Southern Push

Last week's Republican strategy was to fire big guns toward the South.

Nominee Curtis went to Raleigh, N. C., Martinsburg, West Va., and Wilmington, Del. Prohibition was his burden, immigration his refrain. He next entered New Jersey. If Democrats had been annoyed by Nominee Hoover's refusal to acknowledge Nominee Smith's presence in the campaign, Nominee Curtis made amends. He referred to "the dear Governor" and to "the gentleman from New York who thinks he is running for President on the Democratic ticket." The further Curtis itinerary lay through Connecticut, Massachusetts, upper New York, western Pennsylvania, into Ohio.

Greater in bore if not in range than Nominee Curtis was Big Gun Borah, who was sent to boom in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky. He, too, used Prohibition projectiles chiefly. There was a noticeable departure from the close reasoning, which usually marks the Borah manner. Perhaps because he felt that understanding diminishes and emotion increases below the Mason-Dixon line, Senator Borah voiced phrases and protestations such as the following:

"Tammany is opposed to law and order, anyway."

"I ask you, my Democratic friends, is the repeal of the 18th Amendment good Democratic doctrine?"

"The intelligence of all the great masses of the people is greater than the intelligence which the Almighty ever gave to any one individual."

"During the last twelve years no task has been before any Administration in power that it did not turn to Hoover to take charge of it."

"The issue in North Carolina, as I see it is the effort now being made to induce the people to vote the way they don't want to vote."

"I am not a candidate. I am sorry, but I am not."

Part also of the Southern push was Secretary Curtis Dwight Wilbur of the Navy. At Newport News, Va., he asked:

"If it takes courage to vote the Republican ticket, . . . what else but courage could we expect from the descendants of the men who for four long, weary years fought against ever-increasing odds with the hope of victory slowly diminishing for what they believed was right?"