The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1935-09-05
THE GREAT
GAME OF
POLITICS
By FRANK R. KENT,

ture IS going to be to get itself be-
lieved. The number of broken pledges
and unfulflled promises is so unusual
and impressive that now the election
year has almost arrived the embar-
rassment is obvious.
Il 81
AS A record it is unique. No one
can recall a President whose own
words are so completely quotable
against himself, whose prediction
speeches so sharply contrast with his
post election performances. 1t is sig
nifcant that neither Mr.. Roosevelt
nor anyone in the Administration at
tempts to reconcile or explain. Not
even the usually anonymous Michel
son, the paid publicity director recent
ly prodded by the White House into
splitting venom under his own name
at Administration critics who can't be
controlled, cajoled or frightened-not
even he ever touches this subject. 1t
is too hot to handle. The only thing
that can be done is ignore it.
FOR nearly two years the dis
crepancies between the Roosevelt poll
cies and promises and the Democratic
platform and its candidates utter
ances went largely unnoticed-at least
publicly. In the last six months, how
ever, people have begun to come out
from under the spell. The realities
about the New Deal have sunk in and
the ballyhoo lost its force. AS this
happened the business of quoting Mr..
Roosevelt against himself got under
way. 1t started with a great weekly
magazine which printed the terrific
Indictment of extravaganza made by
Mr.. Roosevelt in his campaign, his in
sistence upon the iniquity of borrow
ing to meet deficits, and the necessity
of nation living within its means.
The most striking quotation came
from his March 10, 1888, message to
Congress, in which he said, that for
three years we had been heading to-
ward bankruptcy and pointed out that
if continued unchecked, by 1884 we
should have an accumulated deficit of
$5,000,000,000. In effect, he said that
this was menace to the stability of
the Government, itself. Today the ac-
cumulated deficit is not far from $12,-
900, 100000.
FOLLOWING this, large chain of
papers (Mr. Hearst's) which support
ed him in 1882, began to print daily
in parallel columns extracts from Mr..
Roosevelt's speeches before election
and his utternaces since. The contrast
was striking, particularly as regards
State Rights, economy and the size of
the Federal Government. Recently a
New York paper published series of
articles under the caption Broken
Promises" 1t took several planks
of the Democratic platform, quoted
Mr.. Roosevelt on the solemnity of the
obligations they entailed, and then
contrasted the performances-failure
to balance the budget, failure to re-
duce Federal expenses, failure to ad-
here to a sound money standard, fall
ure to lower the tariff, and so on. The
list is long.
ANOTHER paper quotes the oath
of office Mr.. Roosevelt took to uphold
the Constitution and parallels that
with his letter urging Congress to
pass the Guffey coal control bill, re-
CARELESS of reasonable doubts of its
constitutionality." Even as friendly
a newspaper as the New York Times,
in commenting upon his signing the
bill restoring to the pension rolls
$4,000 Spanish War veterans who
cannot prove disability, quotes his
ringing words in which, two years ago,
he justified removing them. So it goes
all over the country. 1t is literally
amazing how much stuff there is on
the record from Mr.. Roosevelt before
he became President which conflicts
with the Roosevelt record since. News
papers in all sections, including the
South, are referring to it. Naturally,
the Republicans are the more empha-
tic, but the contrast is drawn by
Democrats as well.
ALL of this puts the Administration
definitely on the defensive in a par
ticularly painful way. 1t raises the
question of whether you can tell the
American people one thing, do just
the opposite and then get away with
it. 1t is certainly going to make it
harder to have Mr.. Roosevelt's 1886
promises as candidate for reelection
taken as seriously as those he made
in 1892. 1t may make his platform
Joke. The danger of letting the people
become saturated with the idea that
they have been fooled is recognized.