Scranton Beaten on Rights Move as Republican Convention Opens; Extremists Scored by Keynoter (original) (raw)
July 14, 1964
Goldwater Gets New Votes -- Walkout by Negroes Urged
By TOM WICKER
Special to The New York Times
AN FRANCISCO, July 13 -- The 28th Republican National Convention opened today and plunged into a spirited floor fight that displayed Senator Barry Goldwater's iron grip on the delegates.
Roaring with enthusiasm, they shouted down a rules changed proposed by the forces of Gov. William W. Scranton of Pennsylvania.
The Scranton motion, which would have barred delegates seated by discriminatory procedures, was designed to put Senator Goldwater in the position of opposing the rights of Negroes.
Scranton men contended afterward that the defeat they suffered was just what they had expected. It showed, they said, that Senator Goldwater was opposed to civil rights and was prepared to force his views on the convention.
Nomination Seen as Sure
The Senator's acceptance of the challenge, and the power he showed in putting it down, apparently signaled an acrimonious convention, with Scranton men challenging at every opportunity and Goldwater men just as eagerly fighting back.
But nothing is expected to shake Senator Goldwater's hold on the convention or to check his inexorable march toward becoming the 20th Presidential nominee in the Republican party's 110-year history.
That will come late Wednesday, if the present convention schedule is maintained. A major battle on the platform, centering on its civil rights plank, is impending tomorrow.
Governor Scranton's forces will seek to substitute what they consider a far stronger plank than the one written by the Goldwater-controlled committee on resolutions.
Not all the fighting spirit was expended in the intraparty brawl. Gov. Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon, in the traditional keynote address at the second session tonight, ripped into the Democrats and President Johnson with calculated vigor.
Even he, however, touched the raw nerves of the contending Scranton-Goldwater forces when he spoke out against the John Birch Society.
"There are bigots in this nation who spew forth their venom of hate," he said. "They parade under hundreds of labels, including the Communist party, the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birth Society. They must be overcome."
Scranton forces had sought a platform plank denouncing extremists and specifying the right-wing Birch Society.
The dominant Goldwater forces overrode this proposal, which may be brought to the convention floor in the platform debate tomorrow, along with the civil rights plank.
When Governor Hatfield spoke out tonight, the Scranton forces worked up some lusty cheering. Much of it came from the spectator galleries, however, and observers among the delegates said less than half of them had joined the brief demonstration.
Shortly after Governor Hatfield finished his speech at 12:07 A.M., Tuesday, Eastern standard time, the convention adjourned.
One dramatic possibility raised by the widening civil rights battle here is that the 14 Negro delegates, and an undetermined number of Negro alternates will walk out of the convention Wednesday night following the nomination of the Senator.
Augustus Knox, a Negro delegate from Maryland, was attempting to organize the walk-out.
Oratory and Formalities
Except for the brief rules fight, the opening session of the convention, staged in the Cow Palace, was traditional. That is, it was listless and devoted mostly to oratory and formalities lost in the rumble of inattentive delegates milling about the floor.
Elsewhere in San Francisco, however, the action was lively and not comforting to the Scranton forces. Among other developments were these:
¶The crucial Ohio delegation, released this week from its early pledge to support Gov. James A. Rhodes as a favorite son, caucused and voted to cast 42 votes for Senator Goldwater, two for Governor Scranton, 15 for Governor Rhodes and one for Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine.
¶A denunciatory letter sent by Governor Scranton to Senator Goldwater last night apparently had backfired among some uncommitted delegates; resentment at the letter's tone was reported to have brought definite Goldwater gains in Oregon, Utah and Colorado, and probable gains elsewhere.
¶At a news conference, former President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the Scranton forces scant comfort, refusing to back their proposed platform changes and maintaining his neutrality among the Presidential candidates.
When Representative William E. Miller of New York, the Republican National Chairman, banged down a monster gavel at 10:20 A.M. to open the convention, most delegates knew the rules-change fight would be the only major development for the first session.
