The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-09-03
.CONCEDE DAVIS
 LARGEST BLOCK
 0F SURE VOTES
Now Believed Leaders Will Keep Election Out
 Of The Senate
BY CHARLES MICHELSON


 WASHINGTON, Sept. 2.-"Unoffi- cial observers" are playing as large a part in republican politics as in Mir. Coolidge's foreign relations. Like the official unofficial observers they have no authority and the republican organi- zation admits no percentage of their acts, which are subject to repudiation without notice. Nevertheless, they are performing function that may be of immense importance before the next President of the United States is in augurated.
 What they are trying to do now is to get some sort of gentlemen's agreement as to the course to be pursued in the event of the election giving nobody a majority in the electoral college-a re- suit scoffed at around both republican and democratic headquarters, but which is far from an improbability.
 Left to its logical processes, if the election did go to Congress-, the House would vote twenty states for Davis, ' twenty-one for Coolidge, two for La < Toilette and five blank because the del egations of those five are evently di- vided between the republicans and democrats, and there would be no Presi- :. dent as it takes twenty-five states to elect. Then the Senate, balloting for the vice president, who under the con stitution takes the higher office if no s President is chosen by March 4, would probably elect Governor Bryan, the La Toilette senators having indicated that ; they would vote for him rather than for General Dawes, and their choice being " limited to the two receiving the highest number of votes in the electoral college. The same result would be arrived at iE the event of the La Toilette electors casting their votes for Bryan instead of Senator Wheeler, which has been suggested as a likely expedient for the independents to agree to.
 Break House Deadlock.
 But there is a growing impression ; that the Senate will never get a chance to choose a President; that the House deadlock will be broken in some fash ion. If a representative from each of the tied states should absent himself from the voting that would accomplish 1t. Out of this situation has come the hypothetical question propounded to the democrats: If we give you John w. q Davis for President in the House, will ycu agree to give us General Dawes for vice president in the Senate%
 Obviously at this time the answer to that question, if there was anybody could answer it, would be a refusal. The democrats having nominated Gov ernor Bryan, could hardly agree to bar ter of that sort. In fact, there is an idea that the suggestion is only meant to stir up the governor of Nebraska, possibly with the idea that if he should get the notion that his party meant to sacrifice him he might not fight so h0 ohr cly thn cans would move heaven and earth to keep that state out of the democratic column. There are, of course, standpat senators among the democrats to whom the name of Bryan is anathema and who might personally prefer Dawes to their own nominee, but 1t is doubtful if there is even one of these who would dare to commit the political treason in volved in voting against the democratic candidate. The republicans in the House might have an alibi; they could go to their constituents with the state ments that they were forced to make a choice between two democrats.
 Walsh Made Suggestion.
 It is an interesting sidelight at this time, when everybody is talking about the danger of the election being thrown into Congress, to note that it was Sen ator Walsh of Montana who barely dodged the nomination for the vice presidency that first discovered it's likli- hood. That was just after the elections O. 1922. When his interesting theorum was printed in this chronicle his asso- ciates just smiled and said: ''Tom is chasing one of his technical moon- beams."
 The gravity of the chance that there will be no majority in the electoral college is matter of the simplest political arithmetic. The La Toilette people think they are going to get ninety electoral votes. The republicans hope La Toilette will be limited to two states, Wisconsin and North Dakota, eighteen votes. Assuming that the one estimate is as much too high as the other is too low, it leaves him with a probable fifty-four. If he carries Iowa or Nebraska he will have considerably more, but fifty-four will do for the purpose of a calculation.
 What Davis Will Carry
 It is generally conceded that Davis will carry the border states, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Maryland, 61 votes, in additiQ& to the IA constituting the solid south his own state, West Virginia, eight, and In diana, 15. That gives Davis total of 198, and included in them are no votes from New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Delaware, Nebraska, Illinois, EEAXT VAT23 ATTrn