The Charlotte News
Friday, July 25, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois and Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee remained in a see-saw battle for the lead during the first balloting for the presidential nomination at the Democratic convention in Chicago. With the roll call complete through the state of Oregon, Senator Kefauver held a narrow lead over the Governor, with Senator Richard Russell in third place. The balloting had been delayed by numerous demands for polling of delegations, and, thus far, it appeared there would be no achievement of a necessary majority for the nomination on the first ballot, as many of the delegations were casting votes for favorite sons. The unofficial totals showed Senator Kefauver with 189.5, Governor Stevenson with 185, Senator Russell with 159.5, Averell Harriman with 103, Senator Robert Kerr with 62, Vice-President Barkley with 42.5, and several other candidates with fewer votes. It took 615 votes to nominate.
The session had begun at noon, an hour after its scheduled start as the previous night's session had not concluded until 1:55 a.m. At the start of the session, the delegates showed no enthusiasm and engaged in no demonstrations, as they remained groggy from the 14-hour session of the prior day and night, during which there had been numerous demonstrations for the eleven candidates whose names were placed in nomination, in addition to several parliamentary fights—as described below by James Marlow and in the editorial column. By 11:45 this date, fewer than a fourth of the delegates were in their seats.
Governor Johnston Murray of Oklahoma opened the session by paying tribute to a man from Boston, Peter J. Cloherty, who had shouted into the microphone, "Don't get panicky," during a small fire on the convention floor the previous night. The convention then adopted by acclamation a resolution proposed by DNC chairman Frank McKinney, paying tribute to the President's leadership, wishing him a long and prosperous life, and pledging to continue his policies.
At that point, at 12:22 p.m., the call of the roll of the states began for determining the presidential nominee. It provides a great deal of detail regarding the process of the voting. Senator Kefauver was receiving more applause than any of the other candidates, when delegations cast their votes for him. Everything had gone smoothly until a delegate from Idaho insisted on a poll of her state's delegation. Another snafu occurred with the Kansas delegation, which had a rule enabling the candidate with a majority to take all 16 votes, winding up, however, split when no candidate achieved a majority, meaning that Governor Stevenson received only eight votes instead of the total 16, missing the latter by one delegate vote. Another delay occurred when the Maine delegation demanded a polling, and yet another, for the same reason, when the Missouri vote was requested. And so it went…
A chart of the state-by-state tally through Oregon is presented on the page.
A late bulletin indicates that Michigan had determined in caucus to cast its 40 votes for Senator Kefauver on the second ballot, having cast them for Governor Mennen Williams as a favorite son on the first ballot.
In the continued balloting on Friday afternoon, the North Carolina delegation had provided 26 votes for Senator Russell, 5 1/2 for Governor Stevenson and one-half vote for Vice-President Barkley.
A piece on the front page by James
Marlow tells of the convention having shown a political party "in
convulsions", as the Democrats had "tortured themselves"
the previous day to demonstrate publicly that they needed every vote
they could get in November by "making a farce of their attempt
to get tough with the South". He regards it to have been a
"cold-blooded way" to take out the candidacy of Senator
Kefauver and make it easier for the nomination of Governor Stevenson.
He recounts the showdown between the pro-Fair Deal group, led by
Senator Blair Moody of Michigan, and the Southern anti-Fair Deal
group, with the former demanding a loyalty pledge for participation
in the convention, which initially had entailed a pledge of support
for the platform and the nominee, a pledge to which the Southern
delegates balked, threatening not to participate further in the
convention, until the pledge was first softened to include only a
requirement that the delegates ensure that their state place the
Democratic nominees on the ballot, and then, after South Carolina,
Virginia and Louisiana continued to object, softened that pledge further to
require such assurance only if state laws and state party rules did
not prevent it. Initially, the convention had upheld the Moody
resolution, until the Southern rebellion became so great that it
appeared the convention would essentially hand the November result to
General Eisenhower, at which point the compromise, aided considerably
by White House encouragement, began occurring, until the original
resolution had little meaning. The Louisiana, Virginia and South
Carolina delegations kept their seats at the convention but never did
promise to work for the party in the general election, only assuring
that the nominees would be on their state ballots in November. All of
it had resulted in the "greatest series of parliamentary
tangles, roll calls, points of order, and questions in modern
convention history." He explains how, in the midst of that
wrangling, Senator Kefauver's candidacy had gotten the axe, continued
on another page. (We never knew that Illinois had a witch
The President left Washington to fly to Chicago this date, prepared to deliver a "give 'em hell" speech against the Republicans, scheduled for this night at 9:00—delayed until 1:43 a.m. by the balloting. As captured on television, at the same moment he was boarding his plane, his alternate delegate from Kansas City, Thomas Gavin, cast his ballot, as a proxy for the President, for Governor Stevenson. At that point, there was a cut-away to the Washington airport, with the President waving his hat and stepping inside the plane. The President was expected to stress in his speech that the steel strike had finally been brought to conclusion this date and that he was ready to stump the country for the Democratic nominee, no matter who he happened to be.
