All Even

Month ago the voters of Illinois smacked the face of Publisher William Franklin Knox by giving Senator William Edgar Borah a majority in the Presidential preference vote everywhere except in Cook County. Fortnight ago the voters of California rapped the knuckles of Kansas' Governor Alfred Mossman Landon by electing a slate of uninstructed delegates to the Republican National Convention. Last week the voters of Ohio made it all even between the three active Republican candidates by boxing the ears of Senator Borah.

There was a time when the Idaho Senator hoped to win 20 of Ohio's 52 convention delegates. His entrance into Ohio was made for the specific purpose of thwarting regular Republicans' plans to name a favorite son, and thus to deliver Ohio's bargaining power intact at the Cleveland convention. Old Guardsmen went right ahead and picked as their favorite son Robert Alphonso Taft of Cincinnati, elder son of the late Chief Justice. Candidate Borah stumped vigorously in the northern portion of the State, made a loud noise against false-front candidacies. Candidate Taft canvassed the State like a bona fide candidate, although Ohio freely figured that his delegates really stood for Governor Landon, Publisher Knox and Senator Vandenberg.

Last week Candidate Taft's eight dele-gates-at-large pulled nearly 2-to-1 ahead of Candidate Borah's in the Statewide vote. Senator Borah elected two district delegates in Akron, one each in Cleveland, Youngstown and Steubenville. Mr. Taft carried off the other 47 of Ohio's 52 votes. In fact the earnest, high-minded lawyer-son of the 27th President of the U. S. made such a surprisingly good showing that romantic journalists began to circulate rumors to the effect that Mr. Taft, instead of being just a hopeless Favorite Son, might make a satisfactory Dark Horse at Cleveland.

One phenomenon of the Ohio primary was that Senator Borah's great & good friend Mrs. Alice Roosevelt Longworth actively opposed him. For the first time in her long political life the eldest child of Roosevelt I stood for election and Ohio gave her some 278,000 votes of approval. Mrs. Longworth has attended six Republican National Conventions, as an interested spectator. Next month at Cleveland she will attend her seventh, as an Ohio delegate-at-large favoring the nomination of Robert Alphonso Taft.

P: In West Virginia Senator Borah last week played hardly a happier role than he did in Ohio. In a Statewide Presidential primary poll he swept all before him, his only opponent being one Leo J. Chassee of Milwaukee, Wis. This was no great triumph, however, because: 1) Franklin D. Roosevelt polled nearly three votes to Borah's one; 2) the name of Alfred Mossman Landon was reported written in on many a Republican ballot, but since West Virginia law does not recognize write-ins, the Landon votes were not counted; 3) in the election of the State's 16 delegates to the Republican Convention, 15 were for Governor Landon and one was doubtful. The only sure Borah vote from West Virginia at Cleveland will be that of the Senator's national campaign manager, onetime Representative Carl Bachmann.

P: In Oregon's primary Senator Borah had his one triumph of the week. His slate of ten delegates was elected unopposed. In the Presidential preference primary he also won unopposed. Of more significance was the fact that in that harmless popularity contest he polled 5,000 more votes than Franklin Roosevelt polled in the Democratic Presidential preference primary.

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