The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-05-16
BY J. BART CAMPBELL. I. N. s. Staff CorreSpondent.


 Harrisburg, Pa, May 16-The wo- men of Pennsylvania are Keeping the old time politicians guessing today IS they have seldom had to guess be- fore For tomorrow the women of 1 Pennsylvania will go to the polls in l the first state wide primary contest in which they have had the right to participate since they were given the ballot.
 They may or may not upset the conflicting calculations and predic tions as the vote Clifford Pinchot one time Roosevelt progressive and At torney General George B. Alter his opponent for the Republican guber- material nomination, will poll as result of one of the bitterest Repub- Iican factfonal fights ever waged in the tempestuous political history of | this state.
 Unknown Quantity. But whether they do or do not, they are an unknown quantity Which is l keeping the shrewdest and oldest Po- l litical sharps of the Cameron-Quay- Penrose school on tender hooks of | uncertainty.
 The Alter supporters, who include a strange combination of former Pen rose and anti-Penrose leaders are hoping that the women will not turn out in force. Their spokesmen are depending upon twice as many men as women to go to the polls.
 If they can only keep down the womens vote, they frankly admit,
 
 ing up majorities for him in Phila- delphia, in Pittsburgh, ample to off set the sweep of the interior counties which they already concede to Pin chot.
 Nor is it denied by the Alter spokesmen that Pinchot, the former personal friend and ally of Theodore Roosevelt, is himself giving them as bad a scare as are the women.
 Helpful to Pinchot.
 The factionaI strife that has been going on necessarily within the ranks of the professional Republican poli- Of Boies Penrose has not only been helpful to Pinchot but was largely responsible for his gubernatoria1 can didacy developing quickly from in significant to formidable proportions, from what the old line politicians at first regarded as a joke to what they now concede is a serious propost- ton.
 Roosevelt sweep of Pennsylvania in 1912 when Roosevelt boiled 444,894, Wilson 395. .637 and Taft 273,360 votes, an unexpected jolt from which Penrose and his machine never real ly recovered. They profess to find comfort in recalling how Penrose himself defeated Pinchot badly in the senatorial contest of 1914 when Pen rose received 519,810 and Pinchot 269,265 votes, although conditions were obviously different than from what they are now, for Penrose was alive and Keeping the whip hand on his organization.
 The old Penrose machine is now creaking and cracking from the lack of real leadership. Some of those who were conspicuously identified with it notably Joseph R. Grundy, president of the Pennsylvania Manu- facturers' Association when Penrose was still on the job have turned in for Pinchot not because they love him more but because they love Alter and Governor w. c. Sproul, one of bis chief packers, less.
 Depend on Ware.
 Those of the old Penrose machine who are backing Alter are occupying the strange position of being com pelled to depend largely upon State Senator Edwin H. Ware, and his brother, Congressman William S. Ware, the Philadelphia Republican leaders who were as antagonistic to Penrose as he was to them, to pile up a vote in that city which will in sure Alters nomination. The. Wares are predicting that Philadelphia will give Alter a. majority of at least 150,- 900 with the help of their one time anti-Penrose organization. State Senator Leslie. of Pittsburgh, a for mer Penrose lieutenant, claims that Allegheny county will hand Alter majority of from 5O,000 to S00O0. These figures are disputed by some of Pinchot's chief supporters who in sist that Ee will reach Philadelphia