[fla-left] [FL history/politics] Foes ruined Claude Pepper in 1950 (fwd)

[Michael Hoover]

>  [Moderator's Note: In those days, the Democratic primaries in Florida often
>  determined who held the office since there was hardly a Republican Party in
>  the state and it didn't run many candidates.]
>  
>  Published Sunday, September 10, 2000, in the Miami Herald
>  
>  Foes ruined Claude Pepper in 1950
>  
>  Dirty race is part of Florida lore
>  
>  TALLAHASSEE -- Old and young, rich and poor, weak and powerful, they filled
>  the Claude Pepper Center at Florida State University Friday.
>  
>  The occasion was the 100th birthday of the much-admired Alabama plowboy, a
>  tireless champion of the old, poor and downtrodden, and a national symbol
>  of the energy and political power of senior citizens. Here in the state
>  capital, where Pepper began his political career and where he and his
>  beloved wife, Mildred, are both buried, his birthday also was an occasion
>  to unveil a new postage stamp in memory of a local boy made good.
>  
>  The center, the work of the Claude Pepper Foundation, is a shrine to
>  Pepper's long career, but it's also a Florida political museum. It has such
>  artifacts as a replica of his jet-black 1938 Studebaker campaign car and a
>  careful reproduction of his Capitol Hill office, the walls covered with
>  plaques and photos including side-by-side autographed pictures of Orville
>  Wright and Buzz Aldrin (yes, he knew them both).
>  
>  Pepper died in 1989, but for a moment Friday he came roaring back to life.
>  A video tribute captured the congressman in his familiar seersucker suit,
>  pounding a lectern, delivering one of his many off-the-cuff stemwinding
>  speeches in defense of Medicare and Social Security.
>  
>  The stamp, Pepper's admirers agreed, is an apt tribute to a politician who,
>  at the height of his career, was getting almost as much mail on Capitol
>  Hill as the House speaker.
>  
>  ``For 33 cents, you're looking into the eye of a man who looked after a
>  nation, and its people,'' former Gov. Reubin Askew told the crowd. ``Many
>  political foes tried to lick him. Well, now he's on a postage stamp, so
>  they have their chance.''
>  
>  Reflecting on Pepper's remarkable life, it occurred to me that now is a
>  good time to remember a very different milestone, one that came and went
>  earlier this year without much notice, but which seems worth recalling more
>  than ever.
>  
>  It was the 50th anniversary of the infamous Democratic primary between
>  Pepper and George Smathers that ended Pepper's career until he was
>  politically reborn in 1962 as a liberal congressman from Miami.
>  
>  What people recall from the 1950 race now seems mostly myth: the speeches
>  in which Smathers supposedly hoodwinked North Florida yokels by calling
>  Pepper a ``shameless extrovert'' and his sister a ``practicing thespian.''
>  Smathers has long insisted that he never said it, but ``the speech'' lives
>  on.
>  
>  What is no myth, and is well worth analyzing from that election, is a
>  50-page paperback book titled The Red Record of Senator Claude Pepper.
>  
>  The book is a tour de force of guilt by association.
>  
>  Consider the times. Anti-Communist hysteria was raging. Alger Hiss had just
>  been convicted of perjury. Pepper was an avowed liberal, a supporter of the
>  minimum wage and maximum hour laws, and his bitter enemy -- Ed Ball, the 
>  financier of the massive duPont holdings in Florida -- was determined to 
>  defeat him.
>  
>  Like this summer's ``independent expenditures'' by shadow interest groups,
>  the anti-Pepper booklet offers no clue whatsoever that it had any 
>  connection to the Smathers campaign.
>  
>  It was ``compiled and published by Lloyd C. Leemis,'' a Jacksonville lawyer
>  and ex-FBI agent. Pepper is portrayed as a warmonger, Communist
>  sympathizer, appeaser and friend of Paul Robeson.
>  
>  ``Here is that famous picture of Senator Pepper with the Negro Red, Paul
>  Robeson, at a political rally sponsored by two Communist fronts,'' reads
>  the caption. The others in the picture were Henry Wallace, the Progressive
>  candidate for president in 1948, and Florence Eldridge March, treasurer of
>  one of the ``front'' groups.
>  
>  It went on, page after page -- a New York Times article describing Pepper
>  as a leader of ``the far left wing'' of the Democratic Party, glowing
>  tributes to Pepper in the Communist Party newspaper The Daily Worker,
>  cut-and-paste transcripts of congressional testimony by suspected
>  Communists.
>  
>  Seen in its entirety, it paints a distorted, but devastating portrait of
>  Pepper.
>  
>  But the book is a sordid reminder that negative campaigning is nothing new
>  in Florida politics, and it makes this summer's attack mailings look like
>  love letters by comparison.
>  
>  A 19-year-old Reubin Askew worked as a volunteer on Pepper's 1950 campaign.
>  ``It was a bitter pill to swallow,'' he said Friday, ``and frankly 50 years
>  hasn't made it that much easier.''
>  
>  Steve Bousquet is chief of The Herald Capital Bureau in Tallahassee. He can
>  be reached by e-mail at sbousquet at herald.com
>  ------

 
Smathers' victory over "Red" Pepper, as the latter came to be called, in
Florida's 1950 Democratic primary was signal to politicians throughout US
that communist-baiting could be successful electoral tactic.  Later that
year, Richard Nixon smeared Helen Gahagan Douglas with similar charges in
California US Senate election.

Florida's powerful Dupont empire executor Ed Ball had targeted Pepper for
defeat in 1944 for opposing corporate tax cuts and exemptions.  Pepper
managed to win re-election by narrow margin, but six years later Ball's 
money merged with Cold War politics to make character assassination 
possible.

Intervening years witnessed Pepper and Ball butt heads over ownership of
Florida East Coast Railway (FECR).  Company was in receivership in 1946 and
matter was before Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC).  Pepper sent memo
to ICC expressing dismay at Ball owning FECR because of latter's notorious 
anti-labor attitude.  Concern was well-founded when 1200 workers were 
locked out and lost jobs during longest rail strike in US history after 
Ball gained control of company.

Anti-Pepper groups spent several million dollars in late 1940s as part of
effort to destroy Pepper.  According to Dan Crisp, Jacksonville PR person 
who orchestrated smearing, Smathers was "means to an end" who was reported 
to have been Ball's choice as Pepper opponent only after four others turned 
down offer to run.  Crisp recruited US Chamber of Commerce, National 
Association of Manufacturers, American Medical Association into campaign.  
He put together bogus coalitions out of fringe right-wing political groups 
such as States' Rights Association, Federation for Constitutional Government,
Florida Tax Revision League.  Crisp also created "paper" organizations that 
passed resolutions, issued press releases, and wrote ghost editorials for 
newspapers and radios stations in Florida.

Smathers, who had been Pepper protege, attacked former mentor's support
of national health insurance, fair employment legislation, cooperation
with Soviet Union, and reductions in military spending.  Critics
alleged that he was "fomenting racial equality" after he criticized
Truman for weakness on civil rights.

On other hand, Pepper denied, despite pictures to contrary, shaking hands
with a black woman.  He also attempted to disassociate himself from
union-led registration drive of black voters in Florida and sought to
minimize his support for civil rights legislation.  Such tactics, neither
stopped smears nor deflected race-conscious whites from switching support
to Smathers.      Michael Hoover