Evening Star Newspaper, November 6, 1936, Page 11

- " believe to be certain, though it is de- Task Is Now to Guide Big Voter Mass Lord Macaulay = Saw End of Civilization Or of Liberty. BY DAVID LAWRENCE. OR weeks and weeks—nay, per- haps for months—the election returns of November, 1936, will be studied and analyzed. For there can be no greater mistake made than to brush aside the outpouring of votes as “just another election.” The election cannot be simplified merely 85 & PeT- o sonal triumph for a man. For, com- plimentary as this may be, there is something deeper and more funda- mental than a personal tribute in the election re- turns. Maybe Mr. & Roosevelt himself will come to real- 3 ize it in due time § Ty and will join those § - & who feel just a : bit apprehensive = sathes then those ' DAYI Lawrence. who feel jubilantly confident that all is well and will be well. One thing stands out clearly al- peady—the campaign was a battle of forces which Mr. Roosevelt more keenly sensed than any other man in America. Whether he will be able to control and guide the forces he has marshalled at the polls, whether through 39 State and Federal political machines he can exercise restraints and lead the masses who came to the polls, depends not a little on his own strategy, but even more, perhaps, on the political opportunities that will be | opened up to a new opposition which | may be tempted now to out-Herod the Herods of class warfage. 38,000,000 Employed.’ The simple facts of America’s elec- | torate show that about 45.000.000 per- sons voted—more than in 1932 and | more than in 1928, There are in the | United States about 38,000,000 per- gons gainfully employed and probably 7,000,000 unemployed. But what is the proportion of the %haves” to the “have-nots”? The Federal income tax returns show that only about 2,500,000 individuals pay | any income taxes and the lowest in- come exempted from taxation is an unmarried person with a $1,000 yearly Income. The Brookings Institution's notable study called “Income Eco- nomic Progre: says there are 10,- 000,000 persons with incomes under $1,000 a year, another 8,000,000 per- eons in the group with earnings of | between $1.000 and $1,500 & year, and | about 6,000,000 more persons with in- tomes between $1.500 and $2,000 a year. Here is a grand total, therefore, of 24,000,000 persons, many of them mar- ried, and they have total incomes of less than $40 a week and the average 15 even below that figure, Go to Polls. Heretofore many of the 24,000,000 persons in the lowest income group— and it might be assumed that there are at least two votes to a family— have probably never gone to the polls. Not all went this time, of course, but it may be taken for granted that a higher percentage of those in these low-income groups registered and vot- | ed last Tuesday than in any election | in American history. Mr. Roosevelt stirred up the interest ©of what has been called the “have- nots,” though he was not alone in| that undertaking. The work of the | late Senator Huey Long and the share - the - wealth agitation that has gone on since was to no small extent responsible. Today the people in the low-income groups have discovered that the Gov- ernment has pledged itself in effect to care for them either by direct dole or by providing created work. Like- wise the “haves” have been attacked &s “economic royalists” and “selfish | Jorces.” 3 Lord Macaulay’s Words. Are we approaching the “pure de- | mocracy” which Lord Macaulay | prophesied for us 70 years ago! It is significant to reread in the light of | Tuesday's election returns the words | of Lord Macaulay letter to H. E. Randall written from London in| May, 1857: { * * *+ “I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both. “In Europe, where the population is dense, the effect of such institutions would be almost instantaneous. What happened lately in France is an exam- ple. In 1848 a pure democracy was established there. During a short time there was a strong reason to expect a general spoliation, a national bank- ruptcy, a new partition of the soil, a maximum of prices, a ruinous load of taxation laid on the rich for the pur- pose of supporting the poor in idleness, Such a system would, in 20 years, have made France as poor and as barbarous es the France of the Carlovingians, “Happily the danger was averted and now there is a despotism, a silent tribune, an enslaved press, liberty is gone, but civilization has been saved. I have not the smallest doubt that if we had a purely democratic govern- ment here, the effect would be the same. Either the poor would plunder the rich and civilization would perish, or order and property would be saved by a strong military government, and liberty would perish. Predicted Jobless Test. “You may think that your country enjoys an exemption from these evils. I will frankly own to you that I am of a very different opinion. Your fate I ferred by a physical cause. As long as you have a boundless extent of fertile and unoccupied land, your laboring populaticn will be more at ease than the laboring population of the Old World; and while that is the case, the Jeffersonian policy may continue to exist without causing any fatal calamity. “But the time will come when New England will be as thickly peopled as old England. Wages will be as low and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will have your Manches- ¢ ters and Birminghams. Hundreds and thousands of artizans will assuredly be sometimes out of work. Then your institutions will be fairly brought to the test. “Distress everywhere makes the la- borer mutinous and discontented and inclines him to listen with eager~ ness to agitators who tell him that THE EVENING STAR, . WASHINGTON, D. C., News Behind the News Landon Seen as Candidate for Senate Two Years Hence. BY PAUL MALLON. HERE has been some talk among the Republican moguls about Gov. 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 amon themselves and directly opposed to The Star’s. 3 President at Crossroads Landon running for the Senate two years hence. The opportunity is too far away to warrant a safe prediction, but his plans probably will work around that way. His friends began suggesting it midway in the presidential campaign, when would lose. it became evident to them that he Some who came in close contact with the Republican presidential can= say, was not eager to become a White reasonable. rest on the Executive Mansion. Mr. Roosevelt's best friend has been passing the word around that he will immediately start to set the Treasury in order. That is to be the main theme of his second term, he says. The budget for next year, which is now nearly complete, will be brought within an approximate paper balance. The one for the following year will show an actual balance of New York. ment would entail. Frankfurter, and in that order. * *x Politics is a funny business. velt, one Republican. national calamity. versation went like this: YOU KEEP OUT //OF MY STATE, on me going into your State, but I ness for you. indorsement of your opponent.” it sounds.” It must have sounded all right. (Copyright, didate got the notion, weeks ago, that he was not personally ambitious to be in the White House. They had an idea that somewhere down deep inside him was a suppressed hope that he would not win. Mrs. Landon, also, they House hostess. Whether or not these surmises are correct, they are certainly Few men with a home, a family, a pipe and security for old age would want to take on the troubles of the world which President Roosevelt likes it. He is having more fun than he could have anywhere else. He personally appreciates the power and is deeply inter- ested in the opportunities for social development. The balancing will be accomplished, not wholly through & reduction of expenditures, although many curtailments will be made, reason of increased revenues, based on expanding business. Of course, no one knows anything about it, but there is a rather general expectation on the inside here that Mr. Roosevelt's first appointment to the Supreme Court will be Senator Robert Wagner but largely by Some speculation has been going on about the possibility that he might appoint his good friend, Felix Frankfurter, There is no question that he would like to, but there is some question whether Prankfurter could be con- firmed by the Senate. Wagner would be confirmed without a contest. His appointment would accomplish Mr. Roosevelt's well-known purposes regard- ing the court, and would avoid all the troubles that & Frankfurter appoint= The oft-mentioned possibility that Senate Leader Robinson might get the first court opening is now considered remote. vacancies within the next four years, If there are two they will probably go to Wagner and * * The insiders are now telling the yarn about the two friendly Senators from Midwestern States, one pro-Roose- The Republican slapped his friend on the back here weeks ago and said that, if he failed of re-election, it would be a The Rooseveltian remembered that and was amazed to find that the Republican shortly thereafter issued a public statement in support p( EY man who was running against him. He wired his Republican friend, received no answer and finally reached him on the telephone. The con- Roosevelt Senator—"Say, why haven't you answered my wire about your indorsement of my opponent?” Republican Senator—“T'll tell you, Senator, half a dozen talks a day for Landon. State has been raising the devil with me, your opponent is making ‘The Republican Committee in your and I gave that indorsement to your epponent in August before you entered the race and I can- not do anything about it. I want to remain neutral, but I dont want to make any public state- ment.” Roosevelt Senator—“I don't understand. You remember our conversation in Washington.” Republican Senator—“Yes I do, Senator, but you have no idea how much pressure the National and State committees have put on me.” Roosevelt Senator—“Well, I have reserved time on two radio stations in your State. The Democratic National Committee has been insisting have refrained because of my fond- However, the radio time has been reserved and it's up to you whether I make the speeches or not.” x Republican Senator—*Well, Senator, I'll tell you what Il do. stay out of my State and I'll send you & wire right now explaining my You Roosevelt Senator—"Well, you send the explanation and I'll see how The radio time was canceled. 