National Affairs: Reed Boom

• Share

Until last week, the one piece of presidential timber actually blazed by the Democrats was New York State's widespreading Irish oak, Governor Alfred Emanuel Smith. But when a Democratic State Committee finished its business in Missouri, Tuesday night, it had placed its mark on Missouri's tough-fibred, silver-topped sycamore, U. S. Senator James A. Reed.

The committee's resolution was something of a pardon as well as an endorsement. Ever since he "chawed" his cigars and hurled his epithets at the policies of Woodrow Wilson, Senator Reed has been regarded by Missouri Democrats as a renegade.

To signify that he accepted his reinstatement and endorsement with fit humility, Senator Reed mounted the platform at a fair in Sedalia, Mo., and, with never a mention of his own ambitions, intoned the political creed of a "rank-and-file" Democrat. The crowd, of course, caught Reed fever and again silver-tipped Senator Reed was acclaimed Missouri's candidate, promised a solid delegation.

When he writes for the American Mercury (and sometimes in his Senate fulminations), Senator Reed permits himself to perform feats of epigrammatic agility. "Give me the radius of a man's intelligence," he has written, "and I will describe the circumference of his tolerance." And, "The nobility of the mighty dead cannot be lessened by the puerility of the living." But the fair-day crowd at Sedalia, Mo., would not enjoy epigrams. What Senator Reed gave them last week was a good old-fashioned balloon ascension with oratorical sandbags dropping on Republican malefactors. Sedalia, Mo., pronounced it Senator Reed's best speech.

"The times are ripe, and rotten ripe, for a change," he trumpeted. "Let us rally our forces to the flag of the Constitution . . . inalienable rights of the citizen ... to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience . . . free speech, free press and peaceable assemblage ... the right of each citizen to regulate his own personal conduct," etc.

States' rights, "public plunderers," "special privileges," trusts which "despoil the people." The "majesty and security of the U. S." was mentioned. Prohibition was sideswiped with a reference to "snoopers and spies." Plans were advocated "to control and conserve our great inland waters, harness their power, develop the arid lands of the West, protect the great Valley States from inundation and place upon our mighty rivers and lakes argosies which will bear an immense commerce."