Show t On On Monopoly's Trail T HAS been interesting to IT EHAS see Senator Borah dig out of the 1912 1912 Democratic platform an antimonopoly plank which he thought so good as to recommend its inclusion in the 1936 can platform With slight alterations it w was s nailed down at Cleveland The Idaho senator minces no words about its origin It satisfied him lim and after he had sold it to the platform committee he left Cleveland and went back to Washington to attend to his own knitting Almost at the same saine same time President Roosevelt was swinging swing swing- ing through Texas and the south hammering against monopolies in much the same language All this however is not as interesting as what has gone before Back in 1912 it was Woodrow Woodrow Wood Wood- row Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt who were ca calling ling on the voters to recognize that economic as s well as political problems are of public concern con cern in a democracy It was something of a crusade cru cru- cru sade but crusades are seldom waged and won in a single campaign But ten and one half million Yates votes were cast for this pair of 0 j and nd th then n the World war monopolized most o of the peoples people's s 's thinking By 1920 economic questions seemed to be too drab drao for foe campaign purposes and the electorate swung ung back to politics in a big way and put Warr Warren n G G. Harding into the White House MonopoliSts Monopolists Monopolists Mo Mo- came to the front again and it was only the pugnacity pf of Nebraska's ka Senator cn tOL George eorge t itt I X IS Ai 4 I t l Norris that stopped Henry Ford from irom taking over Muscle Shoals Meantime the Democrats seemed also to have mislaid their agenda on monopoly for in 1924 without batting an eye they nominated nominated nomi nomi- a Morgan lawyer for their standard standard- bearer The nation decided to keep cool with Coolidge and La Follette's Pollette's storming about monopolies monopolies mo mo- mo went unheard or at least unheeded unheeded- unless it was then that Al Smiths Smith's memory of the doctrine was stirred In 1928 ha he remarked about the evils of monopolists but monopolists but business was still too good for the people to be bothered about economics and they were saying that Al was preaching socialism So they let the matter drop Whether they liked it it- or not people had to togo togo togo go back to thinking of economics when the bottom bottom bot bot- tom torn of the world dropped out in 1929 It was recalled that Woodrow Wilson Vilson and Theodore Roosevelt had both remarked 20 years before that political freedom is less than half a loaf unless it i is accompanied by a needful portion of economic freedom If It the right to earn a living is offset by forces men can neither control control con con- troI nor ident identify y they face a situation which as the Republicans Republican's Cleveland platform d declares will utterly destroy constitutional government and the he liberty of the citizen It is not alone of interest that both major parties are closely in agreement on monopoly as asa asa asa a campaign issue It It- Itis is not to be lost sight of that this Franklin D. D Roosevelt is a Democrat and Alfred M. M Landon was a Bull Moose with Theodore Roosevelt After a quarter of a a century the old of ot W. W W. W and T. T R. R is is raised again |