The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-03
SEES DARK HORSE
 FOR REPUBLICANS
By HOLLAND

New 1crk, Aprii Z.-(Speclai. )-Mary Garrett Hay, who is chairman of the ex-
 vision of the republicans national com
 mittee, has spoken with more frank
 ness than any other member of the com
 mittee has felt willing to do, when refer | ing to the nomination for President which | the convention will make in June. Miss
 Hay has said for publication that the
 nominee will be a man not now President. Miss Hay is regarded by her associates
 on the committee as a very shrewd politi- clan. She is capable of making a care
 ful investigation, and of judging accur- ately conditions which her political in-
 ion that those republicans who are now so prominently mentioned as candidates
 for the nomination will gradually be
 passed by and out of the fog and chaos
 will be occasioned by the elemination of Lone or the other and finally off all of l the prominent candidates, will come a man who will receive the support of the l convention. It is known that other mem- | bers of the committee are inclined to
 take the view which Miss Hay has so
 frankly expressed. But while she speaks with frankness, they are silent.
 | The suspicion is strong that Miss Hay may have in mind Nicholas Murray But | Ter as the dark horse who will at last tri- J umph Dr. Butler is himself master 1 politician. He understands politics as an i art and as science, and he also knows
 how to play the game. He would have | been elected governor of New York in '92 ~'nation was offered to
 him with the statement that it represent l ed substantially the unanimous views ! or the republican leaders of the state. A | republican nomination for governor was
 that year equivalent to an election. But |! pr. Butler had just begun service as 1 presid --,i,,arsitv and h. said that he felt that it would not be 1 fair to abandon the university at that
 time to take up a political career
 Some time in the summer of last year
 pr. Butler was persuaded by his friends | to begin trans-continental speaking tour. The first address was to be in Cal | ifcrnia and subsequent addresses were
 to be made upon an itenerary which cov-
 cred the continent from west to east He
 was later called to Boston. He was in- | vited to address the Ohio Society in New | York, and so spoke as to command the attention of the great company who heard | if. He has spoken in the middle west | and recently has been speaking in the south.
 All of the addresses Dr. Butler has made have revealed profound understand | ing not only of political conditions, using | the word political in it's highest sense and also good understanding what the right relation between those who receive wages and those who pay them should 1 be, and furthermore he has revealed hsal- self to be master of some of the finan- cial problems which are now before Con- gress. No more profound argument in favor of the adoption of the budget sys- tenn by the government has been made by any one than Dr. Butler did make in one of his recent addresses
 Therefore, if it so happens that out of the fog there should at last emerge at the republican convention the personality irto ably be said that the campaign in favor 1 of his nomination was wisely made. It involved little expense. Furthermore a spontaneously organized committee has been actively engaged by correspondence, and in other ways in making appeals in behalf of Dr. Buffers nomination This work has been carried on at comparative lysmall expense, but the correspondence
 has reached many parts of the country. Frequently it has been said by some leading politicians that while they are committed to other candidates neverthe- less they would gladly welcome Dr. But l Ter as the presidential candidate of the | republicans. His experience in handling l the enormous finances of Columbia Uni | verslty his upbulding of that university until it now has become in numbers per I haps the first, certainly the second
 largest university in the world. are | spoken of as some of the qualifications
 which fit him for the presidential office. | The question is. however, whether the progressive republicans would take ksadly | to his nomination. He was one of ths 1 strongest of the so-called stand parrers. It was no small part due to his own
 work that the presidential convention of 1912 was saved from the assault of the progressiyes and President Taft was in that way renomnated. Some people think
 Dr. Butler is high brow.' a cordial
 and acceptable associate with those who
 possess great wealth. but he is only high brow in the sense that he recogn-~sr great ability no matter if that ability
 be possessed by a man who has achieved greatly or by a younger man who gives promise achievement. These are believed
 to be some of the reasons why Miss Hay is persuaded that the presidential candi- date of the republicans is to be a man not now prominently mentioned, and this now comparative inconspicuous repub- 1 lican will be Nicholas Murray Butler. It was inevitable that occasional refer ence be made by those who oppose the nomination of General Wood for Presi- dent to the fact that he was compelled some years ago to submit to an operation for the removal of the cause of a trouble which still manifests itself in a noticeable stiffness of his left leg General Woods friends are believed here to have done wisely to make full report of the opera ton, telling that 1t entailed the removal
 
 skull and was probably due to an ac cident It did undoubtedly leave a slight impairment in his walk. But there is
 no doubt that the physical vigor of the general fully matches his intellectual vgor and that is unimpaired.
 i Now that the facts respecting the oper- ation have been made public it is possible to report that it was confidentially un- derstood at Washington when the war was in progress that the only reason why General Wood was not permitted to go abroad was the unfounded apprehension that his health might not be equal to the severe strain which service upon the bat tlefeld would entail. Of course, this reason was not an appropriate one for for the Washington authorities to gre. Only few have known of the fact and those who did know of 1t have always felt that the Washington authorities were over-apprehensive, although they may have been justified in their belief that no one but a man of absolutely perfect nfa1 ehn