Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1936-10-01
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FAMOUS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT ~

division of the Republican and
Democratic parties on issues than
in the present one, but it is mighty
hard to believe. Maybe there was
some campaign when so many I'M
portant questions were being utterly
ignored by both parties, despite the
fact that very large groups Of the
electorate were infamed on each
side. Maybe there was even a cam
paign once where there was a
weirder grouping of men prominent
in the public eye backing each cam
didate. But it is rather difficult to
figure.
Carter Glass and Robert M. La
toilette for Roosevelt, for example.
Ogden L. Mills and Gerald P. Nye
for Landon. William Randolph
Hearst, the Chicago Tribune, and
the New York Herald Tribune all
on the same bandwagon, for Lam
don. Senator Joseph T. Robinson,
Felix Frankfurter and Mordecai
Ezekiel on the opposing sound truck,
for Roosevelt.
! Clifford Pinchot, the great advo-
cate of federal intervention in states
in the interest of conservation, for
Landon, with Senator Harry Flood
Byrd and Senator Millard E. Ty-
dings, the old-time states rights
duet, for Roosevelt, though the last
two named are keeping pretty quiet
about it.
When it comes to issues it is even
funnier. The truth about the silver
policy of the Roosevelt administra-
ton is that it failed to serve. its
purpose, it raised cain in China and
many other parts of the world, and
it wound up by costing the federal
Treasury untold millions.
But-no Republican orator is at
lacking it. Nor intends to do so. No
piece of Republican publicity is is
sued about it. Nor are the Demo-
Gratis defending it. It is simply being
ignored.
In his much discussed speech be-
fore the Liberty League dinner last
winter, Alfred E. Smith asserted
that the only promise the Roosevelt
administration had kept was to re-
peal the prohibition amendment.
Helps Treasury
That's just about the last we have
heard about that. Most people seem
pleased that repeal was accom-
plished. 1t is pouring money into the
federal treasury at the rate of $780,
100000 a year, plus sum difficult
to estimate but simply enormous
into various state and local treas
uries.
But the Democrats are not talk
ing about it. 1t was not mentioned
in the long and almost all-including
oratorical display at the Philadel-
phia convention. They don't want it
mentioned.
Neither do the Republicans.
Tempted as one might suspect by
the possibility of pointing out how
much faster we would be going into
debt were it not for these liquor
revenues, they are afraid of it.
Tempted as they might be also by
the fact that the Democratic plat
form and candidate promised that,
in bringing back liquor, the saloon
would never be tolerated, the Re-
publicans still keep silent.
Why? Because both parties know
there is a tremendous dry vote in
this country, and also a tremendous
wet vote. One party is afraid of one,
the other party of the other. So
again we have a stalematt.
One issue which divides party
lines about as clearly as ever did
prohibition or any other offside is
sue is really being discussed, to the
great distress and worry of some
counselors on each side. This is the
question of the reciprocal tariffs.
Politics, a wise man once said,
makes strange bedfellows. Also
cowards
Many Republicans regret that the
Republican platform mentioned
this subject. Many Democrats wish
to heaven they could suppress the
issue. What frightens some Repub-
icans on this is very considerable
eastern group, interested in export
of manufactured goods, who like
the Cordell Hull treaties-think they
will help their business. What
frightens the Democrats is the boom
in imports of farm products under
these treaties.
Iowa Battlefield
Des Moines, often called the farm
capital of America, is the center of
what might be called the secondary
battle of this presidential campaign.
The primary battle lies in the
East, in the states from Illinois on
to New York, including everything
north of the Ohio river and the
Mason and Dixon line Governor
Alfred M. Landon must carry all
those states to have a chance, plus
all New England.
If he does, and also carries, as
expected, Delaware and Kansas, he
will still need 80 more electoral
votes. If he loses anything substan-
tial in that eastern sector, it will not
make any difference what happens
out here, save perhaps to Jim Far
ley's claims of being a good
prophet.
In this section of the country, how