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Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 8, 5 October 1943, Page 5

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Roosevelt Likely To Seek Fourth Term

PARTIES’ STRUGGLE

On and. below the surface the Presidential election campaign of 1944 already has begun, and the issues and personalities are clear (writes A. D. Rothman, the “Sydney Morning Herald's” stuff correspondent in Washington). It is obvious that President Roosevelt will seek a fourth -term, and that the principal groups in bis own party will underwrite the step.

They will do this because they believe in him, because (hey have no other candidate with his -proven qualities of'leadership, and because unofficial polls indicate that he still commands majority .popular support. Highly conservative Democratic Congressional groups and certain party organization figures like Mr. “.Jim'’. Farley may conceivably oppose his renoniinatiou, but without much prospect of success. President Roosevelt has a commanding issue for his campaign, namely, “Win the war aud make the peace.” Republicans are in no such fortunate position. They have not a man, and they are fumbling on issues. Mr. M eudell Willkie is the single outstanding figure in the party, but.he is opposed by the Republican organization, which is less flexible than the Democratic organization and is chiefly interested in selfperpetuation. Mr. Willkie, who was -a non-orgiiniza-tion man in 1940, and wrested the nomination against the will and efforts of the party bosses, is, moreover, doubly unacceptable to the Republican Party now —first, because in the interim he has opposed the organization more than ever, and, secondly, -because his principal tenet is internationalism of a brand wholly repugnant to the Republican Party's traditional foreign policies, and irreconcilable with the ideas of the dominant eonsesvative business groups which control the Republican Party. These ideas can broadly be identified as non-inter-ventionist. Coming Contest. But neither Republicans nor Democrats can rest ea,sy about the Presidential contest. They must be nervy regarding weaknesses in their own organizations and records.

President Roosevelt is faced with the necessity for repairing his fences, bad breaches in which were disclosed by the Congressional elections in 1942. He lost farmer support. Labour did not altogether abandon him, but clearly showed its dissatisfaction with his domestic policy. The chief defection came from the highly conservative 'Southern Democratic bloc in Congress, which is the keystone of the Democratic I’arty and which, from the start, opposed the New Deal and recently joined with the President’s Republican opponents in Congress to all but stymie his programme. The President’s greatest efforts have been directed- toward appeasing this Democratic bloc. This has taken the form of ever-lessening emphasis on the New Deal, though, in justice to the President, it must be' said that he has never wholly abandoned the broad lines of social progress, even in wartime. However, New Dealers in the Government have been progressively eliminated, the Vice-President, Air. Henry Wallace, who was relieved of the responsibility for foreign economic warfare, being the latest victim.

It is said that the President now depends in a growing degree on the prestige in Congress of men like the Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, and the Director of the Office of War Mobilization, Senator J. F. Byrnes, to keep intransigent Demo cratic legislators in line. 'Well-founded rumours are current that. Senator Byrnes or Mr. Sam Raybourn is being groomed for the Vice-Presidency on the Democratic ticket. This is expected to close the breach within the Democratic Party caused by the New Deal. it is thought that the farm vote is irretrivably lost to the President, particularly because of the President’s auttiuflatioiiary progvjimme, with its pricefixing features. Republicans are placing their main hopes of capturing electoral votes on the middle-west farm States. Labour’s Attitude. With Labour the President has bad “hard luck.” It, too, has opposed ins anti-influtionary programme, because ot its wage-fixing features aud alleged failure to keep prices down. But (be President showed he was. a friend of Labour, while Congress was its enemy by opposing the anti-strike law which the Legislature passed over his veto. Labour must, therefore, return to the President as a refuge. r . The president of the United Aline "Workers, Mr. John L. Lewis, who led the largest Labour opposition to the President —announcing his support of Mr. Willkie the day before the elections in 1940—has been pretty well repudiated by recent events, notably the event of the threatened coal strike, with its patebeuup truce. , , . , ■ The President has indicated that be will take strong repressive steps against strikers. This may introduce complications in rallying the support of Labour in the Presidential election next year, hut it is thought that the Democratic ticket will, in all the circumstances, yet prove the lesser evil to Labour. t Liberals, like Labour, arc 'sale for the President, because half a loaf is better than none and there is nowhere else Republican Problems.

Tim Republicans’ problems in the election campaign arc something as follows: The party organization almost unanimously backs the Governor of New York, Mr T E. Dewey, for its Presidential candidate. He is organizational-minded; his foreign policy is safe, because he practically has none; he is prepared to be guided by the "best minds of the party. These minds already are at work, and wili soon hold a much-heralded meeting at which they will frame a foreign policy plank for the convention platform —not an easy job. . . Such a plank must be designed to attract Willkie adherents, who look on, tiie globe as one world ; it must kill the odour of isolationism that forever clings to Republicans, in order to attract dissidents from President Roosevelt who are none-the-less internationally-minded; it must meet the requirements of groups like the American Legion, whose chief recently declared that he was national and not international in outlook; it. must satisfy conservative business elements who want, the country to retreat to the boundaries of the Atlantic and the Pacific after the war, incurring none of the obligations involved in the maintenance of international peace, but desirous ot reaping all the benefits of foreign markets without opening too wide American markets in return. Finally, it must meet the rising realization by file American people that hourly the world is becoming smaller, and .that as it contracts it contracts upon the boundaries of the United States. ’ . It is almost impossible to write such a prescription. With Mr. Willkie plaguing the organization from without and such newcomers to Republican national politics as Governor Stassen and Senator Ball, of Minnesota, hounding the organization from within to widen- its international horizons, compromises may be in ordercompromises in the form of Governor Bricker, of Ohio? Possibly. Republicans know how to unify their ranks when real unity is impossible. Governor Bricker is virtually a political unknown. What he might mean from an international viewpoint is bard to say. Domestically, ho is as good ag any Republican aspirant for the Presidential candidacy. They nil oppose President Roosevelt’s domestic policy root ami stock.

Tlie war as such is no issue between tlie two parties, but the manner in which tlie President has marshalled the domestic front for fighting the war is very much an issue, with distinct advantages for the Republicans. They are in au excellent position to capitalize popular dissatisfaction with price regulation, rationing, administrative confusion, and agency disputes in Washington. The rationalization of the domestic economy, from manpower to the distribution of petrol, has been anything but a howling success. . The Republican attack on the President's handling of the domestic front is of a double nature: That it has been inefficient save from the production viewpoint, and that tlie President plans Lu disinherit business after tlie war by Government ownership of some production and strict control of all.