POLITICAL NOTES: Santa Claus

Month ago at Boothbay Harbor, Me., John Anthony McDonough married a school teacher named Mildred Ernestine Reed. The bridegroom was an A. E. F. veteran, an Elk, an Eagle, the president of the Maine Association of Football Officials and, most important of all, the State Relief Administrator. Among the distinguished guests at his wedding was Louis J. Brann, who had just made Democratic history by being re-elected Governor of Maine. Home from their honeymoon last week, Mr. & Mrs. McDonough suddenly discovered that their marriage had also helped to make national history.

Just seven days before the election the Relief Administration in Washington announced the amounts which the Federal Government had allotted to the States for November: $2,000,000 for Alabama . . . $6,500,000 for California . . . $11,500,000 for Illinois . . . $18,900,000 for New York . . . $9,100,000 for Pennsylvania . . . $468,000 for Wyoming. Only one State was missing from the list of benefactions. It was Maine, where the election had already been held. In a flash the Republican campaign committee pounced on this fact:

“Again the New Deal administration convicts itself of the charge of using Federal relief funds for political purposes and as a substitute for a campaign fund. Curiously enough every State except Maine received a slice. Maine has already voted. Maine, under the Farley plan of Tammanyizing the country, manifestly is recorded as having had hers.”

Said Republican National Chairman Fletcher: “No such shameless use of public funds to influence elections can be found in the most sordid annals of our municipal politics.”

No Federal relief funds are allocated to a State until the State Relief Administrator has submitted a detailed report of the State’s needs. Maine’s report was late because State Administrator McDonough had been honeymooning. Day later his report was in Washington and Maine had been granted $598,000 for November relief. But G. O. Partisans had scored a (continued on p. 16) sufficiently important point to cause Federal Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins to crack back:

“With the smug complacency which apparently goes with the chairmanship of the National Republican Committee, Mr. Fletcher has seen fit to accuse me of playing politics because I am feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and sheltering the destitute, regardless of their sex, age, creed, color, race or place of residence.

“If that be politics, I plead guilty. Hunger is not debatable.”

Still debatable, however, was the most famed character in 1934’s political campaign: Santa Claus. In him was personified about the only issue that the Republicans attempted to use on a nationwide scale.

As a phrasemaker Alfred E. Smith has done more to plague Franklin Roosevelt than all the uninspired mouthings of Republican campaigners about “tyranny” and “regimentation.” He coined “boloney dollar.” He coined “alphabet soup.” And last December, discussing CWA in the New Outlook, he wrote: “No sane local official who has hung up an empty stocking over the municipal fireplace, is going to shoot Santa Claus just before a hard Christmas.”

That the Roosevelt Administration has been playing Santa Claus to the country has been the theme-song of the G. O. P. campaign. And certainly the President’s aides made no effort to conceal all the good things they had stuffed into the nation’s stocking since March 4, 1933. With election day in plain sight, Mr. Hopkins announced not only November’s relief allotments but reported “to the President” that Federal Surplus Relief Corp. had paid farmers $127,000,000 and industry $137,000,000. Governor William I. Myers announced that his Farm Credit Administration had refinanced 1,400,000 loans for farmers for a grand total of $1,960,000,000. And President Roosevelt himself promised a $60,000,000 increase in Federal salaries—effective next July.

These general announcements probably were received with less bitterness by Republicans than the continued repetition by Democrats, in campaign speeches and local campaign literature, of how much money the New Deal had poured into each constituency. In big Pennsylvania, Democrats pointed with pride to $678,000,000 spent by the Administration in that State. In little Delaware, Democratic Chairman Farley loudly declared that the Administration had spent between $15,000,000 and $20,000,000.

Even if the Democratic party was playing Santa Claus it had to have its own Santa Clauses to pay the expense of publicizing its benefactions. Among big contributors to the Democratic campaign chest were listed last week: August A. Busch (AnheuserBusch) of St. Louis and Erwin C. Uihlein (Schlitz) of Milwaukee, $5,000 each; Jesse and John Jones of Houston, Tex., $5,000; Joseph Medill Patterson, publisher of the New York Daily News, $2,500; Walter P. Chrysler, $2,000; Henry Morgenthau, $1,000.

Leading contributor to the Republican campaign: John D. Rockefeller Jr., $5,000.