Evening star., 1923-03-26
COST OF LIVING
SEEN AS "a ISSUE
David Lawrence Declares
Politicians of Both Parties
Incline to This View.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla, March 90
Assuming that President Harding Is
renominated in accordance with At
torney General Daugherty's predic-
tion, what will be the issues? This
question has been propounded in the
presidential party again and again
since the political discussion of q
week ago began.
Mr.. Daugherty says taxation will
\ be paramount. Former Gov. James
NJ Cox, democrat, says II will be the
European economic situation and the
Harding administrations failure to
help American farmers and producers
by supplying an export market. Will
liam Jennings Bryan thinks it will
be special privilege. the policies ex-
emplified by ship subsidy. and he adds
belief that Senator La Follette's
charges concerning the oil situation
Will play prominent part in the
campaign. !
President Harding himself is of
the opinion that the campaign will
turn entirely on economic issues He
| believes the electorate will be swayed
in 1924. as it has been in the past. on
the question of whether there is
universal employment and a living
wage. Rarely has 1t happened that
an administration or party in power
has not succeeded itself when the
country was enjoying a reasonable
measure of prosperity-this is Mr..
Harding'S theory.
President's View.
1t will be promptly suggested that
the defeat of the democrats in 1920,
after an unexampled period of pros
perity, would seem to be an execution
TO the political rule, but Mr.. Harding
does not think so. He has often dis
cussed the 1920 contest with his
friends and he has said that if
nothing else had crept into the cam
paign apart from the prosperity issue
the result might have been different.
He thinks the accumulated grievances
growing out of the war and the issues
OF reconstruction were big enough to
submerge the question of prosperity
In 1920. we want change" of per-
sonnet was the outcry then.
What the President means, there
fore, is that ordinarily. when there are
no extraneouS issues, the dominant
thought of the country is more likely
TO be economic than anything else.
In other words, he looks for an old
that Is reminiscent of the sound
money" slogan of 1896, or the cry of
the full dinner pail" of 1900 and
1904, and the warning against rainy
DAYS, winch the electorate was urged
to take to heart in 1908.
Probable Point at Issue.
Mr.. Harding is all the more i'm
pressed by this line of reasoning be-
cause of the universal enthrrsIa.. IN
with which the people generally
seemed to greet the promised pro-
gram of a return to "normaicy,"
which, at the outset, he gave as the
objective of his administration This
would make the 1923 issue something
like this: Has the country returned
to normalcy, and II not has 1t pro-
gressed sufficiently along the road to
warrant change or a continuance of
the same leader?"
The democrats would take up the
challenge naturally by pointing to
the higher level of wages in the
years of the Wilson administration as
compared to the incomes of the
workers In the last three years. To
offset this. the Harding administra,
tion would attempt to prove that
there has been a drop in the cost of
living.
High Cost of Living Issue.
Both Senator La Toilette of Wis
consin and Senator Ladd of North