The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-07-07
FATE OF PARTY
 MAY BE SEALED
 BY TWO RIVALS
Irreparable Split Looms If Principals Hold
 On
By RAYMOND CHAPTER (By Leased Wire to Age.Herald.

NOS AOncOu bVnO eO fABO~EAOTdAOsI
 NEW YORK, July 6.-This amaz- ing political drama is moving swiftly toward it's climax. Whetler the Demo cratic convention will cno in a tragedy for the party, or a happy reconciliation is matter of doubt at this hour.
 Representatives of the various can- didate are in conference now seeking, without much sign of progress, to find some way of breaking the deadlock be- tween William G. McAdoo and Al Smith, which has run through 77 bal lots without signs of cracking.
 This conference sat from ssaturaav night uigtn early Sunday morning with out more than to demonstrate the dog gedness eof the two principal candi- dates. After recess until Sunday night, those representing minor candi- dates-Ralston, John W. Davis, Cox, Glass, Robinson and several others met in a trump conference to agree, if possible upon a candidate among them selves. Their plan is to pick a com promise candidate, tell McAdoo and Smith they can accept him or leave him as they choose, and then 20 be- fore the convention Monday and try to put him over in face of the two lead. ing candidates, if necessary.
 Becoming Disgusted
 They believe that the convention is fast becoming disgusted with the spec tacle of two candidates who are will ing to see the party smashed rather than abandon their ambitions to get the nomination.
 There may be a nomination Monday, and again there may not.
 This conference, sitting through the still Sunday night hours in Cordell HulPs room at the Waldorf, will mark one of the great turning points in the history of the democratic party.
 It will have a good deal to do with deciding whether the party which was born with Jefferson in the infancy of the nation, the only party which goes back to the beginning of the republic, shall continue to live as a natural force, or whether it shall break up into sectional groups, one controlled by the protestant south and west, the other dominated by the Catholic centers in the north and east, and perhaps another going to LaFollette.
 Rivals War Era
 The party is now engaged in an in- ternal conflict, second in intensity only to that which shook it on the eve of the Civil war, when it was trying to go on half slave and half free.
 AHAA they have been, no one can forsee what disaster will overcome the democrats. If both let go now, they will hold the party together, even if chances of win ming the November election are gone. now believe that the country would en- trust it's welfare for the next four years to a group of leaders who have made such bungle of their party convention.
 What a spectacle for the shade of gone! The party, which, seven years ago, led the nation through the great est military adventure of all time, and then came within a hair of reshaping the political structure of the world, has now sunk to such depths that it deserts the League of Nations-not because it is opposed to it, but for reasons of political expediency. It has ignored the economic conditions which have sent one out of four farmers in some sec tions to the pOorhOuse, in order to in- dulge in "a barber shop argument over religion. Lastly, it has submitted weakly to the supreme humiliation of seeing its two leading candidates drive the party to the verge of destruction because of their own ambitions.
 Warning Symptoms
 Only now is the full significance of several critical moments in this con vention becoming apparent. They were the warning symptoms of the disease which is now racking the patient.
 The first sign came at daybreak ten days ago, when the storm in the plat form committee over the klan argu-. ment was hushed temporarily by earnest prayer.
 Then an even more significant warn ing of the moral atmosphere of this convention came when Newton D. Ba- ker took the platform to appeal to the convention not to sacrifice the League of Nations for political expediency.
 Was this small, eloquent figure, lash ing himself about the platform with fearful earnestness, acclaimed as a Galahad carrying on the torch of ideal ism? Yes. And moment later he was voted down by an overwhelming majority. The convention recognized the small white flame of conscience, which Baker held up. But after a mo- GNsa,s4zss.s6H aAR. noa~A 1nw-nN