The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-06-28

country. Some men travelling in that way
 idle away their spare time. Hitchcock
 put in his spare time getting acquainted with the republican leaders wherever he
 went.
 When Cortelyou became postmaster general under Roosevelt, Hitchcock, who had resigned from the Department of Commerce and Labor for the campaign,
 went into office again as first assistant
 postmaster general. In that office he had
 a wide field for the employment of the political skill and information which he
 had acquired in his previous experience.
 He had made friends among congress-
 men before; now he had opportunity to
 cement such friendship as well as to ac-
 quire new ones. It was to assume the
 management of the Taft campaign that
 MT Hitchcock resigned his place as first
 assistant postmaster general.
 Hitchcocks management of the Taft
 nominating campaign was a marvel It
 was a tremendous surprise to some of
 the men who had known him longest.
 The first mistake that all the men op-
 posed to him during this campaign made
 was in permitting themselves to believe that Hiteheock's political acquaintance
 and influence were confined to the south.
 To be sure his work there had been the
 largest part of his activity, but it was
 in fact only a part of his equipment for the post of general manager for Secre-
 tary Taft He had been devoting him. self principally to the south largely from
 the fact that there lay the largest oppor- tunty for the upbuilding of republican influence in the manner in which he be- lieves it is wisest to work. What Hitch cok did in the south was to arrange that the conventions should be put off until the last, so that he could come to them with the prestige of northern victories. Not only did he win by that move. but he also had time to arrange for the con- tests which he had been warned the all
 lies would force upon him there In that preparation for the contests Hitchcock displayed his shrewdness as a political general. It did not come out until the hearings before the national committee. Most important of all the contests were those in Alabama because that state heads the list on the roll call, and who-
 ever controls there gets the first oppor- tunity to put his man before the conyen- tion Hitchcock knew that no matter how carefully his convention was run, in order to keep it entirely regular his men would be contested. He must have, therefore, men selected as delegates whom the national committee could not afford to throw out. The allies had shown their hand and he knew that they would lay great stress upon the charge that ne- groes had been excluded from participa- tion in the conventions.
 What Hitchcock did was to arrange for the selection of a certain number of ne- groes on the delegation and to secure one of the brightest and ablest of them to argue his case before the national con- vention Then he found that a member of the executive committee of .one of the greatest labor organizations in the coun- try was available for election as dele
 gate at large from Alabama. This man was chosen on the Hitchcock ticket. When the Alabama contests were called 1 before the national committee this labor | man and this negro lawyer presented the | evidence for Taft delegates.
 | The allies were utterly unprepared for | such a movement. They could not con- l tend that negroes had been shut out | when a black man was arguing against | them. And they could not afford to l throw out the labor leader. They had | nothing at all but the unsupported as- | sertions of their partisans to back up | their case, while Hitchcock had had q | clever lawyer most carefully prepare his | evidence and supervise the arguments. | The case was so complete that not even | the friends of the allies could vote | against it. and the Taft men were seated 1 without a division. The same tactics
 were followed throughout the contests.