Evening Star Newspaper, January 25, 1931, Page 27

EDITORIAL SECTION he Sunday Star. Part 2--8 Pages e Special Articles STEADY INCREASE NOTED . IN FEDERAL AID PROJECTS U. S. Subsidies to Sta $12,000,000 in 1912 to $134,406,435 in 1930—Two Sid BY GEORGE B. GALLOWAY. Bditorial Research Reports. EVERAL factors are now directing public attention to the American subsidy system. Chief among them are the rapid growth of Federal ald to the States in re- ®ent years, the method of apportioning such grants and the conditions attached to the Federal payments, the new forms being taken by Federal aid, and the extension of Federal funct.cns involved in the growth of the system. Current efforts to relieve economic distress have led to the introduction at the present session of Congress of various meas to extend or modify the Federal-aid sys- tem. Unofficial proposals looking to changes in the system are also being advanced by interested groups and in- dividuals, =comincnt among_these is the proposa: to relieve the States, at least_temporarily, of any obligation to match payments offered by the Federal Government and to have Congress make outright grants to the States. It is also suggested that the Federal Government reimburse the States and municipalities for expenditures they have made and re making to mitigate unemployment. ese developments and proposals have Fenewed the old debate as to the merits f the principles involved in Federal d, in the course of which widely di- Tgent views are being expressed. Theories of Federal Aid. The problem involved in Federal sub- sidies to the States is that of financing Jocally administered services—such as forest-fire prevention, agricultural ex- tension work, highway construction, vo- eational education and promotion of the | welfare of mothers and infants—which are national in scope and significance. There are at least three ways in which such essential services could, in theory, be financially supported: (1) by the States alone, (2) by the Federal Gov ernment alone, or (3) jointly by the Btates and the Federal Government. ‘To leave the States to finance, with- out Federal assistance, what are essen- tially national services assumes that all the States are able, or equally able, to provide such services. In view of the wide disparity between the States in population, natural resources, assessable | value of taxable property, wealth and | income, this assumption is obviously un- | tenable. To proceed upon it would re- sult in the provision of inadequats serv- ices in some States, and in a failure in other States ic provide one or more of these services. To leave the financing of locally ad- ministcred national services to the Fed- eral Government alone would result, it | s believed, in the stifling of local ini- | tiative and responsibility. It would smack of paternalism, presenting the Government at Washington in the role | of “paymaster and policeman.” It| would also invelve a heavy burden on| the Federal Treasury which would have 10 be borne in the main by the weaithier Stages. For these reasons this alterna- tive has never been seriously considered in the United States. Joint co-operation between the States and Federal Government in the financ- ing of certain services is the third al- ternative which, in practice, has been adopted. Under this arrangement the central Government has become the partner of the States in providing and administering certain services. On the &lfl of the Federal authorities, the mo- ive has been to secure economy, effi- ciency and uriformity in the work un- dertaken. Local authorities, on their rt, have regarded Federal aid as an centive -and guide, and sometimes a 8ine Gua non, to the provision of satis- factory service Evolution of Federal-Aid System. Under its power to appropriate money for general purposes, the Federal Go ernment from its earliest days has as- sumed the responsibility of rendering financial an4 administrative assistance o the States. The practice of granting subsidies to the States from the Federal *Treasury began with the land ordinance for the Northwest territory in 1785 and has continued down to the present time. Congress has made grants to the States, articularly from the sale of public nds, for schools, roads and canals. Today the whole field of relationships Ereated by these subsidies is covered in minute regulations reached by agree- ment between State and Federal au- thorities. In recent years Congress has #ctually entcred the domain of State #nd local government and has created hew organs nf administration which, in B strict sense, are neither Federal nor Btate in character. res | system has expanded until today 31 | statutes virtually declare certain State |officials to be agents of the National | Federal, it is generally required that {1922 to $134,000,000 and by 1927 to | $150,000,000 for this purpose. In addi- tes Have Risen From es of Problem. Beginning in a limited way with Fed- eral aid for the maintenance of agri- cultural colleges and experiment sta- tions, the system was extended to pro- vide ald for the education of the blind | (1879) and