1942: Republican Party

The Republican party in 1942 continued to be the minority party in the Federal Government, but its fortunes rose notably as a result of the November elections, and at the end of the year its position was the best it had been since 1932. Representative Joseph W. Martin, Jr., of Massachusetts, continued as Minority Leader in the House, and as Chairman of the Republican National Committee until after the elections. Charles L. McNary of Oregon continued as Minority Leader in the Senate. Clarence Budington Kelland, the well-known author, served as executive director of the National Committee, relieving Representative Martin of much of the administrative work. Sinclair Weeks remained treasurer of the National Committee and the party reported, for the calendar year 1941, receipts of $170,145 and expenditures of $232,088.

Although all elements of the party joined in calling for more effective prosecution of the war and for strict economy in non-military governmental expenditure, the conflict continued between Wendell Willkie, titular head of the party, and longer established organization leaders such as Senators Taft and Vandenberg and Thomas E. Dewey. Curiously enough, although the latter group continued to control the party machinery, Willkie was able gradually to obtain party acceptance of his anti-isolationist views on world affairs, especially with regard to postwar settlement. On April 20, the National Committee, meeting in Chicago, adopted a resolution renouncing isolation in the postwar world. Although at Senator Taft's insistence, the wording was softened from that of Willkie's original draft, it marked a definite change in the avowed policies of veteran party leaders who, before Pearl Harbor, had been predominantly isolationist. Similarly, Willkie was able to use his prestige in New York to the advantage of his foreign policy. To gain Willkie's endorsement for their candidate's gubernatorial campaign, the Dewey leaders included an appropriate foreign policy plank in the Republican state platform. In the fall, Willkie made a dramatic trip, as the President's personal representative, but also as spokesman for his own frank thoughts, to Moscow and Chungking via the Middle East. His radio 'report to the nation,' delivered on his return, emphasized the need for a world-wide extension of democracy. He criticized some of the traditional aspects of the British Empire, a theme later taken up by one of his leading supporters, Henry R. Luce, the publisher of Life. On Sept. 22, the Republican members of the House of Representatives adopted an electoral program which called for victory and economy and renounced isolationism. On Dec. 7, the Republican National Committee met at St. Louis to elect a successor to Chairman Martin, and the conflict between Willkie and the regular leaders was renewed, with results similar to those of the spring. The leading candidate was Werner Schroeder of Illinois, supported by the strongly isolationist Chicago Tribune, and by many of the Republican Old Guard, including Senator Taft. Willkie and his followers left no doubt as to their bitter opposition to Schroeder, while western leaders indicated a preference for Frederick Baker of the state of Washington. After a two-ballot deadlock, between Schroeder and Baker, Harrison E. Spangler of Iowa was unanimously elected as a compromise candidate. The Chicago resolution of April 20 was reiterated and the New Deal roundly condemned. Thus, while the party machinery remained under the control of the old leaders, Willkie's stand against postwar isolationism became part of Republican party policy. This lessened the likelihood of a subsequent reversal of the foreign policy pursued by the Roosevelt Administration, but possible grounds for future differences were apparent in Willkie's attacks on imperialism and in his criticism of American relations with Admiral Darlan in French North Africa. Thus, while newly-elected National Chairman Spangler derided Vice-President Wallace's 'century of the common man,' the titular head of the Republican Party, Wendell Willkie, accused the President of moral weakness in handling foreign affairs.

Elections of November 3.

The off-year elections of 1942 did much to restore the Republican party's power and prestige. Republican House membership rose from 166 to 209, reducing the Democratic plurality to 13 votes. The Republicans gained 9 seats in the Senate, to bring their membership to 38. The number of Republican governors rose from 20 to 24, and gubernatorial victories were recorded in such pivotal states as New York, Michigan, California, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, although a Progressive defeated Republican Governor Heil in Wisconsin. The Republican percentage of the popular vote in the congressional elections rose from 44.8 in 1940 to 50.6 in 1942, and the electoral votes of the states they won would have been sufficient in a presidential year to place a Republican in the White House.

Republican leaders were naturally jubilant, but were careful to insist that the election did not imply any lessening in America's determination to fight the war to a successful and victorious conclusion. They declared that the election meant the strengthening of democracy through the creation of a strong opposition, more efficient conduct of the war through the increased influence of sound business principles, the reaffirmation of America's faith in private business, and, finally, a condemnation of excessive bureaucracy.

