Pepper v. Sholtz v. Wilcox

(See front cover)

Florida is a fabulous place, a low-lying (max. elev. 325 ft.) peninsula full of paradoxes and contrasts, great banality and great excitement. It offers to the observer hurricanes and breathless heat, some of the world's healthiest fish and scrawniest cattle, the unbelievably hard living of the Everglades and the unbelievably soft living of Palm Beach. Every year 2,000,000 visitors drive, ride, sail and fly there to see such divergent sights as the matchless Rubens collection in the Ringling Art Museum at Sarasota, the barbarously gaudy architecture of Hollywood, the flowerlike flamingos in the infield at Hialeah and the old people quietly dying in their rattan chairs at St. Petersburg. Florida is bounded by the utter reality of the bean fields around Lake Okeechobee, and the utter unreality of the skyscrapers over Miami.

No community so rich in the stuff of life could fail to provide a political scene of more than common interest and activity. True to form, with the Democratic primary elections a fortnight away, last week the Florida peninsula was restlessly ending a notably lively three-cornered fight for the nomination which would mean the occupancy of Claude Pepper's U. S. Senate seat. For the past six weeks, Messrs. David Sholtz, Mark Wilcox and Claude Pepper, as well as two other minor candidates whose names not even many Florida voters knew, had been touring Florida's sticky villages and sun-blistered swamp towns, its resort cities and its inland flatwoods, to an accompaniment of loudspeakers, floodlights, bad cigars and baby-kissing such as to challenge the memory of the State's oldest inhabitant. The windup found the candidates characteristically occupied.

P: On the west coast, a large sound truck equipped with a gramophone & amplifier nearly deafened the citizens of Pensacola with the Dipsy Doodle. This was the preface to an address by the State's onetime (1933-37) Governor Sholtz in which that dignitary found occasion to remark: "Either the Junior Senator is telling a deliberate untruth or he doesn't know what he is talking about." P: In Frostproof, near the State's centre, Representative Wilcox informed an audience that he was "a better friend to the old people than those who give them lip service in Florida and never mention their cause in Washington." P: To the north, on the road between Kissimmee and St. Cloud, a motorcade of some 50 cars met the State's Junior Senator Pepper, escorted him with honking horns to St. Cloud's city limits where he was met by the town's band and drum corps. From St. Cloud, the motorcade, swollen to 250, followed the Senator around Polk County through Davenport, Haines City, Auburndale and Winter Haven to Bartow where Claude Pepper climaxed a typical day by announcing to a crowd of 2,000 that he would vote for the Townsend plan even if the President vetoed it.

Issues. Politics in Florida are relatively simple. Whoever wins the Democratic nomination gets the job. The issues in the Florida primary race are not complex either. They are three:

1) Wages & Hours Legislation. Most Southern whites are against this type of legislation, killed it in Congress last winter. Floridians think it would not only put Negro and white labor on an economic basis of equality, but also ruin the State's lumber business. The two candidates who have served in Congress are on record on Wages & Hours. Wilcox is against it. Pepper is for it. Sholtz is noncommittal.

2) The Townsend Plan, which naturally enjoys the most vitality in regions where voters have the least, is still a lively subject in a State which attracts hordes of retired oldsters. Shrewdest attitude toward the Townsend bill has been that adopted by Mr. Sholtz. When speaking to audiences in which he detected aged faces, he announced his strong support of "H. R. 4199," confident that only Townsendites would know what he meant. Said he: "As God is my judge, I promise you to do all in my power . . . for those old ladies and those old gentlemen who now have to live on the magnificent sum of $9 a month." In 1934, Mark Wilcox performed the feat of getting himself reelected, over famed Mrs. Beula Croker, widow of Tammany Boss Dick Croker, despite an anti-Townsend platform which he has since altered only to the extent of advocating larger old-age pensions. Claude Pepper, after being endorsed by Dr. Townsend, proclaimed renewal of his faith in the plan last week.

3) Relief. Florida's WPA rolls currently contain 32,500 names. Of this, 5,600 were added in March--when the

State quota was enlarged. Whatever responsibility Claude Pepper can thus claim for taking care of Florida's unemployed is not an unmixed blessing. Candidate Sholtz warns his audiences that the increase was a political dodge, and that the new WPA workers are likely to lose their jobs after election. Following the same line. Candidate Wilcox has charged that Florida's WPA was being turned into a Pepper political machine. Last week, the WTA's Deputy Administrator Aubrey Williams officially recognized Candidate Wilcox's requests for a WPA "purge," ordered a "thorough investigation."

