The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1938-08-25

Washington.-The South in gen.
eral and the State of Georgia IN
particular have become the focus OF
attention here. In Georgia, the most
clear-cut political issues so far be-
tween the President and the anti
New Deal Democrats of the South
has been brought to a head by the
President himself, in his public de-
claration of opposition to Senator
Walter F. George and his appeal to
the voters of Georgia to elect Fed
eral District Attorney Lawrence
Camp to the Senate.
The whole South has been pic
tured as the most backward and &C.
onomically handicapped part OF
the Nation in a sixty-page report
by the National Emergency Council,
presented to the President on his
return from his Pacific fishing trip.
The Georgia political issue is fore
most in the eyes of the political OBJ
servers. Despite all the talk IN the
past few weeks of Mr.. Roosevelt's
plan to purge" the Democratic
party of Senators and Representa-
tives who have not seen eye to eye
with him on major New Deal poll
cies, the party primaries so far have
been won or lost mainly on local or
state issues, which have overshad-
owed in large measure the question
of personal loyalty to the President.
In some instances the Presidents
supporters have been victorious, in
others they have been defeated.
The only Senatorial contest up to
late August in which the issue be-
tween the Democratic candidates has
been solely that of unquestionlng
loyalty to the New Deal was in Ida
no, where Senator Pope made his
campaign on no other issue than his
willingness to take orders from the
President, and was defeated.
Presidential Endorsement doubt
less was a factor in the victory OF
Senator Barley in Kentucky, but
conditions local to the state also fig
ured in the defeat Of Governor
Chandler. In the success of some
anti-New Deal candidates for the
House in Texas, and the defeat OF
others, local issues were the prlncl-
pal fatcor.
Locking Ahead to Primaries
The Presidents attack upon Sena-
tor George in Georgia, and the Sen
ator's acceptance of the challange,
makes September IA, the date OF the
Georgia primaries, one to which
every political observer in Washing
ton end elsewhere is looking for
ward with the most intense interest.
In his two speeches in Georgia
Roosevelt set forth in clear Ian
guaga for the first time his concep-
ton that by electing him twice to
the Presidency the people of the
United States have given him a
mandate to take definite action to
correct all economic inequalities. He
said that Senators and Representa-
tives cf the Democratic Party who
do not believe in his detectives and
will not fight Fundamentally for
them do not belong in the party.
No such direct and personal at
tack upon a Senator of his own
party has ever before been made by
a President, so far as the memories
of the oldest political correspondents
here 60. If Senator George is de-
feated at the September primaries
it will be a clear-cut, personal vic
tory for the President.
If the Senator does win renomi-
nation, Washington observers do not
see how that result could be inter-
preted as anything but stunning
blow at Mr.. Roosevelt's personal
prestige, and one which would still
further widen the breach between
the two wings of the Democratic
party.
Invasion of State Rights
The indications are that the more
conservative, traditional Democrat
ic leaders and newspapers of Geor-
gia are lining up behind Senator
George and against President Roos-
evelt on two major grounds. One is
resentment of Presidential interior
ence in a matter which old-fashion-
ed Democrats regard as the con-
Germ of the people of the state alone
the matter of whom they shall
send to Washington to represent
them.
The other is the definite implica-
ton in the Presidents anti-George
speeches that Georgia and the rest
of the southern states are incapable
of improving their economic condi-
lions and guarding the welfare OF
their people, and that therefore it
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