The Charlotte News
Thursday, July 10, 1952
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Jack Bell, that the Eisenhower forces at the Republican convention, in its fourth day in Chicago, were jubilant over victories in the decisive delegations of Georgia and Texas the previous night, claiming that, as a result, it was all over but the final balloting for the nomination. Senator Taft, however, was not conceding anything and still expected to be nominated on an early ballot. Supporters of Governor Earl Warren and former Governor Harold Stassen believed that there was still a chance of an Eisenhower-Taft deadlock, which could allow an insurgence by their candidates. There was also talk of a compromise candidate in General MacArthur, with some of the Taft delegates indicating that if the Senator could not achieve the nomination, they should turn to the other General. The head of delegate relations for the Taft camp indicated that it had been a coalition between the Eisenhower camp and the delegates supporting Governor Warren and former Governor Stassen which had won the day for the General regarding the Georgia and Texas delegations. The convention vote to seat the pro-Eisenhower Georgia delegation was 607 to 531, and the Texas delegation was seated without a roll call.
Governor Theodore McKeldin of Maryland, slated to place the name of General Eisenhower in nomination, predicted that he would win on the first ballot, and that his state would cast its delegate votes unanimously for him. Senator John Butler of Maryland, a Taft supporter, felt that the Senator was still in the running.
The California delegation caucused, and its chairman, Senator William Knowland, told the 70 members to hold the line for Governor Warren.
Senator Alexander Smith of New Jersey suggested that the loser between the two front runners for the nomination should acquire the vice-presidential nomination.
The official Associated Press tally of delegates showed General Eisenhower now in the lead, with 517, to 486 for Senator Taft, 110 for others, and 93 uncommitted. Prior to the convention, Senator Taft had led the General, and as late as the previous day, the Senator had claimed to have 607 or 608 committed delegates, with 604 needed to nominate.
It was possible that the balloting for the nomination could take place this night and the delegates appeared to be in the mood to get on with it.
Marvin Arrowsmith reports that well-wishers had swarmed into General Eisenhower's headquarters this date in the wake of the previous night's successful tests votes, among them Governor McKeldin and Jack Porter of Houston, leader of the pro-Eisenhower Texas delegates. The General had said that the victories regarding the Texas and Georgia delegations had been "quite a thing". He indicated that he never knew what was supposed to happen as it was his first convention and he did not form conclusions, just watched. He then ducked into a room near his own where his three grandchildren, David, four, Barbara Ann, three, and Susan, six months, were staying.
Governor Stassen had met with both candidates, but said that no deals had been made and he retained control of his 25 committed delegates, intended to meet again with them on Friday morning.
G. Milton Kelly reports that David Ingalls, Senator Taft's campaign manager, had told reporters that he believed the General was slipping and that he did not know how far he was going to slip, based on the way the Eisenhower supporters had handled the Georgia delegation dispute the previous night. He said that he did not think the Senator would achieve a first-ballot victory but did believe he would ultimately win. He said he knew of no such plan by Senator Taft to throw his support to General MacArthur if it appeared he could not win the nomination.
Edwin Haakinson reports that the platform accused the Truman Administration of "sordid" corruption which had "shocked and sickened the American people", and of shielding of "traitors to the nation in high places". It claimed that the Republicans had exposed instances of "fraud, bribery, graft, favoritism and influence peddling" within the Administration, as well as "close alliances" between the Government and "underworld characters". It also claimed there was a "double standard" in enforcing the tax laws, with "political favorites" receiving preferential treatment. The foreign policy and national defense planks, approved by both General Eisenhower and Senator Taft in advance, stated that the Administration had swung "erratically from timid appeasement to reckless blunder". It promised that Republicans would seek "an honorable just peace" which would bring hope to those imprisoned under Communist domination. The defense plank promised a quick build-up to "completely adequate air power", as favored by Senator Taft. It also pledged "simultaneous readiness of coordinated air, land and sea lanes, with all necessary installations, bases, supplies and munitions, including atomic energy weapons." The unusually long 6,000-word platform promised that the Republicans would clean up corruption in the Government, cut costs and reduce waste and overlapping bureaucracy.
