THE MICHIGAN DAILY WEDNESDAY, JULY 29> 1930 TilE MICHHT~AN hAlEY WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1936 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sizing Up The Official Publication of the Summer Session Candidate Roosevelt Leads In Platform, Performance And Personality- _._ . By FRED WARNER NEAL (Associate Editor of The Michigan Daily, 1936-37) AN IMPARTIAL VIEW of the national politica scene forces me to conclude that both John w Hamilton, Landon campaign manager, and Jim Farley, Roosevelt political boss, are more or les 50 per cent wrong and that this election will be a r very close one. There seems to be little doubt that Presiden Roosevelt, althcugh he has lost great blocs of sup- . ~--port to Landon since the Cleveland convention, i - still leading. But, also, there seems to be little doubt that Governor Landon and the forces back- day-during the ing him are opponents to be reckoned with and y the Board in that, with the acceptance speech just over, they |ditorial Associa- have hardly yet begun to fight. There are two principal reasons, it would appear PRESS for the wane of Roosevelt popularity. First there ;itled to the use is an apparent shift of the American people back credited to it or I the local news to their normal conservatism. The New Deal ation of special lost favor as its component parts were declared or, Michigan, as unconstitutional. And the average American, who tage granted by reveres the Supreme Court whether it takes him , $1.50, by mail, back to the "horse and buggy days" or not, was arrier, $4.00; by displeased with the "irreverent" attitude of the Maynard Street, President toward the constitution. Second, there is, dating from a time shortly prior Service Inc., 420 to the Cleveland convention, a trend toward har- mony in the Republican ranks, together with the concentration of effort on one cadidate-Landon -where before there were a half dozen. The Daily [AS E. GROEHN aptly said in the spring that the Republican party SAS H. KLEENE nationally was in the same sad state as was the all D. Shulman Democratic party in Michigan. That is no longer hn W. Pritchard true. Senator Vandenberg saw the trend in April, Ralph W. Hurd, when he said that the Roosevelt strength would Tenander, Jewel decline as soon as the G.O.P. decided on a candi- ry Delnay, ME Vincent Moore, date. He was right. rothea Staeber, To attempt to decide in July who is going to be elected President in November is like playing poker for fun. It is an interesting game but it really H. ATHERTON doesn't get you anywhere. It is difficult to see at JOHN R. PARK this time, however, how Governor Landon and all SCameron Hall the money of the Liberty League can win the day. Robert Lodge Recall, for instance, the various presidential primaries in Maryland, in New Jersey, in Illinois, in New Hampshire, in Maine, in New York, in Ohio, in Wisconsin and even in conservative Massachu- setts. President Roosevelt polled in them vast numbers of votes more than the total votes cast for the Republican ticket. il 4, we point- Of course, in these primaries, it is true that the rous and dis- Republican vote was somewhat divided and that dgets" or sur- primaries attract notoriously small numbers of mber of state voters. But. nevertheless, such voting, I think, is h. "successful" more indicative of the true situation than polls reasingly un- of newspapers and magazines. ved off on the In these nation-wide polls, particularly "Amer- ig shirking of ica Speaks," in the Detroit News and other papers, Roosevelt, up until three weeks ago, led consistent- ig a situation ly. In the most recent poll on Roosevelt and Lan- 'preassituationdon, Roosevelt led the popular vote and Landon the 's magazine, electoral vote. , Washington But there, consider the states that were quoted 1,ahintn-as "doubtful." They were the big ones with the we ibelievesen heaviest electoral vote-New York with 47 elec- toral votes, Pennsylvania with 36, Illinois with 29, Michigan with 19 and Massachusetts with 18. [der the $300,- These states all went Democratic in 1932, a total states, counk of 149 electoral votes. How many of them can C.ongress took Roosevelt count on in 1936? fth bkill, fx- The winning candidate, as Columnist Paul Mal- d making spe- lon points out, must probably carry at least three rowing states of these states. Both sides are making every ef- J road grants, fort to win them, as they are Maine, which