Finally, this night, at 2:10 a.m., after the President finished his 27-minute speech, he would introduce Governor Stevenson as the nominee of the convention, to be selected this night on the third ballot. The Governor then would provide his 17-minute acceptance speech, at an hour equal to that of the acceptance speech of Senator George McGovern at the 1972 Democratic convention, at a subsequent time when there was greater premium on primetime broadcast, with the general interest in political conventions having considerably waned as the novelty of televised presentation had worn off in the intervening two decades. There was, of course, a considerable common denominator in those two elections, Richard Nixon, in his rise in 1952 and, though little known in July, 1972 at the time of Senator McGovern's acceptance speech, about three weeks after the break-in at the Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, about to enter, as a President re-elected in a landslide in 1972, the beginning of the long historical portal to his end as a force in American and world politics.
Rowland Evans, Jr., tells of the resolution of the 53-day old steel strike, the longest and costliest in American history, and that production was expected to resume the following week. The United Steelworkers were expected to ratify the agreement reached at the White House, following the President's demand that a settlement be reached immediately, under threat of partial seizure of the industry via the Selective Service Act, permitting seizure of factories with Government contracts deemed essential to defense. It had not been a clear-cut victory for either the union, industry or the Government, as there had been compromise on all sides, but CIO and Steelworkers president Philip Murray and U.S. Steel chairman Benjamin Fairless had reached agreement on the "important basic issues". Mr. Murray would meet with the 175-person wage policy committee of the union to obtain ratification of the agreement this date. Mr. Fairless was planning to make a personal appearance before the committee, in an attempt to neutralize bitterness which had developed during the course of the seven-month long dispute since the end of the previous contract at the beginning of the year.
It would take at least four or five days for substantial production to be resumed following ratification of the agreement, as it took that long to heat up the blast furnaces, even though standby employees had kept them alive ever since the strike had begun on June 2, immediately following the Supreme Court's decision which held the President's April 8 seizure of the industry, based on inherent executive authority to act for the general welfare in an emergency, to have been unconstitutional without Congressional approval. The price of steel would be increased under the agreement by at least $5.20 per ton, with high-alloy steel of a specialized nature having been increased by the Government by $5.65 per ton a few minutes after the announced settlement. Previously, one of the primary sticking points to agreement was that the Government had been constrained under price control laws to limit the increase in the price of steel to no more than about three dollars per ton, whereas the industry had demanded an increase of $12 per ton to meet the Wage Stabilization Board's recommended increases, including benefits, of 26 cents per hour for workers, a recommendation initially accepted by the union in February but not by the industry without the price increase. The resulting increase in the price of steel, according to some officials, would increase the cost of living, already at an all-time high. Economic Stabilizer Roger Putman was said by friends to be "unhappy" with the price increase approved by the Government, but there was no indication that he planned to resign. Former Defense Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson had recommended a five dollar price increase and had indicated he believed he had Presidential approval for permitting it, but Price Stabilizer Ellis Arnall had refused to go along with that increase, saying that as long as he was in charge of price stabilization, the industry would receive no more than the $2.84 allowed under the Capehart Amendment to the economic controls law.
