Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1908-06-19
Bryan Looms Up Big
Before Republicans.
How Things Looked on the Eve of
The Convention.
WIN. Allen White IN Washington
Herald.)


Herald.
A telegram from Chicago to the
Washington Herald of Saturday says:
"In convention which, in it's prelim-
mary maneuvers, seems to be entirely
without episode, the looming figure on
the horizon is not the Presidential can
didate Of the party about to name a
ticket, but instead the looming figure
is Bryan. He is in the consciousness of
the men who are doing things at Chi
cago more than Taft is. For Taft is
known quantity. Bryan is uncertain,
unmeasured in relation to this CAM
paign, and ominous. The platform
contest, which seems to be rather tame,
is only of interest as it affects OF is
affected by Bryan. The Vice-Presi-
dental contest is directly focused on
Bryan, and the feeling, which seems to
have been sent out from Washington
without Mr.. Taft's consent, that Cor
telyou would please the administra-
ton, has been overcome by the fear of
Bryan. For as it becomes certain that
Taft will be the nominee the party
managers are squarely face to face with
the fact that Taft and Bryan must fight
in the same territory.
The battle ground Of this Presiden-
tial contest obviously is in the Missis-
s:ppi Valley. There Taft won his NOM
ination. There in 1896 Bryan polled
his greatest vote. A change of less
than half million votes will take
much of this territory from the place
where Mckinley found it twelve years
ago and give it to Bryan.
NOT FIGURING ON MAJORITIES.
This, of course, is not figuring ON the
Roosevelt majority, nor on the MAORI
ties Mckinley won with Roosevelt on
the ticket, but it is the situation that
faced the party when the radical Bryan
was defeated by the conservative Nc
Kinley, and today Taft is conservative
and Bryan is still radical.
Bryan has begun to loom big and
significant in this convention. The
fear of him may control more votes in
Chicago than Bryan himself will con-
troll on the first ballot in Denver.
Those who know say that the adj
ministratiOn has given up the Cortel-
you idea for Vice-President. Certainly
the Tafts-Henry w. Taft of New
York, who came here today and Chas.
p. Taft, who has been here for several
days-do not glow when Cortelyou is
mentioned, and it is likely that there
may be some truth in the rumor that
Senator Borah of Idaho, who is strong
at the White House, has been sent on
a mission from Washington to Fort
Dodge, Iowa, to persuade Senator Dol
liver to allow the use of his name.
WANTS SENATE SEAT
There is politics as well as strong
personal inclination in Senator Doll
ver's Discrimination to run for the Vice
Presidency. In the first place, remove
Deliver from the Senate and nothing
could prevent Cummins from succeed
ing Deliver. And Aldrich and the
Senate control regards Cummins as a
Populist Moreover, with Cummins in
the Senate and Allison in his eighties,
Iowa would not send another conser-
vative Senator to Washington within
a decade. And with Iowa lined up with
a progressive Senator and one from Ne
braska, Wisconsin, and the Northern
and Western States, the Senate might
pass from New England control.
But without Deliver or some West
ern man on the ticket, Bryan begins
to loom, and probably the forces that
control politics from Wall Straet would
rather have Cummins and a few Sena-
tors of his kind than men whom the
Democrats might send. And Demo-
cratic victory in the Mississippi Valley
is too imminent to be ignored.
The Democrats for the first time in a
generation are using sense in their poll
tics-they are getting together In
Missouri and Kentucky and the border
States old factional differences are heal |
ed. In New York the Democrats made |
it possible for Hughes to pass the race
track gambling bill.
DEMOCRATS SETTLE QUARREL.
In a dozen Middle States old Demo
cratic quarrels are settled, and the Re