Will PAC Split the Democratic Party?
Hill, Stephen
Will PAC Split the Democratic Party? By Stephen Hill THE high State Department official looked stonily at his visitor—a newspaperman with whom be waa having one of his regular off-the-record...
...the delegates who really understood Quentin Eayneloa' pesgaaat aad poetic ¦poena they wore like babes hi th* wood a* they wiM he whoa ia future Diwitntli Party aaw-ferences, the PAC...
...But not to taw BapahUtnai They knew that they eawaet heat Mr...
...J1 "You know," he added with obvious pride," my people consider me something of a radical, too...
...That summed up the tradition-breaking Mr...
...And those cynics who pooh-pooh Mr...
...Now ebb to pay tew eabrios ho hired aaw publicity mom and production display artiste...
...Wallace as a starry-eyed simp with Communist leanings are forgetting that he was defeated by a coalition of anti-Negro, anti-Jewish, isolationist, sometimes gangster-ridden political machines...
...Roosevelt should slip from the political scene dm ma the next four years...
...Who else is there...
...Wealthy, handsome and an excellent orator, young Roosevelt reveled in battling the status quo, whether it waa the fraternity system at Harvard or the political bosses in the Albany legislator...
...He soon left Washington a sick and frustrated man...
...Roosevelt doesn't run this division and every other important department of the government...
...the ¦aralnaa, the aatteaaeaWx, the Southerners, the old line Paibyhw* and Bswhbyites Tab ia the Democratic Party today...
...The Southern bloc — Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, parte of the Florida delegation, aad Mississippi—refused to take this intrusion...
...Once when he waa governor, a Socialist delegation constating of Morris Hillquit and Algernoon Lee visited him...
...Or that b, Hillman expected to share honors...
...Mayor Kelly and anyone else who tried to nominate against their favorite son—who waa also the favorite son of a good nany honest liberals.' But that favorite son waa swamped to a great degree because Brother Hillman made him the symbol of the power of the PAC—and of himself...
...It helps him brace himself...
...Bat Hillman did...
...Supreme Court Justice Douglas...
...others have *aferred to him aa sew of the leading military and naval authorities...
...By Stephen Hill THE high State Department official looked stonily at his visitor—a newspaperman with whom be waa having one of his regular off-the-record talks ea foreign policy—and turned his swivel chair so that he could look out of his window across to the White House...
...Roosevelt could have saved him...
...These squads booed...
...Roosevelt has spent little time developing one—there ia even less of a liberal bloc in what now passes for the Democratic Party...
...Roosevelt has always had these attributes...
...After listening to them for te wlUbv he leaned back in his chair, flashed the smile •a much loved by cartoonists and told them he could waa their point...
...Roosevelt is The Boss to the big-time ward heelers such as the bull-voiced Chicago Mayor Ed Kelly, the high-collared Jersey bouncer Frank Haggle and the gentle Bronx commuter Ed Flynn...
...But he is not the global liberal of Wallace's type...
...It ia not a party, it ia a loose, feuding, antagonistic coalition of ambitious laborites, aour southerners and machine bosses...
...Roosevelt's intimates have called Mat the nation's greatest social worker...
...That man," the State Department diplomat said, "is the boss...
...Roosevelt t E. P. Dutton, N. Y. $3.75...
...Somehow Mr...
...There is not even an outstanding liberal Democrat of first rank now left to lead that party if for some reason Mr...
...It waa patently silly...
...It talked of bolting and setting up a new party...
...It talked ef nominating Ben...
...If there is no liberal leader—and apparently Mr...
...Hia aidea planted cheering squads, balloons and posters in the convention hall...
...There the nationalist New York Daily News and the Scripps-Howard reporters gave him a going over which the Democratic Party will never forget it waa vicious and anti-Semitic...
...The true llberab the Helen Cahegane...
...Knudsen as America's production chief in the early days of the war...
...Where then can they be found, these liberals with national reputations...
...He began to think of himself as a big political boss-maybe because with the help of the New York Communist Party he had captured the American Labor Party by a primary vote of some 50,000 to 38,-000—and he went to Chicago...
...Bnuoset...
...The tousle-haired, athletic Henry Agar Wallace was rubbed out of the picture at last week's Democratic Party convention...
...Don't let anybody tell you that Mr...
...and atill others consider Mm the wostd's "hrewdest diplomat...
...His orders went out to the 150 CIO delegates to the Democratic convention...
...Roosevelt has ¦roved himself a great president His administration* ¦awe revolutionized America's concept of what a president should be...
...Byrd, the cherubic-looking appb grower whom the nattoaallote have eh seen aa their maa oa horseback...
