NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1932. U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Northern Advocate, 8 November 1932, Page 4

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1932. U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper.

The' election o f a President of the I'iiited States of America is taking place today. The candidates are .Mr. Herbert Hoover, the present occupant of the White House, and Mr. Franklin Roosevelt. Mr. Hoover is a Republican and Mr. Roosevelt a Democrat. The Republican Party has provided a long succession of Presidents, and, until quite recently, there was every indication that Mr. Hoover’s re-election was absolutely certain, and that the Democrats would again fight a losing battle. Mr. Roosevelt however, by the attractiveness ol his personality and the advantage which the Democrats possess in the fact that they can blame the Republicans for the depression Which has swept the United .States, has now placed the issue in doubt. According to a “straw” vote, which is often, not worth the proverbial straw. Mr. Roosevelt will defeat Mr. Hoover. That remains to be seen. Fundamental questions are at stake, and the decision of the electors will point the way the country may travel during the next Presidential term. The Prohibition issue lias figured largely in the election campaign. The Re publican and Democratic parlies are divided on the question of repealing the .Eighteenth Amendment which, if strictly enforced would make the United States “hone dry.” Mr. Roosevelt, if elected, must nse all the powers of bis office to get repeal submitted and ratified, whereas Mr. 'Hoover must go no further, unless be develops a personal doctrine on the subject, than to request Congress to submit a new amendment to the States. A prominent American publicist has said that the essential difference between the two platforms is that the Democratic aligns the Presidency against the Eighteenth Amendment, while the Republican docs not. There is also a less important difference on the question of a substitute for the Eighteenth Amendment. Both parlies are willing to submit a, proposal which would, if ratified by the Slates, abolish national prohibition and allow any State to legalise the sale of liquor. They differ as to how much power to regulate should ho retained by the Federal Government. The Democrats wish to return to the position as it existed before tho adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment, when the Federal Government had power over imports and over interstate shipments, hut no power, except of taxation, within the borders of a State. The Republicans wish In retain some Federal police power over the intrastate liquor traffic. So far as the economic problem is concerned, the Republican position is that by bolding the American market and by implication abandoning her foreign markets. tbe Fnited States can best hope to make an economic recovery. Tbe Democratic platform, on the other hand, holds that foreign trade is an essential (‘lenient of American prosperity, and it proposes to lower the existing tariffs to a point where foreign imports can compele with American products, it proposes also to abandon the most favoured nation principle j and to negotiate reciprocal tariff agreements. The deepest! and most important difference! between the two platforms is that the Republicans are pro-, pared to abandon the export,

trade and the Democrats desire to revise it. Those are the main differences between the polieies of the two parlies. .Neither party lias stated plainly its attitude towards war debts, which is an allabsorbing- question so far as the war debtors are concerned, but there seems to be a general leeling that more is to be hoped lor from the Democrats Ilian the Republicans, .Mb-. Hoover, however, has made it clear on several occasions that be is prepared to urge the reduction of war debts "in. the same ratio as the European Powers agree to reduce armaments. This suggests .progress in the cancellation of war debts if' hir. Hoover is reelected. a fact which clothes today’s polling with very great importance.