"Dogged Doubt" Removed

"Dogged Doubt" Removed

Wherever good substantial citizens who never vote anything but the straight Republican ticket got together last week, they warmly assured each other that Herbert Hoover would certainly be re-elected President. At their offices they talked of the Depression in the past tense. At their clubs they chortled over the smooth progress of the G. O. P. campaign. In their homes they told their families that the Republican ticket might not win a crashing smashing victory (candid Senator Moses figured party success by only 22 electoral votes out of 531) but it would be enough to keep the President in the White House another four years and thereby insure the country's safety.

Such orthodox Republicans found plenty of public activity on which to feed their expectations. Last week Calvin Coolidge came out for Mr. Hoover in the Saturday Evening Post. Excerpts from "The Republican Case":

"While the Republican party does not claim it can perform the impossible, it is willing to be judged on its record. In the winter of 1928-29 it was apparent that the country was engaged in too much speculation. I was alarmed at it and kept in contact with the Federal Reserve Board. I understood they were using their influence quietly to check speculation.*

"Perhaps it would be more in accord with the even-handed justice demanded by the facts to stop blaming President Hoover for the conditions of depression. ... He has sought not only to provide physical nourishment but spiritual morale for the nation. ... By ability and experience he was peculiarly fitted to meet the problems which have arisen. . . . He is essentially an executive. . . . His appointments have been remarkably good. . . . The only leadership in this crisis worthy of the name has come from him. He deserves reelection for what he has done and for what he has prevented. We know he is safe and sound. ... It is a time when the great body of our people of common sense should not be stampeded. . . . The record of two generations dis closes that the safety of the country lies in the success of the principles of the Republican party."

While the Coolidge article was political gospel for all G. O. Partisans, it prompted such an irreverent individual as Funny man Will Rogers to remark: "Calvin Coolidge has had everybody on the anxious seat for months as to who he would sup port in the November handicap. Campaign managers and politicians have been dogging his rubber-booted steps. But it took, not a politician, but a commercial-minded gentleman (proprietor of America's biggest nickelodeon), Mr. George Horace Lorimer, not with words or editorial persuasion but with his signature on a small piece of paper, payable at one of the few banks left open, to break Mr. Coolidge's dogged doubt.*"

A commonplace of campaign talk has been that an upturn in business and prices would re-elect President Hoover. Last week, stock values on the New York Ex change had increased $12,149,022,329 since June. Last week's break in cotton of $4 per bale was set down as politically meaningless because the G. O. P. this year did not expect to repeat its 1928 achievements in the Solid South. Business failures for the last week in August (435) were at a nine months' low. The Federal Reserve Board, issuing its most optimistic weekly report in two years, showed an increase of $120,000.000 in net demand deposits. A Treasury loan of $1,160,000,000 (mostly for refunding) had been oversubscribed six times.

Mark Sullivan, good Hoover friend and Republican journalist for the arch- Republican New York Herald Tribune, not only announced the end of Depression but said that Recovery was reaching its "second stage." "The first stage is the recovery from extreme depression and panic. . . . The panic conditions are completely over and will not return. . . . Ogden Mills, Secretary of the Treasury, estimates July 27 as about the date that marked the ending of that final phase of the depression. . . . There is now practically no one in any area of serious thought who doubts that the depression is ended. . . . Practically no one doubts that the rises so far attained will on the average remain or go farther. . . . The second stage of recovery consists of the resumption of manufacturing and other business. ... It is yet too early for actual statistics [but] observation reports that there is material increase in volume of activity."

Little Republicans throughout the land take their campaign cues from big Republicans. Last week Secretary of the Interior Wilbur, back from a western trip, publicly reported: "I was impressed with the development of stability and a sense of safety throughout the nation. There is a different tone. Men have taken their paper losses and are beginning to tighten their hat bands. ... I saw no abject poverty. A foreigner would never have known of any economic change. . . . Relief organizations are keeping families together. . . . The change has really come for the better. If we keep our heads and don't try to shift gears too suddenly, we should progress."

Paul Shoup, president of Southern Pacific R. R., told President Hoover aloud that "West Coast conditions are most encouraging." Publisher William Franklin Knox of the Chicago Daily News took to the air with a declaration that the country had "already passed several mileposts along the road back to normal times." Back in London, Ambassador Mellon reported "a great improvement." Said he: "Mr. Hoover's prestige has been rising. Comparing his outlook at this time with the same time four years ago, it is just as promising."

Meanwhile the campaign slogan makers at Chicago headquarters were frantically busy. As in 1928, "Who But Hoover?" became the party's official warcry. William H. McMasters of Cambridge, Mass, who coined "Keep Cool With Coolidge" in 1924 suggested: "It's Over; Thank Hoover." Variants offered G. O. P. head quarters: "Hoover Will Pull Us Through,'' "We're Headed for Prosperity With Hoover," "Down & Up Again With Hoover," "The Worst Is Over; Let's Go -- With Hoover," "Vote For Who?-- ver," "Ho-Ho-Hoover," "Ho! Over the Top With Hoover." One Harry Heebner of Germantown, Pa. suggested a song like this:

"He stands at the wheel of the ship of State,

Sailing straight through the storms of Fate:

The waters are deep, and the waves run high,

But Hoover guides with unerring eye!"

Though they insisted they were thoroughly frightened by the "radicalism" of President Hoover's opponent, regular Republicans declined to take the Democratic campaign seriously. The Roosevelt speeches, they felt, had not stirred the people. The sullen silence of Alfred Emanuel Smith was minting votes for President Hoover. Even the poll of the pro-Roosevelt Hearst papers, a small straw in the wind, showed a Hoover lead in New England, New York, New Jersey and Ohio. With both parties Wet, Pro hibition canceled itself out as an issue. Speaker Garner, when he takes the stump, was counted on to make a fearful spectacle of himself.

*0n Jan. 6, 1928, after brokers' loans had spurted up to $4.432,970,321 and the stock market began to crack, President Coolidge announced that the "increase in brokers' loans is not large enough to cause unfavorable comment." This year Democratic campaigners from Nominee Roosevelt down are attacking President Coolidge for his part in stimulating the speculative boom. In his December 1028 message to Congress, he declared: "Enlarging production is consumed by an increasing demand at home, and an expanding commerce abroad. The country can regard the present with satisfaction and anticipate the future with optimism." Source book on such issues at Democratic National headquarters is Oh Yeah?--a compilation of optimistic outpourings before and after the crash.

*Probable size of check: $4,000.

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