Young Troops

In Washington one day fortnight ago an old man and a young man looked into each other's eyes and tried to see the future. But it was hard for them to see ahead because every time one looked at the other's face he found himself involuntarily staring back into the past of the Republican Party. The two gentlemen were Senator William Edgar Borah and Theodore Roosevelt, and though they could not see the future clearly, they found they were in substantial agreement.

Some 22 years ago, when "Bill" Borah was 46, he sat down with another Theodore Roosevelt. They agreed then that the Republican Party must be reorganized and that the man to do it was Theodore Roosevelt. So Senator Borah supported T. R. for the Republican nomination for President. But T. R. lost to Taft at the Chicago Convention of 1912. Borah stayed a Republican, while Roosevelt leaped into the gorgeous adventure of the Bull Moose Party.

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. has done his best to tread in his father's footsteps. The War made him, like his father, a lieutenant-colonel. President Harding made him. like his father. Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He asked the citizens of New York to make him, like his father, their Governor--but they preferred Al Smith. In the Roosevelt tradition he went big-game hunting. President Hoover appointed him Governor of Puerto Rico and later Governor General of the Philippines. In 1932 the U. S. people chose his fifth cousin to be President. The circle had gone full swing when a Theodore Roosevelt again sat down with William E. Borah and consulted on how to save their party from complete destruction.

Just as the conference had decided 22 years earlier that the salvation of the Party depended on casting out its standpat elements, so it decided again last fortnight. And again Theodore Roosevelt was chosen to do the casting. Mr. Borah had tried it in vain. Two days after election, passing through Chicago, he called out for reorganization of the Party (TIME, Nov. 19). The sequel was that Old Guardsman Charles D. Hilles, Republican National Committeeman from New York, sent a letter to fellow committeemen urging that the Party "should stand its ground in this tremendous crisis," not "stagger toward the left."

Mr. Borah howled in disapproval: "Mr. Hilles says 'Hold fast! Hold fast! until the storm is over.' That has been the cry of every dying political organization. . . . The millstone about the neck of the Party in the last campaign was the belief that the Republican Party was in control of men reactionary in their views. . . . These men . . . owe it to the Party to call the national committee together at once and to cooperate in a complete re-organization."

For answer Mr. Borah got two slaps in the face. One came from James Couzens, rich and radical Senator from Michigan:

"Certain prominent Republican Senators have been carrying on devastating campaigns, or at least they have been trying to make them devastating, against certain agencies of the New Deal. Borah did it in Idaho and Senator Reed in Pennsylvania, and I can't see much difference between the two."

The other slap came from Henry P. Fletcher, Republican National Chairman, who pointedly announced: "I think it timely to state that I have no intention of resigning. ... I am opposed to the muddling of the 'New Deal.' ... I believe it is a failure. . . ."

It was plain that if Senator Borah was to get anywhere he needed new support. Young T. R., whose political record had been none too impressive, stepped up opportunely. After his call on Senator Borah, he went back to Manhattan and last week wrote a letter to the members of the National Republican Club. In the name of the Republican Roosevelts he came out squarely for party reorganization. He wrote no great manifesto to arouse the people to the support of the Republican Party. Instead he wrote an analysis of the major contests of the last election, showed that liberal Republicans did well at the polls, diehards had little chance, sought to line up Republican Party men for his conclusions:

"These are times when what is done or left undone may make or break our country and our Party. . . . There would seem to lie before our Party three choices: 1) to go ultraconservative, which I believe would spell disaster to the country and death to the Party; 2) to go to the extreme type of agrarian radicalism, which I believe is unsound economically and would ultimately bring ruin on the country; and 3) to reorganize along modern and progressive lines, building ourselves up as constructive liberals. . . .

"The third alternative, and the goal towards which I believe we should turn our eyes, is to remodel our own Party and build up as its core a group of liberals--but constructive liberals. In doing so we must demonstrate beyond peradventure of doubt that we are what we maintain. Corrupt machines must go. We must definitely clear ourselves of all charges of an alliance with corrupt business. We must seek leaders and remodel our organization in such fashion that no slur on our integrity can be made to stick. . . .

"We must bring into the picture new faces, personalities in which people have confidence. This is no slur on the men who have carried the battle and the burden, for there arrives in the lives of most public figures a time when the scars they carry disable them for further service in the front lines. Shock troops must be young troops."

Thus did young T. R. set out to reorganize the party which his father failed to reorganize 22 years ago. As first step in the plan he and his "constructive liberal" friends in Manhattan invited Senators Borah and Nye to address a mass meeting, arranged to broadcast their appeals for Party reorganization.

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