Republican Realism

With old age pensions looming ever larger as a factor in Depression politics, observers were not surprised last week to see a deal consummated in politically sophisticated Massachusetts between one of the major parties and a local politician who had rounded up the Townsend Plan vote. "Buyer" was the Republican candidate for Governor, blue-blooded Leverett Saltonstall. "Seller" was William H. McMasters, 64, of Cambridge, who looks something like old Dr. Francis E. Townsend. Published "price": a promise in Mr. Saltonstall's platform to make "an earnest effort to have this bill [Townsend General Welfare Act*] brought before Congress at the earliest possible moment." Though the Townsend Plan is officially cold-shouldered by the Administration.

New Dealers as far separated geographically as Florida's Senator Pepper and Oklahoma's Senator Thomas have taken off their hats to it in their primary campaigns. But realistic Republicans have been the most alert in reaching for the ready-made local blocks of votes which have been quietly assembled by Townsend National Recovery Plan headquarters in Chicago.

There lanky, seamy-faced Vice President L. Wallace Jeffery of T. N. R. P. in offices occupying one whole floor of a big lakeside building, has checked the 1.000 or so candidates standing for the 435 House seats and 32 Senate vacancies. Mr. Jeffery, assisted by Dr. Townsend's dark-haired young son Robert as secretary-treasurer, has found only 155 Congressional candidates worthy of T. N. R. P. endorsement./- About two-thirds of them are Republicans, including the three incumbents already re-elected in Maine and Senator Gerald P. ("Neutrality") Nye of North Dakota.

A by-product of this trend is Candidate McMasters who polled 48,000 votes in Massachusetts' Republican primary for Governor, although he did not have the official Townsend accolade. Nor was his deal with Candidate Saltonstall the brainchild, as many observers guessed, of shrewd young Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. It was engineered by an opportunist even shrewder: William Henry McMasters.

This gentleman has dazzled Massachusetts with his virtuosity ever since the days of Charles Ponzi, the sleight-of-hand banker whose blow-up rocked Boston 18 years ago. Mr. McMasters was Mr. Ponzi's pressagent.* When the blow-up came, the Boston Post scooped the story. Its informant: Pressagent McMasters.

In 1922, Mr. McMasters managed James Michael Curley's first campaign for Mayor of Boston. Mr. Curley rewarded him with a $5,000 publicity job but later fired him. In 1935, when Mr. Curley was Governor, Mr. McMasters tried to charter a pari-mutuel betting service, to get "for the State" some of the revenue pocketed by the horse-race bookies. Governor Curley's legal department turned him down. The next year Mr. McMasters ran for Governor as candidate of Father Coughlin's Union Party. His reappearance this year as a Townsend Planner had definite nuisance value to both Candidate Curley and Candidate Saltonstall, but most for the latter. After their deal last week the blue-blood candidate and the old age promoter broke bread together like old frineds friends. In its latest form, the Townsend Plan proposes Federal pensions, up to a maximum of $200 per month, for all persons 60 or over

* In its lastest form, the Townsend Plan proposes Federal pensions, up to a maximum of $200 per month, for all persons 60 or over proving indigence, the amount paid to vary monthly by prorating among all certified pensioners the proceeds 20% :"transaction tax" (levied on every exchange of money for goods services.) The pensioners would be required to spend all their pension money each month before receiving more. Last week Dr. Townsend was in Hawaii studying a "gross income" tax of similar design instituted there in 1935 to increase the velocity of exchange.

/- California's bumblingly conservative Governor Merriam is, curiously, the only State office candidate officially endorsed by T. N. R. P. Reason: he has done homage to the Plan in his desperate fight against Democrat Culbert Olson and "Thirty Dollars Every Thursday."

* After serving three and a half years in Federal prison and seven years in Massachusetts State Prison, Ponzi was deported in 1934, has been living in Rome ever since.

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