Republican successes were less the result of an increase in the party vote than of a decline in the total vote cast which hit the Democrats more severely. The Republican congressional vote was about 8,000,000 less than in 1940, and 3,000,000 less than in the off-year election of 1938, but the Democrats received some 14,000,000 votes less than in 1940 and 4,500,000 less than in 1938. The Democratic vote declined most sharply in the Middle West and Far West, and held up even better than the Republican vote in some Eastern states. An interesting result is that Western, and especially Mid-Western, Republicans will be stronger in the party councils and, since Republican isolationism was most prominent in the Middle West before Pearl Harbor, it is possible that the party's public stand against postwar isolation may be subjected to strong internal pressure. While the election showed no uniform trend either for or against pre-Pearl Harbor isolationists, some of the most prominent among them, including Representative Hamilton Fish of New York and Senator C. Wayland Brooks of Illinois, were returned to office.

New York State Elections.

The Republican Party in the Empire State under the Chairmanship of Edwin F. Jaeckle, was well organized for the campaign of 1942. It had been apparent for several years that Thomas E. Dewey, who had lost a close race against Governor Lehman in 1938, would be the party's candidate for Governor, and by the spring of 1942 an overwhelming majority of the state Republican leaders were pledged to support his nomination. An effort on the part of pre-war interventionist leaders to draft Wendell Willkie made little headway, and Dewey was nominated on Aug. 24. The conflict within the Democratic Party between President Roosevelt and State Chairman James A. Farley, which resulted in the selection of the latter's candidate, John J. Bennett, as the Democratic nominee, led to the candidacy of Dean Alfange on the American Labor Party ticket. Alfange appealed to the New Deal and labor vote, and Dewey's election was a foregone conclusion. He won by a plurality of 647,628 over Bennett, while Alfange gained the surprisingly large total of 403,555. The minor parties polled about 80,000. Thus Dewey became the first Republican governor of New York in twenty years. He carried in the rest of the state ticket, with the exception of one Congressman-at-Large, although Thomas W. Wallace won the lieutenant-governorship by only 54,393 from the incumbent, Poletti, who had both the Democratic and American Labor nominations.

Presidential Possibilities for 1944.

At the close of 1942 there were four leading potential Republican candidates for the Presidency. Wendell Willkie, who continued to play the role of leader of a 'loyal opposition,' raising specific points of objection but not opposing the major outlines of Administration policy, still had wide support among the groups which had obtained his nomination in 1940, but he failed to gain strength with the regular party members. Thomas E. Dewey, by virtue of his successful career and triumphal election, was certain to be prominent at the Republican Convention in 1944. Gov. John W. Bricker of Ohio, reelected for a third term, had the announced support of Senator Taft, and a wide following in the Middle West. Gov. Harold E. Stassen of Minnesota, the 1940 keynoter, was extremely popular among liberal and younger elements of the party.

1941: Republican Party

Republican Party, one of the two major parties in the United States, in 1941 continued to be the minority party in the Federal Government; and, as for several years past, it controlled fewer state and local governments than the rival Democratic party.

In the midst of an international crisis which called for national unity with no rocking the boat by partisan politics, the Republicans, who were greatly outnumbered in both houses of Congress, were somewhat confused and divided over President Roosevelt's policies in foreign affairs and national defense. Since it was an off year in elections with nothing more important than scattered Congressional and local elections, however, Republican leaders were evidently allowing troublesome questions of national party policy to go unsettled for the time being.

Opposition to Willkie's Leadership.

During the early months of the year Wendell Willkie's titular leadership of the party was a storm center of party debates. As a former Democrat, whose complete conversion to Republicanism had always been doubted by old party war horses, and whose endorsement of President Roosevelt's foreign policy in the 1940 campaign had embarrassed isolationist leaders among the Republicans, Willkie was none too popular with certain elements in the party. Then as they saw it, he proceeded to cap the climax of a losing race for the presidency by announcing his 'all-out' support of President Roosevelt's policy of aid to Britain. And to make matters worse he exhorted his 'fellow Republicans' to follow his example.

By the middle of January the smouldering opposition to Willkie's theoretical leadership of the party had flared into open revolt in the Middle West. On Jan. 18, the influential Republican organ, the Chicago Tribune, called upon Willkie to leave the party. Later in the month, bitter criticism of Willkie was with difficulty suppressed at a convention of the Young Republican National Federation held at Des Moines, Iowa. This particular attack upon his leadership ended rather favorably for Willkie when the convention voted a resolution which was virtually an endorsement of the Lease-Lend Bill. At attempt at Omaha a few days later to smother any open discussion of Willkie, for the sake of party harmony, did not succeed. Sixteen Republican state leaders who had assembled there for a meeting refused to be gagged and insisted upon discussing Willkie and his relationship to the party. They were reported as reaching no definite conclusions, but an indirect slap was taken at Willkie in the form of a unanimous resolution expressing complete confidence in Republican members of Congress, House Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin, Jr., and Senate Minority Leader Charles L. McNary, with no mention whatever of the party's last candidate for the presidency.

On Jan. 30, 1941, Joseph W. Martin, Jr., Chairman of the Republican National Committee, announced a meeting of the committee to be held in Washington on March 24. The chief business of the meeting was to be the selection of a national chairman to succeed Representative Martin, who wanted to resign, alleging that he was too busy in Congress to perform the duties of chairman, and that he had only agreed to undertake the work for the duration of the presidential campaign. Under the circumstances outlined above, it was feared by Republican leaders that the election of a successor to Martin would provoke an acrimonious wrangle and possibly split the party wide open. In the face of this undesirable prospect which threatened the party with irreparable harm, Willkie, according to newspaper reports, urged Representative Martin to retain the national chairmanship at least another year in the interest of party harmony. Friends of Senator Robert A. Taft and Thomas E. Dewey stated that these two influential figures in the party were prepared to unite forces against the selection of a new chairman by the Willkie elements, but were not opposed to Martin's remaining in the position.

Before the Republican National Committee met, it was learned that Representative Martin had yielded to the many pleas and was willing to keep the post in the event that the committee refused to accept his resignation. With the support of Willkie, Dewey, Taft, and McNary, as well as other leading Republicans, including Alfred M. Landon, Martin's continuance as national chairman was a foregone conclusion. As a condition of his retention of the office, Chairman Martin, who had been serving without compensation, stipulated that the committee must provide him with a paid assistant to look after the detail work.

When the Republican National Committee met on March 24, Martin's resignation as chairman was unanimously rejected. Sinclair Weeks, of Massachusetts, was elected treasurer in succession to C. B. Goodspeed, of Illinois, who had resigned. Mr. Weeks' previous position as chairman of the executive committee was filled, in turn, by William F. Knowland, of California. A week later, Ernest T. Weir, of Pittsburgh, resigned as chairman of the finance committee. It was agreed that Mr. Martin's paid assistant was to come from the Middle West so as to give that stronghold of Republicanism more adequate representation in the party organization.

The expected introduction of criticisms of Willkie for his support of the Lease-Lend Bill failed to materialize at the March meeting, partly, no doubt, because of Willkie's disclaimer the preceding day of any interest in the 1944 nomination for president. No policy resolutions at all were offered, which in itself was unusual, since the committee had not met since the previous June, and ordinarily resolutions in praise of the party's candidate are introduced at the first meeting after a presidential election. Apparently though, party leaders believed that such a resolution in this instance was so much dynamite which it would be best to keep out of the meeting. The point is debatable, but in the absence of any concrete action by the Republican National Committee, it would seem that the so-called 'titular leadership' remains with Willkie. It is, however, a rather empty distinction since the inside control of the party is undoubtedly in the hands of Representative Martin, who at the end of 1941 appeared to be the only man capable of holding the various factions together in anything like a united Republican front.

New York State Elections.

In New York State, a pivotal one in national elections, the harmonious relations established among leading Republicans in 1941 may prove to have far-reaching consequences. It will be remembered that the opposition of Kenneth F. Simpson, Republican leader of New York County, to Thomas E. Dewey's candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination was a serious obstacle to the latter, and was also largely responsible for the rift between up-state and down-state Republicans. Simpson, a Willkie supporter, resigned as county leader in December, 1940, when a fight over a local appointment showed that he no longer controlled his county committee. Simpson's death the following month completely removed any lingering effects of the feud. Thomas J. Curran, who was elected to succeed Simpson as county leader, promptly announced his alignment with Edwin F. Jaeckle, State Chairman, and J. Russel Sprague, National Committeeman, both of whom had been at loggerheads with Simpson. Jaeckle, on his side, after conferring with Curran, expressed his satisfaction with the unity within the party.

