NEBRASKA: Sheep and Goat

Last week Franklin Roosevelt demonstrated that he, no less than Al Smith, Jim Reed and Joe Ely, was ready to put Principle above Party. Into Nebraska went the Democratic President to stump for a longtime Republican running for reelection to the Senate against a regularly chosen Democratic nominee.

“George Norris’ candidacy transcends State and Party lines,” cried the President from an Omaha platform. “In our national history we have few elder statesmen who, like him, have preserved the aspirations of youth as they accumulated the wisdom of years. He is one of the major prophets of America. Help this great American to continue a historic career of service.”

Thus boldly Franklin Roosevelt set out to ride the whirlwind which this year has blown Nebraska’s party lines into the craziest political pattern in the U. S. Characteristic was the discovery of a roving New York Times correspondent who inquired last week into the political sentiments of some of Senator Norris’ supporters, quickly uncovered an anti-Roosevelt Democrat, an anti-Landon Republican.

The party scramble began last summer when 75-year-old George William Norris. veteran of ten years in the House and 24 in the Senate, announced his desire for retirement. Relieved were Nebraska’s regular Republicans to be thus rid of a man who, Republican in name only, had returned from Washington every six years to snatch their Senatorial nomination, disrupt their party ranks. Quickly and quietly they marshaled their forces, gave the Senatorial nomination to a longtime 100% Republican Representative, Robert G. Simmons, who had lost his House seat in the 1932 Democratic landslide.

Meantime Democrats were in uproar. They begged Republican Senator Norris, a stanch New Dealer who campaigned for Smith in 1928, for Roosevelt in 1932, to accept their nomination. When he refused, State Chairman James C. Quigley confidently filed for the nomination, announced that after winning it he would withdraw any time Senator Norris asked him to. Dazed and dejected were Democratic regulars when they counted their primary votes, discovered that a political cuckoo named Terry Carpenter had thrust himself into their nest with the combined support of Townsendites, Coughlinites, Share-Our-Wealthers and Germans grateful for a speech he once made in the U. S. House defending Adolf Hitler.

The Democratic State Convention refused to endorse Democratic Senatorial Nominee Carpenter. Chiefly because of him, Senator Edward Burke resigned as Democratic National Committeeman. Nominee Carpenter went to the National Convention in Philadelphia, could not even get in to see National Boss Farley. In Washington President Roosevelt politely received him, firmly informed him that he was first, last and always for Republican George Norris. In Nebraska 40,000 citizens nominated Senator Norris by petition, Democrats swung in behind him, and Nominee Carpenter was strongly urged to withdraw from the contest.

After these successive kicks downstairs, a lesser man might have concluded that he was not wanted at the party, gone dolefully away. Instead, tough Terry Carpenter got mad, vowed to give Senator Norris the first licking of his political life. He fully expected to be beaten, too, by Republican Simmons, but he would have a glorious revenge. Besides, it was good for business, which was the main reason he had gone into politics in the first place.

Round-faced, bespectacled and 36, Terry McGovern Carpenter had been an office boy, waiter, laborer and railroad clerk when he turned up in small Scottsbluff, Neb. some 15 years ago, started a cut-rate filling station. The big chains soon closed him up with a price war. later boosted their prices back to normal. “See what they’ve done now they’ve run me out!” cried Terry Carpenter in large newspaper advertisements, promising farmers rock-bottom prices if they would stick by him. Reopening, he soon had lines 200 cars long waiting to buy his gasoline.

From then on Terry Carpenter’s business grew & grew. He opened up more filling stations, finally built a refinery of his own. Around it, on a 17-acre patch which he named Terrytown, he set up a general store, a restaurant, a creamery, a liquor store. Last year in a town of 8,000 population, he did a $650,000 gross business, cleared $28,000. Six weeks ago he started a tabloid newspaper, The Daily Senator, which by last week was flourishing.

Terry Carpenter’s business secret is advertising and his best advertising has come from running for office. He started off with a losing race for mayor of Scottsbluff. In 1932 he decided to try for the Legislature as a Republican, was persuaded to try for Congress as a Democrat, beat Incumbent Simmons, his current Senatorial rival. “Being Congressman isn’t hard,” he declared toward the end of his term. “The pay’s good and the work’s easy. But for six years you’re just an apprentice.” Terry Carpenter thereupon announced for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination as a “Norris Democrat.” Losing to Robert L. Cochran, who was elected Governor, he opened his general store and discovered the second prime adjunct of his business success — the radio. Every day for two half hours he went on the air with homely, rapid-fire talks, mixing a little politics in with praise of his wares.

While business boomed, he developed the campaigning skill and the following which made him a formidable threat to George Norris. Terry Carpenter refers admiringly to his demagogic ability, is proud to be called a bush-league Huey Long. “I know I’m a political accident,” he declared recently, “but even if I lose in politics it still helps me in business.”

Having campaigned as a Norris admirer for so long, Terry Carpenter was last week directing most of his fire at the old Senator’s age. “Norris has had a great career,” he observed in his Daily Senator column, “The Senator Speaks,” “but his future is behind him.” On his own behalf the Democratic nominee was praising the New Deal, the Union Party, the Townsend Plan and Share-Our-Wealth with magnificent impartiality, bemoaning the run-around his party had given him and appealing to one & all for votes of sympathy.

Senator Norris, having demonstrated his youthful virility by plowing a field behind a four-horse team, was stumping the State at a great pace, making two or three speeches per day concerned more with Franklin Roosevelt’s candidacy than with his own. Republicans united and braced by the prospect that Carpenter might take enough votes to defeat the hitherto un beatable Norris, were campaigning as never before.

Because of his great popularity and prestige, most observers were playing George Norris as the favorite. But that he was having the fight of his life was indicated by the number of New Deal big wigs sent into Nebraska to help him.

Secretary Wallace and Senators Barkley and Black had preceded President Roosevelt; Secretary Ickes and Senators La Follette, Wheeler, Nye and Bone were to follow.

More than the aid of these outside sup porters, however, Norris partisans wanted the wholehearted support of Nebraska’s Mullen-Burke machine. Ruefully they remembered that Senator Burke had mentioned distaste for some New Deal measures when resigning from the National Committee, that President Roosevelt had forced State Democratic Boss Arthur Mullen off the National Committee two years ago because of his Washington lobbying activities. Last week, however. Franklin Roosevelt’s visit served to separate Nebraska’s New Deal sheep from its Democratic goats. On the platform with him at Omaha sat Senators Norris and Burke, Boss Mullen and Governor Cochran, who thus far in his campaign for re-election had hardly mentioned the New Deal.

No. 1 Goat Carpenter, who was not even invited to the Presidential train, had foresightedly bought tickets to the Nebraska-Minnesota football game at Minneapolis (see p. 72), announced he would rather go there anyway.