Business & Finance: Turn of the Tide

When U.S. voters turned conservative on Election Day they also turned their backs on the very thing they once voted for with monotonous regularity—big State and municipal appropriations for public works and ownership. Of some $100,000,000 to propositions on last week’s ballots, some two-thirds were defeated.

Most important defeat was in Baltimore, where the citizens trounced a $32,000,000 waterworks loan despite fervent pleas by their Mayor. San Francisco voters rejected a $7,950,000 appropriation to buy the 50-year-old Market Street Railway, partly because they thought the city fathers were not cut out to be gentlemen motormen. Austin, Tex. citizens rebuffed a $2,000,000 building loan. Cleveland voters tossed out two ambiguous special taxes for “operating, welfare and relief.”

Paradox is that these results were palatable to New Dealers and conservatives alike. New Dealers could cheer on the theory that less public spending by the States may mean more ultimate power to gargantuan Washington. But conservatives figured that if people have tired of fancy State expenditures, they may one day turn on Washington also.