Morning After

(See front cover)

"I should like to see the Republican Party reorganized. ... I don't think there is any room in this country for an old conservative party. . . . Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt were liberal leaders. It doesn't take long to shake off what you call conservatism. . . . There was a vast amount of reaction against the New Deal, but what were the people offered? . . . People can't eat the Constitution."

Thus Senator Borah, speeding to Washington, summarized his feelings about the election. Well were his words chosen to win back to himself the public attention which for weeks had been pre-empted by the campaign. In every mind on the morning after was one big question: Who is going to be the other party now?

"When You're Licked." With Pennsylvania's Reed, Ohio's Fess, Indiana's Robinson, Missouri's Patterson, Connecticut's Walcott, Rhode Island's Hebert, New Jersey's Kean and West Virginia's Hatfield, Old Deal Republicanism had been discarded by the U. S. Even Henry P. Fletcher who, as chairman of the Republican National Committee, had rallied the Tories to their last stand against the New Deal, had only one spark of fire left. Said he: ''When you're licked you're licked, but you don't have to stay licked." Then he tossed in the sponge by admitting: "The Republican Party can come back only by being alert, united and willing to stand for questions that will benefit the masses as opposed to the classes."

Who should be the leaders of that Republican come-back and what should be their issues was a question he did not answer, a question so obvious that every G. O. Partisan in the land was trying to answer it. On the morning after, the first name that occurred to anyone was that of Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg, the only Republican Senator to be re-elected on terms even mildly resembling a Party victory. He had carried Michigan and towed many of that State's Republican Representatives to victory with him. His record was not a record of outright opposition to the New Deal but of compromise with it. He had voted against NRA and AAA, but for dollar devaluation, for the Securities Exchange Act, for the Federal Housing Act.

To some Republicans, however, Senator Vandenberg appeared more of an opportunist than a liberal. For national party leadership this group suggested Senator Charles L. McNary of Oregon who was not up for re-election this year, who took no part in the campaign. No standpatter, Senator McNary has placed himself adroitly half way between the Republican archconservatives and the Republican insurgents. Quick to seize last week's hint he proclaimed: "The Republican Party must have a program and it must be a forward-looking one. ... In my opinion it will keep the faith."

For these hopefuls, eager to seize any advantage in their Party's defeat, James A. Farley had only a horse laugh. Jovially declared the Democratic boss: "I suppose President Roosevelt will have opposition in 1936 but I don't believe it will amount to much. Who will be their candidate? They will have difficulty in finding anyone to make the sacrifice. ... I think the Republicans are through--positively through."

Amoeba-- Many another political bonnet was buzzing with the thought that the Republicans were through. A political party is like an amoeba; it has no reproductive organs. Throughout U. S. history whenever a party has died--as the Federalists died in Jefferson's time, as the Whigs died before the Civil War--the remaining party, amoeba-like, divides. Twice in recent years has the Republican Party attempted and failed to imitate the amoeba--once in 1912 with Theodore Roosevelt, again in 1924 with Robert Marion La Follette. And last week two other young amoebic divisions were grounds for dark political calculations about a new party.

In Minnesota, the twelve-year-old Farmer-Labor Party showed its vitality in the election just passed. Not merely did the Farmer-Laborite Senator, Henrik Shipstead, win an easy victory, but Governor Floyd Bjornstjerne Olson was re-elected in spite of a radical program rivaling Upton Sinclair's EPIC. The Farmer-Labor platform dictated by Governor Olson announced bluntly that "Capitalism has failed," declared for "a complete reorganization of our social structure into a co-operative commonwealth." It demanded public ownership of factories, packing plants, banks, transportation and communication systems, mines, water power, public utilities. All the conservative forces of the State were marshalled against Floyd Olson just as in California they were against Upton Sinclair. Last week Governor Olson boasted: "The Republican Party made the Farmer-Labor Party's platform a challenge which we accepted."

The outcome was, on its face, the most tremendous endorsement of social change that the U. S. has ever witnessed. But the implications were not quite what they seemed. The Republicans had challenged the Farmer-Labor platform but the Farmer-Labor Party hardly accepted. Be tween the making of the platform and the election, Governor Olson thought twice and soft-pedaled his platform. No copies were printed for official distribution and it remained for Olson opponents to bootleg them to voters. The Farmer-Labor Party merely supplied a much toned-down "analysis" of its platform.

