Evening star., 1932-06-28
ROOSEVELT FACING
FIGHT ON PROGRAM
Nomination Fairly Certain
After Battle ''to Put Him
in His Place."
BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.

CHICAGO. June % (NANA) The
click of Chairman Raskob's gavel had
hardly ceased echoing in the great barn
of the hall where the Democrats Ma
tional Convention met before evidence
began to pile up that the delegates are
wild, free people who have just come
down from the trees and out Of the
woods.
Evangeline Booth in her invocation
prayer practically stole The keynoters
speech, and Mayor Cermak of Chicago
In welcoming the delegates proclaimed
the slogan of the repealers and started
the prohibition fight 48 hours in ad-
vance of schedule. Then along came
Temporary Chairman Barkley with the
keynote speech, which declared that
the Democratic party Is not Tor Tree
trade.
Things were moving fast-fast but
free. No one seemed to have edited
the prayers or the speech OF the key
noter of this convention.
Sunday night the delegates went to
bed feeling that it was all Roosevelt
and that the Roosevelt program would
prevail. Before the first session of the
convention had adjourned it was evi-
dent that Roosevelt scarcely could be
stopped for the nomination, but that
his managers already had abandoned
the fight for the full abrogation of the
two-thirds rule; that he would have to
take a conservative running mate, ana
probably could not get liberal state
ment Of the RooSeveltian position ON
power and the public utilities without
a flght-possibly serious f1ght-whlch
may be led by former Senator Jim Reed
on the floor of the convention.
IvY mi 70
not been depth-bombs laid carefully by
Roosevelt's enemies. AS a matter of
fact, the Roosevelt opposition. which
controls at least one-third of the con-
vention under the unit rule, has not
met or formed any sort OF alliance as
these words are written
Smith Making Lone Fight.
Smith has been making lone fight.
So has Reed. Garner forces, under the
leadership Of McAdoo, have been obvi-
olIsly Juggling for position. The signs
they make in the convention, inter-
preted. seem to be an invitation for
horse trade from the Roosevelt people.
Tammany is sphinx. Jim Reed is
holding the Missouri delegation to the
last ditch for himself. He is entering
into no entangling alliance, not even
with Smith, who is the only openly
fighting force in the convention.
The Lewis boom in Illinois and the
White boom in Ohio have cracked open,
and Roosevelt seems to be the gamer
in the explosion. But the explosion
came as the result of inner pressure.
not through any fine work from the
Roosevelt managers. Murray early
passed outward with the tide, waving
his supporters weary good-by at the
end of a reception III his headquarters
and smiled as he exclaimed
We'll I'll be with you In death as
I was in life. as the blueja said to the
tomcat." and turning he trudged wear
lily from the hall into his bedroom, and
so into oblivion.
This list OF casualties set forth above
is printed to show "the change and
decay in all around We see" here on
Michigan avenue after the first day Of
the convention.
These candidatorial exits have not
been forced by RooSevelt-they came
as the result of no RooSeveltian pres
sure. Nature merely is taking her
course. CuriouSly, the same course of
nature which forced these candidates
out of the combat Is beginning in ex-
actly the same way to reSurge, forcing
the fight on Roosevelt in the matter of
the two-thirdS rule and liberal plat
form.
This repercuSsion has not come out
of political acumen, nor is 1t the result
of conscious combination of inner in
trigue. The delegates are tied to Roose-
welt. They are loyal enough to him.
but they chafe under restraint. Which
means that they are Democrats un-
terrified, who are going to have their
own way and exert their own royal
American right to dominate the con-
vention even after the people at home,
voting in primaries and caucuses, have
chosen the President for them to name
here in Chicago.
"Orders Are Not Orders"
However similar may be the creeds
set forth in the platform now taking
shape to those OF the Republican plat
form, the method Of expressing these
identical creeds, the procedure of the
convention and the way OF the Demo-
Gratis are vastly different. They don't
take q set program here this week.
"Orders are not orders
The externals OF the two crowds
differ. The Democratic crowd is more
smartly dressed than the Republican
crowd. 1t is ten or dozen DAYS later
in the Summer. but three or four times
as many white suits and light-gray
fiannelS and coffee-cream browns are
seen on men, and much more spiffy
toggery Is seen on the women who
fiutter up and down Michigan avenue.
The Republicans In the upper bracket
afa-aN