Edson: Political hokum starts campaign in usual manner
By Peter Edson
Washington –
Everyone has his own ideas about what the fifth, sixth or umpteenth freedoms should be after the first four, but even this early in a presidential campaign, you begin to long for a day when there might be freedom from political bunk.
Maybe that’s asking for too much.
Freedom from fear and from want seem easy of attainment when stacked up alongside the ideal of achieving freedom from hokum and hooey out of the mouths of people running for office.
All you have to do to get a line on the 1944 brand of political palaver in platitude is to read, consecutively, the speeches of those citizens who, inspired solely by the highest of motives, have put personal ambition to one side in order to save their country.
No one party has a corner on this malarkey. If you have the idea that the Republicans are dishing out more demagoguery than the Democrats, that’s simply because there appear to be more Republicans running for high office.
Thus far, Henry Wallace has been doing most of the open field running for his side, as against a half-dozen opponents – Dewey, Willkie, Bricker, Dirksen, and the party spokesmen, Landon, Bud Kelland, Joe Martin and Chairman Harrison Spangler.
‘Deathless’ driblets
Examples? Paste these on the leaves of your scrapbook of recipes on how to make applesauce:
Henry Wallace in Seattle:
American Fascists [are] those who believe that Wall Street comes first and the country second and who are willing to go to any length… to keep Wall Street sitting on top of the country.
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker in Washington:
The Republican Party is the liberal party in America. The New Deal is reactionary.
Wendell Willkie in Portland:
I am sick – sick at heart – at our transferring our problems to one who by legerdemain has created the impression that he is able to handle our problems better than we can ourselves.
Kansas Ex-Governor Alf M. Landon in Nashville:
…the national socialistic state… is the object of the New Dealer.
New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey in New York:
The first attempt to establish an American autocracy took place [on March 4, 1933] as the result of the election of what used to be known as the Democratic Party.
But–
Enough? This is just one day’s catch, hooked, of all times, on the anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, who made a reputation on his honesty, who was something of an orator himself, and who calls to mind that crack about not being able to fool all the people all the time.
In American political campaigns, the politicians have come to believe that the people expect hyperbole, twisted reasoning, glittering generality, name calling, appeal to the emotions. Maybe those qualities in a political speech do liven up a campaign and make it interesting.
It is still comforting to think, however, that the American people are smarter than their politicians and see through illogical utterance like an X-ray finding the rat tail in a baloney.