Great Gamble

Because the farmers of that rocky, rural little State were frozen in by November, Maine long ago began holding its State elections in September. Because its farmers and townsmen seemed permanently frozen solid in Republicanism, GOPoliticians fostered the slogan that "As Maine goes, so goes the nation." Because the nation has sent Republican Presidents to the White House in all but five elections since the Civil War, the venerable saw has gained currency, though not validity. It is not even true that as Maine goes, so goes Maine. In 1932 it elected a Democratic Governor and two Congressmen in September, went for Hoover in November. But because politicians believe that a September victory has a persuasive effect on voters throughout the land, both Parties regularly expend money and efforts on Maine's State election out of all proportion to its national importance.

This year was no exception. Months ago Democratic Boss Farley began laying his plans for a Maine showing. Far & away his best bet was popular Democratic Governor Louis Jefferson Brann, elected in 1932 by a 2,300 plurality, re-elected in 1934 by a 23,000 majority. Unfortunately, Governor Brann had never been a New Dealer, had fallen away still further when Maine's Federal patronage was taken from him and given to a stanch New Dealer, Representative Edward C. Moran. As the State's ablest Democratic vote-getter, however, patronage was returned to him last spring when he agreed to run for the Senate against Republican Senator Wallace H. White. Because shrewd Governor Brann well knew the temper of his conservative State and counted on many a Republican vote, no famed New Dealers went up from Washington to help his fight. But into Maine did flock such Party orators as Acting Secretary of War Harry Woodring, Pennsylvania's Governor George Earle, onetime American Legion National Commander Louis Johnson, Ambassador to Poland John Cudahy, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Jack Dempsey.

Against them the GOP, anxious for a smashing victory, sent National Chairman Hamilton, Vice Presidential Nominee Knox, Col. Theodore Roosevelt, Representative Hamilton Fish Jr., and many another, including renegade Democrats like Missouri's James A. Reed, Massaachusetts' Joseph B. Ely, New York's Bernarr Macfadden.

Fishing Issue. Despite these intrusions, Maine was managing to get considerable local fun out of its election until early last week. Governor Brann never so much as mentioned the New Deal, while Republicans harped on it as the major issue.

Over the State they also plastered bills for an $8,359.80 week-end fishing party which Governor Brann gave at State expense last year: hotel, $4,070.97; railroad, $1,603; cigars and cigarets, $249.55; ginger ale, $115; State Liquor Commission, $310.80. Governor Brann took to the radio to explain that his guests, including 150 newsmen, had been invited strictly to publicize Maine's resort attractions, that his Development Commission figured the State had got $600,000 worth of publicity out of the junket. Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate F. Harold Dubord made much of the fact that Ulysses S. Grant's granddaughter Princess Cantacuzene, an imported Republican stumpster, "didn't think enough of our boys to marry one of them but now she comes to tell us the Constitution is in danger." As the campaign entered its homestretch last week, ruddy, popular, back-slapping Governor Brann was given a good chance to beat sober Senator White. Otherwise everything looked Republican. Overwhelmingly for Landon in all polls and soundings, Maine was generally conceded to be in the GOPocket for November as surely as it had been in every Presidential year but one (1912) since 1856. Hence its choices of a Senator, Governor and three Congressmen would be almost totally without national political significance.

Stake & Risk. Overnight, they were given enormous significance by Alf M. Landon's decision to take a hand in the campaign. Pressed by his partisans to put some punch into his slumping campaign, the cautious Republican nominee had suddenly turned gambler, prepared to risk greatly for a great stake.

The prize was not a Republican victory in the State. Whether he went to Maine or not, that was already as good as won. But if he stayed home, the victory would be wholly the Party's. If he went, it would be his, too. And, dramatized by the risk he ran, he would hold the national spotlight as he emerged in a Maine speech as a fighting candidate.

