Show W 6 rn n n ILA aw ua r r 1 washington an inquiry comes from my old home town in missouri asking in effect time G 0 P what are the re got at busy publicans doing the letter quite obviously from a follower of that old democratic stalwart former sen jim reed explains that the writer would like to see democratic party machinery back in the hands of democrats but it is complained that the republicans have provided little opposition to the new deal left wingers the further complaint compla mt is registered that many of the demo brats in congress have failed to set forth cold facts about new deal spending I 1 have paid very little attention to republican party affairs for quite awhile for the simple reason that republican partisans either as a party or individually have been do ing nothing they have a chance now to do something whether they will become really active remains to be seen they have been quarrel ing among themselves snarling fighting lighting letting petty jealousies keep their ranks split wide open but let s take a look at their pic ture now to see whether there is any real hope it will be recalled that during the fight light against the roosevelt plan to pack the supreme court with six new justices the republicans kept very quiet thatis that is they were quiet BS as far as surface indications go be neath the surface they were busy helping the democrats fight off that nation wrecking scheme put forward by the new dealers I 1 believe every one regarded that as good political strategy by refusing to make the supreme court packing plan a parti part can san issue the republicans kept a lot of ammunition out of new deal hands that fight was led by regu lar democrats like senators wheel cr er of montana burke of nebraska rep hatton of texas and others like them but the supreme court battle was followed by a cleavage in the ranks of the dominant party in congress and the republicans failed to follow up their jobs as the opposition par ty they failed to take advantage of many opportunities in fact noth ing was done at all until the govern ment reorganization bill was pushed onto the stage and dent roosevelt made that legisla a tion lion an issue it may be said that the republicans did nothing of con sequence in that fight but they vot ed with the real democrats at the finish that was the vote that killed the reorganization bill theirs was the vote which bad had it been taken under the british or french parlia system would have forced resignation of the government be cause it showed lack of confidence in the executive and now to the present in the last few weeks there have been signs that ought to be heartening to the rank and file of the republican lists they are however just signs as far as any honest appraisal goes the republican national committee has selected franklyn waltman a washington newspaper correspond ent to take charge of and jeorga nize the party s publicity set up mr waltman is a fine writer one of washington s best he has spent some fifteen years as a political ob server he has courage and image nation perhaps not as much image nation as charles michelson of the democratic national committee but he is young and vigorous this sign is significant because there has been no trained publicity man at republican headquarters for the last three months and the man who occupied the post before either was unable to do anything or was not allowed by his superiors or the factional strife within the party to accomplish anything so I 1 say it is important to realize that the voice of the party is apparently acing to be employed again rep joe martin of massachi Mass achu who is chairman of the hcan lican cong signs of al committee and awakening is assistant re publican leader of the house has come forward with two or three blasts lately also he has been able apparently to awaken some of the ninety odd re publicans in the house of represent stives to the fact that they const tute lute the opposition party so they have been making some speeches in the attack on the new deal spend ing mg program chairman john ham iton of the national committee has been on the air a time or two and former gov alt alf landon of kansas has attempted in a couple of speeches to recall that he was the party s 1936 presidential nominee former president herbert hoover came back from europe and jumped onto much of the new deal s vital theory in one of the best speeches he ever has made A score or more organization I 1 meetings have been held in various parts of the country in the last month and I 1 understand that a flock more of them is scheduled but to go back to a previous state ment these are just signs they can be made alive and real and ef or they can be allowed to die of dry rot it will be a couple of months more before anybody can tell even though representative martin now is on record as saying the republicans will win 76 addi dional seats in the house this fall the answer to the republican problem hes lies I 1 believe in the an awer to one question can the republican factions get together that is to say will it be possible for the so called new york crowd and the so called middle west crowd to arrange a common ground upon which all can stands stand and if they succeed in that will they then be able to persuade numerous lone wolves and bellowing calves to come into the corral for united action in this latter category one will find oodles of individuals who claim leadership of followings great or small one will see senator van denberg of michigan trying to dodge affiliations of any kind that may hinder his hurdle race because mr is building for the re publican nomination whether he is willing to admit it now or not then there are such others as rep ham ilton fish of new york who was a great university football player plyer I 1 suppose mr fish knows his con gressional district and knows how to play politics there but it seems to me that he ought to be of great aid and comfort to the new dealers it is obvious therefore that while the dominant party is split widely between new dealers and regular democrats the republicans have some harmonizing ahead of them too they will get somewhere or not just as they decide to nate petty jealousies and efforts to keep control to the party feces cities in the coming congressional elections some observers in wash ington lately have insisted to me that republicans will gain in the house and senate this year despite and not because of party tion their conclusion is that mr roosevelt s personal popularity has declined tremendously and if that has happened obviously the strength of the new deal has slipped off onto very thin political ice the national capital has been treated lately to a life sized uproar over the abuse of franking the franking abuse lege the franking privilege is ac corded all members of congress and officials so that they are not re quiren to pay postage out of one pocket and collect it back for the other I 1 have no doubt nor does anyone else who is familiar with the practice that the franking eriv elege has been frequently abused it remained for horace russell gen eral counsel for the home owners loan corporation to get caught at it however and mr russell there fore is the goat about which the storm has centered he has re signed his job but it appears that he may be stuck with a postage bill of about mr russell was accused on the floor of the house by represents Re presenta tive live church of illinois of having sent out millions of letters advising attorneys for the home owners loan corporation in the various cit ies that judge 0 B taylor was re signing as associate general counsel and was opening private offices in washington for tafe practice of law the letters which were shown later to number about ten thousand high ly praised judge taylor and solicit ed business for him disclosure of the act in the house brought about mr russell russells s prompt retirement and apologies but the post office department and the department of justice had to look into the matter hence the likelihood that there will be a demand for payment of the postage and that there will be no further prosecution the incident created a stir and more will be heard from it ably because there can be no doubt but that the free mail privilege has been abused viciously but it may be of interest to know that there have been few if any con dictions vict ions for violation of the free mail privilege post office depart ment officials were unable to recall any prosecutions although there had been some indictments since the present arrangement went into effect in 1887 the incident involving taylor and russell calls attention to the tremendous amount of mail that is carried free of postage last year according to postal records 1 pieces of mail were carried under free provisions of these came from mem bers of the house and senate it if postage had been paid on all of the mail the amount would have been 33 postage on the congressional mail was estimated at something in excess of 20 which indicates how much less campaigning costs after a hohti cian clan is once elected to house or sen ate 0 western newspaper union |