Independent Man: The Life of Senator James Couzens

• 44. THE POLITICAL DILEMMA
• Chapter
• Wayne State University Press
• pp. 303-310
• View Citation
• Additional Information

CHAPTER XLIV

THE POLITICAL DILEMMA

He was never to feel really “fine” again. The incisions were slow in healing. He had to have injections of insulin. The attacks of terrible pain recurred. He was disappointed and depressed over his physical condition, he wrote to John C. Manning, nephew of Mrs. Couzens. But for the most part, his mood was to rise above his physical distress and carry on.

He certainly demonstrated very early in the new Congress that he still had plenty of fight left in him. For he took the lead in opposing, as did Roosevelt, a new soldiers’ bonus bill. When Roosevelt vetoed the “new veterans grab,” as it was called, Couzens was among only nineteen senators to vote to sustain the veto.¹

To Madeleine’s husband, William R. Yaw, of whom he had become very fond, he commented: “By this time you will have seen how much in the minority I was when I voted against the payment now of the adjusted compensation certificates for veterans. That vote undoubtedly will lose me votes. However, I do not suppose I will ever have the courage to quit and so it may be to my own interest to be defeated. Whatever happens will satisfy me.”²

2

Then, in February 1936, he conducted a vigorous one-man campaign against what seemed to him to be an especially flagrant abuse of patronage power by the administration. His target was Walter C. Cummings, a Des Moines and Chicago streetcar manufacturer, who had been introduced into the administration as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury by Woodin.

Couzens pointed out to the Senate that Cummings received some unusual patronage plums, unusual in salary and in number. Cummings was installed, through the RFC, as chairman of the huge Continental

Illinois National Bank and Trust Company of Chicago, at a salary of $75,000, as trustee of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, at another salary of $15,000, and, also through the RFC, as board member of a large insurance company, the Maryland Casualty Company. Undoubtedly, Cummings was an exceptionally able man, and Couzens did not deny this, nor did he question his integrity.

But what compounded the case, in Couzens’ view, was that Cummings was then also the treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. He denounced what he described as “the possibility of interlocking directorates, political appointments, the tying in of politics with business and the tying in of railroads with bankers, and so on down the line,” all apparently personified in Cummings.³ Not long after this, Cummings resigned as treasurer of the national committee, though he still headed the big Chicago bank.

3

This episode, which, the Chicago Tribune said, “gave Democratic party leaders the jitters,”⁴ did not mean that he had by any means deserted Roosevelt. It merely meant that, as before, he reserved the right to criticize the Roosevelt administration, even while supporting it. On this point, referring to the position Cummings was in, to solicit, if he desired, campaign contributions from corporations with which he did business in his various financial posts, Couzens told the Senate:

“I happen to know that during the Republican administrations . . . millions of dollars [in campaign funds] were collected from parties who had income tax claims pending before the bureau of internal revenue. So my complaint now is in no sense political or partisan. It involves a question which I have vigorously fought here for some thirteen or fourteen years, and I intend to continue to find fault, regardless of what administration may be in power.”⁵

4

As 1936 wore on, his affinity for the New Deal caused considerable concern to certain of his political well-wishers. That was the year he was up for re-election, if he wished to remain in the Senate. They worried especially over the problem of how he could expect to win a Republican nomination, in a Republican primary, if he stuck by his New Dealism with no organization of his own.

He had become quite friendly with George Averill, editor of The Eccentric, the local newspaper in Birmingham, Michigan. Averill sketched quite early to him a plan to solve his dilemma. He suggested that Couzens adopt the view that while he supported the Roosevelt program “in principle,” he had decided that the Republican party could do a better job and therefore Roosevelt ought to be defeated in 1936. If he adopted that position, said Averill, he could be re-elected easily.⁶

Essentially, this was how Vandenberg had won his re-election in 1934. Couzens rejected such advice offhand. His record of supporting Roosevelt, as well as Roosevelt’s principles, was made, and he could not repudiate it. He would not “stultify” himself, he told John Manning.⁷

5

The primary was the critical hurdle. In the general election itself, he could expect, as before, the support of voters of all parties, including especially the followers of Roosevelt. Not so in the primary. Roosevelt’s very popularity had set up an additional obstacle to Couzens there. He saw this new situation clearly:

Until 1932 there was practically no Democratic party in Michigan and so nearly everybody (in the primary) went in and asked for a Republican ballot, and in that case my sledding was easy. Now, however, they have a Democratic party in Michigan and all of the Democrats and Roosevelt supporters will undoubtedly go in and ask for a Democratic ballot. My name will not be on that ballot and so I will not be able to get their vote.⁸

This meant that, in the Republican primary, his candidacy more than ever would be at the mercy of the organization politicians of the Republican party.