to maintain homes for dis- abled soldiers and sailors (1888). From 1888 to 1910 no conspicuous extension of the subsidy system took place, but since 1910 a series of important acts has given great impetus to the system and has been accompanied by a marked increase in Federal supervision and con- trol of State activities. Prom modest grants in aid of the four functions mentioned above, the | classes of Federal-aid payments are made to the States at a total cost to the Federal Government of about $150,- | 000,000 a year. The rapid growth of | the Federal-aid system in the last 20 | years has been due to the extension of assistance to the States for such func- tions as forest protection (1911) main- tenance of marine schools (1911), agri- cultural extension work (1914), co-oper- ative construction of highways and for- est roads (1916), arming, equipping and training the National Guard (1916), vocational education (1917), preventing the spread of epidemic diseases (1918), industrial rehabilitation (1920) and promoting the welfare of mothers and infants (1921). (The Jones-Cooper bill for a renewal of appropriations.under this head is now pending in the Senate.) The resemblances among the acts es- tablishing conditional subsidies are striking. ~ As a rule, provision is made for close co-operation between Federal and State authorities, the former being given supervisory control over the co- operating State agencies. In effect, the ‘Government in certain of their activi- | ties. Except in cases where the basis of expenditures or allotments is wholly the State must equal the expenditures of the National Government. No State is required to accept any of the subsi- dies or conditions provided in the sev- eral lJaws. In each case the relationship is entered upon voluntarily, although the State Legislatures are obviously under considerable pressure to “match the Federal dollar” and to accept the terms imposed when subsidies are available in large sums. Cost of Federal-Aid System. ‘The rapid growth of the Federal-aid system is shown in a comparison of the payments to the States during the last 20 years. In 1912 the total of the pay- ments from the Federal Treasury to the States was approximately $8,000,000. By 1920 it had risen to $42,000,000, by $163,000,000, the high-water mark of the payments up to the present time. During the fiscal year 1930 net dis- bursements for Federal aid to the States and Territories amounted to over $147,- 000,000 and for the present fiscal year Congress has appropriated mare than tion to this sum, there are many un- expended balances of appropriations provided for previous fiscal years which are available for expenditure during the current year to meet obligations in- curred in previous years, During the fiscal years 1920-30, in- clusive, ~ the Federal-aid payments reached & grand total of $1453,676.224, almost one and one-half biliion’ doliars. construction of highways; over $275,000,000, or 19 per cent, went to the National Guard; over $64,000,000, or 4.4 per cent, was devoted to the co- operative agricultural extension work and an equivalent amount to co-oper- ayve vocational education and rehabili- tation. These four activities together accounted during the period for about 85 per cent of the Federal-aid appro- priations, highway construction being the chief beneficlary of the assistance. The Federal-Ald Highway System. ‘The present Federal-aid highway sys- tem was designated co-operatively by the Secretary of Agriculture, acting through the ‘bureau of Public Roads, and officials of the several State high-| way departments, in accordance with Federal highway act of 1921. The sys- tem comprises the main interstate roads and reaches directly nearly every city of 5,000 population or more. The roads are so chosen that if a zone 10 miles wide were marked off on each side of them these zones would include homes of 90 per cent of the population. The system is limited by law to 7 per cent of the total highway mileage in each | State, and Federal aid can be allotted | only to roads included in the system. Origin of Modern System. At first Federal aid took t-e form-of @rants of land for the maintenance of public schools (1785), for universities (1787), for use as seats of government ©r to defray the cost of erecting public buildings, for reclamation, to aid the Btates in building canals, to stimulate railroad construction and for internal dmprovements. Since 1900 Congress has eompensated the public domain States ©f the West for the curtaiiment in their sources of revenue caused by the large areas of untaxed Federal lands within their borders by giving them a portion of the recipts from such areas— | 25 per cent of the national forest reve- nues (1907), 50 per cent of the royalties from potassium deposits (1918) and 37!, per cent of the receipts from leases to oil lands and water power sites. (1920). ‘The States have also received a per- centage of the receipts from the sale of public lands within their borders. In 1837 and in 1841 Congress distributed surplus funds in the Federal Treasury among the States in proportion to their Tepresentation in that body. The modern subsidy system had its | inception in a bill introduced in 1857 | by Representative Morrill of Vermont granting a unit of 30,000 acres of public | land to each State for each of its Sen- | ators and Representatives, the money from the sale of the land to be invested end the interest to be used for the en- cowment of colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts. The bill passed both Houses, was vetoed by President Buchanan and was signed in 1862 by President Lincoln after the Southe members, who opposed it, had with- drawn from Congress. In 1890 Congress made an armual appropriation of $25.