WASHINGTON CALLING
Washington Calling WHAT'S happening to Henry Wallace? That's a question being asked around Washington by some of his strong-est supporters and best friends. It has been prompted by the curious...
...An able actor, director, producer, broadcaster, Welles chose to masquerade as an expert in the field he least understood—world affairs...
...Several months ago Varian Fry, distinguished liberal journalist, resigned as an editor of the New Republic with a blistering attack on that weekly's subservience to the Communist line...
...Washington is watching to see whether President Truman puts Pauley in this postpone where his personal interests and the public interest would be in exact opposition...
...We can only answer quite flatly that he is wrong...
...When the liberal Business Men for Roosevelt and Business Men for Wallace clubs howled their heads off because they were ignored, Wallace called in his Committee, laid the cards on the table, and received their approval to enlarge the membership of the committee to include some representatives of small business...
...His advisers were 3 Texans who have been described as "hell raising" Jeffersonians...
...Hence, there has been some talk that instead of getting Stettinius out as Secretary of State, the Administration (Continued on Page 14) might move to have the succession law amended to permit an elected official—the Speaker of the House, for instance—to succeed if the President and Vice President cannot serve...
...We assume that he is charging the Nation with bias in favor of Russia and communism...
...People are watching to see what Wallace will do this month when he faces the job of choosing a Commissioner of Patents to recommend to the President for appointment...
...Working hard with its back turned to reality the committee came up with a report that America had the best patent system in the world...
...i he chairman of that committee was none other than Charlie Kettering, who so diligently failed to find any patent abuses only a few years ago in the infamous whitewash that had all Washington snickering...
...Francis Biddle has recently brought suit—with the support of Ickes—to assert the claim of the United States Government to all oil offshore within the 3-mile limit...
...Washingtonians are wondering if the loss of 2 of his 3 close advisers hasn't had something to do with his present drift...
...Pauley, an oil man, would doubtless call himself an independent...
...His friends wonder if he isn't making the mistake that has often been so fatal to other progressive leaders—trying to ride with one foot on a highly sensitive and frisky colt and the other on an old stallion that hates him...
...Truman took office and pushed his availability for high office a bit too strenuously...
...Truman was subsequently disturbed at reports that there was an estrangement, offered Byrnes a confidential assignment, and told him to remain in readiness for a* call to a high post...
...Stettinius, who was never intended for an important policy-making berth, but rather was picked by the late President Roosevelt as an affable yes-man who would do as he was told, will probably be named American delegate to the projected international organization, or be appointed U. S. ambassador to England...
...Perhaps the most notable disappointment progressives received in Wallace's record thus far was the way he handled President Truman's mandate to make a survey of the patent system, which has been such a powerful weapon in the hands of monopoly interests...
...The 5 members appointed were all tried and trusted friends of the patent system...
...Washington Calling WHAT'S happening to Henry Wallace...
...He has done | nothing in the way oi cleaning out the reactionary bureau chiefs inherited from Jesse Jones, and he sits, almost a prisoner, in a hostile department...
...This request was hardly more than a formality on Truman's part and would have necessitated only infrequent, brief conversations between Wallace and the consultants...
...Vannevar Bush, director of the Office of Scientific Research, and William Davis...
...His mission to Moscow is said to be part of the build-up...
...The only other member besides Wallace with sincere anti-monopoly views is the Attorney General...
...Fischer charged that the Nation "now has a 'line' and omits whatever does not fit the 'line,' that it has "become very much like a party organ," and that it distorts and suppresses news which does not conform to the party line...
...He was asked by the President to consult with Charles F. Kettering, vice president of General Motors, and Dr...
...Another indication of the new Secretary's wayward steps was seen in the big business character of his appointments to his Business Advisory Committee...
...The best guess today is that Byrnes will succeed Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., some time after the San Francisco conference ends...
...Fry, formerly editor of the Living Age, and author of the new book Surrender on Demand, based on his exciting experiences as representative of the Emergency Rescue Committee in France, has now been appointed editor of Common Sense, the liberal monthly...
...Departing Atty...
...Although Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes seems secure for the moment, Washington hears that Ed Pauley, Mr...
...What we believe is very different from what Mr...
...We say what we believe...
...The Nation, in turn, found Fischer's letter "resolutely vague...
...Much of the pressure for getting Stettinius out of the State Department is based on the fact that in his present post he would succeed President Truman if the latter died...
...The result has been a frightful fiasco, and the column has just about disappeared...
...We do him the courtesy of assuming him to be honest...
...He is heavily interested in "off-shore" oil, holding several leases from the state of California...
...Oil leases are among the juiciest plums of public plunder...
...Roosevelt, will emerge soon as a dominant personality in the Truman Administration, according to several persons who make it their business to keep posted on White House planning...
...If he names their candidate he will lose enormous prestige among progressive forces in the nation...
...Truman's personal friend and confidant, is slated for the Interior assignment and will take over when he has been more in the limelight than he has been up to now...
...REPETITION OF AN OLD TRICK It was particularly shocking to Wallace's friends because it is a repetition of an old trick...
...However, the story now circulating in Washington's inner circles is that Byrnes received a cordial reception at the White House when he rushed up from South Carolina Apr...
...It has been prompted by the curious conduct of the former Vice President since he took over in the Department of Commerce— conduct which does not square very much with his former talk of the "Century of the Common Man" and "60.000,000 jobs...
...Friends of Ickes are heartened by the fact that Mr...
...But Wallace named these 3 to the committee to conduct the survey...
...In his letter of resignation, Fischer said he had noted "a steady deterioration in the quality of the political matter printed in the Nation...
...It was a great opportunity to swing a hard blow at monopoly...
...He hap seemed politically listless, showing hardly any interest in making the Depai'tment the agency it was expected he would...
...People are beginning to wonder ]t the conservative virus which afflicted Herbert Hoover and Jesse Jones hasn't entered Wallace's political blood stream since he moved into the Com-m e r c e job...
...The Justice Department, which really wants to crack the patent ease, hit the ceiling when Wallace made his appointments...
...Washington has watched with interest the shake-up of personnel on the staffs of the nation's liberal magazines...
...He is almost bound to consult with his committee inquiring into the patent system...
...Fry's break with the New Republic had its counterpart on the Nation a fortnight ago when Louis Fischer, one of the ablest of American foreign correspondents, 'resigned as an editor after 22 years...
...They have a whole list of available names to submit—all friendly to the patent racket...
...JIMMY BYRNES: OUT AGAIN, IN AGAIN James F. Byrnes, former U. S. Senator, former Supreme Court Justice, former Assistant President under the late Mr...
...Davis is a former patent attorney...
...Byrnes was reported to be out of favor because—the story went—he had rushed to the capital the day Mr...
...Fischer believes...
...Notes On The Press The biggest flop of contemporary journalism is Orson Welles who launched himself as a daily columnist some months ago with a great splash of publicity...
...Truman has asked him to stay, but they know there is nothing final or permanent about that request...
...Kettering was Jesse Jones' chief apologist...
...Two have left him and the other one spends his time receiving callers at the Secretaries office...
...Bush is notorious for seeing to it that inventions wear the collar of big business...
...Three years ago Jesse Jones persuaded President Roosevelt to sign an executive order appointing a "patent planning committee...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 25
