<p> If the U.S. feels a need for a regeneration of its political
ethics, the first day of the Republican National Convention
pointed the way.
</p>
<p> After a pre-convention week of sordid chicanery, the
delegates rose up on a moral issue and stopped the Taft
steamroller. Five hours later, Douglas MacArthur, in an
unforgettable address, diagnosed the ills of the Republic and
offered a cure--the Constitution of the U.S.
</p>
<p>Steamroller Stopped
</p>
<p> Overconfidence beat the Republicans in 1948--and it can
beat them again in 1952. Two years ago the Democrats began to
slip, and that smug feeling overcame one wing of the Republican
Party. The whole Taft candidacy was based on the assumption that
millions of voters were panting to vote Republican for the first
time.
</p>
<p> Bob Taft and his friends deny that they think this, but last
week at Chicago their decisions showed they did not care how much
ammunition they handed over to the Democrats.
</p>
<p> "You're Another!" The contested-delegates fight is a moral
issue, and the circumstances of the 1952 campaign demand that the
Republicans handle moral issues with the most scrupulous care.
Millions of voters are, in fact, disgusted with the scandals and
corruption of the Democratic Party, but it does not follow that
these voters are ready to vote Republican.
</p>
<p> To transform public disgust with Democratic graft into
Republican votes, the G.O.P. needs clean hands. This was proved
last fall when Republican National Chairman Guy Gabrielson and a
few other Republicans got dishonorable mention in the course of
investigation into Washington influence-peddling. Up to that
point, exposure of the Democrats had been rolling along with
ever-mounting momentum. After that point, the steam began to go
out of G.O.P. exposures of Democratic corruption.
</p>
<p> Last week the same Guy Gabrielson led the Taft-faction
efforts to steal seats at the convention from Eisenhower
delegates who had been elected according to law.
</p>
<p> Paying Texas with Georgia. The national committee, with
Gabrielson calling the shots, seated 76 Taft delegates and 21 Ike
delegates. Taft himself took credit for a "generous" offer to
compromise the Texas fight. They key to this generosity was the
theft of 15 seats in Georgia. The background:
</p>
<p> When Henry Zweifel, Taft's No. 1 man in Texas, turned
elected Eisenhower delegates out of his state convention, a
nationwide outcry went up. Usually, such fights over delegate
credentials attract little interest. This time it was different,
precisely because so many Republicans realized that in 1952 the
party could not win unless the nominee had clean hands.
</p>
<p> The Taft managers were caught between the highly damaging
publicity of the Texas steal and their need for the stolen Texas
votes. Texas was in the public eye, but the Georgia contest had
received little publicity--for a good reason. The case for the
Taft delegation from Georgia was so weak that not even Taft
leaders took it seriously. A month ago top Taft leaders had no
intention of making a serious fight on Georgia.
</p>
<p> But at the last minute they changed their minds. They
grabbed 15 Georgia votes, and then bowed to public opinion by
giving back to Ike 16 of the votes they had stolen in Texas. The
idea was that the public and the convention, not knowing the
details of the Georgia case, would approve the Texas
"compromise."
</p>
<p> Moral issues, once they are raised in U.S. politics, have a
way of persisting and growing. The story of the national
committee's decisions shocked scores of delegates and convinced
many that the party's future depended on whether the convention
itself could halt the steamroller.
</p>
<p> The delegates' indignation welled up in support of a motion
by Governor Arthur B. Langlie of Washington to change a
convention rule. The Langlie "fair play" rule forbade sharply
contested delegations, temporarily seated by the national
committee, from voting on one another's contests.
</p>
<p> All large groups in the convention except Taft stalwarts
joined in support of Langlie's motion. This moral upsurge put the
steamroller into a ditch. The "fair play" vote brought the anti-
Taft forces together, proving to wavering delegates that Taft did
not dominate the convention and the party as it dominated the
lame duck national committee. Taft's managers had gone too far,
and the kick-back was a tremendous new impetus for Eisenhower's
candidacy.
</p>
<list>
<l>CONTESTS</l>
<l>Going Ahead</l>
</list>
<p> While the impatient crowd waited for Chairman Guy Gabrielson
to call the convention to order, the sweaty kingmakers of the
Republican Party argued furiously in a boiling-hot little room
behind the speaker's stand.
</p>
<p> A few hours before, Taft managers had reluctantly admitted
to themselves that they would not be able to persuade the
convention to maintain the ruling laid down by Elihu Root in
1912: that contested delegations seated by the national committee
may participate in a full convention vote on any contest save
their own. In last-moment desperation, Taft Leaders Tom Coleman
and Dave Ingalls offered to give up their fight for the Root
ruling if Ikemen would agree not to challenge the qualifications
of seven of the 13 contested delegates from Louisiana. By this
time, the argument had moved into full view of the TV cameras.
