Ferment

Last week 36,000 citizens in Indiana, 27,000 in California, 25,000 each in Texas and New York, 5,000 in Montana--300,000 all told in the nation--were seeking public office in next autumn's elections. Like 300,000 raisins they helped to make the U. S. political ferment seethe, burble, and spill over in dozens of different places.

Some of last week's spillings:

Two to Satisfy. President Roosevelt in his speech at Green Bay, Wis. put a smart finger into one of the most turbulent State brews. In 1932 Senator Robert Marion ("Young Bob") La Follette supported the Roosevelt ticket. This year the President would like to see his political friend re-elected were it not for the fact that a regular Democrat might repeat the party's triumph of two years ago. In 1932 Wisconsin elected its first Democratic Governor since 1890--Albert George Schmedeman, clothing merchant, onetime (1926-30) Mayor of Madison, onetime (1913-21) Minister to Norway.

At the same time a Wisconsin Democrat named F. Ryan Duffy was elected to the Senate where he has been seen but not heard. This year Albert Schmedeman is again running for Governor as a Democrat, "Bob" La Follette is up for re-election as a Progressive, and Brother "Phil" La Follette is angling for the Progressive nomination as Governor. Should the President endorse Senator La Follette's candidacy too ardently, it would probably ruin any Democratic chance of permanently regaining a lost State. On the other hand, should Mr. Roosevelt come out too hot and heavy for Governor Schmedeman and other party regulars, his good friend "Bob" La Follette might go down in defeat.

With Senator La Follette and Governor Schmedeman sitting on the platform be hind him at Green Bay, the President with the grace of a tight-rope walker ringingly declared:

"Your two Senators, Bob La Follette and Ryan Duffy, both old friends of mine, and many others, have worked with me in maintaining excellent cooperation between the executive and legislative branches of the Government. I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to them. Not only in Washington but in the State there has been cooperation by public officials in the achievement of the purposes we seek. I thank Governor Schmedeman, another old friend of mine, for his patriotic cooperation with the national Administration. . . ."

Wisconsin voters were left to puzzle out for themselves just where their President stood in next November's campaign.

Clay Precedent. Down to West Virginia, politically a bastard offspring of the Solid South, the New Deal's political Generalissimo, Postmaster Farley, sent an old Democratic wheelhorse named Clement Lawrence Shaver. The last time the country heard of Mr. Shaver was just ten years ago, when as Democratic National Chairman he managed John W. Davis' magnificently unsuccessful run for the Presidency. Reason for sending Oldster Shaver back to his native State was to have him run for Senator against Old Deal Republican Senator Hatfield. Though he had the blessing of Mr. Farley, not as Postmaster General, not as party boss but simply as a good old friend, Candidate Shaver last week found himself running against eight other Democrats in the primary. Old Dealer Hatfield romped away with the Republican nomination, but Oldster Shaver found rough going, finished a bad second. Polling two votes to Shaver's one, Rush Dew Holt, brightest boy in the State Legislature, took the Democratic nomination, Generalissimo Farley to the contrary notwithstanding.

Young Mr. Holt comes from a politically popular family. His father, Dr. Mathew Samuel Holt, running last year for Mayor of Weston, had his name ruled off the ticket by a technicality, campaigned nonetheless, was elected by voters who wrote in his name on the ballot. Son Rush, an affable young bachelor who does not drink, does not smoke cigarets, made his reputation in the Legislature by flaying public utilities. If he whips Old Dealer Hatfield in November, he will make an ardent New Dealer in the Senate.

The chief curiosity about Nominee Holt is that he was born on June 19, 1905. The U. S. Constitution says that a Senator must be 30 years of age. Yet Mr. Holt expects to get to the Senate because: 1) the Constitution also says that the Senate shall be the judge of the elections and qualifications of its members and New Deal Senators are strict constructionists when the Constitution conflicts with party desires; 2) one other Senator, the famed Henry Clay, elected from Kentucky in 1806, took office when he was still five months short of 30. Should Rush Holt try to follow in Clay's footsteps, however, there may be trouble, for many a lawyer contends that the Senate's right to "judge" its elections does not give it the right to nullify the explicit terms of the Constitution. In Clay's case the question was not settled because no one called attention to the fact that he was under age until after he had passed his 30th birthday.

