Evening star., 1936-02-17
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

bearer, Roberts, along with John Ham
ilton of Kansas, now general counsel of
the Republican National Committee, is
sure to be prominent factor in the
Governors election campaign and in
Landon administration, if such should
come to pass.
Republican anti-New Deal coalition
talk, revived by Senator Vandenberg'S
Lincoln day speech, particularly the sug-
gestion that Jeffersonian Democrat
may be given the G. o. p. vice presi-
Dental nomination at Cleveland, is in
cubating many weird ideas. None rivals
in novelty the brain wave of writer of
q letter to the New York Herald Tribune,
proposing that Hoover and Smith"
would make an ideal and irresistible
combination that would sweep the
country"
Despite official denialS that State De-
partment or other administration influ-
ence played any part in Senator Pitt
mans recent denunciation of Japan'S
policies in the Far East, some local dip
lomatic quarters incline to think that
the Washington powers that be probably
are not displeaSed with the Nevadan S
utterance. Mr.. Pittman's position as
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee and as White House conf
dant makes it impossible to divest his
remarks of highly official smack. 1t
is everybodys secret that Japan's Man
.churian adventure and her current activ-
tiles in North China evoke unqualified
disapproval at Washington. While it's
realized that neither President Roosevelt
nor his suave Secretary of State, who
are directly responsible for conduct OF
our foreign affairs, would ever express
themselves in the two-flSted terms en-
ployed by the foreign relations chairman,
international observers here guess that
the Senator is not far from rejecting the
honest-to-goodneSS sentiments cherished
at the executive end of Pennsylvania
avenue regarding Nippons tactics on the
mainland of Asia. That similar conclu-
sionS will be drawn at Toxic is alto
gether probable.
They may not be even distantly re-
lated, but Senator Rose Long, Demo-
crat of Louisiana, and the wife of Sena-
tor Borah, Republican progressive of
Idaho, share in common the maiden
name of Mcconnell. Mrs. Borah was
a Mamie Mcconnell, daughter of the
late Samuel Mcconnell, one of the early
Governors of Idaho.
X y X X
Charles Nicholson, publicity ace OF
the Democratic National Committee,
fervently denies the soft impeachment
: that he was the "ghost" author of Sena-
tor Joe RobinSon's recent retort to Al
Smiths Liberty League blast against the
New Deal. Nicholson recalls that the
same kind of a charge used to be made
against him when he was associated with
Jouett Shouse during the latter's chair
manship of the Democratic National Ex-
ecutive Committee. Says Nicholson: In
those days the publicity department OF
the Democratic National Committee
would have had to be an encyclopedia
incarnate, as well as being qualified to
act as construction foreman on the
Tower of Babel, if it did half the things
attributedSto it. If it were qualified to
do all these things well, it would have
had to be competent to fill all the faculty
chairs of all the colleges. The depart
ment is a5reservoir of data on which
speakers frequently draw, but it does not
supply all the wit, wisdom and eloquence
that crop out during an election struggle.
The other theory is q compliment, but,
sad to say, A. is only one of many CAM
aIcopyrisht. 1850