OPA and GOP
December 27, 1943. If you take the reputation he has in some circles as a standard, Wheeler has no right to be such a likable man, or such a capable man, or such a keen man. Nonetheless he is all three and no honest observer can deny it. I am getting to like him personally as well as anybody I have met in the Senate.
This morning he wanted to unburden himself about Ed Johnson’s statement that the invasion forces will be composed 73 per cent of Americans, 27 per cent of British. The Senator doesn’t like it, and with his unfailing skill at turning the knife in the wound, has seized upon it as one more lever against the British. It also gives him a chance to hit Roosevelt, something he enjoys doing. His comments on the election are interesting and more than a little pessimistic of Democratic chances. “Why, hell, the people won’t stand for this nonsense, that’s all. They won’t stand for it.”
Subsequently I talked to White, not having anything much to take up his time about, but just to get acquainted. As I expected, he pinned various suggestions for comment right down to the specific. Friendly, colloquial, and as New England as they come, the little man from Maine is a nice fellow.
I also saw Senator Caraway, a brief but interesting visit. “All I do is answer letters,” she told me with a deprecating, noncommittal smile. So far it seems to have paid off at the polls.
After lunch I dropped in on O’Mahoney and after yanking and hauling to get something out of him, and taking a good deal of abrupt but good-natured bullying before he would condescend to say anything, finally got something on the insurance bill. After I got it all down he made me dictate it to his secretary and had her give it to AP. They tell me this is characteristic.
I wound up the day with a brief, cordial, unproductive call on Henry Cabot Lodge, who refused like O’Mahoney to say anything on the invasion percentages and told me once more that he doesn’t know anything now that he is here in the government. All very friendly and jolly, “drop in any time when you haven’t anything better to do,” but no news.
December 28, 1943. Today I met Clyde Reed of Kansas, a white-haired old man with prominent eyes, a belligerent chin, and very positive opinions on practically everything. The occasion was a meeting called by the Kansas delegation to try to get the Office of Price Administration to declare a 10-day holiday on ration points for pork in order to relieve a temporary surplus. Ed Johnson was for it, and Reed, and Bill Langer, and Eugene Millikin of Colorado, a very bald, plain man with prominent dark eyes, a wide generous mouth, and a lot of intelligence; and mousy little old John Thomas of Idaho; and, although he had some trouble getting the drift, Arthur Capper of Kansas. O’Mahoney was against it and proceeded to put on his usual pyrotechnic display of cross-examination, eliciting a lot of answers in opposition to the plan from the OPA and War Food Administration men who were present.
Capper is a dried-up, frail old man, a living shadow, very deaf, who listens with the intense concentration of the aged, one hand cupped behind his ear and a strained expression on his face, breaking in from time to time with some hurrying, querulous question.
December 29, 1943. The railroads have been taken over by the government and the threatened strike has been called off. A great apathy is apparent on the Hill. After all that talk against government management, nobody gives a damn. I am beginning to wonder a little, in fact, just what they really do give a damn about—aside from Roosevelt, that is.
Concerning that gentleman, wild rumors circulate these days about deep dark Southern plots to do various things; the most fantastic, from a reliable source, being a wild dream about sending electors to the Electoral College who would confound the nation by switching their votes at the last moment, reversing the popular will (if Roosevelt were the popular will) and emerging with somebody else—surprise, surprise. Just how this could be done without revolution is not quite clear; unless, as somebody else suggested, the whole thing could be gotten into a tangle and tossed into the House where it could be managed with a fair show of legality and—perhaps—popular acceptance. All of which sounds like a marijuana jag but is an indication of the sort of gossip which is going around.
I dropped in on the farm-staters again today to get some more comments on the pork holiday and found a general undercurrent of feeling against the OPA. Reed, just leaving for Mrs. Bennett Champ Clark’s funeral, paused long enough to tell me that “We expect the OPA to cooperate. If it will not cooperate, we shall insist.” And John Thomas of Idaho said he “hoped OPA will see the light. If not, legislative action will follow.” Ed Johnson said he wanted to try the experiment of selling pork without ration points and didn’t think it would result in a wild scramble to get them taken off everything else. Millikin said frankly he thought it might, and indicated tacitly that he didn’t give a damn if it did. Ed Robertson of Wyoming, O’Mahoney’s quiet-spoken, Scotch-born colleague, said he didn’t have much hope of a ration holiday but didn’t see what good legislation would do, since the pork surplus won’t be a surplus in another three weeks anyway. Apparently he is really concerned only with the immediate issue: others are digging a grave for OPA. Over on the House side charges of OPA incompetency were being aired today, and the whole atmosphere promises trouble for the unhappy agency.
I also saw O’Mahoney again, to see if he had anything to say on the matter after his stout opposition to it yesterday, and with his usual contrariness he said no, he didn’t, and where did I get the idea he was against it? All he was doing was asking questions, trying to establish facts, trying to get at the basis for the thing. However, when he won’t talk he won’t, so I didn’t pester him about it but accepted instead another blast at the insurance industry.
December 30, 1943. Treaties and executive agreements occupied me today. Wallace White made a tentative suggestion the other day that it might be a good idea to study the whole subject and clear up the vagueness which surrounds it, and taking that as a lead, I dropped in to see him in the hope of getting something more definite. He was willing to talk, as always, and wound up by proposing that either Judiciary, Foreign Relations or a special committee named for the specific purpose be given the task of defining the two types of international arrangement. When he concluded, however, he aroused in me once more that rather exasperated wondering about the Senate’s constructive men, because he said, “Of course it would be simply advisory, just a suggestion expressing the sense of the Senate. It isn’t as though it would bind anybody to anything.”
