U.S. At War: Frankie and Bertie

Shark-mouthed Publisher Frank Gan nett and carp-eyed Publisher Colonel Robert R. McCormick share two fierce emo tions : hatred of Franklin Roosevelt, a conviction that New Deal “bungling” in agriculture will cause starvation in the U.S. Last week, in Bertie McCormick’s Chicago bailiwick, the two joined in an emotional spree, airing their fears in a joyous catharsis of rich gloom.

First to make headlines in his own news papers was Frank Gannett, who opened a National Food Conference which he said he had called at the request of Agriculture Department heads of 16 states. The program was perhaps the most concentrated collection of New Deal denouncers possible to imagine, including Adman Lou Maxon, late of OPA, bang-browed Author Louis Bromfield, Texas’ W. Lee (“Pappy”) O’Daniel, South Carolina’s Ellison D. (“Cotton Ed”) Smith.

Those who attended the conference heard one worth-while address, a discussion of nutritional problems in wartime by Dr. W. E. Krauss of the Wooster, Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station. The rest were more variations on the theme of “Turn the New Deal Rascals Out,” with an irresponsible overworking of the terrible word famine. Perhaps to reassure themselves, the entire body repeated the pledge of allegiance to the flag at the opening of each session, five times in two days.

No sooner had Frank Gannett’s conference blown over than Bertie McCormick started up. The occasion: a “Constitution Day” dinner at Chicago’s Palmer House. The guests: some 1,000 McCormick-variety Republicans. The principal speaker: the Colonel. His topic: the excellence of Illinois (which he sometimes attributes to himself) and of Midwest institutions, under which he lumped the Constitution, Lincoln and Illinois’s Governor and 100% McCormick stooge, Dwight H. Green.

“When the most brilliantly conceived and executed coup was sprung upon the Republican meeting at Mackinac,” the Colonel said, “to bring to a successful conclusion the conspiracy so unsuccessfully begun by Major Andre and General Arnold 163 years ago, it was Governor Green of Illinois who stood like Washington at Valley Forge and prevented the contemplated stampede of the excited delegates.”

On this high note, all went home happy.