Black Week

A lot of things happened to the Democrats last week--none of them good. They took a terrible licking from Henry Wallace and his third party in a special election in The Bronx (see Political Notes). A Gallup poll indicated that Wallace was probably strong enough in Chicago to throw all of Illinois to the Republicans. And their own Southern revolt, which had at first seemed like the usual quadrennial fireworks, now looked more like a genuine blaze.

After 16 years of uneasy but unbeatable Democratic unity, the political patchwork which Franklin Roosevelt had carefully stitched together was coming apart at the seams. Quite obviously, the situation called for a master tailor with a masterly political needle. And the time for him to do his repair work was at last week's Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in Washington. But no such wonder-worker appeared.

"Bombe Atomic." In a material sense, the dinner, or dinners (there were two: in the Presidential Room of the Statler Hotel and the ballroom of the Mayflower) were a success. Some 2,900 Democrats and their wives showed up and, at $100 a plate, cleared $200,000 for the Democratic campaign chest.

But at the Mayflower, there was one empty table. Although South Carolina's Senator Olin Johnston, a coon-shouting white-supremacy man, had bought ten tickets, he and his guests stayed away, he said, because his wife feared that she might have to sit next to a "Nigra." (There were three Negroes at the dinner; they sat at one table--in the rear.) Senator Johnston sent an emissary to make sure that nobody else sat at his table. He ate dinner at home, helped his wife dish up the vittles, and called in photographers to record the touching scene.

At the two hotels, Democrats tried hard to whip themselves into a festive spirit. There was terrapin soup, breast of capon, and plenty of champagne. (The Statler served a dessert called "bombe atomic.") At the Statler, preliminary speakers included Sam Rayburn, Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas in a fetching white dress, and Alben Barkley. At the Mayflower, there were Fannie Perkins in a beaded dress, The Bronx Boss Ed Flynn --who almost forgot to stand up during the playing of the Sidewalks of New York --and Jim Farley, who got the biggest hand of all when he said he was glad to be there. Margaret Truman begged off singing The Star Spangled Banner at both dinners because she had laryngitis. At the Mayflower, Opera Singer Helen Jepson sang Mighty Lak' a Rose, looking straight at Harry Truman the while.

"Floogie Bird." The President, who with wife & daughter appeared at both dinners, was at his best at the Statler. There he got off some impromptu remarks which were just what the audience wanted to hear. He said there would be a lot of talk between now and November, "very, very little of which will be the truth." If the voters know the truth, he added, they "will not turn the Government over to a bunch of reactionaries who are trying to take us back to 1896. Conditions are too grave in the world at the present time to put an isolationist in the White House."

Then he motored to the Mayflower to deliver the set speech which Ghostwriter Clark Clifford had spent all last week writing for him. Its effectiveness could be gauged by the fact that, after the first few minutes, his great & good friend Les Biffle was dozing at the head table.

He tripped twice. In one ad lib remark, he noted that "George Washington was not the first President to have differences in his Cabinet." In a swooping conclusion, he cried: "If anyone chooses to call this politics then it is the politics of Jefferson and Jackson, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt."*

Even his one gag fell painfully flat. Said the President: "These men who live in the past remind me of ... the 'floogie bird.' Around the floogie bird's neck is a label reading: 'I fly backwards. I don't care where I'm going. I just want to see where I've been.' " Newsmen recalled that when Henry Wallace used the same story against Tom Dewey two months ago, it had been an "oozle finch." Franklin Roosevelt, before that, had called it the "dodo bird."

When the President finished, there was no thunderous applause, no wild enthusiasm, no rebel yells. The attitude of the audience was one of polite, bored tolerance toward the man they are stuck with in 1948.

Bluebeard's Castle. Throughout his speech, Harry Truman had made no reference to his troubles with the Southern rebels. But when he left next day for his Caribbean tour, he left no doubt of his stand on race relations. Leaving Key West, he flew into Isla Grande airport, where he was met by Governor Jesus Pinero, the man he had appointed as Puerto Rico's first native governor. Next day, at St. Thomas, he was wined, dined and shown famed Bluebeard's Castle by Governor William Hastie, whom he had appointed as the Virgin Islands' first Negro governor.

But those gestures only served to illuminate the President's dilemma. His actions would further enrage the Southerners and would not appease Northern liberals. At the weekend convention of the Americans for Democratic Action in Philadelphia, the leaders of the nation's "nonCommunist liberals" had the devil's own time preventing the rank & file from endorsing a man to contest the President's renomination. Despite their opposition to Wallace's third party, they left endorsement of Truman open.

*Next day Harry Truman brazened out his tongue-slip. Said he: "Theodore Roosevelt belongs in the same class with Franklin Roosevelt. We admit all liberals. All the Roosevelts were liberals."

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