Bisbee daily review., 1908-05-17
OHIO MEMBERS FORM CENTER
 IN HE HOUSE
Anxious Republicans Want to Know the Truth About the Political Situation in the Buckeye State.
Especial to Review.)

WASHINGTON, D. c. May i6.-As the National convention approaches the Ohio members of the House are the center of very vezing fire of cross questions by anxious Republi. can statesmen who want to know the truth about the Ohio situation. The big cloud on the Taft horizon at pres. ent is the apprehension as to election results in 8 group or pivotal states. Although Ohio is usually regarded as safely Republican, the fact is now recognized that there is serious doubt of the ability of Secretary Taft to car " it if he is nominated at Chicago.
 Up to week ago the dissensions in Ohio were loked upon as a sharp contest between factions in the party which would disappear long before the national convention met. Senator For aker was expected to sue for peace long before this time. But the devel- opments in Ohio of the past two weeks convince the Republican lead CTS that~the party faces a serious con ditisn of affairs in the state. In the Republican cloakroom of the Senate and House the drift of talk seems to prove that a political panic has struck the leaders. Members of the House and Senate who are in the habit of studying conditions as they are and not as they wish them to be are view ing the methods of the Taft managers with anxious concern.
 Not only does this apprehension grow out of the dangers of losing the labor and negro votes, but local con ditions have arisen in scores of states as a result of the methods employed by the Taft managers in their efforts to nail down the nomination for the big Secretary which will bring about the defeat of the party if Taft is nominated. One of the strangest feat ures of the condition of the senti- ment in Congress is that many of the Senators and Representatives who arc publicly alligned with the Taft move ment are privately expressing their be lief that Tafts nomination will prove disastrous. This opinion has been freely expressed to the President, it may be stated authoritatively, and the President shares the same apprehen- sion. Still, he seems to think that matters have gone too far for him to withdraw his support from the Secre- tary of War. Secretary Taft himself is nervous, if not over the fate that may await him at the polls, at least at the dissensions in the party which his managers are creating in their desperate attempts to capture dele gates.
 A leader of the opposition to Sec retary Taft said:
 There never was a parallel for this campaign. A good many men who have climbed on what they believed to be band wagon seem to have come to the conclusion that they are riding on a political hearse. They appear to believe that there is wreck and ruin ahead but lack the courage to combat the conditions which involve their own political obliteration."
 And the denoralization which has been brought about by the Taft man. agement in Ohio extends throughout the country. North and South the use of patronage has been on 9 scale and of character unparalleled since the days of Andrew Jackson. The chief purVeyor of pie at the govern nens counter, Frank H. Hitchcock, was transferred from the Postoffice Department to the management of