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Show in Washington With the Presidential campaign entering upon its last week, there was increasing uncertainty among Washington political observers as to the outcome. A month ago the preponderant belief was that the Wllllcie campaign was a "flop" and that Mr. Roosevelt had nothing noth-ing to worry about. But as is nearly near-ly always the case, the last three weeks of October have turned out to be the crucial period. There is no question whatever , that the Republican candidate has gained greatly in popular estimation estima-tion and voting support since he got into his stride in his whirlwind whirl-wind speaking campaign. If he has demonstrated nothing else, he has proved that he has tremendous tremend-ous physical endurance. In the memories of the oldest political observers here, no Presidential candidate since William Jennings Bryan has covered so much ground, or spoken so often to such crowds as Mr. Willkie in the six f:eeks since he really got under way. Democratic Policy Changed That his speeches and his personality per-sonality have had an effect upon i voters is indicated not only by re ports received in Washrington from political leaders wherever Mr. Willkie has spoken, but by the actions of the Democratic High Command itself. The policy originally decided upon was for the President to take the high ; ground that he was not an active candidate for re-election buthad put himself at the disposal of the people of the nation, who had "drafted" him. He was not going to make any political speeches. That position had to be abandoned aban-doned after reports came trickling trick-ling in that the Republican can- didate was really making headway head-way in regions where votes counted. count-ed. An even more significant indication indica-tion that the Democrats are taking the Republican attack more seriously seri-ously than they did in the early days of the campaign, is the open efforts to "smear" Mr. Willkie, by public accusations reminiscent of the "smearing" campaign against Mr. Hoover in 1932. Reference has been made in these dispatches to the "whispering" "whisper-ing" campaign against the Republican Repub-lican candidate, based upon the fact that his four grandparents were born in Germany. That was brought out into the open by the Negro division of the Democratic National Committee, which issued a pamphlet denouncing Mr. Willkie Will-kie as a German sympathizer because be-cause of his ancestry, and also attacking at-tacking Mrs. Willkie because of an alleged German strain in her pedigree. At the same time, the Negro Democratic group undertook in print to denounce Mr. Willkie as a a responsible party organization is recalled here. The record is full of "whispering" campaigns intended intend-ed to discredit candidates of all parties, over half a century and more of political history. But in cases where there really was any ground for reflections upon the personal character or background of any Presidential candidate, the practice has been for his opponents oppon-ents to agree to- say nothing in public about it. In this instance, the national chairman of the Democratic National Na-tional Committee has said that it had nothing to do with this statement state-ment and regrets it was released. re-leased. Nobody will know until the ballots bal-lots have been counted how much effect theBe last few weeks of the campaign have had on the masses of the voters. But there has been enough change in sentiment in pivotal states to make it impossible impos-sible for either side to claim, ten days before election, that the result re-sult is "in the bag." The international situation, so far as official Washington is concerned, con-cerned, no longer seems quite so threatening to United States interests. in-terests. The fear that this country is somehow going to be dragged into actual war before we are ready for it is not 'so pronounced as it was in mid-Summer. No Immediate Danger The men most familiar with foreign affairs, in and out of the State Department, seem to feel that there is no immediate danger of hostilities with Japan. The action ac-tion of the Government in warning warn-ing Americans in Japan and China to come back home, and sending ships to bring them back, is understood un-derstood to have had a decided effect upon Japanese opinion. It has served as notice that we are prepared to fight if Japan wants to; and nobody here believes that Japan wants to fight the United States. After all, it is pointed out, nations na-tions do not go to war against their best customers unneces sarily, and the United States is Japan's best customer. The loss of the American silk market alone would mean ruin for Japan. The belief that Britain is holding hold-ing her own, and that if America can continue to help with planes and other war supplies the Hitler-Mussolini Hitler-Mussolini advance can be stopped, is gaining ground here. Certainly the idea that there is likely to be any actual invasion of the United States from Europe within any presently measureable time is vanishing van-ishing rapidly. That does not mean that there is a tendency toward letting up in defense preparations. prep-arations. It does mean that there is less fear that we shall be attacked at-tacked before we are ready to fight. j Negro-hater because, it was alleged, al-leged, he lived as a young man In Elwood, Indiana, where his father was one of the influential citizens and so partly responsible for the exclusion of Negroes from residence resi-dence in the city. Likely To Be Boomerang The judgement of most of the experienced political observers in Washington is that this sort of personal attack upon a candidate for the presidency is much more likely to prove a boomerang than to have the effect intended. Nothing Noth-ing of the kind done so openly and with such apparent authority from |