National Reports
FARRAGUT, MAX & LEWIS, WALTER K.
National Reports Right-Wing Forces Fight Adlai, Ike By Walter K. Lewis On September 15, 317 delegates from 25 states convened in Memphis, Tennessee for a "National States' Rights Conference."...
...On August 6, For America issued a manifesto outlining its plans for throwing the election into the House...
...If the rebellion gains, the Confederate flag may once again fly over autonomous state capitals...
...These effusions might seem no more than a trifling offstage rumpus amid the main battle between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai E. Stevenson were it not for the fact that For America's backers include a large assortment of World War II brass, such as Generals Mark Clark, George E. Stratemeyer and James A. Van Fleet, and Admiral Husband E. Kimmel...
...Democratic registration now exceeds Republican in the state...
...The generous leases for oil drilling on wildlife refuges...
...His victory and that of Edith Green in the third Congressional District broke the hypnotic spell which the Republicans had long held over the state...
...For the first time in 40 years, Oregon had a Democrat in the Senate and for the first time since the depression of the Thirties a Democrat in the House...
...Since Morse has always run strong downstate, where he is a favorite with farmers and lumber workers, the McKay managers are getting frantic...
...this name has invincible political charm in the state...
...For this, he was rewarded with the post of Secretary of the Interior in the Eisenhower Cabinet...
...The latest poll, conducted by an organization not friendly to the Democrats, shows Morse well ahead in Multnomah County (the Portland area...
...Failure of the electors to select a President," the group's adherents were told, "will already have broken down party discipline...
...Several hours after Shea's "nomination...
...While Stevenson is more popular than in 1952 and Kefauver has added measurably to the ticket, few believe at this point that they can carry Washington and Oregon...
...It will be difficult for the Democrats to make any inroads on this galaxy, but Congressman-at-large Don Magnuson will probably be re-elected easily...
...However, the odds now are 5 to 4 on Morse, and the probability is that Doug will suffer a stunning defeat...
...Leonard Hall and Sherman Adams pinned their hopes on Governor Arthur Langlie to unseat Warren Magnuson...
...The new leaders are earnest, dedicated young men for whom politics is not so much a profession as a cause...
...If the electoral vote can be withheld from both major parties in "from three to six states," the states'righters say, their scheme will have succeeded...
...The rally was also addressed by Clarence Manion, former dean of Notre Dame Law School and co-chairman of For America, who keynoted the recent Memphis conference...
...Other supporters are Robert M. Harriss, former financial adviser of Father Coughlin, and the prominent Wall Street broker Edward F. Hutton...
...They feel that their rebellion against the income tax, desegregation and foreign aid is justified...
...But you know how we feel...
...Washington's six Congressional seats are now held by Republicans...
...Democrats, however, should elect Monroe Sweetland as Secretary of State and retain Robert Thornton as Attorney General...
...The emasculation of the Federal power program...
...The major cause of the Democratic resurgence has been the advent of new and younger leaders...
...Morse-McKay Battle Stirs Oregon Electorate By Max Farragut Portland In 1954, Richard L. Neuberger defeated Senator Guy Cordon by 2,500 votes—and thus made Oregon political history...
...The decision to launch a thirdparty movement was made last February 23 in Steinway Hall in New York, 24 hours after Senators McCarthy and William Jenner had addressed a Carnegie Hall rally sponsored by the isolationist, pro-segregationist group known as For America...
...of Montgomery, Alabama (who, addressing a white citizens' council rally last August 20...
...even Doug was bowled over...
...The objective of the states'-rights leaders is not to elect their candidates but to produce an Electoral College deadlock, thus throwing the decision into the House of Representatives...
...But this sobriquet may have missed the mark...
...attributed the Supreme Court desegregation decision to "Jewish influence...
...January 16, 1956...
...Those who knew "Doug" were surprised that so provincial a politician should be selected to fill the spot once held by Harold Ickes...
...Monroe Sweetland, former National Committeeman and now candidate for Secretary of State, is a suburban newspaper publisher...
...who in December 1955 was elected chairman and coordinator of all groups throughout the country which are fighting the Supreme Court's school decision...
...The Morse-McKay fight is now at its height...
...Morse is constantly asking his opponent: What about the Al Sarena limber giveaway...
...often it was more profitable to make deals with the Republicans than win elections...
...Among the delegates at Memphis was radio commentator and newspaper columnist Fulton Lewis Jr...
...Only a few men have ever been re-elected to the Senate after switching parties...
...Lewis was photographed in the company of John U. Barr, New Orleans industrialist [see The New Leader...
...With almost unlimited funds at their disposal, they plan a blitz campaign, using all the media of communication they can corral...
...The bouncy little man from Salem emerged from his Secretaryship as "king of the giveaways...
...Here, too, the people resent Langlie's record as an opponent of public power and ally of the lumber interests...