seems L of the funds to have, in addition to its five electoral votes, its I and accrued peculiar psychological effect, i.e., the myth that "as Maine goes, so goes the nation." It is in those states with the heavy electoral vote ars before re- that the battle will be fought the hardest, and it d lobby from is those states that will determine the outcome. ress, moving But there are other factors. ly butted the Can Roosevelt, for example, count on the farm ult, when the states west of thee Mississippi? Two months ago road aid to they were strongly Democratic, even Kansas. But wis of Mary- the Republicans are counting heavily on the fact ot one dollar that Landon is a farm state candidate and that 'relief debts.' he is certain, at least, to vin his own state. (Only igan and La- one man, Woodrow Wilson, in 1916, ever became elected President without winning his own state.) 0,000,000 was And the Republicans are going out of their way, he states, the as evidenced by former Governor Frank Lowden's the RFC still announcement that he would support Landon, to g since kissed convince agriculture that they are in favor of a goodby, to- soil program similar to the one in effect and that rued interest, the farmer will not be forgotten. interest that On the other hand, the New Deal farm policy al repayment seems to be still popular with the western farmers, and the administration's aid to the drought strick- en area will do anything but harm the New Deal in that section. It is in the West that the so-called third or Union party, with Inflationist William Lemke as candidate and Father Coughlin as chief backer, to wordsnarlscomes in-if at all. If genuine inflation, as ad- olitical spell- vocated by the Unionites, appeals to intelligent sness of the persons at all it is to the farmers of the west, and snems ofy thmany of them are uneducated. It is possible, there- mightn rany. fore, that the Union party may take some votes might rer.away from Roosevelt in the Dakotas (particularly ar of liberty,~ his cancerous North Dakota, Lemke's home state), in Idaho, in h canoverous Utah, in Oklahoma and the silver states. n of govern- And because the Republicans are making over- e hears over tures to the western farmers, it is quite probable ehr~bcs lover that the Union party will take as many persons away from the G.O.P. as from the Democrats. But these will be popular votes and not electoral votes, and it is hard to see how the third party can cut enough of a figure even in those states actually to do anything. s Certainly there is little chance of getting any labor vote away from President Roosevelt. Not only are both William Green and John Lewis, labor t leaders No. 1 and No. 2 respectively, for him, but - the Democratic labor plank is sure to be construed s as being in favor of national as against company unions, and Governor Landon's acceptance speech - apparently means that he thinks company unions 1 should not be disturbed. And nearly all union men, certainly all union leaders, can be counted on to oppose the Kansan. It is doubtful, it seems to me, if the so-called radical element will be more enticed by Mr. Lem- ke's party. Left wing forces, Mr. Hearst to the contrary, shy away from inflation. And if they do not support Roosevelt-they certainly will not aid Landon-they can vote for Norman Tho- mas on the Socialist ticket or Earl Browder on the Communist ticket. Exceeding both candidates and platform in this election is the New Deal. That is the issue. Does the the electorate want it or not? Of course, President Roosevelt is, more or less, the New Deal, and his personality, with either a plus or a minus reaction, will enter the campaign. But the platforms, especially in face of the way the Democratic statement of 1932 was forgotten, can- not be expected to figure much. And indeed, with the exception of the labor, monetary and relief administration planks, those documents differ but little materially. The Democrats' great talking point will be a flat question to the average voter: "Are you or are you not better off than you were in 1932?" As the frank Mr. Farley admits, the campaign from the Roose- velt side will be little more than that. But the administration, with the great mass of people, is on the defensive nevertheless. The Republicans charge nefarious and multifarious misdeeds. Their principal talking point seems to be the great debt the New Deal has piled up behind it. They point to the