Evening star., 1936-10-31
tCopyright. 1850

welt to Landon's 1874. 1t Is from that
point Of view the Farley predictions
are made and. judging by the fact that
all these States have political ma
chimes of his creation and OF Mr..
Roosevelt's cooperation In the distri-
button of public funds. I wouldn't be
at all surprised If Farley knew more
about how many votes he can get out
than anybody IN America. The use
of money in elections can break down
any poll, whether the Literary Digest
or anybody else send it out. For a
straw-vote ballot Is uncoerced, un-
bossed vote. There is no intimidation
or improper influence in 1t. Between
October Is. when the Digest collected
its final ballots, and election day, the
New Deal political machines can do
much to upset any poll.
1t may be, Of course, that the Amer
ican people are alive to these possi-
bilities. This may account already for
the huge vote that is seen to be rising
out of the towns and country districts,
away from the influences Of political
machines. 1t may account for q sur
prise in another direction-the protest
of the uncontrolled vote against the
effort to control q presidential elec-
ton by the use of public funds. Many
things can happen to change votes in
the last few days Of an election, and
even on the very last day before an
election.
Protest Vote to Shock New Deal.
But this forecast is written as Of
today and with feeling that it will
demonstrate these fundamental facts:
/. The protest Of the American peo-
pie against the New Deal will be a
shock and a surprise to the Roosevelt
regime, because it will be the narrow
est margin of popular votes that an
election has been won by in any pres
idential contest since 1916.
2. The size of the protest vote will
be an indication that in 1888 the Re-
publican party may confidently expect
to win both the Senate and the House.
which would pave the way for Re-
publican landslide in the presidential
election of 1910.
3. Conservative Democratic Senators
will take the election returns to be an
index of q receding Roosevelt tide and
they will acquire feeling Of justified
independence in opposing his policies
in the coming Congress.
The outlook, therefore, is for con-
tinuation of the battle between New
Deal and anti-New Deal PHILOSOPHERS
after the election almost as vigorously
as before unless the protest vote in
itself has a restraining influence on
the New Deal radicals and makes them
trim their sails. Even DR.. Gallup's
poll, which has been predicting the
Roosevelt election, indicated in
canvass a few weeks ago that the
country was preponderantly conserva-
tive. But whether the battle between
the two opposing schools Of political
thought will abate in intensity de-
pends on how the New Dealers them
selves interpret the mandate they feel
they will be getting from the election.
My impression is that Mr.. Roosevelt
will 60 ahead with his reform" plans
and that he will ignore the protest
vote, being confident that by 1888 or
by 1910 he can build up through Mr..
Farley and the use of public funds an
even stronger political machine than
he has had this year.
So the coming election may be said
to be, after all, just a milestone in a
long, long fight which has been de-
veloping the world over between classes
and groups struggle for political
power, =. battle in which centralized
government has won in Europe and
has temporarily. at least, acquired the
sinews OF political strength in the
United States.
Copyright. 1885 by David Lawrence. Re.
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