In Penn's Woods

Tossing aside legal technicalities the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week cleared Gifford Pinchot's claim to the Republican gubernatorial nomination and thereby paved the way to a fierce political battle in the November election. In the G. O. Primary three months ago Mr. Pinchot won the nomination over Francis Shunk Brown, candidate of Boss Vare of Philadelphia, by a plurality of 20,099 votes (TIME, June 2). Mr. Brown, a poor loser, contended he had been "robbed" of the nomination, sought a technical lever to pry Mr. Pinchot off the top of the political pile. He found it in Luzerne county where he had won 15,516 votes to Mr. Pinchot's 42,075. He charged that some 60,000 ballots there should be wiped out of the count because the Court of Common Pleas, to prevent fraud, had without legal authority, had the ballots perforated with special numbers. If the Luzerne county vote could be eliminated, Mr. Brown would become the party's nominee for Governor by some 6,000 votes.

Aware of the threat to his nomination, Mr. Pinchot pre-empted first place on two hastily-formed independent tickets--the Fair Play Party and the Square Deal Party--to make sure he would be in the November race.

In a quick "common-sense" opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that the Luzerne ballots should not have been perforated but that, even so, this did not justify wiping out the county's entire primary vote. The vote was. allowed to stand as counted and Mr. Brown advised to take his claims for a contest, if any, to the Legislature.

But Nominee Pinchot had other and larger troubles lying ahead of him last week. A militant Dry, he will oppose Democratic .Nominee John M. Hemphill, militant Wet, in the November election. Normally a Democrat's chances in Penn's Woods are negligible. This year, however, Boss Vare's Philadelphia G. O. P., smarting under its primary defeat and nursing old grudges, is reported ready to ditch Nominee Pinchot and support Nominee Hemphill sufficiently to bring him within striking distance of Harrisburg.

Boss Vare has four reasons for politically execrating Nominee Pinchot: 1) as Governor in 1926, Mr. Pinchot gave him a "certificate of doubt" instead of a certificate of election to the U. S. Senate; 2) Nominee Pinchot is Dry and Philadelphia is Wet; 3) Nominee Pinchot wars on public utilities and railroads supported by the Vare organization; 4) Nominee Pinchot is a type of person very different from Boss Vare.

The bad blood between the two Republican factions was brought into sharp focus fortnight ago when the party formally opened its campaign at Fogelsville. Mr. Pinchot flayed the "Philadelphia gang." Declared he: "The vast majority of voters are sick and tired of election corruption in Philadelphia. . . . Certain disgruntled political leaders ... are refusing to abide by the rules of the game and accept the decision of the voters in the Republican primary. . . . They propose to bring about the election of a Wet Democrat instead of the Republican nominee. . . . The defection of these masqueraders is neither respectable nor important." Mr. Brown at the rally leaped up to defend Philadelphia, insisted 100.000 primary votes had been stolen from him, was booed. So disorderly and disunited was the meeting that State Chairman Edward Martin announced that it would not be considered as opening the campaign, that a fresh start would be made later.

Nominee Hemphill insisted that he would keep Nominee Pinchot, willy-nilly, on his Prohibition issue. Nominee Pinchot was no less insistent that he would not let Nominee Hemphill "sidetrack" his public utility issue. Pennsylvania voters awaited a hammer-&-tongs campaign.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.