- 000 to each State and Territory for the further use of the land-grant colleges, & sum Increased to $50,000 a year by an act of 1907. A clause in the act of 1890 empowered the Secretary of the Interior to withhold its annual allotment from any institution “not fulfiliing its obli- | gatlons’—a device for extending Fed- eral supervision of expenditures which been employed in all recent subsidy legislation. In 1887 Congress provided for an an- nual appropriation of $15.000 to each State and Territory for the establish- ment and maintenance of experiment stations in connection with agricultural colleges. ‘This subsidy was increased in 1906 to $30.000 and in 1925 to $90,000 annually. Every State has accepted the Federal offer and established an experi- ment station in connection with its ag- ricultural college. State appropriations for this work greatly exc the Federal grant. In 1930, for example, they were @bout three times as large. When provision has been made for the completion and maintenance of 7 per cent of the total, the State is authorized to add to the system of Federal-aid highways. Before any project is ap- proved by the Secretary of Agriculture the State is required to make provision for State funds each year for the con- struction, repair and maintenance of all Federal-aid highways within the State. Standards of construction and materials are set by the Secretary of Agriculture, and the work is subject to inspection and approval by his agents. The original Federal-aid road act (1916) authoried the Secretary of Ag- riculture to participate in the fmprove- ment of roads up to 50 per cent of the cost of the improvement, provided that | the aid granted to any particular pro'- | ect did not exceed $10,000 a mile ($1 000 a mile at present), exclusive of ¢ cost of bridges more than 20 feet Ic The other 50 per cent of the impro ment is borne by the State highway departments. No Federal-aid funds are applied to county or local roads. In addition to its contribution to Federal-aid roads, the Federal Govern- ment has assumed the duty of building those sections of the major national system which lie in the national forests and parks and other parts of the pub- lic domain. In the forest highway sys- tem are 14,576 miles of major roads, of which 4,357 miles have been improved with Federal funds. e national park system includes 1509 miles of ‘m Y highways, o which 302 miles have been improved with federal aid, 88 of which were im- | proved in 1930. During 1930 the Bureau | of Public Roads continued its co-opera- | tion with & number of States in the | restoration of roads damaged by the floods of 1927 and 1928. This work, made possible by several special acts of Congress, has resulted in the comple- tion of improvements on 57 miles of highways in Vermont, 24 in New Hamp- shire, 39 in Kentucky and & short stretch in Mississippl. At the end of | the fiscal year 1930, 332 miles of Fed- | eral-aided bridges and bridge ap- | proaches were in use and 86 miles of bridges were under construction or ap- proved for construction. Federal Road Funds. Federal-aid roads are constructed under the immediate supervision of the several State highway departments sub- ject to the approval of the Bureau of Public Roads. The bureau has estab- lished 11 districts, each in charge of a district engineer, who co-operates di- Life in Russia Involved Crowded Homes Destr Conditions Prevail Generally. Privacy—Government Determines Rents—Unhappy “FLOOR SPACE FOR HOMES 18 AT A PREMIUM IN THAT VAST COUNTRY.® BY JANE MANDEL. $& T is_far easier to get a divorce in Russia than it is to get floor space; husbands and wives are| easily acquired, but floor space is at & premium,” was the state- | ment made by Norah Rowan Ham- lton, an English author, who has just| come here after an extensive trip through Russia. “So crowded and congested are living quarters in that vast country that even a man and woman who have been di- | vorced may continue to live in the same room and to this queer menage may be added the man's new wife, if he | has chosen to remarry,” Mrs. Hamilton continued. “The rooms are filled with | many beds and there is, for the most rt, no such thing as a sitting room Individuals do not have separate rooms and privacy is unheard of. | “The evils of propinquity are great,| and many disputes arise out of living in such close quarters. In 10 square feet of floor space, which is each indi- vidual's allowance, it is