Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-12-21
Stupidity.

Oh IL Ildu plcHCy Va Cduoc w OPpooS VAAS
denomination and reelection Of Senator
George w. Norris if they desired to do
so. Senator Norris openly opposed the
Republican national ticket in 1928 and
spoke and voted for the election of the
Democratic national ticket. Four years
earlier, while he did not come out in
the open for the La Follette-Wheeler
ticket against Calvin Coolidge in the
presidential race, he was known to
sympathize with it. In the Senate he
has consistently fought the policies OF
Coolidge and Hoover. When he de-
termined this year to seek the Republi-
can senatorial nomination at the hands
of the voters in Nebraska, all these
facts were known.
Many Republicans in Nebraska OPP
posed Senator Norris In the primary
Some eighty thousand voted against
his nomination. Many of these Repub-
licans opposed him also in the general
election, voting for Gilbert M. Hitch
cock, the Democratic candidate. Many
of them conducted their fight against
Norris in the open. They had a perfect
right to do so.
The Nye Senatorial Campaign Inves-
tigating Committee has turned up the
facts, however. that Republicans in
high place undertook to oppose the
candidacy of Senator Norris secretly.
They tried to conceal their opposition
to Norris and what they were doing.
Right there they made their mistakes
and showed themselves to be about as
stupid as politicians ever become. First
an effort was made to get into the pri-
mary fight grocer from Broken Bow,
Nebr.. whose name was identical with
that of Senator Norris. The veil Of
secrecy surrounding the real backing of
the grocer was torn asunder finally by
the Nye Committee, and 1t was dis
closed that the grocer had been induced
to. go into the fight by an agent of Re
publican opponents of Senator Norris,
some of them in high place. And
finally it appears that the executive d.
rector of the Republican National
Committee Robert H. Lucas, spent
four thousand dollars to send campaign
literature into Nebraska in an effort
to defeat Senator Norris.
In the name of all common sense and
decency, why did not the Republican
powers come out into the open and
fight Norris If they wished to see him
defeated? Mr. Lucas. appearing before
the Senatorial Investigating Committee,
declared that in his opinion Norris is
not Republican, but Democrat, mas
querading in Nebraska as a Republican.
For that reason, he said, he preferred
an announced Democrat, in
the senatorial election. Mr.. Lucas
stated his case completely. The only
sad thing about it is thst he did not
state it just as openly back in the days
of the senatorial campaign in Nebraska,
instead of acting under cover.
The comse pursued by the Repub-
lican organization, with regard to the
Norris senatorial campaign in 1880, will
go down in history as one of the most
egregious mistakes on record. 1t is
true that mad 1t not been for the Nye
Committee, there might have been no
disclosure of the under cover efforts to
defeat Senator Norris for reelection.
But even had there been no publicity
given to these efforts, they were futile
and unsavory. 1t is no excuse now for
these members of the G. o. P. organiza-
ton to say that Senator Norris was in
tellectually dishonest when he sought to
run for denomination and reelection as
a Republican. That is a matter for
Mr. Norris and his conscience to wrestle
with At least Mr.. Norris has done en-
tirely in the open what he has done in
regard to his opposition to the candi-
dates of the Republican party. To most
Republicans it will appear that Norris
had not the slightest right from an
ethical standpoint to run again as a Re-
publican for the Senate. He should
have run as an independent candidate
Only in that case he would not have
had the support which he received
when he bore the Republican label.
49, H. a.