The selection of Curran as leader of New York County, the home of both Willkie and Dewey, was generally regarded as foreshadowing the Republican nomination of Dewey for governor in 1942, since it meant that the latter would not again be in the awkward position he was in at the 1940 National Convention of not being able to hold his own important county in line. Dewey was not a candidate for reelection to the office of district attorney of New York County in the recent election. LaGuardia's defeat of the Democrats in the New York City mayoralty election of 1941 was viewed in some quarters as auguring well for the chances of the New York State Republicans in 1942. LaGuardia, who had never taken the slightest pains to conceal his contempt for Republican politicians, and who had openly campaigned for President Roosevelt in national elections, was a bitter pill for many Republicans to swallow as their candidate for mayor for the third time. There was no sign, however, that his designation by the party created any complications which would extend beyond New York City politics. Dewey, Willkie, and Curran all endorsed LaGuardia's candidacy and urged his election.

1940: Republican Party

The Republican Party, one of the two major political parties in the United States, was again relegated to the position of a minority opposition by the elections of 1940. In January, 1941, of the 96 Senators, 28 were Republicans; and of the 435 members of the House of Representatives, 162 were Republicans. Also in January, 1941, there were 19 Republican governors in the 48 states. Although the Republican candidate for the Presidency, Wendell L. Willkie, polled more votes than any previous Republican candidate, he was defeated by a popular plurality of nearly five million votes. The Republican party received 82 electoral votes, as opposed to 449 for the Democrats.

The deadlock between the Republican and Democratic parties with respect to setting a date for their national conventions was broken by the Republicans on February 16, with the announcement in Washington that the Republican National Convention would be held in Philadelphia, beginning Monday, June 24. Philadelphia won out against its rivals by putting up $200,000 in cash and agreeing to take care of certain expenses, making a total bid of approximately $250,000. At the Washington conference at which the foregoing was decided, John D. M. Hamilton, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, reported that the Committee had a balance on hand of $9,238 after having met all its obligations.

Principal Contenders for Presidential Nomination.

During the early months of 1940, the race for the Republican nomination for President seemed to be largely between District Attorney Thomas E Dewey, of New York, Senator Robert A. Taft, of Ohio, and Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, of Michigan, with Dewey apparently in the lead. The latter, who had demonstrated his power as a vote-getter even in his losing contest for the governorship of New York in 1938, was reported by the Gallup poll as being the popular choice among enrolled Republicans. Moreover, in the few state primary elections which were contested, Dewey came out on top. He refused to enter primaries in states which had 1 'favorite son' candidate, and in several states Dewey enjoyed a walk-over because of the total absence of any opposition. Nevertheless, political experts viewed these primary victories as relatively unimportant. They did have the effect of showing that Dewey was more popular than Vandenberg in the farming districts of the Middle West, but there was a widespread opinion that several powerful figures in the Republican party were opposed to Dewey's candidacy. Even in his own State of New York, and right in his home territory of the Borough of Manhattan, where he was district attorney, Dewey ran afoul the opposition of the county's Republican leader, Kenneth W. Simpson. The result was a serious rupture between up-state and down-state factions, which ended with the elimination of Simpson from membership in the Republican National Committee. This particular upshot of the quarrel, though, was hardly a help to Dewey's candidacy since Simpson's hostility was not lessened thereby, and Dewey's inability to control the New York State delegates undoubtedly weakened his chances at the National Convention.

Of course, public opinion polls are of questionable accuracy, but those which were taken in the early months of 1940 showed there was a strong tide of popular disapproval running against both the New Deal and the possible third-term candidacy of President Roosevelt. The war in Europe appeared to be enhancing somewhat the President's chances, but even so, many political experts believed that the Republicans were confronted with a golden opportunity to elect a President, provided they could find a good candidate. None of the three leading prospects seemed wholly to fill the bill. Dewey's youth and his somewhat narrow experience in public office cast some doubt upon the wisdom of nominating him despite his popularity and demonstrated power as a campaigner and vote-getter. The other two principal candidates, Senators Taft and Vandenberg, were somewhat alike in being sound men who thoroughly believed in Republican doctrines, and who had shown an ability to win elections in their own state, but who unfortunately were regarded as rather sober, colorless figures with no power to fire the public's enthusiasm.

