The Pros at Work

The always-predictable Frank C. Walker, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, last week let a nationwide radio audience in on the worst-kept secret of contemporary politics: the Democratic Party's platform for 1944 will be Franklin D. Roosevelt. Not "local problems," said Frank Walker, walking gingerly around the abyss of OPA, but "unfailing loyalty to our Commander in Chief" will determine next year's election.

To the Democrats, three terms had indeed made F.D.R. an indispensable man. In 1940 the Party had to be drafted to nominate its leader. Now the Democrats seemed desperate to draft him for 1944.

Draft? But to draft F.D.R. looked like an increasingly tough job. The President, tireless Drew Pearson informed the U.S., might want to be exempted on grounds of his indispensability for world peace. "Whether he would be president of a League of United Nations, or American representative on it, is a detail." The main thing, Pearson thought he knew, was that Mr. Roosevelt's next personal Four-Year Plan reached beyond the national scene.

Strange Interlude. Senator Burt Wheeler, tirelessly anti-Roosevelt, concurred with Pearson, though for different reasons. Mr. Roosevelt will not be a candidate in 1944, predicted the Montana Democrat, because "a definite Republican trend has set in and the President will be able to sense this far more quickly than any of his advisers." The Senator then threw a left hook; he doubted that any Democrat could be elected President in 1944, "unless Wendell Willkie is the Republican nominee."

A few days before, two New York labor reporters had asked John L. Lewis the most unexpected question of the year: Would he support F.D.R. for re-election in 1944? The dead-pan answer, indirectly quoted by the N.Y. Post's young labor columnist Victor Riesel: "It all depended on whom the Republicans nominated [Lewis] said almost softly. . . . Lewis would probably take Governor Dewey. Any other G.O.P. nomination would force him to consider backing Mr. Roosevelt."

Squeeze. On all sides, a highly professional squeeze play had begun.

>Democratic headquarters indoctrinated the faithful with one simple piece of propaganda: it was F.D.R. or the end of the Democratic era.

>Simultaneously, professional "insiders" spread the word that Mr. Roosevelt might be unavailable for 1944. Strategic Goal No. 1: to make jittery anti-Roosevelt factions within the Democratic Party sit up & beg for a Fourth Term. Goal No. 2: Republicans, convinced that Roosevelt won't run, might nominate a candidate whom F.D.R., running after all, could easily defeat.

>"Independent" anti-Roosevelt forces, such as resentful Wheeler and enigmatic John Lewis, warned the G.O.P. that they were in the market for a coalition, but for a pretty stiff price: a Republican candidate to their own liking.

From Florida, an almost forgotten voice tried to be heard: Edward J. Flynn, the Democratic National Committee's former chairman, protested that the Republicans had broken a promise to maintain a political truce for the duration. "The Democratic Party has lived up to this [promise]," said bewildered Mr. Flynn.

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