What to Expect

"We not only got a new deal and a new dealer but a practically new deck of cards. It is, however, the same game. The players change but the game not at all."

So wrote shrewd, able Frank Richardson Kent last week in the Baltimore Sun on the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. With Pundit Kent most wiseacres were ready to agree that, despite the record-breaking Democratic vote and wishful talk of "united non-partisan effort" the business of Government-by-politics would go on about as usual in the U. S. for the next four years. In his campaign President-elect Roosevelt exhibited himself as a smart politician and no smart politician who wants to stay in power suddenly and violently revolutionizes the game's rules on his first deal.

The Thirty-Second President emerged from the campaign fog as a vigorous well-intentioned gentleman of good birth and breeding who had large hopes for improving his country by ordinary political processes. If he lacked crusading convictions, he was at least free from his predecessor's stubborn pride of opinion. One week after his election he seemed destined to give the U. S. the kind of administration it thought it wanted rather than the kind he thought it ought to have. No section had a right to dictate to him. to demand favors. The South? He could have won easily without it. The West? It was not a necessary ingredient of his victory. The Republican Progressives? Without them his sweep would have been the same. Such far-flung support would give him. if he chose to take it. extraordinary independence of action. He had a Congress overwhelmingly friendly in which to work his will. He started with a clean record, free from "sorehead" enemies in his own party or organized opposition from the Republicans. The country seemed ready and waiting for him to lead. Never before were the possibilities better for a Democratic Administration to get things done. The result seemed to depend upon the brand of statesmanship to be furnished by the new President. From him and his party what could the country expect?

Governor Roosevelt is by no means the whole Democratic party "nor. once in the White House, will he 'be the whole U. S. Government. In him are concentrated only in the loosest sense the mixed mass of ideas, opinions, notions, policies, theories and conceptions which will dominate the country for four years. In Congress. Democrat battles Democrat as to what is good party doctrine. The Democratic Press of William Randolph Hearst is rarely in tune with that of Adolph, Ochs, Baruch, Young, Baker & Co. hold ideas opposite from those of Dill, Long, Wheeler, McAdoo & Co.—yet all are Democrats. An Irish Catholic in Boston, a Russian Jew in Chicago and a white Protestant in Atlanta think on different tangents—yet all are Democrats.

The most authoritative declaration of Democratic principles is the party platform adopted in the Chicago convention. Governor Roosevelt and Al Smith have loudly assured the country that this year the platform means something, may be accepted as gospel. What it means, however, has been differently interpreted by different speakers and commentators. Though calculations as to what the President-elect and his party will do are difficult and risky, the general legislative prospect is roughly as follows: