POLITICAL NOTES: Thunder on the Right

Columbia University’s ebullient Professor Walter B. (Life Begins at Forty) Pitkin last week published in Legislative News, Inc. an article entitled “Why We Need a Rabble Rouser of the Right.” Excerpts:

“In Texas, the conservatives found their Rabble Rouser of the Right [W. Lee O’Daniel, flour salesman nominated for Governor]. In California, the conservatives drifted blindly, as usual, and now face ruin. The Rabble Rousers of the Left beat them to a frazzle. . . .

“I contend that American business men MUST learn human nature to the point of accepting as necessary the Rabble Rouser of the Right. . . . The only sure method of quick action must be used against the wild-eyed and the starry-minded. . . .

“To get fast action, somebody must stir millions to genuine anger over conditions which are adversely affecting their lives. . . . The wise rabble rouser must tell us. If he can’t, then we are doomed to be conquered by the unwise rabble rousers. . . .

“Nothing but hot news will serve us. Cold news, learned news, dull news and colored news will defeat us. We need fewer Ph.D.s and more red-hot reporters; less economics and more truthful muckraking. We need more thunder.”

¶ Herbert Hoover, no rabble-rouser, pausing in Ogden, Utah on a trip East, announced a series of speeches on Franklin Roosevelt’s proposed new Liberal party which, Mr. Hoover predicted, would be found “more Bedlamite than liberal.”

¶ To a Washington dinner party Publisher Eugene Meyer of the dignified Washington Post, who was a high henchman in the Hoover Administration (Federal Reserve Board, RFC), declared that the best thing Mr. Hoover could now do for the Republican Party would be to take a five-year world cruise.

¶ In Springfield, Ill., Chicago’s oldtime rabble-rousing mayor, Republican William Hale (“Big Bill”) Thompson filed with the Secretary of State a petition, for which he claimed 512,000 signatures, asking that Illinois voters be allowed to go on record this November in favor of a national referendum before the U. S. enters a foreign war.

¶ In San Diego County, Calif., friends of the “$30 Every Thursday” old age pension plan solicited campaign funds from merchants with the threat that the plan’s supporters would boycott non-subscribing merchants.

¶ A sign of California’s counter-swing against “$30 Every Thursday” was seen when Sheridan Downey, who beat Senator McAdoo for the Democratic nomination by red-hot advocacy of the pension plan, agreed with Culbert L. Olson, the Democratic nominee for Governor, not to insist on a plank in their platform espousing “$30 Every Thursday.”

¶ Officer Thomas H. Leary of the Cambridge, Mass, police force, nominated without his consent as a delegate to the Democratic State convention (TIME, Sept. 5), continued last week trying to comply with regulations forbidding officers to seek elective office. Besides his slogan, “Be wary of Leary” he announced himself as a conFusion candidate running in a New Dealearyous platform, asked voters for cigars, made faces at babies.

¶ In Arkansas, J. Rosser Venable, unsuccessful candidate for the U. S. Senate, filed his accounting of $683.90 primary campaign expenses. Item: “I bought one 25¢ watermelon for a few persons at a store and divided with them this delicious, juicy melon.”

¶ In Louisiana, James H. Morrison, candidate for Congress, declared that he had been ambushed by a political assassin, exhibited a .32-calibre bullet hole in his left arm. Sneered Governor Richard W. Leche, supporter of incumbent Representative J. K. Griffith: “A cheap publicity stunt.”

¶ Milliken Iris Gardens of Pasadena, Calif, offered a bulb bargain: for $2, ten species including Venus de Milo. Airy Dream, Dauntless, Evolution, Rameses, Valor and, FREE, the Eleanor Roosevelt “a fall-blooming Iris. . . . However, only one Eleanor Roosevelt free.”