Boss v. Champ. Outside of city politics there are few potent bosses left in the U. S.--bosses who can stand and deliver a State election as Boies Penrose in Pennsylvania or Tom Taggart in Indiana did in their day. Last week a primary showed that Missouri could still lay claim to such an oldtime boss in the person of "Big Tom" Pendergast, master of Kansas City and mixer of most of that city's concrete.

Missouri had a Democratic tidbit for sale to the best political bidder --the nomination for Senator to run against Republican Senator Patterson in November. Three bidders were in the field. The Democratic machine in St. Louis put up Representative John J. Cochran, a shrewd politician. Senator Bennett Champ Clark, who in 1932 without machine aid polled a 440,000 majority for himself, put his hefty shoulder to the candidacy of Jacob L. Milligan, potent with Missouri's farmers. More modest than the others, Tom Pendergast put up one of his boys from Kansas City, an inconspicuous county judge named Harry S. Truman. Bennett Clark, a good champ for himself, proved to be a poor champ for another. His man Milligan ran a feeble third. There were some protests that voters appeared at the polls with ballots already marked for Truman but Boss Pendergast only smiled, because three-cornered contests are generally easiest for him to win. In anticipation of a Democratic victory in November he had already tucked away one sure vote in the U. S. Senate in the bottom pocket of his expansive vest.

Zoology. At the Republican State Convention at Springfield, Ill., Republican National Chairman Henry P. Fletcher got a load off his mind by denouncing the AAA as a tyranny in government and a failure in economics. Cried he:

"Suppose, in order to compel all farmers to come in under the AAA, it decides to copyright a black crow and then decree that all those who do not paint a black crow on their barnyard gate will get no Government money. ... If the Blue Eagle can be made to bring industry to the Government's heel, why not have a black crow--the emblem of scarcity and crop reduction--for agriculture?"

The same day far away in Meridian, Idaho another Republican referred to other animals. He was Senator William Edgar Borah, taking the stump not for election but for what he considers Justice and the Truth. He likened AAA's crop reduction to chinch bugs, boll weevils and locusts which make scarce "the things for which millions are nightly praying."

Widow's Mite. Last week when the votes of Kentucky's primary were counted, more than one proud hope was squashed. Onetime Democratic Governor William Fields hoped to be elected to Congress but he lost the Democratic nomination to Representative Fred M. Vinson.* One time Republican Governor Edwin P. Morrow likewise hoped to be Governor again but lost the Republican nomination to onetime Senator John M. Robsion. And Representative John Young Brown/-, who boasted that he had supported every single New Deal measure, who proudly showed voters a strong letter of commendation from Speaker Henry T. Rainey, but who had little money to spend on his campaign, was rolled flat as a pancake by a local political machine.

But the saddest of crushed hopes were those of raven-haired Katherine Langley. The mountaineers near the West Virginia border sent her big jolly husband John to Congress for 19 years straight. In the House he was everybody's friend because he headed the Public Buildings & Grounds Committee, prime source of political pork. But moonshine is made in the Kentucky hills and "Promissory John" was sent to Atlanta for conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act. Then Katherine Langley ran for Congress and the hillbillies sent her proudly to Washington. John Langley died in 1932 and last spring Widow Langley asked her mountain folk to give her the Republican nomination for her old job. What they had given her for her husband's vindication, they denied her as her widow's mite. Instead they nominated tall, 200-lb. Harry H. Ramey, Salyersville lawyer. It was his first successful political campaign.

Presidential Hand. During the four years Franklin Roosevelt was Governor of New York, the Lieutenant Governor was his good friend Herbert Henry Lehman of the Banking Lehman Brothers. When Mr. Roosevelt stepped up to the Presidency, Mr. Lehman stepped up to the Governorship. During the last two years Governor Lehman has had much more trouble with his Legislature than President Roosevelt has had with his Congress. Last week, after some uncertainty, Governor Lehman announced that he would be a candidate to succeed himself. So pleased was the President that he wired congratulations from Minnesota. Contents of the telegram were not made public, probably because it was an intimate "Herbert-Frank" message.

