National Affairs: Maine Quake

Throughout his 1928 campaign Herbert Hoover deliberately and pointedly ignored Alfred Emanuel Smith. Not once was the Democratic nominee mentioned in a Hoover speech. Election returns that year amply proved this good Republican strategy and up to last week President Hoover had cast his 1932 campaign in practically the same mold. He refused to appear conscious that he had a man named Franklin Delano Roosevelt running against him. Declining to take the stump, he appeared to set the Presidency above partisanship. Instead of advertising his adversary by hand-to-hand combat, he advertised his relief program by intense activity at the White House.

Then Maine went Democratic. The nation raised an eyebrow. In Washington it was instantly apparent that the foundations of the White House had been jarred, the President’s campaign plans knocked to bits.

Humper? G. O. P. strategists including Secretaries Mills and Hurley and Postmaster General Brown, trooped to the White House in the wake of the Maine returns. They spent long gloomy hours with the President. He was told that he must revamp his personal campaign, get out to the country, make speeches, meet the Roosevelt challenge. He was urged to make a four-week tour ending in California on election eve. His advisers reminded him that Charles Evans Hughes and Senator Borah, mainstays in his 1928 canvass, were not campaigning for him again this year, hinted that he would have to carry more of the party load.

President Hoover was reluctant to accept their advice and change his tactics. He hates campaigning and crowds. Besides, he thinks it would be undignified to get out and hump himself for office like any ordinary politician. Deaf to suggestions for an extended campaign the President finally consented to make three October speeches ,two in the Midwest. one in the East. Beyond that he would not go, even for another four years in the White House.

Sanders & Hanna. The Maine election upset every intelligent Republican except plump, easy-going Everett Sanders. Chairman of the Republican National Committee. His job is to direct a national contest which in its economic outlines and social undertones has been compared to the presidential campaign of 1896. In that September, William Jennings Bryan seemed to have the November election won hands down. That year Mark Hanna was the G. O. P. boss, than whom there never has been a smarter. His brilliantly ruthless management of the Republican campaign resulted in the election of William McKinley by some 600,000 votes.

Chairman Sanders is no Mark Hanna. His campaign direction to date has been remote and uncertain. For historical comfort last week he went back to 1880 when Maine elected a Democratic Governor in September and the nation a Republican President (Garfield) in November. From Chicago he telegraphed the President:

“I firmly expect you to carry [Maine]. I was. of course, disappointed in the vote but not greatly disturbed. … I have every confidence that history will repeat itself in November in Maine and the verdict of the people will be overwhelmingly in your favor.”

“Right Cause.” President Hoover replied in what amounted to his first overt campaign statement since his acceptance speech.

“The result of the election in Maine imposes need for renewed and stronger effort that the people may fully understand the issues at stake. We have known all along that, owing to the ravages of the world depression, our fight is a hard one; but we have a strong case and a right cause. Our task is to acquaint every man and woman in the country with the facts. . . . My chief concern now is that the work of reconstruction shall go forward. . . . This transcends all personal or partisan considerations.”

Nutt’s $1,500,000. Fortnight ago the Republican treasury reported an operating deficit for August. Joseph Nutt. G. O. P. treasurer, found money difficult to raise. In Pennsylvania where Joseph Grundy, famed campaign cash collector, tariff lobbyist and onetime Senator, has “retired” politically, he encountered the leanest pickings in years. But after the Maine election Treasurer Nutt reported to the White House (and the public): “This is making my job easier. People who want to maintain the present administration in power have gone to work and the money is coming in. I’m sure now we can raise $1,500,000.”* G. O. P. headquarters got out a 288-page campaign text book which, instead of being given away as heretofore, was sold for 25¢ the copy.

Potatoes & Protest. What caused Maine’s voters to elect dapper, wisecracking, rabbit-lipped Louis Jefferson Brann as its fourth Democratic Governor since the Civil War and send two Wet Democrats out of three to Congress? A variety of causes evidently combined. In low lobster and potato prices Maine is resentfully aware of hard times. Hoover relief is slow reaching its rocky shores, its little towns, its forests and farms. Secretary Mills, stumping the State, urged voters to stand by the President and his party, thereby injecting the Hoover-Roosevelt issue into the campaign. A majority of the 235,000 voters wanted a Change, were anti-Hoover if not pro-Roosevelt. A steady rise in local taxation under Republican governors did its share to help the Democrats. Though Maine has been officially Dry for more than half a century, thousands of its citizens, resenting Federal prohibition, voted for Wet Democratic Congressmen.

Governor-elect Brann explained his victory thus: “The campaign was fought out on economic lines and the ineptitude of the Hoover Administration. They were the controlling factors. The people voted their protest against existing conditions.”

Liquor over Lobsters? A year ago Jouett Shouse, as Democratic executive chairman, would have acclaimed the Maine vote as a great Democratic victory. Last week, as president of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, he hailed it as a great Wet victory. Rev. Frederick W. Smith, head of Maine’s professional prohibition organization, sadly admitted: “The first battle against the return of legalized liquor traffic is lost.” Mark Sullivan, sound Republican journalist, at first wrote: “The Democrats are fully justified in their exultation over their Maine victory. . . . The outcome lends itself to no interpretation except that the large amount of economic distress gives rise to emotional resentment. . . . The principal cause was economic conditions.” Two days later Journalist Sullivan discovered it was not a Republican defeat but a Wet victory. He reported a “very large” amount of Wet money sent into the State, hinted that the “commercial liquor interests” were back in politics. Said he: “The Maine outcome has been materially over-estimated.” Most Down Easterners, however, thought lobsters had more to do with the result than liquor.

Borah & the Back Door. What happened in Maine did seem to close up Republican ranks. Senator Howell, mild insurgent whose Nebraska colleague. Senator Norris, is supporting Governor Roosevelt, lined up as a regular Hooverite. When Senator Borah flayed the American Legion for plumping for the Bonus (see p. 9). Senator Hastings made a great display on the White House steps of welcoming him back into the G. O. P. campaign field. Said Senator Hastings: “It’s better to have him come in the back door than not come in at all.” In Boise, tending his sick wife, Senator Borah who has opposed the Bonus since the start snorted: “I knew Senator Hastings had many accomplishments but I didn’t know he was a humorist.”

Political Wires. Simultaneous with the Maine vote the New York stock-market slumped five points. Wall Street brokers, mostly Republicans, were quick to attribute the decline to the Democratic victory. Sample comment: “The uncertainties caused by the results in Maine were sufficient to accelerate the downward movement into a very serious reaction. … A reappraisal of probable market trends has been made necessary by the unexpected changes in the national political situation which has veered toward the Democratic side as a result of the Maine election. . . . The Democratic victory in Maine brought an avalanche of selling.” Exchange officials were forehanded in clearing themselves of any charge that their institution was rigging the market against the Roosevelt candidacy. They ordered members to submit for scrutiny all telegrams of a political nature during the period of the Maine voting.

As Maine Goes? As for the Democrats, they were almost choked with elation at their success. Chairman Farley predicted a ten-million majority sweep for his candidate. In the last half-century Democrats have been elected to the Presidency four times but none of them ever had the advantage of party victory in Maine eight weeks before the election.

*In 1928 $4,000,000 was collected and spent nationally by the Republicans.