AMERICA TO-DAY

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 241, 11 October 1934, Page 7

AMERICA TO-DAY

(By MARC T. GREENE.)

NEW PARTY RISING ) SOCIALIST TREND. TEST IN CALIFORNIA. WILL SINCLAIR WIN

It was because they thought, in desperation, that the Republican party had failed in its trust that the American people thrust it aside to place their faith a "New Deal," and in a man of magnetic personality, high character and unquestioned honesty of intent, yet of entirely untried capacity in a great

crisis. For a year and more the country stood behind him in a scries of experiments unprecedented, perplexing, and sometimes even a little alarming. With a faith the nation has shown in no man since Lincoln, it looked to Roosevelt to lead it out of the wilderness of depression and doubt and possible suffering. But to-day, view the scene with all the opcimism you may, there is no avoiding the drab fact that the advancement along the way out has not been sufficient to justify the nation's faith.

Is the task, then, too great for the

President, too great for any man? Or may another be capable of it? Tlie coming election® may sliow that the people have decided both questions in the affirmative. Or they may show that no one knows where he 6tands. Tfcey may, and very likely will, continue a lukewarm support of the Administration, out of regard for Lincoln's warning against "swapping horses while crossing a stream." They are unlikely to rebuke the New Deal to the extent of replacing a large number of Democratic Senators and Congressmen with Republican, chiefly for the reason that nothing the Republicans have said or promised offers any more hope than lies in the present Administration's policies. Their recently-announced slogan, "Back to the Coolidge principles," is no more than a grim jest to the average American, but a jest full of tragic potentialities.

A Portent for the Nation.

Thus the time Is ripe ror a new alignment of political parties in America. And one of the live questions of the moment is, what sort of alignment? To that question Upton Sinclair promptly answers, "an alignment of all people opposed to the profit system, under my leadership."- And many an American traditionally allied with one or the other of the old-established parties, scratches his chin and mutters to himself, "it might work, at that." Every day .more of these doubters and wonderers decide to try it and see, and in the State of California the number is very apt to be sufficient to put the novelist in the Governor's chair. True, the Conservatives and Capitalists of both parties will fight him, irrespective entirely of former political affiliations, but the very fact that his following among the masses is large enough to spread . apprehension and alarm among all classes of the foes of Liberalism (as set forth in the Sinclair doctrines) holds a portent for the entire nation.

What is to be Sinclair's place in the ranks of the Democratic party? Acceptance of him as a member in good standing will beyond any manner of doubt drive out thousands of old-line Democrats. Whether it would offset this dereliction by the addition of an equal number of Liberal Republicans and independents is a moot question.

"Something has got to be done and clone now," says Sinclair. "I am for Roosevelt and always have been, but I want to go further than he is going. I want to abolish the profit system, not to try to rebuild the structure on the same old rotten foundation. To-day the thieves of Wall Street have their hands on our necks. To-morrow they will have us bound and gagged beyond the possibility of our ever escaping. We must act now or we are for aver lost." No pleasant sound has this in the ears of the conservatives of either party, or even in those of a good many who deem tliefriselves ''Liberals." "Dangerous Bolshevik," is Upton Sinclair to these, and ever was. And they will fight him to-day as they fought him when he stirred up the people against the evils of the meat packing industry with "The Jungle" more than "25 years ago.

Conservatives v. Liberal? All of which brings closer the possibilities of a new political party in this country. Conservatism and Liberalism would seen) likely be the opposing align, ments, but the Liberalism would be of a definite and very aggressive sort and would envisage the end of the profit system entirely, while the opposition would fight to preserve the old system and the old ideals of government. Party lines as now drawn would disappear, and hundreds of thousands of independents, many of whom have refrained altogether from the cxercise of their electoral franchise for years out of utter disgust at the conditions, would beyond any doubt flock to the "Liberal" standard. The hope of something liko this is behind the Sinclair drive, and the fear of it is causing dismay among the Republicans, while many of the Democrats, themselves are not a little apprehenshe.

Possible Presidential Candidate. The Administration, then, the Democratic party itself, face an extremely delicate situation. The party will have to take and to declare definitely a position in respect of iSinclair if he should be elected Governor of California. And whatever position that is, it will but add to the political chaos which now only intensities the economic chaos in America. If lie its repudiated there will almost surely come into being, looking toward tlio Presidential elections of 1930, a new political party, with Sinclair as its

standard-bearer and residential candidate. If he is welcomed into the ranks of Democracy, the objectors will doubtless be sufficiently numerous and influential to form themselves into a newparty, on the ground that the official Democratic party has gone Socialist. But 0110 thing or the other will have to happen. Sinclair, if elected Governor, will require to be repudiated or accepted, and that will be a middling difficult proposition for the party and the Administration to face. At the moment they are doing what is colloquially known as "stalling," hoping in their hearts that Sinclair will be defeated, but fearing the worst. I