The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-03-07
Tom Helm Battles With Back
to Wall i'm Alabama Election;
Read Ont of Democratic Party
Senator Must Make Race
as Independent in Fall;
Two Strong Candidates
Are His Opposition.
BY ROBERT TALLEY,
NEA Service Writer

BIRMINGHAM, Ala, March 7. -
After nearly thirty years in the two
houses of congress, Senator j.
Thomas Helm of Alabama is facing
defeat for the first time and is
fighting with his back to the wall
to keep from being retired from
public life.
This is a fair and impartial
statement, made after a f1rst-hand
survey of conditions in the state,
and is based largely on these
points:
Hef1in has been read out of the
Democratic party in Alabama by
the state executive committee and
barred from the Democratic pri-
mary because he bolted the party to
oppose Al Smith and support
Hoover in 1928-and in Alabama the
Democratic nomination always has
been equivalent to election.
The Ku Klux Khan which four
years ago dominated Alabama poll
tics with a power sufficiently strong
to elect a Governor and United |
States senator now is pretty much |
thing of the past in this state. It's |
organization has fallen apart, it's
influence is negligible.
If Heflin runs as an independent
at the general election in Novem-
Der, as he now plans, he will face
serious technical obstacle, in the
fact that voters desiring to split the
ticket for his benefit will have to
mark the ballot for each individual
candidate instead of making one
mark under the picture of the party
and thus voting straight
ticket as is usually done in Alabama.
Mistake Will Be Fatal
This means one mistake or dupli-
cation will invalidate the whole
ballot, and in some counties there
will be fifty or more names on the
ballots.
Qualified as regular Democratic
candidates seeking the nomination
in the primary on Aug. H. are John
H. Bankhead of Birmingham, and
Frederick I. Thompson of Mobile.
Benkhead is q wealthy corpora
ton attorney and a retired coal
mine operator. Thompson is a pub
Usher of five Alabama newspapers
and a former member of the United
States shipping board.
The Republicans may or may not
put out candidate. If they do, his
vote will be futile because Alabama
is overwhelmingly Democratic and
has always been so.
Won't Leave Fold
The $4,000 regular Democrats who
abandoned their party {
to vote for Hoover did so because of
their objection to Smith as a wet
and a Catholic.
Since Smith Is not now candi-
date, it is unlikely they will leave
the fold again in very appreciable
even to vote for Tom. '
Hef1in, though facing stiff battle
for his political life, is by no means
deserted. In the rural districts of
the state-especially in the more
remote districts-he is still a power
with great mass of voters, many
If whom have never seen a Catho-
lie and who still believe if Al Smith
had been elected, the pope would |
have left for Washington on the
next boat. !
Helm has been charging that ,
Smith, Raskob and the Roman
Catholic wet crowd of New York"
Are flooding money into Alabama to
peat him. Yet, his personal strength r
and some of the remnants of this
lying bitterness may cause some
Democrats to desert in his favor,
Hef1in Seems Worried =
Heflin'S course seems to indicate
le realizes the seriousness of hir
situation. When the Democratic
state committee barred him, he
anne rushing down from Washing
on with a war club in his hand.
The war club soon turned into an
olive branch. He spoke at we'll
attended meetings throughout Ala
,ana and made numerous pleas to
yet his name on the Democratic {
icket, but to all these the state
turned a deaf ear. v
A suit to compel the committee g
o do this was filed, but no action {
las been taken.
Both Hefin and Bankhead are a
which, after all, c
means nothing in Alabama, as the l
,eople here who really want liquor T.
ret all they want. c