Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-08-07
COOLIDGE FIGURES
IN COMING BATTLE
Hoover Has Strong Backing
From Presidents Friends
in Fighting LoWden.
BY WILLIAM HARD.

own action, scratched from the presi
dental race. the first heat in the Re
publican combat for the presidential
nomination is going to be an outright
contest of strength between. Coolidge
forces and antiC Coolidge forces. The
horses in that heat will be Herbert
Hoover and Frank o. Lowden. Till
the winner of it is proclaimed. the
other runners in the 1928 Republican
electoral classic will wear their
blaE':ets.
This prospect took on the shape al
most of certainty yesterday, as Specu'
lation regarding the consequences of
Calvin Coolidge's announcement of
last Tuesday was followed by actual
inquiry.
The Lowden effort will have the
support not only of the bulk of Mr..
,Coolidge's agrarian enemies in the
Mississippi Valley Northwest, but
the support also of the Eastern mill
tant anti-Coo.idge element, illus
trated by George Henry Payne,
Republican tax commissioner of the
city of New York, and organizer and
, promoter of the Anti-Third Term
League The Hoover movement will
be supported and managed by such
intimate and loyal friends of Mr..
Coolidge as ex-senator Irvine l..
Lenroot of Wisconsin.
Hoover Friends Regular.
Mr.. Hoover's political friends are
Irregular, Among them conspicu-
ously. for example. is Claudius Hart
Huston of Tennessee, man of nu-
merous business interests. who In
1920 took a prominent part in NOV
ing Tennessee to the north of the
Mason and Dixon line by carrying 1t
for the Republican national Harding
i Coolidge ticket, and who subsequent
: " was Assistant Secretary Of Com
merce in the Harding Coolidge ad-
ministration.
MANY such regulars" have noted
with anxiety the intrepid activity OF
Mr.. Lowden in carrying the banner or
revolt outside his Northwestern
prairie citadel into Montana, into
Oregon. into Washington. into Arkan-
sas, into Oklahoma. into New York.
They are for Mr.. Coolidge as we'll as
for Mr.. Hoover, and they realize that
the Lowden delegates in the Republl-
can national convention of 1925 If
chaos and deadlock should develop in
it, will never turn to Mr.. Coolidge to
revise his 12-word funeral Grafton
over himself and to resume his
leadership, break the deadlock and ire
unite the party
Thus minded, they look about for
an immediate active candidate who
will stem the Lowden anti-Coolidge
strength.
Hold Several Unavailable.
They do not see him in Mr.. Dawes.
Mr.. Dawes has identified himself with
the Lowden sort of farm-relief pro-
gram and he lies behind the Lowden
bulwarks whence, if Mr.. Lowden is
picked off by the enemy, he will lead
a Torlorn or triumphant anti-Coolidge
sortie.
They do not see him in Mr.. Long
worth. Mr.. Longowrth has always
been highly inGisposed to run races
for a wreath of dusty laurel. He be-
came Republican floor leader and then
Republican Speaker of the House of
Representatives through smiling while
his colleagues fastened to pin dust.
less and unfatigued roses upon him.
He will never run toward the White
House. or walk.
Nor is Mr.. Hughes any more avail
able for present regular" needs.
Planted on the firm rock of his law
practice in New York and recouping
himself now for years of relative pow
erty in the public service, he looks at
the storms of politics and is deter
mined that If they ever engulf him
again they will have to do it to him
not as a swimmer, but as a piece of
reluctant wreckage left on the White
House porch by a flood beyond Noah's
or Hoover's.
In these circumstances Mr.. Hoover
possessed of relative youth. possessed
of a sufficient fortune, endowed with
restless energy, carrying the colors OF
nnblemished loyalty to the Coolidge
policies and to Mr.. Coolidge, Is the
only instant hope against the Lowden
prairie-fire; and his friends are "rarin'
to 60" just as soon as diplomatic
formalities are accomplished, there is
no doubt that they will.
This does not mean that there is
any conspiracy between Mr.. Hoover
and Mr. Coolidge for joint control Of
The next Republican convention. Mr..
Hoover's hackers regard Mr.. Coolidge
as being perfectly sincere in his pro-
claimed intention not to run again.
They nevertheless refuse to surrender
the chance of having the power to
"draft" Mr.. Coolidge in 1928; and the
Hoover delegates in the Republican
1928 convention, if deadlock and a
party crisis and an impending party
defeat become visible, will be Coolidge
delegates.
Great Transformation.
Thus. by one of the most astonish
ing transformations in the history OF
politics, Mr.. Hoover, who in 1920 did
not know which party he would head
toward. is now a Republican of Re
publicans and a regular of regulars
1t has been q Transformation very
gradual but now thoroughly complete
Once thought to be weak-spirited
"expatriate" and ''internationalist,
Mr.. Hoover has turned out to be one
of the most resolute members of the
American World War Debt Funding
European eX-allies pay at least a
reasonable proportion of their debt tS
us.
Once thought to be incapab OF
getting along with politicians, Mr.
Hoover now has learned to he able
TO persuade the politicians in the
Senate and in the House. If Repre-
sentatives to enact every last one OF
the legislative measures proposed by
him as Secretary of Commerce The
actual operating of political machinery
has turned this 'mugwumD" into a
party man-and into Coolidge man.
When Mr.. Coolidge announced he
would not make him Secretary OF
state. Mr.. Hoover's friends in private
life throughout the country gave him
O. hailstorm of kilograms demanding
that he resign. He did not resign from
the Coolidge cabinet then; and he II
not. going to resign from the potential
Coolidge electoral ranks OF next year.
What we are about to see. before We
see anything else in Republican presi
dental politics, is a duel between Mr.
Lowden, striving to break the whole
Coolidge strength forever, and Mr.
Hoover, striving in the course of hi: