CAMPAIGN: By Acclamation

The thin man stood by the window, fingering a cigaret, inhaling smoke steadily in long, deep drags, his hot brown eyes staring across Michigan Boulevard’s river of traffic, across the concrete esplanade that bridges the railroad tracks, and out to the blue peace of Lake Michigan.

The thin man’s thoughtful eyes were tired, his scanty hair disordered on his pallid skull. His bony shoulders drooped like a weary farmer’s, his little paunch sagged in the baggy white trousers that flapped inches short of his ankles. Harry Hopkins was tired, but he was happy, happy as he could be. Constantly he smiled; often his short barking laugh broke out. The long, tortuous road to a Third Term was nearly past its next-to-last milestone; the Democratic Convention was being held in his bedroom.

The way to Harry Hopkins was well known to every Term III Democrat: it traversed the plush gloom and sombre elegance of the old red-brick Blackstone Hotel; down the red-carpeted marble corridors to a spacious sitting room of candy-striped chairs, a crystal chandelier, a plumed, bustled lady of the English Regency, framed in the pink-&-gilt fireplace, delicately offering all comers a symbolic prize—a prickly rose. In this room operated dapper young Vic Sholis, Hopkins’ secretary, and soft-spoken David K. Niles, the Janizariat’s undercover man, who engineered the biggest financial coup of the 1936 campaign by wangling $500,000 out of John L. Lewis’ United Mine Workers.

Off the sitting room was the real goal of the Democrats who trod the path of Term III, a tan-walled bedroom with green-spread twin beds, a screen, a telephone wire direct to the White House.

That very suite (308-09) was historic before Harry Hopkins’ advent: there, about 2 a.m. on the morning of June 12, 1920, a sweating, anxious group of G. O. P. Old Guardsmen had chosen to nominate romanesque Warren Gamaliel Harding, fulfilling Harry Daugherty’s prophecy and indelibly stamping into the language a special meaning for his phrase: “. . . smoke-filled room.”

Treading in such hallowed footsteps came the Democrats last week. Most frequent caller was Chicago’s Mayor Edward J. Kelly, smirking in gentle good will, nodding approval .as his gorilla-shaped bodyguards tipped photographers off-balance as fast as they could get set for a picture. Almost as often came bald Frank C. Walker, oldtime White House adviser, white-haired Leo Crowley, FDIC Chairman who became chairman of Standard Gas & Electric (and is the New Dealers’ 1942 hopeful for the Wisconsin Governorship); Jersey City’s high-collared Mayor Frank Hague; and a long procession of men who had been tentatively promised the Vice-Presidency.

Two men rushed in & out of the bedroom without knocking: South Carolina’s Senator Jimmy Byrnes, foxy, mellow, casual; Florida’s Senator Claude Pepper, the eloquent, scarlet-faced swamplands slicker—both 100%ers. Big & little Democrats came in hordes, some humble like San Antonio’s globular Maury Maverick (who came out saying “I didn’t sit down—a small-time politician like me wouldn’t dare”), some sardonic, like massive Federal Lender Jesse H. Jones, who lounged about, cracking hard Texas jokes, made no attempt to consult with the new Field Marshal of the Democratic Party.

100% or Nothing. The distinction that was made between these visitors was clear, deliberate, sometimes purposely cruel. Only 100% Roosevelt Democrats were welcome. The shock to party oldsters was frightful. Hundreds on hundreds of them went to Chicago personally acquainted with only one nationally-known Democrat, Jim Farley. Now they mobbed Big Jim in elevators, lobbies, on the street, stopping his car, clutching his hands, his clothes, asking him puzzled questions.

But what Jim Farley knew, he had pledged not to tell. And beyond that one thing he knew nothing. Scratching their heads, perplexed, anxious, the hordes went to the Hopkins headquarters. There they got rough treatment. Not a single post-Convention promise was made to them, and only one pledge was exacted from them : unquestioning obedience to the New Dealers.

