The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-05-24

on the part of the ma jorfty of the delegates to it makes it imperative that he shall indicate his willingness or unwilHngness to accept the nom ination.
 The concensus of Republicans is that the Justice will not accept. De- velopments of the last few days have forced these men to the conclusion complacency the effort to nominate the Justice for the office for which he himself is now an avowed candi- date.
 The Colonel is credited here with the detern1nation> to ''baH oflt'' Hughes and Root if he finds he cannot be nominated. Then, if the Straight goods convention persists in nonli- hating either it is the present under standing that he will put a third ticket in the heldl and take a sporting chance of 'eompletely wiping the Republican party off the political map.
 Hence it is that many of the Repub- hcans who, until a week or two ago. were proclaiming the certain defeat of the Colonel in the regular nominal convention are beginning to hedge on their predictions They are not so sanguine as they were that Hughes cam be nominated even if he were to announce his candidacy for the honor Their confidence that he would be se- lected was almost wholly contingent
  Colonel.
 They are nov quite sure the Colonel will not san&tion anything of the kind, but that he will fight for the nomination himself, thereby provid- ing precisely the same situation that existed at Chicago four years ago. Tn the words of one of his chief Heuten- ants:
 The straight goods delegates must first beat T. R. After that T. R. will beat them by knocking over every man they put up until he forces them to take man they do not want Some of the Republican lea ders who are coming around to tho Roosevelt idea are convinced further that he. will not permit either Hughes or Root to be made a hero at the expense of his pride"
 A fairly complete canvass of the delegates elected so far is said bv one of the officials of the National Com nnittee to show more noise than sub stance back of the Hughes boom. '' It is the fact. that less than eighty l delegates out of the 985 have actually indicated their preference for the l justice.
 State leaders and subordinate can 1 tains who are not delegates have re- ported an unmistakable trend Of popular sentiment to the justice. This. l however, has not crystallized into anything approaching official express sions of favor from the delegates | themselves. That which is true of l the justice, however, is also true of l Roosevelt, Root and four or five others who are outside of the fla vorite son. class. Leaders who de- l sire the nomination Of Hughes, Root | Mccall, Harding and one or two other men who are expected to figure in the straight goods" convention 1
 gant clairas es +o-the popularity of heir respective candidates i Allowing for natural shrinkage a | fairly accurate estimate of actual I strength would not exceed more than 25 per cent. The colonel and his expert 4nced followers have a, full ap- l preciation of this fact. Conseouent- l the actual test comes a lot of gas will l go out of the various booms now be- i ing exploited-that is, all except the 1 Roosevelt boom. Their advice is to wait until the delegates meet before l betting on the result.
 The colonel. valiantly renouncing any political significance regarding his visit to Washington yesterday, con suited with a. lot of his admirers and appeared %to be greatly cheered by what they told him. He let them do most of the talking, and declared l Tn response 10 inquiries that he had nothing to say" But what he said yesterday was enough to encourage his followers in Congressional circles, with the result that they are talking more bravely. now than for the last two months.
 Some of the co1onePs followers be- | gan to sound out the ttfavorite sons | in the Senate-Weeks, Sherman and l Cummins@with a view of effecting combinations following the first ball. lot or two. There is reason to be-