Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1936-05-06
MARYLAND. NV MARYLAND.

The Breckenridge vote in Maryland was
not $50 deep as a well, nor SO wide as
a church door," but it may serve. When
eighteen thousand Democrats took the
trouble to 60 to the polls on Monday to
register their protest against the contin-
uance in office of President Franklin
D. Roosevelt, there must be something
askew. Maryland Democrats have been
tenacious in their political faith. This
vote was cast, not in general election,
but in a party primary in which only
registered Democrats may take part.
New Dealers have been content in the
belief that the Democrats of the country
would necessarily follow President Roose-
welt in 1886 as they followed him IN
1882. However, nearly 10000 Democrats
in Pennsylvania voted against him in the
Pennsylvania primary, or one in twenty
of those who went to the polls in the
primary in that State. And now one in
five or six of the Democrats who voted
in the Maryland primary cast anti
Roosevelt ballots.
Democratic resentment and restlessness
following on the heels of amazement at
the antics of the New Dealers has been
expressed by former leaders of the party.
The New Dealers have been content to
label these critics as hirelings of en-
trenched greed and the like. Where there
t. liz he
comes more difficult to indict these thou
sands of anti-Roosevelt Democrats.
Col. Breckenridge, who served in the
administration of President Woodrow
Wilson as Assistant Secretary OF War
when President Roosevelt was serving as
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, has
dubbed the New Dealers "carpetbaggers.
seeking to take over the Democratic
party. In Maryland, 1t seems, some
thousands of old-line Democrats have
taken seriously the criticisms voiced by
Breckenridge.
Generally speaking, Maryland has been
over long period Of years Democratic
in her politics. Her Governors, her Sem
ators and Representatives have for the
most part been of the Democratic party.
In presidential elections, however, Mary
land during the last half century has
invariably been on the winning side This
means that the State has given her cleo
toral votes to Mckinley, Theodore Roose-
welt, Taft, Harding, Coolidge and in 1928
to Hoover. all Republicans, and to Wilson
and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democrats.
Almost it might be said "as goes Mary
land so goes the Nation" A border
State" between the North and the South,
the people Of Maryland have been rather
keenly attuned to the problems of the
day and to the sentiment of the people
of the whole country.
This present detection in the ranks OF
the Democrats in Maryland may be too
much magnif1ed. On the other hand, it
is not to be laughed off. If the people
of Maryland feel resentment toward the
New Deal; if the people of Rhode Island
feel similar resentment, as shown in
a by-election for the House of Repre-
sentatives last August, it may be rea-
sonable to suppose that a similar resent
ment is creeping in among the people
of the other States Of the Union. The
vote cast for Breckenridge was not vote
of millionaires, although the effort may
be made to say as much. It was vote
of substantial Democrats. Is there rea-
son to believe that the Republicans Of
Maryland feel any more kindly to the
Roosevelt New Deal than do these Demo-
Gratis? Is there not some ground for
believing that the Republicans who drift
ed from their old moorings in 1882 to
swell the Roosevelt vote may have re-
turned to their old party allegiance?