4) Franklin Roosevelt. Of the 96 seats in the U. S. Senate, 34 will be refilled this year. Of the Senators seeking reelection, 17 are out-&-out followers of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Of the 17, Florida's Claude Pepper is the first to face his constituents in a primary in which the President was a major issue. Thus, when the winning bird eventually emerges from the Florida political gaming pit, he will be heralded, rightly or wrongly, as a kind of weathercock indicating how the U. S. in general now likes its current Administration.

Again, the Congressional aspirants' record is clear. Representative Wilcox, who lives in West Palm Beach, just across narrow Lake Worth from Palm Beach, has taken his politics from his neighborhood. He has voted with conservative Democrats against all the recent Rooseveltian reform legislation: Court Plan, Wages & Hours, Reorganization.

Senator Pepper, from the less gilded purlieus of northwest Florida, stands by everything Franklin Roosevelt has ever done or presumably will do.

Dave Sholtz, from Yale and Daytona Beach, utilizing the advantages of not having served in Congress, tries hard to give his audiences the impression: 1) that he and Franklin Roosevelt are political cronies, and 2) that he takes orders from no one but his own constituents.

When the campaign began, all three candidates by tacit consent tried to shun the one big State issue which might have made the campaign more complex: the trans-Florida ship canal, which north Florida wants, and south Florida fears. But by last week. Claude Pepper, deciding most of his votes will come from north Florida anyway, told citizens of that section he was strong for the canal, accused Messrs. Sholtz & Wilcox of "pussyfooting."

"Claude Pepper, United States Senator" are words that were inscribed in the bark of a tree at Camp Hill, Ala. by Claude Pepper in 1911. He was then ten years old. After nursing his ambition while working as a farm helper and in an Alabama steel mill, stoking furnaces at Alabama University, boning through Harvard Law School where he graduated in 1924 and starting a law practice in Perry, then in Tallahassee, Claude Pepper set out to realize his goal by running for election in 1934.

Defeated then by 4,050 votes, he was chosen to serve out the unexpired term of Florida's late Senator Duncan U. Fletcher in 1936. In Washington, Claude Pepper distinguished himself by a strict adherence to all policies and projects suggested by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A stocky, black-haired young man, whose earnest, grey-eyed face is disfigured by pockmarks, he speaks with more sincerity than eloquence, convinces his listeners of his utter honesty when he says: "It is time someone in authority got in to do some fighting for the poor white man in the South. I have been fighting and will continue to do so, regardless of political consequences."

Florida primary campaign began at about the same time as the big-league baseball training season last March, moved in the opposite direction. All three candidates began speaking in the north, on the theory that the south half of the State was too busy to think about politics until the tourists left by April 1. Arriving early in March in Tallahassee, where he and his pretty young wife used to have a suite in the Emilie at the Quintuplet Apartments, Senator Pepper was promptly laid low for two weeks by an attack of grippe. Net consequence was to give a head start to his energetic rivals.

Claude Pepper's votes next week will be drawn, generally speaking, from Florida's few liberals and its many poor. Sectionally, he is strongest nearest home, in the north.

Claude Pepper on Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "I have sincerely and conscientiously tried to uphold the hand of the man who was trying to help you and whom you chose to serve as your leader by a three-to-one majority. Friends, I am proud of my record in Washington. . . ."

David Sholtz is a 46-year-old Brooklyn German who most surprisingly capped his career as President of the Florida Chamber of Commerce by getting himself elected Governor in 1932. In Tallahassee, Governor Sholtz's career was notable for the amiability he showed toward Florida horse and dog race-track owners. Following a series of articles written for Publisher Moe Annenberg's Miami Tribune by a onetime pressagent for Joseph E. Widener's Hialeah Park, named Ollie Gore, Florida's State Senate last May adopted a resolution for an investigation of the former Governor. It was killed by the House Resolutions Committee.

Florida Governors, like those of many Southern States, may not succeed themselves. Not in the least perturbed by his constituents' persistent curiosity about his personal bank account. Governor Sholtz reached a precipitous decision to run for the Senate last January, soon descended on the State with a retinue of press adviser and combined chauffeur & bodyguard.