powers centralized in the President and cry "dictator and Communist" (sometimes it is socialist. It doesn't matter. The Republicans mean the same thing by the term.) They claim that relief has been mixed with pbl- itics, that the NRA hindered recover.y, and that the President has violated the constitution with "a lot of foolish experiments." They also criticize the AAA's "economy of scarcity," although they fail to mention, for the most part, the administra- tion's foolhardy silver policy. For the Republicans, President Roosevelt is a "hair-brained experimenter." And for the Dm- ocrats, Governor Landon is an "unknown oil op- erator, backed by the forces of evil and reaction, in a 'typical prairie state.'" Perhaps both are right, but the impartial ob- server cannot help but recognize that while there may be some doubt about the Republican charac- terization of the President, what the Democrats say about the Kansas governor appears to be more or less correct. Certainly neither Governor Lan- don nor his views are well known. And such or- ganizations as the Hearst press and the American Liberty League, backing him, are hardly known for benevolence or liberalism. Furthermore, it is true that the problems of an agricultural state like Kansas are vastly different from those of a great nation like the United States. Perhaps Governor Landon is up to the task. But his record alone, while it has few black marks, does not guarantee it. One more word on the Republican campaign. The Republicans have attempted, starting chiefly from the time of Mr. Hoover's speech before the Cleveland convention, to make an issue of what they term the deprivation of personal liberty under the New Deal. They stress the fact that our free- dom is priceless and charge that the Roosevelt administration has attempted to curtail it, and have succeeded. If I may be permitted a personal observation, I do not agree. I cannot see where liberties, as priceless as they are, have been curtailed. Mine have not been. At the other end of the economic scale, Henry Ford says his have not been. And outside of Mr. Hearst, Alfred E. Smith and the Messrs. du Pont, I know of no one who claims his freedom--those acticns which are not harmful to others-has been taken away. A man said to me during Hoover's speech in Cleveland: "The only right I know of that has been interfered with is the right to starve to death." I agree with that, and it strikes me that I would worry a lot more about my liberties if the nation were controlled by those gentry who are howling about them the loudest, than I have been. under Mr. Roosevelt. Personal liberty is not the issue-yet. But should certain forces ever gain control of the nation and be able to coerce a weak man in the White House, one may fear that personal liberay may be the issue. Until that time, the voter should concen- trate, it seems to me, on the candidates. They are important, really, whether the electorate in general believes it or not. For it is the next President of the United States that will shape the destiny of America. The election is a critical one, and every citizen will do well to regard it as such. ART NOTES Fine Bindings ALL WHO ARE sensitive to the beauty of fine bindings will be in- terested in a book which will become "the finest specimen of book binding1 to be possessed by the University"I according to William C. Hollands. superintendent-emeritus of painting and binding. It is an exquisite specimen of art binding, in full levanlt morocco, in- laid, with morocco doublures and gilt gauffered edges. The book is a copy of Sarah T. Prideaux' Historical Sketch of Bookbindin, and it was done by James Rolands. a New Or- leans binder who received his train- ing in Italy. The book is now in the -possession of Mr. Hollands, who met Rolands while in New Orleans. Mr. Hollands is offering to show the book to any- one interested in that phase of art; he is to be found in the bindery, in the basement of the general library. Through the generosity of Mr. Hol- lands, it will become the property of the rare book room. -M.D.S. Picnic Planned For Southern Students Todax t Summer Session students from the Southern States will be guests at a picnic supper to be given at 6 p.m. today in the Garden of the League. The menu, of which Dr. T. Luther, Purdom, director of the Bureau of Appointments and Occupational In- formation, is in charge, will include' country sausage, corn bread, corn on the