REP. COFFEE SAYS LIBERALS OF STATE SHOULD JOIN TO BLOCK TORY GOP VICTORY
Coffee, Rep. John M.
Rep. Coffee Says Liberals of State Should Join to Block Tory GOP Victory Third Party Dividing Ranks. Washington Solon Feels; Urges Progressive to Join Democratic New Dealers; Urges Support for Rob,...
...The editor of The Progressive has just received the following letter from Rep...
...When I was in Madison I talked with a former congressman who thought that it might be possible to come to some agreement with the Democrats whereby the Democrats would support certain Progressive candidates and the Progressives would support certain Democratic candidates...
...Under the guise of protecting private industry, they would stop the expansion of the great slum clearance program that has brought countless blessing to thousands of workers' families and countless benefits to American business...
...Coffee, who Is an active member of the house liberal bloc, recently visited Madison.—EDITOR'S NOTE...
...These movements have done the pioneering work for almost all of the substantial achievements of the New Deal...
...While the six New Deal Democrats were returned to congress from the state of Washington, the Progressives and Farmer-Laborites from Wisconsin and Minnesota were in the main replaced by thorough-going reactionaries...
...Would Need Support Progressive leaders must face the fact that if they were to run on the Democratic ticket and if Roosevelt or a New Dealer were the presidential candidate of that party, these Progressives would get the benefit of some 100.000 or 200,000 votes that would be ! cast in the Democratic party column as a matter of course...
...The Tird Party Move I agree with the Progressives who left the Republican party to form an independent party in Wisconsin in 1934...
...La Follette...
...While certain liberals from other states gained a great deal of publicity, it was due in the main to the fact that the liberal bloc m congress had this rather solid nucleus from the three Progressive states...
...In this way It will be possible for Roosevelt to go down the line for Progressives as Democrats because he would be freed of the embarrassment which any man feels when he is forced to work against his own party candidates...
...I believe any interest is justified...
...The battle has already started in congress...
...However, we must recognize that these third party movements have served their purpose and that to continue longer with these third party movements will only serve to divide the liberal vote and elect reactionaries...
...therefore, unfair to them to put them in a position where their support will inevitably be divided in the face of the united support of the reactionaries that will go to the Republican candidate...
...When I state that there is no longer a place for a third party movement (based on democratic principles), this is not meant as a reflection on third party movements of the past...
...JOHN M. COFFEE (Of Washington State) WASHINGTON, D. C— i enjoyed very much the opportunity to meet you and discuss the Wisconsin political situation while I attended the recent peace conference at tne university...
...name be put on the final election ballot as a matter of legal right...
...What astonishes me is the fact that so few people in Wisconsin and Minnesota realize, as we "outsiders" do, that the liberal position in these two states is so weak and that it ;" already almost too late to--¦---:¦ anything about it...
...It stands to reason that if the liberal vote is split between Progressives and Democrats, that the Republicans will have a walk-away in 1940 just as they had in 1938...
...This suggestion at best is unrealistic...
...La Follette would be as great a loss to the people of other states as it would be to the people of Wisconsin...
...Situation Is Changed But...
...I also had the opportunity of meeting two of the Progressive congressmen with whom I formerly served but who were defeated in the 1938 election...
...I sincerely hope that it will be possible for the liberals and the Progressives in Minnesota and Wisconsin to follow the same course that we liberals are following in the state of Washington...
...Under the guise of Improving the administration of relief, they would abolish work projects and bring bark the soup kitchen and the dole...
...T am not trying to be an ?>'¦¦trmist...
...At the same time these Progressives would not have been welcomed by the reactionary Democrats who were in control of the state of Wisconsin at that time: but the situation has now changed...
...Without the support jn congress from liberal states like Minnesota and Wisconsin, those of us iliberals) who were re-elected in 1938 find it difficult to be even a voice in the wilderness of the present reactionary congress...
...Anti-Labor Drive Under Way, View NEW YORK CITY—Labor's "traditional foes" have, ganged up to deprive it of many of its "most precious gains...
...The situation was perhaps simpler in Washington than it is in Wisconsin and Minnesota for the reason that our political traditions are not so old...
...In 1937 and 1938 we had a militant liberal bloc in the United States congress...
...Resent Manipulation It has been the experience in every state that while party leaders may try to make such deals fcr the best interest of everyone concerned, none the less, the rank and the file of the voters resent such manipulation and deals...
...The Democratic party is no longer In power in Wisconsin.' It has become altogether unimportant both in Wisconsin and Minnesota...