In Korea, the three-week news blackout regarding the armistice talks was lifted this date, with the deadlock over prisoner exchange still unresolved. The U.N. negotiators had offered to return an additional 13,000 Communist prisoners during 18 off-the-record meetings since July 4, all, according to Maj. General William Harrison, proving "completely fruitless". Only 83,000 of the 170,000 allied-held prisoners had indicated a desire to be repatriated, according to General Harrison, an increase of 13,000 over the 70,000 figure initially submitted to the Communists earlier, prior to completion of the screening of prisoners. The allies said that the Communists had insisted on the return of 116,000 prisoners, including 20,000 Chinese prisoners, of whom only 6,400 would be returned voluntarily. The U.N. had remained steadfast in its determination not to repatriate any prisoners who refused their consent. The following day, proceedings would again be made public on a daily basis.
In Whiteville, N.C., 60 remaining defendants in the Klan flogging cases had indicated to the court that they would not seek a jury trial and would plead either guilty or nolo contendere, and the judge delayed sentencing of the defendants, including Imperial Wizard Thomas L. Hamilton of Leesville, S.C., until the following week. During the morning session of court, 16 defendants in one flogging case and 10 involving another alleged flogging of an attorney, both victims having been told by their Klan abductors that they had been drinking too much and not properly supporting their families, had entered pleas of guilty or no contest. By the end of the day, a third case also was expected to be resolved through pleas.
On the editorial page, "A Sorry But Revealing Display" tells of millions of television viewers of the Democratic convention on Thursday night having witnessed the Democrats mill around for almost three hours during a roll call vote on the seating of the Virginia delegation, all while viewers anxiously awaited the start of the balloting after completion of the nomination speeches. At one point, all three of the official tally clerks had come up with different totals in result of the numerous vote changes.
It attributes this problem to the continued use by the conventions of the antiquated manual voting process, a process used in the House, though dispensed with by many state legislatures in favor of electronic voting. It indicates that it was not suggesting that an electric voting machine would resolve the numerous vote switches and confusion resulting from the Virginia case, where many delegates had only a fraction of a vote, but its logical extension could be applied by analogy to the laborious process of voting in the House, during which members also found ways to waste time. Sometimes during that process, members switched their votes after "getting the word", with the result that members of Congress spent about a tenth of their time voting. By contrast, the automated voting systems of certain state legislatures enabled voting in about 30 seconds.
It hopes that the previous night's display would encourage citizens throughout the country to urge Congress to take advantage of electricity.
"An Anomaly and How It Grew" tells of Drew Pearson having recently suggested the anomaly that General Eisenhower had won the Republican nomination by remaining in Europe until the last minute as Senator Taft had been breaking all records stumping the country, and that Governor Stevenson had become the leading Democrat for the nomination without having asked for a single delegate vote, in contrast to Senator Kefauver, who had traveled thousands of miles since February and won all primaries he had entered, save two, D.C., won by Mr. Harriman, and Florida, won by Senator Russell.
It suggests that this anomaly deserved further comment, that it was possible to glean from the result that the expression of popular opinion in state primaries had become meaningless, but finds that it was not quite that simple, that rather the fault lay in the way the primaries were conducted. Not all of the candidates entered all of the primaries; the primaries were held over a long period of time; not all of the states held presidential primaries; and each state had its own laws pertaining to primaries. Thus, it counsels that until all of the primaries were held in all of the states on the same day and under the same rules with all candidates entered, the flaws in the primary process would remain.
It also suggests other reasons for the surge in popularity of General Eisenhower and Governor Stevenson, including that both men had remained apart from the "somewhat shabby Washington environment", that both were new to national politics at a time when voters were looking for new faces, that both had been adamantly opposed to any revival of isolationism, that both were positive and progressive thinkers who stressed answers for the future rather than errors of the past, that both had strong and pleasing personalities, and that there was a certain appeal in the office seeking the man rather than the man seeking the office. It finds that those and other factors had been the reason why Senator Taft had fallen by the wayside and Senator Kefauver had begun to slip.
