Evening star., 1936-06-11

with the kind of
Il social democracy
no-o.h- rL indigenous to the
Mississippi VAL
ley, where the garage mechanic calls
the town banker by his first name
and it speaks an unmistakably Ameri-
can idiom.
1t would be easy to be misled by
this. These men who have given their
headquarters the aspect of the country
parlor-the enlarged portraits of the
hero as child, remind one of yes
terday's crayon enlargements-are not
yokels.
The spirit dominating the Landon
delegation is the spirit of the farmer
who owns an automobile and works
his land with tractors; who sells his
products in the markets of the world;
who listens to New York and some
times to London, on the radio; who
knows that whether France stays on
gold or goes of it, concerns him. 1t
Is the spirit of the country editor, for
whom the worlds news comes in on
ticker tape through vast news services
spanning the earth. It's the spirit OF
the farmer, who squirting into the
sky for signs of rain, sees a great
Silvery airplane winging by.
No Stuffed Shirt Aides.
There is not a single stuffed shirt
who is close to Landon. That seems
to be one of the most important
| things about the man. His nearest
councillors have been newspaper men
not industrialists or bankers, and
they have quality of disinterested-
ness in public problems, and eager in
terest about them. How wise, how
gifted, how able a statesman, Gov
Landon may be, I, of course, do not
know. But he has demonstrated i'm
mense political sagacity and it is
| clear that he is the only candidate
with that imponderable something
| about which men rally. And the
men who have rallied and begun tc
roll the SNOWFALL are men from that
part of the country from which has
come every progressive movement
automatically characteristic of our
people. It is said that the conserva-
tive and powerful interests of the
East picked Landon because he was
safe and sane" Perhaps they did
I know nothing about the insides OF
partisan politics. But the Liberty
League is extremely inconspicuous in
| Cleveland.
And herein lies the drama. For
there is Just one other figure over
shadowing this convention. He sits
in small room at the Cleveland
Hotel. He has fought gallant fight.
And as far as his personal ambitions
are concerned, he has lost it. He is
II years old. % years the senior OF
his rival, but still one of the most
magnetic personalities in the Repub-
lican ranks. am speaking, of course,
of Senator Borah.
20 Years Fateful.
Borah has led the fight against
Landon. But the forces which he
has mobiliZed have been moved down
by something fresher, younger and
more vigorous. And the poignant
thing is this: Had Borah been born
20 years later than he was, the men
now following his opponent would no
doubt have been following him.
Borah does not recognize his own
spiritual son, for this new hope OF
the Republican party comes, like
Borah, from the West. Like Borah
he.detests stuffed shirts. Like Borah
no natural affection, no traditional
bias, bind him to the great interests
which dominated the American scene
and the Republican party for so many
years. If Landon had Borahs elo-
quence, as Landon does not, he might
| very well have delivered the speeches
of Borah which belong to the true
American documents of this campaign
LandCn would agree in every word
with Borah's vigorous assertions that
the struggle in this country between
| freedom and collectivism cannot even
be formulated unless one is prepared
to go to the mat against the economic
control which in the past has been
exercised by vast aggregations OF
capital.
Still Ahead of His Time.
In fact, If I look about me here tc
think who might have been Landon's
father, who might have brought him
up. can think of no one except
Borah. The older man, Americas
great protester, has the f1amboyant
vigor of a generation more securely
born than any which is alive today
The older man was in advance of his
times and is still in advance of them
But these times are the ones in which
the young man lives.
Landon needs Borah. He need.
his eloquence; he needs his experience
he needs his vision of the real issue
He needs him if this is to be a rea
campaign and not a sham one. Borah
cannot help but feel it, is innerly
in the structure of his ideas, in tht
tendency of his sympathies, in the
vigor of his prejudices, closer to Lam
don and the men whom Landon rep.
reSents than to any candidate OF
group in this convention.
VIII the two men, of two genera
tions, the one so hostile, the other SC
confident, find each other in the next
few days?
tCopyright. 193o)
| -.