Pounding his fist, Eisenhower Campaign Manager Henry Cabot Lodge
refused to give way. He told his followers: "We're going right
ahead on the floor."
</p>
<p> Washington's Governor Langlie proposed that any delegations
whose seating had been challenged by at least one-third of the
national committee should be barred from voting on the
credentials of any other delegation. This rule would affect 68
pro-Taft delegates from Georgia, Texas and Louisiana. Ohio's
Clarence Brown moved that the Langlie resolution should be
amended to except the seven Louisiana delegates.
</p>
<p> Two hours of disorganized debate followed Brown's proposal.
Taft supporters argued that "you shouldn't change the rules after
a fight has begun." For Eisenhower, Connecticut's Governor John
Davis Lodge dramatically declared, "We are not bound by 1912
rules any more than we are bound by 1912 politics."
</p>
<p> By a majority of 110 votes the convention rejected Clarence
Brown's amendment. Then in a voice vote it approved the Langlie
"fair play" resolution. Robert Taft had not yet lost the
nomination nor even the fight over contested delegates, but
jubilant Ikemen could not help recalling the prediction of
Pennsylvania's Governor John Fine: if the Langlie resolution won
with a sizable majority, Ike would be nominated on an early
ballot.
</p>
<p>Florida Warmup
</p>
<p> The first contest to come before the national committee was
just a sparring session. Two pro-Taft factions in Florida were
scrapping over control of the state Republican organization. In a
unanimous decision, the committee seated the delegation sent by
the recognized Republican state committee. The 18 delegates are
divided: 16 for Taft, one for Ike, one uncommitted.
</p>
<p>Marching Through Georgia
</p>
<p> Almost everyone had been relaxed about the delegate contest
in Georgia. The recognized Republican state committee had sent a
delegation divided 13 for Ike, two for Taft, one for Warren and
one uncommitted; a contending faction had a solid 17 for Taft.
One of the leaders of the official organization, and a member of
its delegation, is Harry Sommers, himself a Taftman. He was
sitting right there in Chicago as a member of the national
committee. No one--at least no one outside the steamroller crew--expected the committee to throw out Sommers' own delegation.
National Chairman Guy G. Gabrielson himself had publicly labeled
the state committee delegation as "recognizee."
</p>
<p> As the Georgia evidence unfolded before the committee, the
case stretched back to 1944. That year the Republican state
convention split, sent separate delegations to the 1944 national
convention. There, the national committee seated the delegation
headed by Harry Sommers and a north Georgia landowner named W.
Roscoe Tucker. The defeated faction was led by Roy G. Foster of
Wadley.
</p>
<p> Kicked Out Again. In 1948, the Sommers-Tucker organization
and the Foster faction again named contesting delegations to the
national convention. Again the national committee seated the
Sommers-Tucker delegates, kicked out the Foster faction.
</p>
<p> This year the Sommers-Tucker group had all the marks of
being the official Republican organization in Georgia; Sommers
was national committeeman, Tucker was state chairman, and on
their record were eight years of recognition by the national
committee.
</p>
<p> Last January the Sommers-Tucker organization received the
official call from the national committee to send a delegation to
the national convention. It called county and district
conventions, gave public notice of the meetings, opened them to
all Republican voters. Neither at the time, nor later, was any
charge made that the meetings were "packed with Democrats," or
that there was any other impropriety in the way they were
conducted. At its state convention, this group named the pro-Ike
delegation, although Sommers remained a Taftman.
</p>
<p> Early this year, Foster's group, which hadn't been heard
from since 1948, suddenly emerged from the shadows and named an
all-Taft delegation. Before that, Foster had indicated that he
was not a down-the-line Republican. Said he: "I don't know
whether I would support (Ike) against Dick Russell."
</p>
<p> Democrat to the Rescue. Last month, when the national
committee sent district delegate contests back to states for
decision, it sent the 13 disputes in Georgia back to the
recognized Sommers-Tucker committee. The Foster faction appeared
before Democratic Judge Chester A. Byars in Spalding County
superior court with a suit challenging the Sommers-Tucker
delegate from that district, and all others. Democrat Byars
promptly granted a temporary injunction preventing the Sommers-
Tucker state committee from ruling on the district contests. But
Republican national committees have often failed to follow the
rulings of Southern judges in contests over delegates. With 159
counties in Georgia, it is not much of a trick to find a
Democratic judge willing to encourage a Republican split.
</p>
<p> Last week, after presiding over a hearing in a short-
sleeved, open-collared sport shirt, cigar-gnawing Judge Byars
handed down his decision: the Foster group really represented the
official Republican organization in Georgia. His reasoning: the
Foster group was the "parent organization"; it existed first.
