Evening Star Newspaper, November 5, 1936, Page 13

Next Budget To Give Clue On Finances Campaign of Parties Has Made Electorate Watchful. BY DAVID LAWRENCE. RESIDENT ROOSEVELT has won a personal triumph un- precedented in American his- tory, and therefore has it in his power to heal the wounds of the campaign and lead a united country through the next four years. Problems of the most far- reaching charac- ter involving the soundness of the American dollar, the maintenance of peace against a ‘war - impassioned Europe, and the restoration of em- ployment to the millions still idle must be solved, and can be only if partisanship is buried and cam- paign bitterness is brushed aside. David Lawrence. The landslide was a big surprise, be- cause no straw vote or poll or specific forecast of electoral votes came any- ‘Where near the final figure. Jim Farley alone was right. Last Saturday, in presenting 270 electoral votes as my irreducible mini- mum for Mr. Roosevelt, without the necessity of any Northern States east of the Mississippi except Indiana, I wrote these paragraphs: “Jim Farley tells me he is convinced that Mr. Roosevelt will do what Mr. landon cannot do, namely, carry all the uncertain States I have listed, and this would, of course, justify an elec- toral maximum of 397 for Mr. Roose- velt to Mr. Landon’s 134. “It is from that point of view the Farley predictions are made, and judg- ing by the fact that all these States have political machines of his creation and of Mr. Roosevelt's co-operation in the distribution of public funds, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Mr. Farley knew more about how many votes he can get out than anybody else in America.” No Poll Touched Figure. None of us—not even the Gallup Poll, which, while of course predicting the Roosevelt election, listed 14 States with 204 electoral votes as “too close | for accurate prediction” — expressed | any feeling of certainty ahead of time that anything like 46 States would be | carried by Mr. Roosevelt or by such | overwhelming votes. We expected the popular majority to be narrow, which usually means gains in Congress for the minority party, while a landslide in popular majority for President usually means gains in Congress for the majority party. Why was Jim Farley right? ‘Throughout my trip I realized that there were three large groups of voters whose strength was not measured ac- curately by any polls: 1. The relief vote and the vote of those receiving A. A. A. benefits or help through the Home Owners' Loan Corp. 2. The organized labor vote. 3. The colored vote. Here are three elements involving | enough votes to, change an election from a close race to a landslide. But these three groups could not be counted upon unless one knew exactly what percentages would be persuaded :ctunlly to.go to the polls on election ay. Had Army of Officeholders. Jim Farley had command of 39 State political machines. They comprised the largest number of officeholders ever aligned with a single political party in the history of the United States. In addition there were organ- ization machines of Federal office- holders in every one of the 48 States | constituting the largest number of non-civil service employes the Federal Government has ever had. Farley could count on his organiza- tions to get out the vote—not only those receiving direct pay roll bene- fits but indirect as well. As chairman of the Roosevelt Campaign Committee, he had a statistical analysis of every State showing exactly where a gain would put the State safely into the Roosevelt eolumn. When I talked with "im Farley last Week, he insisted with Il the sincerity at his command that the New Deal was going to win every State but three ~—Maine, Vermont and New Hamp- shire. He was uncertain about New Hampshire. While subsequently claim- ing South Dakota publicly, he told me privately he was uncertain about South Dakota and the returns bear out that the race there was closer than in other States. The election result is & tribute to the masterful organization work done by Jim Farley. He was not content to rely on organizations on election day. He used them to get the vote registered, too. Any study of registra- tion statistics will show where the landslide came from—it came from cities and urban centers and from those rural areas where the A. A. A. checks and benefits were distributed. In the cities and urban centers, the labor vote was a strong ally of the New Deal political organizations and worked side by side in a common en- deavor to increase the Roosevelt poll. G. O. P. Used To Do It. The old line Republicans cannot Sustly say a word in eriticism of all this. When they were in power they had powerful organizations in various States and cities from which they piled up landslide majorities. Had they been in-power after & lon and had they possessed a $4,800,000,- 000 fund in an election year like this, they, too, might have used it for vote- getting purposes. I don't condone such action, but that's American polities. It would be wrong to assume that votes in any large number are bought. But the campaign just closed shows how large groups of voters are in- THE ‘EVENING ‘STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1936. - News Behind the News Roosevelt Only Man Who Could Lead a New Party If There Is One. BY PAUL MALLON. HEY talk of a new party. After every election, the experts always say, in the first flush of exciting post-election returns, that a thorough realignment of the old schools is in order. Four years ago the Re- publican party was talked into the