Last week Governor Olson loudly promised to fulfill the "mandate" given him and his platform. But this too was not so drastic as it sounded. His first step, he said, would be to submit constitutional amendments to carry out the party plat form. Such amendments must first pass the State Legislature, before being submitted to popular referendum. Although Governor Olson garnered nearly 15% more votes than his Republican opponent, he ran over 15% behind the combined Republican and Democratic vote. The "co-operative Commonwealth" of Minnesota still has a good way to go before it becomes an accomplished fact.

Nonetheless the Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota, as a thoroughgoing victor, might amalgamate with a similar third party movement in other states to form the nucleus of a new National Party. Specifically the party with which it might ally itself was the Progressive Party of Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin the Progressive Party of Robert Marion La Follette II is literally only six months old. Yet in its ranks are to be found probably more experienced politicians than in the State's Republican and Democratic parties combined. For the Wisconsin Progressive Party is the party founded but never formed by the late great Robert Marion La Follette.

All his life La Follette I was elected to Congress as a Republican. Jealously he guarded that party tag for it carried preferment in the committees of the U. S. Senate. Twice, however, he tried--and failed--to become a Progressive. In 1912, capitalizing on the fact that he was Wisconsin's hero, he angled for a Progressive nomination for the Presidency, to run against William Howard Taft. Naively he invited Teddy Roosevelt to back him. One evening in an overwrought condition he addressed a newspaper publishers' banquet in Philadelphia. He began by abusing the privileged classes, went on to abuse the Press, completely lost his head and launched into a meaningless tirade. Practically suffering a nervous breakdown, he repeated whole passages of his speech. After he had spoken for an hour and a half, his audience walked out on him. He continued his ravings for nearly an hour before collapsing. That one evening's illness killed his chances for the nomination that T. R. later decided to take. It so embittered him that he never joined the Bull Moose movement.

In 1924 the elder La Follette again cast off his Republican harness to accept a third-party nomination from the Conference for Progressive Political Action. As a personal hero and with the backing of the Socialist Party, he rolled up the amazing total of nearly 5,000,000 popular votes in the election, but was ready to call himself a Republican again when it was over.

Those two incidents represented not La Follette I's political wisdom but his aberrations. In Wisconsin he played the role of earnest reformer, whipped his Progressive followers into a party within the Republican Party. With that formula he proved invincible. When he died in 1925 he bequeathed his fame and following, somewhat prematurely, to his sons. In large measure the La Follette strength was purely personal, hence not to be handed down. In his younger Son Philip the old Senator visualized a successor who could continue that personal triumph. As an orator Phil had his father's style but not his father's quality. As a politician he had his father's temperament, but not his father's wisdom.

When the elder La Follette died Phil had not yet attained the Constitutional age of 30 required of a Senator. Thus the task of running in the father's stead fell to Bob Jr. who was a different kind of man. As his father's secretary La Follette II had learned the mechanics of politics, was expert in tending political fences. But he lacked flair. Nonetheless he ran and was elected. In the Senate he blossomed. No fiery speeches came from his tongue. No shocks of inspired hair bristled with indignation from his head. He spoke quietly, was respectful to his elders. He sleeked his hair, put on spats, became meticulous about his clothes. Before long he was known as the Peter Pan of the Senate. His political advantages were that he worked hard and kept to that side of the political fence where his father had labored so long. Though he lacked his father's inspiration he was more successful than his younger brother. Rabidly progressive, Philip La Follette sought and won the Governorship of Wisconsin in 1930 only to lose it two years later when a stern conservative revolt headed by Walter Kohler of Kohler denied him renomination.

Such were the careers of the Sons La Follette until Franklin Roosevelt appeared on the scene. In 1932 they gave him the support denied four years earlier to Alfred E. Smith. He reciprocated with non-partisan friendship. When 1934 came, their followers, eager to repudiate Republicanism, believed the time ripe for finally launching the Progressive Party which their father had founded. The Brothers La Follette were asked to cut free. Somewhat dubiously they took the decisive step which their father had never actually taken. Save for President Roosevelt's warm feeling for Brother Bob it might have been a fatal step. At Green Bay last August the President publicly named Bob La Follette as "his friend." Lest that prove insufficient, he later asked the young Senator to lunch at the White House last week -- news of Presidential approval which was spread far & wide over Wisconsin the last few days before election.

