Patricia on Politics

My Niece's Suggestions to Candidates for the Coming Campaign

GEORGE S. CHAPPELL

PATRICIA is young and very sure of herself. She will have a chance to express herself politically at the polls, come November, for she attains voting age on the eve of election. Her words, therefore, are worth listening to. The forthcoming election promises to be one of the closest the United States has ever known. So evenly do the two main candidates stack up that it has been figured out that, if the election is thrown into congress, our next President may be the janitor of the White House or some obscure person who has never thought of anything more than dusting off the presidential chair, let alone occupying it.

When Patricia let forth on politics I listened, for I suddenly realized that here spoke the balance of power. I do not know how many new voters come of age between two elections and I have not my World's Almanac by me to find out; but it is evident that their number must be large and, in this instance, amply sufficient to win first place for the party which can round them up.

WE were seated on the terrace of the Milton Point Casino and my niece's lovely brow was clouded. A race was in progress between five midget craft of the Star-boat class and Patricia's current swain, Eustace Something-or-other, was in fifth position and rapidly losing ground, or perhaps I should say, water. I sought to distract her.

"For whom will you vote, Pat?" I asked, speaking with meticulous grammatical correctness. Her own phraseology is so unrelated to the rules of syntax that I am always particularly careful.

"It all depends, Gee-gee, on how they act," she answered. "If tomorrow were election day I should split my ticket and vote for Davis and Dawes. I think they would make a spiffy team and I don't sec why they don't get together. Does a vice-presidential nominee have to stick to his running-mate if he finds he is a prune? "

"It is customary," I answered, "though, after all, it rests with the voters. If someone should organize such a ticket as you suggest, it might sweep the country."

"Still," mused Patricia, "I suppose it would hardly be cricket. It would be a good deal like taking a girl to a dance and then going home with someone else. What is that idiot Eustace doing? . . . tacking off toward Spain, all by himself. . . ."

She crumpled her wisp of handkerchief nervously.

"Don't you like Coolidge?" I questioned. "O, he's a good old ice-box, I suppose," she said, "and 'Keep Cool with Cal,' is a tricky hot-weather slogan, but by the time November comes it won't have so much appeal. He belongs to the daguerreotype era. I always feel as if he were something pre-historic, dug out of the hills of New England. Eustace told me once . . . you know he's gorgeously educated . . . that all of New England was once covered with a layer of ice about a hundred feet thick. I think Coolidge must have been left over when the ice melted, like that big boulder on Cousin Mary's lawn. And Eustace said . . . what in the world is he doing now? He's sailing on the bias, and all the rest are out of sight!"

"I think you are too severe on Mr. Coolidge," I argued. "It is his rock-like stability that won him the nomination."

"I'll tell you, Unc," said Patricia with sudden vehemence, "my love for Coolidge grew cold when someone told me that he thought school-boys ought to wear hob-nail shoes. Isn't it a scream! If I were his daughter, I bet he'd have me in corsets . . . ugh . . ."

She stretched herself luxuriously.

"However," she went on, turning her gaze landward for a moment, "I don't know that Davis is really much better. He is almost too gentlemanly, too . . 'er . . too plush. I'm afraid he wouldn't get on with those rough-necks down in Washington. Already lie has made several mistakes. Just a few weeks ago it was reported that he had been to church. That's all right; all candidates have to go to church; but as one of the papers pointed out, he published a list of vestrymen that was enough to alienate every voter west of the Mississippi, nothing but Vanderbilts and Beekmans and De Puysters . . . not a Babbitt among them. That was a bad break and besides none of those people that I ever met ever went to church . . . but perhaps vestrymen don't have to. It's like being a fireman, so that you don't have to do jury duty."

"You wander, my child," I observed, "and you make my poor old head ache. I wish you'd stick to the subject and tell me just what you would do if you were running Mr. Coolidge's campaign, let us say, or, if you prefer, Mr. La Follette's."

"Don't," she shuddered, "he makes my flesh creep. I hate bobbed-haired men. But I will tell you. Seriously, Old Dear, I think both the candidates . . . we won't count La Foolishness . . . arc apt to make the great mistake of running their campaigns on old-fashioned, conservative lines and of not getting the right people to help them. If they want to win my vote and a lot more like mine, here are a few of the things to do."

"I am all ears," I said.

"I've noticed that before, Gee-gee, but it's not your fault. Listen to Patricia.