grave. Eight, 12 and 16 years ago the fons of speculative words buried both parties. Now, the avalanche is conjuring the idea that both parties are dead. The Rooseveltites are saying that the President, encouraged by his re-election, will go forward with a sweeping program. They say that N.R. A, A. A. A. and all the other alphabetical agencies are child’s play, as compared with what he intends to do. ‘The best judgment is President Roosevelt will not disturb any vital policy. He may annoy the disciples of private and public utility holding companies and a few others, but the self-generative forces of business \mp:wement. they say, will override any specific reforms that he has in mind. The President's best friends have been saying the first thing he would do would be to balance the budget, not probably this year, but next year or in the following years of his term. They say he could curtail ex- penditures far better than Landon could and that the ultimate effect of his policy would be far more cone servative than those of his antago- nists. In fact, his closest friends in- > 4 sist that his policy, while verbally it antagonistic, will be co-operative along the lines which the electorate dictated. * ok % Mr. Roosevelt is not a new party, but an amazing personality. He has been able to get and hold the support of many divergent elements (conserva- tives, progressives, radicals, bankers and idealists), but he has not been able to weld them together. They are held together behind him, not behind his party, solely by the presence and position of Mr. Roosevelt. If there were any one else in his movement capable of continuing such an extremely unbalanced and incohesive movement, there might be a prac~ tical chance for Mr. Roosevelt to found what would be called a new party based on the old Democratic party. But no comparable leader has arisen in his camp. Furthermore, no one leader in his camp represents exactly the same thing he does. For example, there are Hull and Tugwell, Farley and Ickes, etc., etc. No one on the inside can imagine any of these men following the leadership of the other if Mr. Roosevelt’s personality and position were eliminated from consideration, * ¥ %k X ‘The natural tendency of Government in the next four years will be to- ward curtailment of expenditures. The curtailment will not be sharp. But Mr. Roosevelt has built most of the dams and works projects which come within the line of reason. His works expansion has really gone far beyond existing needs, so the Government will not have much to build. Furthermore, improving business will absorb the unemployed to such an extent that the President cannot possibly spend as much as he has spent. ‘Therefore, aside from the theoretical prospects of a new party, there are certain actual practical considerations which will work strongly against it. The first consideration is the fact that the President has built more of an organization that he can handle. He has, for instance, encouraged Northern Negroes to vote for him in the same ballot boz with Southern Democrats. He has convinced a Morgan partner (Mr. Leflingwell) that the Roosevelt cause was superior, at the same time that he drew votes from the scholastical followers of Professor Tugwell. In other words, he has built up for himself an organization which is top-heavy on both sides and which requires his unusual judgment to solidify. Indeed, there are those who suspect that the opposing poles in his camp are 3o far apart that they cannot be drawn together. Chairman Farley believes, as all practical politicians do, in the mate- rial products of conciliation. From Government expenditures, jobs and other resources, Farley has built up an organization which many a studious historian will swear cannot be sur- passed. But the drive in Farley's force is the fact that no one has been able to offer so much before, and undoubtedly no one will be able to offer as much again, ‘What it all means, boiled down, is that the President probably reached the apex of his importance from these sources on Tuesday, and that further developments of the formation of & thoroughly class party are unencouraging. As the foremost disciples of Mr. Roosevelt outline it, the prospects are that he will be content with his victory; that the budget will not be bal- anced next year; that monetary stabilization will remain in its present un- settled state: that stock prices will remain generally about the same and that business will continue to improve. CT"HE opinions of the writers on this page are their own, not necessarily The Star's. Such opinions are presented in The Star’s effort to give all sides of questions of interest to its readers, although such opinions may be contradictory among (Copyright. 1936.) ganization work in this campaign—the effectiveness of the Federal and State political machines created by the New Deal—and when the final results are in and the increase in vote is tabu- lated, I am sure it will show that the biggest gains made by the New Deal ‘were in the large cities or urban towns where organization work was possible among the milllons who received benefits during the last three and a half years from the New Deal Farley, in an after-election statement, declared that he could have carried Maine also if he had kept his organi- zation there functioning after the September elections. There were millions of persons who | did not receive any benefits, but who| did not want to see any change in ad- ministration. Opposed to these were millions who wanted a change. The workers for Landon doubtless will have s