Soldier Vote: Conference
February 9, 1944. The national service law is still being worried around in committee. Austin insists on prolonging the agony, and apparently Bob Reynolds doesn’t want to cause any gratuitous bad feelings by refusing him. So the hearings drag on and on, bringing to the Hill one big name after another to deliver their insincere eulogies of a bill that lies dead at this moment on the committee table.
Today’s performer was Ambassador Joseph P. Grew, a tall, dignified man with an intelligent face, gray hair and a clipped gray mustache, candid, perceptive eyes and a general air of sincerity. The sincerity is apparently genuine, for he stuck to what he knew best—the nature of the Japanese—and avoided, except in the most general terms, the national service law. Austin tried to draw him out into the flamboyant exaggerations that characterized the Stimson testimony, but he was not to be drawn. Very polite, very courteous, very gentlemanly, agreeable but reserved: he said he was for the bill and let it go at that. No dire predictions, no maledictions and ominous threats, just a discussion of the Japs and how tough they are and what it will take to beat them. The only thing he had in common with those who have come up here before was the candid and baffling statement, “Of course we shall win the war whether this bill becomes law or not.” All this endless testimony we are hearing about why this bill is so all-fired imperative, and after it is all over, all that remains is the echo of a dozen different voices saying calmly, “Of course we shall win the war whether this bill becomes law or not.”
The mind of Warren R. Austin continues to baffle the press utterly. “Would this not be the most noble kind of democratic action?” he queried Grew about the most openly fascistic measure ever broached to the Congress. “Would it not be a great, dynamic expression of the people’s faith?” The amazing thing is that he means it. He is completely sincere. Whenever his colleagues back him into a corner he refers to “that higher law which is above the Constitution, that great, glorious expression of the unity of a free people united in the prosecution of the war.” All of which is so much noble nonsense when brought right down to the specific terms of a bill which would give the national government authority to pick a man up out of one job, set him down in another, uproot his home, break his union ties, force him, apparently at the point of a gun, to labor, and in effect place the country squarely in the hands of a military oligarchy. “There is no compulsion,” Austin cries. “There is no military law, there is no regimentation. No one will be forced to obey. It will be a great, voluntary cooperation. No one will be under military duress.” Judge Patterson, who spoke acridly about “being able to get labor when we want it and get things done without all this red tape and having to ask people for their cooperation,” had the grace to blush slightly when Austin said that. The men who run the War Department are nowhere near so innocent or so naïve as the Senator from Vermont. There are no illusions there about “great, voluntary cooperation.”
Bob Reynolds put in a few licks for the isolationist cause, asking Grew a series of loaded questions about the military situation before Pearl Harbor, the relative importance of Germany and Japan, and the wisdom of concentrating everything in the Pacific now that Germany is (he says, although the reports do not bear him out) on the run. Grew saw him coming every time and with neat grace stepped suavely aside. The question on our preparations before Pearl Harbor was typical. “You say that if we had been better prepared before Pearl Harbor we would probably not have had to fight a war in the Pacific?” Bob asked. “Yes, that is true,” Grew replied. “Now, who, in your opinion, was responsible for our not being prepared?” Bob wanted to know. “I am really not qualified to comment on that,” replied Grew gently. “I was in Japan at the time.” When he left Bob thanked him, with the little lines of sardonic humor around his prominent and encircled eyes which come and go when he has met his match. Grew responded gravely. They understood one another perfectly.
On the floor today Bankhead brought up his bill which will in effect kill the emergency farm-subsidy program with only a few exceptions for a handful of agricultural items. Debate was desultory until Maloney of Connecticut, a small, solid gentleman with a sharp face and the general appearance of a prosperous little businessman, offered an amendment to give the Commodity Credit Corporation $1,500,000,000 for the subsidy program. He put up a good defense of it, for he is forthright and very able, and along toward 5 it became apparent that it might reach a vote—something nobody had dared hope for so early in the debate. Walter George then arose and with his magnificent voice, which rolls down into the depths below the sea and then rises into majestic crescendo while the lightning streaks and the thunder blares, proceeded to call down the wrath of God on the whole subsidy program. It was an impressive speech—the Senator is a generally impressive man—and when it was over the vote snowed Maloney under 49–26; a tribute, so he told us later, to the histrionic ability and Biblical fervor of the senior Senator from Georgia. He had a tally sheet in his pocket which showed him with enough votes to carry the amendment, Maloney said, but the boys turned tail when it came time to vote and left him in the lurch. The indefatigable Taft has an amendment he will offer tomorrow, which reduces the subsidy program to $950,000,000 but still preserves much more of it than the Bankhead bill. He said privately tonight that he hasn’t got enough votes to carry it, either.
