The Republican Alternative

Hiram W. Johnson, Senator from California, officially opened his campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1924, by a speech in Cleveland. A month earlier President Coolidge had delivered his message to Congress (TIME, Dec. 17). It was regarded as "the Republican platform for 1924." But Senator Johnson is his chief opponent for that candidacy. His speech is the alternative platform for his Party next Fall. One platform or the other--in its main points--it is almost certain to be.

The Senator's speech was approximately the same length as the President's message, but it dealt with fewer subjects and at greater length with these. There is no question that it was an exceedingly able speech--direct, forceful, well organized, rhetorically polished. A condensation follows:

His Candidacy.

1) Its Justification. "I have no apologies to make for the role in which I appear here tonight. As an American, I am exercising an American's prerogative."

2) Its Spirit. "I begin this contest wholly philosophically and in entire good humor; but during its progress I shall not hesitate, as in every other political contest in which I have engaged, to express myself concerning policies with such force and emphasis as I can command."

Selection of Convention Delegates.

1) Attempts to Rectify its Abuses. "The selection of delegates from cer tain of the Southern states had become so corrupt and had created so many scandals thai finally the Republican National Convention in 1920 passed a resolution commanding within a year the Republican National Committee to adopt a 'Just and equitable basis' of representation in future national conventions. The national committee obeyed and within the year acted, and while its action did not constitute 'a just and equitable representation,' nevertheless, it reduced the delegates in Southern states where there is no Republican party."

2) Its Renewed Abuse. "This work, of the national committee solemnly done after full hearings a few days ago in Washington, under the orders of our opponents, was nullified and the scandalous and unfair representation accorded Southern states in past conventions was again given them." (TIME, Dec. 24.)

3) Its Unfairness. "Nine Southern states--Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia--polled 489,000 votes for President Harding. These nine Southern states have 134 delegates to the Republican National Convention. Ohio polled 1,182,000 votes for President Harding, and Ohio has 51 delegates to the Republican National Convention."

The Mellon Tax-Reduction Plan.

1) Its Strategy. "I do not even criticize the other side of this contest for creating a beautiful mirage with a tax program which is designed to blind our people to everything domestic in character and obliterate the memory of our lack of foreign policy."

2) Its Inconsequence. "There can be no political issue on reduction of taxes. No one believes in high taxation. Everybody wishes low taxation and everybody believes in reduction of taxation."

3) Its Antecedent. "Our Government overtaxed its people last year and we find a surplus on hand of $350,000,000. It is perfectly obvious that no Government has the right to overtax its people."

4) Its Propaganda. "We have never in this country had anything like the propaganda we now have in behalf of the so-called 'Mellon Plan.' ... It demands without the slightest knowledge of detail that the plan forthwith be adopted."

5) Its Proponents. "There are 13,600,000 people in this country who pay taxes on incomes less than $10,000; there are only 330,000 who pay taxes on incomes over $10,000. The men who pay on income of $250,000 will save under the so-called 'Mellon Plan' $49,000 a year. . . . The few who pay on an income of $5,000,000 will save $1,330,000 a year. ... Do you imagine that it is the man who, by a reduction of taxes, will save $10 or $30 or $50 or $100, who is indulging in this propaganda, or do you think it is the individual who will save $30,000, $50,000, $100,000, $200,000 or $300,000?"

A Soldier Bonus.

1) Its Sacredness as a Party Pledge. "From my standpoint this subject is no longer debatable. With very few exceptions the leaders of the Republican Party have pledged themselves and the Party to the passage of this act."

2) Its Compatibility with Tax-Reduction. "We can reduce all of the taxes now existing on incomes under $10,000 exactly as in the plan presented and we can reduce other taxes in some degree, and we also can keep our promise to pay the soldiers their due."

3) Its Precedents. "Let us not forget that the principle of adjusted compensation is a principle that our Government has already firmly established. . . . Congress passed a bill by which the Government which ceased with the termination of the War was adjusted. We adopted the principle of adjusted compensation for the railroads of the land. . . . The Government of the United States during the War and for some months thereafter actually paid a bonus to its civilian employees. We paid $20 a month during the War as a bonus, and we have paid to our employees in this bonus more than double the sum that is asked by the soldiers of the Republic."

4) Its Deservedness. "Contrast the $30 per month received by the soldiers during the War with what those at home made during that period. . . . The lad who was fighting in your behalf for $30 a month; out of the $30 a month from many of them $15 were taken as an allotment for relatives, and $6 a month to pay insurance, so that out of $30 a month the soldier had left in many, many instances, an average of $9 a month, or 30-c- a day."

The Farm Situation.

1) Its Seriousness. "The farmer today suffers not only from low prices from the high cost of production. What he sells is low and what he buys is high. His dollar is below par."

2) Its Needs. "The Government must aid him. It must obtain for him lower freight rates. It must in effective fashion scrutinize the spread between production and consumption. It must not only promote cooperation among the farmers themselves, but itself must sympathetically cooperate with them."

The Administration's Foreign Policy.

1) Its Handling. "I'm well aware our opponents have relegated international affairs to the obscurity of the State Department. . . . The fact that our foreign policy is in the hands of a Secretary of State and a Secretary of Commerce who have been ardent League of Nations advocates, would indicate that the League of Nations is not a closed incident."

2) Its Secrecy. "The American people today do not know what is the foreign policy of our Government, and I have no hesitation in saying it is their right to know that foreign policy. It may be that we do not know our foreign policy because we have none, but even the fact that we "have none the American people have the right to know."

The Sale of Arms to Obregon.

1) Its Significance. "Our policy, expressed now in so many words, is that the United States frowns upon revolutions and will lend its mighty strength to maintain existing power upon this hemisphere. ... I have no hesitation in saying our action is immoral if not illegal. . . . What an anomalous and paradoxical position is ours today, we who were born in revolution!"

2) Its Likeness to the Holy Alliance. "A hundred years ago there existed a league of nations in Europe, the Holy Alliance, which finally came under the control of the cunning and able master of secret diplomacy, Metternich, of Austria. . . . Metternich, finally in absolute control of the league of nations of that day, definitely announced its policy no different from the policy now announced by our Government. Revolution by a long suffering people in Piedmont Metternich ruthlessly stamped out with the armed forces of his league."

3) Its "Alliance with War." "Today this country allies itself with war in Mexico. It does so through those who have talked eloquently of peace and of relieving humanity."

The World Court.

1) Its Entanglement. "You know that we cannot enter this creature of the League without ultimately being entangled with the League itself. ... It is not a world court we are asked to enter."

2) Its Inefficiency. "It is the League of Nations court ... to which we could go, but to which we could not be brought. . . . No wrong could ever be righted. The peace of the world cannot be, in the slightest degree, affected by it, except so far as the nations concerned themselves agree."

3) Its Superfluity. "Remember, we already have arbitration treaties with nearly every important country on earth, and by contract under these arbitration treaties questions of controversy are to be submitted to arbitration. The Hague tribunal is in active existence now and is functioning with wider jurisdiction than the League."