First Round

"The old Roosevelt magic has lost its kick. The diverse elements in his Falstaffian army can no longer be kept together and led by a melodious whinny and a winning smile. . . ."

This uncomplimentary reference to his old chief by Columnist Hugh S. Johnson was printed last week in the same papers whose front pages headlined the victory of Senator Claude Pepper in Florida's Democratic primary--wherein, if Mr. Roosevelt's name had lost any of its old magic, the results were not apparent. Campaigning on a platform of wholehearted allegiance to the President, Senator Pepper polled 231,000 votes to 108,000 for Representative James Mark Wilcox, an anti-Roosevelt Democrat from West Palm Beach. Even Mr. Pepper's strongest adherents had feared that he might fail to win the majority of the total votes which he needed for nomination without a run-off primary. When the totals were added up, the third major candidate, Florida's onetime Governor David Sholtz, had run such a poor third with 49,000 votes that in a State where Democratic nomination is equivalent to election, Mr. Pepper was assured of his Senate seat for another six years without more ado.

In sharp contrast with General Johnson's comments were Postmaster General James Aloysius Farley's happy chortlings:

"Yesterday's primary elections give the country a very definite index of the present trend in national politics. They show definitely that in spite of the screaming propaganda by the successors to the Liberty League and the spokesmen of the Liberty League policies, there exists no falling off in President Roosevelt's prestige and that the nation approves the legislation the President has advocated. . . . The primary results are positive and definite, and, incidentally show the fallacy of some of the recent polls, which hailed a decline in the President's influence in his own party."

Meanwhile, while Republicans and conservative Democrats were pointing out that they saw no national significance in Mr. Pepper's smashing victory, at least one significant consequence tended to contradict them. This was that the House took immediate action to force the Administration's Wages-&-Hours Bill out of the Rules Committee (see p. 15).

Florida's primary last week was the most clearcut test of Roosevelt strength since 1936. Last week three other States where the issue of Rooseveltian v. Conservative Democracy was less sharply drawn held primaries for various 'offices with various results:

P: In South Dakota, choice of a Democratic candidate for Senator was complicated less by national than personal considerations. In 1936, Senator Peter Norbeck died just as Governor Tom Berry was rounding out his second term. Governor Berry might have liked to retire and move into the vacancy. But he was restrained by the fact that his lieutenant governor had just been indicted for embezzlement and might therefore have been ousted if he succeeded Berry as Governor, before he could appoint him (Berry) or anyone else to the Senate. Mr. Berry judiciously appointed Herbert Hitchcock, the State's Democratic Committee Chairman, who accepted though he modestly insisted that "100% of South Dakota's Democrats want Berry for Senator." A year in Washington caused Mr. Hitchcock's modesty to be replaced by an aggressive desire not to go home. Last week, he was running for the nomination to succeed himself against Mr. Berry who is an ex-cowboy, wears a white sombrero, and once astounded a Washington redcap by stepping off a train and shouting "Hell, boy, where's the water-hole?" When the votes were tallied, Mr. Hitchcock came in a bad third, behind a Congressman named Fred Hildebrandt, leaving Rooseveltian Mr. Berry with nothing between himself and the Senate but the November elections. His Republican opponent will be Chandler Gurney--who lost a close Senate race in 1936, campaigning over a radio station which he operates himself.

P: In Alabama, where Speaker William Bankhead, Senator Lister Hill and Representative Sam Hobbs were unopposed for renomination, last week's major political plum was the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. At week's end it remained on the branch when Major Frank Dixon fell just short of a clear majority against four other candidates. A run-off election will be held June 14. Campaigning for a seat in the House, aging J. Thomas ("Tom-Tom") Heflin, who lost a Senate race to Lister Hill last winter, lost again, this time to the incumbent Joe Starnes of Guntersville.

P: In Indiana, Senatorial candidates will be nominated at State conventions June 28 (Republican) and July 11 (Democratic). At last week's primaries eleven of the State's twelve sitting Representatives were renominated. For the twelfth seat, now held by anti-Rooseveltian Samuel Pettengill, South Bend Democrats put up a moderate Rooseveltian, George Beamer.

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