Show 0 0 national topics interpreted al 1 by william bruckart national press nuil diric D C ll washington As the campaign gets more heated it becomes increasingly crea cea singly evident C call 11 spade that the political a spade battle this year will result more times in a spade being called a spade men being named names than has happened in a good many previous years when this stage is reached it invariably means that party workers as well as party leaders are thoroughly imbued with the sense of battle and it means further that no phase of either party policy or personal affairs of the candidates themselves escapes the attention of the opposition that probably is the reason why mr roosevelt lately has found himself being kidded to a greater extent than usually occurs about his nonpolitical non political visits to various sections of the country the opportunity has not yet come for governor landon the republican nominee to be made the butt of such jokes or the subject of such personal attacks but undoubtedly it will arrive long before november 3 to refer again to the presidents nonpolitical non political trips the correspondents spon dents here bere have been having a great deal of fun about the presidents determination to learn firsthand about the hood flood areas of pennsylvania and new england and the drouth areas of the middle western plains this is significant it shows an important change of attitude on the part of the washington observers who seldom find themselves in a position where they can tell everything they know it is significant also from this standpoint that it shows mr roosevelt to have lost the loyalty of a great number of those writers time was when 95 per cent of the washington correspondents spon dents were with mr roosevelt on everything he said or did and when they found vulnerable spots or weaknesses in his statements or actions they were inclined to overlook them such is not the case now however and I 1 think it may be added with candor that the presidents programs and policies his speeches and statements in press conferences are examined with utmost scrutiny from the democratic standpoint this is from the republican standpoint it is a highly valuable change in circumstance the reason is that as long as the president had a completely friendly press he did not need to be so careful nor did he ever need to fear that interpretations would be placed upon his statements or his actions other than the interpretation which he desired it takes no stretch of the imagination to realize forthwith that any time he be says or does anything to which exception can be taken some of those correspondents will point out the other possibilities I 1 find generally speaking that the writing corps doubted that the presidents pennsylvania and new england visits were based solely on his desire to know what the federal government should do to prevent floods one correspondent was so extremely frank as to write in his metropolitan newspaper that mr roosevelt foresaw not a flood of water but a flood of republican votes of course this is an exa exaggerated gge rated position for any unbiased writer to take but there were any number of those correspondents who laughingly inquired why it was so urgently necessary for the president to visit the flood areas at this time considering that there was no congress in in sessi session on and no definite provision for the framing of flood relief plans now as to the residents presidents visit to the drouth stricken area the drouth was pres learned ent in the dust lif little tle bowl as the brilliant young strategists of the new deal organization have named the middle western plains there can be no doubt likewise that relief was needed and that a thoroughgoing thorough going understanding of the situation by those responsible in washington should be obtained yet I 1 believe it was the consensus of the writers accompanying the president on that whirlwind tour of the dust storms that mr roosevelt personally gained no knowledge of condi conditions tons that was not already available to him in reports from his subordinates indeed I 1 am told on very good authority that relief representatives who had gone into the drouth area already had written their reports to the president and made their recommendations concerning policies to deal with that relief situation before he left washington on that trip it must be quite obvious however that mr roosevelt desired to see conditions about which so much was being written in the newspapers I 1 think he cannot be blamed for desiring the opportunity to witness things as they actually were before the rains came but some of his speeches from the rear end of his special train evidenced something more than a hint that he desired to see not only the drouth stricken area but the voters who live there more recently the president has made a nonpolitical non political trip into certain areas of the southland where it is suspected by chairman Far parleys leys representatives that a goodly number of republican votes exist in fairness to the president it must be said with respect to his southern trip however that he did little actual speechmaking speech making it is true that he gave the pump handle handshake wherever people desired to greet him but his campaigning was much less evident in the minds of the reporters than obtained in his visit to the north and to the central west and referring to his trip to the central west I 1 am reminded of the hysteria that has soil arisen over soil erosion erosion undoubtedly soil erosion is a problem worthy of general attention but the thing that disturbs me as a washington observer is that soil erosion like a lot of other problems suddenly has become mixed up in politics when it is not a political question the conservation of soil of natural resources has been a matter to which farmers of the nation have addressed themselves for more than a hundred years who is it among the farming community t that hat has not attempted at one time or another to stop washes or who has not planted some willow trees or some kinds of bush to prevent ditches being cut through the middle of fertile and arable land and may I 1 ask further what farmer is there who has not given consideration to crop rotation to the planting of types of clover or hay or grasses that would of themselves enrich the soil all of these things are commonplace all of them have been done from the time to which the memory not to the contrary but now we find a perfect hullabaloo a hysteria as I 1 said at the beginning about a thing with which farmers long have been familiar it comes almost into the category of nonsense one needs only to visit the oldest communities in the nation to find soils that have been producing for two centuries and that have continued to show increased production through all of that time the reason is that those farmers knew about soil erosion and they sought to prevent it those farmers and nearly all farmers recognize that soil must be fer fertilized otili i ize that it cannot be planted to th the I 1 same crop eternally without destroying ying its fertility r nd they know the necessity and the method for solving the problem they have acted on that necessity notwithstanding all of these facts we are due to see in the next session of congress and probably for a considerable number of sessions thereafter a bunch of politicians who will be prating about soil conservation long after the farmers have become thoroughly sick at the s stomach to about the idea it is just another one of those things upon which hungry political demagogues will leap leap and continue to use as a vehicle on which to ride into office I 1 was horn born on a farm and grew up there I 1 know the problem inside out because the farm upon which I 1 was born was susceptible to erosion washing as my father called it to a greater extent than is usual in farm lands it is no particular credit to any one to boast about preventing soil erosion because it is a thing thine that any farmer will want to do if he wants to continue to make his farm pay him a return it is just as much a part of farm management as it is to see that the work stock does not develop sore shoulders but the point of all of this as far as I 1 am concerned is that political capital is being made out of a condition with which politicians ought not to be concerned at all some may accuse me of i ignoring the drouth condition I 1 do not do so we have had several years of bad drouth conditions I 1 find it difficult to associate political control over the weather however because the claims of politicians have yet to reach very far above their heads 0 0 announcement is made at last that former president herbert hoover is going to hoover take the stump in to speak behalf of governor landan and the republican ticket thou though 9 h it was long delayed it probably has come before the country became convinced that an irreparable breach existed between governor landon and mr hoover rumors were just beginning to fly and gossip tongues were just beginning to wag that mr hoover would remain out of the republican picture this year so it is extremely fortunate that lie he and governor landon at last have been brought together as far as republicans are concerned I 1 am not informed as to the reasons for this delay it is evident that somebody slipped because it is unnatural for politicians to deliberately libera tely decline to take advantage of strength when it is proffered them 0 western newspaper union |