Such was the situation with respect to the choice of a Republican nominee for President when Wendell Willkie loomed on the party's horizon. A good talker, a really glamorous figure, a frequent opponent of the New Deal, and a man noted for his success in business, he was soon recognized by the other candidates as the most serious threat to their own chances. There were, of course, a few serious objections to him. His having been the head of one of the largest corporations in the country, and a public-utility holding company at that, was not likely to go down well with a substantial portion of the country's electorate. His having been a Democrat until 1938 might be, it was recognized, a drawback in the eyes of dyed-in-the-wool Republicans, but that would be more than offset by his attractiveness to independent Democrats. Then, too, it was pointed out that, for all his magnetism, he was utterly untested as a vote-getter. He not only had never been elected to a public office, he had never even been a candidate for one.

A more weighty objection to Willkie than any of the foregoing, however, was the belief that he subscribed to certain policies of the New Deal, especially to those involving foreign affairs, which had been opposed, almost as a party measure, by the Republicans in Congress. Republicans for months had been hailing the approaching opportunity in the November elections for a showdown of public opinion, not only on Roosevelt himself, but on his policies. Now, if Willkie were nominated, the issue would not be so clearly joined, since he had publicly indorsed certain New Deal measures, particularly the all-important foreign policy. This disapproval of the prospective selection of an anti-New Deal Democrat to head the Republican ticket led to the drafting of a statement by Republican congressmen at the Philadelphia Convention in June to the effect, that the party could best serve the nation by nominating a candidate for President whose personal views would present an opportunity for a clear-cut vote on the Republican record in Congress on foreign and domestic issues. Senator Charles L. McNary's approval of this statement and certain other remarks he made, of an uncomplimentary nature to Willkie's candidacy, subsequently caused considerable amusement when he became the latter's running-mate on the Republican ticket. Passing over the extent to which this argument against Willkie may have been motivated by a desire to promote other candidacies, there is no question that the Republicans during the campaign were put in an awkward position by the difficulty of reconciling the party's record in Congress on neutrality and preparedness measures with Willkie's publicly expressed opinions on these same subjects.

Opening of Convention.

The Convention opened in the Municipal Auditorium at Philadelphia on Monday, June 24. The keynote speech was delivered by Governor Harold E. Stassen, who was too young to be eligible for the nomination, and who presumably typified a new and vigorous element in the party. He stressed the inefficiency of the Administration in putting the country in a state of preparedness. The defeat of the New Deal, he said, was vital to the defense program. The next day, Representative Joseph W. Martin, Jr., of Massachusetts, was installed as Permanent Chairman of the Convention; and the Convention listened to a rather long address from former President Hoover which many interpreted as his bid for the nomination.

The Republican Party Platform.

The party platform reported and adopted on June 26, declared that the general objectives of the Republican party were stated 'in the simple and comprehensive words of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States.' On the important question of the European War, the party was described as 'firmly opposed to involving this nation in a foreign war.' 'To all peoples fighting for liberty,' or whose liberty was threatened, the party, the platform said, favored the extension 'of such aid as shall not be in violation of international law or inconsistent with the requirements of our own national defense.' At the same time, the party deplored 'explosive utterances by the President directed at other governments' and condemned 'all executive acts and proceedings which might lead to war without the authorization of the Congress of the United States.'

The evening of June 26, the Convention proceeded to the business of nominations. Alabama, the first state called, yielded to New York, with the result that Dewey's name was the first to be presented to the Convention, his name being placed in nomination by John Lord O'Brian. Representative Charles A. Halleck, of Indiana, another young Republican who supposedly represented the new blood in the party, nominated Willkie; and Grove Patterson, a Toledo newspaper editor, nominated Senator Taft.

The Nominees.

Balloting began June 27, the first ballot resulting as follows: Thomas E. Dewey, 360; Robert A. Taft, 189; Wendell L. Willkie, 105; Arthur H. Vandenberg, 76; Arthur H. James, 74; Joseph W. Martin, Jr., 44; Frank E. Gannett, 35; Hanford MacNider, 34; Herbert Hoover, 17; Charles L. McNary, 13.

