Gillett's "Seed"

Wise men have said that if any Republican, at any time during this campaign, should make any overt insinuation against Mrs. Smith's social fitness for the White House, it would be touching off political dynamite.

Frederick H. Gillett, the white-goateed junior Senator from Massachusetts, made a speech a fortnight ago to a band of Republican women workers gathered in the Hotel Kimball at Springfield, Mass. He said: "It is at gatherings like these that we must sow the seeds which will win the election." He proceeded to comment on Nominee Smith's appeal for "a certain class or element of citizens."

Senator Gillett also described for the ladies of Springfield the charm, culture, intelligence of his friend, Mrs. Herbert Hoover. Then he said: "Of course, I cannot say very much of Mrs. Smith, because I have never known her, but if the contest was between Mrs. Hoover and Mrs. Smith--He did not finish the sentence but the Republican ladies of Springfield thought they understood and applauded knowingly, enthusiastically.

Senator Gillett's "seed" speech was duly reported in the reliable Springfield Republican, oldtime Bible of many a G. 0. Politician. The "seed" about Mrs. Smith soon brought forth hot letters from Massachusetts Democrats. The Republican newsman, George E. Pelletier, who had reported Senator Gillett's remarks, called on the Senator to see if he would like to end the unfinished sentence about Mrs. Smith. The Senator said he did not exactly recall what he had said, that it was unimportant anyway.

There the thing might have stopped but for the alert New York Times, which reprinted Senator Gillett's unfinished sentence in an editorial and roundly flayed him for "vulgarity and stupidity ... execrable taste . . . political blunder . . . folly . . . impropriety . . . unchivalrous . . . offensive . . . underground propaganda."

Senator Gillett wrote to the New York Times: "The words and insinuation you ascribe to me I neither uttered nor conceived . . . You have been imposed upon ... by a gross perversion and distortion of a harmless remark."

Sharp-eyed Newsman Pelletier saw the Senator's letter in the Times and last week wrote a letter himself. He told the Times about calling on the Seed-Sower and concluded with all the indignation of an upright journalist: ". . . It is the first time the charge of 'misquoted' has been aimed at me and it is baseless, even though it comes from a Senator."