The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1934-10-20
Byron Price Terms Political
Show Still OF Circus Nature
Various Peculiar Situa-
lions Seen In Person
mel And Activities OF
Campaign
d BYRON PRICE

- nHNON FNtCE
asaasf - maFeau. rae Associated
ksEew3. Washiugton1
Il i an ed figure Of speech to
refer 10 politics as . three-ring
sirsas. but the description is 80
appropriats that ID does not grow
tiFssoms with repetition.
Look at the political situation
today. Was there ever a circus
better equipped with what it takes
% thriIl and amuse the public
better supplied with living speei-
mems q the wild and the wOolIy.
freaks Of nature. magicians and
soothsayers, tight-rOpe walkers
and tumblers, ballyh0o artists,
clowns and camp followers?
Under the political big top
there are gFim-visaged statesmen
who look for all the world like
lions In their native state, but
turn cut 10 be only toothless
matinee performers when the
ring-master cracks the whip.
There are men as wild as any
who ever came from Borneo, men
as pOnderous as elephants, men
as agile as antelopes, men as we'll
seho0led as the best trained seal,
men as funny to intelligent folk
a. any slapstick artist who ever
lived.
The writer Of this dispatch
names no names, but the reader
will be able to.
Gigantic Mystery Act
The stupendous special feature
Of the 1884 bill is a gigantic mys-
tery act, performer in duplicate.
A the campaign progresses the
contrasts and outright contradic-
tlons present WITHIN eacn oil the
two major party organizations ne
come palmer and palmer.
Here names can be named, be-
cause the principals themselves
proudly display their party labels.
On the democratic side are, among
others, Carter Glass, Upton SIN
clair, Theodore Bilbo. On the re-
publiean side are Herbert Hoover,
William L. Borah, Viorello La
Gnardia.
The great mystery is, what
holds them together?
And especially, what holds them
together when both party groups
are suspended in nid-air, wniriing
around at a terrific rate, and
themselves uncertain where they
will land and what the outcome
vi the act really viii be?
Il is a question no layman
would undertake to answer.
Republicans Also Far Apart
The tremendous spread of opin-
ion in the democratic party, now
onee more enlarged to bring into
the fold the 'epie' movement IN
California, has been treated in
detail heretofore in these columns.
That republicans are st least as
far apart as democrats in their
outlook on the present situation is
demonstrated by two recent
events.
The Maryland republican state
convention adopted platform
denouncing Governor Richie for
not having eoOperated more close
~ with the Roosevelt administra-
ton which was, at least by in
ference, thus defended against al
legged dislOyalty on the part of
the democrats of Maryland.
If anything more surprising
could be conceived, it is the ac-
ton of republican headquarters in
Washington a few days later. 1t
issued q pamphlet denounelng the
President on a charge of attempt
ing to destroy the democratic
party and. at least by inference,
defending that party against al
legged disloyalty on the part of
the administration.
Coolidge Words Recalled
The late Mr.. Coolidge, in his
posthumous article in the Satur-I
day Evening Post, predicted the
republican party would survive its
1882 defeat by making itself a
party of useful" criticism.
But those words were written
nearly two years ago. Much has
happened since. Surely no one
then could forsee that republican
criticism in 1884 would include a
joint debate among republicans as
TO what constitutes democratic
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