1936,) supreme power is in the hands of a class, numerous indeed, but select of an educated class, of a class which is, and knows itself to be deeply inter- ested in, the security of property and the maintenance of order. Accord- ingly, the malcontents are firmly yet gently restrained. The bad time is got over without robbing the wealthy to relieve the indigent. The springs of national prosperity soon begin to flow again; work is plentiful; wages rise and all is tranquility and cheer- fulness. Majority Is the Government. “I have seen England three or four times pass through such critical seasons as I have described. Through such seasons the United States will have to pass, in the course of the next century, if not of this. How will you pass through them? I heartily wish you a good deliverance, but my rea- son and my wishes are at war and I cannot help foreboding the worst. It is quite plain that your government will never be able to restrain a dis- tressed and discontented majority. For with you, the majority is the government and has the rich, who are always & minority, absolutely at its mercy. “The day will come when, in the State of New York, a multitude of people, none of whom has had more than half a breakfast, or expects to have more than half a dinner, will choose the legislature. Is it possible to doubt what sort of legislature will be chosen. On one side is a states- man preaching patience, respect for vested rights, a strict observance of public faith. On the other, is a demagogue ranting about tyranny of capitalists and usurers and asking SEVENTH MEN! Get What TO MATCH ‘why anybody should be permitted to drink champagne and to ride in a carriage while thousands of honest people are in want of necessities. Which of the two candidates is likely to be preferred by a workingman who hears his children cry for bread? " “Some Caesar May Rise.” “I seriously apprehend that you will, have described, do things which will prevent prosperity from returning: th of reity, devour all the seed corn and thus make the next year not of distress will produce fresh spoliation. “As I said before, when society has entered on this downward progress, either civilization or liberty must per- |ish. Either some Caesar or Napoleon | will seize the reins of government with a strong hand or your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid to waste by barbarians in the twen- tieth century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth, with this difference, that the Huns and Vandals who rav- aged the Roman Empire came from without and your Huns and Vandals will have engendered within your country by your own institutions....” I do not agree that America has necessarily reached any such point, but if it is on its way the question can be interposed whether intelligent lead- ership by reorganization of our po- litical parties can direct and guide the mass movement away from the dan- gers which the British author prophe- sied for us. (Copyright, 1938.) | EISEMAN’S & F STS. Yofi Want Here! TROUSERS ODD COATS 3.25 e At Eiseman’s, trousers headquarters, you get what you want. We have the largest stock o trousers in the city. These are in smart suit pat- in some such season of adversity as I | Voters Put Nation in His Hands and Impose Duty on All BY DOROTHY THOMPSON. NE'S first reaction to the Tues- day election is that it brings about an unhealthy state of affairs. Mr. Roosevelt came within eight votes of winning 100 per cent of the electoral votes and he got around 60 per cent of the popular votes of the country, and the entire Nation showed approximately the same picture. This 18 & personal victory and an acknowledgment of personal leader- ship unique in our history for over & hundred years and unique in mod- ern times for all " countries. Even Adolph Hitler, in the last free elec- tion in Germany in which other parties could con- tend for recogni- tion, received only 42 per cent of the popular b a llot— and this fol- lowed the Reichs- tag fire and wide- spread fear of a Communist ris- ing. The same clection which Derethr T has so unmistakably registered the popular falth in the President has re- turned a largely Democratic Congress, 50 that the President has a stronger congressional following than ever. Furthermore, the election was not a party victory. The victory was for Roosevelt, not for the Democratic party, since the voters who elected him are not by any means all Demo- crats. But Others Vote Against. Nevertheless, some 17,000,000 Ameri- can citizens voted against Mr. Roose- velt. I say against Mr. Roosevelt be- cause Mr. Roosevelt, and not Mr. Lan- don, was the issue in the campagn. They voted against personal leadership, against extension of Federal control, against increased regulation of busi- ness, for retrenchment in public spending, and for & more cautious and traditional policy altogether. There are not 17,000,000 “economic royalists.” And that they lost is not so important as is the fact that this minority, still a very large part of the people, is definitely not represented today. And regardless of any estimate of the Presi- dent, be he pure as Parsifal, gallant as Lancelot, and wise as Socrates, this is not the best possible condition in a de- mocracy. On the other hand, the vote enor- mously clarifies things. It registers in & manner that none can possibly evade the overwhelming desire of the American people to continue a new way of life better suited, they ap- parently are certain, to the realities of the times in which we live. ‘The vote shows that that desire cuts through all classes, through all sec- tions, and is alive on the plains of Kansas, in the groves of California, in the cotton fields of the South, and on the sidewalks of New York. It is impossible to describe as & “class vote” anything so overwhelm- ing. Every voter on relief, and every ou will act like people in a year | scarcity, but of absolute distress. The | ‘There is nothing to stay you. Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor, | voter who is a member of any trade union couldgbe eliminated, and still{ Mr. Roosevelt would have been re- elected. . We have heard the voice of & Natjon speak. Only twice before in the history of our country has it spoken so unmistakably, when the Federalist party died, leaving Monroe practically uncontested, and at the Nation's birth, ‘This election also has wiped out the lunatic fringe and the extremists of either the right or the left. The American people did not vote for communism, which in New York State failed even to hold its place on the ballot, or for Lemkeism, or for Townsendism, or for socialism. Nor did they indicate that they wish the New Deal to proceed in any of these directions. Not one-tenth of Mr. Roosevelt's voters in New York State supported him, as they had the op- portunity to do, under the banner of the American Labor party. The same election. which swept in Roose- velt brought in the progressive New York charter, and in rockribbed Re- publican Massachusetts Mr. Roosevelt came in while Mr. Curley, for whom Rooseveltism, in the voters' mind, had become a racket, went down before the impeccable Republican, Henry Cabot Lodge, jr. Curleyism and Coughlinism were as decisively defeated in this election as was the Old Deal. These facts invest the President not only with every possible power short of the limitations imposed by the fun- damental law, but with a fearful re- sponsibility. Por he must represent not a party, not a class, not this pres- sure group or that, but the progressive will of an entire Nation. That Nation has chosen him as its leader and in- dicated a direction, and the President and his Congress must find the way best to express and incorporate the Nation's will to peace, to progress, to greater security, to more stable and universal prosperity inside the tradi- tion of liberal democracy. Invested with a confidence tendered him by every conceivable sort of group, the President will have the lofty duty to harmonize specific interests in the frame of the total welfare. But the election calls for a renewed sense of respon#bility not only in the President, but in all of us. For it is no longer a question for any of us| vhether, or how far we are prepared to collaborate with the President. but whether and how far we are prepared to collaborate with the national will. It ought to mean that conscious of the weakened position of the mi- nority, the President will be the more sensitive to honest criticism and the more willing dispassionately to discuss means and methods for arriving at objectives so unjversally desired. Yesterday the United States stood at the crossroads. But today the President stands at the crossroads. He can choose struggle, mobilizing toward coercion, or backed by his tremendous majority he can chocse the widest possible measure of conciliation and collaboration in the liberal temper which exudes light. (Copyright, 1936.) FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1936. Security Hope Seen Landon Adviser Cites Trend to Liberalism Reflected in Vote. The significance of the Roosevelt landslide and its probable effect on the future of America are appraised here by a noted editor who was a close adviser of Gov. Landon in the Republican candidate’s pre-convention and election campaigns. BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE. EHPOH.!A. Kans., November 6 (N.AN.A)—It was not an election which the country has just undergone, but & political Johnstown flood. The dam gave way which has been slowly filling for 40 years, fed by the waters of Bryanism, of Theodore Roosevelt's progressivism, of La Follette's Wisconsin insurgency, of Wilson liberalism, of the Pro- gressive bloc in the Senate under the administrations of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. The waters of the New Deal cover the earth. Republicans did not heed the warnings. In every congressional elec- tion since 1926, conservative Republican Senators have been going down to defeat. Even in '28 they did not survive. In '30 and in '32 it was obvious that more Progressive Senators proportionately than conservative were returning. In the '34 purge, almost none but the Progressives sur- vived. This year only the Progres- sives escaped the waters of the flood. ‘These Republican Progressive Senators were the residuary lega tees in our politics of Bryan. La Follette, Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt; leaders who believed definitely in using Government as an agency for human welfare, Franklin Roosevelt was no more the champion of the underdog than his elder fifth cousin, Uncle Ted The speculators’ debacle, which broke the Coolidge bull market in the first six months of Hoover's administration in October, 1929, cracked the walls of the dam. Americans thought, until the boom broke, that they had dis- covered perpetual motion economics, eternally rising wages, a widen- ing consumers’ market, constant employment. All they asked in that day was opportunity to develop their individual qualities and swim on a rising tide. But as the tide flowed out, as the undercurrent drew down, fear gripped America. Great masses of Americans, particularly these submerged masses, be- gan to desire passionately not opportunity, but security. They turned wl;h fanatic faith to Government as men in another age amid