CAMPAIGN: Roosevelt v. Ritchie

You can’t beat somebody with nobody.

—Old Political Maxim.

Last week Albert Cabell (“Bert”) Ritchie, the handsome, smiling, divorced Governor of Maryland, went to New York City. An elevator shot him up to the 32nd floor of the Empire State Building. There Alfred Emanuel Smith and John Jacob Raskob wrung his hand in warm welcome. For more than an hour these three potent Democrats talked campaign politics. Later Governor Ritchie addressed the Academy of Political Science, said nothing important well. Cordial to all newshawks, he gave frequent interviews depicting the certainty of Democratic success in 1932. At a reunion dinner of the War Industries Board, which he had served as counsel, he was singled out for honorable presidential mention by the Board’s onetime chairman and Democracy’s silent partner, Bernard Mannes (“Berney”) Baruch. By the time Governor Ritchie left New York for Pittsburgh to address the Third International Bituminous Coal Conference, his White House candidacy had grown to visible proportions.

Although New York’s lame Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt is today the leading Democratic candidate, he is far from being the unanimous choice of his party. A faction, supposedly led by Messrs. Smith, Raskob & Baruch, with support in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Illinois, objects to Mr. Roosevelt’s nomination on three grounds: 1) he is too Dry a Wet; 2) he is too radical on water power; 3) he is too unsteady economically. Long has the anti-Roosevelt group been casting around for a candidate of its own. Last week it looked as if Governor Ritchie, thoroughly Wet, thoroughly conservative, had been tentatively chosen as their man to “stop Roosevelt.”

The strategy of a Ritchie v. Roosevelt contest might be this: The Maryland Governor would be built up until he controlled 150 or more convention votes. Added to favorite son factions in other States, this would be sufficient to block Governor Roosevelt’s nomination on the first ballot. Then all possible anti-Roosevelt support would be concentrated behind Governor Ritchie who would advance as a pacemaker. Conceivably he might win the nomination. More likely, he would wear down the New York Governor’s strength until that gentleman was ready to send his managers into a midnight hotel room conference with full authority to deal & dicker for support. If Governor Roosevelt declined to bargain, his foes might bring forward Newton Diehl Baker, spared all the animosities of a Ritchie v. Roosevelt tussle, as the dark horse on whose nomination all could compromise.

Last week at Albany, Governor Roosevelt continued blissfully deaf, dumb & blind about his candidacy. When his friends urged him to get openly into the fight and switch to national issues, he declared publicly: “I’m too busy right here as Governor to give any thought to anything else. This job is getting bigger all the time.” However he did pause long enough to assure itinerant United Pressman Raymond Clapper that business would have nothing to fear from Democratic rule at the White House.

In a speech which most Democrats studied for platform pointers, Mr. Baruch gave Governor Ritchie his first important push toward the White House. Declared this wise old Democratic counselor: “We have in our midst the perpetual* Governor of Maryland to whom the finger of Fate seems to point as being perhaps destined to move to a neighboring District.”

Young Truth. The name of Owen D. Young has lately faded almost completely out of the Democratic presidential picture, yet not far enough out to suit General Electric’s board chairman. Last week Editor Hubert Lee of Dixie Business in Atlanta received a letter from Mr. Young: “… I have no desire or thought of entering politics under any circumstances and my disappointment is that people still persist in disbelieving my statements. I should think that one of the first qualifications for the Presidency would be not only to tell the truth but also to have people believe that you told the truth. .

*Governor Ritchie is serving his fourth consecutive term at Annapolis.