A DEFINITE PROGRAM

"FIRST they ought to realize that none of the younger voters are going to take the slightest interest in what they insist arc the vital issues if they present them in the old-fashioned way. They may rave about the tariff, the World Court, farmer's relief, labour and reparations until they arc black in the face; but none of us will listen unless they put them across attractively. They always make the mistake of appealing to the intelligence of people when they ought to appeal to their lack of it. Look at Eustace for example. Would anyone but a defective sail a boat race the way he's doing it? I ask you? Aren't we told by the psychologist that the average mind is that of a fourteen-year old child? I may flatter the human race; but I think I'm right.

"Well, then, why don't they go frankly after the sensational and spectacular appeals, . . . bundle them all up together, and hitch them onto their candidates?

"That's what they need; more pep, more jazz. If I were Calvin Coolidge the first man I should invite down to Washington would be Paul Whiteman. I'd promise him a place in the cabinet if I had to, to get his unqualified support. He must have about five thousand orchestras this very minute. Imagine them all playing a stirring "Coolidge Blues" every night between now and November. Irving Berlin or jerry Kern could write a wow. They talk about waging this campaign by radio; but do you suppose anyone would listen for a minute to Senator Blaablaa of Montana trying to explain why the farmers ought to have more Fords when they can turn on something that they can dance to?

"Another man I should call on would be Morris Gest. There is a princely entertainer for you. It makes no difference to him whose money it is, he's lavish with it and you get something for it. Imagine what he would be able to do with a large campaign fund back of him. He would probably import two or three thousand pairs of Siamese twins who would dance an explanation of the tariff on sing it in their native language and the public would eat it alive. Will you kindly look at Eustace? He's putting out to sea again and all the others are coming back. He must be a full day behind.

"TWO other valuable creatures would be Tex Rickard and Mack Sennett. They could rouse the sex emotions, Tex by prizefights for women voters and Sennett by bathing-beauty contests for the intelligent males. You can't get by those simple, primitive forces. They will be alive when the Ku Klux is a back number.

"They ought to pay more attention to dress. All young people think a lot about costume. Candidate Davis had his picture taken the other day wearing golf trousers, but they weren't plus fours. Imagine, my dear, they were just those old, skimpy things that athletes used to wear when they rode high bicycles. Coolidge is going to miss a big chance if he doesn't get some tailor to design a trick sports-suit which he could have Scars, Roebuck distribute for him with a nation-wide slogan attached, 'Koolidge Kut Klothes for Koolidge Men'. Why, the use of that initial 'K' would appeal to enough barbarians to elect him.

"The candidates' wives ought to take a much more active part, as they do in England. Bobbed hair and permanent waves are about played out and the fall will be the psychological moment for a new coiffure. The candidate who gets it on the market first will poll an enormous flapper vote. If it's too dashing for the possible first-ladies-of-the-land to, wear they should get Countess Peggy Hopkins Joyce Morna to do it for them. And as for ladies' wear, well, the field is limitless, as you know, Gee-gee."

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(Continued from page 59)

"I know nothing of the sort," I protested.

"I can't help thinking," continued Patricia, warming to her work, "of the marvelous parade that Coolidge might have, on the eve of election day, with the assistance of the sort of men I have mentioned. I can see it all in my mind's eye: Whiteman's Hand leading, five hundred pieces, all brass, playing the Coolidge Blues, groups of models, ball players, Siamese twins, movie queens and kings, stage beauties and dancers, interspersed with floats upon which are Rudolph Valentino and Dick Barthelmess wearing Koolidge Kuts; Florence Walton doing the Dawes Dip; the Countess Morna and husbands; the Beautiful Unknown showing the latest in silk pajamas, which might be called the 'Republican Restwells'; Ruby de Remer, personally, on a surf-board; more Whiteman bands every few minutes; fireworks, horns, streamers, calcium lights, loud speakers,—all leading up to the apotheosis of Republicanism, the Yale Olympic crew, with Coolidge as coxswain, sweeping across a line marked "Victory" ....

"Victory!"

The word seemed to echo from the shore where the yachtsmen had landed from their dingies.

"Victory!" It was Eustace, who was shouting gaily. He arrived at the steps, panting.

"Victory!" he repeated.

"What do you mean, Victory?" said Patricia, coldly. "You were last all the way round. I never saw such a ..."

"I know it, Pat," interrupted the sailor, "but all the other boats are ruled out. They went the wrong side of the outer buoy on the first leg. We win."

"Whoops, my Dear!" screamed my niece, hugging the young man in most ungentle fashion. "Where are you going, Unc?"

"After all you have told me this morning, my dear," I answered, "I have a clear duty to perform. I am going to call up Mr. Coolidge."