Republican Party leaders hoped to get quick approval from the convention for a compromise civil rights plank designed to appease both Southern and Northern Republicans, hoping to avoid a floor fight. Both sides agreed that the plank was not as strong as that of the 1948 Republican platform, which had favored "enactment and just enforcement of such Federal legislation as may be necessary" to maintain equal opportunity for jobs and advancement despite differences of "race, religion, color, or country of origin". The plank this time promised, "Federal legislation to further adjust inequitable treatment in the area of discriminatory employment practices." It also stated, in an effort to placate Southern delegates, "Federal action should not duplicate state efforts to end such practices; should not set up another huge bureaucracy." (That first line should have read, properly, "to adjust further" or "further to adjust", to avoid the fatal split infinitive, threatening at any moment nuclear annihilation of the entire sentence. Take heed, young journalists, as we see this horrible faux pas committed in newspapers regularly every single day, indeed, in most of the stories we read, including in some of the most reputable organs on the planet. Another bad one is "to not" do something, when proper English always has it, "not to" do something. Try, regardless of what you may be saying and whether anyone might agree with it, at least to use proper English in setting forth your points. It's educational for young readers, if nothing else. The English language in this country has suffered, indeed, been brutalized quite enough at the hands of radio and television through the decades without print journalism joining in the fray. Stupid is as stupid does…)
A late report indicates that a Virginia delegate had stated that the Southern Republican leaders had agreed to accept the compromise plank on civil rights without a floor fight.
General Eisenhower had talked about hominy grits with the Florida delegates and told the North Carolina delegates that he would campaign in the South if nominated. Mrs. Eisenhower had accompanied the General on the visit with the North Carolina delegates.
This night, based on the schedule,
Senator Taft would be placed in nomination first, by Senator Everett
Dirksen of Illinois, followed by the nomination of Governor Warren,
and then General Eisenhower. Senator Dirksen had sparked a round of
booing the previous night
Señor Marcelino Romany of Santurce,
Puerto Rico, had injected laughter into the convention the previous
night and become a hero to the party in the process, during the
rancorous roll call regarding seating of the disputed Georgia
delegation, when Sr. Romany indicated, in response to the roll call declaration of Puerto Rico's three "no" votes, that he demanded polling of
the delegation, just as had taken place in the large New York and
Pennsylvania delegations, followed by a discussion on the platform of
the issue. The story trails off onto another page, and you will have
to read of it somewhere else if you are particularly interested in
the punch lines. Candidly, after reading more about the story, we profess to know no more of the reason for the laughter than he apparently did. As a delegate from Rhode Island, with only eight votes, had also demanded a polling of his state's delegation, without provocation of laughter, we suspect the incident's risibility had something to do with the accent
On the editorial page, "Eisenhower Crusade Gains Momentum" tells of the previous night's session of the Republican convention having dragged on until shortly before 2:00 a.m. When it concluded, it was apparent that General Eisenhower was gaining strength rapidly and was likely to be leading the field after the first ballot. The strategy of Senator Taft of enforcing a showdown on the rules change of the prior Monday and the dispute over the Georgia delegation the previous night had backfired, revealing the existence of strong anti-Taft sentiment which could run as high as 650 delegate votes, with only 604 needed to nominate. The large states, with the exception of Ohio and Illinois, were leaning heavily toward the General, and these were states which could help win the election in November. The rift between the forces backing the General and those backing the Senator was great and could handicap the party in the general election campaign.
It finds the decision of the convention as a whole to seat the pro-Eisenhower delegations from Georgia and Texas to have been significant, having been the first time in the history of the Republican Party that the credentials committee at a convention had been overruled by the convention delegates. The evidence of fraud and irregularities had been so overwhelming that the delegates had no other choice, to avoid the specter of the party being an instrument of the corruption of the Taft backers in those states. The credentials committee, itself, had reversed the RNC's decision on the Louisiana delegation, seating the pro-Eisenhower delegation, the Taft theft of votes there having been so obvious.
Senator Taft would continue to profess confidence of victory, but the piece reads the signs otherwise. It finds that he had overplayed his hand in stacking the deck of the convention with his own people, producing a revolt of the delegates as a whole to the steamroller tactics.
It again expresses its hope that the convention would nominate General Eisenhower on the first ballot, and, if not, at least on the second ballot. It indicates that he was clearly the choice of the American people and of the "real Republicans" in areas of Republican voting strength. He was also the Republican candidate most likely to achieve victory in November.
"Lots of Power in the Left Wing" tells of the Progressive Party having nominated in 1948 Henry Wallace for the presidency and Senator Glen Taylor of Idaho as his running mate, eventually polling more than a million votes, about half coming from New York, and enabling the Republicans to capture 74 electoral votes from that state, Michigan and Maryland. In several other states, the Progressives obtained enough votes nearly to impact the outcome.
The previous weekend, the Progressive Party had again convened and nominated as its presidential candidate Vincent Hallinan, a San Francisco lawyer presently serving a six-month jail sentence for contempt emanating from the defense of West Coast longshoremen's union head, Harry Bridges. Charlotte Bass, former publisher of a West Coast black newspaper, was nominated as the vice-presidential candidate. It indicates that the decrease in stature of these nominees showed the decrease in political force of the Progressives in the four-year interim.
The people who had voted for the ticket in 1948 had, in consequence, no political home and would not be comfortable voting for the Republicans, meaning that the majority of them would likely vote Democratic, particularly if the Democrats took a strong stand on civil rights and other Fair Deal measures. Their votes could prove quite important in the ultimate outcome in the fall, potentially putting several electoral-rich states in the Democratic column. Thus, it was understandable why the President was emphasizing the Fair Deal of late.