But if the improbable happened and Maine Republicans lost, Nominee Landon would lose, too, disastrously. Worse than that, he would lose even if they won only partially, or by less than a smashing margin. Maine is normally Republican by about 30,000 votes. If, with a Presidential candidate personally enlisted in the State campaign, it failed to go Republican by that many votes or more, it would deal the candidate's prestige a tremendous blow. As Presidential campaign matters stood last week, Alf Landon could not afford to take that blow.

No fools, the Republican nominee and his managers were not risking their all blindly on a card's turn. The Republican National Committee had already peeked.

Not trusting to private polls, it had sent a postcard questionnaire to 280,000 Maine voters, almost every one in the State. Returns had shown every Republican candidate running from 3-10-2 to 3-to-1 ahead of his Democratic opponent. Chairman Hamilton risked his prophet's reputation last week by asserting flatly that Maine would go down the Republican line by 50,000 to 100,000 votes.

Stacked Deck. Hardly had Nominee Landon placed his bet, however, when the Democratic Party stacked the deck against him. On the day he made his announcement in Topeka, agents of the U. S. Senate Committee on Campaign Expenditures appeared at Republican State Committee headquarters in Augusta, demanded a list of its campaign contributors. The sole, non-partisan duty of this Senate Committee is to ferret out corruption. Day later one of its Democratic members, Washington's Schwellenbach, telephoned Democratic headquarters with news of some incorrupt but exciting discoveries.

Thus Chairman Farley was able to release in Manhattan simultaneously with the Senate Committee's release in Washington a list revealing the following contributions to Maine's Republican campaign chest: Pierre S. du Pont, $5,000; Lammot du Pont, $5,000; Irenee du Pont, $5,100; Henry B. du Pont. $2,500; A. Felix du Pont. $5,000; John D. Rockefeller, $5,000; John D. Rockefeller Jr., $5,000; Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr., $3,000; Avery Rockefeller, $8,000; J. Pierpont Morgan, $5,000; Alfred P. Sloan Jr., $5.000; A. Atwater Kent, $1,000.

Grinned Boss Farley as he released this news: "I am sure that the voters in the State of Maine would be quite interested to have Governor Landon explain. . . . It is also interesting to note the generous contributions made by the backers of the American Liberty League. . . ."

In Maine, dismayed Republicans scurried to State House files for a list of Democratic contributors in 1932, found the document had been destroyed. Loudly they protested against the Senate Committee's failure to reveal Democratic contributors to the current campaign. But Democrats outshouted them.

Cried Candidate Dubord: "Maine is not for sale!"

Roared Governor Brann: "Governor Landon was quoted as saying that he is coming here to 'rededicate the State of Maine' to the GOP. It appears to me . . . that the Republican leadership really is rededicating the State of Maine to the domination of America's three wealthiest families."

Meantime Republicans were concentrating their energies in pointing out to Democrat Brann's Republican friends that votes for him would vastly injure Alf Landon in the nation. Their new slogan: "A vote for Brann is a vote for the New Deal." Indignantly the Governor summoned reporters, barked: "The New Deal is not an issue in this campaign. This is a State campaign."

"Victory Parade." At 7:45 p. m. on the last night of the campaign Nominee Landon's special train chuffed into Portland. Governor Brann was at the station to greet him, hand him a Maine fishing license. A whooping torchlight parade escorted him to the Municipal Stadium. There, a thick, cold mist had wet the folding chairs of his 15,000 auditors. Stepping out in his new fighting role, Alf Landon kept warm by shaking his clenched fist, pounding his reading desk with unaccustomed belligerency. His audience, chilled and uncomfortable as the one in Buffalo last month, was equally cool in response to his oratory. Only an occasional burst of applause or cheers interrupted the Republican nominee as, with the nation listening by radio, he cried:

"We are meeting here on the eve of a great victory. It will be a victory not for Maine alone. It will be a victory for the nation.

"As Maine goes, so goes the nation. That means something this year. It means something in every State in the Union. It means just as much as it does here. . . .

