THE JAPANESE OPPOSE "DAREDEVIL" ROOSEVELT? Last week President Roosevelt's running mate, Henry Wallace, played in the mud again, accusing "Nazi agents" in America of helping the effort to elect Wendell Willkie. And as reported in a Saturday New York Times story by Russell B. Porter, the President himself is indulging in some ugly talk -- saying that an "unholy alliance" of "extreme reactionary and extreme radical elements" are trying to make Willkie president and turn the U.S. into a dictatorship. Yep, the Republican vote this year is pretty much made up of Communists and Nazis.
In light of all this, it’s funny that the fiercely anti-Roosevelt Chicago Tribune has a story by Tokio correspondent Kimpei Sheba in Saturday’s editions which echoes this Democratic line. It claims in so many words that the Japanese militarists are rooting for Mr. Willkie to win --
"There is a widespread opinion that the reëlection of President Roosevelt will increase the American-Japanese war danger. Inasmuch as it is generally believed that relations between the two countries already are near the breaking point, grave apprehension is felt over the future. Newspapers today played up the prediction of Wendell Willkie that if Mr. Roosevelt is reëlected he would plunge the United States into war in the spring. The Japanese call the President ‘Daredevil Roosevelt,’ because they charge he has taken too many wild chances and likes to play with fire."
I’m less worried about the Roosevelt Administration causing a war than I am about their ability to adequately prepare the nation for a war if it comes. Plus, how can anyone (outside of the Chicago Tribune and their ilk) keep a straight face when Japan accuses another nation of "daredevil" behavior? All they’ve done is conquer Manchukuo, invade northern and coastal China, seize parts of Indo-China, threaten to attack the Dutch East Indies, and sign a pact with Hitler that basically divides up the world among the dictatorships. And all the Roosevelt administration has done in response is employ diplomatic and economic pressure to make Tokio stop. Mr. Willkie has made it clear he would continue this wise policy.
"JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE -- POLLS GO WRONG." An article by Dr. George Gallup in the new Current History and Forum looks back at the biggest debacle in polling history -- the Literary Digest’s prediction of an Alf Landon victory four years ago, a forecast so spectacularly wrong that the Digest went out of business soon thereafter. Gallup notes that although the Digest’s poll was the largest in history, with ten million ballots sent out to surveyants, its lists were compiled from telephone books and records of automobile ownership. Thus, all the "ill-clad, ill-fed, ill-housed" citizens, fully one-third of the nation, who are overwhelmingly pro-New Deal, were omitted from the survey entirely. "Failing to reflect the pro-Roosevelt sentiment at the bottom," explains Dr. Gallup, its figures were naturally overweighted in favor of the Republican Landon."
Because of the Digest polling disaster, there’s a lot more skepticism this year about opinion surveys, such as the sentiment expressed this year by F.D.R.'s former campaign manager, Jim Farley ("Just as you wait and see. Polls go wrong; and that’s all there is to it.").
But Gallup says pollsters have learned an intelligently-chosen survey of as few as 3,000 Americans can produce a sound result, with "an average error of three to four percent in an election forecast." The error is a product of forces outside of a pollster’s control -- "no one can foretell the amount of corruption, ballot box stuffing or deliberate miscounting of returns in an American election. The influence of last minute efforts by a candidate or a party cannot always be measured in a poll. Nor can anyone forecast precisely what effect the weather on election day will have on the turnout of voters."
Indeed, there’s no doubt some pollsters will have a bit of egg on their faces when the election is over – this happens every time out. But I can’t see that a reputable firm would be so careless as to produce a poll nineteen points off from the final result, as the Digest’s survey was.
THE DUNN SURVEY -- "WILLKIE WILL WIN." Current History and Forum also offers the judgements of a pair of opinion surveys on the outcome of the election. Rogers Dunn, the director of the Dunn Survey, says that the surge of support for Wendell Willkie (also noted extensively by Gallup’s polls in the last two weeks or so) will result in clear Republican victory --
"Mr. Willkie will win not fewer than than 27 states with 334 electoral votes. Six Southern states with 59 electoral votes are conceded to Mr. Roosevelt. There are now 15 states with 138 electoral votes in which the findings of the Dunn Survey are incomplete; therefore no forecast has been made....I have full confidence in the soundness of the forecast made, because in addition to having made more early and accurate election forecasts in the 1938 senatorial, congressional, and gubernatorial elections, there have been many congressional by-elections at intervals up to about April, 1940, and most of these were accurately forecast by the Dunn Survey approximately two months before the election."
ANOTHER POLL -- "F.D.R. IN FRONT" (SORT OF). Edward J. Wall, the director of American Opinion Forecasts, Inc., finds as Gallup has that the President moved to a significant lead as of mid-October (55% to 45%). But just as Gallup does, Mr. Wall cautions predicts the two candidates are going to finish neck-and-neck at the end --
"As near as we can determine by the shift method, [Roosevelt’s lead] means a majority in excess of 3,200,000 votes, which at first glance should be sufficient for him to win. However, the solid South and the border states which are safely his account for 2,900,000 of this majority, giving him, on the basis of present indications, a lead of about 300,000 from states having 366 electoral votes. Should Willkie be able to secure 266 of the electoral votes of these states, we would have a condition where the candidate who received the popular vote failed to receive a majority of the electoral votes....This is a possibility. If Willkie is able to win New York and Pennsylvania there is a high degree of certainty to it."
What makes it difficult to predict the outcome, Mr. Wall writes, is the high number of Americans who are as of yet undecided -- "The voters have never before been faced with conditions -- with issues -- similar to those in this campaign. It is therefore not surprising that we find such a large number of voters who are having difficulty in choosing between the candidates. This condition will apparently continue right up to November 5. This is the group, the current ‘Don’t knows’ comprising between four and five million voters, that will in my opinion decide the election."
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