REPUBLICANS REJOICE IN DEMOCRATS’ TRIALS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25437, 8 March 1948, Page 6

REPUBLICANS REJOICE IN DEMOCRATS’ TRIALS

WHITE HOUSE

[By a New York staff correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald.”] (Reprinted by arrangement.)

New York’s political pot is boilingone might even say boiling over—although the Presidential election is still eight months away. Already it has produced interesting food for speculation as to the prospects of the principal parties in the campaign. The ingredients in the pot at the moment are, first, a surprising rally of strength to the self-anncunced third party candidate. Mr Henry Wallace; secondly. Mr Truman’s increasingly anomalous position as the virtually certain Democratic nominee who sees the support of his own party gradually evaporating. Thirdly, there is deep disagreement in the Republic Party regarding the candidate in whom to place their hopes at a time when their chances of success grow increasingly greater because of the divisions among the Democrats. Recently, in a test Congressional byelection in the normally Democratic Bronx constituency of New York City, a Wallace-supported candidate, Leo Isaacson, defeated his Democratic opponent by a substantial majority. This constituency is Jewish, and the vote has been interpreted as an expression of dissatisfaction with President Truman’s failure to take action to carry out the UNO mandate for the partition of Palestine. On the other hand, only half of the eligible electorate in the district voted, and it is claimed that the Wallace supporters, who are effiefly Communist and extreme Left-wingers, showed their usual energetic tactics in obtaining control of a situation where they are only a minority. But on the heels of this isolated and pin-pointed Wallace victory came unofficial indications that the Bronx election is only part of a larger phenomenon.

Wallace Gains Support The “New York Times” political correspondent, for instance, who is conducting a nation-wide survey, has come to this conclusion:— “In several States—in Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and California, particularly (aside from New York State, without which it is practically impossible to win the Presidency) Wallace movement has gained strength, which . . . makes it unlikely that Mr Truman can carry these States.” Mr Wallace’s burgeoning strengtn apparently comes from dissatisfied groups who. although strongly disliking the Republican Party policy,- are prepared to see Mr Truman defeated and their vote amount to nothing more than a protest—a curse on both your houses gesture—which may, nevertheless, assure the election of a Republican President almost by default. Up to recently, straw polls indicated that, with the exception of General Eisenhower, Mr Truman was the most popular political figure in America. General Eisenhower’s withdrawal from the race should have left Mr Truman in an excellent position to win the election and carry the Democrats into a 20-year period iri office. Domestically, and internationally, however. the minds of Americans are in a “crisis mood,” and the unexpected may become the expected. President Truman’s appointments to high executive positions in the Federal Government, with the exception of the designation of General Marshall as Secretary of State, have never been popular. Recently his failure to reappoint Mr James Landis as chairman

of the Civil Aviation Board, and his demotion of Mr Marriner Eccles to the assistant chairmanship of the Federal Reserve System, caused wide censure. In neither case would the President offer an explanation for his action, and this gave point to the contentions that he has filled high posts in the Government either with his personal and incompetent friends, with figures from Wall Street, or with military men. President Truman, at the recent socalled Jackson Day dinner, which is an occasion for Democratic Presidents to make an openly political speech, declared himself a liberal, and warned that a Republican incumbent in the White House would mean handing the country over to the past. A typical Rooseveltian programme for social legislation, the elimination of racial prejudice, and the safeguarding of political liberties, was recently submitted to Congress by President Truman. This had the not unexpected result of producing what may turn into a serious revolt in the Democratic Party in tne South, but at the same time dia not reinvigorate the liberals' enthusiasm for Mr Truman in the North. Democratic Party Liberals, with the exception of the extreme Left-wingers, have almost unanimously 'shunned the Wallace candidacy.

Little Enthusiasm These non-Wallace liberals chiefly constitute the so-called Americans for Democratic Action, which also includes members of both the C. 1.0. and the A.F.L. They are at present meeting in convention in Washington, and observers report that they are showing surprisingly little enthusiasm for Mr Truman’s candidacy. “There are literally no Wallace votes in the hall,” says one commentator, “but an equally real and significant undertone is the profound disinterest in the Truman campaign.” The Democrats’ troubles and Mr Wallace’s ascending fortunes give the Republicans pleasure because they materially increase the Republicans’ chances of victory. But the Republicans’ troubles are far from being insignificant. It is feared that Wallace may also capture Republican votes; for example, reports from New Hampshire, a rockribbed Republican bailiwick, indicate that the farmers there will vote for Wallace.

Republican Deadlock The Republicans’ chief problem lies in their over-abundance of Presidential timber —Senator Robert Taft, New York State Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Governor Warren of California, Senator A. H. Vandenberg, and Harold Stassen —even Qeneral MacArthur. At the present moment of writing, the “dope’’ is that Mr Taft and Mr Dewey will be deadlocked in the Regublican Convention in June and that enator Vandenberg will be the compromise selection. Mr Vandenberg has declared that he is not an aspirant, but he added: “No man can refuse a draft." If events continue to shape themselves to make certain a Taft-Dewey elimination in favour of Mr Vandenberg, then the Republicans may not do so badly. There is a danger, however. that in a badly dead-locked convention some hardly outstanding figure may prove the only possible compromise candidate. In such an event the' Republicans will still have to go to the country to “defeat a somebody with a nobody.”