Portents & Prophecies

(See front cover) One midday last week a maple-&-aluminum elevator shot half a dozen well-known Democrats up to the 21st floor of Manhattan's Empire State Building. They stepped out into the comfortable quarters of the Empire State Club, were bowed into a private dining room overlooking 34th Street. Ranged around the luncheon table were James Aloysius Farley, the bald, boyish chairman of the Democratic National Committee; Harry Flood Byrd, Virginia's energetic little aristocrat; Charles Michelson, the party's elderly, tousle-headed pressagent; Frank Walker, the committee's treasurer; Arthur O'Brien, headquarters worker--and John Jacob Raskob.

As the food came & went, small Mr. Raskob thoughtfully eyed large Mr. Farley across the table. Four years ago Mr. Raskob had been where Mr. Farley was now, just rounding out a campaign to elect a Democratic President. In honest expectation of a Brown Derby victory Chairman Raskob had piled up a huge party deficit. After defeat he had refused to let his machine go to rusty scrap as was the Democratic custom between elections. Basing his organization at Washington, financing it largely out of his own pocket, he and Jouett Shouse had opened a drumfire on the Republicans which helped the Democrats win the House in 1930. When the spring of 1932 came, the party was $120,000 in Mr. Raskob's debt, but its national machine was intact.

Then had come the Chicago convention. Mr. Raskob had been shoved to one side as this good-natured, smiling man now sitting across the table from him strode out on the Democratic stage, captured the convention, nominated his man for President, took over the national chairmanship, scrapped the fine Raskob machine and set his own running as the official party organization. These events had left Mr. Raskob not bitter--John Raskob is a sportsman --but chagrinned, dismayed, hurt. Since June he had kept his distance from Chairman Farley and the Roosevelt bandwagon.

Money & More. When the meal was almost over and during a lull in Jim Farley's hearty storytelling, Mr. Raskob reached in his pocket and pulled out an oblong piece of paper. This he passed to the national chairman whose pale blue eyes blinked in happy surprise as they fell upon it. It was a check for $25,000--Mr. Raskob's personal contribution to the campaign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Chairman Farley wrung Mr. Raskob's hand, gushed his gratitude. The party certainly needed the money but the Raskob check meant more than money. It signified the return of financial support as important to the party as the popular support (estimated: 1,000,000 votes) signified by Al Smith's return. With his arm slung across the slight Raskob shoulders Chairman Farley confided: "We're running the cheapest winning campaign in history."

Good Job. That his campaign, unlike Mr. Raskob's, was really going to win. Chairman Farley had no doubt at all. That victory he expected to crown two years of the most intensive work he had done in his 44 active years. Observers were agreed that, to date, he had done a bang-up, an amazing job. Starting out as an unknown quantity he had developed into an alert, shrewd, aggressive national politician. His genial personality had colored the entire Democratic campaign, his boundless vitality had supplied most of its motive power.

After the Chicago conventions Chairman Farley started his drive toward the White House with a rush, got a running head start on the Republicans. President Hoover had hardly accepted his renomination in mid-August before Governor Roosevelt was militantly stumping Ohio. While Everett Sanders, the G. O. P. National Chairman, was still muddling around with organization plans in Chicago, Democrats were sweeping the September elections in Maine. By the time President Hoover had made his first campaign speech in Des Moines, Governor Roosevelt was back in Albany from an 8,000-mi. swing to the Pacific Coast.

"Aren't We All?" Party peace was the only thought in Chairman Farley's mind as he stepped off his Chicago train in Manhattan July 4. He went straight to Tammany Hall (of which he is a member) for its Independence Day celebration. Friends warned him the Tiger was still in a fury at Al Smith's convention defeat but Jim Farley barged boldly in. At sight of him the crowd booed angrily. He marched to the rostrum, seized Al Smith's hand, pumped it hard. Asked he: "Aren't we all Democrats?" Boos changed to assenting cheers.

