CAMPAIGN: Crowds

Early one morning last week on the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks just outside Grand Rapids, Mich, two special trains passed each other in opposite directions. At the end of the southbound train was the private car, David Livingstone. At the end of the northbound train was another private car, Pioneer. As the racket of passing abruptly ceased, someone on the back platform of David Livingstone raised his arm, threw something. A handful of small objects rattled on the rear platform of Pioneer. A Secret Service man snatched at one, scrutinized it suspiciously. It was a Landon campaign button.

Thus last week the two Nominees for the Presidency passed, one on his way to the White House, the other headed in the opposite direction. One train was as gay as a showboat, full of confident political advisers, competent secretaries, pretty young women and Franklin Delano Roosevelt setting everyone a merry pace. The other train, by comparison, was grim and dour, filled with advisers troubled about where the money was coming from, aides worrying over campaign details that went askew, reporters grumping over their accommodations. Only man aboard the David Livingstone special whose morale was tiptop was Alfred Mossman Landon himself. Unsparing of his strength, resolute in his good cheer, confident of his election, the Republican Nominee was battling his way forward against obvious odds and, at each step, improving his campaign technique.

The two White House-seekers were completing some ten days of simultaneous stumping in the Midwest and one reason for the difference of spirit on the two political trains was the difference of reaction each got from crowds along the way. In part it was simply a case of bad breaks for Alf Landon. At Chicago he made his triumphal entry into the city and his drive to the Stadium in a pouring rain which drove even his admirers from the streets. When Franklin Roosevelt followed five days later he had a balmy night and the streets were packed. At Detroit when Nominee Landon spoke at Navin Field ball park the temperature was 43° and barely 10,000 Republicans shivered in the grand stands. When Nominee Roosevelt spoke two nights later Cadillac Square was jammed with listeners and the illuminated thermometer shining down on them showed the temperature was 70°.

But Landonites could not blame Nature for all the things that went wrong. In few places were the Governor’s parades properly arranged beforehand. In Chicago application for a parade permit was not made until too late to organize police supervision. In Detroit the Republican parade was so dawdling that the Nominee’s car had to pull out of line and run ahead to the point where cheering crowds were waiting. At Detroit also his speaking stand was in centre field from which it took a full second or two for his voice to reach the grandstand, another second or two for applause to come back. Everywhere local politicians were allowed to arrange so many meetings for Alf Landon that he could not possibly attend them all. In Grand Rapids he had to disappoint no less than three such gatherings.

No such misfortunes attended the Roosevelt tour. In the name of protecting the President’s life, Col. Edward Starling of the Secret Service went ahead to organize every program detail with practiced efficiency. An incident at Kansas City, where the Roosevelt entourage was temporarily lost by the Nominee, was notable because it was an exception. Elsewhere everyone was taken care of. In Kansas the club car porters on the special train conveniently forgot that they were in dry territory, served whiskey sours and highballs to visitors. In Chicago Mayor Kelly as Democratic boss turned out his party workers for a parade of 150,000 marchers. One Democratic union secretary issued warnings to union members that they would be fined if they failed to join the Roosevelt procession. During the parade newshawks in cars were booed for four miles as they followed the President.

“Where is that — — -— ?” shouted the Democratic crowd ominously as it looked for the arch-Republican Chicago Tribune man who had shrewdly hidden his identifying badge. “To Hell with Hearst !” shouted others.

The difference between Landon and Roosevelt oratory also had something to do with the size and spirit of the crowds that turned out for the rivals. Alf Landon’s delivery had improved measurably since his acceptance speech last July, but not even his warmest admirers were yet claiming that he was good. Meanwhile Columnist Mark Sullivan gloomed last week over the President: “He could recite the Polish alphabet and it would be accepted as an eloquent plea for disarmament.”High point of Alf Landon’s eloquence was his Chicago speech where he responded to a responsive audience. At Akron he failed to stir his crowd to enthusiasm and at Detroit Republican Governor Frank D. Fitzgerald was so disgusted with the rally that he was reported as having said that henceforth he would “tend to my own knitting and to hell with the national ticket.” He left the Landon special before it left the State and boarded the incoming Roosevelt special, offering the thin excuse that Gubernatorial courtesy required him to greet the President.

Nominee Roosevelt himself made slips. At St. Louis he named the wrong spot as the beginning of the Old Oregon Trail. At Bloomington, Ill., he said, “My friends, I am glad to be in Bloomingburg.”* But at nearly every wayside stop he opened with some humorous remark that got his audience laughing, made some folksy reference to local conditions, coupled himself with his hearers by “You know and I know . . .”

Nominee Landon, best at small gatherings, had last week the tough assignment of speaking in the relatively unsympathetic industrial towns of Michigan and Ohio. At more than one place there were boos—chiefly from small boys—although the volume of cheers everywhere drowned them out. A few hecklers he handled deftly, but now & then, even in rural regions where he met the warmest welcome, he failed to stir a crowd to the enthusiasm it was ready to give. Then he would abandon his troublesome notes and drop in a remark which always got response: “I guess you folks are down here to look me over. That goes both ways. I’m glad to look you over, too.” But most successful moment in every rear platform audience was when, his talking done, he grinned his natural grin, leaned down to double-handshake all comers.

Impressive though they are in print and picture, crowds do not fool the seasoned observer of politics. Any local boss, if given enough time, can organize a crowd to warm a candidate’s heart. When that candidate happens to be the President of the U. S. public curiosity alone will render the boss’s job relatively simple. This week the New York Times solemnly warned President Roosevelt that October crowds do not necessarily ripen into November votes, recalled the sad cases of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, Alfred Emanuel Smith in 1928, both of whom drew record crowds for their periods, only to go down in defeat.

*At the same place Governor Landon was recently introduced as the Governor of Texas.