Why not bind anybody? Why “just a suggestion”? Why not something more than “merely advisory”? Why is the Hill so reluctant to exercise its responsibility? Why are its worthy men so hesitant?
I doubt if I shall ever really find out.
From there I went on to see the round-faced, pink-cheeked, huskyvoiced Abe Murdock of Utah, who said he was all for an investigation and the passage of a Federal statute to settle the argument of treaty vs. executive agreement once and for all. We then got onto the anti-poll-tax bill, which he seemed to think will be brought up on the floor almost as soon as the new session starts. “I guess if they want to filibuster they won’t be able to filibuster all session,” he remarked with a grin. Carl Hatch, whom I saw next, was vague on that subject and refused to commit himself at all one way or the other. He regarded the proposed treaty study as “interesting but largely academic,” and repeatedly remarked that he sees “no possibility of a conflict between the Executive and Congress on the peace treaties.” No one else I have talked to has been quite so sanguine.
December 31, 1943. Admiral King says we are going to launch a big offensive against Japan in ’44 and Ed Johnson, Elbert Thomas and Owen Brewster were all willing to comment upon it. All three were pleased, the two Westerners particularly so.
Brewster of Maine is bald and friendly, intelligent and perceptive, with a quick, dry, rather ironic humor and a pleasant manner. He had some interesting things to say about MacArthur and the Presidency, and then got off onto the whole management of the South Pacific campaign. He made some good points, too, but like so much of the stuff one hears around here it was off the record and not for publication.
I heard today from a source one always associates with moral uprightness, purity and all things holy, that Huey Long was a great man “and will be honored.” He was not dangerous, my informant said with the gentle faith in the everlasting quality of American goodness which so noticeably distinguishes him, because “America would never stand for a dictator, or for anyone exceeding his authority.” The armed guards, the suppression of free comment, the raucous shame of the Louisiana legislature—all these were nothing in the mind of my philosophic friend. He knew Huey and Huey was a great man. It is the one quality in the Senator which occasionally makes one wonder a little about his practicality and essential responsibility. All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, and the evil men do, counter to the poet, is apparently interred with their bones.
January 2, 1944. OPA has added another 5-point ration bonus for pork to its list of propitiatory gestures toward the farm bloc, but whether it will do any good remains to be seen. Another meeting will be held Tuesday, and the pattern of future legislative policy toward the agency may become a little clearer then.
January 3, 1944. I had my first interview with Vandenberg this morning, very jolly, very cordial, very unproductive. One “no” right after another, with the big cigar poised in mid-air and the curiously little-boy smile on the big round face. I seemed to sense a terrific ego, but may have been mistaken.
I went over to the Court this noon and spent an interesting couple of hours. Last week I thought I could detect a fairly definite alignment of Douglas, Black, Jackson and Rutledge, but today everybody was going off in all directions, with concurring opinions, dissenting opinions and philosophic dissertations coming thick and fast. Douglas announced several of the majority opinions, speaking in a reasonable, rather dry tone. Frankfurter made his usual positive, didactic and coruscating statements, chiefly in dissent. Murphy, speaking in a gentle, low, reproachful voice like someone with the mental pouts, also found himself in frequent disagreement. Jackson, forceful, friendly, humorous, reasonable and logical, makes as effective and appealing a presentation as anyone on the Court.
January 4, 1944. O’Mahoney has smoked out the Court on the insurance matter. It seems Hatton Sumners, House Judiciary chairman, asked to be allowed to appear on behalf of the Southern Underwriters Association in the pending case, and the Senator, not to be outdone or miss a trick, promptly wrote asking to be allowed to appear for 30 minutes on the other side. The Court then went into a huddle, evidently decided the Wyoming wildcat would be too hot to handle, refused his application and told Judge Sumners today that they were sorry but he would have to withdraw his. The chances seem good that they will decide against the Association anyway, but apparently they didn’t want to turn the Court into a sounding board for a very shrewd in-fighter.
Bob La Follette, chubby-faced and earnest, was concerned today about the desperate food situation in Europe and gave me a good statement on it. He’s an idealistic and admirable soul, trying to hold with honest integrity to a position that is virtually untenable: the middle.
I dropped in on Clyde Reed this afternoon and talked about OPA and the price of wheat for a while. Another meeting of the farm group will be held Thursday, and I expect to attend. “We’ll educate you on this farm business,” he told me as I left, and I am glad of the chance to learn. Nothing I cover on the Hill bores me, for most of it is new and most of it is broadening. I regard this job, more than anything else, as an opportunity to learn. All the interests of America sooner or later center on this group of men. I am glad of the chance to find out what they are.
Reed is cantankerous, opinionated and able, and he certainly does work hard for his constituents. OPA, WFA and the Department of Agriculture all hear from him, I should judge, about 15 times a day. In that sense—in the sense of working for his people tirelessly and doggedly—he comes easily within the classification of a good Senator.
January 5, 1944. I should set down for the record some details of the great Battle of the Minority, now raging with intense undercover fury on the Republican side. Not since fraternity days at Stanford have I seen anything to match the devious Machiavellianism of this struggle for the leadership of 37 men.
Since I first heard about it the conflict has grown and expanded, with divisions and factions and groups and blocs springing up on every side. The key to it all, McNary, is apparently not going to return to the Senate for a long, long time, if ever. The chances of his full recovery from a recent operation for brain tumor are considered slight. He sent White a telegram yesterday telling him to carry on as he sees fit, thereby throwing the whole thing wide open. The issue now seems to lie between the Young Republicans and the Old Republicans, the latter being willing to accept White if he decides to continue as acting minority leader, or support him with their votes if he wants to throw the matter into caucus and run for permanent leader.
