Buffalo Blast

A delegation of local bigwigs, some 6,000 citizens and five women's fife & drum corps were waiting in Buffalo, N. Y.'s railroad station one morning last week when Nominee Alf M. Landon's special train rolled up to the turning point of his Eastern campaign tour. Nominee Landon, rid of his lingering pleurisy, waved his hat, cried "Hello everybody!" and singled out two small boys for special greeting. Stepping out of his way to shake their hands, he asked: "How do you do, little men?"

After a ride through packed streets to his Buffalo hotel, the Republican candidate attended a Party luncheon, spent the afternoon receiving political callers and a People's Mandate Peace Committee whom he told: "I recognize that war is the greatest threat to Freedom and Democracy." For dinner and the night he went to the home of Publisher Edward H. Butler of the Buffalo Evening News. Next morning he attested his eligibility for high place by revealing that he had sat up until 2 a. m. reading a detective story, The House on the Roof by Mignon Eberhart.

When Governor Landon left Topeka fortnight ago, his journalist-advisers were considerably worried because the preliminary drafts of the speeches he was to deliver contained so little of the political zip and zing that make helpful headlines. The G.O.P. nominee argued that the East did not know him, that he was going to introduce himself first by a discussion of general principles and not deal with specific campaign issues until later. His West Middlesex speech was, in fact, so fundamental that the Democratic high command did not bother to controvert its generalities. At Chautauqua Governor Landon discussed Education in a broad way, made news principally by breaking with William Randolph Hearst, his No. 1 press supporter on the worth of Teachers' Oaths.

If at Buffalo he did not get down to campaign cases and blast the New Deal on some concrete issue, even his admirers began to feel that he might as well have stayed in Topeka.

After a second day of conferences during which he steadfastly refused to take sides in the contest for New York's Republican gubernatorial nomination, Nominee Landon repaired to Buffalo's ball park to deliver his hardest-hitting, most specific speech to date. Hammering at the New Deal at what he considered its weakest point, he declared:

"... The fundamental principles ot government finance are exactly the same common sense principles that we follow in the handling of our own family finances. Now, what are these principles? In broadest terms there are four of them:

"The Government must guard and preserve its source of income.

"The Government must make sure that it gets a dollar's worth for every dollar it spends.

"The Government must not get in the habit of spending more than it receives.

"Finally, the Government must prepare for the rainy day. . . .

"It has always been my belief that the Government should raise the major portion of its revenue from direct taxes levied on the net incomes of individuals and corporations. Once this is done, every one pays for his fair share and knows just how much the Government is costing him. ... On the other hand, if the major portion of the Government's income is obtained from indirect and hidden taxes-- taxes upon such things as food, clothing, gasoline and cigarets--then the main burden falls upon those of small income. . . .

"The share of the cost of government falling mainly on those with incomes of $25 a week or less has increased 25% during the three years of the present Administration. They are paying far more than their rightful share of the cost of Government. . . .

"There is no better illustration of all this than the so-called surplus tax bill jammed through Congress this spring.

"The sponsors of this tax law may have thought that it was a smart way to appear to 'soak the rich.' Actually it has no relation to 'soaking the rich.' What it does is protect the big fellow who still has a reserve, and tie a millstone around the neck of the little fellow. . .

"This is the most cockeyed piece of tax legislation ever imposed in a modern country. And if I am elected, I shall recommend immediate repeal of this vicious method of taxation. . . .

"Today, the Administration is spending money for almost every conceivable thing. It is spending even for the necessary things in ways we cannot afford--in reckless ways which are beyond our means--which would never appeal to any one who has had to work for his money--to any one who has had to face the problem of making both ends meet--to any one who has had to see to it that his bills get paid. . . .

"The time has come to put an end to these policies. We must establish a system of simple, honest bookkeeping."

Alf Landon's audience of some 20,000 --10,000 less than were expected--listened to his best speech attentively but with no loud enthusiasm. The only really lusty cheer went up when the nominee lapsed into slang to condemn the slapdash Revenue Act of 1936. That his tax blast at the New Deal was no dud, however, became politically plain as potent Democrats rushed forward to dispute, deny and denounce his criticism.

From Buffalo, Governor Landon turned homeward, made 15 rear-platform appearances in Illinois and Missouri. In Springfield he paid a duty call at the tomb of Abraham Lincoln. In St. Louis he obeyed another political tradition by publicly kissing a baby, 17-month old Joyce Rushing, daughter of a Carterville, Ill. barber, and exclaiming, "My, what a fine, fat baby!"

Back in the Kansas capital, where he planned to stay until his drought conference with President Roosevelt this week, Alf Landon released a press statement: "I return to Topeka deeply gratified with my first trip of the 1936 campaign. . . . Everywhere, despite differences in geography, the people are undoubtedly interested in good government. . . . This is as it should be. It is the American way. . . ."

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