pestilence and panic turned to God. Franklin Roosevelt became the d god of the distressed millions. S e Rugged individualism, the symbol of the old American days of op- portunity, became a byword. Security, the shibboleth which has lured men to trade their liberty for bread in continental Europe, became the basis of American political thought. Roosevelt became the great father; the Demo- cratic leader who would use Government as an agency of human welfare, the old slogan. The President’s petulant outery was entirely consistent with the - chology of the hour; the psychology of fear that always comes with mnm] danger. The tribal god spoke the word which proved his messiahship. Yet, other American millions than his followers heard this outgiving with alarm and despair. They could not understand his viewpoint. They rejected the fear psychology moving the men who made the Roosevelt ma- Jority. These 15 millions of Americans in the minority still feel that op- ponucvl;y hhmo;e precious than security. y this division in American thoughts? Why are America; T‘i;orxt}; thm’:‘lzz i‘;xnt;n entirely different plane, sv.:'mng from nnnix:?ir‘e}ll; erent pre eir logical conclusions fro; These are serious questions. e However, there is some reason to believe that the well-fed. vell- clad country town business men, professional men who have n&!tmileld financial losses and the rich who rest several cuts above this prosperous xsxr?:.!l-wwn group, certainiy have not felt the cold grip of failure on their ‘What will happen when prosperity is really here? If men return to real jobs, will they cease to fear? Will they then still be willing to trade their liberties for security? Will their logic click in the syllogisms of timidity or will they cast away their black anxieties? If Roosevelt does establish by planned economy the security he is pledged to give his countrymen, when they get it will their psychology snap back to the old American habits of thought? Will they be individuals again, even rugged individuals? Is this whole turmoil, thi the flood that broke the dam, a permanent phenomenon? g emRer These are questions which no man can answer, but which serious men should ask themselves. This is just a guess. Perhaps it is only the wistful thinking of one American in a little country town who sees with dread a threat to some- thing precious in this mad talk of a coercive economy where citizens are divided between men of one kind and those who boast that they are masters. (Copyright, 1936, by the North American Newspaper Alliance. Inc.) iivunror? EISEMAN’S SEVENTH AND F Headline Folk and What They Do Connecticut G. O. P. Picks Alcorn for Reorganization. BY LEMUEL F. PARTON. ONNECTICUT Republicans think they know who killed Cock Robin, and they seek the leadership of one of the Nation's most famous murder prose- cutors to administer both punishment and reform. He is State’s Attorney Hugh M. Alcorn, foe of the State machine of J. Henry Roraback. It was he who obtained the conviction of Gerald Chapman, the notorious mail robber. He has never lost a murder case, The lean, grim, Calvinistic Mr. Al- corn is picked by dissatisfied party members to take over the job of renovating and reconditioning the party in the State. He has not yet accepted, but it is indicated that he will. He is noted here as a figure of inter- est in the first reforming of shattered Repub- licanlines. “What next” for the Re- publicans is a headline question, Here's one of the first answers. Hard hitting and fast footwork are emphasized in the choice of Mr. Al- corn, rather than any doctrinal drift or change. He was an intimate friend of the late Calvin Coolidge and is pretty much of a traditional, oid-line New England Republican. His past challenge of the Roraback machine was more of a demand for new blood and a general shaking-up of party machinery rather than new policles. Tariffs and “free enterprise” appar- ently are still the mainstays of New England Republicanism, and one can see no party apostasy in the move to bench Roraback and send in Alcorn. Mr. Alcorn is a native of Suffield, Conn., where he still lives. He has been State's attorney 28 years. He has been active in politics all his life, but always as an organization outsider. In 1928, he contended, unsuccessfully, for the primary nomination against Senator Bingham. Connecticut Republicans have now lost the Governorship four times in succession. A friend from up that way tells me the kick-back from this last defeat may unseat not only Mr. Rora- back but several members of the State Central Committee. > cence and of indi eaused Sold at Your Local Drussists Ll In Spite of Increased Costs, You Get “Peak Value” - SUITS TOPCOATS $ 2 2.50 CHARGE IT—NOTHING DOWN—4 MONTHS TO PAY PAYMENTS START IN DECEMBER—NO INTEREST CHARGES These suits and topcoats were created for men who want the best. Hand picked woolens, superb in quality, outstandingly smart. Definitely finer quality, better tailoring, newer, richer patterns. Yet, despite the in- creased woolen costs we’re still able to offer these UNEQUALLED VALUES. * And when we say a “complete” selecti on, we mean it! Hundreds to pick from —in a range and assortment of smart patterns that guarantees your entire satisfaction. See these splendid suits and topcoats priced at $22.50. it is a monstrous iniquity that one man should have millions, while an- other cannot get a full meal. 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