THE WINNING WAYS OF 'SCOOP' JACKSON
Low, Frances
The Winning Ways of Scoop' Jackson By Frances Low DWIGHT EISENHOWER swept the State of Washington for Republicanism last fall with a majority of 100,000 votes, carrying along with him a Republican...
...Jackson is known back home as a man who gets things done, but this has also led to some criticism that he spends too much time waiting on the constituents, too little legislating...
...He had grasped the political ropes even then and recalls with pleasure and no shame his electioneering techniques which have not varied essentially since...
...A liberal by conviction, he is steadfast but never doctrinaire...
...Stocky in build and informal of manner, Jackson does not conform to the popular concept of the overstuffed, pompous Senator...
...even in the Republican landslide of 1946 he was the only Democrat sent to Congress from the Northwest...
...Why does Jackson go on winning elections...
...Running for the Senate for the first time, he beat his Republican opponent by a majority of 134,000 votes...
...The other half of his thinking was born of the depression, which hit hardest in 1930, the year Jackson entered the University of Washington...
...Jackson is respected in the political business as a professional...
...It would be difficult to overemphasize the significance of this technique...
...The men who become the powerful legislators of this country are the men who can go on getting elected, over and over again...
...is hard for anybody to keep up with him, his recent success owes its debt, as Jackson is the first to point out, to a regiment of devoted workers and shrewd lieutenants...
...When he first arrived, aged 28, he was the second youngest Congressman...
...Many more rabid liberals, for example, shunned the society of conservative Dixiecrats like the late Rep...
...While waiting for the results of his bar exams in 1935 he served for several months as social worker in his home county of Snohomish...
...Jackson himself did not shy from these subjects, but his promoters did...
...He has gone on getting re-elected to every session since...
...One of these is a boyhood friend from Everett, John Salfer, who has been with him through most of Jackson's years in Washington...
...Hoeck's major contribution was billboards plastered all over the state with a handsome photograph of Jackson standing, leaning slightly forward, his hands grasping the back of a chair, his clear eyes gazing into a rosy future...
...Some of the Republican strongholds of the country have recognized the importance of seniority and regularly returned their legislators...
...Only in rare instances have liberals in Congress been re-elected often enough to achieve real seniority and the power that goes with it...
...Jackson treated Cox with his usual good-natured friendliness...
...Many advantages lie on his side...
...Occasional campaign pamphlets described Jackson as pro-labor, but they did not say he voted against the Taft-Hartley Act...
...he deviate from his steady Northwest liberal record to please Southern conservative Cox...
...In 1941, on his first trip home from Congress, he asked a farmer how he thought he ought to vote on a particular bill and the farmer replied, "Son, you know more about this bill than I do...
...Letters to his office receive prompt and personal replies...
...IV If he is discussing public power Jackson knows how to bring the matter down to the particular brass tacks his constituents want to buy...
...Some of Jackson's legislative success comes from simply getting along well with his colleagues...
...10 million worth of new, privately owned, enterprise...
...His usual campaign routine is to talk each night with several groups of neighborhood friends in private homes...
...And when Jackson appeared before the powerful House Rules Committee, asking for power plants for his state, Cox, a ranking member, amiably argued for giving Scoop Jackson what he wanted...
...He is the youngest of four children born to Norwegian immigrant parents who settled, met, and married in Everett just after Washington became a state in 1889...
...The Winning Ways of Scoop' Jackson By Frances Low DWIGHT EISENHOWER swept the State of Washington for Republicanism last fall with a majority of 100,000 votes, carrying along with him a Republican governor, overturning both houses of the state legislature, and sending Washington six out of seven Republican Congressmen...
...Eugene Cox of Georgia...
...When Jackson was a Congressman, Speaker Sam Rayburn, who respected Jackson's ethics, popularity, and low boiling point, invited him once to serve as chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee...
...His steady fight for public power, which he also calls low-cost power, has brought tremendous gains, through new industry, to both labor and business interests...
...The spectacle of demoralized jobless grubbing for food in garbage cans gave rise to the conviction that the government of a great and rich country must regulate against depression and strive to assure minimums of decent work and opportunity to all its citizens...
...In this view he might be called "left" of his father, but he still sets high Scandinavian standards of pride of work and self-reliance for himself and others...
...When you put a new generator on the line," concludes Jackson persuasively, "you put a new payroll on the line...
...V Jackson's assignment to the Senate Committee on Government Operations and its investigations subcommittee, both chaired by Sen...
...It is natural for him to like people and when he disagrees with them, that's all there is to it—a disagreement and not a personal vendetta...
...Jackson promises to fill a much-needed role in the Senate...
...Beneath his natural amiability lies considerable bulldog tenacity, as his record shows...
...He has mastered many techniques of his trade, including the most basic— how to win...
