Evening star. [volume], July 13, 1948, Page A-11, Image 11

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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Record oi Convention
To. Determine Future
Of Democratic Party
Baffle Befween Facfions
Could Be Beginning of
Polifical Frafricide
By David Lawrence
PHILADELPHIA. July 13—Long
•Iter the Democratic National Con
vention will have passed into his
tory, the maneuvers and counter
maneuvers of these last few days
will have an important effect on the
future of the party.
Those Democrats who wanted
President Truman to step aside will
be the first after election day, in
the event that Gov. Dewey has won
the presidency, to declare that the
defeat was due entirely to Mr. Tru
man's stubbornness.
The New Dealers will claim that
Justice Douglas might have won if
he could have been .nominated with
the blessing of the outgoing leader
of the party.
The Southerners will claim that
ft liberal conservative could have
won.
About the only thing all factions
of the party will agree on, if defeat
comes next autumn, is that Mr. Tru
man was personally responsible.
Political Fratricide.
This could hardly be an auspicious
state of affairs* in which to begin a
reorganization of the party. It
could mean the beginning of poli
tical fratricide such as the Repub
licans experienced in 1912 and did
not really recover from until 1920.
There will be some who will pre
dict the disintegration of the Demo
cratic Party and the realignment of
the two major parties with new
elements in each. This is always
predicted when one party or the
other seems to be losing popular
favor. What happens usually is
not the formation of .a powerful
third party but the splitting off of
factions which ultimately find it
desirable to go back to the main
party in a contest for control.
Henry Wallace will not get any
where W'ith his third party. He
might have been a towering figure
at this convention if he had stayed
within the Democratic cabinet. He
would have been the logical choice
of the New Dealers who, in 1944,
came within a few votes of winning
the vice presidential nomination
for him.
The battle for control of the
Democratic Party will begin imme
diately after the election. The
battle will go on for a long time
and the first casualties will be the
Trumanites. Many of them who
moved over to Mr. Truman be
latedly will point with pride never
theless to the record made before
this convention assembled—the
drive to get Gen. Eisenhower tc
run.
No New leaders in 12 Years.
Curiously enough, if Mr. Truman
had been willing to step aside, it is
a broad question whether anyone
nominated in his place, except Gen.
Eisenhower, could win the coming
election. It must be assumed that
the general would not have accepted
the nomination even if Mr. Truman
had asked him to do so. The fact is
the Democrats didn't develop any
real leaders in the 12 years or mere
that the late Franklin D. Roosevelt
ran the party. It takes time to de
velop leaders. The Republicans had
a dearth of good men after the de
feat of Herbert Hoover in 1932 and
it rook a long while to bring out the
half-dozen candidates of stature
who strove to win the nomination
here last month.
The struggle between New Deal
and anti-New Deal, which is really
the equivalent of conservative and
radical factionalism, will continue
with considerable Intensity. If the
Republicans after winning the next
election should run into an economic
.1am, due either to- a sudden cur
tailment of aid to Europe or mis
management of the tariff problem,
the radical New Dealers will make
headway in gaining control of the
Democratic Party.
So what is done here this week
will prepare the record. What looks
Irrelevant and inconsequential to
dav may some day assume real im
portance. Those who have wanted
to sidetrack Mr. Truman will say "I
told you so” next November if Gov.
Dewey wins and their condemnation
of the President will be as severe as
their espousal of Gen. Eisenhower
was enthusiastic. There are long
faces to be seen already—the drive
for Gen. Eisenhower may have been
a counsel of desperation but it was
a revelation also of an expected de
feat if Mr. Truman were nominated.
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This Changing World
Churchill’s Berlin Statement Hints
War Party Is in Control of Kremlin
By Constantine Brown
Winston Churchill put his finger
on an extremely fundamental point
in east-west political relationships
Saturday when, in an address warn
ing that any
surrender to
Russia in Berlin
would raise the
peril of a third
world war, he
suggested that a
hot conflict is
under way be
hind the scenes
in Moscow be
tween the fac
tions in Russia’s
leadership.
Mr. Churchill
may, of course,
have had more
to go on than
Constantine Brown.
knowledge oi me rctcm
tween Premier Marshal Tito of
Yugoslavia and the Communist In
formation Bureau. We know, of
course, that a kind of purge of Com
munist leaders has been going on In
those countries whose Communist
parties have showm a tendency to
stray from the path of absolute sub
servience to Moscow's aims and
ambitions.
What goes on in the foreign Com
munist parties may not necessarily
be directly related to the conflict of
factions in the Kremlin, but if a
radical departure occurs in Russian
policy with respect to the Soviet
satellites, it is fair to assume that
a new line of action has been de
cided on in Moscow. Possibly, as
Mr. Churchill suggests, one of the
contending factions in the Kremlin
has imposed its will on the others.
Change of Course.
