SOCIAL WHISPERS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 55, 14 September 1928, Page 9

SOCIAL WHISPERS

MALICIOUS CAMPAIGN AMERICAN PRESIDENCY GOVERNOR SMITH ACTS .nl'ed Press Association—lly Electric Telt eraph- -C.pyrleht. NEW YORK, 12th September. A social whispering campaign, which through a system of malicious chain loiters and word of mouth has been spreading throughout the country scandalous gossip about tho Democratic candidate for tho Presidency, Governor Smith's religion, morals, and personal life, lias suddenly taken a dramatic turn to-day with a statement by the Governor which recounts the efforts made to track down a slander that upon a recent occasion he was so drunk that he was unable to make a scheduled public address. A letter written by one woman to another in West Virginia gave this incident as coming from an eye-witness, a well-known citizen of that State. This was brought to the attention of tho Democratic National Committee, which, in turn, secured a statement from a noted Republican who had been with Governor Smith that day showing that it was a lie. The Governor has made a personal effort to secure a retraction from the writer of the letter, but thus far without success. The Republican National Committee recently issued a statement deploring the whispering campaign, and saying that both candidates were being subjected to it. Governor Smith's statement, however, with its consequent publishing of names, forces the whole matter into public attention, and puts the mud-slinging and so-called bigotry talk into the ranks of an important Presidential issue.