National Affairs: Red Hot Stuff

Prejudice is a slippery thing and politics a more slippery. Every one knew that degenerate anti-Smith appeals were being made and that they greatly helped Hooverism. But Democratic Chairman Raskob was hard put to it to expose any Republican officials actually abetting them.

He thought he had what he wanted when he laid hands on a letter from Senator Moses, sharp-spoken, rough-and-ready Hooverizer of the East, to one Zeb Vance Walser. Mr. Walser is a G. O. P. worker in Lexington, N. C. The letter got misdirected to Lexington, Ky. In it, Senator Moses said he was enclosing an article by a South Carolina journalist in New York. “It is red hot stuff,” said Senator Moses, “and I wish you could get it put into some North Carolina papers.”

Chairman Raskob had some photostats made. He obtained affidavits from people in Mississippi, Kentucky, Kansas and Tennessee who described instances where Republican officials, State and national, had engaged in whipping up anti-Catholic animus. The most common offense seemed to be handing out The Fellowship Forum, nauseous, rabid Klanpaper (see p. 59). Two of the owners of this sheet, Mr. Raskob noted, were Republican State Chairman R. H. Angell of Virginia and William G. Conley, Republican nominee for Governor of West Virginia.

Mr. Raskob wrote a long letter about it all to Dr. Work, the Republican National Chairman. To make sure Dr. Work got the letter, Mr. Raskob sent it by two members of his staff from Manhattan to Washington. They called on Dr. Work in person, presented it, asked if there was an answer.

Dr. Work pitched the letter over his shoulder onto a mail-littered table. “Oh, I’ll look that over later,” he said. Mr. Raskob’s emissaries bore another envelope, addressed to Herbert Hoover. At the latter’s campaign house, they were received by Bradley D. Nash, the number-two secretary, a cheerful young gentleman (Harvard) with nice manners. Mr. Nash was embarrassed and courteous but, of course, Mr. Raskob’s emissaries left without any answer from Mr. Nash’s chief.

What the “red hot stuff” was, the press was most anxious to find out. But Mr. Raskob would not release it until Dr. Work had had fair opportunity to reply.

Dr. Work did not reply. Instead, he approved an outburst by his publicity chief, onetime (1919-23) Governor Henry J. Allen of Kansas. The latter referred to the Raskob letter as “another screed expressing . . . mock indignation”; accused Mr. Raskob of “deliberately dragging in the issues of religious intolerance.”

“The Tammany campaign, in its closing hours, has sunk from the sidewalks to the sewers* of New York,” said Hooverism’s chief publicist.

Senator Moses came out, too, with some unpleasantries. He was vague about the “red hot stuff” he had sent to Zeb Vance Walser. First he said he had sent out “so much material” he really could not recall which was which. Then he said it might have been anti-Tammany or anti-saloon material.* He did not deny that it was “viciously anti-Catholic,” as Mr. Raskob said it was. But he roared: “Who is this John J. Raskob that seems so agitated because a Southern Democrat has written something which I thought to be ‘hot stuff’? He is the chairman . . . whose St. Louis headquarters have been busy for weeks flooding certain sections of the country with vicious attacks on Mr. Hoover’s religious faith! . . .

“If Mr. Raskob’s ethical sense is so fine and his general sensibilities so readily aroused, it might be worth while to ask how it happens that he has my mail. Did he himself rifle the mails or did some of his Tammany stool-pigeons do it for him?”

Mr. Raskob replied by releasing the “red hot stuff.” He put on display in Manhattan a collection of anti-Catholic propaganda, including a quotation from Republican Governor Flem D. Sampson of Kentucky that Smith would “destroy the churches and schools.”

The “red hot stuff” article proved to be a long rambling piece with passages oddly reminiscent of Senator Moses’ own forceful style. Excerpts:

“Governor Smith belongs to a church which holds adulterous every wedlock not favored by its Pope; which brands as bastardy every birth not blessed by its book; which denies sanctuary even in man’s last, long home, the grave, save it be hallowed in the dead language of Rome.”

Senator Moses viewed the Raskob document and said: “I have no recollection of ever having seen any manuscript of that character. I might add, however, that I believe any person who would resort to rifling the mails would not hesitate to commit a forgery.”

Other of Dr. Work’s subordinates said that all of Mr. Raskob’s evidence was “framed up.” Democrats were indignant and the episode was one of the bitterest in a bitter campaign. Said the Republican Chicago Tribune (echoed by its pro-Smith Manhattan satellite, The Daily News):

“Governor Smith’s denunciation of certain influences working in or for the Republican Party was a true statement of facts. It is accepted as such by many Republicans.

“The Klan and the Anti-Saloon League are twin calamities working for the election of the Republican national ticket. Their practices are intolerable. Their intolerance is disgraceful. They have exhibited some of the meanest motives which ever had a place in American politics. What they offer as patriotism and public morality has protected or promoted some of the worst corruption.

“The Republican Party has these two allies and its campaign with them is sufficiently apparent to expose it to the properly indignant language of Governor Smith. The Tribune feels precisely as he does in the matter.”

* This innuendo seemed to have reference to recent sewer-pipe scandals in the Borough of Queens (TIME, Oct. 29). If so, it was either an ill-informed or a knavish innuendo. The Queens sewer-pipe grafting was effected by a Democratic ring to which Tammany was opposed, and which Governor Smith had specially and successfully prosecuted.* Senator Moses is personally and politically a Wet.