Evening star., 1947-02-19

well-baked proposal. Senator Full
bright did garner considerable coun-
try-wide publicity by doing exactly
that, but no one will contend that
his reputation for good judgment
has been enhanced.
There never was any sense in the
Fulbright suggestion. The surprising
thing was that so generally compe-
tent and good man should not only
have considered the election results
as permanently discrediting Mr.. Tru-
man but as turning Mr.. Truman into
craven. He wholly missed the fact
that the defeat gave Mr.. Truman
opportunities to be himself which he
did not have when he felt compelled
to proclaim his blind devotion to
the Roosevelt policies which already
had begun to disintegrate and
clearly had lost public support.
Selected Wrong Man.
The trouble with Senator Full
bright was that he called on the
wrong man to resign. There was no
sound reason for demanding Mr..
Truman's resignation, but there
were some very sound ones for
urging the resignation Of Robert
Hannegan as chairman OF the DEM
ocratic National Committee. These
were in no way diminished by the
totally unnecessary speech of Mr..
Hannegan a short time ago, al
testimonial banquet given for him
self hy postal employees, in which he
announced that Mr.. Truman would
be his party's candidate in 1s4S.
Everybody knew that. There is
no serious party opposition to Mr..
Truman and it is not likely there
will be a serious convention cand1-
date against him. Nevertheless. it
is felt by many that, from the
Presidents standpoint, it was not
very smart to have Mr.. Hannegan
publicly proclaiming himself as his
sponsor and champion at this time.
For the plain fact is that Mr..
Hannegan's conduct of the last cam
paign left him with extremely lit
tie reputation for brightness as a
politician. BY a large number OF
Democrats it was regarded as the
most stupid political performance
seen in great many years.
Rushed Toward Left.
Perhaps nothing that Mr.. Han
negan could have done would have
prevented the Republican victory,
but it is certainly true that when
the country and his own party were
clearly turning right, Mr.. Hanne-
gan rushed violently to the extreme
left. In New York he openly allied
himself with the Communist satu-
rated and controlled American
Labor Party, with the so-called Lib
eral Party and the CIO profession
ais.
All the way through the cam
paign he played the late MIR. Roose-
velt up and Mr.. Truman down. His
strategy was to rely on the Roose-
velt name and the radical elements.
Mr.. Truman was kept out of the
campaign and the entire Demo-
cratic appeal was to the far left.
The net result was a Republican
victory so large as to surprise even
the Republicans. Another result
was to deepen the conviction of a
substantial number of influential
Democrats that as party chairman
Mr.. Hannegan is bungling and
muddleheaded. Many of these
particularly in the South = are
friendly to Mr.. Truman but are
considerably dashed at the prospect
OF going through another campaign
With Mr.. Hannegan making the
party strategy.
Maybe He's Wiser.
Though Mr.. Hannegan Is from
Missouri, Mr.. Truman did not
originally pick him for the chair
manship. Mr.. Roosevelt did that.
But he has been a personal, as well
as political, friend of Mr.. Truman
and 1t is like Mr.. Truman to ask him
to remain both as Postmaster Gen.
eral and chairman. However, it is
. unfortunate.
r. It easily would be possible to get a
better chairman, but II Mr.. Hanne-
gan has learned his lesson it may
not be so bad. If he has not learned
it, then the Democratic position IS
hopeless, indeed, and 1948 will re-
peat 1916.
Certainly, after his experience,
two things ought to now be clear
8 to him-first, that the Democratic
/ Party will lose vastly more votes
than 1t can gain by shaping its
/, course to please the left wing