Finale

Coolidge, Kellogg, Mellon, Hughes, Borah, Houghton. . . .

Superintendent McBride, Mrs. Willebrandt, Billy Sunday, Bishop Cannon, The Fellowship Forum, "Wizard" Evans, Senator Heflin, William Allen White, Mrs. Boole (W. C. T. U.). . . .

Moses, Good, Work, Smoot, Brookhart, Fess, Simmons, Johnson, Longworth, Wilbur, Jardine, Whiting, Sargent, both Cabinet Davises, Mr. Chief Justice Taft, Senator-suspect Vare, the Rockefellers, 'Legger Remus. . . .

They were a strangely assorted collection of campaigners, supporters and voting notables who worked, spoke, contributed and gestured for a common end. It should be remembered as perhaps the greatest coalition campaign in U. S. history, beginning with the revolutionary Hoover nomination. Unaided if not opposed by the leaders in the powerful States--Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas and most of the farm States--the nomination virtually tore the G. O. P. apart and put it together again with new adjustments, relations and elements. Without a very genuine popular demand it could not have been done. The same factor was, ultimately, the fundamental strength of the Hoover campaign. The unity within the G. O. P. at the campaign's end was undoubtedly the result of circumstances rather than management. Besides Hoover's popular strength, which won him the party's recognition, there was a formidable opponent, which stirred up party feeling as of old. Then there was the Prosperity slogan. That fitted party tongues of all sizes, shapes, colors. Third, deny it or not, strong instincts were in play to make for consolidation, instincts impolitely known as Snobbery, Bigotry and toward the end of the race, Conservatism.

Spokesmen Hughes and Borah were somewhat impeded in the East, towards the finish, by the popular impetus of Governor Smith's homeland campaigning and by the alertness of the Brown Derby's ablest assistant, the New York World. Editorial Writer Walter Lippmann and Governor Smith managed to draw both the Messrs. Hughes and Borah into side-arguments and self-explanations. Mr. Hughes was nettled to such an extent that he talked about "mudslingers," wisecrack artists" and "calumny."

The Billy Sunday speeches through the South were paid for by Anti-Salooners, eight speeches at $200 per speech, including a revival in the church which President Coolidge attends (First Congregational, Washington). This attack was broadcast by the Fellowship Forum, national Klanpaper (see p. 59).

Senator Heflin's flat anti-Smith declaration was saved up until last week at Dothan, Ala., a town with a newspaper (the Eagle) which has said: "Oh Heflin . . . Oh Hell!" Cried the Senator, "I will vote against Al Smith, so help me God!" and exhausted most of his time with his well-known Anti-Catholic tirade.

"Surprise." A Republican ace-up-the-sleeve was rumored Monday. After Governor Smith's final play that evening, the G. O. P. laid down three more cards--radio speeches, announced late as a "surprise," by Mrs. Christine Bradley South of Kentucky, James Francis Burke of Pittsburgh, Charles Evans Hughes of New York. The first was a prayerful appeal to U. S. womanhood. The second was an awesome exegesis of the Coolidge message. The third was a smashing summary designed to picture Republicans on a peak of noble humanitarianism, the Democrats in a morass of "clamor," "clap trap" and "calumny" engaged in a "shindig."