Sholtz campaign schedule calls for half-a-dozen speeches a day--two in the morning, one at lunch, two in the afternoon, one at night. A sound truck with a 25-record library precedes him. Another accompanies him to broadcast his speech which lasts only 40 minutes, is always the same. Each of the three candidates by the time they stop touring next week, will have covered all the towns with over 500 population, in Florida's 67 counties. Driving between towns, diligent Candidate Sholtz makes a practice of stopping at every filling station, general store, to distribute his own campaign literature. Negroes cannot vote in Florida Democratic primaries bub whenever Dave Sholtz spies a white man on one of Florida's long, straight roads, he stops his car, gets out to say: "I'm Dave Sholtz. I want you to vote for me for Senator." It is said he could sell fur boots in Miami..

Sectionally, Dave Sholtz is weakest nearest .home, partly because of a row with Daytona Beach's lady mayor shortly before Sholtz left office in 1937. His votes will come from some of the State's industrialists and their hired help, remnants of his old machine and new friends picked up during his vigorous campaign.

Dave Sholtz on Franklin Roosevelt: "My good friend in the White House. . . . My good friend in the White House. ..."

Cracker Boy. Campaign literature which James Mark Wilcox distributes to his listeners includes a brochure modestly describing himself and his achievements. Excerpts: "Born in Willacoochee, Georgia, at the headwaters of Florida's Suwannee River on May 21, 1890. . . . Elected to Congress from the Fourth District in 1932; re-elected in 1934 and 1936. . . . Author of: 'Finance and Taxation Problems of Florida Municipalities.' ... He has frankly and sincerely opposed the Supreme Court Bill . . . the Black-Connery Bill ... the Reciprocal Trade Treaty with Cuba because of its injury to our Florida farmers. . . . Mark Wilcox is a cracker boy who has, by his ability, become an outstanding figure in the United States."

Cracker Boy Wilcox has helped crack many a pet project of Franklin Roosevelt. In the midst of his campaign, he scuttled up to Washington to vote against the Reorganization Plan, claimed personal responsibility for defeating it on the grounds that his reports of local feeling caused four other Representatives to change their votes. In Florida's current political cockfight, Cracker Boy Wilcox's chief distinctions so far have been the facts that: 1) he has only one sound truck to two for each of his opponents; 2) his expenses are thus far listed at $3,000 to $6,000 for Sholtz, $7,000 for Pepper; 3) he made the best wisecrack of the campaign.

Literally true to his promise not to meddle in this year's local elections Franklin Roosevelt has so far himself said nothing whatever about this year's Florida primaries. But when James Roosevelt stopped off in Palm Beach last winter, he glibly announced: "It is our sincere hope that he [Claude Pepper] will be returned to the Senate." Mark Wilcox's acid comment: "The State of Florida is waiting with bated breath to see what stand Sistie and Buzzie [Dall] will take."

On tour, Representative Wilcox adheres to a curious habit to which he attributes his success, of sitting on the edge of his bed for half-an-hour each morning while he simultaneously plans his day in detail and massages his head to improve the circulation in his brain. Unlike Dave Sholtz who makes a point of stopping at a second-rate hotel wherever possible, Mr. Wilcox and his wife--who calls her 5 ft. 6 in. husband "the little giant" and whose social rivalry with Mrs. Pepper is rumored to be one reason for her husband's desire to sit in the Senate--invariably choose the best.

It is also rumored that Mr. Wilcox was drafted for the race by influential businessmen of Miami and elsewhere in the State. At any rate, he seems to have the support of the solidest of Florida's financially solid citizens. Mark Wilcox on Franklin Roosevelt: "President Roosevelt is not God. He is a man just like all of us. He is bound to make mistakes. When he does, I will vote against him."

Outcome. Last week, as all three candidates rounded out their efforts, political observers were sure at least next week's balloting would break all State records. This is the first year that Florida voters: 1) have not been required to pay a poll tax, and 2) have had voting machines--which should be an intriguing substitute for the popular slot machines its citizens lost last year. Total vote in 1936 was 320,000; next week it will be about 365,000.

As to how the 365,000 would be split between Messrs. Wilcox, Sholtz and Pepper, opinions were more varied. In a Florida primary, the winning candidate must poll as many votes as all his opponents put together or face a runoff. Best guess appeared to be that Pepper would be high man in the first primary, with Sholtz and Wilcox running neck and neck for second place. If, as is likely, none of the three has the requisite majority, Florida voters will not know for sure who will succeed Claude Pepper until the runoff election on May 24.

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