PRESIDENCY OF AMERICA

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1932, Page 7

PRESIDENCY OF AMERICA

SWING TOWARDS MR. HOOVER.

PROGRESS OF THE PRIMARIES.

By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.

New York, April 15.

Mr. Herbert Hoover’s chances of reelection as President of the United States in November materially improved with the appearance and widening of a split among the Democrats. No matter what Democratic interpretation may be placed upon the denunciation of Governor Roosevelt by Mr. Al. Smith this week there will be several schools of thought. It is clear from the comment of leaders and the Press that Mr. Roosevelt’s chances have diminished.

Mr. Smith, with some return of the personal fire and magnetism he displayed in 1928, without actually naming Mr. Roosevelt but making it clear whom he meant, has accused the latter of being a demagogue and settling class against class. Mr. Smith also proposed the 20year war debt moratorium, with a provision for debt reduction to the amount of 25 per cent, of what the debtor nations bought from the United States. In short, he 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 Mr. Roosevelt’s speech of several days ago was a general harangue and appeal to the disgruntled vote, Mr. Smith took from the Governor considerable support in New York and the east. On the other hand, the arithmetical odds are still heavily with Mr. Roosevelt for nomination, and if he can hold the south and gain the west he can be nominated.

Mr. Smith’s proposals for a 20-year moratorium plan laid him open to effective attack by Mr. Roosevelt’s supporters throughout the country. The consensus of opinion in Washington is that a party divided on an economic policy, into which now enters a religious issue, cannot hope to defeat the vigorous solidarity of the Republicans behind Mr. Hoover.