The Daily Alaska Empire

THESE DAYS
-BY.
GEORGE E. SOKOLSKY
PRELUDE TO 1950
Too much can be made of the
victory of Herbert Lehman over
John Foster Dulles. President Tru-
man, for instance, takes this el-
ection to mean an endorsement of
the welfare state. While any victory
could be so interpreted, other fac-
tors in this election are more pres-
sing.
First of all is the fact that the
shameless charge of bigotry against
John Foster Dulles
did not die
down, nor did it boomerang as
some anticipated. Governor Leh-
man pulled a sentence out of con-
text and twisted it to give the imp-
ression that his opponent was an-
ti-semitic. In spite of the defense
of Dulles' integrity by such Jews as
Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver and Ber-
nard Baruch, the charge stuck suf-
ficiently to show in the votes in
the largest concentration of Jews
anywhere in the world.
Similarly, the Democrats inhu-
manly made use of the fact that
while Dulles is an important Pro-
testant churchman, his son has,
become a Jesuit. They gave the im-
pression that the father had ne-
glected the son. This lie died hard,
as such lies do, and cost Dulles
many votes. In this sense, the cam-
paign was indescribably indecent
but not decisive.
Republican statistics anticipated
the loss of New York City but not
of up-state areas. However, about
28 percent of the up-state vote
did not show. This phenomenon
may be many things, including the
pcssibility that due to population
shifts, the increased industrializa-
tion of up-state cities, occupa-
tional and geographical changes
wrought by war, that anticipated
vote may not exist at all. (The
anticipated figures included perm-
anent registrations.)
In New York City, the combined
Democratic and Communist
vote
for mayor was 1,621,023. This re-
presented two candidates, William
O'Dwyer for the Democrats; Vito
Marcantonio for the Communists.
The combined Democratic and So-
cialist vote for United States Sen-
ator Lehman was 1,579,624, in the
same city. It is not clear how the
Communists voted in the Senator-
ial race. But the "Daily Worker"
fought Dulles and hailed his de-
feat. The combined Democratic, So-
cialist and Communist vote for
Lehman should have been 1,936,047
which it was not. All these parties
opposed Dulles. Actually, 2,577,193
votes were cast for mayor; 2,375-
331 for United States Senator. The
missing 201,862 votes, cast for may-
or but omitting the United States
Senator, will be variously interpret-
ed. They probably represent the
number of Communists who voted
for Marcantonio and no one else.
Some Democrats may not have vot-
ed for either Lehman or Dulles.
The Republican Party in New
York State fell apart after Thomas
E. Dewey's defeat in 1948. In New
York City, the Party, as an or-
ganized apparatus, hardly exists. It
made no attempt to run its own
ticket and resorted to fusion with
the Socialists (Liberal Party) on
local candidates while the Social-
ists fought Dulles most vigorously.
This added an element of the ri-
culous to the campaign.
The Socialists, however, did not
produce any outstanding results. In
a year when the Communists are
more unpopular than they have
ever been, when even a friendly
gesture to Soviet Russia is ana-
thema, shortly after the end of
the trial of 11 Communists in Judge
Medina's Court, Vito Marcantonio
who no matter what he may say
about it, represents to the voters
the full Communist political
strength, polled 356,423 votes, while
the Socialists, as the Liberal Party,
produced 372,281 votes. The differ-
ence is 15,858 is too small to notice.
The Liberal Party then has pro-
duced no important results. How-
ever, the combined Communist-
Socialist vote, 728,704, larger than
the Republican vote, 571,071, is significantly indicative of left wing
strength in this city. It is also in-
teresting that while the Republi-
cans were poverty-stricken, both the
Socialists and the Communists were
able to spend enormous sums, as-
tonishingly large for a non-presi-
dential election.
The repudiation of the Commun-
ist candidate in Harlem, Benja-
min J. Davis, is significant. Davis
has been convicted in a conspiracy
charge; his election would have
branded Harlem as a Communist
area. All anti-Communist parties
combined on a single candidate,
Earl Brown. Both candidates are
Negroes.
It is impossible to discover an en-
dorsement or a rejection of the
welfare state in this hodge-podge
of divergencies, personalities, and
bigotries, smears, lies, deals, tricks
and just dirt.