Evening star., 1940-09-21

ii',ssi f1i' s'sis CT q. 9s: no:
paigning.
Mr.. Roosevelt David Lawrence.
used his University of Pennsylvania
speech to answer recent attacks by
Wendell Willkie, Republican nomi-
nee. He had every right to do this,
and nobody can object to Presl-
dent campaigning for himself. What
is causing public criticism is the
apparent effort to make a political
speech under supposedly non-polltl-
cal auspices and to gain the use Of
free radio time and thus save the
Democratic campaign funds for
other purposes.
The Presidents speech can be
divided into paragraphs and set
alongside Mr.. Wilkes recent ut
terances. Mr.. Roosevelt took issue
with the Willkie charge that Roose-
welt had lost faith in the people.
The President chose to construe this
charge to mean that Mr.. Wlllkle
wanted to accept the judgment OF
only a few people-the managers OF
business. The President constantly
turns most of his campaigning into
efforts to array class against class
and 10 create disunity as between
the employers and employees OF in
dustry.
Saws Statute Was Ignored.
What Willkie has been charging
l. &c low
representative of the people in TAX
ing important steps without asking
for the approval of Congress. There
Is no reason to believe Congress
would have withheld permission to
send the 50 destroyerS to England,
but Mr.. Roosevelt was afraid Of the
peoples representatives and not
only made an agreement with
foreign government of transcendent
Importance to the country, but &C
tually ignored statute passed by
the representatives of the people
in Congress.
The President endeavored also in
his Philadelphia speech to meet the
cry of dictatorship by insisting that
as long as there are free elections"
no harm can come to America.
What he did not discuss was the
fact that free elections no longer
exist in the sense in which the
term has been used for generations
In America. It is estimated, for in
stance, that 100000 families
receive checks nowadays or benefits
l., i y,
Government. Hence the willingness
of a President to allow his own
pficeholders who disburse these
funds to name him for a third term
means the use of governmental
power and the absence of freedom
in a party convention. No more
palpable evidence of dictatorship is
needed than the way the nomina-
ton of Henry Wallace for Vice Pres
ident was forced on the delegates
at the Chicago convention.
Holds Hatch Law Violated.
Mr.. Roosevelt, in his Philadelphia
speech, made no reference to the
fact that the w. P. A rolls have
been increased each election year
and that the scandals over the
w. P. A. and A. A. A. were so great
in 1886 that the Hatch law had to
be passed to try to prevent a re-
currence
Now the spirit and the letter of
the Hatch law and the actual pro-
visions of the Federal Corrupt Prac-
tices Act are violated by the Presi-
dents own Campaign Committee,
which has collected upwards of
$4,000 from the corporations whose
Judgment Mr.. Roosevelt says he does
not care to accept, but whose money
looks good to the campaign manager
named by his own personal appoint
ment.
The President made quite a point
of the difference between the point
of view of Alexander Hamilton,
founder of the present day Repuo-
hcan party, and Thomas Jefferson,
acknowledged founder of the Demo-
cratic party of today. This dis
cussion of the two contrasting phi
losophies in American politics had in
1T plenty of implications which the
listening voter in the midst of a po-
litical campaign could not fail to
understand. But Mr.. Roosevelt,
after citing jefferson as the cham
pion of democracy. failed to quote
the founder of the Democratic party
on the one thing that is really
germane to the present campaign
the third term. Writing in 1909
after serving two terms, Jefferson
said
If the principle of rotation be
a sound one. as I conscientlouSly be-
lieve it to be, with respect to this
office, no preteXt should ever be per-
mitted to dispense with 1t, because
there never will be time when real
difficulties will not exist and fur
nish a plausible pretext for dis
pensation.'
Jefferson Quoted Again.
Then. in 1921, long after his years
of retirement gave him chance to
think deliberately and objectively
about presidential tenure, Jefferson
wrote again:
"The example of four Presidents
voluntarily retiring at the end OF
their eighth year, and the progress
Of public opinion that the principle
is salutary, have given it in practice
the force of a precedent and usage
in so much that should President
consent to be candidate for q
third election, I trust he would be
rejected on this demonstration oi