Booms

Coolidge. At No. 15 Dupont Circle, President Coolidge, Republican National Committee Chairman William M. Butler, and ten potent Republicans* breakfasted on grapefruit, bacon, eggs, sausage, hot cakes. They then listened to Chairman Butler's report on his just completed Western tour.

Said Mr. Butler, in effect: Western Republicans are very fond of President Coolidge. The third term bogey strikes terror nowhere. Nobody is considering any 1928 candidate other than the President.

Woollen. Thomas Taggart, boss Democrat of Indiana, likes to take his delegates to the national conventions lined up behind one Indianian whom they more or less seriously advance for nomination. Later he swings their votes in line behind some other section's candidate. But there is always the chance that the Indiana man will be one of the men and bring glory to Indiana and Boss Taggart.

So it was in 1912, when the Taggart man was the late Thomas R. Marshall. In 1920, Mr. Marshall failed to repeat, but in 1924 it looked much as though Boss Taggart had engineered successfully-- until the late Senator Samuel M. Ralston (a perfunctory Taggart man that year) withdrew his name.

At Democratic State Committee meeting last week, Boss Taggart named his leading man for 1928-- the Indianapolis banker Evans Woollen. It was explained that Democrats were looking for a Midwestern candidate; that Mr. Woollen would receive nationwide support.

A nationwide introduction will first be necessary but in making it, Boss Taggart will not lack for good things to say. President of the Fletcher Savings & Trust Co., a neat, grey man of 62, Candidate Woollen has frequently displayed fortitude combined with his philosophy. He bolted the Bryan organization in 1896. He told farmers who deposit in his bank that, sorry though he was for them, he viewed the McNary-Haugen farm relief scheme with alarm. Similarly he has risked the displeasure of manufacturers by denouncing high tariff time and again.

As to vote-getting, it was Candidate Woollen who gave Senator Arthur R. Robinson a bad scare last autumn as one of the Democratic senatorial aspirants that cut the Republican lead from its normal 100,000 in Indiana to a scant 20,000.

Third Party Talk. Into Baltimore last week rolled the private car of Daniel Willard, President of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. From it stepped Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, Pierre S. duPont, and a committee of 14 Baltimorans. The party proceeded to a banquet given by the. Southern Maryland Society (composed of Maryland Republicans and Democrats), where, having eaten, Dr. Butler spoke.

Flaying both Republicans and Democrats for neglect of fundamental principles of government, Dr. Butler predicted that liberals of both parties might unite to form a Liberal Third Party. "There is no reason why we should be governed forever by Main Streets and Babbitts," thundered Dr. Butler.

*The ten: Secretaries Kellogg, Wilbur, Mellon, Work; Speaker Longworth; Congressmen Snell, Treadway; Senators Borah, Curtis; C. Bascom Slemp, onetime Secretary to President Coolidge.

*And not, as the N. Y. World mistakenly said last week, Senator James E. Watson. Opposing Senator Watson last autumn was Democrat Albert Stump.