</p>
<p> "Small Clique." When the Foster faction made much of the
court ruling before the national committee, Atlanta Lawyer Elbert
Tuttle had a sharp retort: "This lawsuit is another evidence of
the conniving done by this group when it doesn't seek relief at
the proper place...If a judge in some little county of the
committeemen's own state--say Clarence Brown's Ohio--should
issue such a ruling, would they pay any attention to it?" Said
Tucker, in his brief to the committee: "This small clique...simply purported to set up a series of meetings of their own...which they are pleased to call...conventions."
</p>
<p> After most of the argument was completed, Monte Appel, No.I
contest man for the Taft forces, struck the unexpected blow. If
the Foster group were seated, he said evenly, Harry Sommers would
be re-elected as national committeeman. Or, in plain words, if
Sommers would scratch the back of the Foster faction by
repudiating his official delegation, Foster & Co. would scratch
his by supporting him for another term.
</p>
<p> Ikeman Tuttle leaped to his feet and asked if Sommers was
not going to denounce this offer of a deal. Sommers replied
firmly: "In view of all the controversy, I will not make any
comment."
</p>
<p> The Walkout. A gasp of surprise ran through the committee
room. Taftman Sommers was walking out on his own organization's
delegation. Later, Sommers said that Tucker had been
doublecrossing him by gunning for his job as committeeman, and
had not let him have as many Taft delegates as he thought he
should have. Ikeman Tuttle called Sommers' action: "The worst
doublecross that I have ever experienced."
</p>
<p> The committee's vote: 62-39 to seat Foster's solid 17 for
Taft.
</p>
<p> No charge was made that any rules had been broken in the
election of delegates favoring Eisenhower. Nobody said that
Taftmen had been excluded from the Georgia meetings or that the
votes were incorrectly counted. The national committee's ruling
was based solely on the argument that the Foster group was the
"official" Republican Party, and therefore had the sole right to
call meetings and conventions. Yet the same national committee
had officially told the Georgia Republicans that the meetings of
the Sommers-Tucker group were the ones they should attend. When
the Georgia Republicans did so, the national committee turned
around and disfranchised the Republicans of Georgia by announcing
that the Foster group was official--and had been all along.
</p>
<p>Kansas: Give'em One
</p>
<p> After the march through Georgia, the Kansas delegate contest
came up for hearing. Taftman Carroll Reece whispered to some pro-
Taft committee members: "We're going to let them have this one."
Ohio's Clarence Brown even made a resounding speech about right
and justice, and seconded the motion for the Eisenhower side. The
committee voted unanimously for Ike. Number of delegates
involved: one.
</p>
<p>Louisiana's 15
</p>
<p> After the grand gesture had been made in the Kansas case,
the national committee came to another bloc worth fighting for:
Louisiana's 15. In Louisiana, the "new Republicans," headed by
New Orleans Lawyer John Minor Wisdom, who has been trying to
enlarge the party, had elected a pro-Eisenhower delegation. The
old guard, bossed by John E. Jackson Sr., another New Orleans
attorney, who has run a "private club" Republican organization in
Louisiana for 23 years, had a pro-Taft delegation.
</p>
<p> Wisdom brought on witnesses and exhibits to show what
happened in this year's delegate election. When the Wisdom-
Eisenhower forces outnumbered the Jackson-Taft partisans in
caucuses and conventions, the old guard bolted and held its own
meetings. Witness Kenneth Paisant, from New Orleans' Twelfth
Ward, Jackson's home district, described his ward meeting. "After
the delegates were nominated, Jackson said, `Our delegates are
elected,' led his group from the room, even turned out the
lights." Witness J. Paulin Duhe of New Iberia testified that in
his (the Third) congressional district, there was no Jackson rump
convention "because they couldn't find anybody to rump." But the
state committee had named two pro-Taft delegates in that district
anyway, contending that the Wisdom meeting was not properly
advertised.
</p>
<p> Wisdom summed up: "In every case when the Jackson faction
lost, it held a small rump meeting--in a corner of a meeting
place, or on the sidewalk, or somewhere under a tree in the
dark." He maintained that the Louisiana delegation should be 13
for Ike, two for Taft.
</p>
<p> Jackson called no witnesses, but spent all the time allotted
to his side on a familiar argument: the Wisdom forces were
Democratic interlopers.
</p>
<p> The national committee upheld a ruling of Chairman Guy
Gabrielson refusing to review the cases of seven district
contests which had been handed to Taft delegates by the Jackson-
controlled state committee. After that, it placed Taftmen in the
four delegate-at-large seats. Then, as if fearing that the state
committee had gone too far, it gave the two seats from the
rumpless Third District back to Ike.
</p>
<p> When the national committee had finished its work, the
Louisiana delegation stood 13 for Taft and two for Ike.
