Voice of the People?

The night after Henry Wallace announced himself a candidate for the presidency of the U.S., he turned up with Russophile Singer Paul Robeson on the stage of the darkened Milwaukee Auditorium. Standing under a dramatic spotlight, facing an audience of 3,600 who had paid from 50-c- to $2 apiece to hear him,* Candidate Wallace began laying down his campaign platform. From offstage, a microphone boomed: "This is the voice of the people for Wallace. Now is the time to stand up and be counted."

Last week there were plenty of people standing up to be counted. But most of them seemed to be shouting: Count me out!

Some sounded more disappointed than angered. Eleanor Roosevelt's first reaction was a distressed "Oh dear, oh dear." Wrote crusading Editor Ralph McGill in the Atlanta Constitution: "He has a real genius for self-delusion [which] will make of him an ignominious spectacle long before November and the election. And I'm sorry because I like him."

Others were much less inclined to be charitable. Said Indiana's Democratic National Committeeman Frank McHale: "It's a good riddance. He is a much confused man and always had his thingamajigs mixed up with his whatchamacallits. I nominate for his running mate John L. Lewis and then we will have all of them on the same side of the street."

Said ex-Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau: "A lot of people are talking about what President Roosevelt would or would not do. Well, when he was alive he carefully weighed Truman and Wallace. He chose Truman and that's good enough for me."

"The Record is Clear." All week long the rush to stay clear of Henry Wallace gained momentum. in varying degrees of censure and regret, Socialist Norman Thomas, the Liberal Party's Chairman Adolf Berle Jr., the heads of the anti-Communist Americans for Democratic Action got out from under. Most of Big Labor, such leftist publications as Manhattan's PM and the Nation had already checked out. Last week a newspaper poll in the South showed that even Negro listeners who had loudly applauded Wallace as an itinerant foe of segregation (TIME, Dec. 1) would not support him as a candidate.

Like it or not (and Wallace did not seem to mind), his only visible means of support seemed to be the Communists and the organizations the Reds controlled.* Wrote Columnist Frank Kingdon, who resigned as co-chairman of the Progressive Citizens of America after P.C.A. had engineered the Wallace candidacy: "The record is clear. The call to Wallace came from the Communist Party. . . ."

The Risk. But the Wallace entry into the presidential race inspired a flurry of furious calculations among both Democratic and Republican politicos. GOPresidential hopefuls, who had to face their first test in the June convention, promptly began figuring the odds all over again.

If Wallace could be counted on to lose New York for the Democrats, the G.O.P. would not need Tom Dewey to win it for them. That seemed to make things nice for Senator Bob Taft. The more key states Wallace could throw to the G.O.P., the more he would subtract from the appeal of Ike Eisenhower. That would seem to make things nice for almost everyone else. As a result, Republican dark horses began to sniff and paw the ground. Illinois' Representative Leo Allen was encouraged enough to start a new one-man boomlet for Speaker Joe Martin.

The danger to the Republican Party lay in assuming that the Wallace candidacy absolutely guaranteed a G.O.P. victory in November, and that therefore it could nominate anybody--not necessarily its best and strongest candidate. The G.O.P. heard a word of caution from New York Times Pundit Arthur Krock, who stated the week's most obvious political truth: "There is a risk in counting on Mr. Wallace in any way."

Democrats were also brushing up on their political arithmetic. Those who had once glumly (if privately) figured that Wallace would drive Harry Truman out of the White House suddenly began perking up. Said Illinois Senator Scott Lucas: "He won't get enough votes to wad a shotgun." Harry Truman was reported to be calm and unworried.

Other Democrats cautiously decided that the Wallace entry might even help them. By taking the burden of Communist support off the Democrats, Wallace might help lure disgruntled conservatives back into the fold. By accepting obvious Red backing himself, he might also drive disillusioned "liberals" back to the Democrats.

"We're Going to Win." Admittedly it was much too early for any solid tabulation of Candidate Wallace's eventual strength at the polls. Starting from last week's level, Henry Wallace could move only in one of two directions. He had said that he would stand for "peace and prosperity." The gum-chewing, arch-Republican New York Daily News cracked: "Who the hell doesn't?" But if a depression or the failure of U.S. foreign policy started a desperate search for a change, Wallace might draw considerable strength as a "peace and prosperity" candidate--on a somewhat demagogic basis. If his Communist supporters caused enough revulsion, Wallace's glimmering torch might be snuffed out completely.

This week, as Wallace began a month's rest on his South Salem, N.Y. farm, P.C.A.'s Executive Vice Chairman Beany Baldwin was apparently the only one who thought of Wallace's own chances. There was not the slightest possibility that Wallace would drop out of the race, he insisted. Said Baldwin, with perfect deadpan and a disregard of history (see below) : "We're going to win."

* As master of ceremonies, leftist Radio Commentator William Gailmor devised a slick new method of extracting campaign contributions. Cried he: "Wave those $1 bills for the photographers, whether you can give them or not." When the audience complied, he shouted to ushers: "Now grab 'em." Total take: $4,000.

* Among them, such stridently left-wing unions as the United Electrical Workers, United Furniture Workers, Harry Bridges' Longshoremen.

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