Judge — October 23, 1926 — page 5: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

OCTOBER 23, 1926 Van 12 ye oo? ge we Tp NUMBER OF JUDGE THE MAUVE BALLOT How the Young Men of Park Avenue Are Voting This Fall OR whom are the young men of F Park avenue voting this fall? Offhand their choice would seem obvious. They have on the one ticket (Republican) two mil- lionaire - aristocrats — James W. Wadsworth for senator and Ogden L. Mills for governor—and on the other (Democratic) two East Side boys—Robert: F. Wagner for sena- tor and Al Smith for governor. It seems hardly necessary to ask what will be the smart selection as among such candidates? And yet you'd be a little surprised. Personally, I think the Repub- licans have overplayed their silk stocking note. The bracketing of two such bloods as Ogden Mills and Jimmy Wadsworth makes the ticket too orthodox. If one is a true artistocrat (and who isn’t?) one likes to feel that one can afford a bit of social or political heresy when it suits one; in fact, one rather inclines toward a certain degree of heresy as notice to the ite world that one can afford it. he Mills-Wadsworth combina- tion challenges this inclination. It’s a ticket, say the young men of the best standing, that seems de- vised to seduce those who venerate the haut ton rather than those who belong to it. AM merely giving you the gossip I of the best ube as it filters through to me. But this suspicion that the extreme social impecca- bility of the ticket was designed to awe the parcenus has had partial confirmation in the blunder made by George K. Morris, chairman of the Republican State Committee, in his opening statement of the campaign. Mr. Morris, on the theory that old-fashioned formulas By PETRONIUS carry the greatest punch, has sought to identify Al Smith and Tammany with the underworld. This sort of thing may go in cer- tain counties up Race where they een ae “I OFFERED HIM MY HEART” By POROTHY DARKER I offered him my heart .... My vibrant, palpitating heart. Who wears it on her sleeve Should offer a heart carefully. I sang a little song: And the breeze rustled an elm. Who sings a little song Should gargle her throat. I sang a little song And offered him my heart. But he spurned them both, Crying, “Woof! Woof!” Naughty dog! He wanted liver. are still whistlin, in the Faubourg on Park avenue. So as a gesture of fashionable irreverance the young men referred to will for the most part split their ballots. They will vote for Al Smith for governor and for Jimm Wadsworth for senator. They will vote for Jimmy Wadsworth be- cause he is one of them and because “Valencia,” and rooklyn, but not he has antagonized the drys, and they will vote for Al Smith, the warm-hearted, raucous-voiced, un- pretentious, “primitive,” both be- cause they are genuinely fond of him and because they will get a kick out of the slight revolt against convention involved. AS A matter of fact, Al Smith, for all his background of the Fulton Fish Market, makes an irresistible appeal to the socially elect. There never lived a man of less social pretense than the genial Al. This trait wins the immediate respect of those who are forever pricking the bubble of social pretense; it permits him to meet his pedigreed admirers on an even footing, un- affected and unafraid. They are drawn to him, too, by his read humor and gayety of spirit which mocks the dour temperament of the middle-class reformer, and they honor his courage. In other words, it is the old story of the strange attraction of social opposites, of the patrician and the truckman shaking hands across the sea of smugness in between. { These, of course, are merely personal conjectures to account for the vogue of Al Smith among our very best people. I can assure you it is a vogue which those who are as careful in picking theiy candidates for political office as they are the items of their season’s wardrobe will do very well to respect. Mr. Mills, no doubt, will appeal to gentlemen of highly conservative taste. vote for him could hardly be called a social blunder. But the ultra smart thing in ballots, I have every confidence in predicting, will be Smith and Wadsworth. . Verb. sap. comicbooks.com