...One half of Jackson's political ideology derives from a father who worked as a builder and served many years as an active trades-unionist...
...II Jackson's personal history is not unique, but it is laden with political assets...
...A pleasant-faced, friendly bachelor of 40, brown-haired, large-headed, he is proudly "Norsky" in ancestory...
...Although at campaign time Jackson moves at such a pace that it...
...It is a curiosity of the political world that his colleague, former Rep...
...The promotion was uncluttered by politically controversial labels...
...From then on Jackson served in Congress except for five months in 1943 when he took leave for a brief military career...
...The adage is sound that men must be successful politicians before they can be statesmen...
...A native of New York City, she attended Vassar and then took a master's degree in modern history at Columbia...
...Hugh Mitchell, was successfully knocked out in his fight for Governor last fall as a "Truman left-winger," while the same charge simply couldn't be made to stick against Jackson, whose voting record was almost identical...
...In 1936 he cast his first vote in a Presidential election and he was already politically involved...
...When dealing with hostility towards such allies as the British, Jackson will reply, "If you want to scrap our alliance with England you might as well close down the Boeing plant here in Seattle...
...Jackson won the general election, and two years later began getting elected to Congress...
...Jackson practiced law from 1935 to 1938...
...He talks to everybody, gets everywhere—and remembers practically everyone...
...He is not a speechifying man...
...some said he was for equality and opportunity for all but did not discuss his stand for FEPC...
...unlike many men in Congress he has no business or law practice on the side...
...Because he respects his fellow men, he in turn earns their respect and in consequence their willingness to pull his way when political realities permit...
...His voting record was regularly that of a good Administration Democrat, but this accounts only in small part for his success at the polls...
...Many are banking on his personal strength and decency to be a force for good on the Committee...
...They were out of work and losing their self-respect...
...FRANCES LOW served on the staff of Time and Life for ten years, in Chi' cago, New York, Washington, London, and Paris...
...He ranks in the top bracket among legislators for character and integrity...
...Their problems were simple...
...Jackson has won enough elections to earn personal credit for the last one, but it is only fair to mention that his opponent, Republican Sen...
...Experienced in legislating, he values compromise and understands the problems of other legislators in their relations to their constituents...
...In the next ten years, he will argue, if we add 9^ million kilowatts of power this means 575,000 new jobs...
...He should be one of the islands of calmness and sanity in a body of high-strung prima donnas...
...They just needed a job...
...But the Republican tide could not stop Democrat Henry Jackson...
...We sent you to Congress because we thought you had common sense...
...A strong constitution and life-long habits of work help him greatly...
...National magazines had cited Cain as among the worst Senators and this hurt the pride of Washington-ians who already had their own reasons for considering him undignified, erratic, and generally unsound...
...The nickname may have been apt in childhood, but it is not at all descriptive of the Scoop Jackson of today who is more jnclined to take on too many detailed tasks himself than to slough them off on others...
...Jackson's drive on slot and pin-ball machines and other forms of gambling made him a good record...
...Diversity," says Jackson, "In Norway there are just Norwegians, in Italy just Italians, in China just Chinese, but here in America we've got all of them...
...Most of his adult life has been devoted to the hard work of politics, which is his full-time job...
...W^ith the tremendous experience of twelve years in the House he is today the fifth youngest in the Senate...
...He rarely has been called upon to go to bat on an unpopular issue nor has he taken a role of leadership in touchy political situations where emotions ran high...
...I met everybody in the county...
...The other is Jerry Hoeck, a successful advertising friend in Seattle, who sold Jackson to the people in the manner that made Coca Cola a national drink...
...He was ready to run for Congress in 1940 when he was 28...
...It is as important to our military arsenal to keep bases in England for our planes as to build those planes right here...
...In this last campaign not only did he tour every county before the primary and again before the general election, he actually toured the state again after the election—while other men were sleeping it off—to thank the voters and, of course, to grease the wheels for 1958...
...Most people call him by his nickname "Scoop," a hangover from a childhood comic strip character, "Scoop in the Funnies," who, Tom Sawyer-like, organized projects for the neighborhood kids, and sat back at leisure...
...Perhaps his only deceptive characteristic is his slow, easy manner which belies a relentless drive...
...his ruddy complexion and clear blue eyes faithfully disguise hard work and late nights...
...Not many members of Congress can obtain such favors without trading votes on vital issues...
...His mein is sober and his wording simple...
...Neither an intellectual nor a profound scholar, Jackson operates by a straight intuitive approach to people, the affairs of his country, and his own political career...
...Close acquaintance reveals Jackson to be as amiable, decent, and direct as he appears on political display...
...Every acre counts in the Jackson approach to campaigning, and although he carried his district by a larger majority than did the late President Roosevelt, he fussed about every precinct in which Roosevelt led him...