sense of futility because all their speeches and all their work went for naught, so far as the final result was concerned, but those who entered the contest unselfishly and as a matter of principle may yet derive satisfaction from the fact that the warnings issued in the campaign just ended may have & salutary effect on the policies of the victorious party. Nation Awakened and Watehful, Thus Mr. Roosevelt faces the prob- lem of cutting down expenses—and many who supported him expect him to balance the budget “in & year or s0.” Likewise, there's the question of adher- ing to the Constitution and adhering to the American form of Government. The campaign charges made on this point will focus attention sharply on any such issue, if it arises. Those of the New Deal contingent who never believed Mr. Roosevelt ever intended to change the American form of Gov- ernment and who voted for him be- lieving that he would not misuse pow- er, if granted to him a second time, will be on the alert against any pos- sible deviation from the course they themselves have predicted. On the whole the election results re- veal the immense personal strength of Mr. Roosevelt with the electorate, the effect of his repeated appeals on the radio long before the campaign opened and the capacity of & party in office to continue itself in power if business conditions are favorable and the local fluenced by the distribution of bene- fits by the Federal Government. only takes a change of about 4,000,000 votes to produce s landslide. The Federal Government had direct finan- cial transactions with more than 10,000,000 citizens in the last three years and & half. ‘The Republicans have always been strong in the rural counties, but this time A. A. A. pay checks cut in on their vote, while in the cities labor’s aggressiveness on behalf of Mr. Roose- velt, together with the skillful organi- pation of the relief vote and the col- T realized that this potential vote existed and referred to it at times in . Mr. proud of his position of benevolent dictatorship, for that is what he eccu- pies today as his control over the legis- lative body beécomes absolute. For 9 f g \'gg in his second term Mr. Roosevelt will wish to do aught but make a record that history will acclaim. The real danger is that the victory will go to the heads of many of Mr. Roosevelt's lieutenants and underlings occupying important key positions and unimportant positions in the Federal Government. They, more than Mr. Roosevelt, may feel the sobering influ- ence of an independent-minded Con- greas, which would still hold the purse strings and which may come into pow- er in 1938 if the first two years of the new Roosevelt term do not measure up to the hopes and expectations of the many millions of conservative-minded persons, apart from the relief vote or the financially benefited, who gave Mr, Roosevelt their unstinted support. Partianship ought to be buried now. There are important problems ahead that will require the ingenuity of the leaders of all classes and groups to solve. For my own part I fully expect to be supporting Mr. Roosevelt earnest- ly when he comes face to face with the groups who will wish to have him in- definitely keep on spending more than the Federal Government takes in. And the 1937 budget, being prepared now, is the next most important matter on the calendar—for it will furnish a clue as to whether the American people vot- ed for inflation or for sound finance and as to how Mr. Roosevelt interprets the mandate of personal confidence given him by an admiring electorate. (Copyright, 1936.) Furnace, Range and Stove Parts for more than 6,000 brands. Fries, Beall & Sharp 734 10th St. N.W. NA.1964 themselves and directly opposed to The Star’s. Democrats’ Eight-Year Rise Significance of Election Found in' Steady Gain in ‘Congressional Seats. BY MARK SULLIVAN. full significance of the Democratic victory cannot be grasped by oconsidering it as an isolated event. It cannot be understood by comparing this one election with other single elections. It cannot be grasped by looking merely at the two - elections of Mr. Roosevelt, in 1932 £ and 1936. ‘To see the deep- er meaning, it is desirable to look at the five cone gressional elec- tions since and including 1928, 7 In these five con- gressional elec- tions there has = beep a steady tide in the Demo- cratic direction. This tide is not, I think, duplicated in our history. And what Tuesday's election tells us is that the tide is not ended. Consider the number of Demo- crats elected in the five elections to the House of Representatives; observe the increase every time. 1928—Democrats elected_.165 1930—Democrats elected..219 1932—Democrats elected-.313 1934—Democrats elected..322 For the present year, 1936, the final figures are not available, but at the time I write it is estimated that the Democrats have gained seven mem- bers of the House. If this is correct the figure for 1936 is still higher: 1936—Democrats elected.-329 Rises for Eight Years. Here is a tide running in one di- rection for eight years. And we can only say that last Tuesday the tide was still rising. This is the condition which Re- publicans, and all opponents of the New Deal, must take account of. To the Republicans, it is a somber condi- tion and a surprising one. I doubt if one Republican in the country, or for that matter, one Democrat, thought the Democrats would elect more mem- bers of the House this year. Practically all thought the height of the Demo- s Mark Sullivan. cratic tide had been passed in the | congressional election of 1934, which was itself remarkable, and that this year would see the beginning of the ebb. Let us now query, To what extent is this tide Democratic and to what extent New Deal? To what degree is the tide due to Mr. Roosevelt person- ally? Suppose that in 1932 some other Democrat had been nominated for President instead of Mr. Roosevelt. Buppose the 1932 Democratic candi- date had been an orthodox Democrat— Albert Ritchie or Newton D, Baker, for example. In that event would the Democratic tide still be rising as it is today? Probably the answer is that to some degree the tide is due to Mr. Roosevelt and the New Deal. 