Great Falls daily tribune., 1920-05-22
THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION.

davs the few remaining delegates will be chosen.
However, enough have been already chosen SO
that it can be said that majority or all the
convention delegates are uninstructed VI the
instructed delegates, General Wood leads with
about 145 votes. Hiram johnson follows with
100 instructed votes. Lowden comes next with
78 votes Then there are lot of favorlte sons
with few instructed votes. But all the instruct
ed votes put together are less than half the con-
vention, and no one has one-third of the number
of instructed votes it will take to get the NOM
nation. AS there are 948 votes in the conven-
ton it will take 478 to nominate. Johnson would
have to pick up 37S votes to capture the prize.
It would seem impossible that he can get that
many from the uninstructed delegates or from
the other candidates. While General Wood has
a slightly larger number Of instructed delegates
and better chance to gain votes from the unln-
structed delegates it seems to us that he Is also
very unlikely to win the coveted nomination. VI
course, both Wood and Johnson managers have
it figured out that they will win on the third or
fourth ballot. That is always the case prior to
the test votes and until nomination is reached.
Each candidate through his manager claims the
earth What Republican national convention
will bring forth no man may say. Our guess
would be that it will be dark horse, or one OF
the minor candidates like Governor Coolidge OF
Massachusetts who has not antagonlzed the otn-
er candidates in his efforts to get delegates. Fer
hans there is mere interest in the chances OF
Herbert Hoover among the rank and file OF the
Republican voters than exists on behalf OF any
of the other candidates. Yet as far IS we know
he has not single delegate pledged to vote tor
his nomination. That in itself would not be so
fatal lack were it not for the fact that he has
no friends among the powerful Republican lead
ers who control large blocks of the uninstructed
delegates. The straw votes taken generally
show that Mr.. Hoover is popular among the Re-
publican voters, and for that matter among the
Democratic voters also But Mr.. Hoover is not
politician. Moreover he listened to bad advice
when he pledged himself not to accept Demo-
cratic nomination. That is, it was bad advice If
he cared to be elected to the White House. Per-
haps he does not. All along he has said he was
not to be considered candidate for this honor,
though lately he has been acting very much like
a candidate. At any rate he has made it impos-
sble for the Democrats to nominate him, or for
him to accept Democratic nomination if they
were willing to give it to him. And he has been
pretty well eliminated from any possibility of
success in the Republican convention. Those
who really wanted him to be the next president
played pretty poor politics when they got him to
come out and contest California with Hiram
Johnson in the Republican primaries His best
course was to have continued as he commenced
by asserting independence of all partisan obliga-
tions. He would have had quite as good chances
of nomination by the Republican convention as
he now has, and a whole lot better chance of be-
ing nominated by the Democrats. To our mind
Hoover is down and out now as presidential
possibility in the coming election.
Among the candidates who have potential
strength among the unpledged delegates, it will
be well to keep your eye on Governor Lowden of
Illinois. He is the only one, outside of Wood and
Johnson, who showed any strength outside his
own home state in the primary elections. 1t is
said that he is the real choice Of the big business
interests who furnish campaign funds for the Re-
publican party, instead of General Wood, who
seemed their favorite. Be that as it may, Gov
ernor Lowden stands better chance of captur-
ing the prize at Chicago than either Senator
Johnson or General Wood, in our opinion, though
he has less pledged delegates than either of
them. If it is not Lowden then in our opinion it
will be dark horse or at least dappled grey
horse like Governor Coolidge of Massachusetts,
However, as all signs fail in dry year, and
this is the first national convention to meet since
the country went dry, we are not setting up as
prophet Our guess is merely guess, and so is
that of those who make more pretention of
knowledge about the outcome at the Chicago
convention. It is drawing near now and we
shall see what we shall see.