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Show g"r"1 """If11'' - "T Truman Didn't Dodge "NLY a few White House Insiders knew it at the time, but President Presi-dent Truman could have avoided the split with the South on the civil, rights issue. However, he decided that the question was too important for any compromise. In a White House conversation, Morris Ernst, a member of the civil-rights committee, urged Truman Tru-man not to send the committee's report to congress, but rather to the governors and mayors of the different states. Ernst pointed out that southern leaders had always contended that this was a state, not a federal, problem; therefore a bitter bit-ter fight could be avoided by handling han-dling the report that way. Truman's reply was brief and to the point. "I would not be doing my duty as President," he said. Ernst, who had been a close friend and advisor of Franklin Roosevelt, then asked Truman why he had such a passion for civil rights even more so than Roosevelt. Roose-velt. "When I was young," replied the President, "I saw fiery crosses burned on the hills above Independence Independ-ence and 3.000 hooded men parading. parad-ing. I get worried about a return of that sort of thing. We cannot let it happen again." Dewey-Go-Round Dewey was so certain of victory he had set up secret offices in Washington Wash-ington and recruited a staff to study Truman's budget and prepare his own budget to be submitted in January. Jan-uary. Certain White House speech-writers speech-writers were so sure of Truman's Tru-man's defeat they were ashamed to let anybody know they had a hand In his speeches. Of Truman's Tru-man's last speech-tour they said: "We are just rehashing old stuff and dishing It out to keep poor old Truman slap-happy." slap-happy." Note: Most of the whistle-stop speech-writers were youngsters who had tried to ditch Truman at the Philadelphia convention. . . , Remarked Re-marked a lonely, crestfallen receptionist recep-tionist at Republican national headquarters head-quarters the day after elections: "Everything's gone. What happened? hap-pened? . . . Maybe it should have been Stassen." Stunned by defeat for the second time. Governor Dewey will not get another chance to run for president. G. O. P. leaders are categoric about this. Already their eyes are roving for a new white hope to run against the Democrats in 1952. Watch Earl Warren Two certain contenders are California's Cali-fornia's Gov. Earl Warren and Pennsylvania university's new president, pres-ident, Harold Stassen, both with liberal backgrounds. The fusty, starch-collared crowd, who have held such a grip on the Republican party, are almost certain to be swept out like old cobwebs. Modest, friendly Earl Warren, War-ren, who reflects the California sunshine, is the real man to watch. Like Franklin D. Roosevelt Roose-velt before him, who was beaten beat-en for the vice-presidency but came back to be president, Warren War-ren has not lost his place in the national picture. Instead, he will move up as Dewey slides down. Unlike Thomas "Elusive" Dewey, Warren came out openly on the issues high prices, housing, veterans' vet-erans' benefits. He even criticized the 80th congress, though it hurt his own party. Stassen also is slill a power to be reckoned with. He got most of the cheers, though not the votes, at the Republican national convention. In recent weeks, however, he has behaved more like a party hack than the Independent liberal he pre-tpnrfs pre-tpnrfs to be. After bitterlv denounc ing Dewey in Philadelphia. Stassen miraculously showed up In the starting start-ing lineup for Dewey's presidential campaign in fact, was the kickoff speaker for Dewey in Detroit, September Sep-tember 7. Stassen's Conversion The inside story of Stassen's conversion con-version has never been told. It is the story of moneyed Republicans who paid off with a university presidency. pres-idency. The University of Pennsylvania was searching for a new president to move into the chair of retiring George W. McClelland. Foremost contender was law school Dean Earl Harrison, once a commissioner of immigration and naturalization, who also made a survey of European Eu-ropean displaced-persons camps for President Truman. However, Harrison had been a Roosevelt man, also bad not taken politics Into account. For years a powerful Republican clique on the university board of trustees had tried to operate It as a subsidiary of Drexel and company, the Philadelphia branch of J. P. Morgan. The leader of the clique, Robert T. McCracken. saw a chance to heal the Dewey-Stassen breach. Together To-gether with Edward Hopkins. Jr., a partner In Drexel and company, McCracken offered the university presidency to Stassen. |