National Affairs: Three Whispers

What is a “whispering campaign”? Is it a pack of slanders deliberately and covertly set afoot by one’s political opponents in an organized way? Is it a mixture of fact, exaggeration and gossip on unprintable subjects which one’s political opponents know is being passed around and over which they secretly gloat? Is it a parcel of prejudice circulated by the ignorant and the fanatical, which one’s opponents would be powerless to arrest however fairminded they might be?

Whatever it is, an anti-Smith “whispering campaign” has been suspected, proclaimed, viewed-with-alarm, pointed-with-shame, loudly flayed by the Democrats. Last week the Democratic outcry reached a new pitch and counteraction was planned against the three outstanding Whispers.

Roman Catholicism. Meeting at Columbus, Ohio, the National Lutheran Editors’ Association, a body representing, two million readers of Lutheran literature, brought out of the whispering gallery and into the amplifiers the oldtime subject of Nominee Smith’s Roman Catholicism. While not presuming to campaign openly for Hoover, the Lutheran editors voted to tell their readers that the Roman Catholic Church requires of its members allegiance to a “foreign sovereign . . . who has worldwide political interests of his own which may severely clash with the best interests of our country.”

Such a view was not surprising among followers of the Saintly German peasant whose ecclesiastical reveries, nailed on a church door at Wittenberg four centuries ago, divided all Germany (and many another country later) into Protestant and Catholic political parties.

The day after the Lutherans published their resolution, Nominee Smith, in a New Year’s message to U. S. Jewry, published these balanced phrases: “The separation of Church and State is a fundamental American principle. The pursuit of virtue sanctioned by religion is at the basis of any civilized State. . . .”

In answer to specific inquiries as to religious affiliations among Governor Smith’s political appointees, New York’s Jewish-descended Secretary .of State, Robert Moses, published the following tabulations:

Among 14 Smith cabinet appointments —3 Catholics, 10 Protestants, 1 Jewish descent.

Among 25 other departmental and divisional appointments made by Smith—11 Catholics, 14 Protestants.

Among 156 appointments approved by Smith—33 Catholics, 105 Protestants, 11 Jewish descent, 7 undesignated.

Among 33 Smith appointments to the judiciary—15 Catholics, 15 Protestants, 3 Jewish descent.

Democrats yet more practical called attention to anti-Catholic propaganda of the lowest type and insinuated that the G. O. P. was responsible, if not for starting it, then for not stopping it. New York City’s glib and artful Mayor Walker last week suggested that the Republican-run Post Office Department was deliberately lax about letting “scurrilous slanderous” matter from “fanatical bigots” pass through the mails.* The arch-Democratic New York World reprinted bits from a widely-distributed pamphlet which said:

Born

On the 28th day of June, 1928, at Houston, Tex.,

The Papal Party of the United States

Its Candidate Sir Knight Alfred E. Smith, K. C., F. F. M.

Drunkenness. Nominee Robinson, himself a nondrinking Dry, undertook in a speech at Dallas to silence Whisper No. 2 about Nominee Smith. “The statement has been made that he is a drunkard,” said Nominee Robinson, and paused for effect. Then he shouted: “THERE’S NOT ONE WORD OF TRUTH IN IT!”

But the Robinson shout did not silence Whisper No. 2. In the first place, Drys and Wets seldom agree on what constitutes a “drunkard.” The official Brown Derby reply to this whisper is (in effect): “Yes, of course Nominee Smith takes an occasional drink. Who doesn’t? But he never drinks beyond self-control, never drinks on duty, has not got the Habit.” The popular observation is that the Nominee, when seen off duty, often has had, before evening, enough drinks to be visibly stimulated thereby. To the friendly eye the effect is one of good-fellowship. To the unfriendly, on whom the Nominee’s high office may have the effect of a magnifying glass, it looks like rank intoxication. Ladies and gentlemen write letters to each other, or to editors, and solemnly depose that Nominee Smith was seen “dead drunk,” “disgustingly tight,” “staggering” at one place and time or another. When responsible editors get such letters they do not publish them. They can neither be disproved nor verified. But the letters are still written and Whisper No. 2 goes on.

Its corollaries, which the Brown Derby may yet feel obliged to answer, are these:

1) If Nominee Smith drinks, where does his drink come from? Is none of it procured in violation of the Federal law?

2) If he went to the White House, would he continue drinking there? If so, how would the drink be procured? Would it, as in the well-known case of President Harding, be kept for him in the White House?

Social Unfitness. It has been said that a sure-fire issue for Nominee Smith, one upon which he might sweep the country in an access of pride and indignation, would result if Republicans of any weight or responsibility should become publicly associated with the familiar Whisper: “But, my dear! Can you imagine the Smiths in the White House? Mrs. Smith in the White House?”

The official reply of the Brown Derby to this Whisper has been a dignified, disdainful silence. Again it is the New York World, counselor of Nominee Smith in all things and his prodder into many things, which has taken up the subject of “The Snob Vote.” It called attention last week to an unguarded remark by one of several Republican ladies who met for a campaign caucus in fashionable Southampton, Long Island. The lady had said: “… I knew by his looks and his accent what party he belonged to.” The World cuttingly and cunningly replied: “We had supposed that members of both parties came from an average run of ordinary Americans.” The World published a cartoon of three languid, leg-showing ladies drinking cocktails under a beach parasol with a liveried flunky in the offing. The caption read: “The Al Smiths! Oh, my dear!”

National Chairman Work of the

G. O. P. last week took official cognizance of the whispers as follows:

“Certain disgusting types of periodical articles and anonymous publications . . . have come to my attention. . . .

“I wish to denounce these and similar utterances. . . .”

*Postmaster General New retorted to Mayor Walker that only obscene matter is barred entirely from the mails by law; “scurrilous, slanderous” matter may be mailed unless written on postcards, envelopes, wrappers.