The Washington herald., 1911-12-19

The great contest of The Washington
Herald-the world tour and European
trip competitions-is now over.
Climaxed by a stirring wind-up, in
which votes came in 4 mighty deluge,
the contest ended, and yesterday the
five judges chosen TO decide the win
ners accomplished the really stupendous
task OF verifying the count upon mil
lions and millions of votes and of ulti-
:lately picking the ten persons who
stood highest in the race.
Upon them developed the task of
awarding the prizes which have been
so CALAMITY fought for. and all of them
were men worthy of their task. Just
as the winners are all worthy of the
prizes which have been bestowed upon
them.
THE BOARD OF JUDGES.
Never has a contest of this character
been decided by more thoroughly rep
resentative body than the board of
Judges which consented to aid The Her
aid 1t comprised a clergyman, the owner
Of one of Washingtons biggest floral
establishments, a department store man
ager, the part owner of the foremost
music store, and a prominent merchant
this was the board of judges
One needs only to mention the names
|" realize what this board of Judges
meant They were Rev. Father Ignatius
really pastor of St JOseph's Catholic
Church; Joseph Strasburger, Carl A.
Droop, T. D. Blackstone, and Isaac
Cans.
The meeting of the board was called
for 1 O'Clock Monday afternoon after the
votes had been placed in a security box
preparatory to the final count The
judges last Saturday night visited The
Washington Herald and saw to it that
every vote which was to be used in the
final computation was placed in the
metal receptacle and the latter carefully
5, alod.
Seal Found UnbrOken.
This. of course, precluded the posi-
hility Of a single vote entering into the
contest after the fixed hour when the
contest was to end. The judges first act
when they arrived yesterday was to care
fully examine the sealed box. A few
moments inspection of the seal convinced
them that it had been untouched since
they had left it. The seal was then
broken and the work OF counting the
votes began.
Packet after packet was taken out by
a corps of experts and swiftly counted
before the committee. The judges, after
each package was verified, laid il aside
and kept II for future reference when the
final computation was to be begun. Ad- |
ditiOnany, the private office records of
the wherein
subscription or individual vote that had
been cast, were brought into service to
prevent any possible discrepancy Of
course, the judges were guided by the
votes cast. BY seeing that they tailed
with the private record kept it was made
doubly certain that there was no mis-
take
At o'clock the work began. and it was
fully two hours later when the board of
judges, tired, yet apparently pleased, with
sense of duty well performed, emerg-
ed from their sanctum with the an
nouncement that the ten winners had
been picked.
Miss Wilcox Highest.
A complete list Of these will be found |
elsewhere. Suffice it to say here that
Miss Mary r. Wilcox heads the trio of |!
world tour winners, with LIZA votes |
This gives an idea of what the Judges /
were up against-more than a million (
votes for a single contestant! And there |
were several score others who did not |
come in the running, but whose votes |
mounted into the hundred thousands.
As. Mr.. Drcop said at the conclusion |
OF the the count:
There is glowing satisfaction in the
thought-that any man who has gone
through a thing OF this kind can easily |
enter as a judge OF elections during a |
Presidential contest and rest assured that |
he will have an easy time. It seems to |
me that I was swamped with votes. I |
never saw so many slips Of this kind In
my life"
Another body Of Judges would not have
accomplished with the speed and &C
curacy what The Herald's judges did.
The officials who conducted the contest
are congratulating themselves now on
their keen perspicacity as shown in the