The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-01-12
Dauntless Mir. Lucas

l, ss rSS shs saSs ot Robert H. Lucas ef- iozs se aessss Ssn,toI Norris of Nebraska that has ceased sAe country 10 look askanee at that S5seasaFr es she republican national organiZa- s9oe bat sns surreptitious quality of his enter rss>2 se3 the material he, used in making his @-sA;ssoyeF campaign. There may be an ssAacag question as to the righteousness of an oSs1al of the Republican National Commit see engaging in an attempt to nullify the will ot the republican party of the state of Ne esaska because it is the general impression that the duties of national political organ ization bind it to the support of its party's nominees. It is quite evident that Executive Director Lucas realized this because he care fully avoided doing ths :k;ng openly and when he was caught at il made the excuse that his crusade against Senator Norris was made in his personal and 10, in his official capacity
 The republican national chairman. Senator Fess. had announced that the organization would aid in the election of every republican candidate insurgents as well as regulars Per- haps II IS barely within the limits of permis- sible conduct for high officer of the execu- tive committee of a great party to do polit cal things in controvention of that partys official declarations, but that does not relieve the incident of the viciousness of circulating false literature secretly and covering up re- sponsbility for the forgery, by invoking an unidentifiable source and paying the costs in cash so as to avoid leaving the trail of check.
 Neither the Ku Klux circulars nor the fake letter did Senator Norris any harm, but that merely emphasizes the inefficiency of the per- formanoe, and takes nothing away from the motive and method of the executive director of the Republican National Committee. He told the Nye committee that he obtained the mlssve. which was the letter head of non-exlstent democratic organization, from John M Fetters of Omaha. Of course the Nye committee could find no John M. Fet- ters either at the address given or elsewhere in Omaha. Nor did Mir Lucas make any effort to identify the hypothetical Fetters or to as- certain whether there was such an organlza- ton as the Democratic Victory Scouts, or whether the letter purporting to come from them was genuine. He merely paid the ex- penses of printing and circulating the docu ment under the heading, This kind of an appeal coming from New York from Tam many for Norris"
 Naturally the country is having good deal of fun over the incident and over Mir Lucas statement that he expended $4,000 of his own money in his enterprise and that the Republican National Committee had nothing to do with it, although there was produced before the Nye committee the correspondence with the Washington bank from which the Republican National Committee by Robert M.. Lucas, requested loan of S4,000 and specified that that amount of the Republican National Committees own deposit should be held as security for the loan.
 Commenting on the episode, the Louisville Courler-Journal mentions the fame that Mir Lucas attained by proclaiming the results of the recent November election as vindication of the Hoover administration. At any rate, ,'' suggests that newspaper "the fame which he won then is effulgently augmented by the dis closure of his Nebraska exploit. As for John M. Fetters, the name of that republican pa triot will go down in the resplendent annals of the Grand Old Party alongside the name of that immortal republican pioneer - that eanonized party saint who inspired the wor- shpful republican faith and loyalty of Penn syvania's new senator, John James Davis no less than Huga N. Frye himself"