No Contest

(See front cover)

Two years ago a Democratic wind blew through the Valley of Depression and the House of the Elephant fell. As houses go it was stanch. Only four times in 75 years had it suffered material damage from political storms and each time was presently repaired. But never until the Great Engineer turned loose an economic tempest with which a lesser engineer in the White House could not cope, never until 1932, was the House of the Elephant wrecked. For 20 months the wreckage lay where it fell, untouched. Only a stout heart would dare to attempt the labor of "repairing" the debris, least of all undertake to reconstruct the House in five scant months. That heart was the heart of Henry Prather Fletcher. Last week Mr. Fletcher might well have doubted whether courage or folly had moved his heart.

For Mr. Fletcher is not a man who delights in serving lost causes. His life's labors have been directed towards successful ends. He was chosen Chairman of the Republican National Committee last June, not because he was not tied to either the reactionary or radical wings of his party, not because at that time he did not know one in five members of the Republican National Committee, but because throughout his 61 years he has often come from, behind. He is a self-made man, and, what is more unusual, a self-made man-of-the-world.

Thousands of young men enlisted for the Spanish-American War, but young Henry Fletcher, a boy without a college education, a court reporter in his native Greencastle, Pa., got a place in Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders. Private Fletcher did not return to Greencastle from the glories of San Juan Hill, nor was his career buried when as a first lieutenant he sweated for two years through the jungles of the Philippines hunting down Aguinaldo. In 1902 his onetime commander, then in the White House, remembered him and sent him, as second secretary, to the U. S. Legation in Cuba. As a blasphemous trooper he was no more fitted for diplomacy than, as a court reporter, he had been fitted for soldiering.

From Havana he was sent to Peking where his hard-riding military experience stood him in good stead, both at polo which he and other junior diplomats played in the precincts of the Temple of Heaven and at poker where his winnings had to be relied on to augment his small official stipend. The day came when the State Department discovered that Henry Fletcher was also a diplomat. As charge d'affaires at Peking in 1909, amid the rumblings that preceded the overthrow of the Empire, he proved his mettle. From then on his path was onward and upward. President Taft made him Minister to Chile. President Wilson promoted him to Ambassador, shifted him to troublesome Mexico. President Harding made him Undersecretary of State, later Ambassador to Belgium. President Coolidge appointed him Ambassador to Italy. He got the job of taking President-elect Hoover on a personally conducted tour of South America. Ultimately President Hoover made him Chairman of the Tariff Commission, a job which he did not like and held for only a year.

Out of this long experience Henry Fletcher emerged with inscrutability, good humor, patience and a shrewd tongue. He could say sharp, cutting things when he wanted to. To a U. S.-hating Chilean who once remarked that he would not buy even a shoestring made in the U. S., Diplomat Fletcher replied: "I'm sorry the cable office isn't open today. I'd cable the President that the American shoe string industry is ruined." When Ambassador Dawes asserted that diplomacy "is easy on the head but hell on the feet," Mr. Fletcher quietly observed: "It depends on which you use." But wise cracks are incidentals to his trade. He plays poker and politics to win. In inter national politics he has usually won. Therefore he must have felt decidedly uncomfortable last week at the unanimous opinion of political observers that on Nov. 6 he was not only going to lose, but lose on an almost unprecedented scale.

Not since the Civil War has either party lost a Presidential election without making a comeback in the election two years later. In 1922 the Democrats cut the Republican House majority from 168 to 18. In 1930 the Democrats added 55 seats to their strength in the House and took over control of that branch of Congress from Republicans who just two years before had won a tremendous Presidential victory. As a result of the 1932 election the House today stands 308 Democrats to 113 Republicans, the Senate 60 Democrats to 35 Republicans. By all the traditions of U. S. politics. Chairman Fletcher and his G. O. Partisans should gain seats in 1934. Yet so strong still was the name of Roosevelt with the electorate and so weak were the program and personalities of his political opponents that it was generally agreed that the Republicans would probably lose anywhere up to five more seats in the Senate and could consider themselves most lucky if they maintained their present piffling strength in the House.

As Chairman Fletcher looked over the map of the closing campaign, he could spot some hot but hopeless contests. To himself he must have admitted with a grim smile that the campaign, as a whole, was no contest at all.

California. Though he could take no credit for what had happened, Mr. Fletcher last week had good reason to hope that the Republicans would carry California. Senator Hiram Johnson was sure of reelection, but since the New Deal had adopted him as a Democrat that will be an empty triumph for the G. O. P. Republican Acting Governor Frank Merriam, too, had a good chance of reelection. A Literary Digest poll last week showed him leading Upton Sinclair, 2 1/2-to-1. But there, again, such an outcome would be due, not to Republican headwork, but to the jettisoning of Democratic Nominee Sinclair by the Democratic Administration in Washington.

