Presidential Possibilities

It is a healthy thing for the American public to wish to know where its Presidential candidates stand on national issues, even though the wish is not always gratified. Presidential possibilities seldom talk for publication after they have become possibilities. In Smith's case, however, this much is true: this man has been governor of the most populous State in the Union for eight of the last ten years. And no one can fill that office for the better part of a decade without encountering at least a few issues which are national as well as local.

Suppose, as a test of national issues, we take the chief issues presented to Congress by the President in his last two messages. Those issues are: 1. Tax reduction. 2. Water power, as represented at Muscle Shoals and Boulder Dam. 3. National defense. 4. Tariff. 5. Industrial relations. 6. Prohibition. 7. Farm relief. 8. Reorganization of the Government. 9. Foreign policy.

Record Reveals Opinions

With everybody asking where he stands on national issues, the fact is that Smith's own record tells at least a part of the story.

1. Tax reduction. New York has a State income tax. Smith spent the entire legislative session of 1925 fighting for a twenty-five per cent reduction. He won it from a Republican majority which opposed it for no very clear reason except that Smith was for it. No further reduction has been possible since 1925. The expenditures of the State of New York have been rising, whereas those of the nation have been falling--more gradually, of late. As against this fact it is fair to remember that a Republican majority has at all times been in command of the New York Legislature while Smith was governor, and it is the Legislature that votes appropriation bills. There is a curious game played in New York which consists of the Republican Legislature spending the money and then denouncing Smith as a waster. On the other hand, it is fair to say that Smith's theory of government requires the expenditure of more than an average sum for such purposes as the up-keep of State hospitals and the modernization of prisons, and that in this sense he is a spender rather than a saver.

2. Water power. \ Smith would break sharply with Mr. Coolidge, the Republican party, any conceivable nominee of the Republican party, and three fourths of his own docile party in Congress on this issue. Water power is one of Smith's major intersts and major issues. As safely as anything can be predicted of him as President, he would demand government operation of the power plants at Muscle Shoals and, if they are built, at Boulder Dam.

3. National defense. For all Presidents the Army is a fairly static institution. There is nothing in Smith's rec- ord to indicate what he thinks about the Navy.

4. The tariff. Smith is a Democrat; but in these days of scrambled politics it does not follow that a Democrat--especially a Democrat from an industrial State--is necessarily a free trader. How far Smith would go in the matter of tariff reduction is an open question.

5. Industrial relations. Smith has made a large part of his reputation on his championship of such measures as minimum-wage laws, workmen's compensation, maternity insurance, and the eight-hour day. It is quite certain that if he were elected the Democratic party, which has acquired many a sudden interest in its time, would be off on a new adventure.

Prohibition Stand Mystery

6. Prohibition. It is the theory of the New York Times, which is strong for Smith, that if he were elected "he would enforce the Volstead Act more effectively than the present Administration"--apparently on the theory that, as an honest man, he would lean over backward to enforce what he does not believe in. On the other hand, is the theory of the Ku Klux Klan that Smith would open a bar at every corner. Possibly a more realistic theory than either of these predictions is that the Volstead Act, for Congress, has ceased to be a cause and has now become a routine, with an annual appropriation bill which never varies, and a game of political appointments played by Congress, the President being more or less a mere bystander.

There is, to be sure, the question of a personal example set by the Chief Executive. Smith's example would be frankly wet. Mr. Coolidge's is frankly dry. In addition, there is the question of Presidential appointments to the Supreme Court. In the history of this country more than one contentious law has been thoroughly reinterpreted by a new court which has changed in membership. Should Smith, by any chance, have the opportunity to appoint five members of the Supreme Court, the Anti-Saloon League would have good cause for worry.

7. Farm legislation. Smith has given no indication of his stand. Farm relief is a problem with which he has had little personal experience. He is not at home in the Corn Belt.

Is Reorganizer

8. Reorganization of the Government. This is Smith's one supreme and abiding interest. Mr. Coolidge, whose chief interests lie in other fields, has asked Congress four times to reorganize the archaic and unwieldy machine that grinds out its work in Washington. Congress has done nothing. Smith has succeeded, as single-handedly as any man ever achieves results in politics, in taking the topsy-turvy Government of New York and remaking one hundred and sixty miscellaneous bureaus into twenty-one permanent departments.

Country Before Church

9. Finally, we come to the question of foreign policy. Here it is known (a) that on one occasion Smith persuaded the Democratic State convention in New York to adopt a World Court plank, though this was some years back, and (b) that in his reply to the Marshall letter, he said, regarding Mexico. "I recognize the right of no church to ask armed intervention by this country in the affairs of another country, merely for the defense of the rights of a church."

This is definite. But it is not much out of which to build a picture of a foreign policy.

The Ku Klux Klan is sure that Smith's foreign policy would be to deliver the United States into the hands of Rome. There are other observers who cite Smith's refusal to be swept off his feet in the post-war Bolshevist hysteria as proof that if he were elected President he would show foresight liberality, and cool-headedness in his foreign policy, that he would leave this department of the Government largely in the hands of his advisers.

A man who is still young, tireless, and immensely capable--a man who has been loaded down with religious prejudice, the wet issue, and the fragrant memories of Tammany Hall and yet manages to remain politically available despite these handicaps, each one of which is theoretically sufficient to destroy him--a man of experience, wit, city manners and sophistication, who typifies the challenge of a restless urban civilization to the long-continued domination of a thousand Main Streets: this is the man who now bids for the nomination of a party whose strength, ironically enough, lies chiefly in the old aristocracy of the Solid South.

The answer to Smith, in the Democratic party, is a coalition which has not yet found its leader