Hare & Tortoise

Phenomenal in 1938 was Robert Alphonso Taft's Ohio Senatorial victory over promising New Dealer Robert Johns Bulkley. Mr. Taft was phenomenally dull, phenomenally serious, phenomenally popular at the polls. Prissy, solemn, ponderous Mr. Taft was expected to fade away into the obscure routine of a freshman Senator. He didn't. He engaged in a series of radio debates with clever, Horace-quoting Democratic Congressman T. V. Smith of Illinois. Most people expected Mr. Taft to be skunked. But pollsters found the U. S. public voting for Senator Taft's serious, platitudinous remarks 2-to-1 over Mr. Smith's engaging witticisms. Mr. Taft was a political Tortoise, but he seemed to get there.

Even more phenomenal in 1938 was Thomas E. Dewey's loss of the New York Governorship by less than 1 % of the total vote (4,821,631). To many a U. S. citizen Mr. Dewey was already a glamorous St. George; he became a top G. O. P. possibility for 1940. Mr. Dewey, in fact, looked like a political Hare. Down the track he dashed last week, lengths ahead of the field. The Hare was off.

Tortoisy Mr. Taft was nowhere. He had piled one inept act on another, bumbled when the script called for a gag, stumbled over his own and others' feet. In Iowa he denounced corn loans the day the Agriculture Department unloosed $70,000,000 in corn loans to Iowa; in Kansas City he crossed a year-old A. F. of L. picket line for no good reason; in Texas he shot his first deer, his first turkey, was photographed in business suit and starched collar gingerly holding the dead bird--a picture that brought a wave of nostalgic memories to Calvin Coolidge connoisseurs.

Meanwhile Hare Dewey, topping all G. O. P. popularity polls, perfectly groomed and well advised, was on his way to Minneapolis to make.a speech on the farm problem before 12,000 people--and a national radio audience. Of the farm problem he made no mention, but his speech was a bull's-eye. Failure to give the people jobs, economic despair, defeatism--with these Mr. Dewey debited the New Deal, averred that business abuses can be cured without creating Government abuses.

Tick-timed, effectively voiced, the Dewey speech bettered his flying start. Yet at week's end, after carefully considering everything, wise oldsters of the Republican National Committee definitely ticketed young Mr. Dewey for the No. 2 spot in the 1940 G. O. P. race. General (and damning) opinion was: Tom Dewey has no chance for the Presidency, but will make the best Vice Presidential nominee either party has had since Theodore Roosevelt in 1900.

Meanwhile Tortoise Taft slogged quietly along under the Southern sun. Prostrate in his wake lay the Republican delegations from at least seven Southern (and wholly Democratic) States; four more were ready to flop his way. With these 182 votes, plus Ohio's 52, plus at least 100 miscellaneous pledges, Tortoise Taft appeared to have about 300 ballots--nearly a solid third of the G. O. P.'s 1,000 convention votes. Mr. Dewey had only New York's 92--and a fourth of these were still uncertain.

As Mr. Taft this week received the Montclair-Yale Bowl--trophy awarded annually to the graduate who has "made his Y in life"--to the dopesters of the 1940 finish, the Tortoise's chances seemed better than the Hare's.

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