POLITICAL NOTES: Stirrings

Last week out of the black cloud of dust which still hung over drought-stricken Kansas, Governor Alfred Mossman (“Alf”) Landon sped to Washington to see about $500,000 worth of free gasoline from FERA to power 200,000 tractors to plough furrows to stop the ravages of Kansas’ winds. While he was getting his gasoline he stopped long enough to mention that in May the Republicans of ten Midwestern States were planning to convene and write a platform for a bigger, better, sounder and more liberal G. O. P. Head of the resolutions committee at this meeting would be William Allen White of Emporia.

“All we know,” confided busy Governor Landon, “is that a great many Republicans of the region have a lot of ideas.” So had a great many Republicans in Washington.

“Splendid!” exclaimed eloquent, teacherish Senator Vandenberg of Michigan, who likes to think of himself in terms of the Republican Presidential nomination in 1936.

“A fine thing!” said bald, blue-blooded Representative Wadsworth of New York, who would not be averse to leading his party toward the White House next year.

“I am for it!” chimed in hefty, leather-lunged Senator Dickinson of Iowa, under whose mop of white hair are all manner of soaring political ambitions.

“Anything to help build up a militant party!” cried gigantic, snaggle-toothed Representative Hamilton Fish of New York whose radio fan mail has infected him seriously with the Presidential bug.

As late as two months ago the Republican Presidential nomination in 1936 was generally regarded as an empty honor for which no sane man would seriously strive. Since then, however, has come a distinct change of opinion among G. O. Partisans. President Roosevelt might be unbeatable by himself but, if a third party of disgruntled Leftwingers under Senator Long or someone like him should enter the field, the Republican nominee might have a bare chance to slip through to success. Some such idea was definitely in the air last week as Republicans began to stir out of their long lethargy and behave like Presidential candidates. Some stirrings:

¶In Bergen County, N. ].was incorporated the first Harold-G-Hoffman-for-President Club. Short, stocky, amiable Harold Hoffman was Motor Vehicle Commissioner of New Jersey before he was elected Governor by a paper-thin margin last year. A tireless public speaker, an able bowler, a backslapping handshaker, he has run for ten offices without tasting defeat.

¶In Delaware, the House of Representatives voted 22-to-12 to endorse Governor C. (for Clayton) Douglass Buck for the Presidential nomination. An in-law of the du Ponts who rule the State, quiet, handsome Governor Buck reciprocated by recommending that Legislators raise their daily pay from $10 to $20. No one seriously expected tiny Delaware to win a Presidential nomination; the legislature’s move was chiefly a precautionary one to tie up to a “favorite son.”

¶Representative “Ham” Fish, whose proudest boast is that he “hasn’t missed a Harvard-Yale football game since 1905,” has lately been specializing on the South where Negro delegates to the Republican convention are to be had for a price. Last fortnight disgruntled Southern Democrats had a chance to look Republican Fish over at swank Aiken, S. C. Last week he spoke by radio over a Southern hookup, inviting all those who were “deceived and disgusted” with their national Administration to “cross over” to Candidate Fish.

¶ At the May meeting in the Midwest, his friends were last week promising that much would be heard, if not from, at least about, red-faced William Franklin (“Frank”) Knox whose political beginnings were under Teddy Roosevelt in the Rough Riders. Once the general manager of all Hearstpapers. Colonel Knox today publishes the Chicago Daily News. His ambition is to live, like his father, to be over 80 but since the beginning of 1935 his speeches indicate that he would rather live in the White House than become an octogenarian. “I should be in my own eyes intellectually dishonest, if I failed to warn you! . . .” he cried recently in Topeka. “All the evil forces of corruption which are attracted by the prospect of political spoils have left the Republican fold and attached themselves to the opposition. Let them go! As a party we have been deloused. . . . Get America back on the payroll.” A middle-of-the-roader, with geography on his side, Candidate Knox to-day waits & watches his chance to disclose himself and his ambitions.

¶A few years ago “Alf” Landon was a young independent oil man of considerable means. Five years ago, a widower, he married Miss Theo Cobb who has one of the largest collections of Westward Ho glass in the U. S. Since then he has become the father of two children and has twice been elected Governor of Kansas. Politicians would not be surprised to see him turn up at next year’s Republican convention wheeling 100 or more Landon-pledged delegates in his perambulator.