Evening star., 1924-06-11
Fears Expressed Wheat
Price Charges Might
Injure Chances.
VETERANS WANT
EX-SERVICE NAN
BOOn,s for HarbOrd and
Hines ShosU Gains
! Among Delegates.
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

June 11.-Calvin Coolidge remains in
silent command Of the situation at
Cleveland. Externally everything is in
a state of flux. The committee on reso-
lutions has been in more or less con-
tinuous session on platform plans. All
night conferences of leaders on the
vice presidency apparently leave that
puzzle still unsolved. Yet. despite
these surface indications, it is beyond
question that final decisions rest, as
they have rested from the beginning
with the President. When the White
House unsheathes It's mighty sword
every Gordian knot at Cleveland will
be cut with magical swiftness.
The platform will be submitted to
the convention before the day is over.
perhaps violent opposition from the
Ia Follette contingent, will ensue in
due course. 1t will be a Coolidge plat
form from cellar to garret. If there
is pro-this or anti-that plank in it. it
VIII be because the President wilIed il.
1t is Calvin Coolidge that is to stand
ana run on the structure here this
DAY set up. He insists that it shall
De such foundation as will bear him
se5cu[ely, Sec logically and defensibly. The
I L.
therefore. be wholly Coolidgesque.
Doubt on Second Place.
The vice presidential nomination
an utterly unprecedented situation in
a national neutrality-suspicious. to be
the only real bone OF contention.
In the hotel rooms of John w.
Weeks, Secretary of War. there sat
during the night a conference of ad-
ministration leaders and friends that
celebrated Blackstone Hotel war coun-
Icil at Chicago in 1920. The name
OF Herbert Hoover figured most con-
spicuously in their deliberations. The
question of drafting him was the
main topic of discussion. A certain
influential member of the cabinet.
every member OF which except
Hughes and Hoover is now in CIeve-
land, stated categorically that Hoo
yer viii take it," For the most
part, that assurance, bearing every
evidence of authority, ended the de-
bate. That Hoover is acceptable TO
coolidge is taken for granted. That
ne would strengthen the ticket is
dckno"leuged on practically all
hands. But the friends of other as
plrants are not ready to let the nom
lnatlon go to Hoover by default, or
| merely at administration behest
There, for the moment. the situation
hangs.
Consider Soldier Vote.
1t is the so-called soldier vote that
demands that the White House con-
tingent stop, look and listen before
giving second place to the Secretary
OF Commerce. Coolidge's sole weak
ness, from the legion standpoint, is
the danger that his bonus attitude
will cost him hundreds of thousands
Of service mems votes. That is the
reason that two soldiers. Mai. Gen.
James G.. Harbord, Pershing's chief
of stan in France, and Brig Gen
Frank I. Hines, director of the Vet
erans' Bureau, are being ardently
supported for the vice presidency.
They both qualify as westerners.
Harbord is now president of the
Radio Corporation of America and
lives in New York, but he was a Kan
American self-made record He is
described as the idol of the dough-
boys. Hines is Utah man. also with
record like Harbord's of rising from
the ranks of both private and Army
life. Hines enjoys the support of Sem
ator Reed Smoot, which, even amid
the total senatorial eclipse which is
the outstanding astronomical fact at
Cleveland, is not without potency.
Such senatorial influence as still
shows flickers Of life at the conven-
tion-"Jim' Watson of Indiana. for
examples making a valiant effort
to secure the vice presidential nomi-
nation for Senator Curtis of Kansas
Second place for the Republican whip
of the Senate would be sign to the
whole political universe that that re-
calcitrant branch of the government
is yet a power to be reckoned with in
G. o. p. councils. That consideration
is the handspring Of the Curtis boom.
1t is bolstered by the contention that
the kanSan, who is now chairman or
the committee on rules, would be an
ideal presiding officer of the Senate,
and both less inexperienced and color
less in that post than either Hoover,
Harbord or Hines.
Still Talk Of Lowden.
There is ceaseless chatter about
drafting Borah or Kenyon, and of
compelling" Lowden to renounce his
remuneration. Nor has the talk of
Marion Leroy Burton, who tomorrow
will place Coolidge in nomination for
the presidency altogether subsided. But
when one has run the whole gamut
of these ruminations and possibili-
ties one gets back to the starting
point, namely, that the vice presi-
Dental nominee will turn out to be
the man most wanted by Calvin Cool
idge. That is as safe premise on
which to calculate as the nomination
of the President itself. There is not,
in reality, anything but a difference
of words between a Coolidge-dictated
vice presidential candidacy and one
that is entirely acceptable" to him.
Committee Orgmliz,