The great banks of spectator seats rolling toward the lofty rafters of the Cow Palace were sparsely filled, but most of the delegates were in their seats on the arena floor. Mr. Miller's first words were a ritual repetition of the most famous phrases in American convention history:
"Will the sergeant-at-arms clear the aisles? Will the delegates take their seats?"
Newton I. Steers Jr., the chairman of the Maryland delegation, waited patiently at the rear of the platform for nearly two hours while waves of oratory of patriotic and party music washed through the hall.
The official call for the convention was sounded by the secretary, Mrs. C. Douglass Buck of Delaware, and Governor Hatfield was confirmed as temporary chairman, as were the other officers.
Substitute Offered
But when Mrs. Josephine S. Margetts, a New Jersey delegate, moved that the convention operate under the rules of the 1960 convention until the adoption of the 1964 rules, Mr. Steers went to the rostrum to make the rearranged Scranton move.
He offered as a substitute for Mrs. Margetts's motion one calling for the temporary adoption of the 1960 rules with one change -- a clause that would ban the seating of any delegate or alternate who had been selected by rules or procedures "which had the purpose or effect" of racial discrimination.
Ostensibly, Mr. Steers's motion was offered on behalf of George W. Lee, 67 years old, of Memphis, Tenn., a Negro who had served as a delegate to every Republican convention since 1940 and who had seconded the nomination of Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio at the convention in 1952.
Mr. Lee was excluded from the Tennessee delegation this year, and has charged that racial discrimination was the reason.
Mr. Steers charged that Mrs. Margetts's resolution would condone this "grievous wrong."
Calling his substitute a "rule of fairness," he said there was no issue of states' rights or constitutional government involved but only the question whether the convention would be "free to be fair."
Eilliott Richardson, a Massachusetts delegate, also spoke on behalf of the Steers substitute. But the temper of the convention was clearly shown when Senator Carl Curtis of Nebraska, the Goldwater floor manager, went to the rostrum and received the first enthusiastic ovation of the session.
The proper place for a rules-change proposal, he said, was in the rules committee: the proper place to appeal the Lee case was before the Credentials Committee.
When Mr. Miller put the question, the Scranton forces responded first with a vigorous 'Aye," a shouted response that seemed generally spread through the delegates.
But when the Goldwater forces roared out their "no," they clearly had enough decibels, as well as delegates, to win. Just as vigorously, they then shouted Mrs. Margetts's original resolution into effect.
Later, the Rules Committee voted, 69 to 19, to exclude the Steers proposal from the permanent rules that will be adopted by the convention tomorrow. The credentials committee, completing the job, voted against Mr. Lee's appeal that he be seated, 66 to 18.
Scranton men said no further attempt would be made on the convention floor to get the antidiscrimination amendment into the permanent rules.
One reason for the prompt and powerful opposition of the Goldwater forces to the Steers substitute was apparently the bad feeling that has been generated between the opposing camps, particularly by Governor Scranton's letter last night.
Scranton spokesman said after the vote that it meant the Goldwater forces were determined to "cut out heads off" at every opportunity.
They took some comfort in two factors. One was that they had stirred up a fight, when previously the Goldwater forces had resisted all such efforts and had exerted their power behind the scenes.
The other was that some Scranton men believed that if the Goldwater forces reacted as strongly to every issue raised in the convention, some uncommitted delegates and some of the more loosely committed Goldwater delegates might turn to the Scranton camp.
But these were slender hopes in the face of the on-rushing Goldwater drive, the most powerful force seen at a Republican convention since the "Taft can't win" sentiment started spreading among the delegates in 1952.
The Ohio development today was another turn of the bandwagon wheels. When Governor Rhodes announced last week that he would release the delegation, against all Scranton efforts to hold it in line against Senator Goldwater on the first ballot, the Senator promptly claimed 28 to 40 Ohio votes.
Governor Scranton said he would put a "task force" to work on the Ohio delegates. In the event, however, Senator Goldwater got two more votes than the high of 40 he had claimed, and the Governor was almost ignored by the Ohioans.
For the Scranton strategic purposes, however, the 13 Ohio votes for Governor Rhodes and the one for Mrs. Smith were useful. They meant that a total of 18 Ohio votes would be held out of the Goldwater column on the first ballot.
