The daily independent., 1936-10-12
NeWsBehind theNeWs
Straw
By PAUL MALLON
Copyright, 1896, BY Paul MallOn

washington, Oct. 1.-THE Literary Digest has
become as secretive about its final poll figures as
the Supreme Court is about its decisions, and
rightly So 1t does not want anyone publishing its
conclusions in advance.
At the same time, the mechanics of magazine
publication are such that the figures must be COL
lected considerably in advance OF publication The
upper strata Of political leaders must know about
such things and there is practically nothing that
political leader cannot find out if he sets his mind
to it.
Consequently. the word is out in thoroughly rel-
able form in the political stratoSphere that Cover
nor LandonS present published Digest poll strength
of 56.9 per cent will work down to a tentatively
final figure of 546 Allowing 10 per cent for error
(the general working percentage of Digest error,
this would still leave Mr.. Landon with more than
40 per cent of the Digest straws and seem to fore
cast a close Landon victory, as Lemke will draw
from Mr.. Roosevet'S total
RebuttaI
Needless to say the Democrats do not share this
conclusion. Their latest inside figure on the popu
lar vote mot for publicity purposes but for their
own private headquarters informaton) shows an
expected majority of $780, 900 for MI Roosevelt
Their expectations on the electoral vote run up
over 400 for Roosevelt (266 is the majority needed
to VIM. They discount the Digest vote on the
ground that it did not reach the lower strata of
voters.
confidential poll of Washington political writer's
during the past few days showed somewhat similar
expectations. but was not conclusive Most of those
polled were Roosevelt supporters. Some of the
Republican supporters failed to join in. Conse-
quently the poll averaged out to the astounding
consensus of more than 400 electoral votes for
Roosevelt
Apparently everyone knows what the outcome
will be- but few agree.
Jockeying
Top grade unionists are generally characterzing
the current talk about Lewis Green peace as non
sense. Their inside line the situation is that the
party of the first part does not want peace. Mister
John L. Lewis, they say. is desrous of having
showdown and believes he can win eventually.
What started the peace rumorS was some pacify-
ing talk from David Dubnsky. the garmenteer ally
of Lewis. The explanation behind that is supposed
to be that Dubinsky talking mainly for the
purpose of getting certain union, with which he
had been dickering, into the Lewis C. 1. o. He
wanted to show that c. l. o. is not Wrecking crew
AS soon as Mr.. Lewis heard about it, he called
press conference and passed around word there
would be no peace except on his terms, which simply
means there will probably be no peace.
Prophecies
The business Of propheSying has been almost as
dangerous during the last four years as in the
Hoover era. Books have been written about the
bad gueSSeS of industrial giants of the booster
decade 1920-30, but no one has mentioned the sour
predictions of some of the congressional political
giants in recent years and months.
Noteworthy was the one that the scrapping of
the NRA would cause industrial chaos, whereas
| employment has risen Equally spoiled is the one
that voiding of the Guffey coal bill would ruin the
coal industry Coal production is now at peak,
warnings of price increases have been made and a
| shortage OF cars is predicted by some of the new
predcterS.
| Chairman Nye of the munitions committee who
gave out the Elliott RooseveltFokker data still is
neutral in the presidential election fight. This
apparently leaves only two out of the $4,000 900
persons in this country as neutralS
incidentally, Nye did not give out all the data he
had. He is sitting on several exhibits These are
comparatively unimportant
Criticism leVeed against him by Senator Clarke
OF Missouri for giving out anything is continuation
OF the old scrap Nye had with the Democrats You
may recall that ne questioned the acts of Woodrow
Wilson, and thereby caused the senate to shut off
his funds and conclude his Investigation