Great Falls daily tribune., 1920-06-20
GREAT FALLS DAILY TRIBUNE
oMsMARR66zE EDITORIAL PACE LfaD&& @aA
LEONARD c. DIEHL
Business Manager
EDITORIAL PAGE

sane and balanced judgment, the same SOBER
ness of demeanor the same conservatism OF
speech. They look upon him as safe man, a
man who can be depended upon to steer a
straight course in the difficult waters of this
complex time, man who has no fantastic no.
tions, but who is actuated by plain common
sense And his conduct in the senate supports
that view. He is never firebrand, never loud
mouthed, never rhetorical. He speaks calmly,
plainly and to the point, and as he speaks so he
does"
According to the st. Louis Republican organ,
the candidate will not set the world afire. 1t
thinks he resembles Mckinley who let Mark
Hanna and his friends run his administration
and pay his debts for him with federal
patronage. But the st. Louis Republican or
gan will also support him.
The Springfienld Republican, an Independent
paper with no party affiliations or obligations
takes this view of the Republican national con-
vention's selection of a presidential candidate 1t
says: "In choosing the presidential candidate
the delegates seem to have amounted to just
about what Harry Daugherty said they would.
Before the Ohio primaries last spring Mr.. Dau-
gherty, Senator Harding's Ohio manager, and a
candidate for delegate-at-large on the Harding
primary slate, made this public prediction:-
"At the proper time after the Republican ma
tonal convention meets, some Is men, bleary
eyed with loss of sleep and perspiring profusely
with the excessive heat, will sit down in seclu-
sion around big table and they will select the
candidate who will then be nominated by the de-
legates in open convention"
The startling accuracy of Mr. Daugherty's s
prediction is now being commented upon from
one end of this country to the other. 1t is in
disputab1e that on Friday night, with the con-
vention in deadlock after four ballots, Mr..
Harding's chances for the nomination were re-
garded by the great body of the delegates as
negligible. Mr.. Harding himself just before
midnight must have believed that his nomination
was exceedingly remote, for he then ordered fill
ed with the secretary of state at Columbus, O.,
the papers necessary to qualify him as a candi-
date for reelection to the United States senate
A small group of men, however, probably not
over Is in number, in the secusion of Chicago
hotel, were then deciding that he should be nomi-
mated for president and nominated he was on
the following day. The nomination was put
across on Saturday. Had it not been, the dele
gates would have had to wait over until Monday
It was hot and uncomfortable in sticky dirty
Chicago. The rates charged in the Chicago
hotels were staggering. These facts made the
delegates want to go home. They always want
to go home after five or six days of it. In that
mood the convention met on Saturday, and any
minor candidate who could show a steady, cen.
sistent gain from below 100 votes, on the sue
cessive ballots, was sure to be the man of des
tiny before sundown. He proved to be Warren
G. Harding of Marion, Ohio
In closing this symposium of newspape,
opinion, excluding Democratic papers, which are
extremely critical of course, we quote from the
report of the special correspondent of the New
York Times, independent Democratic,) who
says: "In Democratic national circles the nomi.
nation of Harding coupled with the platform or
which he has been named was received with un
mistakeable jubilation. 1t was hailed by pro-
minent leaders in the party, among them mer
close to the White House, as a triumph for re-
dictionary policies at Chicago and return to con.
troll of the party of Lincoln, Grant, and Roose
welt by the stand-pat element in the senate.
Republican leaders have of course, left Wash
ington and most of them have been attending
the convention. The disposition among Repub
cans generally was to regard the nomination as
an excellent solution of the very difficult situa.
| tion which faced the party at Chicago Harding
enthusiasts were optimistic and argued that the
Ohio senator would enter the campaign with
| fewer handicaps than the other prominent can
| didates."