Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-10-03
DEMOCRATS FEAR
ANT|-SM|TH FORCE
IN VIRGINIA PARTY
Some Believe State Might Go
Either Way if Election
Were Held Today.
INTERNAL DlSSENSI0N
MAY WIN FOR HOOVER
Ranks Led by Bishop Cannon on
Religious Issue Puts State
in Doubt.
Ry G., GOULD LINCOLN.


RICHMOND. Va. October 3.-The
Democratic organization in Virginia Is
fighting with its back to the wall. II
is making a supreme effort to carry
the State for Gov. Smith. Whatever
thew NAV say for publication, and 1t
Is only natural that they should claim
victory, the prominent leaders of the
party are not foo'ing themselves over
the serious situation which has arisen
In the State.
Frankly, some of them say that the
State might go either way by 10000
votes. if the election were today. Had
the election been held a month ago the
State, they say, would have gone for
Hoover. They have another month in
which to campaign, and they express
confidence that by election day the
situation will have changed: that many
Democrats now luke warm or even
hostile to the Smith ticket, will come
Ell ticket as usual.
The fact of the matter is that the
anti-Smith Democratic organization
in the State. headed by Bishop James
Cannon OF the Methodist Church, got
the Jump on the regular Democratic or
ganiZation by many weeks. The regu-
lars were not used to having serious
campaign thrust upon them so early
and were leisurely getting started. Some
of the leaders themselves were slow In
making announcement of support for
Smith. All this time the anti-Smith
Democrats were working like beavers,
lining up men and women against
Smith and for Hoover, and when the
Democratic leaders undertook to place
their machine in working order for the
election they found that many of its
parts had been taken away by the
enemy. Even now there is one county
in which the regulars have practically
no organization whatever.
Not Republican.
The fight which has been thrust upon
the Democratic organization, at whose
head stands Gov. Byrd, the two United
States Senators and other widely
known leaders does not come from a
Republican quarter. If they had only
the Republicans to contend with, they
could shut up shop and take it easy
until the election day. The trouble has
come from within the ranks OF the
Democratic party 1t is due to the anti
Smith sentiment, famed into flame by
Bishop Cannon and other churchmen,
who attack the New York governor as
q wet, as Tammany man, and whose
real opposition the regular Democrats
say. is based on their opposition to the
election of Catholic to the White
House.
Gov. Byrd does not mince words
when he comes to discussing the move
ment to align Democrats with the Re-
publicans against the Democratic ma
tional ticket. He refers to it as "the
subtle effort to stab the Democratic
party from within, the union with her
traditional enemies from without" He
warns the Democrats that If they permit
a coalition with the Republicans in the
South to defeat the party's national
ticket the party may become impotent
as a check-up on the Republicans for
a long time to come, and back of this
warning lies the specter of the old
force bill, which was designed to en-
force the fourteenth and fifteenth
amendments to the Constitution in the
South and to bring about general par
ticipation by the negroes in the elections
in the Southern States.
Party Is Worried.
The Democratic organization is wor-
ried not only over the fate of the Demo-
cratic national ticket, but also over
what is to be the future of the organi-
zation itself, if the anti-Smith Demo-
Gratis in cooperation with the Repub-
licans succeed in earring Virginia for
Hoover and against Smith. Democratic
leaders assert that once the anti-Smith
Democrats, led by Bishop Cannon, have
demonstrated their power, they will not
be likely to relinquish it without a
struggle. They point to the hold which
the Anti-Saloon League, under much
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