The young group, sparked by Kenneth Wherry, has been actively considering three men: Bridges, Taft and Danaher. Vandenberg has been a sort of uncertain dark horse, much as he is at national conventions, and much as he apparently is by nature. Styles Bridges of New Hampshire is in poor health and not too sure he wants the job. Taft has not definitely refused it and neither has Danaher. Taft has recently slipped from favor somewhat because of his proposals for compromise on the subsidy and soldier-vote issues. “Compromising Nelly,” the young bloods call him. What they want, Wherry says with that pugnacious look, chewing furiously on his lip, is somebody who will get in there and fight, show a little opposition, organize the Republicans into a really strong unit capable of Action. The nature of the action is apparently not specified, just so it’s action. The older group, and such parliamentarians as Danaher, conceive of the minority leadership as simply a sort of glorified legislative counsel. There is some talk of making Wherry minority whip if Bridges takes over.
All of this leads to a lot of secret meetings in various people’s offices, with Senators sidling surreptitiously down the halls of the Office Building and gliding into sequestered rooms to indulge their ambitions. Only secret panels and daggers dripping blood are absent from this picture. Wherry’s point is obvious, all right. The Republicans should do something constructive in the Senate and not continually oppose for opposition’s sake; and the coalition with the Southerners gives them overwhelming strength if they can get organized. This will all reach a head next week when everybody is back and the session has begun.
January 6, 1944. I walked along to work with White this morning, as I occasionally do when we both happen to take the same streetcar in, and he remarked rather wistfully that “the atmosphere we’re goin’ to be workin’ in from now on is the worst possible atmosphere in which to legislate. It’s an election year, and people say a great many things which are off the subject.” His own plans, and those of the minority, have not progressed much since yesterday, although it developed later on that Vandenberg, with Taft as whip, has suddenly spurted into the lead in off-the-record calculations. Way back in the beginning somewhere somebody had the idea that Taft would be leader with Wherry as whip.
I am coming to the conclusion that there is considerable to be said for Ken Wherry. All the things that people dislike about him—his blustering, his impatience, his didactic manner, his personality which at first rubs people the wrong way—still hold; but underneath them there is a certain dogged determination to keep slugging away at what he believes in, which is in its way quite admirable. He doesn’t give up, and while he is by no means the most tactful man in the Senate, there is a certain basic durability about him which is a good thing to have around. The quality is there, and if he espouses a cause he gives it everything he’s got. There’s a lot to be said for that, particularly where the rough-and-tumble is as rugged as it is up here.
The farm-state boys had it out with OPA again this afternoon, a long and occasionally impassioned set-to which culminated when Reed told the agency spokesmen bluntly that if they didn’t take action by the middle of the next week on the pork situation he would “introduce a resolution to take it out of your hands.” It was the first time I have seen a Congressional committee really go to work on a witness, and it’s quite a bloody business. Bit by bit they get him down until finally, although he may still be self-possessed and still keep his temper, he is quite definitely obliterated. It is a hard thing to spot the moment when this process begins—when the subtle change comes over a hearing and a man who has been standing up to them is suddenly on the run. But it is a very definite psychological transition, and nobody in the room is in any doubt that it has occurred.
January 7, 1944. White gave an embarrassed but friendly exposition of his position in the minority fight this morning. He says it puts him in a terrific spot, and so it does, of course. He also said they would probably hold a meeting early next week and decide what’s to be done. Apparently he isn’t going to force the issue if they want him out. Later on in the day I was up on the fourth floor of the Office Building talking to Harlan Bushfield of South Dakota about OPA when Vandenberg phoned and asked him if he intended to “come down for the meeting.” He said he’d be right down. Later we found out the meeting had consisted of Vandenberg, Bushfield and Wherry. Some sort of major compromise was apparently in the wind at that time. About 5 pm Bridges got back in town and promised to survey the situation. He said he was lukewarm about the leadership at first but wants it now if it will prevent certain more conservative elements from taking over. He may have made this decision too late, however. It looks increasingly probable that White will stay right where he is, simply because the minority split into two factions and then reached a deadlock, leaving him the only choice acceptable to both.
Bushfield, a tall, spare fellow with a long face and a mop of white hair, who strongly resembles Andrew Jackson, reduced the OPA fight to its basic terms for me this afternoon when he came out with the flat statement that rationing ought to be taken off everything. Wherry, with whom I had an amiable talk (or for whom, rather, I furnished an amiable audience while he emphasized his points with his usual candid vigor) didn’t go quite that far, but apparently wouldn’t be too sorry if it happened. Reed flailed out at “pig-headed bureaucratic theorists” with considerable indignation. And late in the afternoon, startling everybody, meek old John Thomas of Idaho suddenly issued a statement to the press in which he announced that he will introduce a resolution Monday “to remove meat rationing until thousands of tons of surplus pork, lamb and beef have been consumed.”
This whole squabble is one more example of the tactlessness and stubbornness of the administrative agencies. They would lose nothing by tacking with the wind occasionally, and might gain immensely in prestige and influence on the Hill. But no, absolutely not. Somebody in Congress challenges a pet theory, and just because it is a pet theory—and just because it’s somebody in Congress—bango! Their backs stiffen, their hackles rise, and they prepare to fight it out on this line if it takes all winter. They happen to be outnumbered in the campaigns this year will see conducted.
I also talked with George Aiken of Vermont, who is an awfully nice fellow, quiet and friendly and humorous, with a slow, crisp New England drawl and a dry New England twinkle. As one might expect from his manner and his fine, thoughtful head, his words were words of moderation and the things he had to suggest were constructive. It’s too bad he doesn’t carry more weight than he does on the floor, but he’s such a maverick that his fellow Republicans usually regard him with more concern than approval. This bothers him extremely little, for he is a New Englander secure in his convictions as only a New Englander can be. He’s George Aiken, and this is how he feels about things, and if the rest of the world doesn’t like it, they can lump it. It is no wonder the more conservative are annoyed.
