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Show NATIONAL I AFFAIRS Reviewed by CARTER FIELD Carter Field says Willkie must carry Neio York and Illinois, or break the Solid South. . .Unknown quantities quanti-ties may decide the presidential presi-dential battle. (Bell Syndicate WNU Service.) WASHINGTON. This campaign will further twist the already ragged party lines in this country. "Cotton Ed" Smith and Edward R. Burke of Nebraska have already followed Al Smith, John W. Davis and Jim Reed who "walked" in 1936 and haven't come back. But it will take a powerful pow-erful lot of walking to cut Roosevelt down to "size" when one remembers that 46 to 2 margin in 1936. To have a chance to win, Willkie must carrv Npw Ynrk and Illinois. : i - I x or else break the Solid South. Even with New York and Illinois he must carry car-ry every other state north of the Mason and Dixon line and east of the Mississippi. Mississip-pi. And this includes Wisconsin. The Solid South and border states have 149 electoral E. R. Burke votes- If Rsevelt carries them, and also carries Illinois, West Virginia, New York, California, plus the three little states of Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico, and Washington, he will have 272 electoral votes, six more than enough to elect! On form, all the states 'mentioned are heavily Democratic. All went heavily heavi-ly Democratic in 1938, a year of sharp Republican gains. Note that this leaves out Montana, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Ne-braska, Kansas, Iowa, Wyoming, Oregon and Idaho! Willkie can carry every one of this last list, plus all New England and all the states from the Mississippi Missis-sippi to the Atlantic north of Maryland Mary-land and Kentucky, with the exception excep-tion of Illinois and New York, and still lose! SOUTH MUTTERS The South is muttering against Roosevelt There is no doubt of that. But it is not sound judgment to figure on any electoral votes there. So it boils down to this, that Willkie must carry New York or be defeated. Meanwhile Roosevelt and the administration, ad-ministration, with the strategic advantage ad-vantage so clearly with them, may be counted on to play as safely as possible. This means that from now until November, for example, no action ac-tion by the government may be expected ex-pected to upset the continued improvement im-provement in business due to huge armament orders and expected orders. or-ders. Roosevelt found this policy highly successful in 1936, when business busi-ness was improving. There is no reason to vary it. Both parties will continue to make war medicine for ballots, not guns in congress. The Republicans plan to keep it dragging along. They want to ride herd on the President, Pres-ident, to create the impression that only their restraining influence will keep him from some overt act which would plunge us into war. But also they want to put the administration on record as resisting any changes in the various bureaus and agencies, notably the NLRB, which they insist are hampering business. FEARED THIRD PARTY President Roosevelt's scrapping before fte ink was dry of the war issue plnk in the Democratic platform plat-form hf himself had dictated, clears the way for a campaign on purely domestic issues. The purpose of the weasel' words to prevent. Burt Wheeler and Champ Clark from starting a third party had been accomplished. ac-complished. Now the President stands on his record, just a little bit more belligerent toward Germany Ger-many and Japan than Willkie, agreeing agree-ing with him precisely on all possible pos-sible legal aid to Britain, and four-sauare four-sauare with the Republican nominee od "ocreasing our national defense to the utmost. ON DOMESTIC ISSUES The lines of the campaign on domestic do-mestic issues will be fairly simple. Willkie will insist that the present administration has demonstrated its inefficiency and extravagance, and hence cannot be trusted to produce the taxpayers' money's worth in spending billions on the army and navy. He will NOT attack the "social "so-cial advances" and New Deal objectives objec-tives for the benefit of the underdogs but insist that their administration should be intelligent, and particularly particular-ly that there should not be barn burnings to get rid of rats. Roosevelt and the New Dealers will harp on their accomplishments in social reform, and insist that to turn the government over to the "interests" "in-terests" would mean to wreck them. They will say that whatever Willkic's personal views, he will be as helpless help-less as Harding and Hoover to prevent pre-vent sordid Wall street-controlled throttling of the little business man, the consumers, and all the rest of it And they will ring the changes on the notion of a Wall street utility holding company executives In th White House. |