difficult to pre- | | complete serve an even temper. People who are strangers and whose back- grounds, ideas and standards vary, are bound to come into conflict. “A judge told me that most of the these housing problems.” Families Share Bath Room. In the newer tenements that are be- ing put up after the fashion of Amer- ican apartment houses are found more comfortable conditions than those prev- alent elsewhere, Mrs. Hamilton said. A family of five persons may occupy two bed-sitting rooms. Their bath room and kitchen, however, must be shared with the family on the other side of the passageway. In order that no avail- able space may be wasted, some mem- ber of the family sleeps on a board placed across the top of the bath tub at night. An’ attempt is now being made to| let married people have scparate liv- ing quarters, and these so-called “mar- ried quarters” are eagerly sought, people even getting married primarily for the Music’s Place BY JOHN ERSKINE. F WE examined the college curric- ulum not through the eves of our tradition but with a fresh and un- biased outlook, we should probably be amazed at the small provision it makes for certain essentials of culture. ‘We should see, of course, in the catalogue many printed references to the arts and | sciences, but in the actual instruction | d in the daily life of the students the | arts would have s0 meager a represen-, tation that they might as well t be represented at all. We teach not arts, but | sciences—mathematics, physics, chem- istry, biology, geology. Our_ emphasis upon these subjects is due, I suppose to the eloquence and energy of Huxley and other nineteenth century advocates of scientific education. They convinced us that sclence should displace the classics in the curriculum, just as pre- vious centuries had persuaded Euro- pean universities to let the secular lit- erature displace theology. Huxley and his fellow advocates of science, being themselves men of cul- ture but not clear as to how they be- came 50, told us that the proper study of a science would afford a modern boy a liberal education. There now seems to be some doubt about this result. Most, if not all, of the scientific schools, of medicine or engineering or now insist that their candi- dates shall have collected some culture before they present themselves for pro- fessional instruction. The requirement usually is that they shall have spent| some years in college, where, by assump- tion, culture is imparted. In college, however, the courses which all the stu- dents pursue are confined more nar- | rowly than we perhaps realize to the same kind of intellectual approach which characterizes the graduate work. Culturally speaking, the college course offers little which is not found in the engineering school or the law school, and it offers the same thing in a more elementary, a softer and a flabbier state. Arts and Sciences Differ. ‘The old balance of the arts against the sciences was a sound contrast, and | THEY HAVE BUILT UP A MODEST TE the not unusual attempt nowadays to | A LITTLE FURTHER, WOULD PUT THEM IN C confuse the two things is unfortunate; for whatever resemblanc between an art and a science, the im- portant thing is the difference between them. The object of science is ac- complishment; th> object of an art is performance. Sound training in the arts will teach the individual how to| perform something well, always with an audlence in mind—to speak or write a language well, to maintain a public de- bate, to preach a sermon, to paint a pi ture, to sing or play music, to carve a statue, to design and build a house. Or, if nothing else, to stand or to walk well, to carry oneself with poise, to be- | have courteously. A training in the arts—that is, a| training in performance—was once thought essential for cultured men or women, but the universities as such have always, because of their tradition, been reluctant to impart this training. It has usually been acquired from pri- vate tutors, and it has therefore been the privilege of the fortunate clas ‘The universitics have by tradition pre- ferred to stress science—the science of | God—the sclentific aspects of classical | literature, grammar, prosody, etymol- | ogy; the science of the law, the physical sciences. If the universities were right in this emphasis we might suppose that human rectly with the State highway eers of the States included in his district. The four Western districts are under (Continued on Fourth Page.) . beings are more eager to accomplish something than to perform; more eager to get somethyng done than fo live well. | | sake of obtaining one of these highly prized flats. |~ Not only the amount of floor space | but the amount to be paid for it is | determined by the government. Rents wages earned, Mrs. Hamilton found. A family having a greater wage will pay | more for accommodations exactly like those of their next-door neighbor whose | income is smaller. On the face of it this may seem right and just, vet it |is a sore spot with many, breeding | much discontent. Rents Pay for Repairs. To induce people to contribute money for building