“Is this an Administration defeat?” somebody asked Barkley after the session.
“It sure isn’t any victory,” he replied with a chuckle.
All of which brought up once more the comment heard increasingly around the Press Gallery.
“How can he run again with this situation up here?”
No one can figure it.
February 10, 1944. Barkley and McKellar engaged in an amiable exchange today during an otherwise heated debate over the selection of conferees on the soldier-vote bill. Early in the debate Barkley made some reference to McKellar’s general wisdom and sagacity. McKellar, he said “came to the Congress when I was in short breeches.” After the debate ended, McKellar got the floor, and the following colloquy, as reported by the official reporter, took place:
“Mr. McKellar: ‘Some question was raised here about the ages of two Senators, I being one and the Senator from Kentucky being the other.
“‘The Senator from Kentucky made the astounding statement that when I was in the House of Representatives a good many years ago he was a boy in short breeches. I wish to read the biographical sketch of the Senator in the Congressional Directory. He was born in Graves County, Kentucky, Nov. 24, 1877. I went to the House in 1911. Therefore when my distinguished friend was wearing short breeches, he was just 34 years of age.
“‘I am utterly astounded that, though he came from Graves County, Kentucky, in the country, he should have been wearing short trousers there at that time. Thirty-four years old and wearing short breeches! The remarkable thing about it is that the very next year he was elected to the House of Representatives. I wonder whether he was in short breeches when he came to the House of Representatives in 1913?’
“Mr. Barkley: ‘If the Senator will yield in that connection, I have never denied my age. It is in the Directory, where everyone can see it. I have searched in vain to find in the Directory the age of my very dear friend the Senator from Tennessee.’
“Mr. McKellar: ‘Mr. President, I received hundreds of letters of congratulation and innumerable telegrams just a few days ago when I celebrated my birthday.’
“Mr. Barkley: ‘How old was the Senator?’
“Mr. McKellar: ‘75 years old and the Senator is nine years younger than I am.’
“Mr. Barkley: ‘Mr. President, I move to insert in the biographical section of the Directory the date of birth of the Senator from Tennessee.’
“The acting president pro tempore: ‘Is there objection? The chair hears none.’
“Mr. Barkley: ‘Getting back to short pants, I merely wish to say that when I came to the House of Representatives in 1913 at the age of 34, I was in long pants, but the Senator from Tennessee has been trying to pull them off me or shorten them ever since.’”
Amid laughter he sat down, poking Mack in the elbow and shaking with amiable merriment.
So much for Fun on Capitol Hill. It was typical of the two men involved, and typical of a good deal of the banter that goes on here between those who are good friends. There is also the Scott Lucas, or Curse You, Jack Dalton type of exchange, but it doesn’t make for half as enjoyable reading—or listening.
The controversy over conferees came when Barkley moved acceptance of Green’s suggestions, made as chairman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections. Stacked four to one for the Federal ballot, it included Green, Hatch, Kilgore, Austin, Bridges and Moore. Bridges being at present on his honeymoon, that left three Democrats and Austin opposing Moore, the lone states’-righter. Of course, as Bennett Champ Clark remarked with some acerbity during the debate that promptly followed, the conferees were theoretically supposed to represent the majority views of the Senate anyway, so what difference did it make how they felt personally? Nonetheless, White made the point that the various votes on the Green-Lucas bill had been so close that in all fairness the minority should have at least two men on the conference committee. After prolonged haggling and the citation of many precedents, McKellar managed to force Barkley into a compromise, and the ultimate choices turned out to be Green, Hatch, Connally, Austin and Butler.
Lucas cast some aspersions on Connally which Connally resented and rose to protest with some heat. He didn’t want to put his integrity and good faith up to popular vote, Tom said, “but of course he couldn’t expect the Senator from Illinois to understand the ethics of the case.” Later Lucas went up to his desk and tried to laugh him out of it, but Tom wasn’t having any. Along with a great many of the conservative Democrats, he is pretty well fed up with the sarcastic gentleman from Illinois.
On the subsidy issue, the Taft amendment was beaten severely by a combination of New Dealers and anti-subsidy Senators. The subsidy program, insofar as the Senate can kill it, is now dead as a doornail. There is some hope of disposing of the whole matter tomorrow.
February 11, 1944. The subsidy bill was passed today. Aiken and La Follette lost their fight for a food-stamp plan, Pepper lost his attempts to raise the Little Steel wage formula (tying wage increases to the rise in the cost of living since Jan. 1, 1941), and everybody but Bankhead, in fact, lost whatever it was he wanted. The bald little old gentleman from Alabama got what he wanted and was satisfied. The bill now goes to conference with the House.
