A DEMOCRATIC SPLIT.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20524, 18 April 1932, Page 10

A DEMOCRATIC SPLIT.

AMERICAN PRESIDENCY. MR HOOVER'S CHANCES OF RE-ELECTION. (VKITEX) PBESS ASSOOIITIOIT —BT fLXCTBIO TJSZ.EGBAPH—COPYBIGHT.) NEW YORK, April 15. Preside ut Hoover's chances of re-elec-tion in November have been materially improved with the appearance and widening of the split among the Democrats. No matter what Democratic interpret tation may be placed upon the denunciation of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt by Mr A 1 Smith this week—there will be several schools of thought —it is clear from the comment of the leaders and the Press that Governor Roosevelt's chances have diminished. Mr Smith, with some return of the personal fire and magnetism displayed in 1928, without actually naming Governor Roosevelt, but making it clear whom he meant, has accused th© latter of being a demagogue, setting class against class. Mr Smith also proposed a _ twenty-year war debt moratorium, with a provision for debt reduction to the amount of 25 per cent, of what the debtor nations have bought from the United States. A Political Wedge. , In short, Mr Smith -drove a wedge into the Democrats by setting forth ,in round periods the programme of Democratic big business—and incidentally of Republican big business. By stating that Governor Roosevelt's speech of several days ago was a general harangue, and an appeal to the disgruntled vote, he took from the I Governor considerable support in New iork and the East. On the other hand, the arithmetical «lds are still heavily with Governor Itoosevelt for the nomination. If he can hold the south and get the west he can get the job. Mr Smith's proposals for a twenty-year moratorium plan have laid him open to effective attack by the Roosevelites throughout tlie country. The consensus of opinion in Washington is that a Party divided on economic policy, into which there W, 7 e j 8 C i 0 /ehgious issue, cannot liopoto defeat the vigorous solidarity Hoover Repubhcans behind President