Here is the text of a newspaper column Alice Roosevelt Longworth wrote in 1936 about politics in that era. Alice was a strong opponent of the New Deal. Her column was called "Capital Comment."
January 30th, 1936
Name-calling hits a new high as the national campaign gets underway. The New Dealers lead, with Mr. John L. Lewis calling Al Smith a jibbering political jackanapes. Secretary Wallace, with the savage fervor of a devout fanatic, denounces the Supreme Court for authorizing "probably the greatest legalized steal in American history."
A solemn squabble is going on among the Democrats about which is worse, to break platform promises or to change one's opinion about the New Deal.
In Governor Smith's speech and in Senator Robinson's reply, there is much quoting of former statements in opposition to present beliefs.
It would be news of some smart politician would sometime say, "Yes, I said that, and I believed it. But I have changed my mind!"
It would be still bigger news if a great public man were to come out, before anybody had time to accuse him, saying, "I no longer believe as I did some years ago about such and such a matter."
But if politicans were a logical as all that, a political campaign would no longer be so very amusing, and listeners would tune the speakers out even more quickly than they do now. Alice Roosevelt Longworth
See that's what I like about
See that's what I like about you Dixie. When most people out there are blogging about newspaper articles from today, you are scouring the forgotten history of newspapers.
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I'd just like to see someone call someone a "jibbering political jackanapes." You just don't see rhetoric like that anymore.