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Show IP Washington The position of the Vice-President of the United States has been a peculiar one for the past one hundred and twenty years. The first two Vice-Presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, succeeded naturally to the office of President because each of them had received the second largest number of votes when the President Presi-dent was elected. Then the Constitution Con-stitution was changed and with It the method of electing the Vice-President. Vice-President. The post of Vice-President continued con-tinued to be an Important one because, be-cause, as Woodrow Wilson once put It, "he may cease to be Vice-President Vice-President and become President." That has happened five times in the brief history of the United States. That number of Presidents have died in office and the man who had been elected Vice-President has succeeded him. That is the way Presidents John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur. Ar-thur. Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Cal-vin Coolidge reached the White House. Not one of them had any real expectation of becoming President, certainly not by that a special emissary and personal representative of the President to attend the inauguration of Mexico's Mex-ico's new President. There are rumors around Washington Wash-ington of other jobs which the President has in view for the Vice-President, Vice-President, after their Joint inauguration inaug-uration on January 20th. Indeed, if half of these reports are true, the new Vice-President will seldom be seen on the rostrum of the Senate, Sen-ate, because he will be out around the country somewhere attending to business for the President. There is nothing the matter with that kind of a scheme. It is surprising that no President before be-fore has ever thought of using the Vice-President as his assistant. One or two Vice-Presidents have been invited by the President to sit in Cabinet meetings and give the Cabinet the benefit of their advice as to what they might or might not be able to get through Congress. But these have been few and far between, and have seldom sel-dom lasted in that capacity. Situation a Puzzle The -whole Wallace situation is a good deal of a puzzle, to which the best answer that the Washington Washing-ton wiseacres have been able to figure out is that, while Mr. Roosevelt doesn't expect a fourth term for himself, he wants to pick the fourth-term candidate and he is grooming Mr. Wallace for the job. That impression grows the more the experienced observers here examine ex-amine the situation. There have been a great many worse Presidents Presi-dents than Henry Wallace would be, If he could get elected. Whether he will shape up as a 1944 Presidential candidate Is something which 'will depend upon the kind of work he .is given to do by Mr. Roosevelt, and how he does it. It was whispered, shortly after election, that Mr. Roosevelt intended in-tended to lean very heavily on Mr. Wallace, even to the extent of making him a sort of "Executive President" to relieve the President Presi-dent himself of domestic details while the Vice-President looked after such things. Some indications indica-tions have already been given of a project of this sort. During the campaign Mr. Wallace Wal-lace was sent around the country to speak for the President. Since election he has been appointed as route, and not more than one or two of them had any ambition to be President. Chose the Confederacy On the whole, the Presidents who have reached that post by succession have turned out pretty well. The first of them, John Tyler, Ty-ler, who succeeded General William Wil-liam Henry Harrlcon, after the hero of Tippecanoe, has the u-nique u-nique distinction of having been both president of the United States and a member of the Congress of the Confederacy. As a Virginian, he had to make the difficult choice which so many citizens of that commonwealth faced. He was all for keeping the state in the Union; but when he was overruled, he cast in his lot with his fellow citizens of Virginia Virgin-ia and was elected to the Confederate Confed-erate Congress in 1862, but died before that body assembled. Vice-President Tyler had another an-other distinction in that in 1844 he was nominated for a second term as President by the Democratic Demo-cratic National Convention and declined de-clined the nomination. How Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge became Presidents, Presi-dents, because of the assassination or death of the President of the time, is familiar history to every schoolboy. And everybody who reads the newspapers today knows that Henry A. Wallace became Vice-President by order of President Presi-dent Roosevelt, over the opposition oppos-ition of practically the entire Democratic Party. Attention Focused That focuses attention upon Vice - Presidents generally and Vice-President Wallace particularly. particular-ly. Mr. Wallace, so far, has done nothing to make him as famous as one of his Democratic predecessors, predec-essors, Thomas R. Marshall. Mr. Marshall was Vice-President under Woodrow Wilson, and when he was asked what the country needed need-ed most he gave the perfectly truthful answer: "A good five-cent five-cent cigar." That made Tom Marshall Mar-shall famous and popular. Mr. Wallace is already famous as the Secretary of Agriculture in Mr. Roosevelt's two terms. It can hardly be said that he is popular. He originated the Agricultural Adjustment Administration project, pro-ject, and has operated all of the machinery for the supposed benefit bene-fit of the farmers since 1933, with the result that the latest election returns show that the Republicans carried every one of the farm states. |