The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1936-07-30
LANDON IS NEITHER VACUUM NOR KANSAS GANGS
STOOGE, MENCKEN, BALTIMORE sun, NOTES AT TOPEKA

His speech of acceptance, am told,
was a quite typical performance. 1t
was about as thrilling as the multiple
cation table. He started off by saying
that he wanted to make everything
plain to the meanest understanding
and he undoubtedly accomplished that
by no means facile feat. There were
no flights into the empyrean. There
was no appeal to the fancy. From end
to end there were hardly dozen fig
ures of speech and all of them were
familiar to any one who had ever got
as far as McGuffey's Fifth Reader.
And he rolled off the whole in an I'M
b1 oxen monotone, with, so far as I can
recall, not single gesture.
Proposals For Lessons
When he began to be groomed for
the purple, some of his handlers, not
ing this logged preference for the key
of C major, proposed that he be put
into the hands of a rhetorical condi-
toner and taught how to roll his eyes,
beat his breast and make the welkin
ring. There were professionals at hand,
so hear, who believed that his fiat,
colorless voice might be. leased. and
tortured into something resembling a
Kiwanis baritone, with. maybe even
some dulcet overtones of tenor. It
might be, they admitted, that deep
sea divers and tree-surgeons would
have to be called in to deal with his
tight vocal chords, but nevertheless
something could be done.
1t was, perhaps, characteristic of the
hon. gentleman that he vetoed all these
proposed interferences with the de-
signs of Providence. He was sensible
enough to see that even if he were
made into an orator he could never be
anything but a bad one, and he was
sensible enough to see also that his
very incapacity was something to cher
ish, if only for the sake of its con-
trast with the dizzy virtuosity of his
eminent opponent.
In brief, he saw that his one chance
of being elected was as the embodi-
ment of everything that DR.. Roosevelt
was not, and he threw in the Roosevelt
tan vocalizing along with the Roose-
veltian libido for experiment and the
Rooseveltian talent for getting rid of
other peoples money.
Firm On His Own Legs
Thus he begins his campaign planted
firmly upon his own legs and fully
determined that the country must take
him as God made him or go on endure
ing the More Abundant Life. He may
be wobbled a bit in his detail as the,
combat advances, but 1 don't think ne
will change front on any essential. His
speeches will continue to be essays
rather than orations. They will be
made as plain as he can make them,
and that will be very plain indeed, but
there will be nothing in them to en-
chant movie fans, editorial writer's and
other such aesthetics.
don't think he will ever dodge any
essential issue. He declares that he
doesn't want to be President if he must
get to the White House by false pre-
lenses, and l believe him. But he will
not give much of a show.
His fundamental theory, as / have
said, is that a majority of the Ameri
can people have had show enough to
last them a long while. He believes
that they are tired of wizards, includ-
ing even wizards who really wiz. He
believes that their minds have strayed
from the joys of Utopia to the unpleas-
antness of paying taxes, and that they
are entering upon an era of quiet but
painful figuring.
His Game To Help
His game is to help them in that fig
uring in the character of business
man whose books always balance. He
is stalking his fortunes. upon bet that
there are now more of them against
the New Deal than in favor of it. He
sees himself, not as the hero of a new
rage, but as the residuary legatee of
a long-accumulated disquiet.
There are men about him, of course,
who dream other dreams. They hope
to pump him up into a crusader,
Galahad-in brief, into something that
he is not. But I don't think they will
get very far. There is a touch of cast
iron in Landon, if not Of steel. 1t will
not be easy to pull him off his legs.
The Pennsylvania Dutch, when they
get set, remain set for long time. If
this one is elected in November he will
not make brilliant President, but he
will balance the budget or bust.
--o