The People's Choice

The public had not heard much about it, but the future of the Republican Party was quite possibly at stake. Politicians watched each little development as soldiers watched the news from Libya. The cast of characters was of the highest political stature: Franklin Roosevelt, Wendell Willkie, Herbert Hoover, Thomas E. Dewey, Alf Landon, Charles L. McNary, James A. Farley, Herbert H. Lehman, Joe Martin, and on down to a host of others.

Behind the scenes in New York the nation's political leaders were maneuvering --deliberately, delicately, dangerously --in perhaps the most significant political contest of the year. The only thing immediately at stake was the Governorship of New York, soon to be vacated by Four-Termer Herbert Lehman.

Old Guard or New? But a great deal more was involved. The Republican Party must now make up its mind to represent either its old bosses --the Hoover, Martin, Pew, Grundy, Landon crowd, or its new bosses, the people who believe in Wendell Willkie's leadership.

Thomas E. Dewey, New York's onetime racket-buster, was the gubernatorial candidate of the Old Guard. Alf Landon had a man checking in with the rural vote upstate to see if all was safe for Dewey. Herbert Hoover spent much time in New York, to be on hand to counsel.

The strategy was plain: nominate Dewey, elect Dewey, have a tailor-made Old Guard candidate established for 1944. But to a big group of Republicans who distrust Dewey, it would be very bad medicine to ride to victory on the tails of a man whom they regard as a mere political opportunist. They are far from sure that it would be a ride to victory. Many of them think it would be worse for their party to ride to victory with a group whom they regard as reactionary.

Foxy Mr. Farley. They could point to sly, cunning Jim Farley, the political prophet, who carefully, genially went about New York State encouraging Republicans to run Tom Dewey. The very ice water in Jim Farley's veins warmed up at the thought of Dewey, who has no appeal to the interventionist majority of New York, no appeal to labor and liberal groups, and who is personally disliked by many of the hardheaded local bosses who are perforce supporting him. The thought of such a candidate, with weathervane views on all important matters, running against his own handpicked Democrat, John J. Bennett Jr., the State's Attorney General, made foxy Jim Farley beam.

Why Dewey? This was the phenomenon of the New York campaign, that Dewey, a candidate whose mass attraction had long since faded under the hammer blows dealt him in 1940 and since, was being blindly accepted by the local bosses as the inevitable G.O.P. candidate for Governor. Dewey's strategy was to foster the myth of his inevitability. But many of the local chiefs were not so gullible. What they really wanted was a winner in the election, and to win they knew they must have a candidate with such a wide appeal that he can split great hunks off the Democratic Party and attract or split up the American Labor Party vote, which is the balance of power in New York politics. (In 1940 Roosevelt beat Willkie in New York State by only 224,000 votes, and the A.L.P. cast 417,000 votes of the Roosevelt total.) Now the A.L.P. is 100% against Tom Dewey.

Willkie's Position. The key figure behind the scenes was big, bearlike Wendell Willkie, a much more experienced Willkie, but now as ever forthright, plain and clear in speech and purpose, and concerned with the future of the party he is trying to lead toward the light. Wendell Willkie is adamantly against the candidacy of Tom Dewey. He is opposed to all political sail-trimming, to all candidacies engineered like advertising campaigns, with statements tailored to what surveys have shown the public wants, instead of honest declarations of principle. Willkie's dilemma is that he does not, cannot in all conscience, turn back the party in which he believes to the men who he thinks have led it toward destruction for years. He has striven steadily throughout the State to awaken Republicans to the need for honest leadership, to the need for a candidate who was not forced to weasel his international views after Pearl Harbor.

The trouble with Willkie's description of a possible candidate is that it fits no one but himself. And this is what sent the whole behind-the-scenes drama into convulsive action this week: citizens began banding together to draft Willkie for the governorship, to try to repeat at Saratoga on Aug. 24-25 the Miracle of Philadelphia in 1940, when the people's "We Want Willkie" once before wrecked the whole carefully glued, house-of-cards Presidential candidacy of Tom Dewey.

Draft Willkie. As a matter of party duty, Willkie cannot refuse the draft. As a matter of modesty, he cannot encourage it. Last week even practical politicians saw one unique advantage in Willkie's nomination: Franklin Roosevelt cannot easily or decently come into New York State to campaign against the man who has been the very symbol of nonpartisan support of the President in time of war. That Willkie would not refuse the nomination was certain, despite a remark he made to the effect that he did not aspire further to high office.

The Republican local bosses, long hungry for the kudos of victory, were at their wits' end. They were all set to nominate Dewey. But many of them did not personally like him or believe in his ability to win. They still remembered with shudders what U.S. satirists had done to Dewey in 1940; how his title of "Racket-Buster" had been shortened to merely "Buster," how cartoonists had done him cutely in a boy's sailor suit and Fauntleroy haircut.

All the maneuvering and fighting thus far had taken place behind the curtains. But if a really valid Draft-Willkie movement was under way --the whole shebang would soon pop out in the open. Then the people could take a hand; could, perhaps, help the bosses pick the People's Choice as Governor of New York, as chief of the Republican Party, as the next G.O.P. Presidential nominee.

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