THE ASCENDING CAREER OF ARTHUR VANDENBERG

...In 1943 he predicated his support of the Connally resolution for an international organisation on Senate retention of the two-thirds rule in the ratification of treaties...

...in foreign affairs he began as the aivocate of what he called "intelligent Nationalism as opposed to emotional Internationalism...

...you can beat him in "1...

...His redid M po'ilital democracy ia excellent...

...The essential basic American rule," he once told Cordell Hull, "must be that our tariff shall measure the difference in cost of production at home and abroad...

...Actually, Vandenberg's ideology has always been Americanism, the Constitution and Alexander Hamilton...

...In high school he was editorin-chief of the yearbook, vice-president of the literary society, vice-president of the athletic association, "Senator from Michigan" in the school government...

...Vandenberg, still not very sophisticated, was pretty much dazzled by the offer and ready to accept...

...He ssked me what I thought, and I said I'd let him krow...

...Mis thesis was that "unilateralism" (his polite synonym for Russian expansion) was caused by fears of revived German sggression...

...Sparks was In Ann Arbor st the tuns, but hs serried back to Vandenberg in Grsnd Rapids as soon as he got the hews...

...Exactly what prevented him from doing Ibis is not quite clear but those who knew the governor are sura it was not his conscience...

...Vandenberg had always been a Republican...

...During his years at a midwestern editor he became friendly with Lodge and Borah, and for i...

...But 1911 was also the year in which he began to waver...

...One of Vaiidenheig's assistants on the Herald was Frank Sparks, who Was given the assignment of making a Successful politician of his editor...

...The deal finally went through, and on March 31, 1928, Vandenberg was appointed to the Senate...

...After leaving high school in 1900 Arthur fiddled sround briefly at the University of Michigan, later turned up in the advertising department of Collier'*, and finally became a reporter for the Grand Rapids Herald...

...V ANDENBERG was always ambitious...

...He was against AAA, TVA, NIKA, the Wage-Hour Act and the Trade Agreements Act...

...But why couldn't the passengers go into il"- «utci i ight bulkheads...

...He was against the Wagner Act because "I thought at the time it was unconstitutional," hut he voted for the Social Security Act ("despite its mam fest infirmities"), and he was also on record as favoring the SEC, the Wagner limning Act, American participation in the World Court and the Emergency Banking Art...

...VaNDKNBERG defines his own position, with characteristic flamboyance, as "sane and sympathetic liberalism grounded in sound and unsurrendered constitutionalism...

...Smith was a flag-waving, tub-thumping, klaghoi nesque politico of a type then popular in Michigan, who ia perhaps best remembered for a remark he msJa while a member of the Senate committee investigating the sinking of the Titanic...

...Senator Vt oodbrtdge N. Ferris died suddenly In Mnirh, YMn...

...a world state...

...According to his own account he did pretty well...

...Ever since President Roosevelt named him as « delegate so the San Francisco Conference in 1946 his chief function has been that of making oar policy palatable to his Senatorial colleagues...

...and it took several members of his staff most of the next day to find it...

...I N his first years In the Senate, Vandenberg was something of a joke...

...Profile ot An American Statesman The Ascending Career of Arthur Vandenberg By Daniel Seligman Member of the Editorial Staff of The American Mercury a RTHUR HENDRICK VAN DENTV BERG, the president pro tem of the Senate, chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, •nd top man in what has been called the "Vandenberg-Dulles Rankin-LuceSchlesjnger Axis," actually does not determine American foreign policy...

...They can write their' own code for labor peace, he said i% 1945, "if they meet under proper aus* pices...

...for giving Russia "a squats deal," he is opposed to abandoning "principlea themselves," but saya we can retreat "within the boundaries of principles...

...which took rare of existing Inequalities and nested a for inula for automatic reapportionment after each census...

...And in 1942 he proposed a Constitutional amendment to give ths •ballot to 18-year-olds...

...This was where he got his first break...

...permanently demilitarized," and he expressed confidence that if w?_ could only show tho Soviet Government our sincerity in this respect, the Atlantic Charter would again ride high...

...He had been brought up in a strict Republican household, and had been taught that the evils of this world (his father had been ruined in tha Cleveland panic of 1893) could be traced directly to the machinations of Democratic politicians...

...In 1944 he and Senator Austin came out i for "organized international cooperation and not...

...For soma reason he backel do .mi on this point, at...

...wing, •;, him a lot about Washington politic*, and ii I'd Ins reniaikabls fui en'ic talents to help build up the in iiiiioii anil pre* tigs oT the Herald...

...The two were close personal friends for years...

