Imperial Valley press., 1936-04-21
Editorials and Comment
TUESDAY, APRIL 81 1886.
News Behind the News
Grand Old Party Needs Leader =.
Headquarters WdUering Too
Many SneerS

wASHINGTON-The sooner Governor Lam
donor whoever the nominee is-getS TO Wash
ngton to take over the Republican headquar-
tiers, the better it will be for the Grand Old
Party and all concerned with its immediate fu
ture.
An almost incredible series of publicity
blunderS within the space OF few days has
made the present national committee manage
ment a laughing stock among the newspaper
correSpondents-not to mention the gleeful Dem
ocratS.
Partisan Republican newspapers in the East
already are commenting in tones denoting great
pain. If you hear further repercussions here
are some of the reasons:
l. After many months of panning the brain
trust" of the New Deal-with choice sarcasms
for Prof Felix Frankfurter of Harvard Law
School and his numerous pupils employed by
the administration-the national committee sud-
denly hired nine professors with large staff at
the head of whom it placed a former pupil of
Dr. Frankfurter, Prof. Olin Glenn Saxon.
. Mr. Theodore Huntley. boss press agent
OF the national committee broadcast a notice to
newspaper editors that he prepared to fur
niSh news stories and propag ganda in accordance
with whatever was wanted. He stood ready TO
arrange weekly or daily Washington letter if
there We're sufficient demand, but suggested
that most editors would prefer to run the syn
dicated columns of-and then named four Wash
ington correspondents with anti-New Deal lean
ingS
This official endorsement did those column
lists no good and the reaction wasn't so good for
Mr.. Huntey, either especially when Democratic
Press Agent Charlie Nicholson dwelt upon the
implication that the G. O. P. had taken the four
correspondents over.
5. Either two three young men claiming
to represent certain newspapers or news agencies
called around at Dr. Tugwells Resettlement Ad-
miniStraton to pick up information 1t
discovered that they were employed commits
stoned by the Republican national committee.
Whatever you may think this made the ma
tional committee look like, you may be sure that
it made the newspapers and agencies whose
names had been used good and sore.
4. One of the national committees most
ambitious recent publicity blasts purported to
expose the fact that the New Deal would fall
short billion dollars two of spending its
$4,000, 100000 work relief appropriation. The
COP. publicSts explained that all the money
must be spent by the end of the fiscal year.
June 80, 1886 Next day they had to apologize
having learned the money was available until
June 80, 1887
Such sequence of stupidities as these and
others has never been observed in Washington
before in a campaign year and may be a contr-
buting factor in the strong belief around the
national capital that the Republicans aren't 60
ing places in 1886
The pity of it is that there are some smart
keen fellows in the Landon camp-perhapS in
ranks of other candidates Well-under whom
you can't imagine that sort of thing occurring
Roy Roberts of the Kansas City Star,
chief Landon strategist; Oscar S. Stauffer Ark
ansas City, Kan, editor, and General Counsel
John Hamilton of the national committee head
of the Landon organizing campaign. about
as smart as they come in the political business