Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-10-05
DEMOCRATS START
DRIVE FOR WEST
County-by- Canvass
Begun Following Smith
Opening Wedge.
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

Under the far-flung auspices of the
so-called Smith Independent Agricul-
tural Leagues" the Democratic drive
to capture the farming West has just
been launched. 1t will be conducted
in the Is States of Indiana, Minnesota,
Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North
Dakota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Oklahoma,
South Dakota, Montana and Kansas.
The campaign is officially sponsored
from New York national committee
headquarters, and, according to Chair
man RaSkob, will eventually be financ-
ed to the extent of $1,000,000 The
speerhead of the Smith attack on the
farm vote Is George N. Peek of Moline,
ILL.,, who for the four years of the fight
for McNary-H augen legislation in Wash
ington was the official leader of the
Corn Belt forces, which promoted it.
Peek's headquarters are in Offices at
Chicago, whence the crusade will be
election day
All-Farmer Move.
It is the first time that either Of the
two leading political parties has ever
made agriculture the objective of so
concerted an effort The Raskob-Peek
program is even more essentially d.
| rected at the farmers than the La
Toilette Progressive campaign in 1924
1t is an all-farmer movement. Chica-
go headquarters will organize the IS
agrarian States on as detailed a plan
as the party national committees are
accustomed to organize the country as
whole. The Democratic agricultural
leaders will perfect, and have already
partially completed, county-by- county
organization, equipped to make barn
yard-to- barnyard canvass. They will
specialize in the same kind of a get
out-the-vote drive as precinct and ward
captains usually do in the towns and
cities.
Peek is proceeding on the theory
that Gov. Smith has laid down the gen.
eral lines on which the Democrats ask
for farm votes. The acceptance of the
principle of the McNary- Haugen bill
by Smith is apparently wholly salts
factory to the old corn belt leaders,
who are using the slogan: "a vote for
Smith and Robinson means equality
for agriculture II was equality for
agriculture" which supplied the keynote
for the McNary- Hau2en fight in Wash
ington from 1923 to 1929 i
Among Washington politicians of
both parties it is felt that Senator
Borah did serious damage to Smiths
agricultural position when the Idahoan
spoke at Minneapolis on October l.
Borah'S contention that Gov. Smiths
real attitude on farm relief is obscure
and unstable is designed to make the
Peek campaigners' work harder.
For Equalization Fee"
In its opening manifesto to the corn
belt the Smith farm headquarters as
sails the agricultural record of Herbert
Hoover, especially stressing the familiar
story about how he prevented wartime
wheat farmers from getting $3.48 a
bushel instead of the $3.50 at which
Hoover "pegged" it. After ringing all
the changes on the Republican nominee
as the arch foe of farm relief in WASH
ington during the Coolidge administra-
ton, the Democratic appeal says:
Gov. Smith has come out Squarely
for the principle of the equalization
fee. He recognizes the agricultural
problem and the needs Of agriculture
more clearly than Candidate Hoover.
His party leaders give 1t like recog-
milton.
"As Governor Of New York, Gov.
Smith has been sympathetic to agri-
culture. He has advocated and pro-
NOTED laws that would benefit agricul-
ture. We believe he is a real friend
of agriculture, and if elected President
would take positive, not a negative,
stand with regard to its needs. His
speech at Omaha has made this clear.
His running mate, Senator Robinson,
worked constructively and consistently
for the McNary-H augen bill, and stands
with Gov. Smith for the principle Of
the equalization fee.
There : Is much false propaganda
with regard to both candidates, and it
is the record Of the two men by which
farm folks must judge.
I'm analysing the past history and
the records of the two candidates, the
platforms on which they are running
and the statements which they have
made, we cannot come to any other
conclusion. We urge farm folks to vote
for Smith and Robinson in their own
interest"
copyright. 1927