The Dominion FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1928. THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 33, 2 November 1928, Page 10

The Dominion FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1928. THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

While the Dominion is busy with its general election, the United States is similarly engaged in a Presidential campaign. In America to-day, therefore, everyone is asking the question: Who will be the next President, Hoover or Smith? The available evidence suggests that the chances favour Hoover, but it would seem to be a very open matter. The Literary Digest has been conducting a postcard election, and during the first fortnight of the week-by-week results approximately 68 per cent, of the total vote went to the Republican candidate, Hoover. Evidently this lead has been almost consistently maintained, for of the 3,000,000 straw votes gathered in Hoover gets 63 This vote, however, is not so convincing as would at appear, for the Republican predominance was'far greater in UA The straw voting indicates that the set of the wind is from Hoover to Smith. How far this secession will go remains, of course, to be Seen 'will the South, which is overwhelmingly Protestant,, vote for a Roman Catholic President? It might. Political allegiance may be too strong to make the bigotry issue a disruptive foice. But what of Prohibition? Governor Smith, if elected President, cannot alter the American Constitution. Had Smith stated his own views on the matter and left it at that, then the known impotence of the President on this issue would doubtless have retained for him many Prohibitionist votes. But the Governor of New York does not shine in a neutral role. He proclaims boldly that he will do such things as a President can do to bring about a repeal of the Volstead Act. This will alienate from him many Prohibition voters, who would normally vote Democratic, but it will gain many adherents from the opposite camp. Who will be the winner or loser by this change-over of voters from their party allegiance it would be difficult to even guess

Then there are the problems of the farmer and the wage-worker to consider. Here again the same cross-currents of interest appear. Firstly, “big business” is attached to both parties. Ford supports Hoover; whereas Raskob, of the General Motors Corporation, is chairman for Smith. Hence both start even in that neither can accuse the other of being the marionette dancing in accordance with the string-pulling of the business magnates. To the farmer, who buys in a protected market and pays high prices in consequence, but who sells his produce at world parity, Mr. Hoover offers inland waterways, stabilisation corporations made up of voluntary associations of producers, and aids to co-operative marketing. Concerning these proposals Smith remarks that they are all right in so far as they go, but they don’t touch the exportable surplus of farm produce, which causes the low prices in the domestic market. He proposes to take the exportable surplus right out of the domestic market. This would ensure the farmer getting high home prices plus world parity for that which is exported. Past Republican failures to aid farming makes Smith’s proposal attractive to farmers, and Hoover’s advocacy of a high tariff to protect wageearners makes the Democratic policy appear still more attractive. Hoover’s appeal to the workers of the Industrial East doesn’t touch the Prohibition issue. The predominant sentiment here is said to be wet. Hoover parades the great benefits accruing to American workers since pre-war, instancing the tariff protection of the products of labour and wage protection by means of the restriction on immigration. His misuse of unemployment figures, however, is seized on by his opponent, who discounts the prosperity claims by pointing to the great army of unemployed. With the foregoing factors operating to affect the voting, it is not surprising that uncertainty prevails. While the general expectation is that Hoover will be successful, there is also a substantial body of opinion which gives Smith a good fighting chance.