After the first ballot, the balloting settled down to a contest between the three leaders, with Dewey steadily losing his supporters to Taft and Willkie whose total votes increased on each successive ballot, up to the fifth. On that, Willkie had 429 votes; Taft, 377; and Dewey, 57. On the sixth and last ballot, Willkie received 659 votes and the nomination; Taft, 312; and Dewey, 8. Of crucial significance in the balloting were the shift of the bulk of New York's votes to Willkie on the fifth ballot and the switch of all Pennsylvania's and Michigan's votes to him on the sixth.

After designating Senator Charles L. McNary as the party's nominee for Vice President, the Convention adjourned without taking any action upon the organization of the campaign. There was a general acceptance of the belief that the campaign should be largely under the direction of Willkie and his supporters who had gained the nomination for him. At a meeting in Washington, July 9, Representative Joseph W. Martin, Jr., House minority leader and Permanent Chairman of the Republican National Convention at Philadelphia, became the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, displacing John D. M. Hamilton, who had occupied the position since 1936. Hamilton, it was announced, would remain with the Committee as Executive Director, and as such would continue to receive his salary of $25,000 a year. Martin was to serve without compensation. Naturally, Willkie's close followers were given conspicuous places in the campaign organization. Sinclair Weeks of Massachusetts was named Chairman of the Executive Committee, and Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota, Chairman of the Advisory Committee. Representative Halleck, who had nominated Willkie in the Convention, was put on the Advisory Committee. Russell Davenport, a former editor of Fortune, who had resigned to devote all his time to the campaign, was made Willkie's personal representative. Oren Root, Jr., of New York, another key figure in promoting the Willkie boom, was put in charge of forming Willkie clubs and other groups.

Organization.

The meeting at Washington attempted to unite in support of Willkie all the factions engaged in the struggle for the nomination at the Philadelphia Convention as well as the elements involved in the Dewey-Simpson split in New York. J. Russell Sprague of New York, manager of Dewey's presidential campaign, and David S. Ingalls of Ohio, who managed that of Taft, were made members of the executive committee. Howard Lawrence of Michigan, Vandenberg's campaign manager, was put on the Advisory Committee along with Kenneth F. Simpson of New York. Samuel F. Pryor, Jr., was later named Eastern Campaign Manager in an effort to intensify the regional direction of the campaign.

The organization of the Republican national party along these lines as well as the conduct of the campaign by the organization thus set up was afterwards the subject of severe criticism, especially after the defeat of the party in the November elections. It was pointed out that the campaign was largely in the hands of inexperienced leaders, many of them amateurs, and that numerous veteran campaigners were relegated to positions of unimportance where their abilities were never properly utilized. Furthermore, the presence in the campaign, both nationally and locally, of so many persons who were interested solely in Willkie's candidacy, and who had little or no interest in the Republican party otherwise, tended to leave the party in a confused and disorganized state after Willkie's defeat.

Indeed, as the year ended there were indications of disorganization and discord within the Republican party. Hamilton, the party's Executive Director, and former National Chairman, announced his resignation on Nov. 9 to re-enter business. The day before, Representative Martin, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, announced that he had only taken the post as a temporary one and that he would resign as soon as the party leaders had mapped the campaign of 1942. In New York, towards the end of 1940, in December, there was a renewal of the war between the Dewey and Simpson factions. Simpson, who had been elected to Congress in the November elections, was in December defeated in a dispute over the choice of a member of the local Board of Elections, a defeat which apparently foreshadowed his elimination as Republican leader of New York County. Previously, the disappointingly small vote for Willkie up-state led his followers to accuse Dewey's adherents of not fully exerting themselves in behalf of Willkie. Just how the so-called Willkie clubs, manned largely by independent Democrats and zealous amateurs previously uninterested in politics, will hereafter fit into the Republican scheme of things nobody seems to know. Willkie, in December, urged them to stay in existence for the sake of the nation, but to drop his name. Even Willkie's future relation to the Republican party is a question the answer to which was not definitely known at the end of 1940.

