The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1912-09-25
WHAT MIHGT Be ELECTION
RESULT
a University Professor Outlines -Four
Courses of Procedure.

If the Electoral College does not
give Taft, Roosevelt or Wilson the
necessary number of votes, and the
House of Representatives fails to
elect by the necessary majority, who
will be President after March 4,
1913? says the Philadelphia Bulletin.
This question is being discussed
widely among leading politicians,
constitutional lawyers and laymen be-
cause of the three-cornered fight for
the Presidency and the possibility
that Congress may be called upon to
decide who shall fill the office.
Some believe that if the House or
Senate could not agree upon a
choice, the Nice-President now in Of
flee would become President, or the
mantle might fall upon the should
ers of the Secretary of State, under
the terms of the presidential sue
cession act.
The discussion involves constitu-
Htional provisions on the subject, and
an interesting Interpretation was
submitted recently by Professor Jas.
II. Young, director of the Wharton
School of Commerce and Finance of
the University of Pennsylvania.
An Experts Idea.
III. 1OuuS, WHO Is an instructor Oh
constitutional law and a lecturer on
politics at the university, declared
that if a majority of all the States
could not be secured in the House for
any one candidate, then the new
Vice-President would become Presi-
dent. He said the new Nice-Presi-
lent would be chosen by the Senate
lnder the law from the two candi-
dates receiving the greatest number
of votes. He would eliminate Vice
President Sherman as the presiden-
tial possibility. by virtue of the Of
flee he now holds under the contin-
gencies that might arise.
Another feature of DR.. Young's
diagnosis of the case" is his sugges-
tion that if a Vice-President is not
chosen by the Senate by noon,
March 4, as provided by law relative
to the failure Of any candidate to Sc
cure majority in the Electoral Col
lege, the clock could be stopped at
five minutes of 12, thus continuing
the legislative day into the after
moon.
The Introductory question con-
cerning the possible failure of the
ELECTORAL College or the House of
Representatives to elect a President
by a necessary majority, was an
swered by DR.. Young in conjunction
with Others that bear on the con-
stitutiOnal provisions. He was re-
minded that if the presidential cleo
tion should be thrown into Congress,
there is still the possibility of failure
by the House to elect a President,
hnd the Senate to choose a Vice
President. He was told that this
would eliminate one of the candidates
for Nice-President from the field
What Might Happen.
" In answer to the interesting
questions prOpOunded," declared Pro-
essOr Young, there are the follow
ng possibilities:
Il. Lack of a majority for any one
pr the three candidates for Presi-
dent, in which case the election
would be thrown into the House of
Representatives, and that body by a
vote of a majority of the States,
bach State having one vote, would
fhoose the President from the three
candidates having the highest cleo
oral vote.
"2. If majority OF all the States
fannOt be secured in the House for
any one candidate, then the new
Nice-President would be the Presi-
dent. That the incoming and not
he outgoing Vice-President must be
he man is shown by the history of
he twelfth amendment, adopted in
SO3. One of the chief purposes of
his amendment was, as is well
known by constitutional lawyers, to
insure that the Vice-President shall
be OF the majority party. This pur-
pose of the twelfth amendment
would be defeated if an outgoing
Rnd not an incoming Vice-President
were to fill the vacancy.
"3. If the House of Representa-
tives falls to elect a President would
he Senate be apt to fail in electing
Vice-President? Emphatically no.
t would almost seem that the franz
ers of the twelfth amendment had
looked forward to just such a pos
Bibility, because instead of requiring
the Senate to choose the Vice-Presi-
dent from the three highest candi-
dates, it provides that he shall be
chosen from the two highest. 1t is
almost unthinkable that the Senate
should be unable to agree by a ma
lorlty vote upon one of these two
persons. The Constitution provides
hat two-thirds of the Senators in
piiice shall be sufficient for a quo
Fum. There would certainly be a
Hull attendance of Senators when it
was known that the selection must
fall upon that body. 1t provides
further that majority of the whole
plumber of Senators in office shall be
necessary to choice, but / can
think Of no contingency in which it
would be impossible or even difficult
TO secure a majority vote, as be-
#ween any two OF the candidates now
unning for the office of Yice-Presi-
dent. Messrs. Johnson, Marshall
and sherman stand for such widely
variant principles that when one of
hem was eliminated from the race,
Rthe Senate as now constituted would
soon be able to make a choice.
-. But if it became apparent
that sufficient number of Senators
would absent themselves from the
XChamber to destroy the nmnrmrn II