The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1912-05-16
They See Serious Trend Toward
Roosevelt
FEAR PRESIDENT CANNOT WIN
Doubt If He Can Hold the Lead il
Delegates-The ColonePs Hypnotic
Power Is Seen in
California.

| Washington, May 49, While the Taft
| managers have not counted California
among their assets, ii would not be
showing ordinary political Judgment for
them or anyone else to try TO discount
| the sentimental effect of the Roosevelt
sweep in the Golden state Tuesday. in
his formal statement yesterday Senator
Dixon pointed ont that in the nine Re
publican states which have voted under
the presidential preference primary laws,
! the president has won only thirty dele
gates out of the 274 elected. The Cali
fornia primaries do not settle anything
as far as the relative paper strength
Of Roosevelt and Taft is concerned, for
it is true that President Taft has now
about 500 delegates whom his manager
could confidently count on If things were
going the presidents way, and needs
only about forty more to give him the
nomination Nevertheless the temper
OF voting Republicans has been plainly
indicated in the great Republican states
and it points Enthusiastically to the Pc
litical weakness of the president as. a
candidate for reelection. The preJu-
dice against the president may be I'M
just, as it is, and the popularity OF
Roosevelt won by methods to which no
other human being would resort.
This condition rather than the ac-
tual. showing of the tables is what
prompts the prophecy Of many Taft Re-
publicans that Roosevelt finally will win
at Chicago. The hypnotic power OF
Roosevelt never has been better illus
trated than in the city of San Fran
cisco. When the fate of the Panama
exposition site hung in the balance
President Taft personally took hold and
won the battle for San Francisco, there
by laying California under debt of
gratitude, which, in any but an abnormal
period, her citizens would have been
only too glad to pay.
Roosevelt Tuesday carried against
Taft not only the state of California.
but the city of San Francisco. A 10.
cal woman's club, telegraphing its con-
CALCULATIONS to Senator Dixon, accounts
for the reputation Of this debt with the
naive if not purely feminine theory that
"the voters preferred the man who got
them the canal to the man who got
them the exposition"
Senator Dixon stated yesterday morn.
ing that three OF the district delegates
from Alabama pledged to Taft have
written him that their counties had re-
versed their instructions and directed
to vote for Roosevelt, and that others
would do the same. The Roosevelt men
for weeks have counted upon betrayal
of Taft in the South and started out
with brass bands to help it along. Their
methods excited the resentment of some
of the reputable southern delegates, and
work in the open ceased, but whatever
is being done secretly, no doubt, is aided
by the Roosevelt victories in
other parts of the country.
The abieet, if not contemplate plight
OF the Republican party in Maryland
is well illustrated by the action Of the
state convention at Baltimore Tuesday
in indorsing Roosevelt in the same plat
form in which the following paragraph
1--WE recommend the able and
administration of President
Taft; his inilexible and patriotic purpose
in upholding the constitution OF the
United States, his enforcement of the
law and the sincere patriotism which
has doubtless dominated all of his Off
cial acts