Again "Chock''

"Chocked" by Alfred Emanuel Smith fortnight ago in Massachusetts, the Roosevelt bandwagon last week ran into John Nance Garner, onetime cowboy, in California. Again the bandwagon was "chocked." The New York Governor's friends were still sure their candidate would be nominated in Chicago next month. But after his California drubbing, they stopped claiming victory on the first ballot.

Governor Roosevelt's California cam paign was managed mostly by leaders of the State's Democratic organization. His energetic young son James went out to electioneer. On primary eve the Roosevelt forces made prodigious claims about sweeping the State. A Smith campaign had been conducted by good 1928 friends of the Brown Derby -- Parson M. Abbott, David F. Supple, Edward W. Cahill --whose strategy was to depend on old loyalties rather than new issues. Meantime the Garner candidacy was backed by three potent Californians -- William Gibbs McAdoo, William Randolph Hearst, Will Rogers. The onetime Secretary of the Treasury, heading the slate of Garner delegates, actively campaigned while Publisher Hearst and Funnyman Rogers boomed Mr.

Garner constantly in the Press. At stake were 44 convention votes pledged to follow the primary's instructions.

Some 600,000 Democrats turned out for the voting, compared with 250,000 in 1928.

Speaker Garner carried the State with a 60,000-vote lead over Governor Roosevelt who ran about 30,000 votes ahead of Mr.

Smith. Candidate Garner swept Los Angeles while Candidate Smith ran away with San Francisco. If Governor Roosevelt had had all the Smith votes, he could have trounced Speaker Garner.

Busy about his House in Washington, Speaker Garner would say nothing more than "very significant" about his California victory which put him back into the presidential picture.

"Why should I say anything?" said Gov ernor Roosevelt at Warm Springs, Ga.

"A personal tribute! I carried San Francisco," remarked Al Smith in Manhattan.

Visiting Howard Coffin at Sea Island Beach, Ga. Campaigner McAdoo McAdoodled: "The first real test of strength has been settled. . . . This not only makes Garner a formidable contestant for the presidential nomination but it is a serious and perhaps irreparable blow to the Roosevelt candidacy."

The latter, though retarded, was by no means beaten yet. Governor Roosevelt's opposition remained split on everything save opposing him. The Garner-Smith Favorite Sons forces might hold a one-third veto power over the convention but there was no sign yet of their combining on a candidate who could muster the nominative two-thirds majority of 770. The idea of Al Smith sitting down to dicker with his old foes, Messrs. McAdoo and Hearst, produced only grins among those who recalled the Battle of Madison Square Garden in 1924.

When the convention roll is called Governor Roosevelt will get the first votes announced from the floor because last week, almost unnoticed during the California excitement, he carried Alabama by default. The State which in 1924 kept stubbornly casting "24 votes for Underwood," until the Davis compromise on the 103d ballot, will this year lead off with "24 votes for Roosevelt."

Also last week the Roosevelt forces picked up ten votes in South Dakota and six in Wyoming, in listless uncontested primaries where Roosevelt was the only name the voters had heard.

Democratic candidates and their pledged convention votes last week stood as follows:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt 275

James Hamilton Lewis 58

Alfred Emanuel Smith 46

John Nance Garner 44

James A. Reed 36

William Henry Murray 23

Albert Cabell Ritchie 16

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