Evening star., 1932-12-11

cases expressing their appreciation Of
this recognition and their desire to
acquit themselves with glory In their
particular districts These replies were
treated in far from a perfunctory man
ner.
Kansan's View Depressed.
An interesting example was the case
of a depressed committeeman In Kan
sas, who wrote that there was no use
to send him any literature because his
district was hopeleSsly Republican.
Gov. Roosevelt smiled Grimly at
this letter, and dictated a reply of
more than a page which, summarized,
read as follows: you say that 1t is
going to be twice as difficult to get
Democratic votes in your territory as
in most of the others. That means, OF
course, that you will have to work
twice as hard. I am accordingly d.
recting that in your case twice the
usual amount of literature shall be for
warded you in the future"
That district, by the way, showed up
among the banner districts in the State
for increased percentage of Democratic
votes.
When Gov. Roosevelt made his tour
through all the Western States, there
was not a stop at which anywhere from
20 to 25 local committeeman did not
appear, proudly exhibiting their letters
and assuring the Governor they were
going to work as they had never worked
before
In getting the campaign started an
other precedent went overheard, but
here perhaps fortune favored us The
winning candidate for the nomination
had built up a rather efficient primary
organization over a considerable period
of time. It's members were all trained
and had almost a years experience in
political work.
Because of this it was possible Is
minutes after the Governor was nomi-
mated to telephone word to New York
from Chicago which set certain ma
chinery in operation. Thus the cam
paign can truthfully be said to have
started almost before the final vote on
the candidate was announced.
One of the great difficulties in ma
tional campaign with an organization
thus hurriedly thrown together is OBJ
tanning accurate information on the
rapidly changing conditions in different
States. 1t had previously been the
custom to rely first on the national
committeeman, second on the State
chairmen, and finally, when things
were obviously going wrong, on the
reports of individual scouts sent to get
first-hand information.
Reports Are Unreliable.
Such reports are necessarily unre-
liable. The national committeeman and
State chairmen are always prone either
to be over optimistic or over peSsimistic.
Calm Judgment by those in charge OF a
campaign is rare. AS for the scouts,
the accuracy of their reports depended
too often upon the particular people
they had seen. If they were lucky to
find men on both sides Of every question
these reports were generally accurate.
But if they saw those entirely con-
verted to one side of controversy 1t
was entirely q matter OF luck whether
that side was the side to back or not
Here the Campaign Committee fell
heir to an entirely novel and elaborate
information system, which also is an
idea of Gov. RooSevelt's, established
during his primary campaign.
A combination of all the clipping
bureaus sent in daily not only editorials,
but every item of political news in prac-
tically all of the newspapers In the
country At the height of the campaign
these clippings mounted as high as
Is, 600 daily These were passed through
the hands of expert readers, and those
which had a bearing on the situation
were set aside, taken out and handed
to expert condenSers, also trained news
paper workers. These men condensed
into a few lines the importance Of the
clipping or editorial. and every national
committeeman and every adviser at