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Mr. Baker's chances of being "presented with a personal duty" when June comes around were, under deadlock circumstances, enhanced by the fact that he had lain low during the pre-convention campaign and made no enemies among the other candidates. He and onetime Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt have been good friends since War days in Washington. Mr. Baker is rated as "fairly liberal" on waterpower. The Smith people find Mr. Baker sufficiently Wet, yet the Garner people liked his statement that "bread, not beer" would be the 1932 campaign issue. William Gibbs McAdoo, No. 1 Garner man, has, ever since their Cabinet service together, been rather snippy toward Mr. Baker, but after all they both dearly cherish the memory of Mr. McAdoo's father-in-law, Woodrow Wilson. So does many a Southern Democrat who at the convention could cheerfully revert to Wilson's War Secretary. Baker enthusiasts declare that their candidate's following among War veterans in & out of the American Legion would prove enormous.
Ritchie & Roosevelt. Mr. Baker is not the only Democrat waiting for a bolt of political lightning to strike him next month. Of all the Favorite Sons the one who at the moment seems to have the next best chance of being a compromise nominee is Maryland's Governor Albert Cabell Ritchie. The Roosevelt-Ritchie hobnobbing that went on at last month's Governors meeting in Richmond led many an observer to wonder if the Governor of Maryland was the Governor of New York's second choice for the Presidency. Governor Ritchie is Wet enough to satisfy the Wetest Smith supporter. He is stable, sensible, handsome, happy.
Young & Hoover. Last week also the name of Owen D. (for nothing) Young resurged significantly in Democratic talk at a time when the Roosevelt boom seemed to be slipping. Like Mr. Baker, Mr. Young has squelched all public efforts to put him into the race. Like Mr. Baker, he will enter the convention voteless but not friendless. And like Mr. Baker he may be presented with a grave personal duty when June comes around.
A year ago Mr. Young's friends were sure that he would never contest the election with Herbert Hoover because of his high personal regard for Herbert Hoover as one of his own kind and class. Last week the same friends were equally sure that Mr. Young would run against any Republican if he got the chance. The country's condition had changed from bad to worse during the twelve-month and, with it, apparently, Mr. Young's attitude toward the Hoover Administration.
Again politically active, Mr. Young went to Washington to help Senate Democrats prepare their bond-issue relief plan (see p. 13), returned to Manhattan to give it a public endorsement as "the first comprehensive program which has been offered to correct our present situation." Simultaneously he said a friendly word for an "experiment with the equalization fee on wheat," after a previous private speech by him on the same subject had leaked into print. He was already on record for "moderate inflation" but against the Bonus-payment method.