Looking Back On The U.S. Election

Wanganui Chronicle, 8 November 1946, Page 5

Looking Back On The U.S. Election

Truman’s Invidious Position Received 11.40 p.m. NEW YORK, Nov. 6 The Republican leader in the House of Representatives who, m the result of yesterday's elections, is virtually certain to be elected Speaker, announced that the Republican Party’s chief concern would be to speed the nation’s return to peacetime economy. Mr. Martin interpreted the Republicans’ election sweep as a plea to restore a free America. Therefore, the people would be freed of Government controls as soon as possible after Congfcss was convened in January. “An era of successive crises providing excuses for the executive branch to interfere with the citizens’ daily lives ended on Tuesday,” he said. “The executive branch will be stripped of its emergency and wartime powers, and the nation will be returned to constitutional government.” Mr. Martin announced he would convene the Republican Steering Committee in Washington on Thursday to map party strategy.

Mr. Martin expects to call a meeting of all Republican repre-sentatives-eleet oft December 2, after which a conference will be held to give old and new members a chance to familiarise themselves with the findings of the party’s various study committees, which have been operating for two years. Meanwhile there is nation-wide comment, and also comment from, outside the United States, on the peculiar position in which President Truman find# himself as the result of the election. He heads a Democrat Administration, which now faces both Houses of Congress controlled by Republicans. Marshall Field, publisher and editor of the "Chicago Sun,” which supported President Roosevelt’s Administration, has called on President Truman, in a front page editorial, to appoint a Republican Secretary of State and. then resign the Presidency in his favour “for the nation’s welfare.’’ Field stated that with the hostile forces dominating Congress and with Truman in office American foreign policy will be vacillating and the United States’ part in pacification of the world will be stalemated. Other nations would question American foreign representatives’ actions from now until the 1948 elections. “If full responsibility is thrown on the Republican Party at this time to develop and administer a national policy, the voters will have the issues cut clearly for them by 1948,” says the article. “By then it is our fervent hope that a Liberal Democratic Party will have formulated progressive policies that will give the voters a clear choice.” The Republican Party chairman, Mr. Carroll Reece, commenting on the suggestion that President Truman should resign, said the President could either accept the Republican Party’s proffered co-operalion, or appoint a Republican Secretary of State, and resign, as suggested by the Democratic Senator Fulbright, and the “Chicago Sun.” “The voters record an unmistakeable verdict in favour of the Republican Party that, to my mind, imposes a moral obligation on President, Truman and other Democratic office holders to acquiesce in the verdict and carry out the people s expressed will," said Mr. Reece. “The method of acquiescence is something for President Truman himself to decide, it is a matter between the President and his conscience.”

“The Associated Press says the problem of Presidential resignation has never arisen, and no procedure is laid down for it.

The Constitutional expert, Professor John Tillemma, expressed the opinion that the resignation, logically, would be sent to Congress and nobody at the White House, from President Truman down, would even discuss the resignation suggestion. The Democratic National Committee chairman, the Postmaster-Gen-eral. Mr. Robert Hannegan, commenting firstly on the results, said that a great responsibility rested on the republicans, and it was the duty of both parties to combine their efforts towards the Nation’s strength and well-being. The longshoremen’s Leader, Mr. Harry Bridges, described the Republican victory as “a cry of protest against President Truman and his complete betrayal of the, Roosevelt programme and promises.” “But under the Republicans we can look forward not to full pay envelopes, but food riots, house-squatting, bonus marches, breadlines and a drive to bust the unions,” be said. The "New York Times’ ” Ottawa correspondent says all the comment in Canada on the election is dominated by the hope that the good neighbour policy of recent years will continue undisturbed, but behind that expression of hope there is a tiny element of doubt. Republican administrations in the United States are associated in Canadian memory with high tariffs and a tendency to stay out of international affairs, or at least avoid leadership in international association and policy.