By Monday night even the blindest party hack could see what had happened. For the first time since 1932 Franklin Roosevelt was in absolute command of the party he, had raised from a 15,000,000-vote low (1928) to a 27,000,000-vote top (1936). The purge that had failed in 1938 was being carried through in 1940. Two years ago Franklin Roosevelt had at last begun to carry out a pledge made to his intimates in 1932: to force the Democratic Party to become the liberal party of the U. S.

Many a delegate had no objection to this aim, but they had many an objection to Harry Hopkins. Still, it was Hopkins or nothing. Some got drunk, some went home (one of these was Virginia’s apple-cheeked apple grower, Senator Harry Flood Byrd). But most went around to Hopkins’ headquarters, there meekly, glumly, sadly or rebelliously surrendered. Over their heads the shrewd, cool Secretary of Commerce held one awful threat: one false move out of the Convention and your only candidate won’t run. Then where are you?

Griping, mutinous, sore, united only in the fear that the party would be left without its one big vote-getter, the professionals grumbled as they went to Chicago’s Stadium on the first night, to sit on the red-painted chairs in the vast arena, hear the old Hamlet of the House, Speaker William B. Bankhead, elocute his meandering way through half an hour of the corniest Southern oratory most of them had ever heard.

By the second day their discontent began to take an ugly turn. The delegates didn’t know what they were going to do, but were determined to do something. Harry Hopkins, conferring endlessly, smiled a satisfied smile. He was now certain of 900 delegates out of 1,100; John Nance Garner’s career heeded only a suitable monument; Montana’s Burton K. Wheeler had been bought off ten days before by a personal promise from Franklin Roosevelt that the foreign-policy plank would be as isolationist as Mr. Wheeler. Maryland’s Millard Tydings was stubborn but negligible.

There remained only big Jim Farley. What Harry Hopkins & Co. wanted was a real draft: nomination by actual acclamation. Failing this, the Janizariat wanted a nomination by apparent acclamation. But Mr. Farley stood solidly in the way, and no nomination opposed by the only Democrat beloved from end to end of the party could be made to seem unanimous.

Demonstrations. A quick stroke was decided on. At 4:20 p.m. E. S. T., the Convention actually began. Mr. Roosevelt told his press conference to listen to the radio that evening, as Kentucky’s Alben Barkley.would read the Convention a message from the White House. This was the first real news out of the Convention, and it came from Washington.

By 6:30 p.m. Columnist Robert Kintner and Newshawk Turner Catledge of the New York Times had seen the message. Word quickly spread—and by the time bumble-tumble Mr. Barkley began bellowing at 9 p.m. C. D. S. T., only galleryites and radio listeners wondered what he was going to say.

The Hopkins strategy was simple. Delay seemed to be growing dangerous, so, immediately after Barkley had read the Roosevelt message freeing his delegates, a mammoth demonstration would be staged, an ecstatic delegate primed to seize the microphone and move the nomination by acclamation, and the trick would be turned in the most convincing manner possible.

Mayor Kelly was ordered to set the stage. As a veteran Chicago politician. Boss Ed had his own ideas about “spontaneous” demonstrations. Leaving nothing to chance, he ordered “the works.” Plan was to bring in hundreds of placard-staves, to distribute hundreds of noisemakers (whistles, bells) to the galleries; one sitting band, one marching band and the pipe organ would contribute to the spontaneous ovation. To clinch matters, the loudest man in Chicago politics, Superintendent of Sewers Tom Garry (see p. 14), was stationed at the public-address system to give out with lots of voice.

But something happened: clumsy Alben Barkley dumbed it up by mentioning the magic name of Roosevelt after only the first 14 minutes of the address. With this first real chance to cheer, a horde of the delegates actually staged an honest demonstration, marching, blatting, screaming. Significantly the galleryites sat in bored silence; some of them even drifted away, knowing they could read about the President’s message in the newspapers. When this demonstration gave signs of faltering, the organist whipped the marchers on with Franklin D. Roosevelt Jones.

