The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1932-11-04
FOR PRESIDENT FOR VICE PRESIDENT
Herbert Hoover Charles Curtis
HOOVER TAKES RoosEvELT's MEASURE

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democratic aspirant for president, after
declaring at numerous times and in many different ways, that he
stood for a competitive tariff instead of the protective tariff now in
force, and for a deep reduction in tariff rates, appears to have about
faced so far a the agricultural West is concerned. A few days ago,
apparently alarmed at the reported SHIFT to Hoover, Roosevelt wired
to his leaders in Montana and other states that it was ridiculous" to
think that he would reduce the farm tariff
1t does seem ridiculous for him to believe he could get by in
the West with his low tariff theories, but his declarations in favor
of low tariffs is not ridiculous but a matter of stenographic record.
The fact is the wealthy and smiling governor of New York did not
expect to get into such a tangled mess as now surrounds him. He
thought President Hoover would stand m his speech of acceptance
and his dignity and not choose to debate. Now the Governor is all
in a furry, saying what he thinks will sound best to those to whom
it is said. He is just staling and waiting for the November s bell.
His sudden reversal of position, untenable premises, and vague gen.
eralites r. nuts for a statesman like Hoover with a thoroughly
roWue mroSop oI government An edltorla writer in TN Min
neapohs Tribune thinks that in his Indianapolis speech President
Hoover completely razed the card house of evasion and deceit which
Mr.. Roosevelt has cautiously built upon the Democratic partys un-
equivocal declaration for a competitive tariff
The card house was ready to topple before the first gust of
act tut the President unleashed a hurricane. AS a result, Governor
Roosevelt has not only been put the defense o far as the tariff is
concerned; he has seen the major structure of his entire campaign
napse Inc aver was IS spectacular as it was complete Every
single utterance of the Democratic candidate o n the tariff and the
relationship of the Hawley-smoot act to the depression buckled square
y IN Tn middle totte@d to earth. Mr. Roosevelt stands today
thanks to the devastating sweep of President Hoovers INDIANAPOLIS
address, in the ruins of the flimsiest and most transparent campaign
OF tarH deception h at Ia been waged in the United States for years.
For this Governor Roosevelt has no one but himself to blame.
When he announced at Baltimore that he did not propose to reduce
the tariff on farm products, he left himself wide open to every charge
of inconsistency, of opportunism, of vacflation that Mr. Hoover hurled
his way.
The truth is that Mr.. Roosevelt cannot stand for both a compett-I
tive tariff and a protective tariff at one and the same time.
He cannot honestly pledge his whoehearted support to a Demo
cratic platform which declares for competition and assert, in almost
the same breath, that he stands for the traditional principle of pro
Mr.. Roosevelt, though he may devouuy wish it, cannot honestly
be all things to all men. He cannot honestly claim that the depression
had its origin in the Hawley-Smoot tariff act and pledge himself to
maintain the protection which was written into that act for the benefit
of agriculture. Once he comedies that the duties on agricultural pro-
ducts are fair and necessary, he cannot conscientiously support the
Democratic plan to bargain away the American markets with reciprocal
tariffs, which could only be arrived at through the sacrifice of the
very duties On farm produce which he belatedly defends.
When Mr. Roosevelt excludes the products of the American farm
from the competitive policies of the Democratic party he jumps, bag
and -baggage,on to the Republican side of the tariff fence.
If the nonagrcutural duties of the HawleySmoot tariff n the
only one that offend him, then he is automatically forced into a posi-
ton where he is assigning the chief responsibility for a world wide
depression to duties levied on less than onehalf of one per cent
of the worlds imports
1t is high time, as Mr. Hoover declared at indianapolis, that Gov
ernor Roosevelt eliminate such nonsense from the campaign.
1t is high time that he decide whether he stands squarely on
the competitive tariff plank of the Democratic party, whether he
stands square1y on the protective tariff plank of the Republican party
or whether he cares to straddle, for the balance of the campaign, with
one foot planted sohdly on each.
If Mr.. Roosevelt has actually been converted within the past week
to the principles of protection which we're written into the Hawley-
Smoot act, well and good. The nation will at least give him credit
for having the audacty to throw overheard the traditional free trade
policies OF his party, for having repudfated one of the major p1anks of
the Democratic convention which nominated him. and for having
aligned himself squarely behind Herbert Hoover in one of the domi-
nant issues of the campaign.
But if Governor Roosevelt has done this, he must Immediately
withdraw every grotesQue and fancnul charge that he has made con-
corning the HawleySmoot act and it's responsibility for the depression.
What becomes of the "ghastly jest" which was perpetrated Oh the
American farmer by a Republican administration when Mr.. Roosevelt
categorica1y approves all the agricultural items in that act? What
becomes of the notion that increased protection destroyed this nations
markets abroad and plunged it into three cruel wears of depression
now that MT. Roosevelt has rushed, in a eleventh-hour panic, into
the Republican camp? And what is there to be said on behalf of a
presidential candidate. a Mr.. Hoover inquired on Friday night. "whose1
fixity of principle and whose knowledge of the subject can be driven
out of him in three weeks?" X
Regardless of prejudice II party we owe it to eastern Montana
to keep faithful and efficient Scott Leavft in Congress. Vote for him.