The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-08-23

that the "Old Guard" in forcing the l state committee to select V1ce-Presl- dent Sherman over Roosevelt as tenn porary chairman of the Republican
 state convention. acted without his l sanction, admittedly changes the en- | tire complexion of conditions con
 fronting the party 1t is generally
 construed as indicating that the es-Roosevelt-Taft combination will control the state convention and ] that 'Vice-President Sherman may not l deliver the keynote speech" after | all.
 l Sherman had been expected in New York today. Shortly after the pub | lication of the President letter, how
 ever, it was announced from Utica
 that he wasne coming but that
 pressing private business affairs | necessitated his presence today in | Watertown, in the extreme northern portion of the state.
 County Chairman Griscom, who has hapdled the Roosevelt forces in their two most conspicuous defeats | in this state-the rejection of the ! direct primary plan and of Roose- l l-predicted quite emphatically today that Roosevelt will be the temporary chairman of the convention AL though he intimated that the fight might be made on the floor of the conv ention it was not believed here l today that this would be the case. The state committee, which suggests l the temporary chairman, is called to | meet in the Grand Union Hotel in | Saratoga on Monday, September 26. an attempt will then be made to change the designation of the tenn porary chairman. This could easily be done by the committeeman from Richmond and the Nassau districts, which were represented by proxies at fha oCf ,ocnf line fir1cy fo welt.
 So certain is Griscom that he will have the votes to name Roosevelt l that he has told his friends Sherman will soon recognize that he cannot serve and will voluntarily withdraw. Friends of Sherman, however, pro- fess to believe that Roosevelt will see the advisa bility of calling a halt on the fight against the Vice-President Both factions admit, however, that it is all up to Roosevelt. Granted he intends to fight, as Griscom says he does, the "Old Guard" will have to fight back if it intends to stay in it's place and the contest for delegates will make this years primaries note worthy.
 President Taft makes it plain in the letter given out here by Griscon, how the misunderstanding with Roosevelt arose. He explains that he never took any part in a committee cabal to defeat MT. Roosevelt for temporary chairman of the coming republican he explicitly deplores the results of the committee meeting which chose Vice-President Sherman; he rebukes the party leaders who have permitted it to go abroad uncontradicted that the President was behind their fac tional preferences; he insists that at every opportunity he advised the full est conference with Colonel Roosevelt.
 Colonel Roosevelt, when he read President Taft's letter, as communi- cated to him at Oyster Bay, said:
 "I am very glad to see President Taft's letter and am pleased with it.''
 President Taft further tells how, when he first learned from Vice-Pres- ident Sherman of the plan to oppose Roosevelt, he f'peremptorily declined to be drawn into a fight with MT. Roosevelt, and again renewed my ur- conference with him. Finally, he asserts that 'the solution of thes di- rect primary issue can be found in provisions similar to those of the Cobb bill'' defeated by the last Legislature in direct rebuke to MT. Roosevelt and Governor Hughes.
 MT. Griscom, in his comment on the Presidents letter, did not hesi- tate to charge that the republican organization of the state played poli- tics with the Presidents name and misrepresented his attitude He as- serted in so many words that "some of 1'- old guard are not seeking republican success at the coming election; they wish to perpetuate their control of the republican organization at any cost to the party" And he goes on to particularize that in such event they would have been glad to unload defeat on the shoulders of the DTnc nr1 f1n hot In nored the policies of Governor Hughes and snubbed Theodore Roosevelt, the very men whom they had consistently
 Continued on Page Five)