National Affairs: Pajamas & Proof

Prime New Deal propaganda was a recent New Yorker cartoon which pictured a plump, baldish economic royalist murmuring to a reluctant, expensive young woman: “And if Roosevelt is not reelected, perhaps even a villa in Newport, my dearest sweet.”

Last week young New Yorkers enrolled in a Landon First Voters League indicated that they had missed either the New Yorker cartoon or its point when they organized a “Victim of Future Taxes” unit, sent out a “Barrel Show” to tour the city and Eastern college campuses. Doing their bit in the current GOP campaign to persuade the nation that Franklin Roosevelt is somehow to blame for local, municipal, county and State as well as Federal taxes, a young man and three professional women models appear in garments from which parts of sleeves, skirts, crowns and toes have been scissored. A young woman dressed in cap & gown displays explanatory placards bearing such legends as: “You Pay $10 for Lounging Pajamas of which $1.98 goes for Taxes,” “Hidden Taxes, like a Thief in the Night, steal the Wealth and Credits of a Nation,” “The Joke’s on You, Fellow Taxpayer, You’re paying too much for Government.” The curtain falls on this incredibly vulnerable political tableau with one beauteous young model mincing off stage in a barrel, accompanied by the sign IF THE NEW DEAL WINS. To illustrate IF THE NEW DEAL LOSES, the young Republicans produce a second model richly clad in evening gown and white fur cape.

When Young Communist Leaguers organized a protest outside the First Voters’ headquarters during the show’s performance, the First Voters’ Director Alfred Lilienthal declared: “This is further definite proof that Mr. Roosevelt is being supported by the Communist Party.”