After the session we went down on the floor and had our usual amiable chat with Barkley. “I see where Hannegan has set the Democratic Convention for a Wednesday, planning to wind up business by Saturday,” somebody remarked innocently. “I wonder if you see any significance in that, Senator?” “Why,” Alben began judiciously, “it means that we’re all of us in a hurry in wartime. And then, too,” he added slowly, “perhaps he thinks it will only take us a short time—” he paused and stared thoughtfully into space while the press stood around panting with its collective tongue hanging out— “to do a good job,” he finished quickly, chucked the reporter under the chin and burst into laughter, in which we all joined. He doesn’t know any more about the great Secret-Which-Isn’t-A-Secret about Roosevelt’s plans than we do, probably, but it helps make life amusing to go on the assumption that he does.
February 13, 1944. The impression seems to be growing over the week end that the House soldier-vote conferees may insist on a state-ballot measure, in which case things will probably be back just about where they started. If all the time, energy and exasperation which have been expended upon this annoying bill could be harnessed and converted to the production of electricity, it would run the nation’s industries for 20 years.
February 15, 1944. The Senate conferees met in Green’s office this morning, and after the session the press was called in. Theodore Francis, looking kindly and academic, addressed us in his precise, jocose and scholarly fashion. There was no news, he said; they just met and talked. He had supplied them each with a mimeographed statement of “features of the Green-Lucas Bill not included in the House bill,” and “Features of the Green-Lucas Bill as it passed the Senate.” Of eight “features not in the House bill,” seven were amendments bearing the names of Republican Senators. Of 11 “features of the Green-Lucas Bill,” presented with pride by the bill’s author, nine were amendments bearing the names of Republican Senators and Bob La Follette. In other words, the sum and substance upon which Theodore Francis Green based his proud statement—for the tone of his handout could only be termed that—was nothing more nor less than the amended material which he fought against bitterly for two months and only accepted at five minutes to midnight because the House passed the Eastland bill and his original bill was dead anyway.
February 16, 1944. “The fate of the Versailles Treaty in the United States Senate—‘death by reservation’—may await the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation agreement.” With that doleful supposition I began my story this afternoon. After what happened on the floor it seemed not too flamboyant.
The magic formula devised by Theodore Francis Green and Francis Sayre of the State Department in an attempt to bypass the Senate’s treaty-ratifying power is apparently not going to work. The method is classically simple—you simply take an Executive agreement made by the President, slap a preamble containing an authorization of money on one end and an epilogue expressing Congressional approval on the other, and put it through with a whoop and a holler. Except that somehow, in this first practical test, it doesn’t seem to be working so well. The simplicity of the Senate, unfortunately for such lazy man’s treaty-making, is not quite so great as the simplicity of the method.
It became apparent very early in the afternoon, despite a surprising one-man campaign by Vandenberg to pass the UNRRA measure singlehanded, that opposition was going to develop. Tom Connally’s optimistic forecast that the bill would go through in a day proved groundless, and by three o’clock when Guy Gillette had arisen to explain why he voted 1 against 16 in Foreign Relations Committee on reporting the bill favorably to the Senate, a definite trend was apparent. By the end of the day there was that feeling in the bones, which I am by now getting used to, which indicates that something you thought was going to be put through in a hurry is instead going to be dragged out and dragged out until it becomes a major issue. For, by some psychological process inherent in the Senate, the longer a thing drags on the more vocal and active becomes its opposition. If you can jam it through in 10 minutes, fine; but the moment the time element begins to enter you can be sure that the waverers and doubters are going to begin to waver and doubt, and with each expression by a waverer or doubter of his wavering or doubt other waverers and doubters are going to begin to succumb to the psychosis, until ultimately you have speeches and speeches and more speeches, and possibly some very close votes.
The end result today was the Taft-McKellar reservations, a series of five amendments, one by Taft and the other four by McKellar, specifically restricting UNRRA from making any expenditures or commitments beyond its authorized appropriations, specifically requiring that any future agreements for the United States in UNRRA must be approved by joint resolution, and specifically stating that “rehabilitation” means relief and nothing more. If these prohibitions indicate a trend, it is probable that UNRRA is going to emerge in a sorry and somewhat bedraggled condition as it goes about its stated purpose of giving aid to areas liberated from the Axis.
