"Bread, Not Beer"

(See front cover)

Grand Old Partisans, 2,504 strong, were on the march last week. They were going to Chicago to nominate a national ticket and carpenter a national platform. On June 14 they were opening their 20th quadrennial convention--a major mechanism in U. S. party government for which the Federal Constitution makes no provision. A few of the convention delegates and alternates were black; some were women; all were red-hot Republicans. When they seated themselves in the rows of red chairs on the floor of the Chicago Stadium they would be the Grand Old Party itself in all its glory.

First man on the Chicago scene last week was Vice Chairman Ralph Williams of Oregon, in charge of arrangements. His job was to spend about $35,000 on Sidney Strotz's block-square, air-conditioned Stadium on West Madison Street. Some 250,000 yards of red-white-&-blue bunting had to be hung. Broadcasting equipment was to be put in for three radio chains. Press seats for 726 newsmen had to be built. Hot dog and pop concessions had to be let. The California, Maine and Pennsylvania delegations were to be seated in the front rows. Everyone who contributed $100 got a mezzanine seat. First balcony seats were sold to the public for $22, second balcony $17.

Confidence-- No President ever sat in the White House and waited for renomination with more complete confidence than Herbert Hoover. Of the 1,154 convention votes his managers counted on his getting more than a thousand on the first ballot-- enough to renominate him practically by acclamation. His lone opponent, Dr. Jo- seph Irwin France, onetime Senator from Maryland, had under definite pledge only a ridiculous 13.

Ticket's Tail. Because Congress will probably have to work straight through the G. O. P. convention, Vice President Curtis expected to find himself perched high on his Senate throne when the delegates in Chicago get around to the tail of the ticket. That that place would again be his he had no serious doubt. President Hoover had not asked his 1928 running mate to step aside for another candidate. The Vice President, therefore, reasoned that a Hoover-Curtis ticket was again in order. So did most of the delegates last week on their way to Chicago.

Cogs. Congressional duties in Washington were expected to reduce materially the presence of Republican Senators and Representatives at the Chicago meeting. A few, because they were big cogs, were obliged to be on hand. Others might play hooky from the Capitol. Thus Senator Simeon Davison Fess of Ohio had to attend as chairman of the Republican National Committee and gavel the assembly to order at 10 a. m. the first morning. Then he would turn the presiding office over to Senator Lester Jesse Dickinson of Iowa who as temporary chairman would sound the party's keynote. Next chunky, heavy-jowled Congressman Bertrand Hollis Snell of New York would step forward to take command as permanent chairman, thus leaving the Republican House minority in Washington without a floor leader.

Six of the ten members of the President's Cabinet were going as delegates to speed his renomination. Secretaries of State Stimson and of the Treasury Mills could be spotted under the New York placard. Secretary of War Hurley, aggressive and smiling, would be with his fellow Oklahomans. The Missouri contingent would contain Secretary of Agriculture Hyde, the Virginia delegation Secretary of Labor Doak. But of all the Senators, Congressmen and Cabinet members present none would compare in influence and importance to Postmaster General Walter Folger Brown of Ohio, President Hoover's pre-convention manager and his personal representative at Chicago.

Eyes on 1932. "General" Brown, Toledo boss, lawyer, yachtsman, gardener & cook, is a veteran Hooverizer. In 1927 the then Secretary of Commerce brought him to Washington as an Assistant Secretary in his department. As such, Mr. Brown built up the machine, particularly in Ohio, which won the 1928 nomination with the slogan "Who But Hoover?" His appointment as Postmaster General the following year was altogether political with both eyes on 1932. Last week in Washington "General" Brown was in the thick of the only real controversy confronting the convention--a platform plank on Prohibition.

3 Weasels; 3 Wins. The G. O. P. has won three national elections straight by sidestepping Prohibition as an issue. Each time the party platform carried a strong law enforcement declaration but weaseled on the 18th Amendment. Warren Gamaliel Harding patted the Drys on the back and took drinks in the White House. Calvin Coolidge did not drink in office but otherwise lacked deep convictions on Prohibition. He felt that it was smart politics to stand in well with the professional Drys because their voting strength was better organized and more effective than the scattered Wets.

