Evening star., 1936-03-16
PLATFORM ADDING.
NEW DEAL WOES.
Question of What Shall Be
Said Begins Undersur-
face Friction.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.

1hree ana q Ilhl1 1lOAAtA3o AAOhA w
dav and the New Deal party will be
assembled in convention in Phila-
delphia to nominate President Roose-
Welt for another term, but really to
thresh out the most difficult problem
the New Deal has yet faced-a ngnt
within its own ranks on platform.
It might seem to the cynical OBJ
server that it wouldn't matter very
much what Is written into the New
Deal platform because the last plat
form which President Roosevelt &C
cepted 100 per cent has been criticized
as having been in large part disre-
garded.
But leaving aside the bombardment
which will come on this point, the fact
remains that even among the fol-
lowers and supporters OF President
Roosevelt, the question Of what to
say in that new platform Is already
becoming troublesome.
Will it be platform written by the
intellectuals some times referred to as
the brain trust? VIII the platform
be written with the ideas furnished
by Secretary Ickes, Secretary Wal
lace. Undersecretary Tugwell and Sec
retary Perkins? Or will 1t be the
work of Secretary Hull, Secretary
Roper, Attorney General Cummings
and Postmaster General Farley?
Court May Figure In.
It would hardly seem possible that
the platform would be silent on the
alleged usurpation by the Supreme
Court or that nothing would be writ
ten in the platform about the i'm
portance of constitutional revision to
give agriculture and labor the recog-
milton their special groups have been
seeking.
The moderate wing Of the party,
of course, would prefer to say very
little If anything on the Supreme
Court or the Constitution and the
compromise may be silence on that
point In exchange for a rather vigor-
ously worded plank on natural re-
.Sources and the Importance Of Gov
ernment development thereof.
- It is easy enough to say that Presi-
dent Roosevelt will write the plat
form in advance and hand it to the
delegates for formal ratification. But
some of the ambitious delegates who
go to political conventions to get
their names in the newspapers and
who stand up before microphones
nowadays and discuss and debate
whilst Nationwide networks carry
their voices across the continent will
not be content with mere ratification.
The minority report boys will be
active and they will have to be heard.
The big prize in each State delega-
ton is membership on the Resolutions
Committees and it would seem that
certain States will surely have dele
gates hostile to the brain trusters.
All this will lend zest to the Demo-
cratic convention and plenty of in
terest to the observing Republicans,
who will be taking note of what pro-
posals from the moderate wing are
turned down.
The Republicans. of course, will
have held their convention a couple
weeks before, but this will not prevent
the Republicans from making issues
out of what the New Deal platform
contains or omitS. There is some pos
sibility Of a plank advocating an
amendment to the Constitution to
clarity the meaning of interstate
commerce" so as to leave it to Con-
gress rather than the Supreme Court
to determine. The Republicans would
probably like nothing better than an
issue of this kind, for it would imply
the revival of the N. r. A. inasmuch
as the Blue Eagle left a residue Of
antagonisnls.
Likely to Claim Credit.
Incidentally, most reliable figures
show that since N. r. A. both money
wages and real wages are higher than
they were when the N. r. A. was in
validated by unanimous decision of
the Supreme Court. The New Deal
platform will probably claim credit
for this on the general theory that
Government spending "primed the
pump"
While the New Deal party will un-
doubtedly ratify whatever platform
Mr.. Roosevelt may decide upon, this
does not mean that interesting debate
will be curtailed. Rather it would
indicate the whole dramatic value of
the forthcoming convention will be
handling Of the platform and the prob
able attempt of the regular Democratic
leaders to have their ideas inserted
in the platform. The latter group will
argue that this is the way to recap
ture conservative voters that have
been driven away by the Ickes-Hop-
kins-Tugwell philosophy, which at
heart is just as distasteful to the regu-
lar Democrats as the ''laissez faire"
point of view of the old-line Democrats
Is irritating to the brain trust" wing
Of the New Deal party.
And when the platform is finally
written and adopted the query will
arise whether it shall be regarded as
binding or whether like platforms of
old in most conventions subject to
change without notice as the sue
ceSsful candidate begins his own in
depreciation in the light of concrete
conditions that arise long after plat
form planks have been laid away in
the pigeon holes of past political lit
erature.