There was not much doubt but that those elements, as before, would be against him. Already they were lining up behind young Wilbur J. Brucker, who had been governor and who in 1955 was to be Secretary of the Army in the Eisenhower administration, as the candidate in place of Couzens. At the state Republican convention in March 1935, at which Couzens had been snubbed, Brucker, then an Old Guard type of lawyer with a flair for oratory, was ostentatiously idolized along with Vandenberg. It was plain that Brucker would be run against Couzens, with the support of the whole Republican organization of the state.

In 1924, Couzens had overcome with ease the opposition of the organization Republicans. But 1936, obviously, would not be 1924.

As he himself said, “I am not under-rating the many enemies I have accumulated during the past five years. When you frankly oppose the payment of the soldiers’ bonus, the Townsend Old Age Pension Plan and other crazy schemes (like the McLeod Bill), you obviously collect a bunch of enemies, in addition to those I have accumulated through the misrepresentation about the bank closing.”⁹

6

Back in February 1935, former Mayor Frank Murphy, then Governor-General of the Philippines, later Governor of Michigan and named by Roosevelt to the Supreme Court, had a conversation with John Manning which pointed to an interesting solution of Couzens’ problem. Couzens should change parties, Murphy said, and seek the Democratic nomination for senator.

Coming from Murphy, then emerging as the leading Democrat of the state, this suggestion was by no means mere conversation, especially as Murphy then was preparing to run for governor on the Democratic ticket in 1936. If Couzens would agree to seek the Democratic nomination, said Murphy, the Democratic organization would not put up a candidate against him.

“I know I can manage it,” Murphy told Manning. “Connolly and some of the Old Guard Democrats would fume, but they are done; their power is gone.”¹⁰

Murphy told Manning that this idea came to him after a group of wealthy Detroiters had approached him with the offer of backing him for senator against Couzens. As related to Couzens by Manning:

“Three friends of Ed Stair actually met Murphy in Honolulu and tried to sell him. . . . Murphy asked why they were approaching him—a Democrat and fully as radical as you—instead of grooming one of their conservative Republicans. . . . He considered it an . . . illustration of the extent of their hatred for you, that in their desperation they would go to a man like him to run against you.”¹¹

Murphy declined the suggestion. “Senator Couzens stands for the same things in government that I do. He is for the people. He is head and shoulders above every other man in the Senate in integrity and independence and unswerving devotion to the interests of the great mass of people. We need men like him in our government. His way should be made smooth rather than hampered.”¹²

Murphy later added to this: “They offered me a half million dollars for a campaign fund. They considered Couzens a traitor to his class. They wanted to beat him, desperately.”¹³

In Washington a few days after his talk with Manning, Murphy called on Couzens himself and made the same suggestion to him directly, that Couzens seek the Democratic nomination.¹⁴ “Your position in the Republican party is untenable,” he said. “You never have voted with the Republicans. You belong in the Democratic party. You can’t win as a Republican. You can win as a Democrat.”¹⁵

Couzens protested on this occasion that he had “started as a Republican and wanted to stay a Republican.”¹⁶ But he did not close the door tight against Murphy’s suggestion. There was yet time to decide, he said.

Could he do as Henry Ford had done in 1918, and run as both Republican and Democrat? Hiram Johnson had done that in California, and had run on a third-party ticket to boot.

He asked Senator Vandenberg to obtain a formal opinion from Harry S. Toy, by then the Attorney General of Michigan, on this point. Toy’s opinion was that it was legal to be a candidate on both tickets, but that in the general election he would have to designate himself as either a Democrat or Republican. This meant that if he entered both primaries and won only in the Democratic primary, he would have to call himself a Democrat.¹⁷ He shied from that, and postponed a definite decision.

7

In November 1935 still another overture from the Democrats was made to Couzens. G. Hall Roosevelt of Detroit, brother of Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt and a close political associate of Frank Murphy, called on Frank Couzens. He told Frank that the Democratic party in the state “might” endorse Senator Couzens for reelection, but wanted to be certain beforehand that the Senator would not “slap back at them.”¹⁸ He asked Frank to sound out his father in secret. Couzens’ response to Frank was:

“I think I told you that numerous prominent Democrats had talked to me along the same lines . . . but on each occasion I was silent or at least noncommittal. I would not, under any circumstances, make any private arrangements with anybody. Whatever I do with respect to my campaign, will be done publicly.”¹⁹

But what would he do? He did not know.

