The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-07-13
KEEPING UP
With
THE NE WIS
BY LUDWELL DENNY

XXTASHINGTON, July IS. -
w Whenever the campaign Ia
discussed by experts or at the corner
drug store, the talk comes around
in the end to the personal popular
ity of Al Smith and his ability to
make friends with his audiences.
This is really what the Democrats
count upon to swing the election.
They know the country is normally
heavily Republican. Better than
anyone else they know what ex-
traordinary efforts will have to be
made to overcome this opposition
majority.
And they think the sheer SINGER
ity and appeal of AL Smith as a
canpaigner going out and meeting
the people, will do the business.
After seeing Al, and hearing him,
the people will no longer believe the
absurd stories that he wants to sell
out the Government to the Pope in
Rome, they argue.
Nor will the people believe after
seeing him, that he is capable of
turning the country over to de-
bauchery just because he wants to
modify the prohibition law and
eradicate the evils of Illicit liquor.
But there is one factor which is
apparently being overlooked by
those who are certain Smith will in
crease his popularity by taking the
stump. That factor is now being
weighed by shrewd Republican poll
ticians and by discerning nom
partisans.
It is the prejudice" against
Smith as a representative of the
immigrant population.
n n
DOWN through our history the
~ old Anglo-Saxon pilgrim stock
of New England, and its descendants
who pioneered in other parts of the
land, have exercised dominant
political power in towns, cities,
States and Nations.
Even when the immigrant popula-
ton became the numerical majority
in certain communities, the older
native stock in many cases contin-
ued its control. Or in large cities
in the east and middlewest where in
the last two decades the ALLEN"
groups have combined to gain mu-
nicipal power, the so-called Anglo
Saxons have continued to exert q
much larger share of political in
fiuence than dictated by their more
numerical minority.
But this battle of the old pilgrim
stock to retain political power has
been a losing one in the big cities
east Of the Mississippi. Gradually
the immigrant control has extended
from city halls to Statehouses.
ATOW for the first time it rises to
L y national proportions in the
person of AL Smith.
Smith carries, withal proudly the
mark of his immigrant stock. From
Fulton fish market and the bowery
to the Governors chair at Albany
he has remained a man of his own
people as truly as Abraham Lincoln
in the White House remained essen
TALLY the rail-splitting pioneer Of
the middlewest.
Moreover, Smith politically is the
product of Tammany Hall. Tam
many's control in New York City
has been and is based almost solely
upon organization of the Immigrant
voters. Tammany is not only Smiths
alma mater, more than ever it is
part of him because he is now Its
leader.
The immigrant group throughout
the country has certain definite in
terests, which in some cases conflict
with what the so-called Anglo-SaX-
on group conceives to be its interest.
This divergence is marked in view
on foreign policy and on immigra-
ton.
In general the immigrant groups
and Smith favor a freer policy than
permitted by the present rigid quota
restrictions under which all immi-
grantlon is limited and under which
Anglo-Saxon and north European
nationals are favored at the expense
of eastern and southern Europeans.
To the American Federation Of
Labor and so-called native groups
of organized and unorganized labor
these immigration restrictions are
valued as the chief guarantee Of an
American wage and American
standard of living"
With these economic factors in
volved, the prejudice" against
Smith goes beyond the extreme
Professionals of the Khan type, and
beyond the blue bloods" socially
and culturally hostile to Tammany
and its counterparts. and beyond
the farmers instinctively suspicious
Of New Workers, extending to large
numbers of industrial workers.
THIS is the sort of thing Smith
A must meet when he campaigns.
And the fact that the large immi-
grant group of which he is a part
is as Loyalty American as any other
and as deserving of national rep
resentation as smaller racial groups
is a logical but not a psychological
answer to the prejudice he will
| find.
Smith, on the stump, will act and
look and talk like the very pro-
nounced New York immigrant type
that he is. What kind Of an i'm
preston will that make upon a diff
ferent type audience?
Some Republican strategists arc
counting on these qualities of the
man creating more prejudice