I have now had two of the Senators who may be considered leaders of the internationalist group tell me that they are convinced a postwar reaction is inevitable and that “this foreign policy fight isn’t settled by any means.” They don’t talk that way for publication, they say, because they feel they have some responsibility toward keeping up public hope. But that is what they think.
January 8, 1944. The latest minority plan is now this: the Republican Conference, abandoned in 1935 when GOP representation in the Senate sank to 16, is to be revived with Vandenberg as chairman, Taft as whip, White to remain as acting minority leader and conference secretary. This is apparently a proposal to have your cake and eat it too, since it saves White’s face, gives him some power, and still eases Taft and Vandenberg into influential spots. It is this proposed combine more than anything else that will probably kill it off unless it can be forced on the younger group by sheer weight of votes. They could stomach Taft alone or Vandenberg alone, they say, but by God they can’t stomach both of them together. Consequently they plan to hold a meeting tomorrow and again on Wednesday to try to work out an alternate slate.
White is not entirely inactive himself these days. He turns up in the Office Building cafeteria eating lunch with various Republican Senators, and yesterday he stood outside the door having a long, earnest confab with Joe Ball. It looked like nothing so much as an earnest little terrier talking to a great big scowling St. Bernard. Ball did not seem overly impressed with White’s logic, although the discussion remained on an amiable plane.
The OPA row continues to rumble. Thomas of Idaho has released the text of his resolution, which if passed will remove meat rationing until such time as the War Food Administration and the Price Administrator certify that the surpluses have been used up. Bushfield and Millikin are apparently the only ones who favor an outright end to everything. Both Ed Johnson and Clyde Reed told me with considerable sincerity that they regretted that the issue had reached a deadlock in which legislation is apparently the only way out. Both expressed disappointment at having to meddle in an administrative matter. I used to have the impression from statements in the press that Congress didn’t want to yield its powers to the Executive. I am beginning to perceive that on the contrary the Constitution is very strictly interpreted in the Senate. They set the policy and then it’s up to the Executive. Until, that is, the Executive begins to step on their constituents’ toes, when a new interpretation is promptly handed down.
Which after all is what they’re here for, and there’s nothing wrong in that.
January 9, 1944. Tomorrow the session begins, and there is some talk that Roosevelt may put his State of the Union address off until next week because of a case of grippe. Everybody hopes not, for the effect would inevitably be to slow things up all around.
This week Thomas will introduce his OPA resolution, Lucas and Green will put in another soldier-vote bill, the tax bill will probably reach the floor, and the Gillette-Taft resolution on feeding the Europeans will probably also be considered. Also various incidentals, such as Presidential prospects and what one party thinks of the other.
January 10, 1944. It took the Senate about 35 minutes to reconvene formally this afternoon. Walter George of Georgia made a short statement asking unanimous consent to suspend the rules and take up the tax bill immediately, and later on, riding over in the subway, I heard him tell Bob Reynolds, more red-faced than ever from his Florida holiday, that he expects to get it out of the way in about two weeks of debate.
Apparently the OPA resolution, the Green-Lucas bill, and the new soldier-vote compromise that Austin and Lodge have suddenly concocted together, will all be introduced tomorrow. The President is going to send up his State of the Union speech and then go on the air tomorrow night. What this peculiar strategy means nobody on the Hill can quite figure out—unless, as one reporter put it, “Maybe he’s afraid to come up here this year.” How valid that is no one knows, but it is possible that he would rather skip the obvious hostility which the Republicans—and a good many Democrats—would evince were he to appear in person. Anyway, it spoils what promised to be a good show.
This afternoon we sounded out the Eastland-McKellar-McClellan crowd on the soldier-vote bill. James Eastland of Mississippi, a youthful, round-faced, slow-talking gentleman with a deep devotion to the Constitution and States Rights, was cagy and obdurate but did tell me they are planning a meeting to organize strategy later in the week. McKellar isn’t back in town, so I wasn’t able to get his particular version. McClellan of Arkansas, a dark good-looking gentleman with restless yet candid eyes, was reasonable in his approach to the problem and also frank in his offthe-record remarks. Portly John Overton of Louisiana said he felt the Senate was through with the matter, and in any case anything that attempted to remove the poll tax was absolutely unconstitutional and he would fight it. Rufus Holman of Oregon, whom I had never met before in my life, greeted me with a wild cry of, “Come in, Brother!” and carried on from there in a fashion that brought me closer to laughing in his face than I have come with anyone here.
Late in the day White announced that he is calling a formal conference of the Republicans for Thursday morning. The meetings planned for Sunday and tonight by the young group have been called off. Apparently they are giving up their fight for Bridges, and apparently also there is some division in their own ranks. There seems to be some criticism of Bridges because he didn’t stay around to help them but went off to New York to indulge in his favorite pastime of criticizing the Soviet Union.
Thoughts of a United States Senator on the soldier vote:
“I’m as much for soldiers voting as the next man. Roosevelt says we’re letting the soldiers down. Why, God damn him. The rest of us have boys who go into the Army and Navy as privates and ordinary seamen and dig latrines and swab decks and his scamps go in as lieutenant colonels and majors and lieutenants and spend their off time getting medals in Hollywood. Letting the soldiers down! Why, that son of a bitch. I took my oath to defend the Constitution of the United States and that’s what I’m going to do, and any son of a bitch who proposes a soldier-vote bill has got to take that into account. Who’s proposing this thing, anyway? Why, it’s Mr. Lucas of Illinois, product of the Kelly-Nash machine of Chicago, that sinkhole of the nation; and Mr. Guffey of Pennsylvania, that noble soul whose election wouldn’t have happened at all if it hadn’t been for that God-damned Roosevelt and his WPA relief rolls; and Dear Alben. These three great statesmen, these three fine gentlemen, are asking us to set aside the Constitution ‘because of an emergency.’ And then we’re ‘letting the soldiers down’ when we refuse, are we? Why, those bastards! Just a bunch of political thimble-riggers, that’s what they are, them and that—that—that—man in the White House!”
