Taking Position in America ; Though the party convention's for
the nomination of Presidential candidates are still ten months ahead, and the actual election is not till November of next year, the President's coming tour in the Middle West and West will in effect be the first shot in the campaign. That Mr. Roosevelt • himself will be the Democratic candidate goes without saying, for quite apart from the recognized right of a President to stand for a second term if he chooses there is no one in the party with claims comparable to his. The declared intention of Mr. Huey Long of Louisiana to stand as an independent Democrat must apparently be - taken seriously-though a good deal may happen before next June—and some splitting of votes may result, though it is doubtful whether Mr. Long, deprived as he now is of the valuable support of Father Coughlin, could carry any State but his own. On the other side Mr. Hoover is Creating some interest and some embarrassment—for it is not clear whether he is an asset or a liability to his party—by resuming public activity. He is on strong ground in charging the President, with attempting to change the constitution, for unless the constitution is changed half Mr. Roosevelt's projects will be shipwrecked. The whole of the Agricul- tural Adjustment Administration is still in the lap of the Supreme Court. But it may be doubted whether even Republicans really believe that twentieth-century America can be constricted by.the.fetters of an eighteenth-. century charter. Whether the Republicans want Mr. Hoover as candidate or not, they have so far thrown up no one else.
