Capital Comment
STOUT, JONATHAN
Capital Comment By JONATHAN STOUT The Future of PAC and the Liberal Party WASHINGTON, D. C—The Capitals reaction to the national election, in important circles, was not so much ia the direction...
...In politics PAC undoubtedly is labor's No...
...The political experts here are not figuring that those .120,000 votes would have gone to Roosevelt anyway — through the cither channels—if there had not been « Liberal Party in the field...
...Whether the position of PAC will now force the AFL to abandon its traditional position on this question in order to meet CIO competition on the political level...
...Hilhnan'a American I.abor Party in New York, with the assistance of an estimated 100,000 votes contributed by his communist allies, rolled up a larger vote than the ALP ever got before...
...For four years—snd much more definitely thsn during the psst 12 yesrt—he will be their man...
...Action Committee...
...It was not merely the Politics...
...Will the next campaign find the AFL going in for organised labor political action...
...THK NKW LKADKR congratulates FDR on his precedent-breaking triumph...
...What we want during this fourth term is Roosevelt at his best...
...Would he be able to hold his present leadership of the ALP against communist opposition...
...President Roosevelt, as a result of the total complex of campaign events, is more labor'a man than any President of the United States lis- ever been...
...The CIO which fathered it, however, remains on the trade union organizational level labor's No...
...How good that best csn be he showed us between 1933 and 1937...
...Today, as a result of last Tuesday'a election, that brain-child has grown to great proportion...
...The question now raised here is whether the AFL can rest content with being the nation's No...
...And interesting speculation for the future now is what will happen in t h e New York situation when the communist parly-line changes—regarded here as an inevitability sooner or later—and Hillman's plans for his place in the Democratic Party find themselves in conflict with the "line" of his current allies...
...It is, especially, the most decisive triumph which the liberal and labor forces of the United States have ever won on the political field...
...Those 320,000 Liberal Party votes provide almoat identically—plus a little more—the margin by whioh President Roosevelt beat Dewey in New York...
...Freedom of action will be restored to him...
...For Sidney Hillman,,hat suddenly acquired a stature on the national political field which overshadows that of his chief, Phil Murray, in the trade union field, which in turn remains fundamentally the base of labor's political power...
...The President was not continued in office merely becauae the people are faithful to him or because they want him to go on running J he war...
...Conditions will relieve him of some restrictions which have hemmed him in during recent years...
...Phil Murray's steel workers and R. J. Thomas's auto and aircraft workers of the (TO, for instance, share credit equally with Dart Tobin's teamsters and Harvey Brown's auchinists of the AFL...
...The American working class was never more united in any rause than it was In this one...
...The election as • whole was a victory for forward-looking, progressive, humane policies...
...His victory is the victory of the people ot this country...
...His campaign, moreover, reached a lower level than any we have been plunged "down to in nearly half a century...
...1 trade union organisation and permit the CIO to become the nation's No...
...Some of the comments point te possibilities of great interest and greater importance...
...But how remains the most interesting speculation of the week...
...In fact, if it were not that President Roosevelt's runaway electoral vote total serves to obscure the phenomenon, in Maw York State which is the home base of both Dubinsky and Hillman, the credit for carrying that state's 47 electoral votes for Roosevelt indubitably belongs to Dubinsky rather than Hillman...
...But this is far from being the case...
...Thomas K. Dewey represented dangerous and reactionary forces...
...It is believed that this is bound to be reflected in the future relations between Murray and Hillman...
...1 organization today in terms- of power and influence...
...It seems fsir to drsw the conclusion that these 320,000 represent the number of voters in New York who do not find themselves at home in either the Democratic or Republican parties, who are attracted to a progrestive-liberalIsbor party, and who are repelled and estranged by any such coalition which includes communists...
...Another interesting speculation in labor circle* here concerns itself with the future relationship of the CIO sad PAC...
...Even more dramatically, perhaps, Sidney Hillman of the CIO Amalgamated ('lothing Workers Union is forced to share his credit with David Oubinsky of the AFL International Ladiea Gapment Workers Union...
...Just a year ago, the CIO alional convention gave birth to its political brainchild...
...The regular Democrats of the South voted for the President automatically...
...And already there is a great deal of speculation about the future...
...He can rise to new heights as a liberal leader, add new distinction to the record which history will record for future...