houses, promises are made that after a certain number of years the contributors will become the owners. By the end of that period, however, po: session will have no significant value | for the poorly constructed houses will have deteriorated to a very considerable extent and will be worth little or nothing. The rents are used for repair and general upkeep, but the money supply from this source is small, and so houses fall into decay and wretched condition. Housmg is not the only problem with which the Russian is confronted. The obtaining of food and clothing presents | cases brought into court arose from are adjusted in accordance with the [numerous difficulties, too. The price of food and clothes is high, even for the Communist, who gets a special discount, one of the few compensations for the many sacrifices entailed by joining the | party, Mrs. Hamilton said. Lines Wait at Stores. The shops in the bigger towns are open but a short time each day For many hours before their opening old men, women and children, with the | tickets issued by _the government | clutched in their hands, wait with | stolid patience to be served. Should the supply be exhausted before each has obtained his allotted share, those re: | maining ‘are turned away empty. handed. | “These bread lines afford a surpris- | ing contrast.” said Mrs. Hamilton, the_excelle; - ex _and_abundant meal ‘that 17 (Conti ed on Fourth Page.) in Education Public Opinion Will Force Recognition of Art in Colleges, Says Famous Write; of us would say that our college stu- dents are chiefly, or even to any marked scientific minded. And even ¥ do excel in accomplishment criticize them, most illogi- cally, for their incompetence arts,” for the bad performance makKe of their lives, for their unfortu nate manncrs—Criticize them, in other words, for not having the education we didn't give them. Architecture’s Representation. The one art which is well represented in our collges is architecture. Most of us make no question that the atmos- phere created by noble bufldings influ- ences the student who lives and works in them. But the influence of archi- tecture is for the most part nothing but atmosphere, affecting young lives sur- reptitiously. We do not teach our stu- dents architecture, If they grow rich and endow a university themselves, they will not—l<t us hope they won't!— design the buildings. One other art affects their life surreptitiously, or at least outside of the academic guidance. They live to dance. The starved urge toward performance com:s out in their passion for this, the most primitive form of expression. I have known very few college faculties in which one wouldn't hear criticism of the way the though tk many of u students danccd. I have known none! Y Prom a Painting by Hugo Vogel. NIQUE, WHICH, IF CARRIED NTROL OF AN ART. s there may be | But this hardly seems to be true. Few | whatever which would permit a course | to teach the students to dance better. | _ The picture of our curriculum which | I have just drawn is, I know, over- | brief and therefore exaggerated. If you are a veteran in education, you may ay that the old debate about the con- tents of the college course is an irrita- tion too often mistaken for the intel- lectual life. But a situation is rising fast in the United States which makes the question immediate and practical. Our universities continue to ignore the arts. Even where they begin here and there to cultivate an appreciative at- titude toward them, what they actually do is colored by an unconscious and traditional hostility toward them. But in the elementary stages of American education the emphasis is overwhelmingly the other way. In the kindergarten and the early grades of school the children are launched upon a carcer of performance and expres- sion which the college and university later will firmly deny them. Why the elementary education should take this | direction I don’t know. Perhaps Amer- ican educators believe that the arts are things for children to amuse them- selves with and get over. Perhaps the craving in the children is so great for this sort of training that it cannot be resisted. But whatever the reason, the one 8ot in our education where we now | really teach both arts and sciences is the early grades. There they learn to | play an “instrument, to make little | plays and act them, to model in clay. And with perfect logic they are taught art of living, some principles of thei | personal bearing toward their fellows, and of their social responsibility. If we were to see the youngsters al lege and university curriculum, might well be enthralled with the vi- sion of what such an education might come to_when carried to its final stages.. We should imagine the uni- versity student proficient and at home in the arts, himself, as it were, to some degree & work of art fashioned by creative teachers. That'’s what we might expect if we didn’t know that by the time the student reaches the high school we shall interrupt him in every one of these activities and force him’ to follow them, if at all, chiefly outside of the curriculum. The