Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-01-01
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC VILLIAM FILE.

Loud among the chimes that ring
in the New Year at Washington can
be heard the clash. rumble and din
that tell of impending political battle.
1t is 1926. A congressional election
is in prospect. An entirely new House
and more than one third of the Senate
will be voted for in November. The
Republican party, more or less strong
~ intrenChed at both ends of Penn
Sylvania avenue, faces a terrific
Democratic onslaught to dislodge ii
from power. Hence, the grinding OF
battle axes. the loading of bludgeons
and the trumpet blasts that are about
to turn the Capital into an armed
camp that will reverberate with strife
until Midsummer. Democrats make
no concealment of their belligerent
purposes. Their attack will be aimed
as directly as possible at Calvin Cool
idge. In the President they recognize
the enemy'S principal asset. So they
intend hurting their deadliest shafts
in that direction. When Democratic
leaders impart, as they now are do
ing. that "Coolidge'S honeymoon is
over" they mean that till further no
tice mo quarter" is their program.
X x x
Self-appointed guardians of the
Democratic conscience like the great
party organs are skeptical whether
the party is going to rise to the full
height of its oppositional possibilities.
One of them charges the Democratic
high command with an incurable pas
sion for laying hold either of the
wrong end of the right issue or the
right end of the wrong issue" An is
sue which it is now said that the
i
ton to the Italian debt settlement
They would be doing something far
more constructive, exalted critics
contend, if they robbed the Repub-
licans of the initiative in the French
debt affair and pressed for a settle
ment on the rejected CaillauX terms
X X X
Meantime, items of attack in the
Democratic battle menu have been
worked out by the organization chefs
to be served in successive courses as
the 1926 political dinner party pro-
ceeds. Here they are:
Coolidge alliance with big in
terests."
Republican injustice to agricul-
ture."
Tariff revision.
"Shackling" of Federal Trade
Commission.
packing" of Interstate Com
merce Commission.
"Hog-tieing" of Tariff Commits
sion.
"Shylockian' attitude on Eu-
ropean debts.
Hoover's "paramountcy' in ad-
ministration.
Executive "bossing" of Shipping
Board.
Works irrigation reclamation
policy.
Prohibition enforcement failure"
y X X
These are the major arrows in the
Democrats culver, but they do not
exhaust their talking and fighting
points. The list does not include a
variety of purely personal episodes
Hike the Woodlock and Taylor ap,
pointments to the Interstate Com
merce Commission; the Dell civil com
missionership; the nomination of Hunt
to the Federal Trade Commission; the
Brossard and Baldwin appointments
| to the Tariff Commission, and one or
two other Coolidge nominations await
| ing approval by the Senate. On each
and all of these occasions the mud
batteries will be in violent action. II
they carry out the murderous inten
tons to which they give private ex
preston, the Democrats will let down
a barrage between now and the ides
of March-and after-that will make
noisy history on the more or less
placid Potomac. Then there's the
Mitchell business. The suspended
| colonel has legions of friends in Con
gress. They are going to bat fol
him not only because they are pro