Hoover's Chances Materially Improve

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6836, 18 April 1932, Page 7

Hoover's Chances Materially Improve

DEMOCRATIC SPLIT. AL. SMITH AND ROOSEVELT RIVALS FOR PRESIDENCY. United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. WASHINGTON, April 15. President Hoover’s chances of reelection in November materially improved with the appearance of a widening split in the Democratic ranks. No matter what Democratic interpretation may be placed upon a denunciation of Mr. Franklin Roosevelt by Mr. Alfred ►Smith this week—and there aro several schools of thought—it is clear from the comment of leaders and the Press that Air. Roosevelt’s chances have diminished.

Mr. Smith, with some return of the personal fire and magnetism displayed in 1928, without actually naming Mr. Roosevelt, but making it clear whom ho meant, has accused the latter of being a demagogue and setting clas3 against class. He also proposed a twenty-year debt moratorium with a provision for debt reduction to the amount of twenty-five per cent, of what debtor nations bought from the United States. In short, ho drove a wedge into the Democrats by setting forth in round periods the programme of Democratic big business and incidentally Republican big business.

By stating that Air. Roosevelt’s upeech of several days ago -was a. general harangue and appeal to the disgruntled vote he took from the Governor considerable support in New York and the East. On the other hand, the arithmetical odds are still heavily with Roosevelt for nomination. If ho can hold the South and get the West, ho ,can get the job. Air. Smith's proposals for a 20-year moratorium have laid him open to effective attack by the Rooseveltites throughout the country. The consensus of opinion at Washington is that a party (divided on economic policy, into which now enters the Teligious issue, cannot hope to defeat the vigorous solidity of the Republicans behind President Hoover.