Milford chronicle., 1932-11-04
MIR. HOOYER'S REAL
ADVERSARY

/
paign, as the long struggle reaches
; its crisis, the Republican party is
using the most effective and decisive
weapon that can be used in a ma.
: tional political struggle. In the per.
son of its leader and spokesman
, Republicanism has gone before the
country with the naked truth OF
what has been done-and what can
be dOne-told in plain and sincere
words.
The Des Moines speech of Presi-
dent Hoover, his first in the cam
paign, set the pattern. He aban-
doned the rhetoric of campaign text
book and spoke to the men and wo-
men of the country, straight from
the heart.
He spoke in ordinary terms of
what ordinary citizens have in their
minds. There and then, so far as
he was concerned, he threw out of
the Republican campaign the notion
that the voters of 1882 are hungry
for what was fed them in 1920 and
1924 and 1928 and in other cam
paigns of yesterday.
He dropped the time-worn phrases
and forgot the sacred taboos of the
official campaign directors and talk
ed to the country as a man talks to
his friends. He had the sure in
stinct for truth and fairness that is
worth more than political wisdom
for it is the essence of political wis
dom.
In his Des Moines speech he first
came to grips with his real political
adversary. Mr.. Hoover's opponent
in this campaign is not the Demo-
cratic party, with its Farleys and
McAdOos, it's Garners and Longs, its
Wheelers and Murrays and its new
allies, the La Follettes, the Norrises
and Johnsons.
II 10 DOJ tlAC
whose name will appear on the bal
lot as the Democratic candidate. 1t
is not that Great Promiser, who
might well be described as the most
promising man in American politics.
Mr.. Hoover's real foe in this strug-
gle is a nameless phobia compound
ed from Fear and Resentment. 1t is
a blind phobia resolved to strike,
even if blindly, in the hope that it
may destroy what has injured the
fear-stricken.
The Democrats, knowing this,
hope to ride into power on a wave
of resentment and fear They have
an abiding faith that their sure sal
vation is the tradition in American
politics that in hard times the vot-
ers turn against the party in power.
They are trying to keep that tradi-
tion alive.
And so Mr.. Hoover's smiling OPP
ponent goes up and down the land
tanning the fires of unrest and re-
sentiment and playing the Yes-Man /
to the ism-peddlers of the South, the |
West and the Northwest. His has |
been a campaign of smiling misrep- |
and sneering betlittle-
ment.
In the meantime, the man in the
street is hearing the unvarnished |
truth of what has been and what can !
be done in Washington. The man at
the crossroads knows now, despite
the Nations credit was not handed
out for the selfish benefit of great
banks and Big Business. He knows
row that it was used to protect his
life savings, his isurance policy, his
home, his farm, his job if he had one
and his chances of getting a job if
he had none. He knows, despite Mr.
that the man in the White
House was neither cold nor callous
LuMdIu AAC hAAON9S !
also, that the dollar he has or hopes
TO get is sound and will remain
sound. l
There is no forgotten Man" in
his campaign. What has been with
malice aforethought forgotten" by
he Democracy are the tremendous
blows struck for his country's well
ARE by Herbert Hoover during the
llackest days of world depression.
Americans believe. in political fair
)lay and in plain speaking in plain
words. They have had this from
he President from the day he faced
he voters of Iowa and the West,
when he opened his campaign. They
lave not had it from his opponents,
md there is in them rising and
ighteous anger against the abom- s
nable misrepresentation that have
,een heaped upon a courageous S
President and his policies.-Public s
ledger.