...But in last month's primary "Maggie" polled 150.000 more votes than Langlie and thus seems certain to be re-elected...
...The Democrats are certain to reelect Congresswoman Edith Green and may gain a seat in eastern Oregon, where the Republican incumbent is best known for his efforts to have the John Day dam site on the Columbia River handed over to a private utility combine...
...The shots were called by McKay's underlings—Under Secretaries Tudor and Davis, Assistant Secretaries Aandahl, Lewis and others...
...Neuberger is a journalist—the first free-lance writer to be elected to the Senate...
...Former Brigadier-General Bonner Fellers, executive director of For America, made a passionate appeal for the formation of a political party reflecting the views of that organization and kindred groups anchored in the Deep South...
...The Presidential race, oddly, is attracting much less attention in the Pacific Northwest than the Congressional contests...
...The major campaign here, of course, is between Wayne Morse and Douglas McKay for the U.S...
...Both men are vigorously stumping the state in a campaign that has its ludicrous as well as serious side...
...In all these posts, he displayed an amiable disposition and willingness to cooperate with influential utility executives, lumbermen and bankers...
...Morse had his revenge when, holding the balance of power between the two parlies in the 84th Congress, he voted to give the Democrats control...
...Senate...
...Some of them were not really Democrats at heart but publicity-seeking lawyers and businessmen...
...C. Girard ("Jebbie") Davidson, National Committeeman, is a transplanted Southern lawyer who was Under Secretary of the Interior under Julius Krug...
...All this has changed...
...McKay instead harps on Morse's defection from the Republican party, his filibustering habits, his independence of mind, and his alleged untrustworthiness...
...The 1954 election changed Oregon from a one-party to a two-party state...
...Today, Oregon is a political tinderbox as the Democrats, greatly invigorated since 1954, are the favorites to win a fair share of state and national offices, while the Republicans are the challengers...
...The Governorship race, between the undistinguished incumbent Elmo Smith and militant Democrat Robert Holmes, is tight, but this office has traditionally been in Republican hands...
...Besides McCarthy and Jenner, those on the stage with General fellers were Rear Admiral John G. Crommelin (ret...
...The tired old men who ran for office and invariably lost have been retired or pushed into the background...
...His leadership of the pro-segregation groups received the blessings of Senator James 0. Eastland of Mississippi after a meeting in Memphis last December between the two...
...If present confidential plans materialize...
...Everybody knows how Morse, once an Eisenhower admirer, bolted the Republican ticket in 1952 and campaigned for Stevenson, was outlawed by the party and stripped of his committee assignments in the 83rd Congress, termed himself an Independent for a time, and then joined the Democrats...
...the Secretary signed the necessary papers, delivered the required ghostwritten speeches, and made dutiful appearances before Congress...
...The abandonment of Hell's Canyon as a Federal dam...
...William Buckley Jr., editor of the National Review: former General Pedro del Valle, and former Republican Congressman Hamilton Fish Jr...
...And in the House a long-overdue political realignment may thus take place then and there...
...While temporarily deferring the formation of a new, ultra-rightist political party, they nevertheless "endorsed" the Presidential candidacy of Virginia Democrat T. Coleman Andrews, former Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and the Vice Presidential aspirations of Thomas H. Werdel, former Republican Congressman from California...
...If the states'righters can capture more than their own imaginations, or form an annoying interstate caucus in the Democratic and Republican parties, a national political realignment may actually be in the making...
...McKay is a typical Western politician of no great intellectual stature or distinction...
...Merwin K. Hart...
...The February meeting drew some 200 delegates from the New York area and several Southern and Southwestern states...
...Sawyer candidly told me: "We will not inject the segregation issue into the New York State campaign...
...Barr has admitted working closely with such luminaries of the far Right as Merwin K. Hart, head of the rightwing National Economic Council, and Edward A. Rumely...
...William Shea, a New York attorney, is currently designated "Constitutional party" candidate for the Senate from New York on petitions being circulated by one Dan Sawyer, who was elected chairman of the "Interim Committee for a New Party in New York State" at the Steinway Hall conclave...
...In neighboring Washington, the battle for the Senate seat is almost as heated, if more lopsided...
...Senator Joseph R. McCarthy will speak in strategic states on behalf of the Andrews-Werdel ticket...
...Morse seems well on the way to achieving this distinction...
...The new parties' backers care little about the effect they produce on world opinion or the charge that they reflect Ku Klux Klan thinking...
...A Chevrolet dealer in Salem, he was successively Mayor of the capital, State Senator and twice Governor...
...Accustomed to riding their candidates into state and national office with small opposition, the Republicans had become complacent...
...While no seasoned observer is yet paying serious attention to the various "Constitution parties," Southern politicians are not minimizing their importance...
...We're not that stupid...
...Their electors are expected to file soon in key Southern States and, if local election laws can be met, in some Midwestern states as well...
Vol. 39 • October 1956 • No. 40