Thoughts of another United States Senator on the 1944 election:
“If Roosevelt runs I’m going to vote for him, but of course I’m against a fourth term.”
Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
January 11, 1944. White has suddenly called off the Republican meeting slated for Thursday and now says it will “probably” be held next Monday. Corridor gossip hasn’t any very good explanation for this, although it would seem to many to indicate a progressive strengthening of the Old Guard and the ultimate collapse of the young bloods. Taft and Wherry got together for quite a while on the floor this afternoon. Taft, in fact, was chatting with a number of his critics on the Republican side, obviously a little embarrassed and ill at ease but managing to carry it off pretty well even with people like Bushfield, who were not overly warm.
Lucas and Green put in their version of a soldier-vote bill this afternoon, as did Lodge and Austin. Thomas of Idaho, shaking and nervous, finally got the floor to introduce his OPA resolution, after bobbing up and sinking back a dozen times as more agile members caught the Chair’s eye.
The President’s message was read by the Clerk soon after the session opened: a mild, reasonably constructive statement which advocated “national service” legislation that would, in effect, draft everyone, civilian as well as military. A cooing paean of praise from the Democratic side was only shattered by Ed Johnson who remarked bluntly that national service looked like national conscription to him and he was against it. Whatever the validity of his stand, at least it sounded sincere. No one else’s did. Apparently no one else’s was, either, for three hours later, in the first Administration test of the new session, the Senate voted 48 to 17 to freeze social security taxes for another year. So much for the deep, sincere, overwhelming love for Roosevelt evinced in the after-speech comment.
Austin promptly put in a revised version of his national service bill, a package of potentially totalitarian dynamite which seems rather incongruous when taken in conjunction with his deliberate, earnest, goodhearted intelligence and faint but likable pomposity. They say he knows what he is doing, and I know he is sincerely behind his bill, but it seems like a lot of explosive to leave lying around loose. In any case, however, it seems unlikely that it will ever pass.
I had occasion to talk to Tydings and Chavez today. Tydings made the same good impression close up that he does on the floor. His ideas are generally sound, his approach is intelligent. Chavez is a type most Californians are familiar with: very cordial, very polite, very cooperative—and completely elusive, uncommunicative and inscrutable. Uncommunicative in his case has nothing to do with the amount of talking he does, either. It is a condition more subtle than that.
January 12, 1944. I spent the morning in the Military Affairs Committee room today, covering a meeting on the Austin national service bill which started out to be executive and then was switched to an open meeting by Chairman Bob Reynolds. Lodge, Revercomb, Sheridan Downey of California, George Wilson of Iowa, Holman, and Elbert Thomas of Utah were there. Prior to the meeting a lot of amiable chitchat went back and forth between Reynolds, who is a pretty likable character of a certain fulsome Southern school, and Lodge. “What’s new, Bob?” Lodge asked him. “Nothin’ much, Henreh,” he replied, “’cept they’s a lot uh pressuh bein’ brawt to beah to make me run agin.” Everybody laughed and he added with a chuckle, “Of coahse, Ah’m the wuhn who’se puttin’ on most of it, myse’f. Guess the on’y thing Ah can do ’bout it is bow to pressuh and run.” No one will be entirely surprised if this should turn out to be the case.
Holman asked Downey about Governor Earl Warren of California, and Downey gave a fair answer, praising Warren’s “excellent record” in public life and the “excellent job” he is doing as governor. Of course, he said, he didn’t want to give the Republicans advice, but they couldn’t get a stronger ticket than Dewey and Warren. Gossip here emphasizes that as the probable choice when the last tally is in.
Austin was on hand to defend his bill, and did a weak job of it before a skeptical and critical committee. The Senator is a nice fellow, capable and sound and usually very conservative, which makes his espousal of this strange proposition one of the major mysteries of the Hill. Nobody can quite understand it, unless he is really as sincerely convinced as he says he is that the bill would be administered in good faith and not become an instrument of official fascism. His colleagues back away from it like startled horses, however, none of them being quite so naïve about the uses to which emergency powers can be put. Their opposition was fully evident this morning, and later on in the day when we polled them on it the vote was overwhelming against the measure. Only Downey and Elbert Thomas took refuge in the President’s own doubletalk in which he made national service dependent upon four other measures. If they were passed, Downey and Thomas said, they would vote for national service, not otherwise. So much for the Military Affairs Committee, which Bob Reynolds says will not even report the bill out, let alone give it do-pass recommendation.
On the floor this afternoon the Senate whipped through all the committee amendments to the tax bill up to Title VII, renegotiation, which by mutual agreement was left for more extended debate tomorrow. Walter George did a smooth and able job of steering the bill, and Vandenberg made several brief statements which resembled his speech yesterday in that they were dull but excellent. He’s a thoroughly capable Senator.
