The Mingo Republican

Al Smith's Indictment of the New Deal
"WE CAN either take on the mantle of hypocrisy, or we can take a walk: and we'll probably do the latter."
These words of Alfred E. Smith in his speech at the American Liberty league dinner in Washington were perhaps the most interesting and significant of his utterances on that occasion, for he professed to be speaking for "the disciples of Jefferson, Jackson and Cleveland" and concerning their action in the Democratic national convention next June when the delegates are asked to indorse the doings of the Roosevelt administration. There could be no misunderstanding Smith's meaning, and he must now be considered the leader of the conservative Democrats in their revolt against the policies of the New Dealers. The concern of the administration Democrats is now as to how extensive will be the bolt; and whether the conservatives will put up their own ticket, support the Republican nominee or merely stay away from the polls. Of course in any case the Republican cause will be aided materially, unless the guesses of its leaders are all wrong.
New Deal Democrats were quite undismayed by the Smith speech, which they declared was weak and ineffective. They announced that Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson of the senate would deliver the official reply in a radio address, and unofficial answers to Smith's denunciations came from various sources. One of the latter, by Donald Richberg and Melvin D. Hildreth on behalf of the National Progressive league, dug up this quotation from one of Smith's speeches in the 1928 campaign:
"'The cry of socialism has been patented by the powerful interests that desire to put a damper on progressive legislation. Failing to meet arguments fairly and squarely, special interest falls back on the old stock phrase of socialism . . . To refer to the remedies for all these evils as state socialism is not constructive statesmanship. it is not leadership: and leadership is what this country is hungry for today.'"
The Richberg statement continued:
"If Governor Smith was right in 1928, then by that same token and by his own once powerful arguments Alfred E. Smith must be wrong today, when he is giving aid and comfort to the opponents of progressive policies which he formerly espoused."
Mr. Smith in his Liberty league speech never once named President Roosevelt but he specifically put on that gentleman the full blame for repudiation of most of the planks in the Democratic platform of 1932, which he declared was the best ever put forth in this country.
"Millions and millions of Democrats just like myself, all over the country, still believe that platform," he shouted. "And what we want to know is why it wasn't carried out. And listen. There is only one man in the United States of America that can answer that question."