CAMPAIGN: Fiddlers Who?

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Chicago—June 14.

Good Republicans throughout the land tucked that place and that date away in their minds last week for 1932 reference.

There and then would their party convene to renominate Herbert Clark Hoover for the Presidency.† The Republican National Committee, 100 members strong, so determined during its two-day meeting in the ballroom atop the New Willard in Washington. Down upon its sessions looked an enormous picture of the President ten years younger than reality.

The selection of Chicago as next year's Republican convention city smacked of a public auction. When Philadelphia. Detroit, St. Louis, and Cleveland withdrew for lack of bidding cash. Atlantic City alone contested the sale. From Chicago had come a citizens delegation headed by Democrat Edward Nash Hurley, Wartime chairman of the Shipping Board, and Col. Robert Isham ("Secret Six") Randolph of the Chicago Association of Commerce. They offered the G. O. P. the city's new indoor Stadium for its meetings, promised reduced railroad fares and moderate hotel rates. Of most importance, they waved a certified check for $150,000 as Chicago's cash bid for the convention.

The indoor stadium, not to be confused with Soldier Field, occupies a full city block on West Madison Street, two miles from the "Loop." Its seating capacity is 25,000. Its organ, strong as 25 brass bands, smashes electric light bulbs by its vibration when played fortissimo. Delegates will not have to sweat disgustingly in their shirtsleeves, because the huge building is equipped with an airicing machine to maintain 70°.

The committee raised the total number of delegates to 1,154 which was 64 more than the 1928 figure. As a bonus for going Republican Texas got 23 additional votes; Virginia, ten; North Carolina, eight; Florida, six; Tennessee, five. Because they had gone for the Brown Derby in 1928, Massachusetts and Rhode Island each had five delegates snipped off their Republican convention strength. Big delegate gainers due to reapportionment of Congressmen based on 1930 census: California, 18; Michigan, 8; New York, 7. Big losers: Missouri, 6; Iowa, 4; Pennsylvania, 4. Republican headquarters is hard pressed for operating cash. Wet Republicans are withholding their money from a Dry party. Community chests have taken funds that would otherwise go to party politics. Industrial disappointment with the Tariff to bring back good times has frozen much Republican revenue. To bring in enough money to keep national headquarters solvent until the June convention, the committee last week named a special cash-collecting board headed by Philadelphia Banker Jay Cooke.

No national committee meeting would be complete without its speechmaking. Last week's was no exception. But most of the addresses were pitched on a defensive note. Plainly the party leaders felt as depressed as the Depression itself. Privately they grumbled about the difficulty of "putting Hoover over" with the voters. Old Guardsmen champed their cigars in sullen silence as Chairman Simeon Davison Fess, looking old and worried, "keynoted" thus: