REPUBLICANS: New Shuffle

Nonsense . . . misstatements . . . prattle . . . untruths . . . defamation . . . insincerities . . . self-interested inexactitude . . . ignorance . . . diatribes . . . tirades . . . misinformation . . . glittering generalization . . . calumnies. . . .

With such wrathful words did Herbert Clark Hoover last week characterize Franklin Delano Roosevelt, his public promises and the Democratic campaign in his behalf. On his fourth sortie from Washington the Republican President, fighting without gloves for his political life, traveled to doubtful Indiana. At the field house of Butler University, six miles outside Indianapolis, he addressed his first free-for-all crowd of some 20,000.* Gone was the Quaker’s restraint. Gone was the aloofness of a presidential campaign solemnly conducted by radio from the Lincoln Study. Gone was the idea of ignoring “the other fellow” and sticking to lofty, impersonal discussions of Principles.

At Indianapolis President Hoover came down to political earth with an argument ad hominem and his audience whooped “Atta boy, Herbie!”

In his speech President Hoover, suddenly transformed into a first-rate campaigner, used only two colors—pure white for his “wise” party and inky black for the “destructive” Democrats. Governor Roosevelt’s “new deal” became a “new shuffle.” The President derided his opponent’s pledge not to reduce agricultural tariffs as “an eleventh-hour conversion” in which no voter should believe. According to President Hoover, Governor Roosevelt talked “nonsense” on the Hawley-Smoot tariff as a cause of the “worldwide” Depression, “prattled” about reducing government expenses, sidestepped the Bonus, to be paid in “money purporting to come from the horn of plenty but with a death’s-head engraved upon it.” Declared Stumpster Hoover:

“I myself am taking heart over this debate. If it could be continued long enough I can drive him from every solitary position he has taken.” The President declared that some of Governor Roosevelt’s present advisers “personally sought to buy and withdraw large sums of gold because of their belief that we could not maintain the gold reserves of the U. S.” He recalled that his opponent before he became Governor headed the organization committee of Federal International Banking Co. to sell foreign securities and bonds in the U. S. Continued the President: “I have no reason to believe that the Governor’s enterprise was not perfectly proper and soundly founded. . . . But the Governor as a private promoter believed and practiced what the Governor as presidential candidate now denounces as immoral.”

Indianapolis finale: “My countrymen! The fundamental issue, the decision that will fix the national direction for 100 years to come is whether we shall go on in fidelity to American traditions or whether we shall turn to innovations. . . . I propose to go on in faith and loyalty to the traditions of our race . . . to build upon the foundations our fathers have laid over 150 years.”

Electioneering along the way, President Hoover journeyed back to Washington where he caught his breath over Sunday before setting forth on his next excursion. With stops for short speeches at Philadelphia where hecklers booed him, and at Newark the President brought his Eastern campaign to a climax in a mass meeting in Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden. Within the Garden a crowd of 22,000 filled every seat and corner. Outside, a disappointed mob of 25,000 crushed and milled, struggled with police. For 16 minutes the Garden audience cheered the President on his entrance and introduction by the late Theodore Roosevelt’s widow. One heckler greeted him with “you’re a liar.” was instantly hustled by bluecoats.

Picking up where he left off at Indianapolis the President began: “This campaign is a contest between two philosophies of government.” Thereafter he kept his address on a higher, more thoughtful plane than at Indianapolis, indulged in no sharp personalities at Governor Roosevelt’s expense in his home State. Because his words were more temperate, less flashy, his appeal to New York business & industry lacked something of the fighting force of his earlier campaign addresses.

Lumped together were such Roosevelt supporters as Senators Norris, La Follette, Cutting, Long, Wheeler and Publisher Hearst whose sincerity the President “respected” but whose ideas he rejected. As he saw it, they were bent on wrecking “the American system.” To show progress under that system he reverted to his 1928 campaign trick of quoting mass statistics on the 30-year increase in population, homes, telephones, automobiles, radios, electricity, education, life insurance. He viewed with alarm the following Democratic “proposals” which he claimed would set the country back a century: 1) “raids” on the Treasury; 2) inflation of currency; 3) personal banking by the Government; 4) tariff reductions; 5) government operation of the power business (i. e. Muscle Shoals); 6) party control of the Supreme Court. Dominant Hoover theme: Keep the Government out of private business.

Concluded the President: “My conception of America is a land where men and women may walk in ordered liberty, where they may enjoy the advantages of wealth diffused through the lives of all, where they build and safeguard their homes, where people shall have leisure and impulse to seek a fuller life.”

*A competitive feature of the same evening was a Democratic speech by Maryland’s Governor Ritchie at Cadle Tabernacle in Indianapolis.