Sinclair managers published with delight a letter saying: "By electing Hon. Upton Sinclair, your popular Democratic Candidate for Governor, California will have a combination of leaders in Washington and Sacramento who can cooperate in the best interest of the people of the State and Nation." The signature was in green ink, "James A. Farley." At the bottom of the letter was a handwritten postscript, also in green ink: "Friends of the Administration in Washington will be gratified for all your efforts. J. A. F."

When ex-Socialist Sinclair and his EPIC began to slip, the Roosevelt machine started to back away from what threatened to be a bad defeat. The President made a great White House show of keeping his hands off California. Boss Farley, red as a beet with embarrassment, had nothing to say publicly. His anonymous explanation: the letter was a form letter sent out from Democratic National headquarters; an underling, unauthorized, had filled in the blanks with Mr. Sinclair's name; the realistic signature and personal postscript were the work of a rubber stamp.

To complete Nominee Sinclair's discomfiture, George Creel, Wartime propaganda chief whom, as the Administration's favorite, Sinclair had defeated in the primaries, repudiated the winning candidate. In a public letter, Democrat Creel charged Democrat Sinclair with failing to stand on the party platform, with pushing his own "Immediate Epic" plan in violation of agreements at the State convention. Declared disgusted Mr. Creel: "I think any one who votes in California this fall has to hold his nose. It's a choice between catalepsy and epilepsy. Sinclair has a fantastic, impossible plan and Merriam is as modern as the dinosaur age."

Sinclair lost another potent vote when Senator McAdoo's law partner, William H. Neblett (see p. 15), announced his switch to Merriam.

Tennessee. Fateful was the mistake the Administration made in endorsing a Democratic candidate in California but no serious consequences were to be expected from another error. Noting that the sole candidate for Congress in the first district of the Democratic State of Tennessee was Brazilla Carroll Reece, the Democratic National Committee sent him a cordial letter of endorsement. However, the first district is in the eastern, mountainous portion of the State; Candidate Reece happens to be a Republican Congressman. It was grim news to Mr. Fletcher. No blunders by his opponents could help him much.

New York. Valiant was the Republican fight in New York. With immense energy the Gubernatorial nominee, Robert Moses, New York City's Commissioner of Parks, belabored Democratic Governor Herbert Lehman. It was Jew v. Jew and the lie was passed, but nobody was interested. With equally stern purpose the Republican nominee for Senator, Ernest Harold Cluett (of Troy's Cluett Peabody & Co., makers of Arrow Collars) bid for the job of Democratic Senator Copeland. If Republican Cluett had loudly trumpeted that he wore no man's collar, voters might have listened and laughed. Instead he remained very much on the inside pages because he persisted in crying: "The Federal Government is wasting our money. The country will be bankrupt within a year." Governor Lehman was practically conceded reelection, and on election day Senator Copeland will probably not remember he was opposed.

Pennsylvania. Two Democrats lunched at the White House last week and emerged beaming. They were Pennsylvania's Boss Joseph F. Guffey, nominee for Senator, and George H. Earle, nominee for Governor. High as were Democratic hopes a few months ago of capturing Republican-ribbed Pennsylvania, their chances of victory up to the time of the White House luncheon had not been accounted good. Governor Pinchot had temperamentally swung back into the Republican fold to support David Reed for Senator, William A. Schnader for Governor.

But Messrs. Guffey and Earle had reason to smile last week. From the White House they carried a promise from the President to order surveys: 1) for hydro-electric works on the upper Ohio and Delaware watersheds; 2) for means of increasing the consumption of Pennsylvania coal; 3) for rural electrification in Pennsylvania. Such indirect promises from the White House of good things to come from the Treasury have a way of working political wonders on election day. Democratic Governor Brann of Maine got re-elected last September after dangling before the electorate similar Presidential encouragement for similar projects.

Wisconsin. "Vote as New York City, North Dakota, Montana and other states tell you." Thus did the Milwaukee Journal point an ironic finger at one of the strangest of all the strange campaigns that Wisconsin has ever known. Fiorello LaGuardia, Republican-Fusion Mayor of New York City, was perambulating the State, making speeches for his Congressional friend Senator "Bob" La Follette. Among others who said good words for the La Follettes, running for the first time on their own Progressive Party ticket, were Republican Senator Frazier of North Dakota and Democratic Senator Wheeler of Montana. To tangle the strings of party loyalty even more, President Roosevelt in his Green Bay speech last August had praised, all in one breath, Progressive Senator La Follette and Democratic Governor Albert Schmedeman, both seeking re-election on different tickets. And last week Boss Farley persuaded Democratic Senator Wagner of New York not to go to Wisconsin to the aid of Progressive La Follette. In short the New Deal backed Wisconsin's Progressive ticket; the Administration backed Wisconsin's Democratic ticket. But Mr. Fletcher was not invited to back the Wisconsin Republican ticket: John Chapple, nominee for Senator who had taken the stump to out-radical the radical La Follettes.