8

Apparently with the idea of coaxing him to accept the Democratic overtures, certain Democrats began feeding newspaper writers “inside information” that he would run as a Democrat. Among other publications, the Free Press said that there had been a deal: Postmaster Farley was backing Couzens. In the Review of Reviews, there appeared an item that said:

The real political fight looming in Michigan will be an effort by the now thoroughly entrenched Republicans to oust Senator Couzens as an independent Republican New Dealer. The violent-tempered multimillionaire is Farley’s only hope in Michigan.²⁰

Publicly, Couzens ignored these assertions. But to Tom Payne, he wrote, “I can say to you, in confidence, of course, that no such offer was ever made to me by Mr. Farley.”²¹ He also denied the Farley reports in private correspondence with Governor Frank D. Fitzgerald, who had announced that he, at least, among leading Republicans, favored his renomination as against Brucker. To Governor Fitzgerald, he added:

While the necessity of filing petitions and the primaries are somewhat in the distance, I know of no reason why I should not run on the Republican ticket, unless it be that the party again comes under the standpat and reactionary leaders who have heretofore had control of the party.²²

9

Which way the wind was blowing in the Republican party appeared to be well indicated by the sentiment at a dinner held in Detroit in February 1936 by the Wayne County Republican Party. A headline on February 21 told the story:

JAMES COUZENS’ NAME BOOED AT G.O.P. DINNER

In April, Brucker formally announced his candidacy for the Senate on a typically Old Guard platform: anti-Roosevelt and anti-Couzens.

Couzens’ friends now urged that he also announce. “Every day you lose in making clear your stand will require at least two days of vigorous work . . . to win back the support you seem to be losing,” wrote George Averill.²³ That was all too true. But he still hesitated.

In May he told Tom Payne, “I think finally it will be my decision to enter the Republican primaries.” Then, only a week later, he asked Payne to find out if he could legally run as an independent. Shortly after he inquired of Payne: “How would we go about organizing another party?”²⁴ That same month, the Democratic party in Michigan, without consulting him, adopted a resolution endorsing him for re-election on the Democratic ticket, if he chose to accept.

Would he accept? He declined to say.

10

“There is no doubt that Senator Couzens seriously considered running on the Democratic ticket,” Prentiss M. Brown, then Democratic Congressman from Michigan (later Couzens’ successor in the Senate) recalled. Brown himself, among other Democratic Congressmen, urged that Couzens head the Democratic ticket in Michigan. He was also “authorized from a much higher authority to express the hope that the Senator would run,” said Brown.²⁵ But an affirmative answer could not be pried from Couzens.

One reason for his indecision was that, at times, he considered not running at all. His secretary, Carson, had in fact urged that decision upon him. Carson felt that the prospects for victory were too slim, and, besides, that Couzens was not in good enough physical condition to undertake another campaign. He discussed with Couzens the possibility of his accepting some worthwhile appointment from Roosevelt. “Without actually committing him, I got him to say that he would accept an appointment,” Carson recalled.

So Carson began consulting with certain men close to Roosevelt. His own hope, he later said, was that Roosevelt might offer Couzens the post of Secretary of the Interior, in place of Ickes, albeit this was only a hope on the part of Carson, who did not like Ickes. Among others, Prentiss Brown was interested in Carson’s efforts.

Slated to be the Democratic candidate for Senator, Brown was only too glad to avoid the possibility of a contest between himself and Couzens. He agreed to talk with Roosevelt about Carson’s proposal.²⁶ But Brown encountered delay in seeing the President. Couzens himself did nothing to press the matter.

11

In June, he was forced by the political calendar to make a decision one way or another. Democratic friends, including Murphy and Brown, continued to press him to accept a Democratic nomination. He finally turned that down. He told Murphy that to run as a Democrat, would mean he would be called “a turncoat,” and he could not “tolerate” that.²⁷

To Brown he gave yet another excuse. His son Frank, by the kind of administration he was giving Detroit as mayor, was now launched on a promising political career. “If I became a turncoat, it would harm Frank’s political future,” he told Brown. He did not wish to do that.²⁸

Actually, there was a deeper reason for his rejection of the Democratic nomination. He had made a career of being an independent man. Now, in his last years, how could he most clearly demonstrate his independence? By seeking refuge in another party? Or by insisting that he was a Republican even though the Republicans denied it?

His answer to that was inevitable. On June 15, he announced that he would be a candidate for the Republican nomination. “I am,” he said, definitely, “a Republican.”²⁹

Three days later, while he was packing to leave Washington for Detroit, Congressman Brown received the long-awaited message from the White House to confer with Roosevelt on “the Couzens matter.” Couzens was already at the railroad station when Brown later reported to Carson on his talk with Roosevelt. The President had indicated to Brown that he was ready to make a worthwhile offer to Couzens. There was a distinct possibility that Farley might retire temporarily, for the duration of the campaign, as Postmaster General, Roosevelt indicated. Politically, this seemed an expedient thing, as the Republicans appeared intent on making a serious campaign issue out of “Farleyism.” Even Senator Norris had been stirring up sentiment against the administration over Farley’s handling of patronage.

Roosevelt would be glad to have Couzens become Postmaster General for that period, with the understanding that another post would be found for him after the election.³⁰

Carson hurried to the station to tell Couzens. “We walked up and down the station and talked it out,” Carson related. The offer had come too late, Couzens finally said. Had it come earlier, before he had announced his candidacy, he might have accepted. “To take the offer at that hour would make it look as if he had been bought off. He could not take it.”³¹ So he entrained for Detroit for his third campaign for the Senate.