excuse we'll give is that he has fo prepare for college. In college we will see to it, except in the rarest cases, that he cannot follow these interests at all, not even outside the curriculum. ‘There may be a difterence of opin- ion about the value of different sub- Jects in education. There must be many educators who approve of the dropping of the arts as children ap- proach the college course. But there can hardly be a question that this pro- cedure causes a waste, not only in the preparation done in the lower grades, but in the subjects which many fami- lies provide for outside of the school curriculum. And I personally believe that the abandonment of a subject after some years of study, but before the student has acquired genuine pro- ficiency in it, causes a serious reaction against the subject. The fact that the instruction in Latin and Greek so often led to no ability to read either Latin or Greek caused, I think, exaggerated antipathy to those studies. The amount of time given to modern languages, unless some ability to speak and read is acquired, often produces an active hostility to them. This is true particularly in the case of music. The impression one would get from a casual observation of college boys and girls is that few of them have a deep love of music or even a moderate taste for it. But if we were to look at the youngsters in the kindergartens and lower grades we should get just the op- posite impression — that children have an excellent natural taste in music and a quite surprising aptitude for perform- ing it. What has happened to them in the interval between the lower grades and college? Frequently their parents have provided for them, outside of school hours, instruction in the piano or some other instrument. They have de- voted hours to practicing, and have managed to build up a modest tech- nique, which, if carried a little further, would put them in control of an art which ‘would yield enjoyment for all their lives, I am not speaking of those individ- uals who might become professional musicians. In these remarks I omit altogether consideration of that class. 1 am speaking only of general education for the average citizen. { these average students who ac- quire some competence in music accord- ing to their age, the abler find their way into school orchestras and bands, into school choral groups, sometimes into -modest operatic performances. | draw, to paint, to sing, sometimes to | | at the same time some elements of the | |Selection Believed BY MARK SULLIVAN, N the simmering (almost the seeth- ing) now going on about who shall be the Democratic nominee for the presidency in 1932 one hears from politiclans and _ob- servers two forms of judgment. really amount to the same. One kind of person says: “If it isn't Smith it will be Gov. Roosevelt.” (Or Owen Young, or Newton D. Baker, or Senator Robin- son of Arkansas, or Gov. Ritchie of Maryland.) The other form of judg- ment says: “If it isn't Gov. Roosevelt (or one of the others) it will be Smith.” Three Issues Loom. In other words, ex-Gov. Smith's name turns up as either the first name or the second in almest every off-hand judgment. The frequency of the mention of Smith in this connection, the perma- nency of him as a figure in the front of the Democratic presidential picture, is quite well understood by political leaders of both parties and by experi- enced observers. It is commonly neg- lected by casual newspaper readers and by most of the public in general. Actu- ally Smith's prominence in the 1932 picture and his permanence there is based on the best of ressons. As it now seems, the presidential elec- tion in 1932 will turn raainly upon two issues and a condition. The condition is the state of business; the two issues are prohibition and power. As to the state of business, whether we shall be still in a depression or whether prosperity will be back—as to that Smith is certainly in as favorable a position as any other Democrat. Pos- sibly he is in a slightly better ition. If we are still in depression 1932, and if for that reason a considerable number of voters are in a mood of sul- lenness and disappointment—in such a mood & voter might take particular sat- | istaction in voting for Smith as a can- | didate who was rejected in 1928 partly | on the theory that prosperity could be | assured only by his Republican oppo- | nent, Mr. Hoover. Smith Is Real Pioneer. It is, however, on Smith's relation to the two issues—prohibition and power —that his availability for 1982 chiefly rests. If these are good Democratic issues for 1932, it is in part because Smith gave them impetus as issues in 11928. Smith was the pioneer on these issues. In the two and a half years since he put them forward they have grown. That is, Smith's side of them | has grown. That opposition to prohibi- | tion is stronger now than when Smith |began to give leadership to it every- body knows. And the fact is that the power issue, the disposition of many | voters to look upon the aggregate of | power interests as an institution to be t0 | curbed, has grown rather more rapidly | during the