Planks & Implications

The Republican platform was written between the deep sea and Senator Borah. The deep sea was Lake Erie and Senator Borah was the man who, as he left the Republican convention last week, announced: "I never had any illusion that I would become the Presidential nominee of this convention. But there were some important and timely questions which I felt should come before the country . . . and I reached the conclusion that this could be most likely attained if I became a candidate."

Between Senator Borah and the deep sea was William Allen White, the Landon representative on the Resolutions Committee. The Landonites wished to placate Mr. Borah, lest he somehow upset their well-laid nomination plans. Well did they know how to proceed. Since Senator Borah, for all his noble traits of character, would never willingly become a member of the Twelve Apostles or of any group larger than one, he could be won to Landon only by giving him some unique privilege. That privilege was to speak with ultimate authority on those planks which most appealed to him.

Accordingly, Senator Borah was allowed to write the anti-League of Nations and antimonopoly planks (although the two sharpest paragraphs of his monopoly plank were cut out in the final version). Two other planks he was allowed to veto: any reference to the gold standard in the money plank and any suggestion of a constitutional amendment to authorize State control of minimum wages. William Allen White had also to make concessions to various non-Landon members of the platform Committee. Thus with Editor White functioning as a diplomat rather than as a liberal, Landon views on the platform were largely left for presentation by such allies as Charles P. Taft (liberal younger brother of Ohio's favorite son, regular Robert A. Taft). The standpoint of Landon-liberalism was probably pressed less forcibly upon the platform committee than many another set of views.

Result was that Alf Landon's telegram became necessary as an appendix to the platform. To the platform's declaration that sweatshops and child labor can be abolished, that minimum wages and the like for women and children can be established by State law "within the Constitution as it now stands," he added: "But if that opinion should prove to be erroneous . . . I shall favor a constitutional amendment. . . ." To the declaration for a "sound currency" he added "convertible into gold . . . [but not] unless it can be done without penalizing our domestic economy." To the declaration for extension of civil service, he added a special dart aimed at Postmaster Farley, weakest joint in Franklin Roosevelt's armor: "There should be included within the merit system every position in the administrative service below the rank of assistant secretaries of major departments and agencies, and . . . this inclusion should cover the entire Post Office Department."

Aside from the Landon codicil, the Republican platform thus remained a hodge-podge of old and new lumber. On Relief the platform had a definite proposal for administration by the States with partial Federal aid; on Unemployment, a proposal to aid industry by abolishing New Deal interference; on Social Security, a demand for a sounder, more workable law; on Labor, some old saws and reference to State rather than Federal regulation; on Agriculture, no less than 13 heterogeneous remedies ranging from retirement of marginal land, through some kind of soil conservation program to industrial use of farm products and domestic allotment; on Tariff, a fine oldfashioned, reactionary plank; on Monopoly, some of Mr. Borah's words but no reference to anti-trust laws as the essential alternative to planned economy; on Government Finance, sound fiscal advice offered with a ring of conviction. Linked to all this were some approving words on national defense, isolation, the Amerindian, the Afro-American, collection of War debts, women in Government employ, etc., etc.

Had the Republicans assembled in Cleveland had no more consecutive and consistent ideas, no clearer issue than was expressed in their platform, they could not have stirred even themselves to enthusiasm. Obvious was the fact that they felt themselves in no such predicament. Time & again throughout the convention's sudden bursts of applause, feeling cheers pointed out the great unwritten plank on which they were eager to campaign:

That the New Deal was a menace to American institutions. That it planned the destruction of individual opportunity in the name of social opportunity. That the planned economy which the New Deal envisioned, the bureaucracy it created, would inevitably lead to some sort of dictatorship. That U. S. citizens still preferred self-reliance to reliance on their Government. That the return of the Republican Party was necessary not so much to undo what the New Deal has done--for the Supreme Court has disposed of 90% of that--but to prevent what may yet be done in the spirit of the New Deal.

Corollary to this major plank was the proposition: That Republicans and their candidates had the desire, the ability, the background to restore sound government finance. That the big Republican aim was to restore the Government to its role of policeman, kick it out of the role of boss. That when this was done, reckless spending would automatically end, individual initiative would be restored, industry would bound ahead, thus solving the prime problem of Re-employment.

Besides these unarticulated planks, the written platform and the Landon codicil made two other substantial assertions: 1) That direct means must be taken to equalize the now 15-year-old inability of farmers to earn as good a living as city men. 2) That minimum wages and maximum hours for women and children should be legally established, not as a part of an economic plan, but as a matter of public decency.

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