Evening star., 1932-09-11
ohio ROOSEVELT'S
IF IT VOTED TODAY
Hoover Gaining and May Win
State by So 900 to 100000,
Survey Indicates.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.


COLUMBUS, Ohio, September 10
If the election were held this week
Franklin D. Roosevelt would carry
Ohio. The drift has been in his direc-
tion for some time. But there is a sig
niflcant rise in Hoover sentiment and
one finds many well posted persons pre-
dieting Republican victory by between
$4,000 and 100, 900 when the ballots are
finally counted
This contrasts, Of course, with a Re-
lN)lican majority of 100000 in 1928
and shows conclusively there will be a
material reduction in the Republican
vote cast But the prospect that the
State will be won by Hoover rests on
the assumption that, as october ap-
proaches, the rural districts, where most
OF the diSaffection is to be found, will
come back on the reservation very
much as the Republicans in the cities
nave begun to go back to their party.
Gov. George White will run ahead of
Roosevelt and seems at this writing to
be assured of reelection. though the
friends of David ingalls,. former Assist
ant Secretary of the Navy. are conf
dent he will squeeze through.
Polls Favor Roosevelt.
All the polls taken thus far by vari-
Gus newspapers in different parts of the
State indicate a decided Roosevelt trend,
not only in the country districts, but
in the cities, though in the urban CEN
terS Hoover is displaying more strength
than anywhere else.
The Smith vote of 1928, so much of
which was Republican, is not going to
be cast for Roosevelt. The anti-RooSe-
velt feeling on account of the Chicago
convention Is intense and is worrying
Democratic leaders. Some of them
doubt whether any pronouncement by
Al Smith, now that he has waited so
long, will carry any conviction or soothe
the disappointed ones.
There is disposition here in many
quarters to question the recent rise in
stock market prices and the talk of i'm
proved business as being engineered
by the Hoover forces. This skepticism
Is interfering in a large sense with
what might normally be a boom pSychol-
ogy. Among business men, however,
the business charts are taken seriously
and there is a feeling of genuine conf
6ence that the worst is over.
Effect Of Roosevelt Speech.
Conflicting impressions are to be OBJ
served on the Roosevelt speech delivered
here. The radical nature of the ad-
dresS-or at least the feeling that it was
radicals commented upon by con-
servativeS, and some of them say it
drove them back to Hoover. Probably
the most interesting argument that has
been developed thus far is the query
as to what Roosevelt could do in any
economic program to bring recovery
that Hoover has not already tried or Is
trying now.
A Democratic leader Of prominence
told the writer that, viewed from a
purely political angle, he was begin
ming to believe the Republican "strad-
die" on prohibition was going to be ef-
fective in Ohio. He said that in a
State with wet and dry cleavages so
sharp, the Democrats could only hope
for the wet vote, while the Republicans
were managing to win the conservatives
in the cities, so many of whom are wet,
and were making big gains among the
drys in the rural districts, who allow
prohibition to be the deciding factor
in making up their minds how to vote.
The disaffection in the rural districts
about economic conditions Is recognized
by the Republicans to be SO deep-seated
that they are trying to get the farmers
to stick with the Republican party on
the dry issue, whereas, in the cities
the Republican strategy is to forget
prohibition and emphasize the danger
of a change in administration at a
critical time. Although it is much too
early to make predictions, the slogan.
Don't swap horses in midstream," Z"
looks as if it may become as famous
in this campaign as "he kept us out
of war" was in 1916.
In early September, therefore. must
be recorded that Roosevelt has the
State, but Hoover is gaining ground
every day and mid-October will tell
the story.
Copyright, 1922