I Rise To Explain My Vote

A Warning that the Political Labels often Get Sadly Juggled

HEYWOOD BROUN

"WHAT is John W. Davis like politically?" I asked a Washington correspondent.

"He's a reactionary," replied the expert. "Why he's so old-fashioned he believes in free speech and the rights of the individual and all that stuff."

And so it seems to me that as the result of a long circular journey an emotional radical may find himself standing at the door step of "Morgan's lawyer". The validity of labels has been overthrown in American politics. The voter who seeks to shop armed with no instructions except to pick a "radical", a "liberal", or a "conservative" is likely to be driven distracted. Somehow or other, the partitions have been broken down and the goods in all departments thrown about in the most indescribable confusion. One might consider first of all the case of William Jennings Bryan. To most Americans he has seemed for two decades the very type and symbol of radicalism. Perhaps, Mr. Bryan still believes that he stands well toward the extreme left of political thought. But he doesn't. According to any specific test Mr. Bryan is an old moss back. He views national problems solely from the point of view of the farmer. The development of industrialism in America has left Mr. Bryan as the champion of an agrarian middle class. He secs Utopia as a land of $1 wheat and cheap gasoline.

WHAT IS A PROGRESSIVE?

I WAS also told that Mr. McAdoo was a progressive, but he came into the Democratic convention ardently backed by the Ku Klux Klan which is the nearest approach in America to the Fascist! movement. And Oscar Underwood, of Alabama, has been traditionally a conservative and yet it was this same Mr. Underwood who led the fight upon the organization which has announced its intention of making one hundred percent Americanism compulsory. Most curious of all is the case of Robert Marion La Follctte, Fighting Bob, whose ringing tones of defiance faded into gentle cooing as soon as an attempt was made to assail the Klan on his behalf.

A sea change has assailed the mood of radicalism in my time. Fifteen years ago most adventurous young men turned Socialist, or at least Liberal, along about their junior year in college. At that time there was a winning rowdiness in dissent. Socialism was always associated with beer and tobacco fumes. As one turned to the Left, in those days he felt not only that he was thumbing his nose at Wall Street and the trusts but also at Baptist ministers and the entire tradition of Main Street. But somehow or other religion and respectability have seized upon progressivism in America. Prohibition got mixed up in the movement. Today the man who wants beer is a reactionary and all the blues and drys are in command of the labels of liberalism.

Indeed the battle ground has shifted. Over the horizon comes the spectre of the super state and many who fought in the army of the Left, now are minded to change sides and march over into the trenches of the Right with flags flying. It seems now that the man whose chief political interest lies in the rights of the individual must try to turn wheels back'instead of turning them forward.

Fortunately there is a simple solution by which the present confusion may be clarified. We could, couldn't we, just abandon labels altogether? If that were done all politicians would be forbidden to say "Wall Street" for at least one year. This prohibition would drive many politicians out of business entirely, but that might be less than tragic. It would end some absurdities.

WALL STREET VERSUS "WALL STREET"

DURING the Democratic convention we had William Gibbs McAdoo bursting out once a day with a denunciation of Wall Street and the interests and then rushing back to his headquarters to consult his chief backer and adviser who happened to be one of the most active operators the stock exchange has ever known.

The conception of Wall Street which exists in the minds of politicians is curious. According to convention orators all American financial interests are unified in purpose, method, and point of view. The jealousies and bloody conflicts of the bickering business men arc looked upon as mere sham battles. I am not asking of course that politicians give a clean bill of health to all the captains of big business, but I insist that there must be a specific charge. It is not enough just to say "Wall Street" and let it go at that. One can conceive of situations arising in which the purposes of "Wall Street" might be precisely in line with the will and the interests of the vast majority of people in America.

At any rate the old label system was responsible for entirely too much sleazy thought. Thus Mr. Bryan could be for McAdoo for no better reason than because of the "persistent and virulent opposition of Wall Street". Error may creep into calculations by this system of setting up opposition from any source as a complete certificate of character. Wall Street was never particularly friendly to the man who exploded the bomb; but that is not quite a good reason to encourage the finding of that man so that he may be nominated for president.

WHY NOT GET THE BEST ?

IT may even be that American politics can in time outgrow such a phrase as "Morgan's lawyer" of which we are likely to hear a great deal before the present campaign is done. As I understand it the terrible accusation made against John W. Davis is that he happens to be a good lawyer. The government of this country has always been largely given over to lawyers, but the demand has been that only second rate ones should be employed in the service of the State. The good ones were corporation lawyers and must be left with the private interests which employed them. In other words we have established the precedent of demanding that rich private individuals must have better service than the government. 'This doesn't sound sensible to me. I am told that John W. Davis helped the telephone company get higher rates. I have a telephone and so I would rather have Mr. Davis on my side than against me. It would be, I think, a most interesting experiment, for a change, to get the brains of the country working for us all, rather than for a few.

Of course much missionary work must be done. The very phrase "corporation lawyer" carries a stigma in the minds of many Americans. They may admit that such things as corporations have a right to exist, but they are not willing to stretch a point and permit them to have lawyers. It was Theodore Roosevelt, as I remember, who insisted that there were good corporations and bad corporations. He may have succeeded in convincing the community of this; but the new tolerance was not extended to lawyers. The bulk of America still has a feeling that "corporation lawyer" is a polite synonym for crook.

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But unfortunately the United States is itself a corporation and its needs and its interests are bigger and more intricate than those of the steel company, or any railroad or packer. It requires expert management. It would seem, then, the part of wisdom to go out and hire an expert.

During the Democratic convention one man was put forward for the job of president on the ground that "he has always been a good father and a devoted husband". Speaking as one shareholder in the United States, I must say that this does not move me. Honesty, of course; and, after that, should come ability. As far as I am concerned the President of the United States may beat his wife on his own time without any marked protest from me. I don't even give a rap about his religion. What I want to know about anybody who has the temerity to apply for the job of President is whether he can do the work well.