International: Kid Glove Contest

Country clubs were torn into factions, Yalemen turned against Harvardmen. Vanderbilts against Harrimans, horsemen against non-horsemen. Manhasset against Sagamore Hill in the ist Congressional District of New York last week. Even the several hundred thousand plain people inhabiting Long Island were aware that an unusual contest was being waged between curly-headed, soft-eyed Cornelius Vanderbilt (“Sonny”‘) Whitney* and big. bluff Robert Low Bacon for the latter’s seat in Congress. The opponents handled their campaigns with kid rather than loaded gloves, but each bestirred himself energetically. Democrat Whitney, his beauteous second wife, three station wagons, a touring car and a four-piece band proceeded up & down the island making naive, earnest little speeches at village corners. Mrs. Whitney’s hunter took a ribbon at the Piping Rock Horse Show. Republican Bacon’s wife won two ribbons for table decorations at the Westbury Flower Show. The arch-Republican Herald Tribune reported the Whitney campaign on its society page. The Bacons gave a political tea party for 700 members of the Nassau County Federation of Republican Women. Last month at the home of the W. 0. N. P. R.’s vivacious Pauline Morton Sabin, no less a partisan than Alfred Emanuel Smith had officiated at Candidate Whitney’s political baptism. The first pitfall into which the candidate tumbled was admitting that he voted for Herbert Hoover in 1928. Son of the late sportsman Harry Payne Whitney, grandson of Cleveland’s Secretary of the Navy, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney is 33. He pulled bow oar on Yale’s varsity crew, was sued for breach of promise by a dancer after graduation. Fie inherited over one-quarter of his father’s $77,000,000 estate. He chairmans the boards of Pan American Airways and Hudson Bay Mining & Smelting Co. He has two children by his first wife, Marie Norton, whose No. 2 husband is Poloist William Averell Harriman. His present wife, the former Gwladys Hopkins of Philadelphia, is niece of the Marquise de Polignac, races hunters, has been presented at Buckingham Palace. Long Island plain folk last week followed the young couple’s entourage, rubbed elbows with them as often as possible, listened to Candidate Whitney declare the campaign issues were too complex to be discussed briefly. Candidate Whitney endorses the entire Democratic platform as “swell,” recommends downward tariff revision. Congressionalinvestigation of the B. E. F.’s ejection from Washington, the establishment of local boards of ”patriotic citizens” throughout the nation to pass on cases of needy veterans for whom the full Bonus would be cashed instanter. Observers sensed that his last proposal was a trial balloon sent up by the national ticket. Robert Low Bacon, 48, oldtime Harvard crewman, is the son of the late Robert Bacon. Ambassador to France and Secretary of State. He is Wet. an easy-going but dogged foe of immediate Bonus payment. In Congress he has been regular, unspectacular.

Sharpest blow in the Long Island contest was aimed at Nominee Whitneyby sharp-tongued Editor Julian Starkweather Mason of the Society-struck New York Evening Post: “He has conducted the usual amateur campaign. . . . Stories of his heavy contributions to the Democratic campaign fund grew. . . . Reports increased that his party managers did not expect him to win but were going to ‘take care of him if Roosevelt won by giving him Trubee Davison’s job [Assistant Secretary of War for Aeronautics] at Washington. . . . Young men with the political morals of Cornelius V. Whitney should not be welcomed to our public life. On the contrary, they should be firmly told to stay at home.”

*Since his nomination Mr. Whitney has asked his friends to drop the “Sonny” (too ingenuous), directed his office force to omit the Vanderbilt (too plutocratic).