At last Chairman Barkley restored order by asking for a doctor: “A lady has been seriously injured!” The demonstration stopped immediately and the paunchy Kentuckian bellowed on with his speech.

Meantime the preparations went on in stealthy earnest. Wave after wave of cardboard banner signs, “Roosevelt and Humanity,” were brought in by Mayor Kelly’s tough-faced friends, who stood in the aisles.

Chairman Barkley subsided, turned away, waiting for the applause to stop. There was no applause. The bulbous Senator turned back, carefully read off the President’s words. At this point all hell was supposed to break loose. But most of the delegates stood pat in their places, staring anxiously at the panting, roaring marchers. Then Mr. Garry broke loose. As the noise died from time to time, good Mr. Barkley would shout into the microphone: “We want Roosevelt!” Thus encouraged, Mr. Garry redoubled his roars. Mayor Kelly beamed; a man sitting in his box shouted, “Hey, Ed, We Planned It That Way!” One & all thought this was the witticism of the evening.

On the platform, the National Committee Secretary, Lawrence Wood (“Chip”) Robert Jr., conspicuously avoided Big Jim Farley, his chief for four years. The demonstration ground mechanically on, Mr. Garry’s screams cross-hatching the other roars into a welter of crazy sound. Mr.

Barkley had another idea. As the noise waned, he roared: “Will the galleries remember they are our guests here and conduct themselves accordingly?” Galleryites, still quiet as mice, looked wonderingly at each other and went home en masse.

In the first demonstration had marched such men as Sumner Welles, Under Secretary of State, making his quadrennial obeisance to democracy, forcing a wan smile as the Kelly hoodlums crumpled his creases, his correct collar wilted and even askew. But the second demonstration was given over to the “muggs,” with a sprinkling of such earnest souls as Maury Maverick, Claude Pepper, Movie-Actor Melvyn Douglas (who hopes soon to be Governor of California), et al.

Next day the platform crept out, as forthright against sin as all platforms, and after New York’s Senator Robert A. Wagner had read the whole document through, the delegates knuckled down to their task. Taking no chances whatever, Hopkins & Co. had commandeered Senator Lister Hill of Alabama to nominate Franklin Roosevelt for Term III. Balding, melodramatic Senator Hill laid his ears back and bayed in a manner so floridly reminiscent of Civil War Days that editorials in Southern newspapers blushed for Southern shame for days afterward.

Then Hopkins & Co. encountered some thing they could not stop or divert. To the platform went a shrunken, tottery little oldster, 82-year-old Carter Glass of Virginia, a man of vinegar aspect, of high conviction, a man of law and principle, long since outmoded but steadfast in his faith in tradition’s rock.

At first, because the stout old bantam cock couldn’t reach the man-size micro phone, his gravelly voice grated away in a scratchy whisper for nearly a minute, to great choruses of boos and shouts of “louder!” from Mayor Kelly’s men. Then the P. A. operator lowered the microphone, and Glass’s hoarse whisper filled the stadium: “. . . An incomparable Democrat … a man on whose word every human being can always rely. . . . Thomas Jefferson. . . . Since I have been sitting on this platform I have had two anonymous communications objecting to Jim Farley because he is a Catholic. …”

For Jim Farley and Carter Glass came a genuine ovation, short and loud, but mixed with booing. Loyally the Farley-men stood up, waved banners. But Mayor Kelly’s organist was silent. The band forgot to play. In a moment the Farley “parade” was over.

Next a Baltimore delegate, Edward J. Colgan Jr., nominated Millard Tydings interminably, pausing at last to remark doggedly “… I have given you but a partial picture . . .” to a cacophony of heartfelt boos. For Tydings there was but one feeble cheer. Wright Moody, a ponderous grey-haired Texan, nominated John Nance Garner monotonously for what seemed like hours to the sleepy, hot delegates. More boos.

The Garner demonstration went doggedly around the hall once to the tune of The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You. Then bumblemaster Barkley announced portentously: “The roll call is concluded. The clerk will now call the roll.”

