The Platform

The tread of a steamroller is broad and crushing. The tread of a tiger is soft, delicate but just as sure as a steamroller. It was while the Dry Democrats were nervously guarding themselves against a steamrollering from the Wet Democrats at Houston, that the representatives of Tammany Hall sidestepped what had threatened to be the one hitch of the convention, the hitch of the Prohibition plank in the party platform.

The sidestep took place, not in the embattled meeting room of the Resolutions Committee, where the Prohibition plank was being framed, but in the meeting room of the Committee on Rules and Order of Business.

The question was: should the platform be adopted by the convention before the nominating speeches began? Dry men said, yes, certainly: you cannot name a candidate before he knows what he is to stand for. But Mayor James J. Walker of New York City, quick and trig, said: "Our common enemy, who has just dispersed his forces at Kansas City, is waiting --oh, how eagerly!--for the old-fashioned friction that has unfortunately characterized so many Democratic conventions in the past. . . . The G. 0. P. is depending upon us to 'spill the beans' here. Let us disappoint them. I ask for speed on this convention, not to becloud good judgment but to spell efficiency."

So the nominating speeches were begun before the platform was brought in. That gave the platform-framers time to fight out all their differences off the convention floor.

It was a sharp fight, too. Dan Moody, young Governor of Texas, sat with Bishop James Cannon Jr. of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Beside them were two Wilson Cabinet men, Josephus Daniels and Carter Glass. Opposing, sat truculent young Senator Tydings of Maryland, arch Senator Edwards of New Jersey, solid Senator Wagner of New York and other Wets. Hovering near were Anti-Saloon Leaguers; Captain William H. Stayton of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment; many a busybody, many a crank. Sebastian Spering Kresge, 5-and-10-cent man, was there, presumably to see that the Anti-Saloon League was mak-ing good use of some of the $500,000 he gave it last winter (TIME, Dec. 19).

Senator Tydings at one juncture found it necessary to call Bishop Cannon an utterer of falsehood. Senator Glass told Senator Tydings he was behaving "indecently." Senator Tydings leaped at Senator Glass, had to be held. Josephus Daniels berated Senator Tydings for the use he made of Woodrow Wilson's name. Senator Tydings retorted that, nevertheless, Woodrow Wilson vetoed the Volstead Act.

Governor Moody was for taking in a minority report and declaring flatly against any modification of Prohibition. With Nominee Smith's stand for modification so well-known, this would undoubtedly have precipitated grave trouble in the convention. Senator Glass was the mediator, finally, and even Bishop Cannon approved the law-enforcement phrases which were unanimously adopted.

Farm relief was the only other plank in the least vexing or important. This was handled by permitting T. E. Cushman of the American Farm Bureau Federation to join the agricultural subcommittee. Notable were omission of any attack upon the protective tariff and an implied promise to enforce the 15th Amendment (votes for Negroes). The latter, coming from the pen of Carter Glass of Virginia, was accepted as conventional flub-dub.

The two important planks and their relation to the corresponding G. 0. P. planks were as follows:

Prohibition. The Democrats said: "The Republican Party for eight years in complete control of the government at Washington, presents the remarkable spectacle of feeling compelled in its national platform to promise obedience to a provision of the Federal Constitution Which it has flagrantly disregarded and to apologize to the country for its failure to enforce laws enacted by the Congress of the United States. Speaking for the national Democracy, this convention pledges the party and its nominee to honest effort to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment and all other provisions of the Federal Constitution and all laws enacted pursuant thereto."

(The Republicans had quoted George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and said: "The people through the method provided by the Constitution have written the Eighteenth Amendment into the Constitution. The Republican Party pledges itself and its nominees to the observance and vigorous enforcement of [it].")

Agriculture. The Democrats said that the Republicans had "practised deception" upon the farmer for more than 50 years "through false and delusive promises" and an unbalanced tariff. The Democrats promised legislation to help market surplus crops, by means of:

1) A Federal loan fund.

2) A Federal farm board, comparable to the Federal Reserve Board.

3) "Reduction ... of the spread between what the farmer and stockraiser gets and what the ultimate consumer pays."

4) "Consideration" for farmers in framing tax measures.

(The Republicans had pledged themselves to reorganize the farm marketing system, to create a Federal farm board; had "favored" agricultural tariff protection, a Federal organization for co-operative farm marketing.)