"Americans everywhere are waiting for the majorities that you will pile up for the Republican candidates next Monday.

You will start a victory parade that will span the nation--that will lift the hearts of miilions everywhere--be they Republicans, Independents or Democrats. . . .

"Tonight I am going to consider the relationship of government to business. . . .

''In this country, government in its relation to business has always followed the principles underlying a free enterprise system. . . . This was always the relationship of government to business before the present Administration took office. At no time did the Federal Government usurp the right of the States to regulate industry and commerce within their own borders. At no time did it attempt to direct and manage business.

"Then came the NRA! With the enactment of this measure in 1933, our government, without mandate of the people, adopted a new and completely different philosophy. When I say 'new' I mean new only in the sense that it was new to this country. It was a philosophy well known under the autocratic governments of Europe. . . .

"The NRA was the beginning in America of the movement which, throughout the world, has been sweeping aside private enterprise in favor of government control --a movement which has been substituting arbitrary personal authority for constitutional self-government. . . .

"The spirit of the NRA lives on. It lives on in recently enacted laws. It lives on in the efforts of this Administration to get around the decisions of the Supreme Court. It lives on in this Administration's 1936 platform. . . . But above all, it lives on in the spirit of the President who has confessed no error, who let it be clearly known that he considered it would be a catastrophe if the American farmer should 'once more become a lord on his own farm.' . . .

"If the President has changed his mind and recognizes his errors, let him say so.

Let him say so in plain language. Until we have such an admission of error, the choice before us is clear. . . .

"The Republican Party opposes unlimited executive power for another reason. This reason is that the world-wide trend away from Democracy means but one thing--that one thing is war. ... I doubt if civilization can survive another war.

"This nation had one great opportunity to lead the way toward world peace and economic security. In June 1933, the nations of the world were assembled at the London Economic Conference. . . .

"The great opportunity was lost. It was lost because the President of the United States turned his back upon this international co-operative effort. . . .

"Do we want the Government prying into every little detail of our business lives? Do we want the Government forbidding us to plant what we want in our own fields? Or do we want to be free to plan for our future? Do we want free government in America?"

Racketeer & Rebuttal. No sooner had Governor Landon left his Portland microphone, than Governor Brann stepped up to one in the State House at Augusta for a well-advertised "rebuttal." Boomed he: "I ask Governor Landon whether he sanctions contributions made from the wealthiest men of the nation to the Republican State Committee. I ask him if he sanctions the contributions made by J. P. Morgan.

"Governor Landon made the following statement on May 26, 1933: "'Racketeers like Insull, Morgan and Van Sweringen will be driven out of finance and industry by the scorn of honest people and the strong determination of the Government.' "I ask him, in the face of this statement, if the J. P. Morgan that he classified as a racketeer is not the same J. P. Morgan that has made a large contribution to the Republican State Committee in an attempt to defeat me and the other Democratic candidates? . . .

"I ask Governor Landon to reaffirm this statement and to repudiate the contribution and to insist that it be returned by the Republican State Committee to J. P. Morgan whom he charges is a racketeer."

Votes. With the first election returns, Republicans jumped into their expected lead, held it throughout. But that lead was not the 50,000-to-100,000 triumph which Chairman Hamilton had predicted. When all but three of the State's 633 precincts had reported, the biggest GOP winner was Secretary of State Lewis O. Barrows, leading Democrat Dubord for the Governorship by 38,000 votes. Republican Congressional candidates were in the clear by 17,000 to 20,000 votes. But in Maine's prime race, Republican Senator White had beaten Democratic Governor Brann by a bare 4,000 plurality.

Simple was it now for the GOP to point to the Governor's popularity and non-New Dealism, change its tune from "A vote for Brann is a vote for the New Deal" to "A vote for Brann was a vote for Brann." But Republicans would have to talk loud & fast about their impressive clean sweep to convince the nation that Maine had not simply proved itself to be Maine, that Alf M. Landon had won his bet.

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