Evening star., 1936-05-10
Roosevelt Is Getting the
Political Breaks
BY Osgen L. Scott.

Mr.. Roosevelt Is jockeying into favorable
position for the coming presidential race.
Faster thinking and quicker action
obviously are required Of his opponents
II they are to put new hurdles in his
path to replace those already taken
without serious trip-up. The Presi-
dent is known to feel that the Repub-
licans have muffed too many chances
to be able to come through now.
It is there that the luck enters to help
create what may turn out to be over
confidence on the part of the Democrats.
Bad breaks for Mr.. Roosevelt came at
q time when Republican leadership In
Congress still was shell-shocked and be-
fose Senator Arthur Vandenberg of
Michigan took hold Of things. This
enabled the President to deliberate and
to reshape strategy before his political
enemies awakened to the danger he
was in.
After fast presidential footwork in
January came the Liberty League dinner,
with its massing of wealth and its ad-
mittedly premature display Of Al Smiths
dislike for President Roosevelt. Some
important Democrats think that this
was one of the lucky turning points.
AS If to help along their opponents,
the Republicans created highly vul-
nerable brain trust of their own, thereby
taking load of Democratic minds, wor-
ried over DR.. Rexford Tugwell in an
election year.
Assassination of Senator Huey p.
Long and death Of former Gov. Albert
Ritchie Of Maryland, coupled with dis
IL - AI,c nkNr ~f t>A AvHo 40
backing for Gov. Eugene Talmadge of
Georgia led to the collapse of any strong
inner Democratic party revolt.
Republicans assured the President Of
q business improvement issue by voting
to override his veto of the soldiers
bonus, adding around $4,000, 900, 900 to
the funds that will be poured out at
psychological moment to guarantee an
appearance of business activity IN the
Fall.
Even the weather man joined in fur
thering the lucky streak by providing
floods in areas where w. p. A. relief
activities were least popular and by
breaking the drought in time to start
food prices heading downward when the
come.
Now Republicans. and Democrats as
we'll are discovering that Supreme Court
decisions, overturning New Deal agen-
cies, are having effects different from
what the politicians had expected.
The court obliterated N. r. A. and
forced a complete remaking of A. A. A.
N. r. A. was poison to farmers, who
saw in it a scheme to raise their costs.
It was turning out to be pain to work
ers. who had expected the Blue Eagle to
bring them prosperity. With the codes
dead, farmers have forgotten their griev-
ance and workers remember only what
N. r. A. was supposed to do for them,
not what it failed to do.
A. A. A. was turning out to be poison
for city people. It's processing taxes were
blamed for high food prices that largely
resulted from the 1884 drought. With
A. A. A. crop control gone. just at a
time when effects of the drought are
wearing OF, city people are forgetting
their high price grievance and farmers
still thinking of surpluses--look back on
the farm program as one OF the big
causes for their better income.
When N. r. A. went out the window,
Mr. Roosevelt started to attack the Su-
preme Court. Immediately his oppo-
nents had a made-to-order issue, re-
volving around the assertion that the
President wanted to overturn the Amer
ican system of Government.
When A. A. A. was upset, Mr.. Roose-
welt kept quiet.
Now the Republicans find the follow
ing issues either lost or diluted:
The high cost of living issue, effective
In the cities.
The Government RECOMMENDATION of
farming and industry issue, effective in
both the city and the country.
The constitutional issue, involving
charges of an attempt to overturn the
American system.
President Roosevelt will strive in the
months ahead to keep those issues
buried. His opponents can raise them
with difficulty. owing to the evidence OF
food price declines and the refusal OF the
President to join issues on the court.
The Republican high command itself
can take credit for getting another issue
out of the Presidents way. 1t per-
formed that service by the simple ex-
pedient of creating brain trust of its
own to take the public mind oil Dr..
Tugwell and Ben Cohen and Prof. Felix
Frankfurter.
Now the G. o. P. party strategists
are saying that they didn't know the
brain trust idea was loaded with political
dynamite.
They first learned that it really was
loaded when introducing some OF their
professors to Republican leaders In Con-
gress. During the introduction, discovery
was made that Prof. NJ w. Carpenter
of the University Of Buffalo held views
slightly to the left of many In the New
Deals own brain trust.
Next, Democratic Senators tipped on
the country and the Republicans to the
fact that three of their brain trusters
had signed document. issued May 5.
1880. attacking the moot-Hawley tariff
"a party product.
Then newspaper men took up the
search and they discovered that Prof.
Thomas Nixon Carver of Harvard. one
of the principal Republican advisers, had
praised Hitler and Mussolini for their
efforts to control marriages, that he IA
vored restricting marriage to individuals
financially able to own an automoblle
and that he believed in minimum wages
and opposed protective tariffs.
Untouched. however, and open to all
the development that Republican in
genuity can supply are the dominating
issues of extravagance and OF continued
unemployment.
e~ra<or yyard.pharo TAKING a leader