last two and a half years | than even the opposition to prohibition. In connection with these two issues, the Democratic leader who is most often | mentioned as the superficially probable Democratic nominee is Gov. Franklin Roosevelt of New York. Gov. Roosevelt has become identified particularly with the issue of restraining the power in- terests. But anything and everything that Gov. Roosevelt has done or pro- poses to do about power is substantially identical with, or at least is based upon, | what ex-Gov. Smith proposed to do about power in 1928. Smith was the pioneer on the power issue. For the purpose of carrying further and putting into practice the idea of checking the power interests, Smith is looked upon | by many as being more surefooted and more vigorous in a sound way than Gov. Roosevelt. Heads Forces of Wets. As to the prohibition issue, what name is the instant answer to the ques- : “Who is the outstanding Demo- leader of the anti-prohibition ause?” Is it not Smith whose name comes instantly to the reader’s mind? | Some friends and partisans of Gov. Ritchie of Maryland resent this: they claim that Gov. Ritchie's opposition .to | prohibition. was prior in time and has been just as vigorously sustained. But | everybody knows that Smith is the one | whose name lies in the public mind as the outstanding Democratic leader op- posed to prohibition. Similarly, what is the instant answer to the question: “What Democratic leader, running as a candidate for the presidency, can bring to the lls & larger number of wet voters or of voters who are willing to vote wet in order | to vote for the candidate?” Here, also, | the answer is Smith. Smith in 1928 got more votes than any other Democratic candidate in our history. He got not far from twice as many votes as the Democratic candidate immediately precedln% him, John W. Davis, in 1924; and he got nearly 70 per cent more votes than the next pre- ceding Democratic candidate, Cox, in 1920. (It is true that in one of these years, 1924, there was a third party, with La Follette as its candidate). The common notion that Smith suf- fered disastrous defeat in 1928 is utterly wrong. The illusion arises out of a fail- ing to distinguish between ‘“electoral vote” and “popular vote.” It is true that the number of States carried by Smith, eight, and the number of elec- | toral 'votes ‘attached to those States, | 87, was the smallest ever received by any Democratic candidate in any elec- tion sufficiently recent to be comparable. Smith Popular Vote High. | ‘That fact, however, is very mislead- ing. Smith’s percentage of the electoral vote, 87 out of a total of 531, was only DEMOCRATIC CANDIDACY FOR SMITH LOOMS IN 1932 Probable if Power and Prohibition as Well as Business Status Are Issues. 16: but Smith's percentage of the pops ular vote, 15,016,443 out of a total of 36,408,639, was 42. date's strength. A quite slight redis- tribution of Smith's popular vote, such a redistribution as chance might readily work, would have given him a quite for- midable strength even in terms of States carried and electoral votes. ‘The popular vote for the last three Democratic candidates was: Democratic Candidate Popular Vote Smith 15,016,443 Davis 8,386,503 Cox 9,147,353 | Make the comparison on yet a dif- ferent basis, the proposition of the total popular vote won by Smith and W the pregeding Democratic candidates: Democratic Percentage & Candidate Popular Vow 192 Smita 4 = i 1924 L] Meggured by any standard, looked s frolg any viewpoint, Smith's popular vots. 4n 1928 was genuinely remarkable. Tryva, the popular vote of his opponent, . Hoover, 21,392,190, was similarly re- ruarkable. But compare the ular vote of the Democratic Smith in 1928 with that of the ublican Coolidge in 1924 and that of the Republican Harding in 1920—Smith's popular vote in 1928, 15016443, was only barely short of the vote that elected Coolidge in 1924, which was 15,725.016, and also almost as great as the popular vote that elected Harding in 1920, 16,152,200. Personal Following Great. It seems fair to say, as a deduction from these figures, that Smith has a net personal following of something ap- proaching 4,000,000 votes—4,000,000 voters who will come out and vote for Smith, but not be moved by other Democratic candidates. This personal following of at least 4,000,000 is net, after deducting the number of Demo- cratic votes in the Southern States and elsewhere who will not vote for Smith. It is doubtful if any other Democratic leader has a purely personal following anything like so large as Smith's. It is a familiar and sound assump- tion, too sound to need argument, that whoever is the Democratic candidate in 1932 will do better than in 1928; that Democratic fortunes are in the ascend- ant and that any Democratic candidate, whoever it may be. in 1932 will come closer to winning than in 1928. Even Republican leaders admit that as things now look they cannot hope to be ai strong next_year as they were in 1928. Not a few Republican leaders are will- ing to admit that if prosperity is long delayed, and if the Democrats manage their fortunes carefully from now.on, they (the Democrats) may have an even chance to win next year. Coflld.:’r '.h!: better {flhl;tunc of tgha Democrats next year on the assumption that Smith may be the candidate, | Smith in 1928 lost Texas—but he lost it only by a vote of 367,036 for Hoover to 341,032 for Smith. That is, Smith lost Texas by roughly. 