Evening star., 1936-02-03
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM FILE.

Chairman Jim Farley's prediction at
the Democratic National Committee
meeting last month that the 1896 cam
paign is going to be rough, tough and
muddy has been promptly borne out by
events. The Smith -Robinson-NeW Deal
Liberty League fisticuffs, the Talmadge
Grass Roots convention and various
repercussions in the press, on the radio
and in the halls of Congress, with cabi-
net members and labor leaders taking
hand in the verbal melee, jointly and
severally prove that the Postmaster Gen.
eral was a good prophet. That the
approaching political unpleaSantness is
going to be waged with almost unpre-
dented vim and vinegar is now GER
tanty. So far, for the most part, in
ternal strife has been monopolized by
the Democrats. But it probably won't
be long before the Republicans will be
doing some family rowing and dirty linen
washing of their own. Senator Borah'S
recent speech at Brooklyn hints that
he is ready for war to the knife with
the G. o. P. Old Guard, which sooner
or later may be depended upon to take
plenty of filings at the Idahoan. AS
Cleveland convention time approaches,
rival Republican aspirants are sure to
cner up ferociously on the New Deal
and all its works-and workers. The war
is on. 1t will wax more furious as the
days roll by, with mo quarter" signals
flying everywhere.
Apparently President Roosevelt is
bearing up with habitual good humor
under the slings and arrows now being
leveled at him and the New Deal from
many sides, especially within his own
party. F. D. r. gave his latest press
conference to understand that he hasn't
been tuning in on any of the recent
political baWling and brawling over the
radio, confding that the friends who
gave him a new receiving set on his
birthday think he ought to hear more
grand opera. The President laughed
off a query as to whether he considers
AL Smith "prima donna" Even if
the President may not be listening in
on political broadcasts, that doesn't
mean he isn't keeping fully abreast of
the music in the air, discordant and
otherwise. If he's upset by some of
the hot stuff currently agitating the
wave-lengthS, he's master of the gentle
art of concealing emotions, for his Wis
itors fail to detect in his demeanor any
sign that New Dealer No. l is at all
unstrung by the critical days through
which his masterpiece is passing.
X X y X
Hardly anything could more elo-
quently testify that prohibition as a
political issue belongs to the irretriev-
able past than the fact that the two
Republican presidential aspirants now
out in front-Borah Of Idaho and Lam
don of Kansas-are both drys, or were,
when politicians had to stand up and
be counted on the liquor question. Ap-
parently his arid record is not pre-
venting either the Senator or the Gov
ernor from winning favor in the wet
East, though the one-time partiality of
each of them for the eighteenth amend
ment is well-known. Should Borah or
Landon become the elephants stand
ard bearer this year, the Democrats may
be relied upon to trot out the fact that
Mr. Roosevelt's Republican opponent
once was an ardent prohibitionist. The
strategy will be to scare wet voters into
fearing that the old water wagon. after
all, might be put back in commission
If a dry Republican were in the White
House.
It will be a relatively youthful
Board of Governors of the Federal Re-
serve system that takes the helm at
Washington tl.ls week. Forty-hve-year-