Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-10-30
INTEREST REVIVAL
IN LEAGUE ISSUE
WILL AFFECT RACE
Any Calculations Made Prior
to October 5 Will Have to.
Be Revised, Says David
aWrnnCe
Lawrence
By DAVID LAWRENCE
Ceased Wire Service in The Journal.)
(CODvripht 1000

gave Woodrow Wilson his victory in
toral votes. Previously the big east
| ern states-New York, New Jersey,
Indiana, Ohio and Illinois, together
with New England, were sufficient to
tell everybody on election night that
the race was over.
The big question this year is
whether there is any combination
Of votes whereby Governor Cox can
win the presidency. Senator Harding
has been picked by most everybody
to win chiefly because Of the tradi-
tional habit of America to change
administrations every few years. But
the Democrats have managed to force
the League of Nations to the front
as an issue with remarkable success
in the last fifteen days, and any
calculations made by the writer or
anybody else as early as October i,
are necessarily subject to revision
at the last moment.
When this correspondent visited
every state west Of the Mississippi
with one or two exceptions, he re-
'ported, after an investigation of thir-
ty days, that there were only few
states-Utah, Montana and Nevada
WHEREIN the Democratic nominee for
the presidency had a good chance. IN
order to determine whether these
states still are safe for Cox and
whether any others have been added
| to the list, the writer has sent tele-
grams to almost every man in the
west in whose judgment he can place
reliance and has asked that the re-
plies be sent in asspecified code so
that men working on Democratic
newspapers or in the Democratic or
ganization or those employed in the
Republican camp would have no hest
fancy in expressing over the tele-
graph wire. their own confidential
and innermost judgment.
Extraordinary Factors
These kilograms are coming in and
the results will be embodied in to-
morrow's dispatch. AS for the stu
alton east of the Mississippi river.
by the writer in the last thirty days,
several factors stand out as extraor-
binary:
First-The heavy registration Of
women has made it doubtful wheth-
er in some states everybody will
period that the polls are open. On
| account Of the congestion at the
polls, especially in states where no
provision has been made to handle
| the crowds, many votes will not be
| cast at all.
Second-The negro vote in the
northern states is better organized
than it ever has been. In some of
the border states feeling is not al
| together pleasant over the way the
negroes have been modified by the
Republicans and it is not altogether
a certainty whether in cases where
| the Democrats control the election
machinery there will be time enough
| for the negroes to vote though in
| certain cities where the Republicans
| have control just the reverse is apt
| to be the case and many whites may
| not get chance to vote. The race
| question unfortunately enters into
lathe calculation of certain important
| states.
Woman vote Uncertain
Third-The true effect of the en-
| franchisement OF women throughout
| the nation is the most uncertain
quantity in the whole situation. Po-
| liticians profess to know how the
| women will vote but they don't. No
| political leader in all the states that
| the writer visited was able to pros
duce a canvass of the feminine vote
| which could be considered complete.
Time and again the canvass of the
masculine vote has been accomplish
| ed with such accuracy in advance OF
the election that the result has va
ried but little from the offiial result.
Most editors and political leaders
agree, however, that the women will
merely double the Republican OF
| Democratic vote or increase 1t by at
least so per cent. AS the husband
| votes, so votes the wife. mats the
| more experience with woman sui
| frage for many years uphold that
| view vet in Indiana, Kentucky, West
Virginia and even Ohio it has been
| admitted by politicians that perhaps
the League of Nations has made
more women voters independent of
party lines than at first expected.
| In West Virginia, Indiana, Ohio.
New York and New Jersey there has
/ been q noticeable revival of inter-
League of Nations, wider reading
| of the covenant than was believed
possible on a question that has so
often been dismissed by the profeS-
| sional politicians as dead or WITH
the statement, that the people are
Fourth-Another remarkable thing
| is that while the street talk and
| club talk and smoking car gossip
and newspaper talk has constituted
an apparent wave of antl-W llsonlsm;
| the casual mention of the name Of
woodrow Wilson in meetings hello
by the Democrats have not been met
with silence or a few scattered
handclaps, but by Spontaneous out
bursts of applause. The Democrats
surprised by the demonstrations and
| don't know whether to interpret 1t
as a feeling of sympathy for the
man who has broken down IN health
| in his end eavors to serve the peo-
! pie as he thought best, or whether
to regard it as an indication of Dem
ocratic strength at the polls.
wilson's Judgment Vindtcated
Fifth-The economic situation has
had so many puzzling DEVELOPMENTS
prices have dropped so materially
r, and unemployment has come SO
suddenly in many cities that in more
than one case are suspicious ex-
pressed that the shut down has
conspiracy of intimidating labor. on
the other hand. in the rural dis
tricts the fall in the price of
wheat and the general decline OF
! livestock prices has stirred up the
! tariff issue and made friends for
the Republican tariff program. The
reader himself probably has noticed
that Senator Harding has evidently
been told of this sentiment for he
has devoted two or three statements
to it lately. Moreover the rising
tide of interest in the League of
| Nations has been met by the Repub-
| lcans in the last two weeks by cams
paign speeches from such friends Of
| the league as Herbert Hoover. Will
| liam Howard Taft and Elihu Root.
The attack has been against Article