Going Places

Mr. & Mrs. Henry Ford and Son Edsel waited one hour and 25 minutes last week in the Presidential suite of Detroit's Book-Cadillac Hotel. At the end of that time Alf Landon, just in from Toledo, tore himself away from the assembled Michigan Republican leaders, made for the waiting Fords. A politician clutched at the fleeing Governor's coat, whispered, 'You haven't got time for that." Alf Landon shook him off, seized Henry Ford's arm, said, "Come on. Let's go."

They went to the Ford house at Dearborn for luncheon. Thence they drove to Henry Ford's eclectic village of famed old U. S. houses, where in the brick chapel they heard a choir of children sing hymns. After the hymns they drove past a little white house with green shutters in which once lived Stephen Foster, composer of Oh! Susanna. This was not the last treat that Henry Ford had for Nominee Landon. For the fourth time in his life Henry Ford publicly endorsed a nominee for President.* Said his statement, issued next morning:

"Governor Landon honored us with a brief visit at Dearborn. . . . This was my first opportunity to meet the man who has brought this campaign back to American issues. . . . Governor Landon's mind has not been warped. My judgment would be that he would be a hard man to turn from the American way of doing things. The trouble with the Presidency is that a man may say and intend one thing, but pressure may compel him to do something different--Governor Landon impressed me as a man who would resist pressure. . . .

"He is a business man who knows how to make both ends meet, and he is a sympathetic, thoughtful person. He ate out of a dinner bucket for years and he still thinks along with the men who carry dinner buckets./- It is not a pose with him-- it is his nature. After having this long talk with him I admire and believe in him; I hope he is elected. I am not criticizing the New Deal--I only say that we have had enough of it; we have had about all the country can stand. Its intentions may have been good, but its performance was very poor. . . . From the beginning the New Deal has been assisted by the worst form of capitalism in the effort to destroy competition in this country. . . . We give competition and we ask for competition; if we must also compete with a false political system, very well. We seek ability to pay higher wages, to give buyers more value, to find methods that are less expensive, to keep prices and profits low in order that volume and wages and service may be high. That's the American system; that brought us where we are. And nothing better has turned up to take its place." What this Fordian pronouncement was worth in the way of votes for the Republican ticket next month was a question. Democrats jubilantly claimed that it would cost Landon several thousand votes in Detroit on the ground that Henry Ford, in spite of his high wage scale, is not popular with labor. Meantime, Alf Landon had hurried off to Detroit's ball park, Navin Field, to deliver the last major address of his fourth major campaign trip. There he ran into ill fortune such as he ran into in Maine at the beginning of his campaign. It was a chilly autumn night, and the audience shivered more freely than it applauded. In words which Motormaker Ford must have approved the GOP Nominee declared:

"The President spoke truly when he boasted before Congress in his report on the State of the Union last January. 'We have built up new instruments of public power.' He spoke truly when he said these instruments could provide 'shackles for the liberties of the people . . . and . . . enslavement for the public. . . . These powers were granted with the understanding that they were only temporary. But after the powers had been obtained, and after the emergency was clearly over, we were told that another emergency would be created if the power was given up. In other words, the concentration of power in the hands of the President was not a question of temporary emergency. It was a question of permanent national policy. In my opinion the emergency of 1933 was a mere excuse. . . .

"If we have an NRA we must have an AAA. If we have an AAA we must have an NRA. No nation can continue half regimented and half free. Which course does this Administration propose to follow? There is only one man who can answer this question, and that man is the candidate for re-election to the Presidency. National economic planning--the term used by this Administration to describe its policy--violates the basic ideals of the American system. . . . The price of economic planning is the loss of economic freedom. And economic freedom and personal liberty go hand in hand."

Next day Nominee Landon stumped across Michigan with better weather and bigger audiences than he had in chilly Detroit. Here & there small boys booed him. His second day in Michigan ended with bursting bombs, red fire, a cheering crowd of 75,000 welcomers at Grand Rapids. ("Like so many Americans, I have spent a good deal of my life in close contact with Grand Rapids furniture.") There the Nominee spent the night at the home of Senator Arthur Vandenberg. Thence he turned homeward across Indiana.

At Peru ("I never will forget the cordial reception given me by the citizens") 13 wintering Hagenbeck Circus elephants appeared bearing letters spelling out "Welcome Landon."

Crossing Illinois, he paused at the late great Republican Speaker "Uncle Joe" Cannon's hometown of Danville. ("The Supreme Court gave the country a real breathing spell.")

Riding into Topeka, Alf Landon reclined in the bedroom of his private car as newshawks came in to interview him. He shoved at them a telegram from Republican Chairman Hamilton. It announced that arrangements had been made for him to speak in Los Angeles this week. Startled at this sudden change of plans, wondering if it was caused by new hope of California since Dr. Townsend advised his followers in California to vote for Landon (TIME, Oct. 19), newshawks asked why he was going.

"Because," grinned Nominee Landon, "we are going to carry California." During the brief three days and two nights that Alf Landon had at home in Topeka he received a visit from Colonel Frank Knox & wife.

"You look fine," said the Governor.

"I'm tiptop," said the Colonel.

Then before departing, the Vice-Presidential Nominee explained to newshawks the political situation in California, whither his running mate was bound:

". . . The Republicans had divided the State into two parts, northern and southern. . . . Since the 1932 Presidential election 600,000 people have moved into California. Most of these people are in their declining years and hope to live off the country. . . .

"This crowd of hitchhikers that has moved into Southern California is largely susceptible to any scheme to provide them with an easy living. They are a difficult problem because no program will satisfy them unless it gives them a complete subsidy. . . . Northern California is . . . pro-Landon"

With this not wholly tactful introduction to Southern California's voters, Alf Landon set out next day for Los Angeles on his fifth campaign tour, a swing that will touch both Los Angeles and Manhattan and end on election eve at Independence, Kans., where he will hopefully cast his vote.

*The other endorsees: Wilson (1916), Coolidge (1924), Hoover (1932).

/-Wrote United Feature's Columnist Hugh Johnson: "Passing the pure tripe of any such assertion, any student of Mr. Landon's career can well ask 'What years were those?' "

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