The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-01-20
NEA Service Writer

Washington-Amer needs its old fashioned political torchlight parades, according to the Honorable Will k. Wood of Indiana, chairman of the republican congressional cam paign committee and of the house appropriations committee.
 |" The disappearance of those pa- rades was a great misfortune" Con- gressman Wood says. "They aroused enthusiasm and patriotism In those days everybody took an interest Tn politics The torchlight parades ought to be revived. The old political meet ings were well attended, but to-day if you have. 6 political meeting in one hall and a movie show next door a huge crowd will pay to see the movie and you can't get a corporars guard at the political meeting.
 "Ill bet that if Amos and Andy were on the radio tonight at the same time as Senator Borah or some other big gun you could find 75 peo- pie listening to Amos and Andy for each one listening to Borah."
 Warns of "Red Menace"
 Wood says there hasn't been any real torchlight parading since the McKinley-B Bryan campaign in 1896.
 He thinks the "red menace" will have to take the place of red fire as a. stimulus to popular interest in politics. He takes the Communists seriously and anticipates the time when they will become so strong and obstreperous among us that the pri- mary instinct of self-protection will cause a general revival of interest in public affairs.
 Wood likes to hark back. He is 69 years old, fine specimen of what progressives and liberals call a reactionary. He looks something like Senator Simeon Fess of Ohio. He is about a year older, seems slightly more desiccated and lacks Simeon's unctuous piety.
 Recently. after emerging from the White House and vigorously attack ing Senator Norris of Nebraska, Wood broadcast over the radio as- sailing the direct primary. Wood thinks the people ought to pay more attention to politics, but he opposes having them participate didectly in choosing presidents, senators, gov. ernors and congressman.
 The primary system, he believes, is likely to result in the nomina- tions of champion marathan danc- CTS, home-run champions and other popular favorites, to say nothing of ouCI ent republicans as Senator Norris. Says U. $. Isn't Democracy "The United States isn't a democ- racy," Wood. says. "It has a repub- lican form of government. The pri- mary system is based on the old town meeting. idea, which isn't ap- plicable in this age. The conven- tion system is the practical agency of a republican representative gov ernment. There should be primaries to elect delegates in the several com- munities of a county, .whereupon the delegates could nominate, whenever they had in mind.
 subdivisions of congressional dis tricts could also have primaries, choosing delegates to select nomi- ne IS for congress. And there should be q statewide primary to choose delegates to a state convention who would nominate for governor, sena- tor and other state offices.
 "The direct primary to choose presidential delegates has proved un- workable. It doesn't mean anything. Delegates were chosen who were supposed to vote for a given candi- date and after 9 perfunctory vote or two they voted as they liked, usually jumping on the band-wagon.
 "I can look back to the times when the people would have nom- mated and elected a transatlantic flyer president of the United States if they had had the opportunity. One does not need to accuse the peo- pie of being inherently dumb; they simply don't take an interest inr gov ernmeat has run so smoothly and there has been so little political re- volt that everybody accepts politics complacently and the average indi. vidual gives his government no at- tention"
 Voters Interest Lags ",There are many important elec- tions where only to z per cent of the voters participate in selection 1 of the candidate. You can't accuse the voters if the choice goes wrong, except generally. But 1t would be easy to pin responsibility on the dele gates.
 Repeated attempts have been made to stir up voter interest. but the larger our population the less interest there seems. to be in gov- ernment. For years Indiana had the largest proportion of voters, but in the last election the proportion fo those qualified who voted fell be- low 50 per cent"
 Wood, shudders at the Norris pro- posal for abolition of the electoral
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