Evening star., 1920-07-01
CUMMINGS GAINS
|NSTRONG FIGHT
AGAINST M'AD00
Men Pledged to Former Sec
retary Say They May Turn
to Chairman.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 1.-Combina-
! tions work both ways. One hears it
outlined in menacing proportions that
combination of votes has been col
1ected which will prevent McAdoo
from getting the necessary two-thirds
This sort of talk proceeds naturally
and inevitably from the camps of the
opposing candidates who recognize
that McAdoo is in the lead and that
s4fyf Head must be cut down before
ba1loting actually starts in order to
brighten the prospects of their own
sion as the successive ballots are
taken.
But-a the veto on McAdoo is con-
siderable. SO is the veto held by the
McAdoo forces over any other candi-
date. The strength of the fcrmer
vention is of the crusading. kind that
won for Wilson at Baltimore in 1912.
His supporters will stick.
For the existence of an anti-com
a desire rather than actuality. One of
the so-called organization bosses from
ia midwestern state is commonly re-
ported to be part of the coalition to
defeat McAdoo. Today he was in
conference with a McAdoo manager
McAdoo after few early ballots.
Cummihgs' Strength Grows.
Unquestionably the movement for
Homer Cummings of Connecticut is
the most serious factor affecting the
chances of William Gibbs McAdoo.
Scattering strength for Cummings is
making its appearance in delegations
country. Men pledged to McAdoo are
reported to be saying that if their
own candidate cannot win they will
be glad to go over to Cummings at
the psychological moment
:. This is a a species les: Of convention
ton politics. 1t is the effort at trad
ing delegations for expected patron
age if the nominee of the convention
should win the election Delegates
who have been in politics for years
rarely play just one candidate. They
always throw an anchor to windward
and get in on the ground floor with an
expected winner, especially dark
horse.
Then they usually insist that the
nomination was due to their strategy
Woodrow Wilson has been told again
and again how the deciding votes
were cast for him in the famous 1912
convention.
Ozark Horse" Trading.
So a great deal of the talk of a
dark horse can be attributed to an
early desire to begin trading on the
future, especially if deadlock is in
prospect. Now it is obviously impos-
sible to tell how the delegates will
vote after the first two or three bal
lots. The leaders have made mathe-
matical calculations to their own
satisfaction. but the trouble about
tabulating the vote in advance of the
balloting is that the preponderance
of strength is with McAdoo,t and
there is an undercurrent of support
which is Enthusiastically ready to go to
him whenever it looks as if he will
be the winner.
If the McAdoo forces hold tight
they will get up to 600 votes and
push their candidates to the neces
sary 72S. But the McAdoo strength
will develop slower than that of any
other candidate.
will stick to him longer than most
people have anticipated. The Cox
Headers and delegates aren't going to
give up without real struggle. Some
| talk is heard of promising the vice
should get to 500, and then making
serious effort to acquire Ohio 8
votes and others sympathetic with
Cox to make the final 12SSto put NC
Adoo across the two-thirds margin.
Murdock for Vice President.
On the other hand, the Cox people
at this stage of the game aren't
thinking about the vice presidency.
and some McAdoo supporters insist
| that if McAdoo is named, Victor MUIR
| dock of Kansas, former bull moose
leader, shall run for Vice President II
| It's all very we'll to talk about
coalitions, but the democratic national
convention of 1920 is not very easily
controlled except on the issue of
Wilson or anti-Wilson. There isn't
| a one-third veto against the Wilson
forces in this convention. If McAdoo
isn't named, some out-and-out Wilson
man will be.
The people who are supposed to have
| formed an anti-McAdoo combination
would not sustain such a move if Pal
| mer and Cox have apparently lost out
For then the common foe-the anti-ad-
ministration candidates-would be trot-
ted forth. If McAdoo cannot win. the
convention will be indefinitely dead
locked.
= lCQpyrght. 1901 --.-..-