Who Had the Democrats?

In the furor about Texas, the chief Taft argument has been that the Eisenhower supporters brought Democrats into Republican caucuses to elect delegates for Ike. This week the Democrat shoe was suddenly jammed on the other foot.

The jamming was done by Joe Ingraham, an experienced Republican hand in Texas, the party's chairman for Harris County (Houston), and until a few weeks ago a staunch Taftman. Said Ingraham: "The Zweifel-Taft group . . . campaigned actively all over the state to get Democrats to come into the precinct conventions and vote for Taft. About a week before the precinct conventions, Henry Zweifel [Texas Republican national committeeman] spoke in Houston and threw out an open invitation to Democrats to come into the Republican precinct conventions. And whom did they elect on the Zweifel-Taft delegation, as delegate for this district to the Republican National Convention? The answer is R. W. Milner Jr., who was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1948, a delegate to the Democratic state convention in 1950 . . . [The Taftmen] only object to former Democrats who support General Eisenhower."

The word of Texas Republicans like Joe Ingraham is bound to have its effect on many a delegate to the Republican National Convention when the Texas case is considered. Last week the Republican National Committee's headquarters announced that 72 delegate seat contests, including Texas' 38, will be judged by the National Committee. Twenty-three disputes about district delegates were sent back to state committees for decision. The pro-Taft Louisiana state committee promptly handed seven contested seats to Taftmen.

But whatever the national and state committees decide, the struggle for the contested seats is certain to erupt in the convention itself. The Eisenhower forces are determined to appeal any adverse rulings by the pro-Taft committees, for the contested delegates may well be the balance of power.

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