Evening star., 1936-07-08

OF projecting pre-conceived picture
upon the public consciousness through
photograph, motion picture and radio.
Newspaper dispatches from Topeka
say that Gov. Landon has been TAX
ing training in the art of speaking
before the microphone. If the train
ing goes no farther than to attempt
ordinary clarity of utterance, that Is,
Of course, desirable. One hopes, how
ever, that Gov. Landon's teacher will
not tempt him into a competition IN
In tremolos and organ tones with
President Roosevelt.
Radio Plays Part.
The degree to which the art of pol
itics has been modified by the radio
and the motion picture deserves
learned study-some university can
didate for the Ph.D. degree might
usefully take it as his thesis. These
new mechanisms of communication
between the public man and the pub
lie necessitates new techniques. But
the new techniques may be carried
too far. The new mechanisms are
not well understood by public men,
and the latter tend to be too willing
to accept suggestions made to them
by the men who manage the cameras
and microphones. When ex-Gov.
Smith was candidate for President
in 1928, he made hit with much of
the public by declining to make hit
with one Of the photographers who
MI ~ iySO Ia Nrr1c Iva
public building in course of erection,
and the reSourceful photographer sug-
gested that he pick up brick and
trowel and be thus photographed.
Ex-Gov. Smiths reply, from the
depths of his common sense. was:
mo, that would be 'boloney'-every-
body knows I am not a bricklayer."
Lack of confidence about the new
mechanisms of politics led President
Coolidge into accommodating himself
to photographers in ways as distant as
possible from his own judgment. At
rodeo in the West he allowed him
self to be photographed in a ten
gallon" hat, and again in Indian cos
tune. The expression on his face
showed his distaste for it, though he
did it in Difference to what were sup
posed to be the conventional demands
of presidential candidacy. The pho
tograph of Coolidge on his Vermont
ancestral farm in the seat of a hay
rake, wearing the ancestral smock,
was not so much out of character, but
it led to mocking smiles by those who
observed that below the farm overalls
he was wearing the polished shoes Of
the city man. In the case of President
Hoover 1t took months of clamoring
by photographers and discussion by
advisers before he was willing to be
photographed in fishing clothes, al
though that was, for him, natural
pose.
Make Him Known As He Is.
Doubtless Gov. Landon's advisers
reason that he is a relatively new
figure in public life, that it is impera-
tive to make him we'll known, and that
the time is short. Reasoning thus,
doubtless they think the more pho
tographs the better. True it is i'm
perative to make Gov. Landon known,
but it is also imperative to make him
known as he is.
This. Of all presidential campaigns,
ought not to be run like beauty con-
test or a stunt show. The standard
Of taste about photographs ought to
be fixed by the public man. not by
the photographers. The photogra-
piers, practicing sound competitive
individualism, are concerned not with
taste but with novel effect. One feels
that something ought to be done
about 1t.
tCopyright. 1850