"How It Started" comments on the question raised every four years as to why the Republicans had met first at their convention, some claiming that it would be more fair for the out-party to meet second, to enable setting forth a platform and nominee responsive to the in-party. It had been that way until 1916, when the Republicans decided among themselves to meet prior to the Democrats, who would nominate incumbent President Woodrow Wilson. The order then remained the same henceforth to the present, though Republicans had questioned whether it was a strategic error during the 1940 election cycle. The Democrats, however, at that point would not accept the change, and so the same order continued.
The result was that the in-party was able to get in a few good licks against the opponents' platform and was able to nominate a candidate tailored to counter the opposition.
"A Great Oration by a Great American" posits that while the famed oratory prowess of William Jennings Bryan and Daniel Webster probably remained intact, the speech by Vice-President Barkley at the convention on Wednesday night had ranked with the best such speeches, having been delivered without the modern trappings of a teleprompter or script, winding up as "the most stirring speech which the nation has watched and listened to at either of this year's conventions." There was no hint of the bitterness which had been evident in his statement two nights earlier when he had withdrawn from his abbreviated presidential race. He had indirectly castigated Senator Kefauver for his appearance on the convention floor in violation of the custom followed by major candidates. But the main thrust of his speech had been a declaration of faith in the party, its principles and leadership. He had also movingly criticized racial intolerance through an account of an experience with a black soldier in Korea.
It concludes that whether or not one accepted the entire philosophy of the Vice-President, none could say that the old statesman had not spoken with a conviction and ability rarely equaled. It finds that it was altogether fitting that his retirement from elective office would be climaxed by this great address before the party and the American people "whom he has served so well."
As indicated, Mr. Barkley would once again run for the Senate from Kentucky in 1954 and win, but would then die in office at age 78, in April, 1956.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Loveliest Things", tells of Beatrice Cobb providing in the Morganton News Herald recently a list of "loveliest things" and asking for others to add to her list. Henry Belk proceeded to supplement the list in the Goldsboro News-Argus, and the list continued to grow.
The piece indicates that while it would not have necessarily chosen the adjective "loveliest" and was not disposed to engage in superlatives in any event, it would add some questions to the list. Example: "Have you ever stood down at the headwaters of Albemarle Sound, just off the point where the Roanoke and Chowan Rivers converge, and gazed upon the masses of wild crab apple blossoms when they were at their height?"
After stating a long list of questions in that vein, it concludes: "If you haven't, then, whatever your 'loveliest' list may be, you still have something to live for."
Drew Pearson, in Chicago, tells of the cruelest blows dealt in the race for the Democratic nomination having been to Vice-President Alben Barkley and to Averell Harriman. In the case of the Vice-President, these blows had come from his own wife, from Senate secretary Leslie Biffle and from the President, and while, therefore, not intended as cruel, they were likely to leave him bitter for the remainder of his life. The stage had been set for him to enter the presidential race on July 5, as the Congress was adjourning for the conventions, at which point Mr. Barkley's close personal and political friend, Mr. Biffle, had a conference with the President. Mr. Biffle had put Mr. Barkley across as the vice-presidential running mate in 1948. He had also posed as a chicken salesman touring the country that summer and had predicted that the President could win the race. He, along with the Vice-President's new wife, had long wanted Mr. Barkley to become President. At the recent luncheon, therefore, Mr. Biffle urged the President to switch his support from Mr. Harriman to the Vice-President, to which the President agreed. The following day, the Vice-President, buoyed by this support and that of his wife, made a formal announcement that he would seek the nomination. Yet, labor leaders, hearing of the President's choice, immediately rebelled, as they had already committed either to Senator Kefauver or to Mr. Harriman and believed they were being put out on a limb. The President had responded that they should stay out on the limb a little while longer. Mr. Pearson speculates as to whether that meant that the President had been using the Vice-President merely as a stalking horse to stop the movement toward Senator Kefauver. Regardless, he concludes that Mr. Barkley, at 74, would never recover from the political blow.
