The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1920-08-11

/ II .
Copyright 1920
COLUMBUS, o., Aug 11-Senator
Harding viii leave the front porch for
brief interval in September. He will
speak at the agricultural fair at Des
Moines, Ia, early next month. That
much is definite And when he is en-
route westward the plan is to have
him go northward to Minneapolis and
St. Paul for speech or two.
These side trips are emphatically de-
seribed as set speeches which by no
means contradict the idea of a front
porch campaign, as Will Hays, national
chairman, says it was always intended
that the Republican candidate should
make few big speeches in important
cities. Presumably, Senator Harding
will use the opportunity afforded him
to expound his doctrine on matters
| agrarian.
Unquestionably, Senator Harding s
train will stop en- route so that the
people may have a glimpse of him.
| Many of his friends here believe he viii
| become so stimulated by such contact
with the people that he will leave the
| front porch several times more in the
campaign.
Certainly. from a disinterested point
of view. there are some things about
the front porch campaign which have
thus far given a picture of Harding
| the candidate, which does not square
| with Harding the man. Instead of his
own magnetic and atniable self as he
| is known in the senate, he is repre-,
sented as political antagonist pick.
| ing small flaws i'm his opponent s armol
| and ignoring the big ones.
For instance. the statement writer
at Senator IIarding's headquarters ane
| given ont as AN official expression OF
the candidate s views in answer Il
| Governor Cox + speech of. acceptance
conveys one idea that. sooner or late
will hurt the Republican campaign. i
it is persisted in. The Republican,
have plenty of ammunition this yea
! without resorting to the kind of argu
ment contaiped in that statement abou
reduction of governmental expenses.
Briefly, the Harding statement tool
Governor Cox to task for saying tn
Republican congress had made no eff
fort to reduce taxes and had not modi
fed the irksome tax laws. 1t then wen
on to picture the economies of a billion
dollars which were supposed to hav
been effected by Republican congress
in reducing estimates, made by Dem
oeratie executive.
Now in the interest of truth and ac
curacy. and fair play, too, the trutl
about estimates and appropriations eal
be easily ascertained Estimates ar
not expenses. They are merely pape
figures. Every year the goyernmen
departments calculate the amount o
money they think they viii need TO
the ensuing year. This estimate
placed before congress, which Away
takes particular pleasure in cnttin
down those estimates. It doesn t mat
ter what the political complexion o
congress is. Democratic control of con
gress has always been accompanied b.
considerable reduction of the est
mates of the Democratic executive, an
Republican control of congress durin
Republican administration has Away
meant the same sort of pruning of es
Inmates, 1t is merely subtraction o
paper of imaginary sums of money
And nobody heretofore has eve
claimed that this reduction process wa
real economy If it were reckone
as an economy, the Democrats them
selves could argue that in the six year
they had control of congress they, too
cut down the estimates of the executiv
departments. If these amounts wer
| added up, the Democrats could clair
they saved the country billions of dol
lars, but that would be ridiculous
the odd part of it is that some of tn
Republican leaders themselves who ar