Publisher on Presidency

On the evening of Oct. 29, 1919 one of Tammany's brightest young men made a speech in Carnegie Hall, Manhattan. The subject of the speech was Publisher William Randolph Hearst, who at that time packed so much punch in New York City politics that Tammany had kowtowed to him for over 16 years. The speaker was a young Governor named Alfred Emanuel Smith, serving his first term. Referring to Publisher Hearst, Governor Smith began: "I know he has not got a drop of good, clean, pure red blood in his whole body. And I know the color of his liver and it is whiter, if that could be, than the driven snow." The Hearst newspapers were flayed for deliberate "lies,'' for "the gravest abuse of the power of the Press in the history of this country." After 30 angry minutes of denunciation, Governor Smith wound up by urging the people of "this city, this State and this country ... to get rid of this pestilence that walks in the darkness."

Thus began one of the most famed feuds in the Democratic Party. In 1922 Governor Smith flatly refused Tammany's request to let Mr. Hearst run for U. S. Senator on the same ticket with him. In 1925 Governor Smith helped James John ("Jimmy") Walker take the mayoralty of New York City away from Mr. Hearst's favorite, John F. ("Red Mike") Hylan. Said Mr. Hearst then: "I supported Smith three times and that was three times too many." Next year he ditched the Democratic ticket to back rich, reactionary, Republican Ogden Mills unsuccessfully against Governor Smith. In 1928 Presidential Nominee Smith was viciously cartooned in the Hearst press as the political consort of "Diamond Lil" Democracy, aglitter with John J. Raskob's vulgar diamonds. To climax the feud Publisher Hearst in the 1932 Chicago convention swung his Garner delegates to Franklin D. Roosevelt thus insuring the latter's nomination. Muttered deeply disgruntled Democrat Smith: "As long as Hearst and McAdoo are running the Democratic Party, I don't want anything to do with it."

Last week Al Smith, 61, and Bill Hearst, 72, were 3,000 miles apart, Smith vacationing in New Jersey, Hearst on his California ranch. But, since both had broken in disgust with President Roosevelt, they were politically closer together than they had been since 1918. One morning every Hearst paper in the land blared out with a great two-column editorial on the front page. Men with long memories goggled a little as they read:

"An Associated Press dispatch in yesterday morning's paper stated that a Constitutional Democratic party would be formed and that I would support the candidate of that party. . . .

"I do not know what party I will support, and I can not know until the platforms are adopted, and the candidates are nominated.

"I will say, however, that I think there should be a Jeffersonian Democratic party in the field. . . .

"The present administration has adopted all the Socialist principles. . . .

"Surely, that genuine Democratic party of our horse & buggy fathers should have legal representation at the polls.

"And it should not have its honored name stolen by the imported, autocratic, Asiatic Socialist party of Karl Marx and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. . . .

"It is not for me to decide who should be nominated on the Republican ticket.

"Of course, it will not be Mr. Hoover, unless the Republicans want to present the election to their opponents on a silver platter.

"Mr. Hoover is a good man--as a private citizen.

"As a candidate, he would be a calamity equaled only by the depression with which he is so closely identified.

"The Republicans might well nominate Governor Landon of Kansas [see col. 1] or Frank Knox of Illinois.

"In fact, Landon and Knox would make a very appealing ticket.

"It is not for me to decide, either, who should be nominated on the genuine Jeffersonian Democratic ticket; but I think Alfred E. Smith would make a powerful candidate.

"His principles are the historic principles of the party. . . .

"It is not for me, as an American believing devotedly in the American principles of religious liberty, to know or care whether Mr. Smith is a Catholic, a Protestant or a Jew.

"He is a good citizen.

"Nor do I care whether he pronounces the word 'radio' in a manner to suit the professors of the brain trust.

"He pronounces the word 'America' properly and patriotically.

"And that is all that matters in these widely disloyal days.

"Nor, finally, do I know whether Mr. Smith is willing to run for President again or not.

"But I think he will feel, with other good citizens, that in the coming election we are not merely electing a President, we are saving America.

"WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST''

Wise Mr. Smith read his first Hearst endorsement in years, said nothing. If Mr. Hearst could work a miracle, create a Jeffersonian party and a popular demand for the Unhappy Warrior, it would be time enough for Mr. Smith to talk.

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