Hoover & Drink. Herbert Hoover stopped drinking when he became Secretary of Commerce. His personal attitude was that the few, like himself, could handle liquor as temperate gentlemen but that for the masses Prohibition was a good thing. His 1928 declaration ("a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose") satisfied the U. S. Drys, Consolidated. That Wets voted at all for Nominee Hoover was due to his ambiguous references to "investigating Prohibition" and the sly whispers of Hooverizers that he was not really as Dry as he seemed.

Wickershambles. Once in the White House President Hoover shuffled off the whole liquor question to the Wickersham Commission where it was diffused and submerged with other matters. When a 6-to-5 majority of the Commission reported Wet, he set aside their findings, declared against repeal of the 18th Amendment and appeared to the country Dryer than ever. For once the whisperings of his office staff that his mind was still "open" failed to convince. Rather it became understood that the President was impressed with some advice from Calvin Coolidge: that Herbert Hoover had back of him only one remaining large group, the Drys. To disaffect these would be political suicide.

Drift. But during the three Hoover years a Wet drift, slow & steady, has set in. The Wet East's dissatisfaction with Prohibition was manifest in the 1930 Congressional elections. This year the Wet vote in the House reached an all-time Prohibition peak of 187. The G. O. P. in New Jersey, Illinois and Vermont last month plumped for resubmission or repeal. A Literary Digest poll showed preponderant wet sentiment in every State except Kansas and North Carolina. And last week John Davison Rockefeller Jr., who with his father has given $350,000 to the Anti-Saloon League, wrote Nicholas Murray Butler that the "evils" resulting from Prohibition led him now to favor repeal. Practical politicians realized that the old weasel-words about "law enforcement" would serve no longer.

Hoover Hesitates. "General" Brown was one of the first White House politicians to notify the President of this real change on Prohibition and to advise him to meet it with new tactics. A Wet from Wet Toledo, Mr. Brown suggested a platform declaration promising the people some sort of vote on the question. For weeks President Hoover was reluctant to drop what he considered his neutrality and mix in on Prohibition. The subject, because it was so largely emotional, made him impatient and cross. It was his wish to fight out the 1932 campaign on economic issues. He liked the slogan "Bread, not Beer." He feared that any notice he or his party might take of Prohibition would tend to magnify "beer" over "bread" and thus divert public attention from his long strenuous efforts to pull the country out of Depression. But "General"' Brown was persistent. He lined up most of the Cabinet for a Prohibition change. He hammered home to the President the necessity of the Wet vote if the G. O. P. hoped to carry the North and East. Wearing rubber boots he waded in against the faction of his party that still wanted to pussyfoot. Finally the President was convinced. He consented to the broad proposition that his party should somehow resubmit the issue to the people.

Resubmission. The big question at the White House last week was: How Wet can the G. O. P. go in its platform and still hold "fair minded" Drys? The answer was necessarily a matter of word-juggling and hairsplitting. Should the iSth Amendment be mentioned by name? Should the party declare for resubmission to the people by the extra-constitutional means of a national referendum? Or should it simply fall back on a noncommittal recital of the standard method of altering the Constitution by Congress and the States? Should some tricky system of conventions, such as Secretary Hyde's "Missouri Compromise," be advocated? Or should a specific reform permitting State option be put forward? Out of such knotty lumber the G. O. P. plank had to be jig-sawed.

Platform Carpenter. To head the Chicago convention's resolutions committee which will carpenter the platform President Hoover selected James Rudolph Garfield, 66-year-old son of the 20th President of the U. S.* This tall, solemn, white-haired Cleveland lawyer served as Secretary of the Interior under Roosevelt, stood by him "at Armageddon." He is a Dry.

Last week Mr. Garfield shuttled between his home and Washington collecting sample planks for the platform. At the Capitol he was handed a dozen Prohibition planks which he exhibited at the White House. President Hoover kept for further study one that called the th Amendment by name. "General" Brown kept popping in & out at the White House all week long to urge the President to take the Wettest plank possible. Said he once: "I discussed the Prohibition plank with the President. Some progress was made. I think the plank that will be written into the platform will be one to which all factions can subscribe."

"The Prohibition plank in our platform is going to be liberal," declared Permanent Chairman Snell, a Dry, after a White House call. "No matter what you hear you can believe that--and it will be satisfactory."

