MR. ROOSEVELT'S CHANCES
Commonwealth and Foreign
By D. W.
THE Chicago Tribune, which daily assures its eight hundred thousand readers that it is the greatest newspaper in the world, has taken to warning them that they have so many days left to save their country. The number of days is cal- . culated -back from the election, the method of saving being " the election of Governor Landon.
• • From Europe, given the validity of the Tribune's fears, it may well seem that the United States is doomed, as - Mr. Roosevelt is sure to be re-elected. Yet from an American standpoint it is by no .means certain that the readers of. the Chicago Tribune are being called to a forlorn hope. The first force making for Republican revival is just that economic
• recovery that might seem one of Mr. Roosevelt's most obvious assets. An acute student of the American political mind told me a day or two ago, "Any man with a job and fifty dollars is a natural Republican. He may have been down and out last year, but he is already worrying about the National Debt." There are millions of men and women, down and out recently, who now have jobs and a few dollars saved, who are less likely to thank Mr. Roosevelt for getting them the job and . the dollars than to worry about the price of their rehabilitation. They may also doubt, with some reason, whether there is any connexion between recovery and the policy of the Roose- velt administration, but that is not their real reason for turning from the New Deal to the Grand Old Party. For seventy years, since the end of the Civil War, the Republican party has been the party of most prosperous and semi- ' prosperous people. It still is—and an organisation that twelve months ago had, as a wit .put it, as much public influence as the Morticians' Union is now in a position to challenge, with reasonable hope of success, an administration headed by a man almost worshipped three years ago and enthusias- t tically admired and trusted two years ago.
The Republicans have determined to make their campaign on one main issue—public extravagance. How much has . been -added to the National Debt under Mr. Roosevelt is a question bitterly fought over, and its computation depends on calculations of recoverable " expenditure that naturally differ according to the party faith of the computers. But no one denies that there have been immense expenditures, un- precedented in peace time, and few deny that the improvised • organisations have wasted a good deal of money. To list - Greek dialects, -to count trees, to teach " dramatics " to the unemployed are not necessarily foolish ways of spending • public money (if the theory that relief without work is evil be sound), but they can be made to seem absurd. Moreover, the lack of a trained civil service, the constant intrusion of political motives or the appearance of political motives, the inconsistencies of a general economic policy that too often has not let its right hand know what its left hand is doing, all provide plenty of ammunition for skilled political marksmen. v Yet, despite Republican hopes, it is likely that Mr. Roose- - welt will be returned. As so often happens, some of the credit for that victory will go to sides of the administration that its most creditable friends would rather veil from the public gaze. Republicans, and not only Republicans, have made great play with the activities of the Postmaster-General, Mr. . James-A. Farley, late head of the New York Boxing Commission and Chairman of the Democratic National Committee that
• is, head of the whole party organisation. In his own sphere Mr. Farley is a master of the arts of organising a political machine, and friends and enemies alike admit that he has worked wonders in the past four years. For the first time since the Civil War the Democrats are better organised and - better disciplined than their enemies. The Federal and State patronage (both vastly swollen) have been rigorously used, for Mr. Farley has no pedantic notions of abstract efficiency or justice to hinder him. He is a good Democrat and he likes to see that good Democrats get their chance to feed at the public trough," to use a coarse American metaphor. Two , Irish officials of the old regime were once discussing patronage, and one said, " CeleK a paribus I always give a job to a • friend." Said the other, "-Ceteris paribus be damned." Mr. Farley might say, " Them's my sentiments."
There is no doubt that Mr. Farley's activities have alienated respectable elements of the public, but practical politicians are not disposed to believe that the loss is greater than the gain. The gain is made more certain by the collapse of the Republican organisation over great areas. It is generally agreed that the election will be decided by the vote of the five great industrial States, New York, Pennsylvania; Ohio, Michigan and Illinois, and those States may well be carried . by the activity of the great city machines. The city machines that are in good working order, like the admirably oiled Kelly-Nash machine in Chicago, are Democratic, while such old Republican organisations as the Mellon machine in. Pittsburgh and the Maschke machine in Cleveland are in poor shape, and even Philadelphia is uneasy. It is true that Tammany is out of power in New York and is resentful of the actions of the President, but Mayor La Guardia, a nominal Republican, is friendly to Mr. Roosevelt.
One cause for uneasiness may worry Mr. Farley. The very powerful Catholic vote in the great cities may be led • astray by Mr. Al. Smith on one side and by Father Coughlin
on the other. But the once idolised has alienated millions of supporters by his alliance with the egregious Liberty League, the most maladroit propaganda body in American history-, and Father Coughlin is too erratic, and his candidate, Congressman Lemke, too obscure, to Carry much weight. Should the election be close, the votes given to Lemke might (if all taken from. Mr. Roosevelt) elect Mr. Landon, but as the Lemke voters may come from either side, they may .and probably will cancel out.
Yet it should be remembered that if Mr. Roosevelt is re- -elected, it will not be mainly because of the greater or lesser efficiency of city or rural machines." It will be because he has impressed the American man in the street with the belief that he really cares about him. The dislike of the President in the ranks of upper-class Americans may well strike a European visitor as fantastic. Stalin could hardly be denounced with more heat and hate than is a President who belongs by birth and training to the American aris- tocracy. No doubt some of that hate is due to the feeling that Mr. Roosevelt is a renegade, but more of it is due to a subconscious realisation that the days of the divine right of the business man are over. As long as Mr. Roosevelt is in the White House, the memory of the dreadful spring of 1933 will be painfully alive. A class that thought itself " on top of the world " suddenly found its world rocking perilously on its foundations and had to cry for help. It got the help and naturally finds it difficult to forgive its rescuer. It might very well object to the cost of the rescue, it might very well assert that the methods of resuscitation were ill-chosen and worse applied, but, fundamentally, it is pride as much as pocket that is hurt by the existence of the Roosevelt administration and by the possibility that it will be returned to power.
The hostility of the rich to the administration is. reflected in an overwhelming Press support for Mr. Landon, and in the open or silent exodus from the Democratic party of many of its wealthiest and most respectable elements. It is possible (to me it is more than possible) that this hate of the rich for the administration will help, not hurt, Mr. Roosevelt. To millions of plain Americans who remember 1933, the present rage of the rich will be an endorsement of the administration. These plain people felt that they had been betrayed by the ruling business class in which they had put blind trust. They may love Mr. Roosevelt for the enemies he has made. This may be an irrational motive, but it is a strong one and, as the patron saint of the Republican party reminded some critics, God must love -the plain people since he made so many of them. These Roosevelt voters in November may not vote intelligently, but there will be millions of them. Mr. Landon is, by origin, much more a man of the people than is. Mr. Roosevelt, but the workers and the farmers may judge the candidates by their friends and enemies. Mr. Landon's friends may hurt him ; Mr. Roosevelt's enemies will help him.
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