Philip, who had the Progressive nomination for Governor, was not invited, was in fact excluded from the mention of friendship at Green Bay. But the invited and the uninvited rode to election in Wisconsin on one White House invitation. The whole Progressive ticket did not win. The election gave the Progressives 46 out of 100 seats in the State Assembly, 13 out of 33 seats in the State Senate. They failed to elect a Lieutenant Governor, a State Treasurer, an Attorney General, but they sent seven Progressive Representatives out of ten to Congress.

Agreed. Day after re-election Senator La Follette knew that his Progressive Party was at last a political reality. Realizing how much of its success was his success he must also have known that he was the Party. His invitation to lunch at the White House had taken on a new significance: One Party had asked another Party to lunch.

On his way to Washington to keep his pre-election engagement he expressed his own sense of his new importance:

''I am convinced that this economic crisis is fundamental in character and will produce a political realignment; just when, or how it is coming, I don't know."

The Progressive Party was beginning to function and undoubtedly the horizon of La Follette II's own ambition was beginning to widen. He is still a young man (39). In 1940 who could lay so good a claim as he to be Franklin Roosevelt's successor? When the Progressive Party emerged from luncheon with the Democratic Party at the White House, the Progressive Party said: "It was a very satisfactory conversation. We shed two big crocodile tears over the sad affair in Pennsylvania." A newshawk: "Were you and the President in agreement?" Senator La Follette: "We were."

Still Alive? Under a two-party system one party does not announce that it agrees with the other party. The first flaw in the fine fabric of conjecture which would have a new Progressive Party supplant a dead Republican Party is that unless the Democratic Party turns right, Messrs. Roosevelt and La Follette bid fair to remain in agreement. A right turn is always possible in a party which still contains as many conservative elements as the Democratic Party does today, but such a turn was not indicated as Senator La Follette lunched at the White House.

The second flaw in the fabric is that the Republican Party may be dead but it is not yet buried. Pundit William Allen White last week put the case: "The Republican Party . . . has retained a foothold in the courthouses in 1,000 counties. Parties do not die from the top but from the roots and the roots of the Republican Party in the East and Middle West are still full of courthouse sap. . . . Until the Roosevelt program itself blows up and destroys its leaders, the Republican Party is likely to survive as a minority critic attacking the majority, not from the right but from the middle left. . . . Now for the first time in a generation the two parties have a real division."

With the 25 Republican members of the next Senate including Messrs. Johnson, Borah, Couzens, Vandenberg, Norris. Cutting, Nye, Frazier, McNary and Norbeck. Republican criticism of the Administration is indeed likely to come from the middle left.

Senator Vandenberg, angered by Postmaster Farley's funeral oration on the Opposition, last week retorted sharply:

"When Mr. Farley says the Republican Party is through I recommend to him that he read the 16th chapter and the 18th verse of Proverbs in the Holy Bible.*

"The Republican Party at Tuesday's polls represents the biggest political minority in American history."

Actually the popular vote as calculated by the Press was, in round numbers, 15,000,000 Democratic, 12,000,000 Republican. Considering that the Democrats polled 60% of the votes in 1932, Republicans could argue with some reason that a poll of only 56% of the votes in 1934 may represent a turning of the tide against the New Deal. The fact that the Democrats won more offices in 1934 than in 1932 is accounted for by the fact that their lesser majority was more evenly spread.

Some die-hard Tories were even ready to console themselves with the thought that the U. S. is actually growing conservative. Their doubtful reasoning: If it is true that the Democratic majority in 1934 is a positive endorsement of the New Deal (as compared to a vote against Hoover in 1932) the Republican vote of 1934 is by the same token an outpouring of 12,000,000 protests against the New Deal.

Liberty League. Last week it did not appear, however, that the Republicans would dare risk a conservative campaign in 1936. If the Democratic Party should turn left, thus blocking the path to the formation of a progressive opposition, and if the Republicans refuse to take up the banner of conservatism, it is conceivable that a new party may arise by division of the Democrats. The leading conservatives in Washington today are Democrats. Outside Washington the leading conservative movement is the American Liberty League which has John W. Davis, Alfred E. Smith, Irenee du Pont, for directors. Very carefully did the League refrain from entering this year's campaign. Meantime, it has built up a campaign chest, and has been busy recruiting potent members. (Sewell Lee Avery, Harry F. Guggenheim and John J. Raskob were last week slated for its governing board.) To date Liberty Leaguers have only intimated that they will offer the U. S. the inedible Constitution but if the Administration's Recovery measures do not succeed, they may be able to proclaim that the New Deal also is inedible. If conservatism ever again becomes popular, the League will provide a host of champions to lead that cause.

* ePride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

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