The Washington herald., 1920-06-07
Sproul Looming
In Party Talk
OF DARK Horse
Belief Growing Convention
Certain to Pick Compro-
mise Choice.
ny REDERIC WILLIAM VILE.
(PubIic Ledger service.)

Chicago. June 6.-Sunday has been
ja day OF supreme guesswork on can
didates run riot. The convention at
this stage is like nothing so much
Ias flock of shepherdless sheep. 1t
seems ready to follow any lead.
Whose crook will show the way. and
to whose standard the way will lead.
remains as problematical tonight
within forty-eight hours of the con-
vention opening-as it has ben for
The past three months.
Two concrete developments mark
ed the days orgy OF gossip and
prophecy. One was the arrival Of
the Charles L. Hughes boom, a
shrinking violet hitherto, though not
altogether an unnoticed sprout in
the Republican nursery. 1t was
brought to Chicago formally and Of
ficially by William r. Wilcox, OF
New York. Republican national
chairman in 1916 and piloter of Mr..
Hughes fortunes in that iIl-starred
campaign.
sproul Boom Thriyes.
The other new turn in tho situa-
tion is the unmistakable attention
tha the movement for Gov. Sprouts
nomination Is beginning to attract.
With Senator Penrose's inability to
be at the convention in person, the
Knox candidacy has lost appreciably
In. magnitude and impressiveness.
Today 1t is Sproul, not Knox, who
Is talked of for the nomination, If
the fates decree that the standard
|bearership for 1920 is to be bestowed
upon man from the keystone State
The chances of both Hughes and
Sproul. of course. are predicted
upon the theory that tho conven-
tion must and will nominate a
compromise candidate. Mr.. Hughes
lost In 1916 by the merest fiuke.
1t was Senator Hiram W. John
son. not the candidate himself,
who was to blame Cor the party S
defeat.
IL Mr.. Huges was good enough
to carry the Republican colors
four years ago, nothing has hap
pened In the interval to make him
any less eligible in 1920. Those,
and other reasons in kind, were
advanced today in his behalf Ar
guments in rebuttal could be
heard. too.
They did not question Mr..
Hughes Republican respectability.
They sprang from considerations
OF practical politics. Could he hope
to win even the half-hearted sup
port of Johnson and the radical
phalanx which the vociferous
Californian pretends to command? T?
Men who favor Hughes on personal
grounds question his availability
because of the lurking fear that
johnson would stab him ruthlessly.
What Injuries SprouL.
The stereotyped reasons are ad-
vanced against the wisdom of
nominating Gov. Sproul. He comes
from State that would be Re-
publican for a yellow dog" is the
commonest argument "Pennsylva-
MA is too conspicuously Identified
with a high protective tariff" is
another. Sprouts father-in-Iaw
owned a non-union shipyard," is
still a third anti-SprouI obserya-
ton. And, finally. ii is urged as an
objection that he has no reputa-
tion outside of his own State.
Although rivals and outsiders in
sist upon eliminating them, nothing
could be further from the truth than
the belief that either Wood, John
son, Lowden or Harding consider
themselves candidates for the has
been class. Probably hope springs
eternal in the Lowden breast than
among the other three aspirants
just named. though the johnson
forces are putting up a tremendous
show of cocksureness.
Gov. Lowden is represented as
feeling thathe hastriumphantly rid
den the storm of the campaign
funds expose-that II did its worst.
which was bad enough, but that IL
has failed to sink him. His friends
areeager to produce convincing
only sure-to-win candidate in sight.
Look for Big Gains.
They bank confidently on accre-
tions to thenormal Lowden strength
from the ranks of both Wood and
johnson. because they have clean
consciences on the subject of pre-
convention antagonism. They have,
they say,,engendered by far the few
est of such rancors. The one con-
siderable thorn in the Lowden side
lis the hostility of Mayor, William
Hale Thompson of Chicago.
Defeated by the Lowden candidate
for the Illinois national committee
shin, Senator Lawrence Y. Sherman.
Mayor Thompson will seek ruthless
revenge by voting his seventeen
Cook County delegates against
Lowden In the convention, FIRST, last.
and all the time.
They are to be handed over at first
I learn. to Gen. Wood because Wood
won in the Chicago and Cook Coun-
ty primaries. II oWod's star takes
the descendant course, Thompson
will lead his votes into >Johnson,s
column on the ground that 10000
Cook County voters wrote in the
Californian.s name on the primary
ballots.
The Lowdenites. too. are probably.
more upset than they care to admit
over the hullaballoo that Thomp-
sons organized henchmen in Chica-
go will raise for Johnson In the con-
yention galleries. Johnson IL rely
ing heavily on the whoop for the
Thompson gang to set up In the COL
iseum at the psychological moment.
1t can be chronicled with full re-
gard to the actual facts that Low
den's stock has risen perceptibly fn
during the week end There