There are times when you sit in the gallery and watch the Senate as though you were observing some fearful force. You like them and you see why they do the things they do, and you know that nine-tenths of them are sincerely and honestly convinced that it is in the best interests of the country, but you can’t help a certain amount of foreboding. In spite of all the ridicule that comes their way, and in spite of all the derogation they receive, they are still terribly important and terribly powerful people. If all this hullabaloo arises over poor old UNRRA, what chance would a full-fledged peace treaty have? It is something to think about.
Tom Connally left the floor in some disgust today when two of his most brilliant colleagues, one a Republican and one a Democrat, began to toss legalisms back and forth. It was a good thing the Ten Commandments were handed down when they were, Tom told the press, “otherwise those two would find some way to amend them.”
This morning William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, appeared before the Military Affairs Committee as the first witness in opposition to the national service bill—“this benevolent law,” as Warren Austin calls it calmly. Green, a sober, earnest man with a worried, sorrowful set to his eyes and mouth, parried the Senator with some skill and consistent logic as Austin went back into Revolutionary history to find precedents for drafting labor. Green is agin it.
The usual ubiquitous colonels who hang around the Senate and advise and lobby the Military Affairs Committee were on hand at Austin’s elbow, as were a few scattered naval officers. I have yet to see the services appear in behalf of a measure that would increase rather than complicate governmental efficiency, or extend rather than restrict civilian liberty.
February 17, 1944. UNRRA was approved today, and so were the Taft-McKellar reservations, and so was another by Raymond Willis. Vandenberg and Wheeler parted company on this measure, and today indulged in one of the sharpest colloquies of the entire debate. Van is for it and Burt is against it, and the crossfire with which they have mowed down isolationism’s opponents heretofore was directed at each other. Bob Reynolds also made one of his rip-roaring, hell-for-leather denunciations, but it did him little good. The final vote was 47–14.
The soldier-vote conferees met twice today, and each time came forth to report no definite progress, but “amicable” relations. Both times the press, some eight of us this morning and five or six this afternoon, hung around outside the conference room and talked shop—always enjoyable. Colonel Robert Cutler, Stimson’s legislative aide and one of the few officers around here who take some of the curse off military lobbying, hung around with us, relating with considerable wit and humor his work for the Army on the present law. He said he had “cooperated until I’m black and blue” with the state governments on the matter, and described at some length the difficulties he had encountered in trying to write the department’s circulars to the troops concerning primary dates and voting restrictions. The press understood how the colonel does such a good job of winding the Military Affairs Committee around his little finger. His superiors didn’t detail him to the Senate for nothing.
Theodore Francis Green told us today that he “couldn’t understand this impression which seems to be in the public mind, that this is an issue between the Federal ballot and the state ballot, or an issue between whether the soldiers will vote or will not vote. Of course we have Public Law 712 right now which provides that they may vote. It is just a matter of extending it to permit more of them to vote. It isn’t Federal ballots versus state ballots, but Federal ballots and state ballots. I don’t see how the public has the contrary impression.” We gulped a little, swallowed hard, and agreed that he was perfectly right. If he and Scott Lucas have said once on the Floor that the soldiers couldn’t vote at all unless the Green-Lucas bill was passed they have said it a thousand times, and the same ratio applies to the argument that the Federal ballot is absolutely the only solution. It is too bad his clarification wasn’t developed earlier in the debate.
Democracy has its lighter side. It is generally understood now that the anti-poll-tax bill will not be brought to the floor before April. Jim Mead, who has been put in charge of it, has made an agreement with Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi that he won’t call it up until Bilbo has finished getting a new set of teeth, after which he will be equipped to filibuster to his heart’s content. [The “new set of teeth” as it turned out with a fearful irony, was the official euphemism for the mouth cancer that would, in another year, silence Theodore “The Man” Bilbo forever.]
February 18, 1944. The soldier-vote conferees began to consider the idea of compromise this morning, which is progress of a sort. Hunched-up, bushy-haired, rabble-rousing little old John Rankin remains obdurate, but others show signs of weakening. After the meeting broke up, Green informed us that three compromise proposals had been offered, one by Connally that would put state offices on the Federal ballot, one by Republican Harris Ellsworth of Oregon that would split the thing into two separate bills, one urging state action, the other providing a Federal ballot supplement. The third was offered by Green himself.
Theodore Francis is apparently fighting with his back to the wall and knows it, for with this proposal he backed water even farther than he did in his statement yesterday, has accepted the states’-rights doctrine altogether, and has accepted the principle of Taft’s perennial amendment which would simply make the Federal ballot supplemental to the state. There is still no gauging whether or not this last-ditch offer to the House will be accepted, however. Rankin was terse and noncommittal when we swarmed around him as he came out of the committee room; not in a very good humor because, he said, “the meeting recessed over my protest.” Green said he had wanted to vote on the matter as it stood, without permitting new suggestions to be offered, but the others overruled him. It is possible he feels he is slipping and doesn’t quite know—at the moment—how to stop the process. On the other hand it is quite likely that they will meet again next Monday, some personal quirk or animus will intrude itself into the conversation, and the whole thing will end in disagreement and go back to the houses.