Calls Off an Appearance
It was becoming clear today that Governor Scranton's strategy had not been served by his letter to Senator Goldwater.
its sharp language, which angered the Senator so much that he canceled an appearance at last night's Republican gala, also offended some previously uncommitted delegates.
In a television interview tonight, Governor Scranton took full responsibility for the letter, although he said he did not write it and did not see it before it was sent to Senator Goldwater. The Governor conceded that when he did read the letter, he, too, found some of its language perhaps too strong.
Ray M. child, the Utah Republican chairman, said that the letter had caused him and Oma E. Wilcox, the Utah vice chairman, to go Goldwater. They had been uncommitted.
A similar reversal hurt the Governor in the Oregon delegation. Howell Appling, that state's secretary of state, said the letter "did not reflect the judgment and poise to be expected of a man aspiring to the highest elective office in the world."
Bound to Rockefeller
The Scranton men have used almost exactly similar words without much effect, about numerous Goldwater statements.
Mr. Appling said that before the letter was published, the Oregon delegation was about 13 to 5 for Governor Scranton; now it would be 12 to 6 for Senator Goldwater, he said.
In fact, however, all the Oregon votes must to to Governor Rockefeller on the first ballot, since he won them in the state's preferential primary. Thus, Oregon resentment at the Scranton letter would become important only on later ballots, if there are any.
Gov. John A. Love of Colorado, a Scranton man, said he had hoped for six votes out of his 18-member delegation; after the letter, he said, he would be unlikely to get more than three.
Governor Love, with former Gov. Elmer L. Anderson of Minnesota, was the sponsor of another short-lived Scranton effort to shake Senator Goldwater's control of the convention.
They were overwhelmingly beaten in the Rules Committee today when they proposed that each delegation vote by secret ballot before its chairman could announce the delegation vote on roll-calls.
Had it been adopted, the secret-ballot before its chairman could announce the delegation vote on roll-calls.
Had it been adopted, the secret-ballot amendment might have given some unhappy Goldwater delegates a means of deserting to the Scranton camp.
Governor Love said the effort would not be carried to the convention floor, so decisively was it beaten in the Rules Committee.
Governor Hatfield was the star of the day's copious oratory, coming on late tonight with a 30-minute speech intended to evoke both a fighting spirit and a mood of optimism in the convention.
Governor Hatfield made President Johnson a frequent target, terming him a candidate "with one foot on the banks of the Rio Grande and the other on the banks of the Potomac."
Mr. Hatfield, referring to charges against the President in the case of Robert G. Baker, said Mr. Johnson "cannot sweep a hi-fi set under the rug and expect to bulge not to show."
Testimony before a Senate committee alleged that Mr. Johnson had received a hi-fi set from Mr. Baker, whose tangled business dealings were being investigated.
Governor Hatfield also termed the Administration's policy in South Vietnam "neither to win nor to conclude" the guerrilla war here.
He said the Democrats "relied on the panaceas of the past" and that the record of the Kennedy-Johnson Administration was "one of reaction, not progress."
Other Speakers
Other speakers at the opening session included Senator Thomas Kuchel of California, whose outspoken opposition to Senator Goldwater won him a rather cool reception; Mayor John Shelley of San Francisco, a Democrat who welcomed the convention; former Mayor George Christopher; Representative Frank T. Bow of Ohio, and Gov. Tim Babcock of Montana.
At the evening session a message from former President Herbert Hoover, many times a speaker at Republican conventions, was read by Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois.
Other speakers preceding the keynote address included several members of Congress, Mr. Miller, his assistant, Mrs. Elly M. Peterson, and Gov. John Chafee of Rhode Island
Mr. Miller, who came on to the strains of "The Notre Dame Victory March," got an ovation that befitted his status as the leading Vice-Presidential candidate.
he responded with a slashing attack on the Democrats of the kind he will be expected to make this fall if he is on the Goldwater ticket. Calling the roll of alleged Democratic failures, from the Bay of Pigs to the Berlin Wall, he said they occurred because Democrats "have never understood and never will the inherent, unrelenting and perpetual threat of Communism in this world."