AMERICA’S NO. 1 FASCIST

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 147, 6 June 1936, Page 15

AMERICA’S NO. 1 FASCIST

SUCCESSOR TO HUEY LONG Q.OVERNOR Eugene Talmadge, t dictator of Georgia, hue itepped Into the shoes of the late Senator Huey Long as the chief enemy of President Roosevelt's New Deal. "His face Is round . . . flattened with a Miggestlon of Stone Age concavity,” writes one of his critics Benjamin Stolberg), "But the main thing Is the eyee. They peer through thick glasses, cold and cruel" Since the assassination of Senator Huey P. Long the role of chief critic of President Roosevelt's Administration has fallen by default to Governor Eugene Talmadge, of Georgia. The Governor, like Senator Long, is a professional politician, and. like him, a successful one. He controls Georgia almost as tightly as the late senator held Louisiana, and by similar methods. And although the Influence of Governor Talmadge does not yet extend much outside the South, his activities are of considerable annoyance to the Administration. He has become a force of division In the ranks of the Democratic party. The late Senator Long’s grievance against the Administration was its failure to accept his "share-the-wealth” programme. He revolted against President Roosevelt because rich Federal patronage in Louisiana «’as denied him. Governor Talmadge professes to be angry with the Administration because, he insists, It is following communistic and socialistic policies. But he has political grievances against President Roosevelt’s advisers not unlike those harboured by Senator Long. He may sincerely believe, as he says, that the President is ruining the country and perverting the Democratic party, but fundamentally he is a disappointed politician, dangerous as such men usually are. Bitter Antagnnum. The antagonism between President Roosevelt and Governor Talmadge, which on Governor Talmadge's part is personal and bttter. has been dramatised by a simple accident—the fact that the President spends his winter vacations in Georgia and refers to the State as his second home. Years ago, when Mr. Roosevelt suffered from infantile paralysis, he found relief at a resort called Warm Springs, in Georgia, and he has since endowed a paralysis institute there. Each year when Mr. Roosevelt visits the resort Mr. Talmadge emphasises his enmity by falling to make the accepted official call upon the President. Two years ago, when Senator Long was threatening to draw the Southern tier of States from President Roosevelt's leadership, it was freely predicted that he and Governor Talmadge would effect a coalition and establish a powerful schismatic yroup. But such a union was never formed. It was rumoured at the time that the senator flatly stated that "Gene was too dumb for his ambition” and that they could never find common political ground. Governor Talmadge, while maintaining friendly relations with Senator Long, could never hare accepted the latter’s super-socialistic "Share-the-Wealth” programme. In fact. Governor Talmadge, far from being a radical, is probably the most conservative State politician in the United States, and he has been called by radicals America’s "No. 1 Fascist” A staff correspondent of the New York Times, although eschewing a critical appraisal of the Governor's appearance, found Mr. Talmadge's political activities anything but commendable. Describing a “grassroots” convention which Governor Talmadge convened to solidify opposition to President Roosevelt, the Journalist described the gathering as follows: Die meeting was shot through with Fascist sentiments. There were abundant evidences of a recrudescence of the Intolerance and bigotry of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920’5. The paragraph hints at the various "antis" in Governor Talmadge’s political philosophy. He is against political, economic, or social rights for negroes. He is opposed to "radicalism,” that is, social •errlcM rendered by the State, Labour legislation, or other Innovationfl in government. He is opposed to foreigners and by inference to Roman Catholics. His bete noire Is the President’s "Brain Trust," all the members of which he considers to be Communists. He is opposed to penal reform (Georgia still maintaining the chain gang system) and Government unemployment relief. Mr. Stolberg reports that the Governor's opposition to Government grants to the unemployed is grounded on the fact that it obviates the necessity of private charity which, he rays, is a great virtue. “Yassuh,” Mr Stolberg quotes him as saying, using 'outhem colloquial dialect, “the New Deal killed Charity. And Charity is all there is to religion, at least to my way of thinking. Roosevelt made a bunch of tramps out of the American people.” Financial Dictator. Antl-chlld-labour laws are unknown In Georgia, and general labour welfare laws are weak. In recent years efforts have !*en made to lntrod”ce unionism into the southern textile mills, and Governor Talmadge has frankly, even proudly, used the power of government as a strikebreaking device. In the general textile strike of 1934 he mobilised the national hoard and Invoked martial law in all affected areas. In direct violation of statute he established concentration (amps after the approved fashion, and into these hundreds of strikers were herded without formal arrest and with no recourse to habeas corpus.

Governor Talmadge's potential political power is of a negative but dangerous nature. A third party led by him could i«ot have even the slightest chance of victory, but it could split the Democratic vote in the South and allow a national Republican victory over President Roosevelt. It is this situation which probably ircouuts for the Governors indecision about stating his plans.

Although Governor Talmcdge may yet innounce himself as a candidate, his first move in that direction ended in a fiasco. The occasion was a convention called by -called "constitutional” Democrats,

mder the leadership of Governor Talnade and John H. Kirby, a retired outhem industrialist. Delegates repreenting 17 states were invited to meet in ucon, Georgia, and, it was said, they ■ere ready formally to designate the wemor as their candidate for PresiI' nt. The convention misfired when the : . pected 10 000 delegates turned out to be only 2000 or 3000. most of them officeholaen under the Talmadge regime. The ’tempted establishment of a new polial party was premature, to say the . ast, and the position of Governor Tal.r.vdge remained what it had been before —the principal and most picturesque rUk of Presid-nt Roosevelt since the >'i. >t Hwy P. Long.