Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-08-16
UNDERWOOD, FIRST
CANDIDATE, OFFERS
OTHERS 4 LESSON
BY FREDERIC j. HASKIN


WASHINGTON, u. c., Aug. 49,
Every spring necessarily must have
it's first robin, and every presiden-
tial campaign must have its first
candidate, and it is to be recorded
that the first aspirant to- make his
formal bid for 1924 honors did so at
the beginning of dog days, or the
hay fever period, in the summer of
1923. 9
And as the harbinger of spring al.
ways appears in the sunny south
land, so the first candidate for the
presidency halls from that section
the Hon, Oscar w. Underwood, of
Alabama.
1t is to be noted also that the Ala
hama senator was not forward nor
obtrusive in announcing his candi-
dacy With all due modesty he walt
ed to be asked. The legislature of
the state adopted a formal resolution
requesting him to become a candi-
date, acquiesced with equal formal
y, and then to complete the record
the Legislature adopted another res
olution asking the Democratic ma
tional convention to nominate him.
A campaign committee was organ
lied in similarly orthodox fashion
and the Underworld candidacy may
be said to have been launched with
all the formality that could attend so
suspicious an event.
Suspected Long Time
Senator Underwood has been more
than suspected of harborilg rresi.
Dental ambitions since away back
in 1912, when Woodrow Wilson first
appeared to make the country safe
for Democrats.
He was one of the big figures in
the Baltimore convention of that
year, and among the numerous ex-
plantations that have been offered as
to how Wilson happened to be nomi-
mated it has been said that 1t was
the Underwood vote that did it after
skids under his friend from Mis-
souri,, the late Champ Clark.
The Albanian was again a can
didate in 1920 at San Francisco, but
at no time was he figured to be
really in the running. Next year,
however, when ne makes his third
drive for the big objective, his
friends say they will make a fight
in his behalf such as has Hever Been
rut up before, and, as might re ex-
pected they predict his termination
with a whoop and two or three hur-
rahs.
If the early bird gets the worm,
they say, the early candidate should
have the best chance at the presi-
Dental prize. and they have seen
to it that their favorite is out in the
open while other ambitious Demo
Gratis are still thinking about what
they will do.
Three Platform Planks
In his speech accepting all that
the Alabama legislature could offer
in the way Of a nomination, Senator
Underwood may be said to have an
nounced a platform of three Elanks
foreign affairs, prohibition and the
tariff. In substance he said that ne
favors the League of Nations, or
some such participation by the
United States in the world affairs;
that he is for the enforcement of the
eighteenth amendment and the Vol
stead law, and that the new Repub-
lican tariff act won't do at all, but
must be supplanted by new law
framed along traditional Democratic
lines.
HIS position with respect to pro-
hibition is /especia1ly interesting in
view of the fact that as a senator
he opposed the eighteenth amend
ment and voted against the Volstead
act.
However, Mr.. Underwood explains
that since the people of the country
have made it evident that they want
prohibition they may have it 50 far
as he is concerned.
Previously Viewed as Damp
Heretofore the vets have looked
favorably on Underwood as posi-
BILE candidate, while the drys have
viewed him askance, and there has
been little doubt as to where MA
sympathies lay. However, he has
seemingly come to the conclusion
that while there may be a great
many people in the United States
who talk wet, they are overwhelm-
ingly outnumbered by those who
vote dry, and that it is good politics,
not to say good craftsmanship, to
cast his lot with the element that
has the more votes.
Another important feature of Sen.
ator UnderWood's speech was his.
evident determination that he is to
be regarded as the one and only
simon-pure southern candidate. Will
liam G. McAdoo, while hailing now
from California, is a Georgian by
nativity and it is known that he ex-
pected to make a bid for southern
support as a southerner. But the
Alabamian, it seems, would pre-empt
that field.
Moreover, Underwood has served
notice that the "solid south of De
mocracy will no longer stand for
having its candidate pushed aside or
eliminated simply because he comes
from the section that always gives its
electoral votes to a Democrat, no
matter who he may be.
Defends Southern Man
at may be in the. interest of some
politicians" he said, ito raise the
cry that it is ineXpedient to nominate
a man from a state that will surely
espouse any nominee who maintains
the principles of Democracy, but l
do not believe that any such thought
rests in the hearts and minds of the
great mass OF people in the north. L
am sure that our brethren from the
north are no longer considering as
a vital question the state from which
the candidate halls, but their first
thought is the principles for which
he stands and the second, the char
acter of the man.
In 1912 the Underwood supporters
laid great stress on the conservatism
&C +hoi,. candidate and ur2ed that