Who's Conservative?

Franklin Roosevelt, often accused since the war of "going conservative," last week showed just where he stood. It was truly "a little left of center."

Having balanced up the "conservative" State Department team by his appointment of Henry Wallace as Commerce Secretary (TIME, Jan. 29), he now yanked Leftist Aubrey Williams, onetime NYAdministrator, out of obscurity and nominated him as head of the Rural Electrification Administration. In the extraordinary outcry over the Wallace appointment (see below), the Williams nomination was almost forgotten. But it had its significance in pointing the way in which Franklin Roosevelt was thinking about postwar domestic issues.

Even if the Senate turned thumbs down on Wallace, the President had gained at least half his objective. He had blasted arch-conservative Jesse Jones clean out of the Government. This the President was determined to do, no matter what the cost. He was convinced that Jesse Jones had had a hand in the abortive anti-Roosevelt Putsch in Texas, and he was willing to risk a full-scale battle with the Senate--even though the top objective of Term IV is to keep the Senate in friendly mood until the peace treaty arrives.

The President's action not only highlighted again the deep differences between the two wings of the Democratic Party; it sent both sides into unprecedented action. The anger of Southern Democrats reached choleric heights; the strength they marshaled against Henry Wallace thoroughly frightened thoughtful New Dealers.

Meanwhile, the C.I.O.'s Political Action Committee, chief sponsor of Henry Wallace, jumped into the fray with both feet. From PAChairman Sidney Hillman went an order to regional PAC committees to put all possible pressure on the Senate. To Sidney Hillman, the election of last November had merely been a "preliminary victory." This was the real fight--to keep Henry Wallace in the Government, to make his philosophy prevail, to build him up as the logical successor of Franklin Roosevelt.

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