"Honest Difference." Fifteen Republican leaders including "General" Brown and Mr. Garfield got together at a country club over the week-end and framed a proposed plank for which they thought President Hoover would stand. Excerpts:

"We stand for the faithful enforcement of all laws. We abhor the saloon and are unalterably opposed to its return. We recognize the honest difference of opinion regarding the 18th Amendment. . . . We therefore favor the prompt resubmission of the 18th Amendment to the people of the several States, acting through non-partisan conventions called for that pur- pose . . . to determine whether that amendment shall be retained, repealed or modified."

"This is no time--" The U. S. Drys, Consolidated, meeting in Washington as the National Prohibition Board of Strategy, were thoroughly alarmed by these declarations from the White House steps. They manifestoed:

"This is no time to parley with the enemy. This is no time for a truce or an armistice. This is no time to fraternize over the trenches. This is no time to give quarter. . . . This is the time for the friends of the iSth Amendment to serve notice on every political party and every candidate that those who weaken this national law may expect nothing more nor less than organized, aggressive, relentless opposition. This is the time to reorganize the lines ... to present a solid front ... to fight."

Champion-in-chief of this Dry sentiment was Senator Borah. His Prohibition plank, carefully guarded at the White House, gave the Wets not an inch of ground. It declared for "law enforcement" and reminded the country that the only legally authorized way to change the Constitution was by electing Senators and Congressmen so pledged. With referenda, State option or special votes the Senator would have no truck. His course lay clear before him: if the President accepted his Dry plank, he would go to the convention as an Idaho delegate--and battle in the grand manner for his handiwork; if his plank is rejected for a Wetter one, he would skip Chicago, hold aloof from the national campaign.

Puss-in-Rubber-Boots. Up to a few weeks ago "General" Brown was the President's candidate to assume the G. O. P. chairmanship, vice Senator Fess, after the convention and manage the Hoover campaign. Last week this seemed unlikely. It is impossible to pussyfoot in rubber boots and, regardless of platform, the Republican Presidential nominee will probably pussyfoot on Prohibition. Too Wet for the party chairmanship, "General" Brown was expected to remain in the Cabinet, directing the President's campaign from behind the scenes while some thoroughly respectable Big Business man would be put in as G. O. P. chief to symbolize "bread" rather than "beer."

Patronage & Politics. As Postmaster General, Mr. Brown can and does exert enormous political influence through the 15,492 Presidential postmasters under him. Last September "General" Brown told his postmasters to take the stump for the national ticket. Last month Second Assistant Postmaster General Glover ordered them to "get out on the firing line [for] that man Herbert Hoover" or hand in their resignations. The effectiveness of this order is perfect:

If Postmaster Charles Keeler ("C. K.") Bailey of Bethel, Conn., for example, does not Hooverize, he will have to explain why to Harry Eugene McKenzie, the local G. O. P. boss. If Postmaster Bailey-shirks, Boss McKenzie will tell John BERTRAND HOLLIS SNELL He promised all factions satisfaction. Henry Roraback, the State boss, who will tell "General" Brown. Similarly Postmaster Denton Lake of Gloversville, N. Y. will be prodded by local Boss Cyrus Durey, over whom is State Boss W. Kingsland Macy, without whose approval Post- master Lake cannot get another commission signed by Herbert Hoover to hang over his desk.

Winning Chance. Up to six months ago, even with the massed efforts of all postmasters and other jobholders, the G. O. P. considered itself as good as beaten in the November election. Its President was unpopular. Its morale was low. Its grip on Congress was gone. Its campaign cash barely trickled. Its body was black & bloody with the punches, jabs and wallops of ordinary voters, resentful of hard times.

But the party's delegates who moved toward Chicago last week seemed filled with new hope and fresh courage. They told one another that President Hoover was slowly regaining public favor. His efforts to combat Depression and whip Congress into line, his battles of the Budget, while all belated, were nevertheless producing a good reaction throughout the land. He and his party now had a better chance to win. That chance, it was agreed, depended on: 1) a business revival, no matter how small, before winter; 2) support from the Wets, due to a "liberal" plank; 3) a "weak" Democratic presidential nomination (meaning Frank-lin Delano Roosevelt). Given these factors, most G. O. P. Politicians were confident a Hoover & Curtis ticket could slide through to victory on Nov. 8.

*Another President's son who will figure in this year's elections is Richard Folsom Cleveland. At the Democratic convention he will nominate Maryland's Governor Ritchie.

*Idaho is the last State to name its Republican delegates (June 10).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.