Governors in Conference

Upon French Lick, famed Indiana spa 42 mi. from the centre of U. S. population, converged last week 23 Governors of 23 States for their 23rd annual convention. Through the broad lobby of the big, buff French Lick Springs Hotel, set among wooded hills, they marched back & forth smoking, joshing, talking politics. They drank Pluto water ("If nature won't, Pluto will") at 55DEG direct from the spring --or piping hot at the hotel buffet. Many were the regretful comments on the absence of their friend, the late great Tom Taggart, Democratic boss of Indiana and millionaire proprietor of this resort.*

Governors' conferences are, by tradition, made as dull and tame as possible by a ban on all "controversial subjects."

But last week's conference did make big and unexpected news when three Governors rebelled at restraint and dared to debate the debatable in national life. All three are potential contenders for the Presidency.

New York's Democratic Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been assigned the unlikely topic "Land Utilization and State Planning." The bulk of his address was on New York's reforestation program. But he did manage to preface it with as neat a little political appeal as any of the Governors ever heard, in which he outlined a presidential platform for himself. Naming no names he flayed the Hoover Administration, mentioned the Depression, struck a distinctly national note. Excerpts:

"At a time when our country is suffering from a severe dislocation of economic progress, people are naturally asking questions about the future. . . . Some new factor is needed in our economic life. . . . It is not enough to talk about being of good cheer. It is not enough to apply old remedies. . . . r

"The ultimate answer is that the Government, both state and national, must accept the responsibility of doing what it can . . . along definitely constructive lines . . . such as scientific tariff aimed to create a movement of world commodities . . . a better thought out system of national taxation . . . a plan to cut the excessive cost of local government . . . the extension of the principle of insurance to cover sickness and unemployment. . . ."

Governor Roosevelt was followed in the afternoon by Pennsylvania's Republican Governor Gifford Pinchot. The program committee had assigned him a safe and sane topic: "Timber Needs of the Future." This he swept aside to launch into a tirade against public utilities, his favorite political theme. He warned the Governors of the political domination of the Power Trust. He named four groups: Mellon-Morgan, Insull, North American, Harris-Forbes. These, he said, generated about 95% of U. S. electricity. He predicted their merger into one colossal combination. Excerpts from a speech which got the biggest applause of any at the conference:

"As Pennsylvania and the nation deal with electric power, so shall we and our descendants be free men . . . or the helpless servants of the most widespread, far-reaching and penetrating monopoly ever known. Either we must control electric power or its masters and owners will control us. . . . These interests work together harmoniously under a common policy and toward a common end which is to milk the public. . . . Through the device of the write-up [and overcharges] the public utilities generally are collecting in Pennsylvania alone $50,000,000 a year over and above a fair return on their investments. . . . In the U. S. at large the electric utilities alone are [likewise] collecting $500,000,000. . . . The people are being sweated to pay high rates upon this immense mass of fictitious wealth.

"So here is graft and, so far as I know, the most gigantic graft ever collected by any single business since the world began. . . . The doctrine of States' rights is as impotent to settle this gigantic problem of commercial slavery . . . as our history has proved it impotent to settle the problem of human slavery. . . . The power of public utilities is manifest in every political assembly from the Congress of the U. S. to the smallest town meeting. In Pennsylvania the Republican Party is in power. The public utilities do not dominate the Republican Party . . . but they own and operate the party machinery. They control the State Chairman [Edward Martin], the National Committeeman [William Wallace Atterbury] and other officials of State Committee; and these officials are busily occupied in doing the will of the public utilities and in defeating the will of the voters. . . . This is not a matter of good parties or bad parties. . . . If the Democratic party were in power in Pennsylvania . . . its party machinery would also be controlled by the organized public utilities of the State, . . ."

The Pinchot speech made Pennsylvania's G. O. Politicians boil with rage. Old talkative Samuel Matthews Vauclain, board chairman of Baldwin Locomotive, took it upon himself to send each and every one of the other 22 Governors at French Lick a telegram beginning:

RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS THROUGHOUT PENNSYLVANIA DEPLORE THE MISLEADING STATEMENTS MADE BY GOVERNOR PINCHOT. . . .

