National Affairs: Collegiate Duty

• Share

To every good U. S. citizen the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November is a date that needs no explanation. Not so the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. Never has this date meant anything special to anyone, but this year it did. Under an amendment to the U. S. Code, adopted in 1934 after the adoption of the Lame Duck Amendment of the Constitution, the Electoral College met then instead of on the first Wednesday in January.

So to 48 capitals trooped the 531 U. S. citizens who alone among the 127,000,000 have the legal right to elect the President and Vice President of the U. S. Under a proposed amendment to the U. S. Constitution, long talked of and again being agitated by Senator George Norris of Nebraska, this right would be taken from them and given to the people. But long ago the same unwritten Constitution of the U. S. which denies any President the right to more than eight years in office, deprived the electors of their power to vote anything save the popular conviction of their respective states, reduced them to the status of political stooges.

Typical was the largest Electoral College, which assembled in Albany, N. Y. Among the 47 electors who drew their $15 day's pay, their 10¢ a mile travel allowance and their free souvenir fountain pens (for signing oaths and official certifications) were, besides numerous ward bosses, four women, such political war horses as one-time Ambassador James W. Gerard, one-time Editor Herbert Bayard Swope, one-time Police Commissioner Grover A. Whalen, Roosevelt Friend Frank C. Walker, such reigning Labor Union chiefs as Sidney Hillman (Amalgamated Clothing Workers), Joseph P. Ryan (International Longshoremen), Max Zaritsky (United Hatters, Cap & Millinery Workers), David Dubinsky (International Ladies' Garment Workers). Also present were Governor Lehman and the past President of the New York college, not this year a member, James Aloysius Farley.

A full day's work they made: assembled in the State Capitol, elected temporary officers, adjourned, held a luncheon, reassembled, elected James W. Gerard their president. No little X's did they have to make on roughly printed ballots. Their ballots were handsomely engraved in exactly the same style as the ballots used in New York to elect Grover Cleveland 52 years ago, saying simply "For President of the U. S., Franklin D. Roosevelt of the State of New York," "For Vice President of the U. S., John N. Garner of the State of Texas," and since State officials had with foresight had 200 engraved four years ago, there remained, even after 47 had been cast and scores distributed as souvenirs, 60 left over for this year. For Roosevelt & Garner, 47 votes.

¶ In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's Electoral College (president, Mathew H. McCloskey Jr., Philadelphia contractor) heard Governor George H. Earle declare that all this electoral nonsense was out of date, just like state's Rights. For Roosevelt & Garner, 36 gilt-edged cards in a green glass urn.