The movement to whip the foreign
Communist parties into a completely
subservient foreign service for the
Kremlin is somewhat of a change, of
course, for Moscow. Hitherto Mos
cow has been satisfied to permit the
foreign Communist regimes to pur
sue the national interests of their
particular countries as long as they
did not conflict with Russia's major
interests. It was not necessary, un
der this rather lenient policy, that
each of the satellites should go im
mediately as far along the path of
communism as Russia has succeeded
in going only after a quarter of a
century. As long as the satellites
were Communist in character Russia
felt she had friendly governments
on her frontiers.
Now. apparently, it Is not enough
that the border states be simply
Communist in character. They must
be as tightly regimented under the
Soviet system as is the 8oviet itself.
They must be as firmly attached to
Soviet foreign policy as are the
White Russian and Ukrainian re
publics. They must be, in short,
completely at Moscow’s command.
For what purpose, it may be asked,
is this extreme degree of control and
regimentation necessary? If Russia
were looking forward to a lasting
peace it would not be necessary, in
the interests only of Russia’s defense
and the success of the Communist
system, that every vestige of inde
pendence be wiped from those coun
tries which are affliated with the
'Soviet bloc. >
Nor would it be necessary, either,
that Russia attempt to convert Com
munist control within the parlia
mentary system—as in Czechoslo
vakia and Finland—into absolute
control within an absolute Commu
nist dictatorship.
New Directives.
It would not be necessary for the
Communist parties abroad to be
given new directives—like the Com
munist Sunday Worker published
last Sunday—bringing them into
complete conformance with the
Soviet Communist Party.
All of these things—the coup in
Czechoslovakia, the attempt to place
Finland in the same position of
| puppet, the attempt to purge Tito
from Yugoslav control, the purge
and realignment of the foreign Com
munist parties—would not be neces
sary unless Russia expected to re
quire absolute obedience and abso
lute support from her foreign friends
sometime in the not-too-distant
• future.
This, then, leads back to the point
raised by Mr. Churchill, that a
struggle is going on behind the
l scenes in Moscow. It would appear
| that the war party in the Kremlin
I—the faction which aims to pursue
I Russia’s expansionist program to its
I conclusion as quickly as possible—
has gained control. Any success for
this party and its policy of aggres
sion would be a severe blow to what
ever moderate elements remain in
power in Moscow.
That is why Mr. Churchill took
pains to 1nake it clear that we must
j stand firm in Berlin, refusing to sur
render to policies which are purely
intimidatory in character. If we
J yield, we only prove the success of
intimidation and can expect only
more of the same throughout the
: future until, at long last, we get fed
| up and take a belated stand which
j can only lead to war—as it did with
Nazi Germany.
Behind-Scenes Struggle
Four Groups at Convention Seeking
Future Control of Democratic Party
By Doris Fleeson
PHILADELPHIA, July 13.—The
real struggle in this unco-ordinated,
defeated convention is for control of
what’s left.
President Truman will get his re
nomination and
he may surprise
people with the
vigor of his at
tack. He will,
as far as possi
ble. run against
the Republican
Congress instead
of Gov. Dewey.
Present plans
are for the Pres
ident to call
Congress back
into special ses
sion and bom
bard them with
demands to do
Dorin Fl*«*on.
the things they have left undone.
Some of his advisers want the call
incorporated into his acceptance
speech.
They believe it is his best and
least expensive tactic.
The party has no money for in
tensive barnstorming and full-dress
speeches with radio time and the
White House is the best sounding
board in the world, especially with
the Congress in session. They look
on it as Mr. Truman's last, best
hop*.
But party leaders believe, too, that
it will be his swan song. And the
one thing they are more certain of
even than of his defeat is that he
cannot lead the party thereafter.
Pattern for the Future.
Hence their efforts here to fix a
pattern for the future, each accord
ing to his own best interests. As in
the Congress the roll call Is the
pav-off. Not until debate is over
and the delegates have voted will the
story be clear.
Roughly four groups are maneu
vering in the various smoke-filled
rooms in which the destinies of a
a great party are being decided.
They are:
1. Tire advocates of a receivership.
Compromise as far as possible; se
lect the Vice President who will
please all factions; retire the skele
tons to the closet; sweat it out with
a bland face and no harsh words.
Manv Senators are in this group
phis moderate Southerners like Sen
ators Hill and Sparkman of Ala
bama. Their V-P candidate Is
Senator Barkley; they are for a
civil-rights compromise the South
can accept.
When the election is over and It’s
time to pick up the pieces, the Sena
tors w’ith a few’ House strong men
would be in charge under this dis
pensation.
2. The New Dealers. They were
for Justice Douglas for President,
were delighted at the prospect of
him for Vice President.
They have no strong candidate
now to offer the President. They
want a 100 per cent civil-rights
plank.