1939: Republican Party

The Republican party began the year 1939 much encouraged by the elections of November 1938. In state and Federal elections, the story was the same; the Republicans, although still vastly overshadowed by the Democrats, had staged a very impressive comeback. When the 76th Congress convened in January 1939, for instance, the Republicans had 169 of the 435 members of the House of Representatives; and, in the Senate, 23 of the 96 senators were Republicans. Of course, the Republicans continued to be greatly outnumbered by the Democrats and it is only by comparison with the previous Congress that the reason for the Republican satisfaction can be understood. In the 75th Congress, 1936, the Republicans had had only 89 representatives, 17 senators.

By the time the Lincoln dinners were held on Feb. 13, 1939, the final figures for the 1938 elections were available and they further increased the optimism among the party leaders, an optimism which was reflected in their speeches. Analysis of the election returns showed that the Republicans had received 48 per cent of the major party vote in 1938 as contrasted with only 40.5 per cent in 1936. In 1938, in the numerical vote for the members of the House of Representatives, the Republicans polled 26,837,245 votes, as compared with 27,989,751 Democratic votes; whereas in 1936 the Republicans with 18,104,649 votes were far behind the Democrats with 24,906,389.

Fully as gratifying to Republican leaders as the gains themselves were their extent and location. For the party increased its strength in 36 states which lay in a broad northern belt all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Naturally, the Republicans interpreted the 1938 results as indicative of a nation-wide drift away from the New Deal; while the Democrats, on the other hand, minimized the importance of the Republican gains and explained them as the outcome of Democratic factional strife and local conditions.

The buoyant optimism of the Republicans was kept alive in the early months of 1939 by signs of the waning popularity of the Democratic party and of opposition to a third term for the President as revealed in public opinion polls. These hopeful portents for the Republicans were especially marked in the Northeast and the Middle West, regions of vital importance to any Republican victory in a national election. Then, too, in the above mentioned polls, it was definitely established that in Thomas E. Dewey, the spectacular racket-smasher of New York, the Republicans had a prospective candidate for the presidential nomination who powerfully appealed to the popular fancy.

Dewey, however, was not by any means the only outstanding prospect in 1939 for the Republican presidential nomination. Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio and Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan, in particular, were widely discussed and boosted as possibilities. Before the end of 1939 both Dewey and Taft were openly in the field for the nomination. Despite the fact that Senator Vandenberg had not formally declared his candidacy, the general opinion at the beginning of 1940 was that he was not averse to becoming his party's nominee. Ex-President Herbert Hoover was another remote possibility, who occasionally figured in early discussions of the Republican standard-bearer for 1940.

With little more definite to go by than the public opinion polls, political observers were inclined to believe that, as 1939 drifted along, the omens were not nearly so favorable to growing Republican popularity as they had been earlier. The most obvious reason for the reviving popularity of the Democrats was the outbreak of war in Europe. As a result, business conditions in the United States improved; also the Democrats rang the changes on the undesirability of a shift of political control during the war. The fall elections were largely local in character, so they afforded no satisfactory measurement of the relative national strength of the two parties. Republican spokesmen gathered what comfort they could from the defeat of old-age pension schemes in several states. They hailed the results as additional evidence of the public's repudiation of New Deal principles.

As 1939 drew to a close, the Republican National Committee, of which John D. M. Hamilton continued to be chairman, appeared to be giving up its attempt to hold the party's National Convention after that of the Democrats in 1940. Each major party apparently wanted the advantage of knowing its rival's presidential nominee before naming its own.

It is probably safe to assume that the lines along which the Republicans will wage the presidential campaign in 1940 were foreshadowed in the opening stages of the battle for the presidential nomination. Dewey ascribed the nation's economic doldrums to a spirit of defeatism among American business men, which in turn was a result of the fallacious and harmful principles of the New Deal. Remove the menace of the New Deal which was acting as a brake on business enterprise, ran Dewey's argument, and the American economic system would itself regain its former momentum. Taft emphasized the need for eliminating waste and inefficiency in government and of a balanced Federal budget as indispensable preliminaries to economic recovery. Vandenberg's position seemed to be one of frankly recognizing the virtues of certain innovations of the Roosevelt administration and of retaining them, while, at the same time, eradicating those features of the New Deal which are regarded as evil.

