Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1908-04-03
CAPITAL CHAT,
The Taft Boom Is Far
Ahead Of Others.
FaVoTIte Sons Getting Home
State Delegates.
Maine Man Working Hard For the
Shipping Interests.

Every week end is now a tremen-
dously busy time for a certain coterie
of politicians who are handy with their
pencils. The Presidential campaign is
at the stage where the boomers must
keep tally on the booms. They want
to cast up at the end of the week,
just as the merchant counts the cash
in his till when the days business is
over and he is about to close up his
store.
But the figures are distracting. Only
one thing stands out clearly when the
statisticians have completed their fig
uring, when the Taft boomers ut Col
umbus have given out their totals,
when the Taft headquarters in this city
have made UP theirs, when the news
paper correspondents have taken pencil
and paper to draw their conclusions,
when the allies at the Capitol have
handed out their statements. This one
thing which all the campaign book
keepers agree upon is that to date the
big candidate from Ohio is very much
in the lead
Otherwise no two campaign book
keepers agree. The Republican Ma
tional Committee, at it's headquarters
in this city, keeps an unofficial list CT
what the conventions have done. Their
list, however, decides nothing. Natur-
ally the managers of the several Re
publican candidates claim everything
there is even what there is u remote
possibility of their getting and gem
orally something more. 1t is the
way campaign managers have. State
and Congressional district conven-
tio.& are not always as well Or
dered as the might be. This
year the seem thus far to nave been
especially disOrdrrly. Often there have
been rump conventions and in such
cases both conventions claim to be the
real one. Theu many conventions
have refused to instruct their delegate:,
in which case it is easy for different
candidates to base claims which can
not he disputed positively
No two newspaper estimates of the
strength of the candidates to date
therefore agree. Secretary Taft is
SainInE Il little every week and until
this last week has gained more than
any of his rivals, excepting only the
first week of conventions, during which
Vice President Fairbanks led off.
All along Washington has heard most
of Tatt. The operations of his cam
paign have been conducted from here.
He has men who know a thing or two
about managing campaigns for nom-
ination and they have been doing their
work well. During the last week
Speaker Cannon'S friends have been
making lot Of noise in Washington.
This week Vice President Fairbanks
expects to begin to "whoop it up" Il
little, for the Indiana guns are going
off again and the Kentucky guns are
beginning to belch forth.
Before long some twelve inchers viii
be discharged in Pennsylvania to de-
note the pledging OF IS good delegates
and true to the standard of Senator
Philander Chase Knox. Then very soon
New York is going to burn q quantity
of powder in announcing that the En-
pire states maximum delegation of IS
know where they arc at. and why,
when they declare for Gov. Charles L
Hughes. BY that time, which will be
in two or three weeks, none of the cam
didates will be ashamed to look a tally
sheet il the face. In the meantime con-
ventiors will have been as thick as
berries at the height of the season and
what candidate could not pick basket
of delegates?
1t will be only about two months now
before tho delegates will be pinnins
streamers on their expensive chests
and buying railroad TICKETS for Chica-
go. But in the meantime about 20G
conventions rf ,lifterontc kinds nIct
convene and name their men and III
many cases. their favorite candidates.
1t is a great big proposition to make
ready for d National Convention of
either party. Apparently none of the
candidates is going to drop out in the
last quarter, but will so under the wire
Continued on Page Nine)