Tired Glands. The only thing that in recent years has covered the U. S. more completely than the drought was the Democratic landslide of 1932. Yet in 1932 Kansas ousted a Democratic Governor named Harry Woodring and elected a Republican one named Alfred Mossman Landon. Since then Mr. Woodring has sired a new baby and, as Assistant Secretary of War, is staying in Washington with wife and child, but Father Landon, who has sired two children in the meantime, went once more on the stump asking renomination. His opponent was John R. ("Goat Gland") Brinkley, broadcasting doctor who lost his Kansas medical license four years ago, but who has twice made a creditable showing running for Governor of Kansas on his own medico-radio platform. Last week he tried again but Kansas was tired of glands. It renominated Alf Landon 5 to 1. For his Democratic opponent in next autumn's election, Kansas chose a man who until four years ago was a linotype operator, is now Mayor of Topeka: 37-year-old Omar B. Ketchum. Mr. Ketchum's chances of election did not look promising. Kansas, usually Republican, Republican even in 1932, cast twice as many Republican as Democratic votes in the primary.

Default. Neither of Virginia's Senators is a New Dealer. Carter Glass has spoken his mind on New Deal economics. Harry Byrd has belabored AAA's cotton restriction plan hindside, foreside and around the State. Yet Virginia is satisfied with both of them. So it was no marvel that Senator Byrd and all of Virginia's nine Congressmen were renominated without contests. Evidently no New Dealer wanted to tackle Mr. Byrd.

Fortnight ago, Virginia's downtrodden Republicans met to choose an opponent for him. They considered a long time. They even tried to persuade onetime Secretary of War Patrick Jay Hurley to make the race. Dapper and dashing Republican Hurley claims Oklahoma as his political stamping ground but he has lived so long across the Potomac from his Washington law office that he is now eligible to become a Virginia voter. But neither Mr. Hurley nor any other Virginian worth a hoot would make the race. So the Republicans gave up. Mr. Byrd will go back to the Senate for six more years, not by election but by default.

Anonymous Aid. At the close of his Green Bay speech last week President Roosevelt declared: "The New Deal is an old deal--as old as the earliest aspirations of humanity for liberty and justice and the good life. It is old as Christian ethics, for basically its ethics are the same. It is new as the Declaration of Independence was new, and the Constitution of the United States; its motives are the same. . . . It seeks to cement our society, rich and poor, manual worker and brain worker, into a voluntary brotherhood of freemen, standing together, striving together, for the common good of all."

These words were not original with the President who ascribed them to an anonymous member of Congress.

Arthur Mullen, Democratic boss of Nebraska, had traveled to meet Mr. Roosevelt in the Rockies and put that quotation in his ear. For the eloquent Congressman was Nebraska's Edward R. Burke and the President was giving him a backhanded boost to capture Nebraska's Democratic nomination for Senator.

Last year when Nebraska's Senator Howell died, Governor Charles W. Bryan, brother of William Jennings, defied Boss Mullen, and named his own man, William Henry Thompson, to the job. Since then Governor Bryan and the New Deal have grown progressively apart. Last April, "Brother Charley" announced his candidacy for the Senate against Representative Burke, tried to outdeal the New Deal in his radical campaign. Against him was thrown all the weight of the Roosevelt Administration.

Three Governors. James M. Cox was Democratic Governor of Ohio before he ran for President in 1920 with Franklin Roosevelt as second fiddle on the ticket. A. Victor ("Vic") Donahey was Governor from 1923 to 1929. George White has been Governor since 1931. Last week these three potent Democrats were at odds over who should oppose standpat Republican Simeon Fess for his Senate seat. Messrs. Donahey and White were both candidates for the Democratic nomination, Governor White campaigning as champion of the New Deal, "Vic" Donahey, lukewarm on New Deal policies, rounding up votes among his old friends, Ohio's farmers. After the campaign was under way Mr. Cox and Senator Bulkley jumped in with what they called "the choice of the Administration"--Representative Charles West. Three-cornered the battle waged, the most excited primary that Ohio has had in many a year--White and West trying to outshout each other in New Deal enthusiasm until even "Vic" Donahey repented his defection and piped a half-hearted "me-too."

*Not to be confused with Representative Carl Vinson of Georgia. Mr. Vinson of Kentucky is on the Ways & Means Committee which drafts tax bills to raise millions. Mr. Vinson of Georgia heads the Naval Affairs Committee which spends millions on battleships.

/-Not to be confused with Representative Paul Brown of Georgia. Mr. Brown of Georgia considers veterans legislation and Public Buildings & Grounds. Mr. Brown of Kentucky works over Claims and Insular Affairs.

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