Evening star., 1936-07-18


Third parties require money. In
tensive organization to bring out the
vote for a third party costs a good
deal. It is only when split of in the
regular organizations of one OF the two
major parties occurs that large vote
is cast and even then as in 1912 it
takes an angel" from some financial
district somewhere to foot the bill.
Thus the late George w. Perkins
helped with many hundreds Of thou
sands of dollars to finance the Bull
Moose party in 1912.
There are no signs that the Lemke-
Coughlin- Townsend party have any
funds for the brass tacks work that
has to be done in political organiZa-
ton. They will of course get on the
radio and plenty of publicity and will
appear to be making considerable
dent, but when the votes are counted
the totals will be negligible. AS a
matter of fact, Norman Thomas and
his Socialist Party have more to fear
from the Cleveland aggregation than
do the major parties.
Small PluralitieS Important.
This is not saying that individual
Representatives and Senators will not
feel the lash of the Lemke- -Coughlin-
Townsend vote. But it takes only
handful of votes in each district in
order to defeat candidate on whom
such opposition is concentrated. In
between so and 100 districts, for in
stance, in Congress the majority by
which the last election was won is
less than 5000 or thereaboutS. BY
distributing their strength in certain
districts or rather by making strong
campaign in some districts and neg
lecting others the third party groups
can do considerable damage and
achieve sort of balance of power.
This might be done with less than
100000 votes.
The Roosevelt administration is, of
course, somewhat nervous about the
affair at Cleveland. Unquestionably
some of the pro-Roosevelt delegates in
the Townsend convention went there
for the specific purpose of heading of
some Of the attacks on the New Deal.
There are Republicans, too, who are
hoping to derive some benefit from
the Townsend movement. But the
fact remains that the whole thing has
been overemphasized and it would not
be surprising If the final tally shows
half as many votes as the late Robert
LaFollette obtained in his progressive
movement of 1924, which was about
10000
Discord in the ranks of the Town
sendites is also significant. 1t may
affect the final result. The detection
of Conner Smith, vice president of the
Townsend movement, who favors
President Roosevelt, does not appear
TO be Incidental 1t looks as if Conner
Smith may head an old-age pension
movement of his own and thus at
tempt to disrupt the whole thing.
Such a breakup would unquestion-
ably diminish the total vote cast and
reduce the opportunity for an effect
on the electoral voting.
Broadly speaking. the real question
of what the effect Of the Lemke-
Townsend Coughlin movement will be
IS related to whether there is to be q
close race between Gov. Landon and
President Roosevelt. Those who be-
lieve the election is in the bag as
for instance Chairman James Farley,
can hardly be concerned-at least
outwardly-about the third party
movement. Judging by what Chair
man Hamilton is saying about the
certain and overwhelming election of
Gov. Landon, it is difficult to see why
any Republican should worry either
Persons who disbelieve partisan
predictions about the result this year
will be inclined to the opinion that
the defeat or reelection of President
Roosevelt will not be materially af-
fected by the third parties or the minor
parties and that the true significance
Of them all lies in the battle for con-
troll of Congress in January, 1887.
Copyright, 1850