But as the Administration moved left, increasing numbers of Southern Democrats would desert in favor of the Republicans, provided they nominated General Eisenhower, who had widespread support in the South. It indicates that the Republicans would need all of the Southern states they could obtain, especially if the former Progressive voters helped the Democrats win a few of the large industrial states.
"From Hiss to Hoover Carts" remarks on the phrases which speakers at the convention were relying
on to arouse the audience. Abraham Lincoln had been invoked the most
frequently, and "the youth of America", "our way of
life" and "we shall sweep the slate clean" would also
usually elicit moderate applause. The stomping and shouting, however,
were reserved for the place names and alleged architects of foreign
policy. Yalta
Senator James Kem of Missouri had been the most imaginative orator, referring to Korea as the "yo-yo war" and the Administration as suffering from "acute billionitis", with the allies taking the cash while the country's soldiers took the casualties. He referred to the New Deal and Fair Deal as the "Ordeal".
Former President Herbert Hoover had referred to the Democrats as having behind their "plush curtain of tax and spend three sinister spooks or ghosts ... mixing poison for the American people", those being "shades of Mussolini, with his bureaucratic fascism; of Karl Marx and his socialism; and of Lord Keynes, with his perpetual government spending, deficits and inflation."
It concludes that the Republicans might as well lay it on thick, as the Democrats, in two weeks, would be deriding the "Hoover carts".
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Well, Does a Curve Curve?" tells of an electronic calculator demonstrating that a good pitch actually did curve. Eleven years earlier, Life had shown a series of photographs taken through a high-speed camera which demonstrated that Carl Hubbell's and Cy Blanton's best curve balls actually did not curve at all, but rather dropped.
It concludes that if two marvels of technology were going to call each other liars, the curve pitch ought be tested by seeing if it would curve around something solid. But Sporting News told of pitcher Fred Goldsmith having performed such an experiment eight times in 1870, whereby he and a catcher stood on the same side of a line of three stakes, and when the ball had left Mr. Goldsmith's hand to the left of the first stake, it had traveled to the right of the second, before reaching the catcher at the left of the third. The experiment was repeated in 1950.
It observes that the person who had
ever swung and missed at such a pitch knew that if the curve was an
illusion, then the bat also had an invisible hole
Drew Pearson, in Chicago, supplies several vignettes from the Republican convention, indicating initially that the politically naïve General Eisenhower could not quite be sure whether his friend, Governor Dewey, was an asset or a liability. The Governor had one of the smoothest working political machines in the country and he had personally helped woo and win Pennsylvania delegates for the General. His friend, future Attorney General under President Eisenhower, Herbert Brownell, also had done a skillful job of directing strategy. But the Governor had caused a great deal of ill will inside the party, which had boomeranged somewhat against the General. That enmity had erupted within the New York delegation when the Governor tried to whip dissident delegates into line, as described further by the Alsops below. As a result, some New York delegates bolted to Senator Taft.
Senator Richard Russell of Georgia had two of his Democratic observers at the convention.
Senator Taft had five different cross-indices of every delegate, the first of which provided the name and who among the four leaders in the Taft organization should contact the delegate, the second of which provided the names of the family doctors of the delegates, reportedly information derived from the AMA, the third of which listed the 14 Eisenhower delegates who were wavering, the fourth listed uncommitted delegates and the last, the party case-history of each delegate.
There was more money and more entertainment flowing around the current Republican convention than any in the past, with both the Taft forces and the Eisenhower forces taking delegates to dinner and to the theater. Wavering delegates were entertained and wooed for General Eisenhower on the yacht of Henry Ford II, who also supplied 150 Mercurys and Fords for the delegates.
Every train arriving in Chicago, regardless of occupants, had been met by Eisenhower enthusiasts, with drums, tambourines, and buttons, greeting the passengers with beautiful girls who took it for granted that they were for the General.
One of the most effective moves in support of General Eisenhower had been the petition by 24 governors at the Houston governors' conference, against the so-called "steal" of Southern delegates. Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas had masterminded the move and obtained the signatures of the Republican governors.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop, in Chicago, reflect on the "peculiar factors" which ordinarily influenced important national decisions, such as the choice of the presidential nominees, starting with patronage. Senator Taft had said that one of the worst handicaps for his candidacy was the opposition from Republican governors, meaning that they would use their control of Republican jobs in their states against him.