Thereafter Jim Farley visited Frank Hague, New Jersey's boss and the Smith floor leader at Chicago, coaxed him into line. The warm Farley smile also thawed out Massachusetts' icy Governor Ely, Smith's nominator at the convention. Between times the industrious national chairman set up party headquarters in Manhattan, turned local campaign control over to individual States, wheedled money out of balky contributors, collected a sturdy force of leather-lung stumpsters and deployed them about the country, made speeches himself, accompanied Governor Roosevelt on part of his Western trip, lined up the support of Republican insurgents like Senators Norris, La Follette, Johnson and Cutting, and otherwise greased, gassed, sparked and sped the Roosevelt bandwagon.

For the biggest factors in the Democratic campaign, however, Chairman Farley neither deserved nor took credit. Hard times and desire for a change, of administration as well as Prohibition, were Acts of God working through unreachable millions of men. It took no towering genius, only energy and patience, to harness a national grouch and let it pull the candidate's cause toward victory.

2 1/2 to 1. Aside from his own self-confidence Chairman Farley found plenty to encourage him in the signs of the times last week. In Wall Street, where his candidate was unpopular, betting odds favored Roosevelt's election 2 1/2-to-1. All except the most biased Republican newshawks touring the country reported evidences of a strong anti-Hoover tide still running. Even so ardent a claimer as Robert Lucas, ''brains" of the G. O. P. headquarters at Chicago, last week reported to President Hoover that only 270 electoral votes--a majority of four--were in sight for his reelection.

Polls & Partisans. Dry fodder to Republicans, but to Jim Farley and the Democratic donkey a feast, were the presidential straw votes conducted by The Literary Digest and the Hearst-papers. Every four years since 1920 the Digest's poll has successfully predicted the outcome with never more than a 5% error in the total vote. Each time the victorious G. O. P. accepted the poll at full value, hailed it as accurate, authoritative. This year the Digest's canvass of some 20 million citizens points strongly to a Democratic sweep. Last week the vote stood 1,095,274 for Hoover, 1,648,237 for Roosevelt who was carrying 41 States (see map p. 13). The Hearst poll, smaller but in the past even more accurate, confirmed this drift against President Hoover, gave him 181 electoral votes to 350 for his opponent. G. O. Partisans turned savagely on their erstwhile weathervane, insisted the Digest's returns were unreliable, meaningless. Their strongest claim was that the ballots had been cast before the Republican campaign really began, that since then a surge to Hoover unreflected in the totals was taking place. Chairman Sanders in his effort to belittle the Digest's forecast fell into factual error when he declared the magazine, polling the nation in 1916, had prophesied Hughes's election. William Seaver Woods, Digest editor, tartly pointed out that Mr. Sanders was "dreaming," that that year the magazine had polled only 30,000 persons in five States, accurately predicted the outcome in four, made no national forecast.

Clouds. In the shining sky at Demcratic headquarters in Manhattan's Biltmore Hotel, there were still a few dark clouds. Lowest and blackest was the money cloud. With a deficit hanging over, Democratic credit was none too good. Twenty-five-thousand-dollar contributions like Mr. Raskob's and Vincent Astor's were few & far between. The idea of small gifts from "forgotten men" had not proved a success. One week lately it was all headquarters could do to meet its $5,000 payroll. The campaign was largely being financed on more borrowed money and the hope of victory. Republican headquarters last week boasted that its campaign cash collections had reached the million-dollar mark.

Chairman Farley was also concerned over what he thought was a united effort by Republican industrialists to "intimidate" their workers into voting the Hoover ticket. Last week he loudly flayed this "appeal to fear" (see p. 9). Meanwhile the Hoover campaign had grown more aggressive, producing an indefinite groundswell among doubtful voters in the President's direction (see p. 10). Al Smith, troubled with a sore throat, was slow getting into his old-time action. An historic fact: there are 7,000,000 more Republicans than Democrats in the U. S.

