California Crucible. Jonathan Bell

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ to define itself, and a lack of established channels of Democratic patronage of the type that dampened political ambition and radicalism elsewhere. The Democratic political project of the postwar decades that is the subject of this book would unfold anew out of the political circumstances of the very late 1940s and 1950s.

      Engaging the Popular Front

      When James Roosevelt took over the leadership of the state party in late 1946, he found a party in turmoil, reeling from bitter attacks from business interests and the Republican political establishment, and convulsed by political divisions over the role of communists in the coalition of the left in California. The party's troubles were hardly unique, and in fact California voting patterns in the mid-1940s reflected national trends: the Democrats did relatively well in 1944, carrying the state for the presidential ticket and winning nine of the twenty-three congressional districts and the Senate seat, albeit by narrow margins. In 1946, as elsewhere, the party did appallingly badly, losing five congressional seats, the Senate race, and also failing to win their own primary in the gubernatorial race.¹ But there was more to the party's problems than just national ennui directed at the unpopular Truman administration. For every account of a political house party, public meeting, or Young Democrat group was a story that told a very different tale: a Democratic party in Alameda county, which contained over 200,000 registered Democrats in the late 1940s, that could not get a quorum at its meetings; county committees that never met; bitter infighting among members of the state central committee over some members' links to communists and supporters of the Progressive citizens of America and other fellow-traveler groups.² Fresh from his comprehensive drubbing at the hands of a conservative Republican in the Seventh congressional District in Oakland in 1946, Democratic candidate and prominent Alameda businessman Patrick McDonough put the blame for the party's electoral disaster squarely on the dissident left-wing elements in the party who had been using it as a popular front vehicle since the 1930s. “The election did not come out as perhaps we all wished,” he wrote a business associate, “but as for myself, I do not regret the outcome. The political situation here in California for us Democrats is very much confused. This defeat permits all of us to take a stand and begin inviting those whose views and actions do not harmonize with the best interests of the Democratic Party and our form of government to disassociate themselves from our party, and perhaps the best thing would be to form a party of their own. With this group we are always in danger of losing with their help.”³ Despite the fact that fellow traveler organizations such as the Hollywood branch of the Independent citizens' committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions (ICCASP) had participated in voter registration drives, get-out-the-vote campaigns, and had authored an FEPC ballot initiative, as well as endorsing favored liberal candidates publicly to their membership, they had not been able to prevent the Republican tide. Nor had they been able to convince enough registered Democrats that their gubernatorial candidate, soon to be Wallaceite Robert Kenny, was a preferable candidate to Earl Warren, nor that Representative Ellis Patterson, a known fellow traveler, should win the party's Senate nomi-nation.⁴ After the 1946 political massacre, it was not hard to see why liberal but establishment figures like McDonough saw the popular front hue of the California Democratic party as fatal to the party's political fortunes.

      Roosevelt saw things differently. He had been involved in the ICCASP, had seen the power of leftist factions in Los Angeles politics in the late 1930s and during the war when he had worked his way up through the party hierarchy, and had also seen the impact of the dead hand of conservative bosses on the party's fortunes. He saw the year 1947 as a chance to attempt to unite the party's warring factions through a reorganization of the delegate selection system to the national convention to make it more representative of the membership, and the drawing up of a state manifesto that could serve to give energy and direction to the faithful in advance of the 1948 elections. Writing the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, J. Howard McGrath, in October 1947 about the proposed changes to the delegate selection system, he argued that his aim had been “to secure for President Truman the broadest and most representative backing of the liberals and progressives who joined the Democratic Party from 1932 through 1945. These people joined the Democratic Party because they knew it was not dominated by financial interests or by special interests such as oil, as the Republican Party has always been…. A majority of us…made a successful beginning to eliminate the influence of this small minority of conservative element and have devoted the intervening months in bringing our party as close as possible to the people.” He was careful to underline his opposition to those flocking to the third party candidacy of Henry Wallace that was developing steam in late 1947: “Regardless of how difficult the road may be we shall continue our efforts to make the Democratic Party in California a true home for all liberals and progressives who believe in the basic principles of the New Deal.”⁵

      This delicate balancing act between placating potential Wallace supporters and the party's established leadership explained Roosevelt's decision to create a policy committee to draw up a manifesto for the party's meeting in Los Angeles at the end of July 1947. The message was clear: California did not need a third party as long as the Democratic Party reaffirmed its commitment to extending and expanding the New Deal. The statement of policy was unashamedly left-of-center, but there were repeated references to the need to achieve economic and social equality through “the American form of democracy,” a clear jibe at popular front elements who looked to the Soviet Union in an overly romantic fashion. In an attempt to keep such elements within the broad church of the Democratic Party, however, there was reference to the need to reserve the use of armed force only against a “proven aggressor” and the principles of atomic power sharing, an idea already abandoned in Washington, were restated. The overall message was a wakeup call for those worried that the Democrats were losing their radical edge: “We frankly state that, in our increasingly complex economic and social system, we believe that it will become more and more necessary for us to plan as a people. We contend that it is only through intelligent and far-sighted planning on the part of our state and national governments that we can cope with the problems facing us, that we can bring a greater share of prosperity to more people, indeed that in the long term we can survive as a people.” There were commitments to a large public housing program “for that section of our population which private enterprise cannot reach,” to racial equality in employment, to a state agency “to assist in the providing of work in the event that such individuals are unable to obtain jobs in the private enterprise system,” to “a fair and adequate health program in cooperation with the forward-looking members of the medical profession in California.” The list of Democratic goals also included a commitment to a minimum income for the elderly of $65 a month, to a rapid transit system in major cities, and concluded with the robust statement that the party would “go forward in its traditional liberal and progressive spirit.”⁶ Liberals like Roosevelt knew that the party did not have the upper hand in California politics, but argued that an enthusiastic statement of principles would send Democrats into the crucial 1948 elections with enthusiasm and present a united front against the Republicans.

      In some respects the strategy seemed to work. Patrick McDonough claimed to be delighted by the July convention, arguing that “the opposition to our President was practically eliminated, particularly the Kenny forces.” The statement of policy had been overwhelmingly endorsed by a vote of 179 to 19, and the anti-Truman forces had been brought to heel by a platform that had been impossible to oppose. “I think from now on the true Democratic Party in California knows where it stands and will work harmoniously to-gether.”⁷ Such optimism was to be short-lived, and McDonough himself had predicted the reasons before the convention when he objected to the idea of a policy statement. In a strongly worded letter to Roosevelt's policy chairman George Outland, a recently defeated representative from Santa Barbara, he argued that nothing could unite the party except the purging of the far left and the establishment of better campaign organization in the run-up to Truman's reelection effort. “There is only one thing of importance to Democrats today,” he wrote. “That is the election of President Truman in 1948. With him will go the failure of the Democratic Party for 50 years.”⁸ McDonough had already asked Roosevelt to concentrate on organizing the party along the lines the Republicans had done with the Republican Assembly, using a proxy group to endorse candidates, purge extremists СКАЧАТЬ