They cite the case of New York, whose delegation had some substantial sentiment for the Senator, particularly in New York City, where the machine of Governor Dewey did not reach. The Taft forces hoped to pick up as many as 20 delegate votes there, but many Republicans were appointed to jobs, not subject to civil service, on the State payroll. Governor Dewey had reminded the delegates at the first meeting in Chicago with them that he would be Governor for two and a half more years and that he had a "long memory". In talking with delegates individually, he had pointed out the number of jobs allocated to each of their districts, jobs filled by their friends, coworkers or even relatives. He stated bluntly that if they defected the fold and voted for Senator Taft, there would be new people in those jobs within two days after his return to the state capital in Albany.
In Pennsylvania, the problem was more complex. Senator James Duff, prominent backer of General Eisenhower, had been a friend of Governor John Fine, but was now his enemy. Senator Duff would, in an Eisenhower administration, possess great influence over Federal appointments in Pennsylvania. But Governor Fine also wanted influence, and thus the problem arose as to how to accommodate both. The problem had been solved when Senator Duff agreed to forgo his normal power over patronage appointments in the state, enabling General Eisenhower to assure Governor Fine that he would be regularly consulted about Pennsylvania appointees. That led to Governor Fine making his crucial decision in favor of General Eisenhower.
In Michigan, there had been a struggle between the chief executives of Chrysler, for Taft, and the leaders of Ford and G.M., favoring General Eisenhower. All three companies had vast influence on the Republican Party in Michigan. Both national committeeman Arthur Summerfield, a prominent Chevrolet dealer, and Senator Homer Ferguson had been caught in the crossfire, but in the end, Mr. Summerfield had become an important leader of the Eisenhower forces, while Senator Ferguson, normally inclined toward Senator Taft, remained unhappily silent.
Both sides could be tough, as shown by the steal of the Texas delegation by the Taft supporters, a level of toughness not approached by the Eisenhower forces. The Taft cry of "real Republicans", suggesting that the delegates for the General in Texas had actually been independents and defected Democrats for the most part, had never been better demonstrated than by the Taft sponsorship of the Roscoe Pickett delegation from Georgia, which owed their existence to an alliance between Mr. Pickett and Governor Herman Talmadge, a Democrat.
They conclude that the process by which presidential nominees were chosen in the country often seemed to have little to do with the democratic process. Nevertheless, real idealism often crept into the process, producing often an excellent result.
A piece from the Congressional Quarterly examines gerrymandering, as having had several new angles added to the old custom when 15 states had recently reshaped their Congressional districts based on the 1950 census. Gerrymandering referred to dividing a state unfairly or unnaturally to give one political party an advantage. The term had not originated until 1812, but, the piece suggests, the practice was probably as old as the republic.
The term resulted from a portmanteau of "salamander", the outline of which artist Gilbert Stuart had seen in the map of the district formed in Essex County, Massachusetts, after the Massachusetts Legislature in 1812 had finished reshaping the district, and the surname of then-Governor Elbridge Gerry of that state.
It cites the new 12th district in Kings County, New York, created by the Legislature in 1951, as the most recent example of the modern gerrymander. It consisted of a narrow, winding pattern about 7.5 miles long, bisecting the borough of Brooklyn. It was formed from six Democratic districts in an attempt to create a Republican district in normally Democratic Brooklyn. When protests arose regarding it, the Kings County Republican leader defended it by saying that he wanted a chance to elect a Republican from Brooklyn to Congress, questioning why that was wrong.
Republicans had protested that they Democratic Legislature in Missouri had gerrymandered that state to the disadvantage of Republicans, to which the Democrats had replied by questioning whether the Republicans had really expected the Democrats to draft and support a redistricting bill favoring the opposition.
It concludes that as a result of redistricting, more districts would be solidly Republican or solidly Democratic, as determined by analysis performed by both political parties and by the Congressional Quarterly.
A letter writer urges fairness to the model airplane builders. He says that, whereas a few years earlier, every city of any size had all kinds of entertainment on July Fourth, such was now absent, with Charlotte being the worst offender. The previous year, the Park and Recreation Commission had eliminated the Model Airplane Circus from July Fourth entertainment, despite the absence of majority will in favor of that move. He suggests that the noise of the model airplanes was not so great as the diesel and steam engines or the blasting of whistles and horns at all hours of the day and night, or the cheering and shouting of fans attending baseball games, or the square dances at the park skating rink a couple of nights per week. He encloses a photograph of a model jet plane, which is published with the letter, indicating that it took about two years to construct and had taken top honors for appearance in the 1952 model airplane show held at a country airport, away from the reach of the Park and Recreation Commission. He urges restoring the right of the model airplanes to fly in the parks.
A letter writer responds to a letter of July 5, indicating that the writer's response to his earlier letter had been confused in his denunciation of socialism and communism and the previous writer's use of modifiers in the phrases, "true Christianity" and "welfare state". He indicates that the writer had been confused because his letter had not contained the word "Christianity" and that the meanings of "welfare" and "welfare state" were diametrically opposed to one another, suggests that the prior letter writer move to Russia if he wanted a welfare state.
