Evening star., 1948-07-27
The Political Min
New Progressive Party
Has Its Singing Front
Taylor Would Be Better Cowboy
But Youth Gives Joyously
BY Gould Lincoln

The new Progressive Party has its singing
front-if Henry Wallace would take up singing
the picture would be complete. His running
mate on the partys national ticket, Senator
Glen Taylor of Idaho gave with the voice the
night Of the big rally at Shibe Park, Phila-
delphia-and he wasn't so hot As a singer,
the Senator must have been better cowboy
before he got himself elected to fin the seat
once occupied by Senator William E. Borah.
Paul Robson, however, newly elected perma-
nent co-chairman Of the new party. with his
great, rolling voice, makes up for any and all
defects
The rank and file of the party, under the
leadership of enthusiastic and we'll trained
youngsters, made the party's first national con-
vention the greatest political sing in history.
They sang, too. very joyously. Peter Seeger.
nephew of Alan Seeger, author of Il Have a
Rendezvous With Death" tall, lank youth,
with q banjo was moving sprit-and how
he did sing!
Despite this great crowd of enthusiastic
singing. cheering youth. there was grim
undercore in this latest political convention.
1t was responsible for the smooth running
steam-roller, which wound up always with
victory for Communist Russia-when there was
any question involving the policies of the
United States and those of the Soviet Union
The Reds in the convention-who seem to
resent desperately being called Red-.never lost
q round.
Groups With a Gripe.
In three days of convention speech making
and there were many speeches-nothing- good
was said Of the United States of America
although at the opening of each convention
@t,o eix ,f C%ar Lad
Banner" was first on the program. The criti-
cism heaped upon conditions found in the
country today was without parallel This might
have been expected, for the new party is made
up of many minority groups, racial or eco
nomic, each with grippe An observer, after
listening to the delegates and their leaders
might have come to the conclusion that Amer
lea was a terrible place to live-that indeed, 1t
should be given back to the Indians
This was the kind of chatter that lot of
the organized labor of the country has been
brought up on. 1t was net dissimilar indeed
to much that was fed them by the late Pres
ident Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 1t is the
kind of thing that undoubtedly will be heard
throughout the campaign, with its effect upon
the unthinking
An analysis of questionnaires filled out by
LAT of the more than 5000 delegates and alter
mates attending the convention showed that
529 were members of trade unions, with more
than so different international AFL CIO and
independent unions represented This was 46
per cent, percentage that probably would
have been found had all Of the delegates made
answer,
Still a Material Unit.
Granted that these delegates represented the
Left wing of labor 1t is still very material
group. They are the men and women union
members whom Philip Murray, head of the
CIO. and William Green, president of the
AFL, were unable to swing against the new
third party. This split in labor's ranks may
have something to do with the fact that Messrs.
Murray and Green have been slow to indorse
President Truman ID
The same analysis developed the fact that
73 per cent of the delegates were men. 27 per
cent women; that % per cent we're veterans
Of World War II, with an average of over one
years service overseas Twenty-six per cent
said that this was the first political campaign
they had ever been in. Twenty-three per cent
listed themselves as professional people; per
cent as businessmen and IL per cent, clergy
men.
The new party's particular object of attack
is the Democratic Party of Truman. It's hope
Is to sink the Democratic Party in the coming
eection-and to take over as the country's
liberal party. It's weakness lies in the fact
that the Democratic organizations-machine
in the great industrial centers are still func-
tioning, and will have candidates for a lot
of minor State and local offices in the field