Evening star., 1940-07-10

to remove what
Charles G. Ross. ever traces NAV
remain OF G. o. P. opposition to Mr..
Willkie as an ex-Democrat-an op-
position which came so close to cost
ing him the nomination at Phila-
delphia. The selection of Mr.. Mar
tin, in other words, puts the stamp
OF orthodoxy on the Willkie cam
paign. 1t avoids such an error as
Al Smith made in 1928 when he went
outside the ranks of his party lead
ers-indeed, outside the ranks of his
party-and chose John ]. Raskob as
his manager.
John Hamilton, the outgoing ma
tional chairman of the party, is re-
tanned in the Willkie setup as "exe-
cutive director" of the national COM
mittee, but it is Joe Martin who will
be the candidates first assistant in
mapping the strategy of the cam
paign.
In House for Is Years.
Joe Martin to his colleagues Of
the House, he is Representative Jo-
seph w. Martin, jr., of Massachu-
setts on the official roster. He has
been in the House for the last Is
years and since the first of last
year has been the Republican lead
er. His greatest political achieve
ment has been to take a disorgan-
lied and detected House minority
and weld it into an effective oppo.
sition. This he has done by the
unspectacular methods of patient
attention TO detail and of cultivat-
ing the good will of his followers.
Through a system Of keymen in the
various State delegations, he has
been able to muster the full Repub-
lican strength on the floor of the
House for all votes of any impor-
tance.
When he isn't paying attention to
the running of his North Attleboro
tMassO Newspaper, on which he
began work as a newsboy, he de-
votes himself to the trade of politics.
He can tell you how the umsteenth
district of Illinois went in almost
any election year you care to name.
He can tick off the fighting-ground
districts that went Democratic in
1888 and tell you what percentage of
G. o. P. gain will be required to
bring each of them into the Repub-
lican column this year.
Exact Prediction.
In the 1888 campaign, when he
was chairman of the Republican
Congressional Campaign Commit
tee, he predicted that the Republi-
cans would increase their repre-
sentation in the House by 80 seats.
They did exactly that. They went
into the election with SO seats and
came out with 169-which is one
large reason why the New Deal for
the last year and half has run
into so many stumbling blocks. The
election gave the new leader some
thing to work with.
Mr.. Martin now sets great store by
the results of by-elections in Ohio
and Nebraska since 1888 The po-
litical tide, he says, is running in
favor Of the G. o. P He sees 100
districts now held by the Democrats
as ripe for an overturn. If the Re-
publicans, he figures. can make a 7
per cent gain throughout the closest
70 of these districts, and hold what
they now have, they will win con-
troll of the House by the margin
Of %.
The selection of Joe Martin for
the national committee chairman
ship, then, puts a second accom-
plished politician at the top of the
Republican campaign. The other is
the No. l man Wendell L. Willkie.
The fact that Mr.. Willkie made his
pre-convention campaign as a busi-
nessman, without the conventional
political fanfare, doesn't signify that
he is no politician. Far from it. On
the record up to now, he's as clever
a politician as they come.
Political Acumen.
1t took a politically shrewd man
to get for the Tennessee properties
of the Commonwealth and Southern
S23 ,000,0 900 more than the Govern
ment wanted to pay. He showed his
political acumen by the way he ran
his campaign for the nomination, by
his speech at the end of the con-
vention, by choosing Joe Martin for
manager while at the same time
keeping John Hamilton in the pic
ture. In a score of ways he has
proved his adroitness in politics. You
might say that he is politician in
the guise of businessman, rather
than the other way around.
He's not infallible in the political
game; not even President Roose-
welt is that. No doubt he will make
mistakes in the campaign, but If he
goes along as he has started he won't
make many. He has the political
touch.
No one, of course, could grow up in
Indiana and practice law there and
in Ohio without becoming a poll
ticiap of cortS