National Affairs: Slogans

¶”EIGHT YEARS OF WALL STREET— GIVE MAIN STREET A CHANCE!”— Mrs. Wilbur W. Hubbard, Chestertown, Md. ¶ “TARIFF RELIEF MEANS FARM RELIEF!” F. N. Martin, Newberry, S. C. ¶ “BY THEIR LOOTS YE SHALL KNOW

THEM!”—Bessie M. O’Neil, Springfield, Mass. Might any or all of these slogans help the Democrats unhorse the Republicans in 1928? The slogan committee of the Woman’s National Democratic Club (Washington, D. C.), hoped so. They were announced last week as the best of 800 slogans the committee obtained in its nationwide slogan-motto-jingle-limerick-rhyme con-contest (TIME, Sept. 26). The committee paid $100, $50 and $25 for the above prizewinners, as promised. The Mrs. Hubbard who won first prize is First Vice-President of the Woman’s National Democratic Club. Two of the other slogans submitted were issued for publication. One from Washington said: “My eye! We’re dry!” One from California said: “You bet! We’re wet!” As the women Democrats doubtless knew, most famed political slogans have either been struck-off in the heat of great partisan moments or have emerged from nowhere to win no prizes for their anonymous authors. In a bygone day, a slogan contest would have seemed as absurd as the idea of women voting. Fancy a dame of 1840 penning a note to a Mrs. Hubbard of Chesterton, Md.: “We have received your nice slogan and it wins the prize.” In 1840, men were shouting in the torchlit streets: “Fifty-four-forty or fight!” In 1856, Republicans punned: “Free soil, free speech, free men and Fremont.” A resounding, if somewhat vague, slogan was Theodore Roosevelt’s cry in 1912: “We stand at Armageddon and fight for the Lord.” This was far less successful than the gluttonous Republican shout of 1896: “McKinley and the full dinner pail!” And the 1916 Wilson motto: “He kept us out of war!” One of the most successful slogans of all time was Warren G. Harding’s “Back to normalcy,” embarrassingly illiterate but far more euphonious than “Back to normality” would have been.