cob, beans cooked in true South- ern style, and watermelon. Last year Dr. Purdom himself did the cooking for the picnic, which over 80 south- erners attended. This year he will direct the cooking of the meal in the - League kitchen. Members of the League Under- CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING Place advertisements with Classified Advertising Department. Phone 2-1214. The clasified columns close at five o'clock ele>ous to day of insertion. :Lox numbers may be secured at no extra charge. Cash in advance 11c per reading line (on basis of five average words to line) for one or two insertions. lOc per read- ing; line for three or moure insertions. Minimum three lines per insertion. TIelephone rate - 15c per reading line for two or more insertions. Minimum three lines per insertion. S1% discount if paid within ten days from the date of last insertion. 2 lines daily, college year ... ......7c By Contract, per line -2 lines daly. - one month....... ..............8c 4 lines E.OD., 2 months............8c 4 lines E.O.D., 2 months.............8c 100 lines used as desied ..........9c 300lines used as desired. .......8c 1.000 lines used as desired..........7c 2,000 lines used as desired...........c The above rates are per reading line based on eight reading lines per inch lIonic type, upper and lower case. Add 6c per line to aboe ates for all capital letters. Add 6c per line to above for bold face, upper and lower case. Add locper line to above rates for bold face capital letters. Tie above rates are for 7% point type. FOR SALE SCOTTISH TERRIER PUPS: A.K.C. 6 weeks old, healthy, sturdy, splen- did breeding. One female, 7 months old, all reasonably priced to sell. 1313 S State. graduate Council are assisting il making plans for the picnic. In case of rain, the dinner will be held in .the ballroom. Tickets for the supper are on sale at the main desk of the League. They are priced at 35 cents. All reservations must be made not later than noon today. I- FOR SALE: 31 Chrysler coupe. Rumble seat. Splendid condition. Phone 2-1070 Mrs. Leaf. 20 LAUNDRY LAUNDRY WANTED: Student Co- ed. Men's shirts 10c. Silks, wools, our specialty. All bundles done sep- arately. No markings. Personal sat- isfaction guaranteed. Call for and deliver. Phone 5594 any time until 7 o'clock. Silver Laundry, 607 E. Hoover. 3x LAUNDRY 2-1044. Sox darned, Careful work at low price. Ix LOST AND FOUND LOST: Phi Delta Kappa fraternity pin. Reward for return. William A. Mann, 621 Forest, Phone 5607. -- LAST TIMES TODAY It's Shirley's Best! SH IRLEY TEMPLE "THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL" - STARTING THURSDAY - Francis Lederer "ONE RAINY AFTERNOON" ROLAND YOUNG With HUGH HERBERT YOUNG HERBERT [II STARTING TODAY AN UNUSUAL DOUBLE- FEATURE PROGRAM PAT O'BRI EN JOSEPHINE HUTCHINSON "I MARRIED A DOCTOR" -- and Richard Arlen "3 LIVE GHOSTS" I 71---M I' 11 A-l 7- \ r 1 , ' 4' ,. 4 't .,. .. ''; - , i 6 P , , ' ' i I ,2 I) it I,. ii -- - - - F.-_ - I - q m 1 - -° 1 fl" y= . 1 h/ ° 1* Yr I/ RELII NE S I s wittingly may demand the abolition of bureaus, regardless of their worth, merely because they come under the.term "bureaucracy" and because they do spend the taxpayers' money. Sensible -people everywhere are in favor of any bureau that is cast in a Civil Service mold and which can demonstrate value commensurate with its cost. Such, for example, is the Federal Bureau of Investigation, composed of "G-Men" (what storms of indignation would Dr. Maurer have aroused had he denounced the "G-Men.") A report of this bureau, issued recently by J. Edgar Hoover, tells us that during the year just concluded it spent about $5,000,000, in return for which it collected $34,708,915-"Good business," in mediable loss. It is possible to go even further. It is possible to say that the dependence of the U.S. farmer upon the U. S. Government is and long has been so complete that without govern- ment aid the U. S. farmer would resoundingly col- lapse." With the inestimable value of these bureaus thus in mind, we shudder, not at the thought of "bu- reaucracy," but at the thought of what the restora- tion of "a free competitive system-a system under which, and only under which, can there be inde- pendence, equality of opportunity, and work for all," as advocated by the Kansas economizer, would mean to the farmers or to all sections of our so- ciety. WRITENBY EN OF M1,YF&TS Unprejudiced / F Shk WE ld I m, i 1 WV