...He was exiled to the Supreme Court instead of being built into a potential successor to the President...
...BBBaaaa bwea pahhwlty haw Cesmy Rose I,ee loves a g-string...
...But strangely enough, tab man, who will certainly te down ia history aa one at the great tonUasaorary •rures...
...256 pp...
...Hot tang after that Mr...
...He held forth in the penthouse bungalow of the rather blue-blood Hotel Morrison...
...He will make a competent president someday...
...War Mobilization chief Byrnes ? The labor movement hates him...
...Senator Mead...
...The PAC could take ear* of that Murray, busy with hia steel warkeri aad ether wer production problems, approved th* Committee, with Hillman as chairman, never giving it a second thought...
...Certainly not in the President's cabinet—look at them: Agricultural Secretary Wickard, Postmaster Walker, Secretary of War Stim-aon, Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones...
...Compton Mackenzie in his Mr...
...Brother Hillman first came into prominence when he shared honors with Gen...
...And that b why the country gave MVall Willkie the greatest Republican vote in recent l«betions...
...The White House approved because it was worried by the shifting war workers who had forgotten to register for voting neat November...
...Obviously not, for religious reasons...
...He talked of delivering I4j*a...
...this man who almost single-handedly revamped •*¦»¦ (ssaWaaew aad James at owe* at two eaamnete ewde •'the world, thia maa who haw gi«a the UaMad •aaaaa *»*al Jaufasmawia astessBteteastea aad are^lenVor teem, Bu failed or delit irilate is fas ad te be ltd a seewenj liberal movement during the 12 years he has been President of this intrinsically progressive nation...
...Willkb created himself in Mr...
...000 labor votes whin that would mono that be would be tte) most powerful pcJitbel figure te the hbtety of world democracy...
...r*» called the President the country's number one ¦Bar leader...
...The harrazeed Phil Murray, now obviously aware ef the damage that could be done, worked trojanly to ease the situation for CIO...
...The President, tt* candidate, will be reelected...
...Roosevelt Not only is he The Boss to the liberal curmudgeons each as Harold irkes, and the tough, politics-wise veterans such as WMC chief Paul McNutt, and the comparative newcomers such aa Harry Hopkins and Frances Perkins whom the AFL'a Robert Watt loves to call "the aoctai-workers set," but Mr...
...He was pictured as the emigrant grandson of a rabbi who came to Chicago to run the Demoeratie Party...
...But the booing and the Republican publicity had worked effectively...
...He robed huge funds...
...Rather, the American liberal and decent radical movements have virtually disintegrated during his years in office...
...traces the development of the Dutch aristocrat...
...The President was in direct telephonic communication with Hob Hannegan all through the voting for vice-presidential candidate...
...That b why the nation laughed at the Inhering Herbert Hoover in 1932 aad the hay-seed MUeWkBM ia UN...
...Roosevelt went to the White jjaaW after an affable and atill friendly Jim Farley wastreled the 19S2 convention to him...
...hat they near thtek that they own heat •ewe* Pagter aad the ¦iihypi Bieiai* Praes (a the lead, 1 iii ni r - i r * i -i Mi ------¦-¦ • eawaWnt Mas...
...Ben Stolberg, he of the barbed and lethal phrase...
...Whether it's de Gaulle, Tito or Procopc, that man across the street sets policy...
...Senator Truman is a capable, hard-working, honest—even fearless- politician...
...But the CIO, despite the defeat of Wallace, had shown that it waa *n Integral part of the Democratic Party...
...Early in 1943 he had a bright idea He believed he could return to the national spotlight by organising a CIO Political Action Committee...
...Much to the regret of the gentle Phil Murray, the Democratic Party's most outspoken bborite is the nervous and ambitious Sidney Hillman whose personal friends will tell you that he will brook no interference with hie plans to write himself a page in American history as shrewd politician...
...Tl......ii mwTllateay BJasaaaa, Tha CM aad the I nirfiiii Bhasal wM than ksah tee a peaaaaal haww-aaw there w* be none...
...Roosevelt was proud of his perpetual opposition to the established powers...
...Keoee-*»lt's image...
...So he fell for the Republican line...
...It takes an innate shrewdness, a perservering cynicism, % deep-rooted feeling for the under-dog, a consuming liberalism and great charm to keep such a crowd together...
...The nation's most hatha* QewT*Dewoy wBJ ha smomim^mmm^'mm waa will he aaoft wide epia let this m Mt.\ BaisaiwBa tea* to head taw party lagiiaii...
Vol. 27 • July 1944 • No. 31