He indicates that the blow to Mr. Harriman was not quite so brutal, for his younger age. In that case, Paul Fitzpatrick, the Democratic leader in New York, had wanted a "holding candidate" for the purpose of holding the New York delegation's votes to permit Mr. Fitzpatrick to trade their allegiance at the convention at the right time. He had first approached Senator Herbert Lehman with the idea of becoming that candidate and was rebuffed, the Senator saying that he had no chance to become President and did not want the delegates pledged to him. Mr. Fitzpatrick then went to Mr. Harriman, who took him seriously and entered the campaign with all of his energy and money, winding up presenting a very effective campaign, surprising even his best friends. Meanwhile, Mr. Fitzpatrick did not appear pleased at the result, though still backing Mr. Harriman, albeit without enthusiasm. The result, opines Mr. Pearson, was that Mr. Harriman, who had snapped out of his habitual shyness and was giving better speeches than the old-timers, would be a politician to be reckoned with in the future.
Mr. Harriman would become Governor of New York for one four-year term, starting in 1955, and, thereafter, would be an important adviser from within the State Department to both the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations.
Marquis Childs, in Chicago, starts with Governor Adlai Stevenson's authored couplet: "The more I see of this awful mess/ The more I want to be President less."
The mess, Mr. Childs posits, was getting worse. The fact that the steel strike had transpired for seven weeks before a settlement was finally reached evidenced the division in the country. Not only had 15 million tons of steel production been lost but 12 million tons of iron ore had been stopped from going to the steel mills across the Great Lakes. The shipments would be shut down for the winter in November and December when the lakes froze, and it was therefore unlikely that the missing amount could be replaced. That discrepancy could critically harm the drive for rearmament. The resulting scarcity in consumer goods would contribute to inflation. It would take up to two weeks to get the steel production flowing again at its normal rate. Both the union and the steel companies were to blame for the cessation.
The President had been determined not to use the Taft-Hartley 80-day injunctive provision to stop the strike, while most of the Republicans wanted him to do so, thus pitting the strike against election-year politics. Had the President resorted to Taft-Hartley, the appeal of the Democrats to labor would have been blunted. The plank in the Democratic platform calling for repeal of Taft-Hartley would have looked foolish.
He finds the division within the Democratic Party manifested during the convention to be related to the steel dispute and the broader issue of the powers of big industry, big labor and big government. A potent minority from the Northern industrial centers was determined to go all the way with labor and the groups closely aligned with it, while a far less potent minority from the South had sought to repudiate the whole Fair Deal program and the President, himself. Chief among the latter group was Governor James Byrnes of South Carolina, for whom nothing the convention could have done would have been satisfactory.
Between those two forces were the moderate delegates, including a large proportion of the South, being rapidly industrialized. They feared the extremes and were hopeful that those extremes might be reconciled before the country was pushed into one or the other extreme position from which no retreat would be possible. Mr. Childs believes that this moderate middle explained why there had been so much conflict at both the Republican and Democratic conventions. Senator Taft had a disadvantage in pushing an extremist position, as did Averell Harriman in his complete embrace of the New Deal and the Fair Deal, though the latter also having had other handicaps in his quest for the nomination.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop, in Chicago, tell of the nominating speeches being given at the Democratic convention as they wrote the column and assert that it was a good time to state that the Democrats believed they could win the election. They find the atmosphere of the convention reminiscent of the Republican convention in Philadelphia in 1948, with the same self-assurance and bland disregard of the "common mischance and misfortune of politics" evident. There was also the same tendency to underrate the opposition. Just as the Republicans believed that anyone they nominated could be the President in 1948, the Democrats in 1952 were not taking into account the "potent personality" of General Eisenhower. They appeared to be counting on the General to keep his foot in his mouth throughout the campaign, as they had overestimated his campaigning ability prior to his arrival back in the United States in early June.
This confidence of the Democrats explained why it had been relatively easy to obtain a compromise on the civil rights plank. Before the convention, there had been far more bitterness between the Northern and Southern wings of the party than in 1948. The Northern wing was ready to expel the Southern wing from the party based on the record of the Southerners in Congress, forming coalitions on important measures with the Republicans. The Southern wing was filled with hatred for the President and its members were prepared to walk out. Yet, the two sides had gotten together at the convention and found their common interest, winning in the fall. Had they believed that the party was destined to lose, it would have been practically impossible to form any compromises.