Farley Forecasts. But this is the cheering season for national campaign managers and Chairman Farley likes to cheer. He refused to concede a single State to the G. O. P. Other predictions: "Governor Roosevelt will positively carry New York. Only the Lord himself can change that prospect."

Elk on Tour Jim Farley became a Roosevelt-for-President man the day after his man had been re-elected Governor of New York in 1930 by a record-breaking majority. He was then chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee, a position into which he had been eased because he was "everybody's friend" rather than because he had shown any aptitude for party management. He is a Red Man, an Eagle, a Knight of Columbus. More important, he is an Elk. As the Bull Moose symbolized the insurgency of the late great Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, so might the Elk become the emblem of the fifth cousin's candidacy in 1932.

One early summer evening in 1931 Jim Farley dined with "Frank" Roosevelt in Manhattan, told him he was leaving next day for an Elk's convention at Seattle, that he was going to sound out the country on New York's presidential possibilities. Those were the days when people were pondering Owen D. Young and a re-run for Al Smith. Governor Roosevelt agreed to abide by Farley's soundings. In 19 days Jim Farley covered 20 States. He offered all-comers three candidates-- Smith, Young, Roosevelt. Everyone, it seemed, favored Roosevelt. When this fact was reported to the intensely ambitious Governor, the White House drive began in earnest. Jim Farley became a Roosevelt salesman, selling his candidacv just as he had sold gypsum for 15 years. He covered 30,000 miles. Says he: "My line seemed to go over pretty well, if I do say it myself. People seemed to think I meant every word I said. Such sleep as I got was snatched on trains. When I got back I wrote to some man in every town I had visited and asked him to send me a complete list of every man and woman I had met. There were some six or seven thousand names on the list. I sat down and wrote [dictated]; a personal letter to every one of them."

"Hello Jim!" The Farley correspondence, signed in green ink, is fabulous. At headquarters he turns out an average of 100 letters per day. Most of them are political sales screeds each with a personal flavor. No one is obscure enough for Jim Farley to ignore by mail.

Wherever he went, he looked up brother Elks, used them to help make other contacts. "Hello, Bill!" is the usual Elk cry of greeting to an Elk one does not know. This became "Hello, Jim!" in the hotel lobbies Farley entered. With his fat paw he slapped tens of thousands of backs. A shrewd judge of men, he lined up important Democrats for his salesmen well in advance, went back to their State conventions to make sure of delivery in the form of pledged delegates to the national convention. He spent his own money, energy and enthusiasm. He made no deals because his candidate never authorized him to. After he got the bandwagon rolling he loudly and airily began predicting Roosevelt's nomination on the first ballot.

Job at Home. Democrat Farley was bom in Republican Stony Point, N. Y, across the Hudson River from Governor Roosevelt's Hyde Park. His mother kept a grocery store. He played baseball, got himself elected town clerk. Joining Tammany, he used it as a model for political organization in Rockland County. He helped steer Al Smith back into the governorship in 1922, was himself elected to the State Assembly. There he helped repeal the State Prohibition enforcement law by one vote, and that vote cost him his seat from his Dry district. Governor Smith made him chairman of the State Boxing Commission which position he still holds (salary: 800). All he gets out of it are fight passes for his friends. He barred the Dempsey-Tunney fight from New York because Dempsey, as champion, refused to accept the challenge of Negro Harry Wills.

Tall (6 ft. 2 1/2 in.), heavy (215 Ib.) he boasts: "There's hardly an ounce of fat on me." No smoker, no drinker, he is a prodigious gum-chewer--several packs per day. Happily married to Elizabeth Finnegan who bore him two daughters, one son, his home is at Haverstraw, N. Y.

Most campaign managers whose candidates get elected to the Presidency are offered a place in the new Cabinet, usually as Postmaster General. Manager Farley's friends doubt if, in the event of a Roosevelt victory, he would take such a portfolio. Like many another politician who knows the profits to be made out of contracting, he has a sand & gravel business at home.

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