January 13, 1944. The liquor hearing resumed this morning, playing to a small gallery of casual tourists and bored reporters in the Caucus Room. A man from the California wine industry was the witness and received a pretty thorough going-over by Van Nuys, Ferguson and Murdock. Ferguson plows ahead like some great big shaggy bear with his questions, keeping one eye on the press table and exhibiting a very good nose for head-lines. “Sen. Homer Ferguson (R., Mich.) charged today …” is a standard lead where he is concerned. He gets hold of something and worries it like a dog with a rag until he has extracted a sensation from it, whereupon he gives us an innocently pleased smile and settles back in his chair content. Fred Van Nuys has a low boiling point and is quite apt to grow indignant in a hurry when somebody displeases him, shaking and quivering, his face growing redder, his voice rising, rolling his head back and glaring through the bottom of his glasses. The husky-voiced, round-faced Murdock, looking pink, earnest and well-fed, has a habit of asking the witness innocently, “Now, wouldn’t it be a fair conclusion to say—” and then going on into something which is by no means a fair conclusion and usually leaves the witness stunned, annoyed and/or flabbergasted. The Senator is a good man in an investigation—innocent, bland, astute and deadly.
The Republicans got together in the Senate restaurant for breakfast this morning, but so far haven’t reported any great progress from it. A story is going the rounds concerning the faux pas of one of the younger group. It seems he went down to Vandenberg’s office the other day to persuade him to get behind Taft for minority leader. “Senator,” he began, “we’re thinking about putting in a new minority leader.…” The great Van held up his hand, and across his huge round face came the beaming little-boy smile. “Why, thank you, Senator,” he said in his heavy, hearty voice. “I’ll be delighted to serve.” Whereupon the other, so the story goes, beat a strategic retreat in some confusion.
January 14, 1944. Fourteen members of the Privileges and Elections Committee were on hand this morning to hear Lodge and Lucas defend their particular compromise versions of the soldier-vote bill. The gentleman whose name, always used in full, has even more of a resounding ring than Lodge’s—Theodore Francis Green of Rhode Island—was in the chair, looking like a pleasant leftover from the Nineties with his walrus mustache, his sharp-boned face with its sharp shaft of nose, his scholarly eyes and kindly expression, his dignified schoolteacherly way of speaking, his long coat, and his busy, shuffling walk. Austin was there to help Lodge when the going got rough. The quiet, pleasant lawyer, George Wilson of Iowa; Chapman Revercomb, stocky of body, handsome of face, liquid of voice; Murdock; Moore; tall, bright-smiling Jim Mead of New York; Tom Connally; fair, decent Tunnell of Delaware were also there. The handsome Mr. Lucas, with his powerful face which so easily becomes sarcastic, his light voice, and his unhesitating willingness to scrap rational argument at the drop of a hat and get down to personalities, tarried long enough to argue with Lodge for a while and then departed. On the whole, the session was productive of a good deal of intelligent study. Apparently the initial burst of suspicion against the Administration has dissipated somewhat and Senators are now ready to work out some practical compromise. Murdock told Lodge sharply, and with what seemed honest indignation, that he was “shocked” that Lodge’s bill does away with the Green-Lucas provision canceling the poll tax for overseas servicemen. “I thought you agreed with me on that,” said Abe in a reproachful voice. Lodge hastened to assure him at some length that he did, but that the difficulty apparently lay with Southern Senators who were afraid of states’ rights being violated. Abe did not seem satisfied. Connally furnished several laughs, one of them coming when someone said something about “swallowing our oath to defend the Constitution to permit certain wartime necessities.” “Swallerin’ our oath!” Connally exclaimed. “Some of us have done so much swallerin’ of our oath our throats are slick from it.”
During debate in the afternoon Tydings introduced still another compromise proposal on the difficult issue. The good intentions are there, anyway.
The afternoon was largely dominated by Republicans, who did not put it to very good use. Bushfield made a long attack on subsidies—“a message of great bipartisan appeal,” as we remarked in the Press Gallery when the entire Democratic side got up pointedly and walked out. Then Bridges took over and attacked official secrecy on the Cairo and Teheran conferences. A few Democrats drifted back; Connally challenged Bridges’ obvious suspicion of the President. “Don’t you believe the President’s statement that there weren’t any commitments?” he demanded. Bridges hedged and the decision, technically, went to Connally.
January 15, 1944. I had a pleasant visit in the State Department this morning with a friend of mine who has the typical downtown attitude toward the Hill. “Don’t you find most of them pretty decent, reasonable, capable men when you talk to them?” he asked. I said I did. “Then how do you explain the fact that when they get together they act like such damned fools?” He strongly criticized their lack of initiative, their buckpassing to the Administration, their refusal to enact obvious legislation to meet situations as they arrive—making out, in short, a good case for that particular point of view, which is very characteristic in the bureaus and departments. Some things, I was forced to admit, are indefensible, but the better I get to know them the more I am coming to see that there are very sound reasons, some practical, some just human, for most of the things they do. The number of times when they “act like such damned fools” is considerably smaller than their country thinks.
Aiken wanders lonely as a cloud these days, no more a Republican than he is a Democrat—an Agrarian Republican if anything, but not even definitely that. He is one of the Senate’s completely independent men, not having much in common with anybody. His opposition in Vermont seems to be dwindling, so he will probably come back all right. Fred Van Nuys at first wasn’t going to run but has now decided to, and is apparently heading into a stiff fight. Hattie Caraway may also run into competition, enough to snow her under, if J. William Fulbright from the House decides to go after her seat. Charles Tobey of New Hampshire is under fire from the Willkieites, which may or may not affect him adversely. Scott Lucas says that he thinks he is licked already and so is going to do as he damn well pleases. For one with so much avowed independence he is nonetheless sticking close to the White House. Bob Reynolds has taken himself out of the North Carolina race. Cotton Ed will probably run again in South Carolina, although 80. Barkley’s opposition has not developed as yet, but with Kentucky as much a variable as it is this year, it undoubtedly will. Taft started on New Year’s Day organizing Taft-for-Senator Clubs, and is going ahead developing a campaign that will probably be blessed with success.
