Evening star., 1933-03-05

Vice President John NJ Garner, the
Democratic candidates, over former
President Hoover and former Vice
President Curtis. aroused the Nation as lew po-
itical campaigns have aroused it.
Indeed no presidential campaign since 1916.
when the late President Woodrow Wilson won
on the slogan, He kept us out of war;" inter-
ested SO many voters vitality as the campaign
of last year. In 1916 the people had neitner
felt the pinch of war nor the poverty OF de-
preston, and feeling Of personal interest was
not so intense.
After three years of struggle against de-
preston and hard times, the American people
hocked to the polls to register q protest against
conditions to cast their ballots for q change.
Notwithstanding the valiant efforts Of Presi-
dent Hoover himself to stem the tide in the
final weeks of the campaign, the Democratic
sweep assumed on election day, November =,
1882, the proportions Of . political avalanche.
Nearly 40 OOO, 900 American men and women
went to the polls to cast their ballots, an in
crease of more than 100000 over the number
who voted in 1923. They were in the grip OF
consuming interest-the economic fate, not
alone of themselves, but of their sons and
daughters their fathers and their mothers.
The huge shift in vote from the Republican
party to the Democratic can be explained BY
the desire of the people for change" for
something different, and by the hope that with
a change in government would come better
times. 1t was in effect peaceful revolution.
The Democratic party, headed by Franklin D.
Roosevelt of New York and John Nance Garner
of Texas, had promised q new deal; that
"happy days would be here again. if the
Democrats were successful Those are the
promises on which the people today are ex-
pecting to cash in.
The wave of sentiment against the eighteenth
amendment-national prohibtion-had its part
in inn of Ip,f IN fhn v1otiN
race-that for President and Vice President
the issue had been minimized by the frank
declaration of President Hoover in his speech
accepting the nomination that the eighteenth
amendment had brought conditions which could
no longer be tolerated and that there must be
q change. Hoover stood, however, for revision
of the eighteenth amendment, permitting
States to become wet or to remain dry, 1t Is
true but maintaining q ban against the saloon
and providing for protection Of the dry States
against wet neighbors by the Federal Govern
ment. Roosevelt was for out and out repeal
naked" repeal as it has been called This Is
sue may have aided, to some extent, the Demo-
cratic candidate for President in the wet States
of the Union; it did not in those States where
dry sentiment still rallies Senatorial and
House elections, on the other hand. were
strongly affected by the prohibition issue.
NNE great dlfhculty which lay In the pain
~ Of the Republican candidates was an al
most universal belief that they were beaten be-
fore they started. It has been automatic in
political contests-here as well as abroad-that
the party in control of the Government during
hard times is turned out Only when a nation
Is faced with disaster due to q war with another
are the people of that nation inclined to rally
to the support of a government when pocket
books have been fattened and people are hun
cry and cold. Then it is case Of national pres
ervation against an outside foe But in times
OF peace, political party in power when times
are bad is thrown out on election as regularly
as night follows day.
The conditions which brought about Demo-
cratic victory and Republican defeat had
been in the making for three years. In the
language of the race track, the Roosevelt-Gar-
ner ticket was meant to win." President
Roosevelt leaped his big hurdle when he won
the presidential nomination in Chicago at the