The Struggle

The 29th Democratic National Convention got under way in Chicago this week after one of the most furious weeks of politicking Washington had ever seen.

The struggle was over the Vice Presidential nomination. Almost all of the most powerful New Dealers were involved, because they think: 1) the next Vice President may very possibly become President*; and 2) Henry Wallace is no vote-catching asset to the party.

The swift interplay of forces began when the plane bringing Henry Wallace back from Chungking touched the runway at Fairbanks, Alaska. Roly-poly Samuel Rosenman, the President's speechwriter and confidant, who is now filling much of Harry Hopkins' old role, was already burning the long-distance wires. He wanted, he said, to see Henry first. But Henry Wallace refused to say anything until he had talked to Franklin Roosevelt.

As soon as the Vice President got back to his Washington apartment, Sam Rosenman was on the phone again. Henry Wallace flatly refused to talk. The President himself intervened, and Henry Wallace gave in, agreed to lunch with Rosenman and Harold Ickes.

No Time for Politics. Not many mouthfuls were down when Rosenman began by reminding Wallace that both he and Harold thought he was a great man; that he had done a great job in many ways. The Vice President, who is shrewd as well as stubborn, knew what was coming. Shyly he looked down at his plate. But Henry, said Sammy, in effect, there's an awful lot of opposition to you, and well, it looks now as though you might be something of a political liability to the President.

Henry Wallace, traveler to China, looked up in surprise at this mention of politics. In a tone of gentle rebuke, he said he just did not understand what they were talking about. For himself, his mind was on China, on the world. Baffled, Sam Rosenman went back to his food.

That afternoon Henry Wallace talked alone with Franklin Roosevelt--for two hours, mostly about China. Just before the Vice President got up to go, Mr. Roosevelt reverted to Subject A by saying that people had been streaming in to say how fierce the opposition to Wallace was. The President added that he merely wanted to tell Henry the situation. Henry Wallace replied that the Wallace detractors were telling the President lies, that he was actually an asset to the ticket. The two agreed to lunch the next day.

Henry as Politician. Next morning, an hour or so before Wallace arrived for lunch, the President told his press conference that he would accept the nomination --without strings.

At lunch Franklin Roosevelt faced a different Henry Wallace. The returned world traveler now talked plain, hard, name-calling, delegate-counting politics. He was sure of 290 delegates at the convention, said Wallace, far more than any other Vice Presidential aspirant. He named and bitterly denounced the men who were "lying" to the President. He even reminded the President that the Democratic hold over the important Negro vote was slipping but that Negroes liked Henry Wallace. At 3 o'clock he left the White House. He had been promised a public Presidential statement about the Vice-Presidency.

Henry Wallace was not going to quit.

He startled a friend, unused to bitterness in Henry, by remarking that he was beginning to think that Harold Ickes was getting a little old to go on as a Cabinet member. Toward the end of the week his temper flared in an unscheduled exhibition of his jujitsu skill. In the Wardman Park Hotel lobby he refused to give Cameraman Robert Woodsum permission to take his picture, then turned and ran. Woodsum chased the Vice President. Wallace whirled around, hoisted the 180-lb. cameraman in a spread-eagle above his shoulders, then pinned him to the floor. But after he had cooled off Henry Wallace went out on the back lawn, let Woodsum take his picture on a bench.

As the week rushed by with still no definite word from the White House, Vice Presidential boomlets blossomed all over the country. At least 15 men were being talked about and worked for. The President's own list of men acceptable to him, in order of preference, was: 1) Home Front Czar James F. Byrnes; 2) Supreme Court Justice William 0. Douglas; 3) Ambassador to the Court of St. James's John G. Winant. Other candidates: the Senate leader, Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky, Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas, Circuit Court Judge Sherman Minton of Indiana, War Manpower Commissioner Paul McNutt of Indiana, Senator Harry Truman of Missouri. Some Washington rumors had it that Wendell Willkie had been sounded out for the job. Sam Rosenman had joined Harold Ickes and Tommy Corcoran, the "Big Fix" of 1940, in supporting justice Douglas, a young man (45), a Far Westerner and a liberal who would not offend too many conservatives.

This week in Chicago, Senator Samuel Jackson, the convention's permanent chairman, received the letter which Franklin Roosevelt had promised Henry Wallace. While 150-odd reporters fought for mimeographed copies, the Senator read the already-famous document over the CBS network: "I like Henry Wallace and I respect him, and he is my personal friend. For these reasons, I personally would vote for his renomination if I were a delegate. ... At the same time, I do not wish to appear in any way as dictating to the convention. Obviously the convention must do the deciding. And it should--and I am sure it will--give great consideration to the pros & cons of its choice."

In the pros & cons Jimmy Byrnes seemed to have the most pros, if he really wanted the nomination. Most of the party could agree on him, except for his one political handicap--he is no longer a member of the Catholic Church into which he was born. No one could guess how the all-important Catholic vote would regard this. A fight was clearly developing which even a clear indication of Presidential preference might not settle.

The unprecedented niffnaw over the Vice-Presidency almost obscured the rest of the convention. The platform committee droned away in a vacuum after the delegates learned that it had already been written. For the ubiquitous Sam Rosenman had long ago drafted a platform of about 2,200 words. Then several Government experts had cut it down to about 1,200 words, and finally the President had rewritten it in 500-odd words, in line with his desire for a "postcard platform" that rested generally on the New Deal record, at home and abroad.

Historically, Democratic conventions are almost always livelier than the Republican sessions. The 29th convention seemed certain to be no exception.

* Franklin Roosevelt will make his fourth-term try as the oldest nominee of either major party since 1856, when James Buchanan, 65, was nominated by the Democrats.

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