The conference's no-controversy rule was directly attacked by Maryland's Democratic Governor Albert Cabell Ritchie. Said he:

"Is there any imaginable reason why [Governor Pinchot] should not have spoken on public utilities? . . . What could be more appropriate than for the Governors to discuss it when their people are so seriously concerned. . . . The States are the governmental laboratories of the nation. . . . The outstanding illustration is prohibition. If this question has dynamite in it, isn't this because the country endeavors to enforce temperance by a standard rule instead of considering the needs and problems of the different states? Isn't this a question the Governors should debate?"

Though officially the Governors' Conference accomplished nothing more than it ever does, it did serve to point up presidential politics for next year. Newsmen were quick to interpret Governor Pinchot's outburst as an opening sound off for the Republican nomination against President Hoover. Recalled was their long personal antagonism which culminated fortnight ago when President Hoover spoke alone at Valley Forge while Governor Pinchot was memorializing his old idol Theodore Roosevelt at his Oyster Bay tomb. While nobody seriously expected Mr. Pinchot to muster 10% of the delegates to the national convention, he became an anti-Hoover symbol around whom disgruntled Republicans could rally. Last week Nebraska's glum old Senator Norris remarked : "Pinchot would make an excellent man and I'm for him 500 times more than I am for President Hoover."

Upon Governor Roosevelt played the pressspotlight throughout the conference. Other Governors treated him as if he already had the Democratic nomination. Homeward bound, he stopped off in Ohio to greet potent Democrats in that State. Political speculation in the press, outrunning the facts, began to turn on a Roosevelt running mate for the national ticket. Last week's announcement of Col. Edward Mandell House, oldtime Wilsonian adviser, that he was for the New York Governor for President, seemed to put Mr. Roosevelt closer than ever before to the White House.

Though the Roosevelt lead over other candidates was certainly commanding, the nominating convention was still a year away and much could happen in that time. Alfred Emanuel Smith had yet to speak his mind on candidates. John Jacob Raskob's purposes were still obscure. A New York legislative committee had twelve months to investigate Tammany Hall and embarrass its candidate. None of the "favorite sons"--Ohio's Baker and Cox, Maryland's Ritchie, Arkansas' Robinson, Virginia's Byrd, Illinois' Lewis, Tennessee's Hull--had so much as hinted that Governor Roosevelt's candidacy was too far "out in front" to beat. Owen D. Young's friends were working with covert vigor. Almost overlooked in the Roosevelt rush was the fact that a two-thirds majority is needed to nominate at the convention, which means that the leading candidate does not always win.

But one sure evidence of Governor Roosevelt's lead toward the nomination was the recent spread of unfavorable stories about his health. He could not stand four years in the White House, said his opponents. In the summer of 1921 Mr. Roosevelt was at his camp in New Brunswick, Canada. After a hard cross-country tramp, he went swimming in the icy Bay of Fundy. Exhausted, he, aged 39, was stricken with infantile paralysis. In 72 hr. his body was dead from the waist down. His physician told him he would never walk again. But he began to try, first on crutches. At Warm Springs, Ga. he found mineralized water that seemed to help his shriveled legs. In 1924 he put on braces, learned to hobble on sticks. Masseurs and special exercises aided his improvement. He can now walk 100 ft. without aid, climb specially built undersized steps. He has to be helped in and out of his car, generally supports himself on a friend's arm when standing. Aside from his paralyzed legs, his health is reported good.

In 1928 before Mr. Roosevelt's nomination for Governor, Democrats complained to Mr. Smith: "We can't have a cripple for Governor, can we?"

Shot back the Brown Derby: "What do you want, an acrobat?"

--Taggart, Irish-born, started life serving coffee at an Indianapolis lunch counter, made influential friends, earned $50,000 per year as Marion County auditor, was thrice mayor of Indianapolis. As Democratic national chairman in 1904 he piloted the Parker presidential campaign to defeat. He acquired French Lick Springs 35 years ago, built the hotel, developed it as a convention centre, grew rich bottling Pluto water. Noted for gambling, French Lick was repeatedly investigated by the State but nothing was ever proved against Taggart or his hotel. In 1926 he caused Edna Ferber to revise her Show Boat because of the implication in that novel that he had once been a professional gambler. He died of heart disease in 1929 at the age of 73.

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