...Service on the Nye Committee, consistent support of the Neutrality Act and a fondness for quoting Washington's Farewell Aidless established him as a leading isolationist ("insulstionist" he used to call It...

...Ths elheis Hem concerned mainly with miking the I'N flexible enough to review any ticalics that its members hi I Signed...

...Vandenbeig is for being "firm" with Russia, but he is alsoj...

...Are we such egotists in this new d.TV that we think tot escape the implications of this wisdom...

...He led tie fiifht for the Reapportionment Art of 1931...

...Fred W. Green asked Sparks to run his gubernatorial campaign...

...there is s line beyond which compromise cannot go," he says, but where the line is, who is to draw it an I how it is to be guarded he has never clearly indicated...

...and in debate he is;fond el quoting the founding fathers, not...

...But though the Senator's crude social philosophy is reactionary, the Senator himself is a decent man, and...

...none than MJ "ther man in the Senate to keep the relief program on a non-political basis...

...Common sense lather than profundity, decency rather than any great clarity, are his main intellectual attributes: in both these respects he resembles Roosevelt...

...Before he said yes...

...By this time he was so sore at Green that he crumpled up the unopened letter of appointment and threw it away...

...Vandenberg's resolute stand against letting-out any atomic secrets to the USSR, and his sporadic assaults on Byrnes before Byrnes himself swung around to "firmness," are indications of the Senator's hardheadedness rather than sophistication...

...Before he arrived, however, Vandenberg had already had a visit from a Republican delegation, asking him to support the appointment of Representative Fordney...

...It cannot be changed by Prosit dents, courts, or Congresses," ho pact> wrote...

...But I said 1 would Insist on one thing -that is, that if, unhappily, Senttor Ferris should die during Green's teim of office, ho would appoint Van tenbeig to this position...

...While he was editor of the Herald he seized every opportunity to get into politics himself...

...When this proved too i much for his isolationist friends, h9 backtracked by explaining that this plan Was, of course, still "hypothetical...

...His solution ws» a "hard and fast treaty to keep Germany...

...Jack Garner customarily addressed him, "Hello, Dynamite...

...And so Arthur turned down the offer, and sat back waiting for Governor Green to appoint him, It then developed that Greon was toying with the idea of going to the Senate himself...

...He was rlei'cii i-ovei hi ,n November, 1K20...

...I told Fred," says Sparks, "that I'd be glad to do it, and I said I wouldn't take any money for it, and I didn't want any political appointment out of it and I wouldn't be on his neck asking favors for my friends...

...His own views on foreign affairs tend to be couched in vagaries: like Roosevelt he is a better phr.asemaker than thinker...

...Act is constitutional (though he has' several times-tried to amend it...

...On the tariff issue, he was an unreconstructed protectionist...

...Ciecn agieed to the deal and pit the Support of Spark* and the lb raid...

...In 1910 he got himself elected to the Grand Rapids Charter Commission, and helped to draw up a charter for the city (which was ultimately rejected...

...in la spirit of demagogy, but apparently in the honest conviction that Hamilton^ Jay and Madison are still the final authorities in questions of American government...

...however, Sparks took him aside and convinced him that a lot could happen before November, that, for example, "Uncle Joe" might like it in the Senate and decide to remain, and that in short Vandenberg was being taken in by the wise boys...

...More recently,' he haa taken the line that what is needed is a "getting together" of labor' and management...

...When Senator Ferris was elected in Wl'i, I went to Van and said: 'New's your chance...

...In the pre-Roosevelt period Vandenberg and Senator Allen played at being the "Young Turks" of the Republican party, but most reporters surveying this renascence agreed that the chief difference between the Young Turks ar.d the Old Turks was that the Young Turks were in better condition...

...No exact date can be fixed for Vantjenherg's conversion...

...Sun Fraiu i just when it looked as though ths General Assembly might receive specific authority to review "unjust" treaties, Vandenberg made a. plea for giving the Assembly only implied authority, and his views carried the day...

...perhaps be has come to realize that, like many radicals, he is saddled with an ideology that is largely irrelevant to the practical problems of this decade...

...Uncle Joe" Fordney, tha co-sponsor of ths Fordney MeCiiinber tariff, had been a Republican wheelhorse in the House for years...

...As late as 1939 he opposed tin cash-and-carry deal with Britain, and as late as the summer of 1941 he believed that "the United States will survive as an independent and great democratic power in the world, whatever happens in Europe, Asia, or Africa...

...In 1086 he fought hard for a bill which would penalise discrimination "on the basis of race or religion" in the state administration of relief funds...

...Sparks has never told this part of the story in detail...

...Sparks worked hard getting key men In every county lined up for Vandenberg, In IMf...

