MASSACHUSETTS: Flesh v. Blood

“I didn’t even send out a postcard. Yet I got 240,000 votes. That shows how much they love me. I hope they’ll love me on Nov. 3.” Thus burbled Massachusetts’ Governor James Michael Curley following his Democratic nomination for Senator last week. He might also have added that he did not open campaign headquarters until five days before the primary. Well might he boast, because he has few peers in U. S. politics since the death of Louisiana’s Long.

Only three years ago “Jim” Curley was a sadly neglected Democrat. In spite of having been for Roosevelt long before Chicago, in spite of making friends with the President’s ambitious son James, he had not been rewarded with the job he coveted, Ambassador to Italy. All he had been offered was Minister to Poland, at which he stuck up his Irish nose. In fact the New Deal showed distinct signs of coolness toward the three-times Mayor of Boston. Therefore Mr. Curley decided to show them. In 1934 he campaigned his way into the governorship, and promptly took political possession of the State in his own right instead of that of the New Deal. And when Governor Curley decided to run for the Senate, he did not even bother to put out the Democratic incumbent, Marcus Allen Coolidge. Senator Coolidge was simply dumped by the wayside; the Democratic convention automatically endorsed Mr. Curley. By way of protest to Massachusetts’ respectable citizens, the Senator’s son-in-law, Mayor Robert E. Greenwood of Fitchburg, ran against the Governor in the primary. The best he could do was a skimpy 104,000 votes.

Thus Governor Curley arrived in Washington last week to accompany President Roosevelt to Harvard’s Tercentenary, well knowing that in this election year the New Deal would have to be nice to him. He rode back to Boston on the President’s special, addressed the dripping crowd in Harvard Yard (see p. 22), calling attention to the fact that Grover Cleveland honored Harvard’s 250th Anniversary, Franklin Roosevelt her 300th. “Naturally both of them Democrats,” added the Governor leering at Franklin Roosevelt.

The six-foot, 240-lb., 61-year-old master politician, standing near the President of the U. S. in Harvard Yard, had between him and the U. S. Senate a slim political stripling who. with an umbrella over his damp silk hat, was a mere marshal among Harvard’s alumni in the crowd below.

Twelve years ago, when Jim Curley was serving one of his periodic terms as Mayor of Boston, that same stripling, just out of Harvard and a cub reporter for the Boston Transcript, went to City Hall where he heard the Mayor rip into “that old son-of-a-gun,” Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. Last week the same youngster, grandson of the late great Senator from Massachusetts, had just polled 100,000 more votes than Democrat Curley to win the Republican nomination for the same Senate seat.

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., generally known as Cabot, is Peter Pannish at 34. His father. Poet George Cabot Lodge, died when he was 7. His grandfather, at whose political knee he was reared, died while he was still a cub on the Transcript. His political experience was acquired as newshawk and editorial writer for the New York Herald Tribune where he thumped long and loud against Philippine Independence. His first political victory was won four years ago when he was elected to the Massachusetts legislature, his great name and pleasant boyish manner netting him a whacking big vote which was repeated two years later.

Nominee Curley has referred to Nominee Lodge as “a sweet boy with an illustrious name,” intimated that he will be sorry to beat such a nice lad but “you can’t send a boy on a man’s errand. ‘ Boy or man, Cabot Lodge has run his political errands effectively in the past year. Driving about the State, sometimes traveling 1,000 miles a week, he showed the people of Massachusetts a friendly manner, a warm smile, proved himself a first rate speaker.

Last week at the polls Cabot Lodge’s legislative record on economy and taxation, reinforced by his thorough campaign, carried him to an easy victory with more votes than were polled by his own three opponents and Governor Curley combined.

The Massachusetts State Federation of Labor has endorsed Curley for Senator, because Curley made an ex-president of the Federation Chairman of the State Board of Conciliation and Arbitration.

But Cabot Lodge is rated far from reactionary and his work as chairman of the House Committee on Labor & Industries has won him Labor’s tacit approval. Unless the Democratic machine can keep the name of Senator Coolidge’s son-in-law Robert Greenwood off the November ballot as an independent, the Governor will be at a distinct disadvantage. Many an observer of the Massachusetts contest thought that Nominee Curley was more likely to beat himself than Cabot Lodge.

Columnist Raymond Clapper said: “The best provincial political drama of the year … a drama of flesh and blue blood.”