The Sidney herald., 1956-08-30
BY Ernest Imrnei

Helena - Montana's delegates
TO the Republican national con-
vention in San Francisco were
apparently in full harmony with
the score written and played by
the party managers. AS Montana
had no Harold Stassen or dele
gate from Nebraska" in its con-
tingent there was no occasion for
even slight deviation.
In fact, in this centennial gath
ering of the Republican party
there was no substantial reason
for discord. Eisenhower policies,
in the main, are tremendously
popular with rank and file Re-
publicans, as well as with the
party leadership throughout the
country and this goes likewise for
the president himself and vice
president Nixon. StasSen's dump
Nixon" fiasco received no en-
enlargement in Montana that l
know of.
The unity of Montana's dele
cation was in contrast with four
years ago when the majority of
them supported Sen. Robert A.
Taft and did not switch to Els
enhower even after his nominal
ton was overwhelmingly assur-
ed before completion of the first
ballot. Their neglect or refusal to
climb on the Eisenhower band
wagon was suggestive of the Bit
terneSs of that fight.
BY doing all he could for the
election of Dwight D. Eisenhower,
that great and able American,
Bob Taft, demonstrated a quail
ty which some of his partisans
were reluctant to emulate. A few
among them in Montana, particu-
larly in the ranks of party lead
ership, harbored their pique I'M
til quite recently, but apparent
ly now they accept President
Eisenhower as unreServedly as
they had once espouSed Senator
Taft's political cause.
This years political conventions,
both Democrat and Republican,
pointed up the general dissatis-
faction in Montana with the pres
identisl preference primary law
enacted by the 1853 legislature
and amended in 1855. In both
parties there had been the feel
ing that the voters should have
an opportunity formally to ex-
press themselves on whom they
would like to see nominated for
the presidency. This was an out
growth of 1852 preconvention RI
valries.
Montana had abandoned the
presidential preference primary
years ago for substantially the
same reasons why it seems to be
in disfavor now, but those who
were most insistent on restoration
of such a law lacked experience
under the former plan to guide
them.
The present law pledges the
national convention delegates to
the candidate receiving the most
votes in the party's preferential
primary, until that candidate gets
less than 20 percent of the ma
tional convention votes or he re-
leases the delegates. Senator Ke-
fauver was the only Democrat
to be filed in Montana. Hence
the is votes yer committed to
him, but he released them be-
fore the convention.
On the Republican side, the
situation threatened to become lu-
dicrous when Lar DAILY of Chi
cago, assertedly a publicity hound,
filed for president in this state.
Eisenhower's name was
not to be on the ballot. To coun- /
teract this travesty, Secretary of /;
State Arnold filed for president, ]
announcing that he would turn
the IA votes to Eisenhower.
Steve Arnold came out of the
June 5 primary with 32,732 votes, t
but DAILY got SAT-, which in I
Dictated, first of all, the confu- {
sion of the voters and, secondly,
that far too many voters know S
nothing or next to nothing about /
candidates on the ballot and are
inclined to mark the name that q
their fancy. T
The presidential preference 4
primary, as we have it in this
state, is in theory a democratic S
process which in fact is undemo- f
cratic IN practice. It's objective {
Of frustrating manipulations by
is commendable, but f
It does not achieve this objective. a
My guess is that the 1857 legisla- F
lure will repeal, or at least dras- C
amend the presidential 6