Hearst Issue

Ever since Publisher William Randolph Hearst visited Governor Alf Landon in Topeka last December, found the Kansas candidate to his liking and ordered his newspaper chain to support him full blast, there has been a Hearst issue in the 1936 Presidential campaign.* Not until last week, however, did the Democratic high command choose to bring this two-edged issue out of the political shadows, use it directly against the Republican nominee.

Then up to a Washington microphone stepped Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to broadcast the charge that President Roosevelt's opponent was nothing but a stooge for the Master of San Simeon.

Declared Secretary Ickes: "The proper curiosity of the American public with respect to the Landon-Hearst alliance will not be denied. Mr. Hearst is on such intimate terms with the candidate that he can even venture ... to express his opinion as to what he believes the Governor feels. ... Up to the time that Mr. Hearst made his historic visit to Topeka, Governor Landon was an ardent New Dealer. Apparently a Hearst silencer had been applied to him. How otherwise explain the Republican candidate's elocutionary efforts? He may 'condemn' in conventional fashion, he may 'view with alarm,' but this seems to be the limit beyond which he is not permitted to go. If he is a Trilby, who, except William Randolph Hearst, can be the Svengali?"

To prove this broad indictment, Secretary Ickes turned to a Chicago court record in which Illinois' Republican National Committeeman George F. Harding last July excused his absence from a hearing to the judge on the ground that it had been necessary for him to fly to California to talk with Mr. Hearst. As proof of his journey, he offered a letter Mr. Hearst had written him confirming their conversation. From this document Secretary Ickes quoted Publisher Hearst as follows: "The average politician around him [Landon] is continually urging him to get out and talk. Talk is the method of the average politician, but ... this is a campaign in which speechmaking might do more harm than good. At present the Democrats have nothing to criticize Governor Landon about. You can see that in their attempts to criticize him. Too many speeches might give the Democrats their eagerly wanted opportunity."

Satisfied with his record-breaking political leap from the large charge that Hearst bosses Landon to the pipsqueak proof that Hearst advised against too many Landon speeches, Secretary Ickes concluded: "Hearst over Topeka! Do the American people want it to be Hearst over the White House?"

Well prepared was the GOP to meet the Hearst issue. Same night William Hard, oldtime Washington newsman who now broadcasts for the Republican National Committee, snapped back:

"It is odd that Mr. Ickes cannot remember that President Roosevelt was nominated for the Presidency at Chicago in 1932 with the direct help of the Hearst delegates from Hearst's own State of California. . . . The sum of the matter would seem to be that Mr. Hearst is one of our best pickers of Presidential winners and one of the least assertive controllers of Presidents. . . .

"The efforts of New Deal spokesmen ... to blacken the character of Governor Landon by blackening the character of Mr. Hearst should be brought earnestly to the attention of Mr. Charles Michelson and of the President's son, Elliott. Mr. Michelson had 20 years of training on Hearst newspapers to fit him for the task of writing New Deal speeches. ... As for the President's son, Elliott, he is exercising his legal and moral right to be in the Hearst service at this very time. He serves Mr. Hearst as Vice President of the Hearst radio broadcasting stations in Texas and Oklahoma. It is odd that Mr. Ickes should not know of the Hearst activities of the son of the gentleman whom he is supporting for the Presidency."

*In New Dealish Washington last week Democratic gossips were mongering the following incredible yarn: When Mr. Hearst went to Topeka, he questioned Governor Landon first on taxes, finances, Americanism, saved his pet subject to the last.

"Now, Governor," said the old publisher, "we've talked about everything else, how do you feel about the international situation?" Alf Landon stared at the carpet, pondered a full five minutes before looking up to reply: "Well Mr Hearst, I'll tell you. I don't think International ought to be getting all of that business. I think it ought to be divided up with Deering, the Moline people and some of the independents in the plow business."

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