I was struck today with the way in which this job brings history and legend right down to cases. Here was a historic moment, I thought, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America trying to settle their differences—and yet what was it really? Why, academically humorous Theodore Francis Green with his impeccable clothes and his habit of turning his whole body when he turns his head; and slow-spoken, shrewd and friendly Carl Hatch; and kindly Warren Austin; and Hugh Butler, and shrewd Tom Connally and ripsnorting Rankin and his confreres from the other side, meeting in the Senate District Committee room in executive session while outside the faithful minions of the press sat around and swapped stories of the trade through the long, dragged-out minutes. Just a little handful of familiar, thoroughly human men, sitting down around a table and slugging it out for what they believe in. This democracy, as commonplace and well-worn as an old shoe, is sometimes more moving than it knows.
February 19, 1944. Bernard Baruch has issued his postwar planning report, a long document placing its major emphasis upon action by the Executive in the process of reconversion. It is doubtful whether this will sit well with the Hill, and yet one sometimes wonders, even though much constructive thought is being given to the problem there, how much real good can be accomplished by the legislative branch in this particular matter. Reconversion, the redistribution of industry, the liquidation of war contracts—all of these touch upon interests which in turn touch upon the political and economic welfare of the states and their representatives. It may be that an objective approach is impossible to achieve. In the meantime, of course, the Army goes on canceling contracts right and left, throwing thousands abruptly out of work. Unless prompt action is forthcoming on the part of someone, we shall be converted into chaos long before either the Executive or Congress has had a chance to do anything about it.
February 20, 1944. As was apparently almost inevitable, the Senate has served notice, through Walter George and Vandenberg and Jim Murray of Montana, that it will not accept the basic premise of the Baruch report that reconversion must be handled by the Executive. It’s a legislative matter, the gentlemen maintain, and they aren’t acknowledging that anyone downtown should be allowed to handle it independently of the Congress. In other words, what it all boils down to is that they have been worrying for years because they let so much power slip out of their hands, but have been more or less stymied in getting it back by the war. Now they see a situation arising which is fresh and new and a virgin field for Congressional enterprise, and they’re going to stake out their claim on it before anyone else can. George and Murray issued an exhaustive and competent survey of reconversion a couple of weeks ago, and others have been promised. There is the usual talk of “a comprehensive legislative program” this morning, and it is true that Murray has introduced an omnibus reconversion bill that would be of much constructive value if passed. If the Baruch report speeds action, it will have accomplished a great deal. Otherwise it will probably languish for months in committee while reconversion continues and the Executive, forced as usual into expediency, finds some way to dodge the law and take care of it.
February 21, 1944. Rep. Gene Worley of Texas, tall, young, dark-haired, clever, has perhaps found the way out of the soldier-vote controversy—when the conference broke up today the members seemed in a more optimistic mood than at any time heretofore. The Worley compromise, however, is not so much a compromise as a complete surrender—for him and for the Senate. It is rather surprising, particularly since he told us that he suggested it gratuitously and caught Rankin by surprise. He didn’t even expect any such concession, Worley said—leading one to wonder a little whether such a concession was altogether necessary.
At any rate, under the terms of Worley’s proposal, sections 1 and 2 of Public 712 (the sections that abolish payment of poll tax and registration as qualifications for absentee military voters) would be repealed, thereby restoring the poll tax and registration to states which love them dearly, those in the South. In addition, acceptance or rejection of the Federal ballot would be left entirely up to the states. Having been handed all that on a silver platter, with only the barest shreds of the Federal ballot remaining, Rankin emerged from the committee room in a reasonably good humor. Not showy good humor, for that would not become one who is finally, after great and sober struggles, winning the slow, uphill fight, but at least he seemed more pleased than usual. He said it “removes the constitutional issue altogether.” He indicated judicious approval. Mississippi’s statesman was beginning to perceive the dawn breaking through the clouds. Virtue, conceivably, might be about to triumph at last.
On the other hand—as we remarked when we sat down to write our stories, “Now we’ve got to figure out some way to put ourselves ’way out on a limb and still be able to get back if we have to”—it is still perfectly conceivable that they may throw everything out the window tomorrow and break up in complete disagreement.