'G. O. P. May Miss Aspiration. A current running like this, and ex- pressing itself in such an overwhelm- ing election as last Tuesday's, must mean that in the country there is some deep wish, some strong aspira- tion which the Republican party does not meet and which it must take into account. Unless it does, it will not only fail to win elections, it will fail even to fulfill the function of an effec- tive opposition party. ‘Tuesday's election, seen as & new climax in a growing tide, is very sig- nificant. Seen as just one election, it is not so striking as it appears. The complete figures are not in, but it seems probable that the losers, the Republicans, will poll something like 39 per cent of the total popular vote. ‘Thirty-nine per cent of the total pop- ular vote is & fairly impressive share for any loser. This is not the first time the losing party in an election CONSTIPATED? o 1 it. but Nat you'll find in ; LAXA-TRATE big 3% oz. Jumbo A real $1.00 value. Introductory price, 49 FOR SALE AT ITA E:!.TH FOOD 060000000006600000000000 has fallen below 40 per cent of the total popular vote. So far as the fig- ures of the popular vote are yet availe able, it seems as if the Republican share this year would not be mate- rially less than the Democrats’ share in 1928, when “Al” Smith was then candidate, or in 1920, when James M. Cox was their candidate. On both those occasions the Democratic obit- uary was written by many a Repub- lican editor, and privately by not a few discouraged Democrats. Yet within a few years the Democrats were winning elections as elections were rarely won before. Size Is Formidable. Thirty-nine per cent of the popular vote, if that is the Republicans’ share this week. can compose a quite respec- table opposition party—provided the party has the ideas and the men with which to grow. Post-mortems of elections usually inquire whether any candidate other than the late defunct might have done better. In this case, probably not. Conceivably, some ideal Republican candidate might have done very much better. But the Republicans had to find their candidate among flesh-and- blood men and among a limited num- ber of these, the ones who had attained some degree of public position. Among such, probably Mr. Landon was as good as any. Yet it is also true that no other candidate could have done much worse. Had the Republicans nominated either Hoover or Ogden Mills they would certainly have got as many votes and might have kept a greater integrity of position for the party. Compromised G. 0. P. If there is to be ungracious reproach of a defeated candidate, probably it would be fair to complain that Landon, by his manner of campaigning, some- what compromised the Republican po- sition. In some respects he tried to out-deal the New Deal. In two respects at least he tried to excel the New Deal in promises of largess. Where Mr. Roasevelt had set up old-age pensions which the beneficiaries pay half the cost of, Landon proposed to grant old- age pensions without any specific cost | to the beneficiaries. Landon’s old-age | pensions were to be paid for by the general taxpayer. Similarly, Landon's | promise to the farmers was more gen- erous than Mr. Roosevelt's. He was going to give the farmer cash, raised by general taxation, without any obli- gation upon the farmer to do anything in return, Any candidate who would challenge Mr. Roosevelt to a competition in promising must be credited with more courage than judgment. The fact that Landon made some promises exceeding Mr. Roosevelt's is going to make it dif- ficult for the Republicans to get back to an opposing position. (Copyright, 1936, We, the People Non-Partisan Social Security Policy Made Possible the Attack by G. O. P. BY JAY FRANKLIN, | F IN THE course of the campaign I have swung far over into vigorous support of the New Deal, I hope that the readers of “We, the People,” will understand that it was due more to the strength of my own con- victions than to any desire to distort or dodge the issues, But I do most sincerely hope that no one who reads today's column will believe that I am vlaying politics when I say that the last-minuts Republican attack on the social security act was the most practical jus- tm:mon of New Deal spoilsmanship and propagands which has appeared to date. I am free to admit that I think it is lousy of certain employers to misrepresent the facts as to social security taxes, but I also do not care for Mr. Roosevelt's remarks telling those employers to go to another country if they dom't like this one, Neither attitude seemed to me statesmanlike or even good politics. The point I have to make is this: The social security was the only one of the great New Deal measures which had been put under civil service from the start, and to which the New Deal habit of educa- tional “propaganda” was not applied. The law was debated, amended and passed by both houses of Congress, without partisanship. A majority of the Republican Senators and