Mr. Webb

The only minor-party candidate professing a serious attempt upon the electorate is Frank Elbridge Webb, Farmer-Laborite. He has a plan. He says he will "outgeneral 'em."

The Webb plan is to throw the election into the House of Representatives. Nominee Webb thinks that can be done by winning the Northwest. "Smith is educating the farmer to vote for us. I'll take five votes from Smith to one from Hoover," he said last week.

The tragedy of minorities usually is that their leaders are unknown men whom the minority has neither the wit nor the money to publicize. And usually a minority is no greater than its biggest man. Bravely facing this fact, Nominee Webb has been issuing leaflets headlined: "Who the hell is Webb?"

The answer is that he is a slender, grey-crested person with a Romish nose and a sartorial perfection suggestive of the stage. Who the hell is he? He was born on the Mother Lode of California 59 years ago and one of his parents had Mayflower ancestors. He is one of those persons who has been vaguely "associated with" and "closely allied with" various famous people. His biography gives a onetime State Engineer of New York, the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, and the late Major-General Leonard Wood, as references. He "has travelled in many parts of the world, sometimes by direction of a President of the United States." Also: "He has attended at different times the services of almost every one of the major religious sects."

He has "always had a leaning toward Rational Progressive policies." He has never stood for public office before and "was a very much surprised man" when, in August, the Farmer-Laborites asked him to run. He accepted, promising Farm Relief, a Prohibition referendum, States' rights, the Smith program for Boulder Dam, the G. O. P. policy on immigration, "adequate" Federal flood control, a non-partisan Cabinet.

He will "outgeneral 'em." He solicits campaign contributions, to offices in Denver and Chicago.