...Jackson informally begged off on the grounds that the Committee was already stacked against his viewpoint on operating procedure...
...Jackson's success at the polls is of more than incidental interest...
...He must still show how far he can develop from the able servant of his state to a leader in thought and legislation of national and international importance...
...Ahead of him are opportunities for seniority and committee chairmanships while still young and vigorous...
...Good Lutherans, they gave Henry his middle name of Martin after Martin Luther...
...His personal victory of 595,288 to 460,884 bucked the tide in his own state and gave him the largest percentage majority of any Democratic Senator north of the Mason-Dixon line...
...For one thing, he is alert to the needs of his state and has a good record in behalf of the West and Western development...
...he does not often resort to the glassy-eyed vagueness of "How nice to meet you again...
...Jackson must stand and be counted...
...There is neither wit nor very original thinking in Jackson's campaign speeches...
...The secret of America's greatness...
...The first time he ran for office in 1938 he defeated his own party's incumbent prosecuting attorney in a primary vote by five to one...
...Her last assignment was as Time's correspondent on Washington's Capitol Hill, where she acquired a first-hand knowledge of the personalities and policies in Congress...
...The seventh, a Democrat, just barely made it...
...Senator...
...He does not act as though he considered his view the more righteous...
...I handed out more cards than there were people...
...This capacity has counted, above all others, in giving legislators from the single-party South positions of leadership out of all proportion to their numerical strength...
...In the fight over David Lilienthal's management of the AEC, Jackson did take issue with Lilienthal's attackers, but overall in his career Jackson has shown that he likes to be liked, dislikes very much to offend anyone...
...He stars in these give-and-take small gatherings, and shows less aptitude for addressing large formal audiences...
...he may have to take the lead...
...Although he has stood solidly behind the major programs, foreign and domestic, of the Roosevelt-Truman era, he has managed to convey to voters of both parties that he is a sound independent who faces the issues from the point of view of common sense and makes his decisions accordingly...
...Jackson believes that politicians overrate the importance of voting records, particularly among the people back home...
...he appreciates that others cannot always vote as he might wish them to vote...
...Obviously he appeals to Republican votes as well as Democrat...
...It was characteristic of his approach that he could not get interested in the psychological and sociological implications of all that he saw, but instead attacked the problem head on: "Most of those men didn't need to be objects of complicated studies...
...Almost always in the past Jackson has been able to play it safe...
...Jackson busily beats the bush when he is home...
...Unhampered by family demands, Jackson unwinds only rarely, sleeps less than most, works' many evenings, takes no time out for organized sports, and is absolutely unable to relax on a vacation...
...Harry Cain, had fallen to a political low in the state, and Jackson's campaign shrewdly capitalized on this...
...Moreover, he leaves himself little time for either a private life or an inner life of reflection...
...Ill Many who support Jackson know little about voting records, . while many conservatives who do not even like what seem to them his "Left-wing" votes feel "Scoop is so sound" that they can "forgive" him these occasional flights of fancy...
...He showed no false coyness, and recalls today, "I needed no urging from my friends...
...Against this background Jackson embarks today on what promises to be a long Senate career...
...He has the security of an overwhelming vote of confidence from his constituents to use his judgment as he sees fit...
...His genuinely good memory helps him greet many an acquaintance with details of their last meeting...
...There is some truth in his claim that he isn't married because he hasn't had the time...
...Now Sen...
...In large matters and in small, Jackson has found time to see and look after his constituents...
...Nowhere was Jackson specifically identified as a "liberal" or "Fair-Dealer...
...In arguing for the Marshall Plan, Jackson would explain, "Because of this tremendous productive capacity of ours, it is necessary for us to build up good customers abroad for our future surpluses...
...A careful scrutiny of Jackson's record shows that never did...
...The caption in huge letters: "Jackson will make a Great U.S...
...He might well be explained as a liberal with a conservative approach...
...Jackson's history shows that this was no freak achievement...
...But he is faced also by new demands, new requirements for growth...
...What kind of man is it who has shown himself to be one of the Democratic Party's best vote getters...
...He headed up the local First-Voters League for Roosevelt, and two years later, at the age of 26, became prosecuting attorney of Snohomish County...
...Joseph McCarthy, may present Jackson with a challenge and unaccustomed problems...
...We have faith in you to vote the right way, and if we don't quite understand about some particular vote we expect you to come back and explain it to us...
...Jackson believes that neither he nor any other legislator will get into serious trouble on a particular vote so long as the constituents continue to respect their representative's general good faith and integrity...
...He discusses issue in such easy-going terms that he provokes little anta'gonism even among those who disagree...
...That is simply good business...
Vol. 17 • March 1953 • No. 3