Representatives voted for it. A bi-partisan board was set up. to administer it and that board proceeded to tackle the stqggering job or organizing the records for a nation-wide system of m’:flp{tovmlt insurance and old-age pensions, without ballyhoo or st Where W. P. A, Resettlement, etc., began hil blicit; men to tell the people what the emergency pre“rim :n: mb::tu '.hz Social Security Board went to work like the original Federal Reserve Board, calmly, slowly and with full knowledge that the act was far from perfect and would have to be repeatedly amended for at least a generation. In this case, therefore, the New Dealers did exactly what the Re- publicans said they ought to have done all along: They banned political patronage and refrained from N Their reward was to have the most effective partisan attack gm“;:- Ppaign, concentrated on the most completely non-partisan of their measures. This means there will be no reward for playing the patronage and propaganda game fairly. Non-partisanship does not pay if it leaves the electorate uninformed in the face of a partisan attack on any major national policy. This, I submit, is a deplorable result of the Republican attempt to mpke a campaign issue by attacking the old-age insurance premiums as “pay deductions.” For it shows that the Social Security Board, the moment it was appointed, should have organized a strong division of public information to sell the security idea to the public. Instead of going slowly with the planning policy, the S. . B. sought to have begun by co-ordinating actions, administration and information under one strong man who would dominate the other two members. Civil service requirements should have been waived until the sys- tem was well under way and the New Deal patronage methods should have been used to sell the party workers on the merits of the set-up, ‘The result of the board’s goo-goo attitude has been to throw Social Security into the campaign, to leave public information as to the act's operations up to a partisan opposition, to prejudice many people into thinking that failure to publicize the program before election day means that the administration has something up its sleeve, and to promote inertia in those groups which would otherwise have co-operated with the informational program of the board. From now on, the line of action is clearly indicated: one really tough guy who can boss the whole show. And another tough guy to organize propaganda for the pro- gram and put the thing in mo- tion. Anything else, it has been shown, will simply play into the hands of the opposition. So the American people must be prepared to pay a pretty stiff price in the form of patronage and official propaganda for this reckless Repub- lican raid on the New Deal’s only major non-partisan measure, This, I repeat, is bad public policy. (Copyright. 1936.) Here are the crackers you'll be proud to serve because you're sure they're crisp! SAY, BILL,FOLKS CERTAINLY GET A LOT Headline Folk and What They Do Victor Over Mrs. Kahn Started as Newspaper Reporter, BY LEMUEL F. PARTON. O THIS writer, one of the most surprising upsets of the election Wwas the defeat of Reprasentae tive Florence Kahn of San Francisco. One of the saltiest and wit- tiest persons in Congress, human and friendly and certainly a competent Representative, she had seemed in- vulnerable, In Washington and San Francisco, I have always found Democrats boosting Mrs, Kahn. But I also hap- pen to know Franck Havenner, who defeated her, and as long as she was to be counted out, it is, I believe, fortu- nate that it is Mr. Havenner Mrs. Kahn. who will supplant her. My friend Havenner was, off and on for years, a late-watch singing com« panion, whose specialty was “Land< lord Fill the Flowing Bowl” and probably still is, as he is great on hanging on to a swipe or an idea. He is & man of slight stature, with an ex- traordinary bellow when he sings zestfully, and an Adam’s apple which ranges through a full octave when he really gets going. He is the grimmest and most purposeful singer I have ever known, and, if he works that way in Congress, he will surely get results. He was a newspaper man, a protege of the late and great Fremont Oldér of the San Francisco Builetin. He was & newspaper man’s newspaper man— & good palr of legs, plus a clear head, a first-class news-getter and capable of batting out a good story in s hurry. For years he covered the City Hall and took the job seriously. He had a way of going behind the hand-outs and shaking down statistical reports that was apt to yield a startling story. He put more shoe leather into his job than any reporter I knew. After about 10 years of this he de- cided to quit being on the outside look- ing in. He ran for supervisor, as dil- igently as he had covered his beat, and has been in office ever since, a figure of rising importance in San Francis- co's civic and political life. He is & hard-headed liberal, suspicious of fuz- 2y doctrines, who knows the political facts of life. Facts and statistics en- gross him. In Congress, he’ll dig through all the dry stuff and spot the jokers, (Copyright, 1838 ) 700,000 Are Refugees. League of Nation's offices in Geneva, Switzerland, are keeping more or less in touch with 700,000 people who have become refugees from various nations in the last 20 years. ...AND THEY'RE INEXPENSIVE TOO !.YOU GET ABOUT SEVEN KRISPY CRACKERS FOR A PENNY...THAT'S A REAL OF KRISPY CRACKERS WHEN THEY BUY THIS ONE POUND PACKAGE ! On the Air! “Snow Village S| WRC—9 PM, (E.S. T.) o« Saturday Every WINDOW BAKERIES BARGAIN_ IN QUALITY