26,000 votes in a total of 708,000. per cent of the total vote. fair to assume that under the changed conditions expected to exist in 1932 that narrow margin of 26,000 votes, or 31, per cent of the total, would in the net swing back to Smith and give him that State? Only 13,000 votes would need to switch. A swing of 13,000 votes in’ Texas back to Smith could readily be accounted for by the changed condi- tions likely to exist next year. Defeat Carries Little Weight. Similarly New York. Smith lost New York (with its 45 electoral votes) in 1928. He lost it by a margin extremely narrow, considering the size of the State. Smith's New York vote in 1928 was 2,089,863. President Hoover's slightly greater vote was 2,193,344. That is, Smith in 1928 lost New York State by 103,481, by 21> per cent of the total. There is probably no politician in either arty and no observer who would deny hat under the changed conditions of next year those 103,481 votes and more than those would swing to Smith if he were the Democratic candidate. Less than 52,000 voters would need to switch. It must not be imagined that defeat in one election is reason for not re- nominating the same candidate. Bryan lost in 1896 and was renominated in 1900, although Bryan's issue—free silver ad receded; whereas, Smith’s issues have grown. Bryan was renominated yet again in 1908, although his early issue had by that time totally disap- peared and it was necessary for him to have a new issue. Similarly, Cleveland was renominated after he had lost, and upon the final nomination, won. The net of which is that Smith is very much in the Democratic picture. Accurately appraised, &mith is probably a little farther to the front of the pic- ture than any other one candidate. He will continue to be a possibility until the convention has opened. If turmoil should arise in the convention and heated controversy among various ca; didates, Smith's name is the one carry- ing a larger possibility of emotional stampede in his favor than any other. ‘What is said here is based in large rlrt on the premises that the issues be- 'ween the two parties will be power and prohibition. There is always possibility that one or the other of these issues may fail to develop. If the Democratic party should not go wet, or if the Re- publican party should not be —in that _event, obviously, prohibition would not be an issue. Year Year 192! 500,000 Supp. \‘ BERLIN.—What the Theater Guild |has come to mean to America in re- spect 1o producing new plays with | more than the box office in mind and in giving the hinterland an occasional hypodermic of sound drama, the Volks- buehne, or People’s Stage, has meant to Germany for 40 years. Starting with a membership of 2,000 when it was founded at Berlin four decades ago, the Volksbuehne can now boast an organization of 305 branch so- cieties with a total supporting member- ship of more than 500,000. These fig- ures were disclosed in connection with the fortieth anniversary of the move- ment, celebrated here not long since. The People’s Stage movement in Germany concenrtated from the begin- ning on affording le of moderate means, and especially the working classes, an_opportunity of enjoying the educational and cultural benefits of modern drama. Liberal-minded men had conceived the idea of acquainting the masses with the tendencics of so- cial evolution as expressed by the younger dramatists during the earlier e. y_still do not look toward (Continued on Fourth Page.) cen: the | maint ort German People’s Stage, Founded to Provide Hinterland Drama therefore, was set at the equivalent of 10 cents and seats were drawn by lot without any chance of discrimination. ‘The question of prices having been settled satisfactorily, there remained s still greater difficulty—that of censor- ship. The anti-Socialist law whica Prince Bismarck had obtained from the Reichstag to stamp out Socialism iR Germany had just been repealed afier being in force for seven years. The Iron Chancellor himself received his dis- missal shortly afterward, but, still, art and literature were not freed from their shackles. A parrow-minded and stupid system of censorship remained. Ger- hart Hauptmann's famous drama, “The Weavers,” which was to mark the be- ginning of his rise, was not granted the privilege of st 'd because of its vivid picture of desolation and despair among the workers in one of Germany's poorest industrial districts. By organizing the People’s Stage as a n}hured society and giving plays only for its members and their invited guests, the promoters evaded the cen- sorship restrictions. Social drama had found a place where it was free of the sor's blue pencil; the movement re- ed a haven from intolerance up to time of the revolution in 1918, stage was freed