Nebraska-- A favorite supporter of the New Deal, Democrat Edward R. Burke, was last week running for a six-year Senate term in Nebraska against a sturdy supporter of conservative Republicanism, Robert G. Simmons. But unique was the battle of two other gentlemen for what remained of the term of the late Senator Howell: Democrat Richard Charles Hunter, 49, and Republican James Harvey Kemp, 62. Both were campaigning vigorously, urging on Nebraska's citizens the seriousness of making the right choice between them. Neither, however, is ever likely to sit in the Senate. The term they were contending for expires Jan. 3, the day the new Congress assembles. The major part of the victor's duties will consist in collecting about $1,600 pay as U. S. Senator for the months of November and December.

Indiana. Republican Senator Arthur Robinson was campaigning for re-election on the grounds that his opponent, Sherman Minton, was picked by Governor McNutt and Governor McNutt's Parole Board freed John Dillinger year and a half ago. Senator Robinson, because of his vicious personal attacks upon the White House and its occupants, would probably be the least missed man in the chamber by his Republican colleagues if defeat came his way this week.

Minnesota. The Republicans were hoping to slip to victory while an argument went on between the Farmer-Laborites headed by Senator Shipstead and Governor Olson and the Democrats as to who had support of the New Deal. Emil Hurja, Boss Farley's right-hand man, last week visited Minnesota and announced that the Administration was solidly behind the Democratic ticket--Einar Hoidale for Senator, John Regan for Governor. Hardly had Mr. Hurja got back to Washington, however, before President Roosevelt, who had dealt more than kindly with Messrs. Shipstead and Olson, announced that he was not taking sides.

Small wonder that as Chairman Fletcher surveyed this political scene last week he could see little semblance of a national contest between the Republican and Democatic parties. So far as was visible to the naked eye not one stone had been placed upon another to rebuild the House of the Elephant. This year the Republicans will regard it a triumph to carry Pennsylvania.

But it is not altogether Mr. Fletcher's fault that his struggle with the New Deal is no contest. The Republican campaign chest was very bare. The National Committee reported collections of only $90,000, a deficit of $52,000. What cast G. O. Partisans down, though, was not this shortage of money but their opponents' unlimited wealth. To most Republican stumpsters the Democratic campaign chest this year is the U. S. Treasury. The New Deal has promised and paid over $2,000,000,000 in relief to some 4,000,000 families. It is distributing hundreds of millions to farmers under AAA, billions under PWA contracts. It has put 100,000 new political officeholders on the Federal payroll. Lest these benefactions be forgotten the Democratic National Committee has compiled a list of the New Deal's cash donations to every state, to election districts. Said oldtime Democrat James A. Reed of Missouri, speaking last week in Detroit :

"It is getting to be the regular thing for candidates to journey to Washington, and in company with prominent politicians to visit the various departments, secure pledges for the expenditure of millions of dollars in their district, or state, or city and to then tell the voters that this money was furnished by the Administration, and that they are in duty bound to support the hand that feeds them. . . . What is this but the buying of votes? It is a bold and insolent attempt to corrupt the electorate."

Less incensed was Franklin Roosevelt by the practice. Asked about it at a press conference, he smiled indulgently, remarked that politicians are likely to claim everything before an election.

To the politicians who cynically asked "Who wants to kill Santa Claus?" Republican Ogden Mills last week replied: "Granted that no one ever shot Santa Claus, is there any reason why the entire population should take to believing in him? Isn't it about time to realize that reindeer are not bringing these billions from the clouds, but that they'll be paid for . . . in taxes or inflation?"

But the rank & file of Republican politicians, those who had jobs at stake, did not hold with Mr. Mills nor did they dare to side with Mr. Fletcher, to attack such a moneyed institution as the New Deal. The only substantial basis for hope that Chairman Fletcher has had during his five months labors was the fact that businessmen have gradually found the New Deal distasteful--a fact first reported by observers; then confirmed by a small Literary Digest poll indicating that the New Deal had lost 10% of its supporters since the Digest's big poll in May; and finally verified by Franklin Roosevelt's much advertised turn to the right, his effort to smile business back into good humor (see p. 9).

Whatever business support the Administration may have lost, political observers agreed last week that the great bulk of the U. S. voters were, if not in heart and soul at least in pocketbook, ardently in favor of the New Deal. Henry Prather Fletcher and all good Republicans hoped that there would be many surprises in the election returns. Any unexpected result on Nov. 6 was bound to be in their favor.

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