In the Midlands

Through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, then home again to New York, proceeded the Smith Special last week.

St. Louis. The press acquired a habit of comparing the popular demonstrations accorded Nominee Smith to the Lindbergh demonstrations of last year. The Smith demonstration in St. Louis was "practically as great" as Lindbergh's. Beer and the Brown Derby seemed to be the chief attractions.

Sedalia. What makes Sedalia, Mo., a famed political spot is a 230-acre enclosure, the State Fair Grounds, with an auditorium that will hold some 10,000 persons. With this edifice packed, a crowd of 35,000 milled outside. They had eaten the town out of food supplies. They were so thick that pickpockets were able to filch $500 from Norman H. Davis ($150 of which he was guarding for Mrs. Charles Dana Gibson), and $125 each from two Manhattan newspapermen.

Candidates for state offices had been talking for hours before Nominee Smith arrived. The crowd was not greatly excited by the Smith speech when it proved to be a detailed attack on "Coolidge economy." All those present got the main point: that any great reduction in the cost of running the Government after 1921 was more likely the natural result of the return of the country to a peacetime basis than the phenomenal result of "rigorous" economy. But scores of auditors were sidling through the exits before the Nominee finished adducing details to prove his point. This was, perhaps, just as well for the Nominee, because many of his details were ill-chosen, incorrect. That the main point was felt and resented in Washington was seen next day when Secretary Mellon issued a long parrying statement which knocked most of the Smith details, though not the main point, out of court.

"Chinese Puzzle." A typically political result of the Smith-Mellon skirmish was the appearance of the great Chinese Puzzle Issue in the campaign. At Sedalia, Nominee Smith said the Government's fiscal reports were ''about as near a Chinese puzzle as anything I ever saw in my life.'' Mr. Mellon retorted that this was "perhaps the most accurate statement in Governor Smith's entire speech." In Chicago, Governor Smith retorted: "If it is a Chinese puzzle to me with all my experience in diving into governmental figures running over a quarter of a century, what must it be to the fellow on the sidewalk? . . . I frankly admit it is a Chinese puzzle. I do not conceal it. And he [Secretary Mellon] knows it is."

Chicago. Wearing a pair of socks monogrammed across the shin with his name, "because one of my friends in North Carolina gave them to me"; jostled, huzzahed, jeered, cheered, gaped at, the Nominee spent three days in pandemonstrative Chicago. Cartoonist John Tinney McCutcheon drew a picture in the Chicago Tribune of an elephant looking down from a window on the crowd-banked Smith parade, and saying: "It's lucky for me that eagerness to see him doesn't mean eagerness to vote for him." That night the crowds burned bonfires of Chicago Tribunes in the middle of Michigan Avenue.

James W. Good, Hooverizer of the West, met the Smith invasion with a State-claiming announcement that included even Texas. Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick, Republican candidate for Congressman-at-large, diverted some attention with a barbecue at her farm northwest of Chicago, at which 10,000 Republicans consumed six tons of beef and pork, 200 barrels of potatoes, five truckloads of bread. But it was a prime moment for the Brown Derby to be in the heart of the Midlands. Just before he got there, the Salt Creek oil scandal had broken, involving National G. O. P. Chairman Work and Attorney General Sargent with Oilman Harry Ford Sinclair and politics (see p. 7). People were waiting to hear what the chief Democrat would say about that. They heard that he was telephoning long distance to Senator Walsh of Montana, the Democratic oil inquisitor.

When he spoke, the Nominee made the most of the prevalent suspense. He began with an exposition of Senator Borah's Inconsistent profundities. He held the Senator up as a "reckless" politician, then swiftly and smartly contrasted "the former and very distinguished Governor of your own State, Governor Lowden . . . a statesman!"

He was nearly half done before he said: "There was something they [the Republicans] wanted to get away from. What was it? Oil! . . .

"But the candidate did not let them get away. He pointed with satisfaction to the record of the last seven and a half years.

"I picked up the paper the other day md I saw something that Dr. Work said. He said.

" 'The people are tired of hearing of these oil leases.'

"Well, I could go the doctor one better. I think they are not only tired, but they are thoroughly and completely disgusted with them. . . ."

Then followed, succinctly, the story of the Salt Creek lease, winding up with the refrain of the whole speech, a phrase from the Republican platform: "The record of the present Administration is a guarantee of what may be expected of the next."

Indiana. The trip through Indiana was informal but not speechless. There were hatwavings and handshakings at Kankakee and Lafayette. At Indianapolis, the Nominee made a short outdoor speech and visited State Boss Thomas Taggart in a hospital where, unfortunately for the Brown Derby, he has long been confined. Nevertheless, sick Boss Taggart whispered: "You'll win Indiana, Al."

Memorabilia. The Smith Special reentered New York State. The Brown Derby's personal appearances, outside of its native East, were finished for 1928. It had toured 10.000 miles. The last days of the campaign were to be spent arousing Boston and New England. Philadelphia and the mid-Atlantic section and finally 45-electoral-vote New York. To counteract the Brown Derby's touring in the Midlands, the Republicans sent out no less a figure than Charles Evans Hughes to St. Joseph, Mo., and Chicago. A speech by Nominee Hoover was tentatively planned for Nov. 2 in St. Louis.

Come what might in the election, however, nothing was likely to efface certain Midland memories of Smith-in-action.

There was the Smith formula for opening a press-conference: "Throw out the ball and I'll kick it."

There was "old Colonel Mulberry Sellers." Nominee Smith used him constantly. Example: "General Lord [of the budget bureau] holds up the data in his hand like this, and in the manner of Colonel Sellers who said: 'Nine million people in Africa have sore eyes. Buy this little package' he says. 'By our industry we have saved $9,263,000.14.' "

The Smith technique during parades: sweep the hat, inclusively, at nearby crowds. Grin squarely at this person, then that. Answer cries with a comeback now and then. Scan crowds at distant windows; single out one group, grin and wave the hat straight at the group. A distant concerted cheer will come back. People in the street look up. Everyone cheers.

Another phrase which up to last week had not elicited a direct answer: "What does Mr. Hoover think of this? He must have some ideas about this?"

Another (variously varied): "It's all in the record. Let's see. What does the record say?"