The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1912-07-11
FEAR LOSS
OF ELECTORS
Taft Men Score "SteaI' by
Roosevelt
WORK TO RETAIN FULL VOTE
rs May Go to the Colonel, Now Is the
Fear-Already Chosen in Penn
sylvariia and South
Dakota.
WORK TO RETAIN FULL VOTE

ton of presidential electors will be the
first to which the managers of the Taft
campaign will give their attention. They
regard it as the most important and as
containing the largest element of DIS
order, and they hope before long TO
straighten it out in such manner that
the people will understand the real is.
sue. The issue is, in brief, as the TAFT
men see it, that Roosevelt is trying
TO steal the election exactly as he ac-
cuses the national committee of having
stolen Republican nomination for Taft.
The machinery is little different but
the Taft men assert that the element
of theft is present in the Roosevelt
! plans Just the same and that il is just
| as dishonest for Republican members
| of the electoral college to vote for Roosc.
welt, as Roosevelt proposes that his men
shall, as TO steal delegation to the
national convention. They do not admit,
of course, that any such theft took place
at Chicago and they are preparing
booklet to show that it did not. Their
point is that ii is politically and NOR
ally dishonest for the Roosevelt elector-
ais to go before the people in Novem-
Der under false pretences," said false
pretences consisting of accepting place
in the electoral college with the avowed
intention Of voting for some one other
than the regular nominee of the Repub-
lican party, William H. Taft.
As the situation stands, no less than
seventy eight members of the electoral
college may be Roosevelt men intend
ing to vote for Roosevelt for president
regardless of the fact that Mr. Taft
was nominated by the regularly called
convention of the party. These electors,
II the Roosevelt plans should be carried
out successfully, would hail from Penn
sylyania, California, South Dakota, Kan.
sas, Nebraska, West Virginia and pos
sihly other states, Some of these elee-
tors already have been chosen and some
have not. In Pennsylvania they were
chosen at the Republican state eonven
tion held before the Chicago convention,
and they are all Roosevelt men. In
South Dakota, they were elected at the
recent state wide primary which defeat
ed Sena tor Robert j. Gamble for re-elec-
tion by the narrow margin of 1874,
although he ran about $4,000 votes ahead
of President Taft In California, the
electors must be chosen before July 20
BY the holdoveT members OF the state
Senate and the nominees of the l,gis-
lature and for Congress. In Kansas
state primary will be held Aug. d at
which presidential electors will be chos
en-. North Dakota has vet to choose
her electors.
The Taft managers realize, of course,
that as far as legal provisions are con
cerned, the Republican members of the !
electoral college are free TO vote for |
whomever they please, even for Wood |
row Wilson if they choose to do so. The |
Taft men hold, however, that electors |
nominated and elected on the regular |
Republican ticket are in honor bound |
to vote for the nominee of the Repub- |
liean party, if he carries their state, |
and for them to do otherwise would |
be the most gross violation of honor |
that could be conceived in politics. For !
should the Republican ticket
carry Pennsylvania in the coming elee-
ton and the thirty-eight Roosevelt cleo
tors already chosen be thus made mem |
DtIs Oh the eitttttal CpiftSts tntA Wbulu /
be expected to vote for Taft notwith-
standing that their personal preferences |
were for Roosevelt. For them to do
otherwise would be to upset the practice
of politics for generations and to rem
der the electoral college as free of party
as a state primary.
The Roosevelt men hold on the other
hand, that they are entitled TO what
they have got so far; that where Roose
welt men have been chosen as Republ-
can electors the Taft men must either |
put up an independent ticket, which |
they can do by means of petition, or
permit the Roosevelt men to vote for |
Roosevelt in the electoral college if they |
are elected by the Republicans of the |
state. This is one of the points in
hard practical politics where the Roose
welt men have an apparent advantage |
over their opponents and they are play
ing it as mereilessly rs they charge the
Republican national committee with per-
forming at Chicago. The Taft men ac-
cuse the Roosevelt leaders of trying to
steal the presidential election and say
that they already in some places have
stolen the Republican organization. 1t
is declared that the Roosevelt men have
no right to the electors or the organiza-
ton because they are boilers from the
Republican party and are giving sup
port to what admittedly is third party