1938: Republican Party

A comparison of the 1928 election returns with those of 1932 reveals a truly astonishing loss of popular support by the Republican party. In 1928, Herbert Hoover, the victorious Republican candidate for the presidency, polled 21,392,190 votes; while, in 1932, Hoover, again the Republican candidate, but this time defeated, received only 15,761,841 votes. The transformation of a Republican plurality of approximately six million into a Democratic plurality of seven million clearly indicated the Republican party's loss of popular confidence. The Congressional elections of 1932 were equally disastrous to the Republicans. They hardly returned enough members to Congress to fulfill the parliamentary ideal of a vigorous minority opposition. In the House, there were 313 Democrats to 117 Republicans, and, in the Senate, 59 Democrats to 36 Republicans. The general explanation of this abrupt and sweeping reversal of the fortunes of the Republican party was not only the severe economic depression which began toward the end of 1929, but the failure of the national administration to make more effective, if not more vigorous, efforts to alleviate the widespread distress.

President Hoover, during the final months of his administration after the election, expressed his desire to cooperate with the incoming administration. This spirit of desire to cooperate in a national crisis on the part of the Republicans continued when the Democrats took over the control of the Federal Government in March, 1933. By 1934, however, the crisis had apparently passed and the Republicans assumed a more aggressive and critical attitude toward the New Deal, as the Democratic administration was commonly called. Republican leaders and candidates generally avoided direct criticism of the measures designed to furnish work or cash relief to the unemployed, and animadverted upon the serious danger of an economic collapse owing to a fallacious national fiscal policy, and upon the threatened disappearance of the traditional principles and practices of the Federal Government. They expressed alarm that measures which had been acceptable only as temporary expedients in a great emergency were about to be incorporated into the permanent policy of the Government. That the country was unmoved by their arguments is evident from the fact that in the 1934 Congressional elections, the Democrats returned 322 members to the House as opposed to 103 Republicans, and the Republicans lost additional seats in the Senate also where there were 69 Democrats to 25 Republicans.

In 1936, the Republicans nominated Governor Alfred M. Landon, of Kansas, for President, and Frank Knox, Chicago publisher, for Vice-President. John Hamilton of Kansas was elected Chairman of the Republican National Committee. In the election campaign of 1936, there was some criticism of the Social Security Act, passed in 1935, but on the whole the Republican candidates and campaign speakers did not concentrate their attack upon specific reform measures of the New Deal. They rang the changes upon the growing menace to traditional American liberties and institutions. Many Republicans, if not expecting victory, at least were hopeful of a fairly close result. And their hopes were buoyed up by predictions of Republican success by the hitherto reliable straw vote of the Literary Digest. They were, therefore, stunned when their party was buried by a landslide of unprecedented proportions. Landon obtained the electoral votes of Maine and Vermont only, a total of 8 against 523 for Roosevelt. The popular vote for Roosevelt was 27,476,673; for Landon, 16,679,583. In the House, the election returned 333 Democrats to 89 Republicans; and, in the Senate, there were 76 Democrats to 15 Republicans.

After the election, there was an increased feeling among many Republicans that their party should become more progressive and liberal, without, at the same time, abandoning its position of defending traditional American institutions and principles. There was also a strong feeling that the leadership of the so-called 'Old Guard' should be transferred to younger, more popular, and less conservative figures. Many of the most prominent Republican candidates of the 1938 election conformed to these qualifications, among them Thomas A. Dewey of New York, Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, and Robert A. Taft of Ohio.

In the 1938 congressional elections, the Republican party effected an impressive comeback. In this, they were aided as much, if not more, by events outside their control, as they were by a different type of candidate and by a more liberal spirit within the party. There is little doubt that the attitude of state and Federal governments toward the sit-down strikes of the winter of 1936-37 and the President's proposal to reorganize the Supreme Court had caused many persons to shift their allegiance from the Democratic party. Then, too, the renewed intensity of the economic depression in the fall of 1937 probably caused many others to lose faith in the New Deal as a means of restoring former prosperous conditions. Whatever the reasons for the reversal in 1938 of the political trend which had persisted for eight years, Republicans, generally, found the results very heartening and they look forward hopefully to 1940; although they fully realize that the result, while not the Democratic landslide of 1936, was still a sweeping Democratic victory. The Republican gains were especially pronounced in the populous industrial states of the Northeast and Middle West. Besides recapturing several state governments, the Republicans gained 81 additional seats in the House, where the election returned 262 Democrats to 170 Republicans; and the Republicans also gained 8 seats in the Senate where they now have 23 members.