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Show GRASSROOTS Lack of Positive Platform Has Defeated the GOP By Wright A. Patterson OVER THE YEARS I have voted with but rare exceptions the Republican ticket. One such exception was in the contest between Harding and Cox. As a protest against the unfair methods of the old guard senators in nominating Harding, I voted for Cox. The old guard was unfair, un-American un-American and un-Republican. In the campaign between Lan-don Lan-don and Roosevelt for a second term, I went along with Landon, despite his endorsement of New Deal policies, tempered only by his insistence he could do a better bet-ter job with them. By not having a Republican program, or a Landon program, but by accepting accept-ing the Roosevelt program, Landon Lan-don lost. If they must have the New Deal, the voters prefer to leave it in the hands of the originators. In his campaign against a third term for Roosevelt, Willkie used as a subject for a campaign address "I could do it better," referring to New Deal policy. He deserved to lose, because he was no Republican. He was a candidate candi-date who gained the Republican nomination by unfair methods. Willkie Will-kie flopped as an advocate of New Deal policies on the Republican ticket tick-et and deserved his fate at the polls. Dewey, in his first campaign, came nearer supporting New Deal policies than anything he or his party proposed pro-posed as their own. When given his second chance, he talked only of a senseless and meaningless term, "unity," "uni-ty," when people were asking for a statement of national policies. The Republican party offered them no platform, leaving it up to the candidates candi-dates to propose their own platforms. The candidates had no platforms, or at least could not enunciate them. So again the Republicans failed for lack of a constructive party platform, plat-form, a statement of principles for which the voters were so avidly waiting. To return a bit farther back to the campaign between Roosevelt for his first term and Herbert Hoover Hoov-er for re-election, that campaign for the Republicans was conducted by the Republican old guard senators, such as Jim Watson, Reed Smoot, George Moses, and others. They had not been able to use Hoover and preferred to deal with a Democrat, rather than Hoover with a second term. They said so, and admitted that their interest in the campaign was only re-election of themselves. They deliberately worked against Herbert Hoover. They succeeded in defeating both Hoover and themselves. In the election for membership in the 80th congress, an off year, the Republicans secured a majority in both houses. They could not undo much that had been done, but they could refuse appropriations to pay the vast army of bureaucrats that was a factor in the Democratic successes. suc-cesses. They did not do that. Expecting a Republican president at the next election, they wanted the jobs continued con-tinued so they might be filled by Republicans. Visions of future pa tronage for Republicans were the alluring prospects that provided pay for the millions of Democratic job holders. But with the meaningless . word "unity" the only thing talked about, President Truman beat the Republicans Republi-cans to the punch, and he was given a Democratic congress that the Republican Re-publican 80th congress had paid for with its refusal to limit bureaucratic appropriations. And so it has been for 20 years the so-called leaders of the Republican Re-publican party have been responsible responsi-ble for its defeat, either deliberately planned or brought about by lack of a definite and meaningful program. pro-gram. Their profuse condemnation of the opposition has not been effective, effec-tive, nor will it be. Has the RepubUcan party ceased to function as a party? Are its candidates all on their own, with each one supplying the principles he thinks best; have the party leaders ceased to lead in anything any-thing other than vitriolic opposition to what others propose? Can the party, as such, no longer enunciate policies and principles? Under such conditions, the party has ceased to be of value to the nation. It is time it gave way to some political group that can and will. We need two functioning parties. Congress gave the President control con-trol of both wage and prices, but he exercised only control of prices, and permitted labor to get all the wages it could, regardless. |