The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-05-21
POLITICAL BOSSES
 .OF DEMOCRATS ARE. GOING AFI[:seSiiiii'AOOO
Palmer Is In Line Them, But Issx1 from
 Being Al sn cd of the Nomination
By CLINTON w. GILBERT

By CLINTON w. GILBERT Copyright by Public Ledger Co.,. 1s2o.)
 Washington, May 20.-The Murphy -Taggart-Lynch combi- nation is making a stand for it's life.
 It cannot indure another democratic administration like the two Wilson administrations which did not recognize it's right to patronage.
 And it does not intend to make an- other mistake such as it made in 1912, only to find that President Wilson did not recognize agreements made by agents. Palmer forces are allied with the combination, but with a different motive, that of nominating Palmer as president.
 This time the democratic machine, which controls many delegates at the convention, but few electoral votes. in- tends to have Mir. McAdoos bond be- fore it consents to his nomination. That is what the so-called anti-McAdoo combination means.
 In this combination are Charles
 F. Murphy of New York, the Tam
 many boss; Thomas Taggart of In-
 .aI
 sota, the successor of Roger suli-
 van of Illinois; Judge Connolly of
 Michigan, Marsh of Iowa, Camden
 of Kentucky, Governor Cox of Ohio
 and Governor Edwards of New Jer-
 sey, and allied with it are the
 Palmer forces.
 These men among them control about 430 votes. There may be a few access sions from other states. there may be a few losses when they get down to balloting if Mir McAdoo holds out that long against the array of machine power, but as it takes only 365 votes to prevent a nomination, the alliance feels that it has the power to prevent MT. McAdoo's nomination if he does not "come through.
 M'ADOO IS INTANGIBLE
 Mir. McAdoo is peculiarly intan- gible candidate When man says, T am not a candidate" when he really does not lift his finger to get the nomi- nation, and MT. McAdoo is not lifting his, it is difficult to go to him and say, this is contract by which you agree to recognize us in distributing patronage. sign here"
 The same combination has an ex- perience dealing with agents in 1912. Before supporting Woodrow Wilson at that time they went to William F. Me- Combs and wanted an understanding that they would be recognized in the matter of patronage within their own states if Mir Wilson should be elected president. MT. McComps made the nec- essary undertaking. MT. Wilson, be- coming president, repudiated the un- dertaking and repudiated MT. McCombs along with it.
 MT. McAdoo being part of the Will son administration, was stony-face to the gentlemen who delivered their votes as per contract The Boy Scouts" the young Wilson democrats in New York, got the appointments in New York instead of the fayorites of the Tammany boss And ther has been more or less of row between Charles F. Murphy and MT. McAdoo ever since. NEW YORK UNCOMMITTED
 New York is still on the reservation. At the recent state convention MT. Murphy's band of democrats neglected to commit themselves to support MT. Wilson on the league covenant. On the other hand, MT. McAdoo gives no sign that being a candidate has changed his attitude toward Tammany. A fed eral judge had to be appointed in New York state. Attorney General Palmer recommended candidate agreeable to MT. Murphy and the combine of bosses, but the President sent in the name of MT. Cooper who was a law partner of ex- Congressman Lunn. who made the fight against the unit rule in the recent democratic convention and, consequent ly against Boss Murphy.
 MT. McAdoo and his friends, espe- cially Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt, were credited with supporting MT. Cooper. Moreover, Mir. Roosevelt will renew the fight at Chi : cago against the unit rule in an at tempt to break Mtrphy's control over New York's big vote. This does look as if the Murphy Taggart-Lynch heirs of Roger Sullivan were getting far in threatening MT. McAdoo.
 HAS NO CANDIDATE
 The weakness of this combina-
 tf0n is that it has not any real can-
 didate with whom to beat McAdoo.
 In it are at least three democratic
 candidates for the presidency-At-
 torney General Palmer, Governor
 Cox and Governor Edwards. Hut
 the Murphy-Tnggnrt-Ly crowd has no hope of nominating any of
 them.
 All these men are attracted into
 the combination by reason of the fact that they see in it the only possible way of heading off Me- Adoo, and hope that somehow out of it will come their own nOmIna- tiOns or perhaps in the case of Cox n nomination for the vice presi- dency.
 Attorney General Palmer has a fur l ther object. His political relations with McAdoo are strained. The Cooper ap- pointment in New York is only re- ! cent incident McAdoo came out against 1 Palmer on the coal strike. The issue is l sharp between them. Unless the com bine gets its contract Palmer is not 1 likely to fare better under McAdoo as president than Murphy fared under Me- Adoo as secretary of the treasury. l McAdoo is the coolest thing in the way of a presidency seeker ever seen. Perhaps he is no impressed with the democratic prospects of success. But he has kept out of the primaries. He has given the of them every chance in the world to run away with the prize be- tfore the convention met. He is likely Ito remain unperturbed by the threat of Palmer, patronage hunter, to hold up his nomination pending the signing of | a, contract.