...Will Hillman find himaelf a captive of the communists...
...Or would he find that communist control of the ALP strategic machinery is too much for even his considerable talents to overcome...
...2 organisation in view of the fact that AFL membership outnumbers CIO membership by several million...
...Its 484,000 votes-in this campaign were impressively better than the previous ALP high water mark of 420,000 in 1938 for (iov...
...Lehman •nd 417,000 for Roosevelt in 1940, both before the Hill-aUn-Communist coalition captured the AI.P anil caused It to be split last March...
...Thus, despite the remarkable •enlevement of the ALP in topping its best previous record even after the serious split of last March, it is floite clear that President Roosevelt would have lost New York's 47 electoral votes to Dewey if it had not been for the even more miraculous achievement of New York's "Liberal Party in rolling up a vote of more than 320,000 for Roosevelt...
...There is a MW-found respect here for its potency -in all circles ef thought...
...In district after district it practically replaced half-hearted official Democrats...
...Capital Comment By JONATHAN STOUT The Future of PAC and the Liberal Party WASHINGTON, D. C—The Capitals reaction to the national election, in important circles, was not so much ia the direction of either celebration or mourning as K was in the direction of sober and senium thought...
...So far as the election result is a rebuke to thin sort of campaigning it represents a real gain...
...On the positive side the President's fourth victory— with the accompanying changes in the Senate and House—constitutes a clear mandate for international cooperation abroad and a continuation of the New Deal at home...
...The Next Four Years XrIK NKW I.KADKR will not dish up any of Hie familiar post election mush which was smeared over editorial pages on November 8. This was a serious campaign about vital issue...
...In his last term a President is released from personal political obligations...
...The millions of working people in all of the great industrisl states voted for him because he represents their ideals and their interests...
...The defeat of such men as Hamilton Fish, herald P. Nye and John A. Danaher shows that it was a bad day - not just for Candidate Dewey -but for all isolationist* and reactionaries...
...Kven John L. Lewis's miners were in there voting alongside their mates in other unions...
...Since that time political necessity and wartime obligations have seemed to restrain and restrict the man who had shown such magnificent verge for imaginative social action...
...We hope to see again the New Deal Roosevelt applying his energy, imagination and political skill to the gigantic problems at the postwar world...
...Any analysis of the returns district by district shows how energetically the millions of trade union members threw themselves into the fight for him and for the oilier candidates who stand for his Ideas...
...Moat of the speculation is based on the fact that, despite the wide gap in the electoral vote, the relative closeness of the popular vote apparently has persuaded area confirmed skeptics that the credit for the President's re-election clearly goes to the labor vote ami to the steam put into the President's campaign by the labor unions...
...Nevertheless, the combined ALP and Democratic ftrtjr total fell short of Dewey's New York total by ¦we than 62,000 votes...
...The war—in a year or two years—will be over...
...The cannier political actuaries are figuiing that this figure repreaents the approximate number that the determined Liberal Party campaign kept from staying home or going fishing on Klection Day...
...1 labor political force...
...Still another interesting speculation is what effect the new prestige of PAC—in the sense of organised labor political action—might have on the AFL's traditional policy of opposition to such plans...
...The election * was a selective process...
...And, so, although labor has doubled its total vote in New Ven k State since 1940—no unimpressive achievement in itself—it appears to be accepted in important Washington circles that the political balance of powei in New York rest* not with Sidney Hillman but with David Dubinsky who last March became the organiser, spark plug and guiding genius of the Liberal Party...
...This was not just a (TO campaign for labor'a political interests...
...In playing up the red scare and the President's age he was avoiding all the real issues and attempting to stampede the voters by an appeal to sub-rational motives...
...It would be clear that the midstream change of horses was what the Voters' feared...
...And that's what the boys in Washington who keep their eyes on the ball are talking about this week...
...The PAC, it is true, did a magnificent organization job...
...The aost aerioua thinking is about organized labor's new petition of importance in the political sphere...
...But in district alter district, also", the AFL men snd Railway Brotherhoods worked with' it...
...It create* a curious and anomoloua situation...
...And it should be pointed out that the credit given laser cuts across factional organization lines...
...If FDR had won alone—if the Republicans had made a sweep of both houses of Congress—we might say that the people voted merely for a continuation of their Commander-in-Chief...
Vol. 27 • November 1944 • No. 46
