Evening star., 1932-10-05
Standing on a Record.

StanQlnS on a heCoIu.
President Hoovers address to the Ma
ton last night from Des Moines was the
most Illuminating of all the so-calleo
Campaign documents" issued during
this prediction period.
1t was a new disclosure of the nature
of the crisis through which the country
has passed. 1t contained the revealing
element of spot news in its recital OF
how near-the margin, at one time, was
only two weeks-the country came to
toppling off the gold standard, and 1t
explained, in abecedarian terms, what
would have happened to the average
citizen had this taken place. 1t shed
light on the compact, integrated organi-
zation Of government and citizen that
has steered the country through the
dangerous shoals where catastrophe
threatened, and displayed the course
that has been charted for the future.
But while these revelations appealed
to those who have been able to study
the financial crash and business de-
preston more or less effectively, with
the intense interest that springs from
witnessing the day-by-day unfolding of
tremendously significant history, how
did they appeal to the bankrupt farmer
on a Midwestern farm, facing mortgage
foreclosure because of the futile efforts
to capitalize the labor and the sweat
of years, the dreams of a lifetime?
How did they appeal to the hundreds
of thousands Of men and women who
have suffered, as the farmer has suf-
fered but who lack even now what
the farmer may still claim as his own?
Their response to this speech of the
Presidents will be the deciding factor
in the November election. The Presi-
dent made it with that knowledge in
mind. From a political point of view,
much depended upon it.
And because much depended upon it
the Presidents speech last night was.
possibly more than anything else, a
revelation of his own character.
The traditional gesture for him to
make, as a candidate for re-elec-
ton, would have been to paint the
glorious future awaiting the farmers of
America when great plans for their
benefit have been legislated into shape
at the hands of the Republican party.
The flourishes with which it might have
been embellished, out there where the
tall corn grows and rots ior lack of a
market, could have been a song of
praise for the Grand Old Party as the
true and only friend of the deserving
farmer, whose aim from now on will
be to get him out of a mess. The eli
max might have been a clarion call for
all Of those who are troubled and heavy
laden to look toward the next Congress,
which, if sufficiently dominated by Re-
publicans, under leadership of the pres
ent administration, will sound the knell
of suffering and distress. The occasion
was meat for a rabble-rouser
But instead of rabble -rouSing, the
President laid most stress on what he
described, in his own words, as the
complicated processes of currencieS and
taxation and other such dreary things"
Il come to you with no economic patent
medicine especially compounded for
farmers. 1 refuse to offer counterfeit
currency or false hopes. 1 will not
make any pledge to you which I can
not fulfill. The farmers of America
are not selfishly interested in their own
industry alone. They are Americans
with the same concern for the welfare
of the Nation in its multitude OF other
problems, both at home and abroad"
The President did not plead to be
placed in the van Of some new crusade.
Perhaps the disillusionment that must
come to every President has taught him
the emptiness of phrase making. Per-
haps his experience with the realities
of a responsibility that in America
seems to place in the hands of the
President the destinies of six score mil
lions has made him shy even of the
commonplace and condoned gestures of
the Office seeker.
Whatever it was that decided him
In the construction of his DeS MoineS
speech, the President contented himself
with telling the story of what has been
done He rested his case on the rec
ord. In these times, it was bold
decision For the conception of what
has been done is a difficult one. 1t
requires not only Imagination, to find
In the prosaic story of conferences and
arrangements the tremendously dra-
matte elements of the desperate battle
that has been fought but an under
standing of the complex nature OF that
battle, and why it had to be fought.
That sort of imagination and that sort
of understanding are often beyond the
reach of the embittered individual who
deals with effects, without caring or
knowing the cause. The President ad-
dressed himself not to embittered cit
lzens. but to Americans who can be told
how a trust has been fulfilled.
Into his speech one may read the
outline of a philosophy that, regardless
of the result at the polls in November,
will give to the President the comfort
Of victory.
Vale Walter Johnson!