Joe Ball Decides

Minnesota's earnest young Senator Joe Ball set his own terms for supporting either Dewey or Roosevelt: the winner must convince Ball of the sincerity and strength of his internationalism. Then he sat back to listen. First he heard Tom Dewey's midweek broadcast; then he listened to Franklin Roosevelt. His decision: "I shall vote for and support Franklin Roosevelt." His reasoning:

"President Roosevelt . . . capped his record of action by meeting squarely and unequivocally . . . the vital and controversial issues on which the isolationists kept us out of the League of Nations. . . . Governor Dewey . . . has spoken for a strong international security organization, but in each speech has so worded his commitment that both isolationists and internationalists could find comfort in what he said."

White House Call. Joe Ball had thought long and deeply before bolting. Also he had been wooed by the Democrats. Soon after he seconded Tom Dewey's nomination at Chicago, word went round that Ball was lukewarm. The St. Paul Pioneer Press asked him pointblank. Replied Joe Ball on Sept. 29: "Governor Dewey . . . has not yet convinced me that his own convictions . . . are so strong that he would fight vigorously for a foreign policy which will offer real hope of preventing World War III. . . ."

The White House, eager for such a convert, got busy. Harry Hopkins invited Ball over to see the President. The three--Hopkins, Roosevelt and Ball--talked an hour together at the White House. The day was Sunday, Oct. 15. Two days later Ball told newsmen: he would decide after hearing the foreign policy speeches of both candidates.

After he announced his choice, newsmen jammed his small Senate office. Joe Ball made one point clear: he spoke for himself alone, and not for his political mentor, Minnesota's ex-Governor Harold Stassen, now a lieutenant commander in the South Pacific. Then he said, about the White House visit:

"We discussed Dumbarton Oaks and other phases of foreign policy. The campaign was not even mentioned. . . ."

In Minnesota, Governor Edward J. Thye, picked by Harold Stassen to carry on his administration, was campaigning vigorously for Dewey. And so were nearly all the Stassenites. When Joe Ball withdrew Stassen's name from the Chicago convention, he had said:

"One-man government must be ended in the United States of America. Our Republican nominee, Governor Dewey, must win, and to that all-important and vital task the friends of Harold Stassen in Minnesota and elsewhere will give from now on everything they have."

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