Democratic Doings

"I have succeeded in reducing the party deficit from $1,550,000 to $800,000, with every indication of a further reduction to under $500.000 within the next fortnight. . . . The party's interest can be advanced best by opening a permanent and adequate headquarters in Washington and the conducting of active organization work 365 days in the year. ... I have appointed Mr. Jouett Shouse, of Kansas City, to be chairman of the executive committee and he will immediately assume charge of the Washington office."

So, from a carefully prepared sheet of paper, read Chairman John Jacob Raskob of the Democratic National Committee to a group of astonished newsgatherers. At the disclosure that the Democratic deficit had been almost cut in half in five months, despite the party's crushing defeat, news-trained noses quivered with interest.

The deficit reduction and the Shouse appointment were Chairman Raskob's retort to disgruntleds of the party who seek his resignation. "Just soliciting," he said, had raised some $500,000 (chiefly in the East). Sale of the campaign speeches of Alfred Emanuel Smith in book form at $2 per copy, had brought in more than $200,000.

So great a man, as well as Democrat, is Jouett Shouse, that to him is given major credit for inducing the G. O. P. to go to his city for its convention last year. Lawyer, farmer, banker, son of a Kentucky clergyman (Protestant), strong of mind, bold of speech, he will now take prominent place on the political battlements of the capital. Briefly, his duty will be to eye the Hoover administration; to look for, mark, proclaim its errors; to direct against it the archery of partisan criticism until next election. Chairman Raskob prepared to withdraw into the Democracy's inner keep, there to plot great political stratagems for the future, out of the public eye. Said he firmly: "I have no intention of resigning."

Democratic deficits customarily have been allowed to run over until the eve of the following campaign, thus strangling with debt all inter-election activity. Even the two-million-dollar Republican deficit after the Harding election was not liquidated until 1923, and then only by dubious collections and split-ups.

The Shouse appointment mollified anti-Raskob Democrats no less than the quick payments of their debts. As a Kansas Congressman (1915-19), Mr. Shouse served under Carter Glass on the House Banking & Currency Committee, and later was, again under Glass, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. A McAdoo man in 1920 and 1924, he is viewed with approval in the South despite his work at Democratic headquarters last year for the Brown Derby.

Democratic policy is now left to the Democratic Senators who are expected to perform a political miracle equal to Mr. Raskob's financial one by developing harmonious issues as they debate their way through the questions before the Congress. At present, intraparty schisms on prohibition, power, taxation, tariff, farm relief, are nowhere more deep and durable than on the left-hand side of the U. S. Senate chamber.

Marked by observers as a first fruit of Mr. Shouse's appearance in Washington, was the "discovery" last week by the Treasury Department of an order, signed in 1920 by Assistant Secretary Shouse, requiring customs inspection of all baggage of U. S. officials claiming "free entry." Dry congressmen with wet baggage have revived interest in this port courtesy. The Treasury indicated that the oldtime Shouse order would probably be taken no more seriously than before its rediscovery.