The President, with his usually
baffling schizophrenia, wants their
kind of candidate for Vice Presi
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dent; but is agreeable, too, to a
civil-rights compromise.
Later Rallying Point.
In this corner are the New York
leaders—Flynn and Fitzpatrick—
ex-Nationai Chairman Hannegan,
James Roosevelt of California and
the amateurs. Most of the amateurs
are idealists; the others think they
have got to have a labor-liberal
appeal to hold their States. They
want to raise such a banner for a
later rallying point.
3. The irreconcilable Southerners.
They want a States' rights plank
nullifying any civil-rights declara
tions but apparently have no objec
tions to Senator Barkley and his
100 per cent New Deal record be
cause he's a Southerner. Their aim
is to reassert a Southern veto over
the party; they know they can’t
run it.
4. A hand-off faction which plans
to act agreeable but not to Identify
itself with what it is certain will
be a November debacle. These will
concentrate on their own State
tickets, hew to the old Roose
velt line. Their story is going to be
that the November results are a
Truman, not a Democratic, defeat.
Illinois, which has a State ticket
it thinks is 200.000 votes stronger
than the President, fits in here.
They figure a strong pivotal State
can assert leadership later.
Senator Pepper's candidacy is a
personal enterprise. He is too con
troversial a figure to rally the lib
erals, though he is one of their most
articulate spokesmen.
LOUIE —By Harry Hanan
On the Other Hand
Truman’s Stature in Party Is Seen
Greater for Victory Over Opposition
By Lowell Mel left
PHILADELPHIA, July 12.—A
stranger convention there never was.
Man and boy, I've been seeing them
now for close to a half century, but
I ve never seen
one quite like
this; never one
so filled with
confused think
ing and mixed
emotions; cer
tainly never one
in which so
many delegates
worked so hard
and at such
cross purposes,
with seemingly
but a single ln
t e n t—ho w to
make sure that
the man nomi
Lo«*ll MellfU.
natea snouia nor oe eiecieu.
The nominee of the convention:
has been known for three years.
It could not be anybody else. The!
party had to nominate the man al- j
ready in office or repudiate the party
along with him. Every practicing
politican has known this, but many
of them have chosen to ignore what
they knew. Amateur idealists don’t
understand it and Insisted on the
privilege of bumping their heads
against the inevitable. Specialists
within the party, the Southerners
who have always heretofore found
ways of gaining their own ends re
gardless of the general good, are not
entirely convinced that this year it
may be different.
i All these came here prepared to
fight to the last ditch or, at least, to
the next to last ditch, for what they
wanted and against what they
knew, or should have known, they
were going to get. All determined to
achieve their own frustration and
suceeding completely. Each day
recorded another battle lost, as the
struggle proceeded from the sublime
to the ridiculous.
Eisenhower Is Sublime.
Reoresenting the sublime, there
was the idealized figure of Gen.
Eisenhower, the man nobody knows.
He was sublime in the sense that he
was above the battle and wanted no
part of it. Representing the ri
diculous—well, for one example,
there was Senator Pepper, the man
everybody knows. He became ri
diculous only when he stepped out
of character—a pretty good char
acter up to that point—and an
nounced that he would sacrifice
himself for the party’s welfare and
be the candidate.
i That was where the absurdity of
the whole proceeding reached its
height—unless something still more
bizarre has occurred since these un
happy lines were pounded out. It
outdid the strange gyrations of
Jimmy Roosevelt and Leon Hen
derson and Prank Hague. It even
topped the final rebel yell which
resounded from the Sunday eve
ning caucus of the Southern dele
gates, that exultant cry for State
control of tide-land oil!
A strange convention, indeed.
And over it broods the spirit of
the man who isn't here. That’s
one of the differences between this
week's affair and the one Philadel
phia witnessed in June. Gov. Dewey,
Senator Taft, Mr. Stassen and the
other contenders appeared in person
at the Republican brawl. Mr. Tru
man is here only in name.
It wasn’t even a big name when
the advance guard of the convention
arrived. It has become a good deal
bigger It has become the name of
a man able to lick the entire oppo
sition within the party.
Grows as Result of Fight,
This is partly due to the office he
holds and the fact that the con
vention is compelled to nominate
him whether it likes him or not.
But it is partly due also to the fact
that he has grown in his own right
as a result of the fight he has been
forced to make. The more his
enemies have tried to tear him down i
the bigger he has appeared to grow.
His enemies may really have suc
ceeded in making a big man of Mr.
Truman.
If it had been only the extremists
among the Americans for Demo
cratic Action, with their sincere de
sire for another Roosevelt, the effect
would have been small. If it had
only been the Hagues and the other
city machine operators, -with their
selfish yearning for a candidate that
would pull them through, the same
would be true. Or if it had only
been the Southern politicians seek
ing to exercise their customary veto,
it wouldn’t have been enough. But
when all these combined against
him and came out in the open, the
punishment he was able to visit
upon them made him appear at
last a warrior of real six.
