Honesty In New York

Old men do strange things. So, at least, thought the Republican friends of 73-year-old George Woodward Wickersham in Manhattan last week. Mr. Wickersham was born in Republican Pennsylvania. He joined the Republican law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. He became Republican President Taft's Attorney General. As a Republican he helped to rewrite the New York State Constitution. He is a member of the National Republican Club. As a Republican he headed President Hoover's Law Observance & Enforcement Commission. Yet last week George Woodward Wickersham publicly endorsed a Socialist over a Republican for election to high public office.

The Socialist happened to be earnest, respectable Norman Thomas, Princeton graduate (Class of 1905) and onetime Presbyterian Minister.* Mr. Thomas has become a perennial candidate for any office that offers. His runnings (all losings):

1924--Governor of New York

1925--Mayor of New York City

1926--New York State Senator

1927--New York Alderman

1928--President of the U. S.

1920--Mayor of New York City

1930--Congressman from Brooklyn

This year Socialist Thomas was running for president of the Borough of Manhattan in municipal election. The Democratic nominee was Samuel Levy, incumbent Tammany hack. Col. Edward C. ("Night Boat") Carrington, president & board chairman of Hudson River Navigation Corp., the Republican nominee, had come into bad odor when it was discovered that he had hired Tammany influence in an attempt to sell one of his piers to the city at an exorbitant price. Deciding that Messrs. Levy and Carrington were both tarred with the same Tammany brush, Republican Wickersham bolted his party, plunked for Socialist Thomas thus:

"New York is disgraced. . . . Norman Thomas is the outstanding candidate. He is honest, able, public-spirited, fearless and sympathetic. . . . Practical politics must go! Elect Norman Thomas!"

Never has Socialist Thomas been elected to any public job. But the Wickersham endorsement heartened forlorn independents. Perhaps a political miracle might happen. On that basis the potent New York World-Telegram declared for Candidate Thomas in a stirring editorial, cartooned him as outrunning lame Col. Carrington. Tammany-burdened Mr. Levy. No other New York newspaper, however, would throw its support to what seemed doomed to be always a lost cause.

*Last week Socialist Thomas and 44 other demonstrators were released in police court from charges of unlawful assemblage incident to the Faterscm, N. J. silk strike.

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