The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-26
The Bench and the Presidency
By SAVOYARD

Washington, September 26.-(Speeial)- Again there is talk of drafting a member pf the United States supreme court and constituting him candidate of one the great political parties for President. Charles F. Hughes is the man this time telected, and it is hoped that the stand patters and the insurgents may be able to compromise their differences and agree to support the man who commanded pub lie confidence as governor of the Empire state. 1t is not at all likely that sue cess will wait this movement. The American electorate is much more prone to make presidents of the men of the sword than they are to choose them from men of the ernine.
 There Is nothing new in the suggestion of a member of the supreme court as R candidate for President John Mclean of Ohio. who was appointed to the bench .n 1929, and served for g. years as mem ber of that august tribunal, was an anti slavery whig and subsequently, repub- iican. He narrowly escaped the repub- ncan nomination for President in 1856, when that hero without battle, states man without g dispatch. orator without a speech, lawyer without a brief and millionaire without a cent John Charles Fremont, a Georgia abolitionist, was pre- ferred over him. As l now recollect, Mclean, earlier in his career, was re- peatedly suggested as the whig candidate for President He joined with Benjamin R. Curtis in a dissenting opinion in the Dred Scott case.
 While neither of the dominant parties eyer chose d member of the supreme court as it's candidate for President, Salmon F. Chase was nominated and confirmed chief justice of that court be- cause, as a politician, he was candi- date for President. There was strenuous opposition to the renomination of Lincoln .r 1864 by radical republicans like Ben Wade. Henry Winter Davis, John Coch- rane John c. Fremont and James A. Garfield The New York Herald, in scorching editorial under the caption, "A. Smutty Joker" sought to supplant him with General Grant, but Chase was the man whom most of the anti-Lincoln men preferred, and Lincoln, who made mon keys of them all in the game of poli- tics, eliminated Chase as political quan- tity that year by making him the sue ceSSOr Of Roger B. IaneS, WnO uleu at an opportune time for the administration T. nearly broke the heart of William M. Evarts, whose life ambition it was to be chief justice. Had Seward been Pres ident he would have achieved it.
 But Chase was not done with politics. Like the Blairs, he was an original demo- orat, and returned to that party as soon as the emancipation of the negro was secured Trumbull. too, found his way hack to the democratic party. So did Governor Curtin of Pennsylvania. So did John M Palmer of Illinois. Even old Ben Butler returned to the party of his youth. Indeed George S Boutwell, cast his last vote for William J. Bryan. It is one oi the tremendous ifs of our history that Chief Justice Chase was not nominated for President by the democrats in 1S6S. Ii was all fixed, and by the merest ac- cident Seymour was chosen instead. Had Chase been nominated it Is not at all un- likely that he would have been elected. Even Seymour carried New York and Chase would have made Ohio almighty doubtful, also Massachusetts. And here we may again speculate. Suppose stephen A. Douglas had lived2 Would he have burned his bridges behind him as did Oliver P. Morton and John A. Logan? ? Or would he have found a way to re- yitalize the democratic party and lead it t. victory in 1868, or even in 1S64, as Samuel J. Tilden did in 1s76?.
 In 1872 the labor party first appeared In our politics. It held a national con 1ention and nominated David Davis for