Men and An Issue

Telephones jangled in the homes of many a Republican National Committeeman and Committeewoman last week. Over the long-distance wires explanations were made and promises asked. For the battle to shape the future of the Republican Party--a future that looked exceedingly bright after last fortnight's elections--had been joined.

Immediate stake is the election of a successor to smart, little Representative Joseph W. Martin as the Party's national chairman. Customarily, the only fight over such a job is the struggle to persuade someone to take it. But 1942 is different. This time there is an issue.

Although the battle was still largely behind the scenes, it boiled over in the Republican press when a sizable boom developed for bespectacled, colorless Werner W. Schroeder, National Committeeman for Illinois, a good friend of Chicago Tribune Publisher Robert R. McCormick.

Said the Tribune's Chesly Manly in a dispatch from Washington: "The argument most frequently advanced in support of Schroeder is that control of the party must be removed from the Eastern financial interests. Another argument is that Schroeder would be acceptable to all elements of the party with the exception of the Willkieites. Wendell Willkie is opposed to Schroeder on the ground that he was a pre-war noninterventionist."

Thundered the New York Herald Tribune: "By any standards of common sense the suggestion that Werner Schroeder should succeed Joseph W. Martin . . . would be too preposterous to deserve comment. But the sort of isolationist stupidity which is central over Chicago could not exist if it were not itself isolated from reason. . . . [Schroeder] was still making isolationist speeches just before last week's election. Such a stand . . . makes the suggestion of his name an insult to sound Republicanism. ... If the party wished to commit suicide it could hardly do a quicker or more effective job than by placing a Schroeder in command."

As yet few G.O.P. leaders had committed themselves publicly, but in the battle for votes Schroeder had the behind-scenes support of Herbert Hoover, Ohio's Senator Robert Taft, silver-haired Henry P. Fletcher, who held the job himself back in 1934-36, and many a "practical" politician. Leading the fight against Schroeder was Wendell Willkie.

Werner William Schroeder's rise in the G.O.P. stems from the turbulent days of the late Len Small, onetime Governor of Illinois. Small made him his protege; gave him his first job at 16 addressing letters. When Small won the governorship in 1920, Schroeder became Secretary of the State's Legislative Reference Bureau. When Small was indicted for having withheld State funds while he was Treasurer, Schroeder defended him, won a sensational acquittal, which was followed by charges of jury fixing.* Known as a good organizer and money-raiser, prosperous Lawyer Schroeder is close-mouthed and shrewd. When he does make a statement, it is apt to be fence-straddling. Typical comment this week: "I haven't said anything on Wendell Willkie."

Neither had Wendell Willkie said anything on Werner Schroeder; but he was working hard on a job of practical politics not normally to his liking. He had no candidate of his own.

If the fight on Schroeder brings the need for a compromise candidate, the G.O.P. had many to pick from, although they were all unknown beyond their immediate regions. Three in the news last week: Oregon's National Committeeman Ralph Harlan Cake, Portland lawyer and loan company head; Indiana's State G.O.P Chairman Ralph F. Gates, a former anti-Willkieite who praised Willkie's report to the American people (TIME, Nov. 2); Connecticut's bustling National Committeeman J. Kenneth Bradley. But none of them, even Schroeder, was a national figure yet.

* As the result of a subsequent civil suit, Small coughed up $650,000 to the State Treasury.

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