LEISURELY PACE

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 168, 15 June 1928, Page 7

LEISURELY PACE

REPUBLICAN CONVENTION, AGRICULTURAL PLANK. HUGE NAVY CONDEMNED. (United Press Association —By Electric? Telegraph—Copy right.) (Australian Press Assoc [at ion.) Received June 15, 9.15 a.m. NEW YORK, Juno 14. The Republican Convention at Kansas City is likely to proceed leisurely. Kansas City has spent two million dollars in preparations for the convention and if it lasts less than four days, business people, who expected to reap a harvest from the visitors, will lose money. The way is clear to finish the convention’s business within a few hours, but it is now certain that it will last v-*o more days. The adoption of the platform and the choice of nominees will be a leisurely process. “ Nows from the Convention Hall states that the delegates foregathered this morning certain that the minority report of the Platform. Committee on the agricultural plank would be brought to the floor of the convention and a test, vote demanded. The minority gi*mp is led by Messrs Lowden, Curtis and Y\ atson, an alliance which, inter alia, supports features of the McNary-HaiTgen measure to which President Coolidge and Mr Hoover are irrevocably opposed. LENGTHY DOCUMENT.

The platform is a lengthy document of 57 pages. The agricultural plank, aside from the ~ endorsement of the Coolidge Administration’s help of agriculture,, is an innocuous promise of the Republican Party to reorganise the marketing of agricultural creation of a farm board, and a Federal system of aid to co-operative marketing, but “the Government mU6t keep out of business.” The platform “endorses without qualification the record of the Coolidge Administration,” praises the President’s practice of public economy, and reaffirms the belief in a protective tariff, although certain provisions of the present law require revision to further protect American wages. The platform expresses the determination that war debts to America should be paid, although “we have no desire to be oppressive or grasping. It praises the multilateral Outlawry of War Treaty, and reiterates firm friendship with Canada. It also expresses sympathy with China, but stresses the “traditional American policy of non-interference in the political affairs of other nations,” and reiterates the determination to stay out of the League of Nations. The party pledges itself and its nominee to the observance of a vigorous enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment, deplores corruption in office in indirect terms, and large election campaign expenditures, and reaffirms the determination to continue to restrict immigration and maintain the navy up to the Washington Treaty. Senator Smoot, chairman of the Platform Committee, read the document. The first actual mention of Mr Hoover’s name in the platform, commending his activities in connection with the Mississippi flood, produced half a minute’s applause and a few diminutive snake dances from delegates. OIL SCANDALS CONDEMNED. Senator La Follette, a son of the late Senator, who was the stormy petrel of the Senate, presented the minority report. Senator La Follette, who is one of the youngest Federal legislators, and the best speaker, addressed the crowd which a moment before had cheered the commendation of the Coolidge administration and now cheered as enthusiastically La Follette’s rebukes of President for vetoing the Mc-Nary-Hauglien bill. The speaker also condemned the huge navy of the United States as conducii e to war and military conscription. He also condemned the oil scandals and asked the Republicans to repudiate exSenator Fail and other Republicans involved in them. About 200 farmers, led by a band and dressed in dungarees and straw hats attempted to force their way into the Convention Hall. A handful succeeded in evading the doorman, but the remainder were excluded by the police on the ground that they simply had no tickets. Few in the hall knew of this abortive agricultural stampede.