Winner Take Nothing

In Illinois last week was fought the first 1936 Presidential primary in which one Republican candidate faced another Republican candidate on the same ballot. The result:

In votes: 480,000 for Publisher William Franklin Knox; 410,000 for Senator William Edgar Borah. In delegates to the Republican National Convention: at least 35 for Knox; perhaps 22 for Borah. In public opinion: a substantial set-back for Knox; a fair-to-middling victory for Borah.

This discrepancy between the numerical and the moral outcome of the Illinois Republican primary was accounted for by the difference in what the two candidates invested in the campaign. Publisher Knox invested long and careful preparation as a Favorite Son candidate, the virtually unanimous support of every local Republican organization in the State, the influence of his own great Chicago Daily News, about $25,000 in cash and an elaborate speaking campaign over a period of weeks. Senator Borah invested five days, six speeches and one visit to his younger sister, Mrs. Mattie Rinard,* and his birthplace at Fairfield, Ill.

In return for his efforts, Frank Knox got a majority of 110,000 votes in Cook County. Senator Borah got a majority of nearly 40,000 in the rest of the State, carried ten out of 15 downstate Congressional districts, swept the county where he was born, 3,500-to-350. Whether Mr. Borah will get all the 22 delegates to which he is nominally entitled is another matter, for the primary is only advisory. Elected at the same time, nearly all the delegates to the convention are personally rated as Knox men. If they follow precedent, however, they will vote for Borah at least on the first ballot before switching to Knox. The real Borah victory came from the fact that the septuagenarian Senator was able to boast: "Frank Knox carried Chicago, but I carried Illinois."

Biggest primary victory by far went to Franklin Roosevelt. While Republicans Knox and Borah together polled only 900,000, the President, unopposed in the Democratic primary, rolled up 1,300,000 votes. In this he was partly aided by the fact that the red-hot attraction of Illinois' primary was the fight for the Democratic nomination for Governor, which drew an unusual number of Democratic voters to the polls.

Same day that Illinois voted her Presidential preferences Nebraska did likewise, and again, as far as the national ticket was concerned, the winner was loser. Senator Borah, lone Republican candidate on the ballot, swept to victory, but of the Republicans who went to Nebraska's polls only a few more than half bothered to mark a cross for Borah. And for every five who marked a cross for Borah, one other Republican laboriously wrote in the name of Governor Alfred Mossman Landon of Kansas, who had not even entered in Nebraska. Again, as in Illinois, the result of the Presidential primary was only advisory, and a slate of uninstructed delegates mostly favorable to Landon was elected. President Roosevelt polled two-thirds again as many votes as Borah and Landon combined.

Said Democratic Boss Farley with satisfaction: "The primaries indicated the apathetic attitude of Republican voters toward the candidates who aspire for the party's Presidential nomination."

* Of the original four Borah boys and six Borah girls only three survive. Sadie Borah Mabry, a widow in St. Louis, is 72. Mattie Borah Rinard, 69, lost her stockman husband 18 years ago, lives on in Fairfield in her own seven-room house, with a small income and one boarder, Miss Trula Scott, deputy county clerk. A third sister, Alice Borah Heidinger died last month, aged 86.

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