January 17, 1944. Clyde Reed put on one of his one-man shows in committee this morning, complete with all the elements one associates with such a performance—the heavy-handed sarcasm, the violent indignation against “you boys downtown,” the portentous manner, the constantly reiterated “In my humble opinion—” (“Yes, I’ve often seen how humble you are,” Judge Marvin Jones, the principal witness, remarked drily), the constant references to “my long experience in this field.” The issue this morning was the War Food Administration’s order taking 200 boxcars out of domestic traffic and diverting them to the Canadian run to bring in an estimated 40,000,000 bushels of wheat by April 1. Jones, War Food Administrator, made a very good presentation of his reasons for the order and was repeatedly interrupted by Reed. Time and again the Senator shut him up with scant courtesy. The judge kept his head and his temper and emerged the victor, at least in the eyes of the press. There was more talk of “putting in a resolution to take the power away from you,” and the stuffy, crowded old Interstate Commerce Committee room resounded with dark Senatorial threats of retribution which no one took very seriously, not even those who made them.
This afternoon on the floor the Senate devoted some four and a half hours to a debate on oleomargarine versus butter. All the dairy boys went to town on this one, with Aiken and Wiley carrying the ball for the butter league, and even Bob La Follette helping out. Maybank and Eastland put on a brave fight for the other side, but it did them no good. Their amendment to the tax bill, which would have removed the 10-cent tax on colored oleo, was defeated 55 to 23. The handsome Maybank, his sharp-featured face uneasy and his distinctive Charleston accent at its most excited, got suppressed as he usually does. He gives an impression of being honest, rather naïve, and desperately in earnest about everything he says. A scion of the Carolina aristocracy, there is no one in the Senate more courtly and pleasant than he.
O’Daniel blandly got up and put in an amendment to have the Federal government pay the poll taxes for all overseas servicemen, explaining frankly that the Texas attorney general has ruled that Texans in service must pay theirs by February 1. Tobey pounced on this immediately and asked bluntly why the Texas legislature shouldn’t pay them. Superior logic and violent New Hampshire indignation delivered in Tobey’s machine-gun diction resulted in Pappy’s defeat. But it was a grand idea, all right, and his manner in presenting it was full of dignified tolerance and sweet, innocent reason.
Langer delivered himself of a 57-page diatribe on Willkie, Hopkins, the 1940 Republican Convention, and the shortcomings of the current President, starting shortly after 4 and running to 6:20 pm. During the last 45 minutes only game little White remained in the empty chamber to hear the fearful North Dakotan rave and roar.
January 18, 1944. The hearings on the shortage of boxcars in the grain belt wound up today. Reed and the able Wheeler were on hand to bring them to a close. After it was all over the Senators called us in for a press conference. The gist of it was another threatened resolution, which will be introduced if the order diverting 200 cars to Canada is not rescinded. Reed emphasized again how much the Senate hates to legislate on administrative detail. The hearing this morning was tiresome in several respects, not the least of them being the violence with which all concerned damned the Administration. There is such a thing as overdoing it, and it certainly occurred today. “I don’t always like to be jumping on these bureaus downtown—” Wheeler began. “The hell you don’t,” Reed chuckled amiably. After a while, however, it became neither instructive nor funny.
OPA has apparently decided to trim its sails to suit the prevailing wind, and has come forth with an announcement releasing ration points to help ease the pork situation. This should take the props out from under all but the most rabid of its critics.
This afternoon, having settled the oleomargarine question yesterday, the Senate got around to labor. This is a touchy subject still on Capitol Hill, and it was done for the most part in doubletalk, with the notable exception of Josiah Bailey, who whatever his principles at least had the guts to speak them honestly. The issue that brought it up was a provision requiring charitable organizations to file—but not pay—income-tax returns. Bennett Champ Clark of Missouri opened the debate, his portly body and contentious, critic’s voice being thrown wholeheartedly into the fray. He made a flamboyant plea for the poor harassed labor unions and farm cooperatives, which never before filed a tax return and now were going to have to, at God knows what cost in mental anguish to themselves. The mention of farm cooperatives immediately elicited support that Bennett Champ evidently didn’t expect, but as soon as Aiken and La Follette got behind it he gracefully forgot labor unions and concentrated his ammunition on the farm angle. Brewster and Francis Maloney of Connecticut, who is also a contentious and able critic, kept close to labor. Walter George felt so deeply about it that he put on quite a forensic exhibition, the first time I have heard him raise his voice since the tax bill came to the floor. Even Chavez got aroused, arguing for the filing of returns. When it was put to a vote, Clark’s motion to strike the filing requirement failed 43 to 34. As far as practical value is concerned, as Taft pointed out scornfully, no information will be given the Treasury which it can’t already get under existing law, and as La Follette also stated, in any case the returns are confidential and nobody will ever hear about them anyway. There may be a psychological value, however.
Josiah Bailey seems to show no signs of the manner in which some other Southern spokesmen are bowing low to the inevitable on the fourth term. The President has had the Southern governors up here for the past couple of days entertaining them royally. In the papers this morning it began to bear fruit. Roosevelt, it seems, is the only man for 1944, and the South will go along. Governor J. Melville Broughton of North Carolina did admit that there was “some ferment” in his state, and apparently the good Josiah bespeaks it. He does it well.
It seems Scott Lucas and Tom Connally were in the Senator’s barbershop the other day. “Been home, Scott?” Tom asked. “Yep,” Lucas replied. “Everybody mad out there?” Tom asked. “They tell me there’s one man somewhere in the state who isn’t,” Lucas said, “but so far they haven’t been able to find him.” When a nearby Republican laughed, Tom demanded, “What you laughin’ for? I guess you Republicans are goin’ to have quite a little difficulty naming your man for the Presidency. Now you take us, our problem’s already been decided for us.”
