WARMING UP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 234, 3 October 1932, Page 7

WARMING UP.

PRESIDENCY FIGHT. 5 Growing Keenness in U.S.A. Campaign. GENE TUNNEY TAKES PAST. ) (From Our Special Correspondent) SAN FRANCISCO, September IS. Despite the approach of autumn there ; is nothing wanting in warmth- in the • Presidential political campaign, and ; personalities are commencing to make ■ their appearance in the daily Press and on the public platform. The usual efforts to obtain a preliminary census ; of the position of opinion by way of a postcaird vote initiated by leading newspapers has had the result of discovering that the major parties are almost evenly balanced, with a fractional advantage accorded the candidacy of Franklin Roosevelt, but both he and President Hoover have been running a neck and neck race in most of the populous Eastern States. Roosevelt,'in opening his campaign in the East, called for party unity and tax reduction, and said a united Democracy would help him win a new deal for the forgotten man and all other classes of citizens. He charged the Republican administration with failing to realise that government must be to "the high, the middle and the low." He asked for equal justice for the farm, the village and the city. Roosevelt pointed out that in New York State the budget had been reduced ten million dollars. He blamed the burden of excessive taxes for causing much of the distress afflicting agriculture, the email homeowners and the railways. G'ene Tunney, the retired heavy-weight boxing champion, received an ovation when he spoke in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on the same platforna as Governor Roosevelt, and said: "Like the Irish, the Democrats love a good fight, but they should not fight amongst themselves. They should fight the Republicans."

"Bankrupt Leadership." At a later gathering held in Scheneetady, New York State, Governor Roosevelt predicted the "thinking electorate" will sweep him into the Presidency. Declaring the day of "torchlight parades" and "ballyhoo" campaigns was a thing of the past, he said the voters were preparing to sweep from office a "bankrupt" Republican leadership. He based, his prediction of victory on several national "straw" polls now being conducted. He pointed out that these polls revealed no serious disaffections in Democratic ranks, while the ratio of bolting Republicans ranged from 20 to 40 per cent even in Republican Vermont. Roosevelt went on to say he was seeking Republican votes as well as Democratic votes. He said: "Our quarrel is with the Republican leadership. ,We want these millions of the rank and file of the party to disown and disavow the bankrupt leadership of their party." The. Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee, the Speaker of the House, Mr. Garner, also has been industriously prosecuting his campaign, and during a speech in New York said: "The failure to meet the depression emergency courageously at its inception, and the enactment of the Hawley-Smoot tariff in the face of an almost universal protest, are, to my mind, the most naked evidences of the failure of the Republican leadership to realise its responsibilities and jive up to its obligations. If no other errors had been committed, these two things would be amply sufficient to explain the unpopularity of the present administration and the wide confidence that it will not be continued." ,

The Government's Business. In his acceptance speech Speaker Garner said: "Nearly all our civic troubles are the consequence of the Government's departure from its legitimate functions. It is not the business of Government to make individuals rich; too often has government been bent to that purpose. Nor is it a function of the administration to direct the personal affairs of mankind, except in so far as it places a bar against such things as involve injury, loss or discomfort on others. I have been of the belief that attempting to enforce morals by law was just as unjustifiable an invasion of the field pre-empted by the Churches and schools, as putting the government into business is a violence to the nation's industrial and commercial fabric. Government is not a pedagogue, nor a parson, nor a pied, piper. It is merely a convenience of civilisation by which a set of rules is enforced on a community in the interest of order and justice."