...In 1906 the Herald was bought by Representative (later Senator) William Alden Smith...

...Vandenberg's views on labor have undergone some modifications since 1913, when he wrote that the strike "has come to threaten the stability of republican institutions . . . because under cover of 'strike' preachments, doctrines are right now being circulated up and down this land by a certain class of irresponsible seditionists who boldly and defiantly proclaim as their purpose the creation of social conditions wherein there shall be 'no God, no flag, and no country...

...In practice this usually turned out to mean that he "sympathized with the objectives" of New Deal legislation, but "opposed the methods...

...I discovered that he could never Ivent the man who was in there, so I told him to drop it and he did...

...In 1 «.»«?*» Arthur— who was then twenty* two—persuaded Smith to name him editor...

...However, Smith was smsit enough to ape that Vandenberg was a bright young hoy who was obviously going places, lie took Vandenberg under In...

...He is probably too old now to go as far as Roosevelt did, but be stands a good chance of being our next Secretary of State, and his career is worth reviewing...

...But later, when he begun to think of himself as a statesman, he abandoned-'this position and took the line that the reciprocal agreements should be encouraged, but that Congress should have more control over them...

...It also revealed how little he understood of world politics...

...He always voles fur cloture on |V|cial .intllynching In lis, and he has be* n a consider,t mpporter of FKP'\ II'' di I ;nulmbl...

...One citizen who knew him in his teens claims that Arthur decided on a public career when he was only fifteen, and that he began then to read the Cohgrentivnal Record daily...

...After a generation of strikes had left God, flag and country more or less intact, Vandenberg was apparently reconciled to the weapon, and he has,, even come to admit that the Wagner...

...In 1940 he said he had opposed the trade pacts "from start to finish," and would continue to do so without reservation...

...Vandenl>erg himself occasionally voted with the A.lminlstrstion...

...From 1912 to 1918 he was a member of the Republican State Central Committee, and in 1916 he was chairman of the Republican State Convention...

...The delegation had suggested to Vandenberg that it would be a nice thing if Fordney could round out his political career with a year in the Senate: then in November he would retire, and Vandenberg would get full party backing in the election...

...What chiefly gave Vandenberg his eminent position among Republicans in Congress was his remarkable victory in the Democratic avalanche of 1934...

...the man who "could strut sitting down," whose "identification with the Federalist* was so complete that one momentarily expected him to don a peiuke...

...He is also supposed to have started a monumental campaign of outside reading at about that time, and to have begun the practice, which he kept up for many years, of learning one good quotation verbatim each day...

...He remained as editor for mora than twenty years...

...After that date he was the actual Republican leader in the Senate, partly because he had no littky competition, and partly because Senator MrNary, the nominal minority chief, voted too much for New Deal legislation...

...Van always wanted to be in politics," Sparks relates, "and the first time he wanted to run for anything, It was alderman of the old second ward...

...His apeech of January 10, 1945 firmly established his reputation as an advocate of international cooperation...

...When the Dumbarton Oaks plan Was made public Vandenberg immediately rushed forth with eight amendments, ftvg of which involved writing guarantees of "justice" mto the Charter...

...Then, later, he wanted to run for Congress, and I told him: 'No, you wait and you'll be a Senator Instead.' Next it was Governor, and I said, 'Why in hell you want to get into that political backwater?' And after that, God damn it, if he didn't get the idea of being Lieutenant Governor, just because Harding had gone from that to the Senate...

...Judge of the Superior Court" (whatever that was) and the winner of a medal for oratory...

...And because Vandenberg is an honest democrat, a man capable of putting his convictions above his party, he has begun to earn the respect of many liberals...

...From then on I went to work in earnest...

...On New Year's Day of that year he tried, with little success but remarkable ingenuity, to straddle tha issue by proposing that we should (1) try to negotiate a "just and durable" peace in Europe, but if this failed we ah.hi I,I (2) give all-out aid to Britain, "even though I know it is bound to leal Us into war...

...In the three books and innumerable essays he has written he has made it perfectly plain that the Constitution means to him exactly what it meant to the men' 1789...

...i than two decades he believed that wj entered the first World War (which lis aupported enthusiastically at the time) because of "Wall Street...

...He haa gone on record as being opposed to "summary legislation"—bitt he voted to override Roosevelt's veto the Smith-Connally bill...

...hs asked...

...A belief in "Americanism"-»-the biggest thing in Vandenberg's life—is no guide to voting on a British loan or David Lilienthai...

...lie has, however, said that "considerable pressure was hrought to bear" on Green...

...He was the "pouter pigeon with the kewpie smile...