Keynoters & Chairmen

The keynoter and temporary chairman of a national political convention is, as most voters know, the man who starts the show with a long, ardent harangue which is forgotten by the time the first nominating ballot is taken. Nonetheless the Press made a great stir last week when, as a gesture to the West and liberals, the potent Committee on Arrangements of the Republican National Committee picked Oregon's mildly progressive Senator Frederick Steiwer to sound the Party keynote at Cleveland next June. Republican newspapers tried to make the gesture seem important. Democratic sheets gleefully compared the probable content of Senator Steiwers address with his voting record in Congress. Still remembered was big, friendly Steiwer's enigmatic platform when he began his first term as U. S. Senator in 1926: "The safety of American government depends upon loyalty to the fundamental principles of right and wrong."

Keynoting at Maine's Republican State Convention last month, the big, rugged, slow-spoken Oregon Senator declared:' "The most rapid improvement [in business] came after the Supreme Court invalidated the National Recovery Act and removed the governmental clutch from the throat of American business. ... In its effort to meet the agricultural problem, the New Deal has failed. . . . Needless, spendthrift addition to this crushing [national] debt is but little short of criminal." Last week it was widely noted that Senator Steiwer had voted for NRA. for AAA and the AAAmendments, had led the Senate fight against President Roosevelt's Economy Act of 1933, had twice voted to override the President's veto of the Bonus.

When they came to pick a permanent convention chairman, Republican bosses were more careful. By his right to decide who shall and who shall not have the floor, the permanent chairman is a real power in the convention. That power the Party leaders last week put in the thoroughly safe hands of New York's Representative Bertrand Hollis ("Bert") Snell, 65. In the 20 years since he entered the House, that heavy-bodied, hard-boiled Old Guardsman, who made his fortune in the cheese business, has held doggedly to his belief in High Tariffs, the Gold Standard and the Republican Right-to-Rule. In the 1920's he was, with the late Nicholas Longworth and Connecticut's John Q. Tilson, one of the House's Big Three. As minority floor leader since 1931, he has kept up a steady fight against the New Deal and all its works. Yet he plays national politics according to the rules, does not allow his public partisanship to interfere with his private friendship with Democratic leaders off the House floor. When "Bert" Snell cracks his gavel down next June, Republican conservatives can be sure of the same iron-fisted service he gave in the same post four years ago at Chicago.

To be their keynoter in Philadelphia next June, Democratic chieftains last week also chose a genial, slow-spoken Senator, one every bit as big and rugged and impressive-looking as Republican Steiwer. By coming out early for Franklin Roosevelt, Kentucky's Alben William Barkley got the post of keynoter at the Democratic convention in 1932. By unwavering loyalty to the New Deal, Senator Barkley won the same reward this year. He cannot, however, rehash the same speech. Denouncing and deploring four years ago, he will this year have to commend and indorse.

For permanent chairman Democrats picked, almost inevitably, President Roosevelt's most faithful Capitol standby, the Majority Leader of the Senate, Joseph Taylor ("Joe") Robinson of Arkansas.

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