Prelude to 1944

After weeks of maneuvers, dickers, deals and stage-setting. President Roosevelt last week flatly backed earnest, amiable, New Dealing Senator James M. Mead for the Democratic nomination for Governor of New York. Emerging from a White House conference, tall Jim. Mead smiled his toothy smile, happily quoted the President: "I am a voter in New York State, but I am not a delegate to the convention. If I were a delegate to the convention, I would cast my vote for Jim Mead."

Only five days earlier Franklin Roosevelt had shown irritation at his press conference when a reporter, noting that the President had seen at least one New York politico nearly every day for days on end, asked if he planned to support Senator Mead. Testily the President replied that he had read some fool stories about an alleged struggle for Democratic Party leadership in New York, but that he was busy being President.

War or no war, Franklin Roosevelt knew that the election next November in the most populous State in the Union is of great concern to the Party which he heads--and never forgets that he heads. Tom Dewey, the apparent Republican nominee, is busily at work. And on the Democratic side crafty Jim Farley had commitments from 51 out of 62 county delegations for his man, Attorney General John J. Bennett Jr. Mr. Roosevelt did not think John Bennett was the man to beat Tom Dewey. He wanted the hottest candidate he could get. Mead seemed to fill the bill. And also at stake is control of the 94 New York delegates to the 1944 Democratic convention.

FDR v. Big Jim. The Roosevelt plump for Mead meant a battle with Jim Farley, once his closest political friend. It meant kicking the pins from under John Bennett, once a Roosevelt protege. And big, bald, genial Jim Farley was determined to make this a real fight. After all, he had the delegates (up to now). Within an hour after Jim Mead announced his candidacy, Jim Farley issued a bone-bruising statement. He cited nine occasions on which Jim Mead had said he did not want to be Governor of New York; he said Jim Mead was "scared" of the job, said that he would make a "terrible" governor. He charged that the draft-Mead move was a "piece of political fakery." Jim Mead, who never hurts feelings if he can help it, and sure of himself under the Roosevelt banner, cooed toothily: "Under no circumstances will I engage in a campaign of vituperation."

Man With a Following. Although nearly every U.S. schoolchild has heard of Tom Dewey, the mustached ex-racket-buster, who has now lost two furious nip-&-tuck political campaigns, few outside New York know greying Jim Mead, whose life is a typical U.S. political success story. Irish-Catholic, born in a clapboard shack along the Lackawanna Railroad tracks at Mount Morris, N.Y., Jim Mead started to work at twelve on the railroad, like his father, brothers, uncles and cousins before him. He rose to be a switchman, became boss of his union. He played semi-pro baseball, got as far as a tryout with the Brooklyn Dodgers. When he was 25, a Congressman friend got him a job on Washington's police force. Jim Mead used to listen to harangues in the House. Looking at those faces and listening to those polysyllables, he reflected: "With a little polishing up, I could participate in those debates." He studied law at night, went to Buffalo, got himself elected County Supervisor, then State Assemblyman. In 1918, when most of the U.S. went Republican, he won a seat in Congress from a normally Republican district. He kept the seat for 20 years, through Harding, Coolidge and Hoover landslides, and his vote went up at each election. When he advanced to the Senate, his district at once fell back into Republican hands.

As Representative and Senator, Jim Mead, now 56, has stuck close to his job, worked hard for civil service, labor, post offices and all New Deal measures. He always reported for votes on crucial measures, has been a loyal wheel horse day in, day out, hardworking, steady, easy to know and easy to like. No polished orator, he never misses a chance to talk at a Democratic fish fry or a labor meeting. And, most important, he knows at least as many county bosses in New York as Jim Farley, and perhaps knows some of them better.

Day after Mead's announcement, three county chairmen gave him their support. Then Democratic National Chairman Ed Flynn and Tammany's new (and New Deal) Boss Michael J. Kennedy went over to Mead. This week Governor Herbert Lehman gave up his advocacy of his own protege, Lieut. Governor Charles Poletti, and endorsed Mead. Probable deal: Mead, if elected, will appoint Lehman to the Senate.

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