The Evening Star THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1930. AMERICAN ELECTIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 20634, 6 November 1930, Page 10

The Evening Star THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1930. AMERICAN ELECTIONS.

The American constitutional system is elaborate and scientific. It can have some very odd effects in its working. Every second year there is an orgy of elections, because a third of the Senate and tho whole, of the House of Representatives are then elected. Every fourth year the excitement is intensified, because then a President also has to be chosen. As votes are on strictly party lines, a now President has usually a majority in both Houses. ' When the next election comes, halfway through his course, it is not an uncommon thing for him to lose it in one chamber or in both. That can be very awkward, for Congress can veto anything the President puts forward, while he, in turn, can veto at any rate once any legislation the Houses may pass.. If the Houses afterwards so desire they can again pass, the measure, and if it secures a two-thirds majority in each House it is carried, irrespective of the President’s wishes. President Wilson, in his last years of office, found himself thwarted by a majority of the" opposite party which made futile all his efforts to give effect to his large promises to the Allies. What the difference between tho parties may be, except that they oppose each other, no American can say. It has become a tradition in America to have two parties—one, the Republican, to govern, and the other, a. smaller party, to threaten and do something to keep it in order, Tho Democrats have only held office twice in nearly seventy years.

Mr Hoover was elected President two years ago with an overwhelming majority. The country was prosperous. Its prosperity was attributed, naturally, in no small degree to Republican rule. The main strength of the ■ Democrats and a great deal of the strength of Prohibition have been in the South. The Democrats refused to vote for a “wet” candidate for the Presidency, who had the further disability of being a Roman Catholic. Their votes for Congress became Republican along with their Presidential votes, Mr Hoover had shown his talents as an organiser. ' Who could be so well fitted as he to organise prosperity? There was nothing strange about the Hoover boom. But when it went as far as it did it was practically a certainty that tho President would have to suffer for it at the next elections, and that has happened at this week’s polls. The returns are not complete as wo write, but it is taken for granted that the Democrats will have a majority in the House of Representatives, and, in view of divisions among his own followers, it is not likely to be more than a precarious control which the President will exorcise over the Senate. Mr Hoover’s easy days—if he has had any easy days—as the leader of Congress are done. His seat henceforth can only be stuffed with thorns. It has had its fair allowance of thorns already. The depression which has swept America, in common with the rest of the world, since the high hopes of two years ago, has been the worst of all developments for tho “ organiser of prosperity.” A recipe, even palliatives, which would plcaso everyone for a malady which docs not affect America alone have been impossible to find. Before tho end of his first session Mr Hoover was having trouble with different _ interests in his Congress. Confidence in him was very much on the wane. There was a degree of recovery later when it was pointed out that in most of the matters which had made differences between himself and strong sections the President had succeeded in getting his way. No other recent President, it was said, had encountered so. much hostility and yet emerged at tho end so successfully. But depression remained still a fact which could not bo gainsaid, lending bitterness to recollec-

tions of Mr Hoover’s earlier prophecies or the prophecies of his supporters of prosperity always to he increased under his leadership. The “ solid South ” is now solid again for the Democrats. The most outstanding glo success of the polls has been the re-election with a unique majority of a Democratic Governor of New York State, hailed as the next candidate of that party for the Presidency. The “ wets ” have made some appreciable gains in their candidatures for the House, where they will still, however, bo in a pronounced minority.