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Show News fk BEHINIj By PaulMallon jgy Released by Western Newspaper Union. MR. WALLACE AS AN OFFERING TO CIO ' WASHINGTON. The guessing as to whether Mr. Roosevelt will pickl Mr. Wallace as running mate again has been whetted somewhat lately! in the congressional smoking cloisters, clois-ters, but it is a rather dull game. The frequently publicized movements move-ments for Speaker Rayburn or Senator Barkley as replacements hardly represent any action or any attempt at organizing a fight, but rather the preferments of senators. The A. P. and INS tried to conduct con-duct polls of the senate, and found most "democratic legislators yawn-ingly yawn-ingly surmising Mr. R. would probably prob-ably select Wallace as an offering to CIO, and that nothing they could do or say would make much difference. In fact, most democratic politieos seem to have decided to watch their tongues most carefully, and thereby have created a strange situation, not unlike the period of frozen' silence which prepared the way for the third term campaign. On a free vote of the democratic side of both houses, either Rayburn or Barkley would run far ahead of Wallace. A few months ago, few legislators would have hesitated to say so. At that time also, the CIO was highly unpopular. Since then, CIO has not changed, but its political action committee has started spending spend-ing the $700,000 appropriated for the campaign with some successes in the primaries. The fall of Starnes in Alabama and retirement of Dies has been followed fol-lowed by defeat of Costello (in the .aircraft workers district in Los Angeles) and the defeat of Senator Holman for republican renomination In Oregon. ' Holman was defeated by a former public member of the War Labor board, Wayne Morse, generally regarded re-garded around here as not unfriendly un-friendly to CIO. The congressional interpretation is that the CIO went into the republican primary, as there was no contest among the democrats, and gave enough votes to defeat Holman, who was not especially espe-cially popular anyway. POPULAR SENTIMENT UNCHANGED There is no ground for interpreting interpret-ing attitude in the nation as a whole toward CIO (the last measuring of popular sentiment nationally having been reflected in the Montgomery Mont-gomery Ward case). But those who make democratic politics their business busi-ness have coupled these events with Mr. Hoosevelt's determination (they think) to run and have thus pulled a blanket over their heads, to do any future business thereunder. Of course, CIO is a minority of a minority, the lesser part of the union labor movement, and these are thinly voted primaries. pri-maries. What force It could bring to bear in an election may be something else again. For the present, it has at least $700,000 and an apparently ruthless ruth-less determination to exert its fullest political pressure (even opposing at least one democratic demo-cratic representative who has voted with labor on all except two or three remote issues.) Mr. Wallace is a leader of this group, in the sense that he chooses to act like a talking custodian for that residue of votes while Mr. Roosevelt is busy with the war. In dispatching him to China, Mr. R. said he was "a messenger" not a high sounding title (others flying the same route have been called "ambassadors" and "emissaries"), but Mr. Wallace picked up the title proudly in a formal statement. He spoke in the cosmic gradeur of an Oriental mystic with such sentences as: "The future of China belongs to the world, and the world in justice and peace shall belong to China," whatever that means. It would appear wiser for Mr. Roosevelt to stand with Wallace, but allow the party to fight for Rayburn or Barkley if it chooses. The president already has the CIO which has no place else to go, but could gain votes and prestige by pleasing the democratic party men who are awe-struck at the possibility possi-bility of Wallace again, but realize Mr. Roosevelt has as close or a closer hold on the democratic delegates dele-gates to this next convention than he had on the last one when he nominated Wallace against the opposition of every other leader. Senator Truman of Missouri, for instance, came back from Missouri and publicly announced himself for Rayburn. If all this sounds somewhat perplexing, per-plexing, remember it is not new (Lewis having played the CIO role for the second term and the American Ameri-can labor party and CIO having played it jointly for the third term which was similarly silently approached.) ap-proached.) Otherwise, the story is still all in one man's mind, a mind which even Chairman Hannegan .ind Barkley in1 their speeches are careful to say they do not know yet. |