Evening star., 1934-04-22
SHARP PARTY DIVISION
DECLARED IMPOSSIBLE
There Aren't Enough Extreme Fright
ists'' Or Extreme ''Leftists'' in
Tie United States.

WHICH JTe master OF ceremonies OF a
good old American barn-dance is al
ways using Nov, ladies and gentle
men, grand right and left"
1t was so in 1920. President Wood
row Wilson, Democrat, was a great
friend of organized labor and also
spent a lot ID time getting out injunc-
tionS against strikers. He was lef
and right. The Republicans nom.
mated Warren Gamaliel Harding in
the name of normalcy: but what was
normally? The Republican platform
| of 1920 described it.
That platform denounced all "specu-
lative" profits in public utilities. 1t
| denounced all unreasonable" profits
anywhere in industry. 1t demanded
collective bargaining" on behalf of
the wage-earner 1t demanded ma
tional labor tribunals to do justice to
the wage-earner. 1t reprehended all
price-raising conspiracies in restraint
of trade among capitalists. 1t promised
loans to farmers 1t promised financial
! help to tenant farmers to enable them
| to become land-owning farmers. 1t
| took great credit to the Republicans
for having been superior to the Demo-
Gratis in their advocacy of the stupen-
dous liberal reform of those days:
Woman suffrage.
The Revolutionary" Republicans.
Now there was no woman suffrage
at that moment in the Constitution.
Yet the Republican party was for 1t.
| And l seem to have heard that the
Republican party. Immediately after
| the Civil War. adopted as many as
/ three new amendments to the Con-
stitution. Indeed, I seem to remember
| that the Republican party originated
| in a protest against a certain vener-
able american institution" recog-
nized by the Constitution and as
saulted in an absolutely revolutionary
manner by the author of Uncle
Toms Cabin"
Fortified thus by recollection of my
| school books as we'll as by observation
of nv contemporary fellow Americans.
| l was not surprised the other day to
hear an ultra conservative Illinois
Republican politician and county
| boss" exclaim:
In 1886 We can't nominate any
! Eastern Wall Streeter. We got to
have a big, broad leader. We got to
have an issue"
Sure! And it's no tissue" to say
that you're for the Constitution. The
followers of John Bell and Edward
Everett tried that game in 1860. In
the midst of he boiling perplexities
of that year they formed a "Consti-
tutional' party and adopted a plat
form of 20 lines. saying that the Con-
stitution was o. K. and that there
they rested. They did. They carried
just three States.
Vandenberg, Perhaps.
, So watch and wait and see! Mr..
Roosevelt is gamecock who is fight
ing with the help Of both his right
and left wings, and the Republicans
won't nominate against him in 1886
any bird with only one wing. They
will nominate, 1 should guess, some
body like Vandenberg of Michigan.
How right" he isl In. the Senate
he has voted against the cotton con-
troll bill. He has voted against the
cattle subsidy bill. He has voted
| against the bill for establishing a
governmental furniture factory on the
| subsistence farm at Reedsville. He
has voted against the bill repudiating
| the gold clause in governmental obli-
cations He has voted against the
paper imitation and the silver imitation
in the Thomas amendment to the
agricultural adjustment act. And he
has cast lots of other votes showing
how sound" he is. Vote for Vanden-
berg and save our institutions!
But how left" he is! He voted to
give a governmental guarantee to the
| bonds of the Federal Farm Credit Ad-
ministration. He voted to give SIM
liar governmental guarantee to the
/ bonds of the Home Owners Loan Cor
poration. He voted, long ago, for the
| McNary Haugen equalization fee
| method of farm relief. He has just
| recently voted for the La Toilette
| amendment to raise the taxes no big
incomes. He has voted for the Nc
Carran amendment to abolish the
whole of the pay cut for Government
employees And. above all. he is the
! legislative father of the Federal de-
poSit insurance plan, under which to-
day more than 55,000,000 bank de-
posits, up to an individual value OF
S2.5OO apiece and up to a total value
of more than S16,000,000, in the
country as a whole are absolutely pro-
tected, by law, against all loss. And
he has cast lots of other votes show
ing how advanced" he is. Vote for
Vandenberg and prosperity through
| progress!
1t will be something like that! And
for a deep, unconquerable reason. The
tree of American life is not like one
of those tortured European trees, bent
over all to one side. 1t is tree that
sends forth its branches in all direc-
tions. fearless of individualism, fear
less of collectivism, nourished by the
sap of common sense and seeking
only a rounded form-and the sky.