</p>
<p>Mississippi: As Expected
</p>
<p> In Mississippi's three-faction fight, not seriously
contested by the Eisenhower forces, the national committee gave
all five seats, as expected, to Taftmen. But in its ruling, the
committee, which had just "bowed" to a Georgia court, ignored the
Republican faction which has been recognized by the courts of
Mississippi.
</p>
<p>Another One in Missouri
</p>
<p> When it came to another one-delegate decision--in Missouri--the committee followed the pattern it had set with Kansas. The
one went to Ike.
</p>
<p>"Consent" in Puerto Rico
</p>
<p> Puerto Rico's contests were settled by "agreement"--all
three for Taft.
</p>
<p> Delegate Hector Gonzalez Blanes, a member of the "legal"
delegation, explained: His delegation was for Taft. The
contesting delegation, guided by Ikeman Garcia Mendez, had two
uncommitted members, one member for Ike. The rival leaders met
with Gabrielson, and finally Mendez agreed that one of his
delegates, if seated, would vote for Taft. Said Blanes: "Mendez
wanted to...let the people back home think he hadn't come up
here for nothing."
</p>
<p> When the agreement was announced, Mendez shouted that he had
not really "agreed," but had "consented." Politically, Puerto
Rico seemed to have reached the age of consent.
</p>
<p>The Texas Steal
</p>
<p> Taftmen were worried about Texas. Eisenhower supporters had
carried the precinct and county conventions overwhelmingly for
Ike, only to be unseated by the Taft-controlled organization at
the state convention in Mineral Wells. The only Taft argument was
the charge, based on assumptions, that the Eisenhower voters were
Democrats. A wave of disgust at Taft's Texas "steal" had swept
across the country. Something had to be done.
</p>
<p> Some New "Contests." As the Texas hearing was scheduled to
begin, National Committee Chairman Gabrielson read a telegram
from Herbert Hoover, who said he had tried to settle the
contested delegate fight. In his efforts, said Hoover, he had
suggested "to Mr. Taft's supporters that protests should not be
raised in New Jersey, Connecticut and Washington," and they had
agreed. Now, he added, he hoped that the committee would arrive
at "an amicable and equitable settlement" of the Texas dispute.
Hoover seemed to be saying that the Taftmen had been generous;
now the Ikemen should reciprocate. But the fact was that there
were no real contests in New Jersey, Connecticut and Washington
which could be balanced against the contests in Texas and other
Southern states.
</p>
<p> Gabrielson picked up a letter from Bob Taft. Now that he had
fully analyzed the Texas situation, said Taft, he proposed a
compromise: the delegation should be split 22 for Taft, 16 for
Ike. The Eisenhower delegation from Texas stood 33 for Ike, five
for Taft; the Taft delegation was divided 30 for Taft, four for
Ike, four leaning to MacArthur. Said Taft: "While I will suffer a
delegate loss in making this proposal, I am doing so because I
think it is so generous that its equity cannot be questioned."
</p>
<p> Actually, Taft was trading part of his Texas claim for the
Georgia grab, and stood to gain votes in the process.
</p>
<p> No Deal. After reading Taft's letter, Gabrielson recessed
the hearing and urged the Taft Texans, headed by National
Committeeman Henry Zweifel, and the Texans for Ike, headed by
Houston Oilman Jack Porter, to get together. But the Eisenhower
men refused to deal.
</p>
<p> From Porter, Taft's analysis of the Texas situation later
brought a hard-hitting statement: "In Senator Taft's letter to
the national committee, in which he was permitted...to appear
as an advocate and judge...he showed cynical disregard of
morality...In the 7th, 13th and 16th Congressional Districts,
there were no contests. When the Eisenhower delegates from those
districts walked out of the state convention and joined the
Eisenhower convention, there were no delegates remaining to
represent those districts. And yet senator Taft claims in his
letter that he won those districts."
</p>
<p> Back in the packed hearing room, there was soon evidence to
show why the Taft forces were fearful about Texas. The Ikemen
brought on a parade of witnesses to tell what happened at the
precinct, county and state conventions.
</p>
<p> John Paul Jones, a tall, firm-jawed World War II Navy
officer, told what happened in northeastern Texas' Rusk County:
"By majority vote I was elected one of the delegates to the state
convention. A resolution endorsing Dwight D. Eisenhower and
instructing the state convention delegates to vote in his favor
was seconded by (County Chairman) Joe Compton and carried by 13
to 1...There was no walkout--no rump convention...Later
that week, Compton, a longtime friend of Henry Zweifel's,
received instructions to file a false return on that convention,
naming a Taft slate of delegates and claiming a resolution had
been passed endorsing Taft. When Compton was placed under oath
before the state executive committee, he admitted that he had
participated in the convention that endorsed Eisenhower, and he
admitted that no other county conventions had been held, yet the
state executive committee voted 39 to 19 to seat his `dream'
