The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-03-07

41dUC 11l111 O1 OWCdl Oy III between.
 One thing on which even his enemies agree, however, is that no man in the Roosevelt Ad- mihitsration has more guts, more capacity for taking punishment, or gets more enjoyment out of standing out on the firing-line and heaving back the bricks that fly at him.
 THERE ARE SEVERAL REA- SONS why the bricks fly at Ickes. One is that he is no diplomat, calls a spade a spade, is brusque sometimes, his callers say, brutal - in dealing with congress sional favor-seekers.
 ANOTHER REASON is that Ickes is neither fish nor fowl, politically. Once a Republican, now member of a Democrat ad- lninistration, the Republicans call him a deserter, while Old School Democrats are suspicious of his progressivism.
 Also, Ickes is RO0sevelt's
 recognized trigger-man. He is
 the Cabinet member called up- on to perform when the Presi- . dent doesn't want to stick his
 own neck out. And make no mistake about it, Ickes does not speak out of turn when he castigates the Sixty Families or makes any of his other wealth.
 batting speeches. The Sixty Families speech was gone over very carefully in full Cabinet meeting on the same day it was to be delivered, and given cOm- plete approval.
 In fact, Jack Garner, leader of the Old School Democrats, put his arm around the Secretary of the Interior as they went out of the White House and said: I'm going to be listening to your speech tonight. Give 'em he'll" Key Political Man
 Final and most important req son why Ickes is under attack is the underlying political philoso- phy which caused him to be ap- pointed to the Cabinet in the first place. Woodrow Wilson worked on the thesis that the only way the Democratic Party could defeat the Republicans was to wean the Progressive Republi- cans away from the fold. Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose movement did this for Wilson the first time, and he barely managed to do it for himself the second time.
 Franklin Roosevelt, working on the same thesis, has gone step further. Convinced, like Woodrow Wilson, that a Demo- cratic Party based only upon the Solid South was unhealthy he has worked toward a perma- nent alignment with Republi- can Progressives. To this end he appointed three Republicans in his Cabinet tone of them, William A. WOOdin, is now deadD, and Ickes has become the spearhead of this Republi- can alignment.
 So from the viewpoint of plain, rudimentary politics, it is essen- tial that the Republican Party wean this deserting wing away from Roosevelt and back into the COP fold. Without this, victory in 1940 is impossible. And natu- rally one of the best ways to do it is to keep pounding away on the man who leads the deserters namely Harold L. Ickes.
 Anti-Ickes Campaign
 To this end there is a secret but very significant Republican att tack against Republican Enemy No. 1, which may be sprung at any moment. A little group of Republican blue-stockings has been talking to some of the dis charged agents from MT. Ickes' Investigation division.
 In particular they are con- ferring with Rhodes MacPhaiI, discharged assistant to the famous Louis Glavis, who once headed the Investigation Divi- sion. The Republicans are try ing to get evidence that Glavis' investigators were used to probe some of Ickes' personal affairs.
 Glavis investigated so many people before IckeS finally woke up, that this may or may not be true. However, the significant thing is not the incident itself but the men who are investigat- ing it. Not only are they leading Republicans, but extremely close to the Sixty Families which Ickes castigated.
 Here are some of the promi- ent Ickes-baiters:
 Ex-SenatOr Dan Hastings of Delaware, Man Friday for the duPonts, leading members of the Sixty Families.
 Representative Robert l.. Bacon of New York, whose father was a partner of J. P. Morgan, an- other of the Sixty Families. OTST THIN nTHnnn