...Roosevelt and the New Deal Just as we are doing in the state of Washington Unless the liberal vote and the Democratic liberal vote can be united, it is hard for me to see any prospect of victory in 1940 either in Wisconsin or In Minnesota...
...A continuation of the same policies that were followed in 1938 will lead to the same result in 1940...
...but I am very much . . erested in the political situation in Wisconsin and Minnesota...
...Only in that state it was...
...It stands to reason that such a party could not be put on the shelf in any state...
...Under the guise of clarifying the Labor Relations act, they would bring back the company-dominated union and turn labor's Magna Charta into a weapon of labor's oppression...
...That warning was sounded last week by one of labor's staunchest friends, Sen...
...The defeat of Sen...
...When I discussed this matter with a Wisconsin Progressive, he suggested: Why not have the Democratic party step aside for the Progressives in Wisconsin...
...It must be perfectly plain to everyone that It would be impossible to go through with such a plan successfully...
...The backbone of this liberal bloc was made up of seven Progressives from Wisconsin, the five Farmer-La-bontes from Minnesota, and the six New Dealer Democrats from the state of Washington...
...The Democratic party is the dominant party nationally...
...BY REP...
...It seems to me that the most important task before the Wisconsin liberals next fall (next to the re-election of Roosevelt I is the re-election of Sen...
...NEW ORLEANS—(FPj—Southern turpentine workers, one of the most exploited groups in a region where exploitation is the rule, are denied the benefits of the social security act In a decision of the fifth circuit court of appeals...
...John M. Coffee...
...TORONTO, Canada — Canadian Great Lakes shipping, tied up since the start of the 1940 navigation season, got under way April 21 following settlement of a strike of 9,000 members of the Canadian Seamen's Union (AFL...
...Democratic member of the House of Representatives from the state of Washington...
...We considered the same plan In Washington several years ago hut ruled it out because we knew It would not work...
...Unless, therefore, traditionally progressive states like Minnesoa and Wisconsin can keep liberal representatives in congress, there is little prospect for legislative progress...
...I am sure that even the strongest of the Progressive candidates will need this additional support if they are to win out in the | elections next fall...
...Urges Support for Rob, Jr...
...It is for this reason that I, as a liberal, am vitally interested in what progressive-minded people in Minnesota and Wisconsin are going to do this fall...
...this is now all changed...
...The Progressives should have no trouble taking over the Democratic party in both states and making of It a liberal party just as we did in the state of Washington...
...They tend to feel that their party leaders take their loyalty to be of an unthinking kind that can be bought and sold like any other commodity...
...By the same token, it will be possible for the Progressives in Wisconsin to go down the line for Pres...
...Encouraged by the breach in labor's ranks," Wagner said, "reactionary forces are out to scuttle the liberal program for which labor and labor's friends have fought and bled...
...There is no longer the time or the opportunity to build a third party nationally that shall be more liberal than the New Deal...
...Robert F. Wagner, In a letter read by his son...
...If Progressives will study the situation carefully, they will find that the people who are putting in real energy in this direction are not interested in a, party organized on liberal Democratic lines but that they are thinking in terms of an authoritarian party based on the leadership principle (the fuehrer principle...
...The court held that these employes are agricultural workers and are therefore not covered by the law...
...The reason why it would not work is equally applicable in Wisconsin and Minnesota, if the convention system still prevails, it might be possible for the party leaders to agree to divide up the offices and not put up cand'dates against each other: but this cannot be done where any man who wins the party nomination in the primary can demand that his...
...I am writing this letter because it seems to me that we have gone through some of the same problems in Washington that the Progressives are now going through in Wisconsin and Minnesota...
...It is...
...The amazing trend toward reaction in Wisconsin and Minnesota makes any hope for a minority third party only wishful thinking...
...We have had a strong third party movement in the state of Washington for many years...
...Assemblyman Robert F. Wagner Jr., at a meeting of the Italian Dressmakers' local of the International Garment Workers...
...I am sure that a majority of the voters of the state of Wisconsin would want to have Bob La Follette returned to the United States senate...
...because the Republican party had then become the acknowledged party of the conservative...
...decided that the battle ought to be fought out in the Democratic party in view of the fact that Roosevelt was willing to take the lead in an effort to mai-e the Democratic party the liberal party...
...Under the guise of exempting farmers who are already exempt, they would wreck and demolish the Wage-Hour act...
Vol. 10 • May 1940 • No. 19
