Prejudice is a slippery thing and politics a more slippery. Every one knew that degenerate anti-Smith appeals were being made and that they greatly helped Hooverism. But Democratic Chairman Raskob was hard put to it to expose any Republican officials actually abetting them.
He thought he had what he wanted when he laid hands on a letter from Senator Moses, sharp-spoken, rough-and-ready Hooverizer of the East, to one Zeb Vance Walser. Mr. Walser is a G. O. P. worker in Lexington, N. C. The letter got misdirected to Lexington, Ky. In it, Senator Moses said he was enclosing an article by a South Carolina journalist in New York. "It is red hot stuff," said Senator Moses, "and I wish you could get it put into some North Carolina papers."
Chairman Raskob had some photostats made. He obtained affidavits from people in Mississippi, Kentucky, Kansas and Tennessee who described instances where Republican officials, State and national, had engaged in whipping up anti-Catholic animus. The most common offense seemed to be handing out The Fellowship Forum, nauseous, rabid Klanpaper (see p. 59). Two of the owners of this sheet, Mr. Raskob noted, were Republican State Chairman R. H. Angell of Virginia and William G. Conley, Republican nominee for Governor of West Virginia.
Mr. Raskob wrote a long letter about it all to Dr. Work, the Republican National Chairman. To make sure Dr. Work got the letter, Mr. Raskob sent it by two members of his staff from Manhattan to Washington. They called on Dr. Work in person, presented it, asked if there was an answer.
Dr. Work pitched the letter over his shoulder onto a mail-littered table. "Oh, I'll look that over later," he said. Mr. Raskob's emissaries bore another envelope, addressed to Herbert Hoover. At the latter's campaign house, they were received by Bradley D. Nash, the number-two secretary, a cheerful young gentleman (Harvard) with nice manners. Mr. Nash was embarrassed and courteous but, of course, Mr. Raskob's emissaries left without any answer from Mr. Nash's chief.
What the "red hot stuff" was, the press was most anxious to find out. But Mr. Raskob would not release it until Dr. Work had had fair opportunity to reply.
Dr. Work did not reply. Instead, he approved an outburst by his publicity chief, onetime (1919-23) Governor Henry J. Allen of Kansas. The latter referred to the Raskob letter as "another screed expressing . . . mock indignation"; accused Mr. Raskob of "deliberately dragging in the issues of religious intolerance."
"The Tammany campaign, in its closing hours, has sunk from the sidewalks to the sewers* of New York," said Hooverism's chief publicist.