And then there were the two Democratic Senators listening to the Clerk read the President’s State of the Union speech last week. One of them turned to the other. “You know,” he said, “if you or I made that speech people would say it was a damned demagogic address.” “Well, hell,” replied the other promptly, “that’s just what it is.”
January 19, 1944. There are few things, I am beginning to conclude, as monumental as the patience of a good United States Senator. Ferguson, Kilgore and Murdock were confronted with a representative of the OPA beverage branch during the liquor hearing today and managed, somehow, to keep their tempers and their patience. It was a notable triumph. The man squirmed and evaded and procrastinated and equivocated and qualified and sidestepped and weaseled until it seemed that everyone would reach the breaking point and let him have it. You simply cannot get a straight answer out of some of these subordinate government witnesses—it almost seems that some fiendish personnel supervisor has deliberately picked them for their inability to be frank. They are all in deathly fear of their superiors, for one thing. Add to that a congenital inability to cooperate with the Hill (Clyde Reed has a certain point in his constant charges that the boys downtown just won’t do anything the Hill wants them to) and you have a sad situation. It is rather pathetic, in a way, to see men so worried about what the men higher up will think. It provides a disturbing spotlight reaching down into the murky depths where the government politicians swim. There is one thing the Senate ought to investigate sometime—although of course it could never get any honest information on it—and that is the administrative fascism which makes the agency men so terrified that they will lose their jobs if they tell the truth.
As for the liquor hearing itself, it is turning into an endurance contest, a sort of glorified marathon in which all concerned are beginning to get groggy. The same evidence is being presented by successive witnesses, a general lack of purpose and plan is evident. Van Nuys’ crusade against the industry is beginning to peter out. Even Ida B. Wise Smith of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union has decided to pass it up.
Late in the morning I stopped in the Military Affairs Committee to hear Stimson and Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson testify in favor of the national service bill to create a civilian as well as military draft. Like everyone else they weakened their case immediately by urging the bill’s passage and then promptly adding that of course it would be “just a psychological weapon and of no practical value” (in which case, why pass it?)—but the occasion was of interest because they were there. Stimson is an obviously old man, with a little mustache over a little mouth, pink cheeks, infinitely tired eyes, and a lifeless old man’s voice, muffled and hard to hear. The impression he gives is of a man too old to carry the burdens of an exacting office. Patterson has close-cropped hair and a long face with deep, severe, monastic lines yet a somehow pleasant expression. He seems to be a very intelligent and efficient man; a trifle cold and impatient, perhaps, but able. Elbert Thomas, despite his earlier equivocations which seemed to indicate that he might support the bill, carried the ball against it. O’Mahoney was also critical.
January 20, 1944. Ida B. Wise Smith fooled us. Tiny, bright, perky, 72 years old and an expert in the expression of spontaneous emotion, she turned up before the liquor hearing this morning to furnish an hour’s entertainment. The list of things Ida B. Wise Smith represents is rather long. Besides the WCTU it includes the American home, womanhood, motherhood, the armed forces, the future health of the nation, our future citizens, the sanctity of marriage, and the Forces of Good as contrasted with the Forces of Evil. Midway in a rather monotonous reading from various liquor-trade magazines she suddenly stopped and cried, “Oh! If you gentlemen could only know what the liquor industry is doing to our fine, brave boys in the armed forces! If you could only know—” Her voice trembled, the tears came into her eyes, she clutched wildly at the air for a handkerchief, which was swiftly placed in her hand by a secretary. For a moment, overcome, she stood choked and speechless before the startled committee. Finally with a valiant effort she recovered and went on.
At 12:15 this afternoon the President of Venezuela arrived on the floor amid polite applause from a standing Senate and galleries, was led to the rostrum by Barkley, Connally, White and Henrik Shipstead of Minnesota, and made a 10-minute speech in lightning Spanish. There was more applause and more standing and the President left. His speech, of which we were furnished the translation, was pious, platitudinous, and delivered in the same spirit in which all our Latin cousins address us. His skin was sufficiently white that Southern Senators remained in their seats while he spoke. They say in the Press Gallery that when Elie Lescot of Haiti addressed the Senate, they all got up pointedly and walked out.
Promptly after the Venezuelan had departed, Hugh Butler got the floor to make his own type of Good Neighborly gesture, giving a second report on Latin American expenditures which put the figure around $5,900,000,000. McKellar sat a couple of desks away and listened intently, making a few challenges but not embarking upon any extended debate. So far there has been no indication that he will make another formal reply.
Following that, Barkley arose to tell his colleagues what a good job the New Deal has done for the past 11 years, and shortly after 3 o’clock the Senate recessed without having accomplished very much on the tax bill, although both the Banking and Currency Committee and the Privileges and Elections Committee laid the groundwork for the future by reporting the Bankhead farm-subsidy bill and the new Lucas-Green soldier-vote bill. In both cases the committees confessed frankly that they could not devise an acceptable substitute and so were deliberately throwing the issues onto the floor to be fought out there. The Bankhead bill would in effect do away with all subsidies save a very select few. Tydings, Lodge and Austin withdrew their soldier-vote bills in deference to Green and Lucas.
The Republicans settled their differences this morning, at least temporarily, by formally electing White as acting minority leader, and setting up a five-man committee to “study Republican needs in the Senate.” White told the press that they were “getting ready to take over the Senate,” and it may well be that he is not so far wrong. After all the hurrying and scurrying, the Battle of the Minority has petered out in a very minor engagement, and as many had expected, too much factionalism has resulted in the retention of the man who already held the job.