They cite as example an incident occurring in the haggling over seating of the Texas delegation, when Governor Allan Shivers, head of the "regular" delegation, had leaned across the table to Senator Herbert Lehman of New York and said, "You fellows have got to help us," to which Senator Lehman had replied, "Well, you fellows have got to help us, too." That spirit, plus the intervention of the President to prevent an open break in the convention regarding the loyalty oath, produced the relatively peaceful result. Such unity improved the chances of the Democrats to take a victory in the fall.
The Alsops also observe that, despite the Democrats having "grown pretty old and pretty ragged in 20 years of office", they still had managed to appear more vigorous on the surface than the Republicans. They conclude, therefore, that the election ahead "should be one of the most stirring this country has seen."
A letter writer indicates that the trend in the community was to combine all health, welfare and recreation agencies under a United Community Service, which would undertake one annual fundraising drive. That change was the result of a poll taken of about 7,000 employees of various business and industrial concerns, but the writer questions whether that was a true evaluation of what the people of the community wanted. After presenting several reasons for her argument, she concludes that the old Community Chest way of collecting funds for charitable organizations in the community would continue to be the best method, as the UCS would have to be supported through payroll deductions.
A letter writer from Maiden wonders why the people were continuing to vote for "a bunch of the worst and lowest type of treacherous humanity", finding that with three Democratic Presidents during the 20th century, there had been three of the worst wars the world had ever seen, that, whereas the country did not owe anything at the start of 1913, it now owed more than the rest of the world currently owed or had ever owed in history. He urges looking at the 24 years of Republican rule thus far in the 20th century, during which there had been no war, no draft law, no burdensome deaths, no unjust taxation, and "not an enemy in the world". He finds it, therefore, no wonder that Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois had tried at the Democratic convention to make excuses for the Administration and besmirch the name of that "great and illustrious soldier", General MacArthur. He thinks that as long as there were character assassins in the Senate of the caliber of Senator Douglas, the country would continue to be led by the bureaucrats. He urges voters, therefore, to think twice when they voted in the general election, as it could be their "last chance".
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc rides again, omitting little things such as the refusal of the Republicans in 1921 to put teeth in the League of Nations by refusing to ratify the Versailles Treaty, the Republican policy of laissez-faire in the 1920's, leading to the Great Depression and worldwide economic depression, all resulting in the rise of Fascism and Nazism out of the intense, unchecked national pride stimulated from the defeat and abjection in Europe resulting from World War I, which, itself, began out of centuries of royal internecine conflict in Europe, culminating in the summer of 1914, having nothing to do with the Wilson Administration policies, then only 17 months on the scene. You might as well blame Abraham Lincoln or George Washington or Napoleon for both World Wars and Korea, as to blame Wilson, FDR and Truman. This doctor who writes the letter either needs a history lesson or is engaging in deliberate demagoguery to mislead the gullible. He ought get a job on the radio out in Texas...
And, 17 years from this night, fifty years ago, Senator Edward Kennedy would address the nation regarding the drowning death, off a wooden bridge at Chappaquiddick Island a week earlier, of Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign worker for his late brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, during the latter's presidential campaign of 1968, cut short in Los Angeles at the Ambassador Hotel on the night of June 4-5 by an assassin's bullets, just after he had won the California Democratic primary.
The eight-day Apollo 11 first moon-landing mission, which President Kennedy had set in May, 1961 as a goal for the country by the end of the decade, had just touched down in the Pacific the previous day in 1969 after a successful mission.
Some, whether in poor taste or not, given the gravity of the latter situation involving the death of a young woman, compared the televised address of Senator Kennedy to the "Checkers speech" of then-Republican vice-presidential nominee Richard Nixon in September, 1952, for it having enabled the Senator, as had the earlier speech for Senator Nixon, to continue his political career, though in the case of Mr. Nixon, not depriving him ultimately of the White House in 1968, while Senator Kennedy was effectively, in all probability, barred from that achievement by the continuing specter of Chappaquiddick hanging over his chances for national elective politics, as made evident in his failed bid for the Democratic nomination in 1980 against incumbent President Jimmy Carter. Senator Kennedy served in the Senate honorably and as a statesman through the remainder of his years, until his death from cancer in 2009.
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