Grooming the Mule

With the question of Republican nomination settled by the coming of the Republican Convention, the Democrats had the field of conjecture all to themselves. Candidates rushed about, hurriedly grooming themselves for the fray.

In Florida a quietus was apparently put upon the hopes of Senator Underwood when Mr. McAdoo carried the state primary. In every southern state, except Alabama, McAdoo has vanquished his rival. What hope was left for the Alabaman?

One of the features of the McAdoo victory in Florida was the election by a large vote of William J. Bryan as a McAdoo delegate. Counting Mr. Bryan, McAdoo men asserted that they would have 614 votes on the first ballot at the Democratic Convention. They even talked of nomination by the tenth bal lot. But the nomination of any one so early in the procedure was hardly a safe prediction.

P: Franklin D. Roosevelt claimed 253 votes for Governor Smith of New York on the first ballot, with a rapid increase of strength thereafter. Smith, the leading so-called wet aspirant, de fined his stand on prohibition by issuing a statement:

"I maintain that the present hypocritical attitude toward the whole question of prohibition would be greatly relieved by having Congress fix a maximum alcoholic content based upon science and sound reasoning, thereafter leaving every state to enact any statute it pleases with regard to regulation of the traffic in light wines and beer within that alcoholic content, so that the state that desires light wines and beer within the alcoholic content prescribed by Congress may also have what it desires."

P: The most interesting possibility in many ways remained Samuel Ralston of Indiana. He went out to Indiana during the closing days of Congress to attend the State Convention choosing delegates to the National Convention. He made a speech saying:

"Great as this honor is, however, I would not speak truthfully to you should I refrain from saying that I have never aspired to the Presidency of this country. If there are those who doubt my sincerity in what I am saying, let me lay additional emphasis on my state of mind by declaring that this convention will please me most by allowing the delegates from Indiana to go to, the New York convention uninstructed."

Strange to say, politicians and political observers regard this expression as entirely sincere. They characterize him as a sweet, if not a naive old man, and many feel sure that he will be the Democratic nominee. It is suggested that at his age even the possibility that he might die in office, if elected, is an added attraction to him as a candidate, just as his lack of enemies is his present asset.

The fact seems to be that his great friend Tom Taggart is booming him for nomination, and he has not the heart to refuse outright, although he little cares for the nomination. When he was Governor of Indiana, he once appointed Taggart to a vacancy in the Senate. Now he has a place in the Senate due to the support of the state organization of which Taggart is head.

The Indiana Convention acceded nominally to Mr. Ralston's request. It chose an uninstructed delegation to go to the convention. But Taggart will head it and it will go to Manhattan with Ralston in its heart.