Primaries & Protests

In two States on opposite sides of the nation Democratic primaries last week gave President Roosevelt two resounding victories. In each, however, enough non-Roosevelt votes were cast to set political quidnuncs to arguing on the significance, if any, of the loser's strength.

P:In Maryland the President was again opposed by Colonel Henry Breckinridge, Manhattan lawyer who lost overwhelmingly to Franklin Roosevelt in Pennsylvania fortnight ago. Chiefly noted as a onetime Assistant Secretary of War (1913-16) and as Charles A. Lindbergh's attorney, Colonel Breckinridge is a thin-lipped, sinewy, 49-year-old member of Kentucky's famed Breckinridge family. To keep fit for his legal and political jobs he flies his own airplane, keeps up the expert fencing which in 1928 got him elected captain of the U. S. Olympic fencing team. Not seriously seeking the Presidency, Colonel Breckinridge last week wished only to rally anti-New Deal sentiment, register a "protest" vote within the party against its present leader. Result: Colonel Breckinridge, 17,701 votes; Franklin Roosevelt, 97,102.

Though this was a comfortable 5-to-1 victory for the Administration, Republican leaders began crowing at once, while partisan statisticians tried to show that if the protest voters can be counted on to go Republican next November and if the same protest appears in other States, Franklin Roosevelt "can be beaten." Said Republican National Committee Chairman Henry P. Fletcher: "These results clearly demonstrate that millions of clear-thinking Democrats will not follow one who has broken faith with his platform and his party traditions."

P:In California Democratic voters had a choice of two protests against President Roosevelt's failure to embrace "Production-for-Use" and the Townsend Plan. When the results were counted, 101,403 had chosen Upton Sinclair's EPIC slate; 58,897 had plumped for Representative John S. McGroarty's Townsendite group. That left the President a tremendous majority of 768,617.

This outcome was of less interest than the fact that the routine Democratic primaries had drawn a third more voters to the polls than the bitterly contested and significant Republican election (see p. 15). Republicans cast a total of 599,832 votes, Democrats 928,917.

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