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SMITH HAS BENT TOWARD A POLITICAL LIBERALISM BELIEVES FRANKFURTER

NEW YORK GOVERNOR FOUNDED MANY REFORMS

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

The following statement, written by professor Fellk Frankfurter of the Harvard Law School, is reprinted by his permission from an articles in this week's New Republic entitled "Why I Am for Smith."

Governor Smith's election will give decided momentum to the liberalizing tendencies in American social economy. Rapplly, Smith has no set, doctrinaire principles," but possesses a mind free for new experience and responsive to its directions. During his long tenure of political leadership in Albany, he has achieved great things for liberal causes. Above all, he has proved that his temperament and the bent of his mind compel him to the ways of liberalism. He has done very much to improve labor and social economic conditions, particularly for women; under the fiercest tests, he has shown a deep understanding of political liberty; he has infused his government with human sympathy which transcends even tolerance. His mind is fertilized by the concrete event. The impact of specific problems of government leads him to full inquiry, and freedom from obstinate prepossessions, like Mr. Hoover's passionate fear of government ownership, enables him to go wherever understanding and democratic sympathies may require.

Adopted State Park System

This has been true during his eight years as Governor in securing the adoption of a state park system, in the promotion of social legislation, in advancing public education, in a comprehensive grappling with grade-crossing evils, in the protection of the power resources of the state from selfish exploitation. The so-called economic questions of the future are only in part economic. Largely they involve a redistribution of responsibility and power; a more effective share by labor and agriculture in the nation's councils. The emphasis of Mr. Hoover's whole thought is the assumption that increasing industrial efficiency and the mass production of things automatically make for well-being and promote the spiritual quality of life. If Mr. Hoover realizes the moral Issues which "prosperity" intensifies and creates and is concerned with their solution, has not shared his insight with the public.

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