An hour and ten minutes later, at 1:38 a.m., Franklin Roosevelt had been nominated by the Democratic Party for a third term—it was a first time in U. S. history. The vote: Roosevelt 946½, Farley 72½, Garner 61, Tydings 9½. (In the Senate Office Building John Nance Garner stayed incommunicado for a week.

Then he and Mrs. Garner went to Union Station, the relics of 37 years of public jobholding in their trunks. Sam Rayburn said goodby, tears in his eyes. No one believed John Garner would ever come back.) In the closing moments Texas’ Sam Rayburn had withdrawn Garner’s name, Senator Tydings had withdrawn his own name in a statement that was like the slap of a barber’s cold towel, and big Jim Farley asked to be permitted to make a statement “without interruption.”

Said James Aloysius Farley, 52, the brickmaker’s boy from Grassy Point, N. Y.: now that he was assured that the Democratic Convention had been democratic, now that the delegates’ will had been registered, he moved that the rules be suspended and Mr. Roosevelt nominated “by acclamation.” The great hall shook with the roar for big Jim. “Chip” (“Chippie” to some of his acquaintances) Robert ostentatiously threw his arms around Farley, waving to the photographers to get the picture. To the tune of When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, the convention adjourned.

No. 2. There was one more river to cross. Seventeen men had been directly or indirectly promised the Vice-Presidency, or boosted for it, by some member of Hopkins & Co. These included: Cordell Hull, William B. Bankhead, James Byrnes. William O. Douglas, Robert H. Jackson, Louis Johnson, Henry A. Wallace, Culbert Olson, Lloyd C. Stark, Sam Rayburn, Jesse H. Jones. Scott Lucas. Paul V. McNutt, Charles Sawyer.

Now came the payoff. The Janizariat had plugged for Supreme Court Justice Douglas, whom they regard as the “killer” member of their group. But Franklin Roosevelt blithely ignored their wishes, personally selected Secretary Wallace—a man who has been anathema to the Janizariat since he first purged the Agriculture Department of Jerome Frank and other Corcoran men in 1935.

Hopkins obediently buckled to the task. The big machine leaders trooped in. were told what they had to do, wryly faced around and trooped out. But now the delegates—Democrats wha hae wi’ Wallace bled—were hopping mad. Eleanor Roosevelt, who had flown on to address the Convention, failed to calm them in a speech emphasizing the terrible burden of the Presidency in these times. On the floor Henry Wallace had no more than 50 personal votes. But candidate after candidate withdrew. One of them, tall ioo%er Senator Scott Lucas of Illinois, purged himself all the way out of the New Deal with an opening remark of eight significant words: “Had this been a free and open convention. . . .”

Only Speaker Bankhead, whose candidacy could not be serious, Henry Wallace and Paul McNutt were left in the race. It was McNutt’s chance—a chance to wreak doubly-sweet revenge on the New Dealers who knifed his Presidential candidacy.

Sweating, trembling, his face rock-graven, Paul McNutt stood on the platform, drawing the greatest ovation of the Convention; a starving man pushing food away. He drew a carefully typed statement from his pocket, began: “In the first place . . .” but the crowd shouted him down. Up & down the aisles strode Jimmy Byrnes, whispering angrily: “For God’s sake, do you want a President or a Vice President?” For Franklin Roosevelt had postponed his acceptance speech until the work of the Convention was done, i.e., until Wallace was nominated.

Finally McNutt was allowed to with draw. Yet even so, out of 1,100 votes, only 627 were cast for Wallace — a nearly 50% rebellion against the expressed will of the President.

Angrily, sourly, in grave disunion, the Convention adjourned. And in the swift days after the grunting delegates entrained for home, the effects showed as clearly as Mr. Roosevelt could have wished. Demo cratic lame ducks Holt of West Virginia and Burke of Nebraska announced for Wendell Willkie; so did Booth Tarkington, Irvin S. Cobb; so did the Louisiana sugar planters, and all the men who bolted Roosevelt in 1936.

The men who wanted a new streamlined Party thought this was perfectly satisfactory.