The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-06-13
VIII Place a Tempting Bait in
the Platform.
MAY EVEN SHELvE MARSHALL
For a Man More Acceptable to
the Mavericks.
Platform To Be Shipped Direct
From Washington.
tBY JAMES J. MoNTAGUE.)

St. Louis, June 13.-How to enlist
to the support of woodrow Wilson
the $4,000 Progressive voters whom
T. Roosevelt left out on limb when
he declined their nomination, is the
single absorbing topic among the
Democrats here gathered for the COM
| ing convention.
Several plans were suggested for
roping the mavericks whom Roosevelt
has set free from entangling party al
Iiances. The first is the addition of
a platform so reliably Progressive that
VILLA m Allen White, Victor Murdoch,
Hi" johnson and the other Progress
Sive leaders will simply have to go out
On the stump for Wilson. p
The second. which comes from ia
cob H. Schiff, in the cast and Senator
Robert L. Owen, from the west, is the
nomination of Newton D. Baker, sec
rotary of war, as vice president, in
stead of Thomas Riley Marshall, pres
| ent incumbent of that office.
Why Mr.. Schiff and Senator Owen
regard Mr.. Baker a Progressive,
| they do not say. But both of them in
| Sist that his nomination would brin 6
all the former Roosevelt boys right
into the Democratic fold.
Some of the convention leaders,
among them Senator Stone, of Mis-
souri,, and Thomas Taggart, of Indiana,
sions. The plan to pick a Progressive
vice president, they said, not only i'm
Piled that Mr.. Marshall was not pro-
gressive but it even went to the bias
phemous length of intimating that
Woodrow Wilson is not progressive.
1t Is Drowned Down.
Stone and Taggart frowned down
such talk among those who preached
it. Fred Lynch, of Minnesota, the
towering strategist of the convention,
merely laughed at it In the opinion
OF these gentlemen, the ticket is go-
ing as it lies and it would be treason
TO try to start anything at this or any
| later juncture.
Stone and Taggart today got hold of
Roger Sullivan, who is here with a
vice presidential boom for himself and
would willingly quit, but hthat his fol-
lowers were very earnest about the
matter and he couldn't find it in his
! heart to pull a Roosevelt on them
At the close of the interview, how
ever, stone and Taggart told some of
the other leaders that Roger had
. promised to be reasonable when the
proper time came
Sullivan being eliminated and the
vice presidential boom of Governor
Major of Missouri, having expired
painlessly, prospect of trouble is
growing less.
Tammany is here with 500 (for
publication, 800 to be accurately shout
ers, but they don't shout. Charles
Francis Murphy heads it and today
| has been in consultation with Taggart
Stone, McCombs and several of the
other bosses, although why anybody
should confer about anything is not
possible to understand. When Mr..
Murphy was asked who would be the
nominee, he replied solemnly:
| The convention will decide
| Platform From Washington.
Senator Wagner, who has the dis
tinction of being the only Tammany
/ hall man who ever refused a fat Of
flee, declared it his belief that Wilson
would be the strongest candidate. He
went no further.
Chairman Stone of the resolutions
committee, expects by tomorrow to
have put the final touches on the plat
form, which he will do by simply go
/ ing to the telegraph office and getting
| it as it is transmitted from Wash
/ ington.
The present expectation of the plat
form committee is that there will be
much flag waying in the document but
few real utteranceS Naturally, the
second term plank will not reappear.
To save the congressman from en-
barrassment in their campaign the
platform will announce that the party
! believes in the existence OF woman
suffrage (pause for cheers), but holds
| that this is a matter for the states to
| determine for themselves. This was
exactly the trick worked by Henry
/ Cabot Lodge when reading exactly
/ the same kind of a plank to the Re.
publicans.
/ Special stress will be laid on the de.
sertion of the bench by the Repub.
! lican candidate and that such an &C.
! ton is regarded by the Democratic
party as unworthily dragging the
bench through the mire of politics