When the struggling finally ceases
—which doubtless will be when the
quarrel over civil rights is disposed
of—i’ve a notion the delegates will
depart for home better satisfied with
their candidate than they expected
to be when they came to Philadel
phia. For Democrats like other
people, respect a fighter.
That will be double if the Presi
dent puts up the kind of fight
against the real enemy that he has
been compelled to make within the
party. He has Indicated that he is
prepared to do this, once he is free
to cut loose. His tentative barrage
against the Republican Congress has
set the pattern for the campaign, a
campaign in which he should be
able to put the Republican Party on
the defensive and keep it there.
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Philadelphia Infused
By Funeral Air, Sense
Of Political Crisis
By Rebecca West
Special Cerre,pendent of The Star
PHILADELPHIA. July IS—All
over Philadelphia there are posters
about a “memorial breakfast” at
which people are going to gather to
gether to cele
brate the mem
ories of Mr.
Rooaevel t,
Woodrow Wil
son, William
Jennings Bryan
and Josephus
Daniels.
The reitera
tion of the
names of these,
our distinguish
ed dead Demo
crats, seems
tactless at this
time when the
national com
Eefcecca West.
mittee is finding such difficulty in
[collecting the names of two dis
tinguished live Democrats.
On* feels sensitive about such
things in Philadelphia today, for
never was a city so pervaded by a
sense of political crisis. It is as hot
as it was when the Republicans were
here, but things were going so well
with them that the sight of them
even at their hottest was not dis
! tressing. One simply felt that, as
well as everything else, they were1
having a magnificent action of the;
pores. But the Democrats are ob
viously miserable, and are miserably
hot too.
Funeral Air About.
There is a funeral air about the
convention hall and the hotel lob
bies, which is, of course, not a true
glimpse of reality. Anybody who
went by the look of Philadelphia
today would think that the Demo
cratic Party was dead.
Yet only the other day I met
Mayor O’Dwyer and I realize quite
well that a party with such men in
it must be very much alive. That
man struck me as a real aristocrat.
I liked the way he had learned
Spanish during his education In
Catholic schools and had used the
knowledge to get an understanding
j of Latin America. I liked the sense
[ one had that, however broad his
horizons became, he would never
forget what he had learned when
he was a cop. I liked the sense he
gave of being full of worthy wis
dom on which he would rely until
it came into conflict with his own
code of values, when his code would
win.
Thinking of him and some other
Democrats I have met, the awk
wardness of this convention seemed
temporary and unimportant. In
credible as it will seem to those who
were at the Republican Convention,
it is quieter inside the hotels than
out.
Rooter for Eisenhower.
And when one steps out of the
Bellevue-Stratford one walks into
a terrifflc racket which is caused by
the former sergeant of Gen. Eisen
hower, who is still rooting for Eisen
hower as President in spite of the
general'* repeated and final refusals
to run. This man sits all day in a
Jeep covered with great photographs
of Gen. Eisenhower in the blazing
heat and really exerts himself to the
utmost to beat out this violent and
futile propaganda.
What is interesting is that he is
not crazy or even stupid. He Just
has that sort of temperament which
certain kinds of big dog have: They
keep mi and on pestering for the
stick to be thrown lMig after their
master has gone indoors and shown
that the sport is over for the day.
This is a case of real and not
ignoble devotion, and it is a pity
that the general cannot set him to
do something which the general
really wants done. If the general
had a hatred of a particular disease,
say cancer or tuberculosis, and
wanted to raise money for a cam
paign against it, this man would
raise a fortune. As it is, this figure
adds to the sense of waste and dust
about the convention, which is so
great that people cannot bear to
talk much about it. “It is a wake,”
they say, “it is a mortuary," and
they go on to talk of other things
than candidates. -
Talk About Civil Rights.
They talk with apprehension of
the dispute over civil rights which
may find its way to the convention
hall in a discussion on the platform.
There is in front of the convention
hall a line of pickets, mostly colored
men, who hold banners threatening
refusal of military service. When
this problem is discussed people’s
faces light up again with interest.
They express hopes that there will
not be a worthless compromise, that
some way of doing social justice will
be found that will be workable, that
good will will become fact, and that
nothing will be done which will lead
to further embitterment
One sees then that the temporary
eclipse of a party may be tragic be
cause it prevents the thinking out
of social problems and the transla
tion of thought into action, for peo
ple do not worry to think and plan
action if their political party seems
to them annihilated. I do not be
lieve that the Democratic Party is
likely to be annihilated, but it has
taken a bad toss, and things are
really painful, really poignant, here
just now.
It is at such moments that one
realizes that the philosophers are
right and that man is a political
animal, and cannot feel happy un
less the political system is healthy.
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