Life — October 26, 1928 — page 5: what you’re looking at

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

arr RPS ARIA AR OUR CANDIDATE WON’T MEET THE VOTERS “[ Am Betraying No National Secret When I Say Both Hoover and Smith Are Liable to Get More Votes If You Can’t See Em.” Wext only two more weeks of what is humorously called “Oratory.” To give you an idea of one of the biggest “Bunks” in the whole modern campaign, it is these other two Candi- dates running from one part of the Coun- try to another to make a speech over the radio, that is going to be broadcasted all over the country. For instance, Why does Al go to Omaha, or Denver, or Hoover to some Wildcat Junction in Tennessee to speak? If you are listening to the speech in Chicago or Dallas, what do you care where it was made? You can’t possibly appear personally before more than a few usand. All the rest, or 99 percent of your audience have to listen in, so why don’t they stay at home and make their speeches? But No—by them going to is or that section of the country, they think that they are paying a big compli- ment to that particular section. Hoover had a southern Campaign Manager and he has some mills in a town down south so Hoover goes there to make a speech, He could have gone right into by WILL ROGERS a broadcasting studio in Washington and made it. Or Smith could give the farmers as much relief before a micraphone in Albany, as he could at Minneapolis. But it’s the old traditional “Apple- sauce.” You must go to the south and show them you are sympathetic to their cause, then to the west, and so on far into the night. You can make just as many Horse- radish promises from the National broad- casting office booth as you can in Okla- homa City or Boston (Mass.). I don’t think I am betraying any na- tional secret when I say that both of these Boys are liable to get more votes if you can’t see ’em. Smith has got a lot of good showmanship, but he could never make it work in all these years in his own State, on anybody that wasent born in a sub- way and raised on a strap. And Hoover could always make a Blue Print more convincing than he could a personal speech. One has personality which may flare back and hit him in the face November 6th and the other has lack of the same thing, And after people listen to Hoover, they're liable to think, “how can he do all these things when he can’t even say ‘em?” I believe if they had both stayed be- hind the micraphone, out of sight to any audience, and shot at ‘em at long range, they would have been better off This thing of meeting your Hero and getting acquainted with him is awful liable to make you start hunting another Hero. If I was these Boys I would kinder fight shy of a public Clinic, They have both done things which are on the rec- ords, and I believe I would let folks look over the record instead of the Patient. I am going on the theory that it’s better to read about a Brown Derby than it is to see one, And when we know that a man has put the Nose Bag on Belgium, and made us eat bran mash like a cow instead of bread, why we are going to look for a mighty commanding and magnetic personality, And I believe that the Boys would have both been better off if they had pulled a Coolidge and got down in their shell and not come out till the votes were counted, comicbooks.com