Intelligence. More impressive than any outburst was the attentive silence which obtained in the monster convention hall during the quiet speech of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was the third time since 1920 that Mr. Roosevelt had placed his friend, Alfred Emanuel Smith, in nomination for the Presidency. In those eight years, Mr. Roosevelt had been crippled by, but now had almost recovered from, infantile paralysis. With his limp and cane and the stretch of suffering on his face, he might have made an appeal to the audience more emotional than any of the other speakers. Instead, he held himself erect and delivered what all critics agreed was the most intelligently well-bred speech of either of the big conventions. He recited his friend's fitness for office in terms of his record in office. He offered him as a governor who had "power to impart knowledge of, and create interest in, government." He said, in an even voice that was more persuasive than any Bryanesque blaring could have been, that his friend had "that quality of soul which makes a man loved ... a strong help to all those in sorrow or in trouble . . . the quality of sympathetic understanding of the human heart." Compared to the common run of nominating effusions, Mr. Roosevelt's speech was as homo sapiens to the gibbering banderlog.

Grace. To John William Davis went the convention's honors for gracefulness. As his party's last, unsuccessful nominee, he had to mount the rostrum to resign his titular leadership of the Democracy. He did so with a smooth blend of wit, modesty and loyalty to the new Nominee.

Unity. To make plain that the party stood united and that he would be no sulk-in-tent champion, Missouri's white-crested Senator James A. Reed followed Mr. Davis with a cry for "every Democrat in the United States" to support Nominee Smith "until the last ballot is counted on election night." True, this Reed speech preceded the convention's choice of a vice president. But after Nominee Robinson was chosen, Senator Reed's congratulations contained an honest ring.

Honesty. Speeches and resolutions are very well, but the Democratic party is traditionally the party of individualism. There are as many brands of Democracy as there have been outstanding Democratic leaders--Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, Cleveland, Bryan*, Wilsonian. Now there was to be a Smith Democracy. The convention waited to hear Nominee Smith's interpretation of his leadership. When the telegram arrived, it contained three important statements:

1) "I stand committed to the platform. . . ."

That meant, chiefly, that the Smith Democracy stood for law enforcement, with special mention of the Eighteenth Amendment, and for some form of Agricultural relief legislation.

2) "... and will welcome an opportunity to reorganize and make more efficient the agencies of Government, to the end that the burden of taxation may be lightened. Our platform lays at rest the absurd claim insidiously put out by Republican propaganda that the Republican Party has a monopoly on the mechanics of prosperity."

That, being the only reference to the Republicans, meant that the Smith Democracy would not make Republican corruption its campaign issue, but would campaign on the Smith record of progressive government.

3) "It is well known that I believe there should be fundamental changes in the present provisions for national prohibition, based, as I stated in my Jackson Day letter, on the fearless application to the problem of the principles of Jeffersonian democracy. While I fully appreciate that these changes can only be made by the people themselves, through their elected legislative representatives, I feel it to be the duty of the chosen leader of the people to point the way which, in his opinion, leads to a sane, sensible solution of a condition which, I am convinced, is entirely unsatisfactory to the great mass of our people.

"Common honesty compels me to admit that corruption of law enforcement officials, bootlegging and lawlessness are now prevalent throughout this country. I am satisfied that without returning to the old evils that grew from the saloon, which years ago I held, and still hold, was and ought always to be a defunct institution in this country, by the application of the democratic principles of local self-government and States' rights, we can secure real temperance, respect for law and eradication of the existing evils."

That required no interpretation, except that it meant Nominee Smith would permit no doubt to exist about his Prohibition views, however well such doubt might lend itself to soothing the Dry element of his party. That it might win many a Republican vote was undoubtedly another consideration, but in the last analysis any considerable volume of Republican votes which it might win would be attracted by the straightforwardness of the statement and not its uncertain alcoholic content. In the end, Nominee Smith seemed to have hit, not only upon a Keynote but upon an Issue. He gave the electorate to judge which of the following Prohibition statements is most accurate and honest:

a) "A great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose."--Herbert C. Hoover.

b) "A condition which ... is entirely unsatisfactory to the great mass of our people . . . corruption . . . bootlegging and lawlessness. . . . We can secure real temperance, respect for law and eradication of the existing evils."--Alfred E. Smith.

*For now, forgotten. Not one reference to the late William Jennings Bryan was contained in this year's "Keynote" speeches or platform. The only direct mention of Bryanism at Houston was in a memorial resolution proposed by Josephus Daniels.