Evening star., 1932-06-12

INV, may JuNSC lilC III oO WCCh VI ldSI
october to have been the low point of
this depression, the peak of panic.
Atmosphere of the Conventions.
Whatever may be the next develop
ment of the depression, whether we
have improved or are improving, or are
about to improve, the effects of it are
still disastrously upon us. They ex-
press themselves plainly. One effect Is
the price-level of commodities. That
condition must change. One new con-
| dition or another is ahead of us, by
whatever mechanism either may come
about. Either there must be a marked
rise in the prices Of goods. expressing
itself, let us say. in an advance of Is
or 20 cents buShel in wheat, and SIM
liar rises in other farm crops; or there
must be such a quantity of defaults.
foreclosures and bankruptcies as no
country ever saw before.
To put the root of it in simple words,
| the farmer cannot pay off his mortgage
nor meet his interest with 50-cent
wheat. He borrowed the money when
wheat was, roughly a dollar buShel;
today. it takes two bushels to repay
one bushel that he borrowed. The
thing cannot be done. The impossible
ity of it is mathematically demonstra-
BILE to any child who can add and sub
tract. And if every farmer with a
mortgage impossible to pay is to 20
through bankruptcy. there will be SINH
lar calamity throughout the country's
entire structure of credit and industry.
This is classically the condition that
has always produced violent eruption
in American politics, including either
the seizure OF one of the parties by
radicals tas in the case of Bryan and
the Democrats in 1886 or the creation
of new parties tas on several occasions
during the l870s, l880s and l890s).
OF that sort of thing we find practi-
cally no sign in Chicago today. In
neither party is there any clash of con-
servativeS versus radicals. In neither
is there any marked muttering of re-
volt There was more threat of bolt
in Kansas City when Mr. Hoover was
nominated in 1923, the threat at that
time coming from some farm leaders.
So far as there is threat now of bolt
at all it comes from dry Democrats de-
claring they will have third party if
the Democratic party goes wet, as it
surely will. There is not much in that
no Democrat now holding high Office
and no nationally important Democrat
takes part in it. In short, there is no
strong sign that any considerable fac
tion OF either party will go home from
Chicago with any serious intention of
following a course other than support
ing the ticket.
Rebels Strangely Quit,
As to a third party arising outside
the principal two, no one can think
ofhand of a potential leader of it.
Though delegates and party leaders
from the West report an emotion in
that territory similar to the Populism
of the Dos and COS, no one can think
offhand OF Bryan, or Simpson, or a
Weaver, or Mary Ellen Lease called
by those who did not approve her
Mary Yellin'D. The rebels within
both parties are strangely quiet Young
Senator LaFollette had his wings
clipped in Wisconsin,; Gov. Pinchot
was not elected delegate from Penn
sylvania
The prospect. in short, is that both
parties will take. roughly. the conserv-
atlve course. and that there will be no
bolting nor forming of third parties by
disappointed factions. 1t is difficult to
see that the Democrats will be materi-
ally less conservative than the Repub-
leans. Even on the historic point of
cleavage between the two parties. the
tariff. the Democrats have come today
SO close to the Republicans that they
based on the theory that they are ma
terially different.
All this, considering the state of the
times, constitutes an extraordinary
situation. Here are the conventions
assembling in a city in which the
number of unemployed is said to be
half a million, and with the city de-
claring it is unable to give further re-
lief. No convention ever met before in
any setting so conducive to angry ex-
citement, national and local. Yet there
IS nothing of that
The explanation lies in the fact that
the country has come vaguely to real
ize the worldwide nature of this de-
preston and the uncomfortable quail
lty OF it. The people think of it as
something like an old-time plague,
with the cause of it mysterious and
impossible to identify. and with no GER
ta1nty about any cure except to en-
dure 1t and worry through.
Neither party presents any remedy
for the depression that is distinguish
able from the proposals of the other
party. The Democrats make half
hearted gesture of doing something
about the tariff; but everybody has good
reason to doubt whether actual Demo-
cratic action about the tariff would be
materially different from Republican
action. Moreover, there is a vague but
strongly held conviction that the causes
of this depression 60 deeper and are
more complex than anything so simple
as the tariff.
That sense of the terrifying and
mysterious nature of this depression,
of the impossibility of having conf
dence in any sure remedy except to sit
tight and not rock the boat-that con-
stitutes the dominant atmosphere of
Chicago on the eve of the conventions.