it will be enough to swing the victory.
April 9, 1945. Barkley, his likable soul enraged by Senatorial absenteeism, arose in indignation today to give his colleagues the severest dressing-down they have had in some time. The least they could do, he informed them scathingly, was remain at their desks and try to give the impression that they were doing their duty whether they were or not. His outburst brought applause from the galleries and will doubtless be followed by many approving editorials. A few members attempted to point out that they sometimes do have committee meetings in the afternoon, that constituents do call on them, that there are errands to be run in the departments. Barkley was unyielding. Later Bob La Follette endorsed his remarks and added a few of his own. It made quite a story—and provoked a lot of disgusted comment from other Senators later.
Vandenberg made an able speech for extension of the Lend-Lease act today, but warned bluntly that it must not be used for postwar relief, rehabilitation or reconstruction. Taft put in an amendment which he said would make that desire absolutely ironclad. His amendment would strengthen a House amendment that leaves the way open for readjustments of Lend-Lease contracts. Considerable sentiment seems to be developing for the Taft proposal, and one more slap in the face may be on its way to the White House.
April 10, 1945. Harry Truman, with all the brisk eagerness of someone who is bored to death, seized his first chance to vote in the Senate today and made the most of it. The vote wasn’t necessary, for under the rules a tie kills a proposal, but he cast it anyway, with obvious satisfaction. Taft’s Lend-Lease amendment, significant straw in the wind, rolled up a vote of 39 to 39. The Clerk reported this to the V.P., and the V.P. settled the issue once and for all. “On this amendment,” Harry Truman called out rapidly, “the Yeas are 39 and the Nays are 39. The Chair votes No. The amendment is not agreed to.”
