Booms

(See front cover)

Last week, on what chanced to be the 150th legal anniversary of the U. S. A.,* the G. O. P. closed the bidding for its 1928 convention city. Ten cities had bid. Next fortnight the Republican National Committee will pick & choose.

The ten were Kansas City, Mo., Seattle, Detroit, San Francisco, San Antonio, Chicago, Cleveland, Omaha, Denver and--at the last moment--Philadelphia/-

The largest of U. S. cities, New York, did not bid, not only because of the Democratic madhouse of 1924, but because she gets spectacles enough without "boosting" for more. St. Louis did not bid for the same reason that Eureka, Mo., did not--no hall big enough.

San Francisco, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Detroit and Chicago seemed the likeliest candidates--San Francisco because she offered so much money** and was in the attention-loving West; Cleveland and Philadelphia because they are nearer Washington and it may be that Congress will not have adjourned--thanks to Democratic strategy--before the G. O. P. convention meets. Cleveland and Philadelphia moreover were both unembarrassed by "native sons." It is considered bad political form to nominate a man in his own state. The possibility of Herbert C. Hoover's being chosen counted against San Francisco for this reason. In Pennsylvania, the only native son who might loom was Andrew Mellon, but he was not likely to choose to loom. In Ohio, Senator Frank Willis and Speaker Nicholas Longworth are favorite sons but presidential waifs. Added together and multiplied by five they would not loom.

Detroit has big hotels, a 17,000-seat auditorium, plenty of money and no looming Michigander, but Detroit has little political background or significance and is alleged by some to "smell of beer."

Philadelphia and Cleveland were the prime favorites--and Chicago? What about Chicago?

Cleveland had the 1924 G. O. P. convention. Chicago had five in a row before that. Chicago has had nine Republican conventions since the G. O. Party nominated its second candidate (Abraham Lincoln) there in 1860. The National Republican executive secretary (Lawyer Roy Owen West) is a Chicagoan, and, despite all the talk, Illinois is not likely to be embarrassed by a favorite son. The dissonant quatrian

Hughes Lowden Hoover Dawes

which politican wiseacres have been dining at the public for weeks to describe the Republican problem, had dwindled to the first couplet except as political poetry. The candidacy of Vice President Charles Gates Dawes may contain a trace of realism, but the G. O. Politicians distrust Mr. Dawes. He is so quick on the trigger, and he backed the McNary-Haugen bill.* As for Frank Orren Lowden, his candidacy has been buried alive by recent developments in Illinois.

Mr. Lowden's candidacy for 1928 was really announced in 1924. It cannot be said to date back to 1920, when Mr. Lowden was robbed of the nomination by his managers' letting their lavish expenditures for him in Missouri become widely advertised. But in 1924, Mr. Lowden did what only one man ever did before. He refused to run for Vice President after actually being nominated./- There is an echo of this refusal in Mr. Lowden's otherwise rather meaningless campaign statement this year. Concerning his 1928 candidacy he has said: "I know of no man in all our history who has run away from the Presidency," and "No man is too big to refuse. . . the Republican nomination for President."

Mr. Lowden's 1928 boom has been a muffled one, as was his 1920 boom. Now as then his friends have been working with quiet skill assembling delegates while he holds back in dignified semi-detachment. In 1920, Mr. Lowden was a Business Man; now he is the Farmer's Friend, for reasons which it is hoped will also persuade Business.

Eight years ago Mr. Lowden had his job as able, wartime Governor of Illinois to finish, to seem wholly preoccupied with. Now, as a humble Cincinnatus, he bides on his Sinnissippi Farm at Oregon, Ill., refusing to be called from the plow until the psychopolitical moment. With much honk and ceremony, a large motorcade of his admirers drew up at Sinnissippi last month. Mr. Lowden had known in advance that they were coming, but when he strode out on the porch in riding boots, his greeting to them was an indefinite gesture. Instead of a destination, he gave them a detour, and went back to hug his hearth until some winter freeze-up might crystallize his plans.

Minnesota blacksmith's son, Iowa farm boy, teacher-lawyer, able attorney, Spanish-War officer,* son-in-law of George Mortimer Pullman (sleeping cars), thrice a Congressman (1906-11), firm and constructive Governor,/- grand-scale agriculturalist--Mr. Lowden is a pleasant, capable, 66-year-old city-man-turned-squire who stands looking at the Presidential chair with ambitious interest but with a gentlemanly restraint. He would not think of trying to climb up and sit in the chair without a genuine invitation.

While Mr. Lowden has stood thus, he has been shouldered aside by a burly, blatant, sideshow barker from the city, whose ambition is not to sit in the chair himself but to call the crowd, direct the act and lead the ballyhoo. Mr. Lowden's enemy of old, Mayor William Hale ("Big Bill") Thompson of Chicago, has spellbound the bystanders and gained mastery of Illinois, and perhaps a lot more Lowden territory, by an opportunism from which gentlemanliness is omitted with a frank grin. Nor is the Thompson grin as foolish as it looks.

Mayor Thompson's dislike of Mr. Lowden goes back at least to the Chicago "peace meeting" which Mayor Thompson tried to hold in 1918. Citizens cried out upon this "pro-German" demonstration. The soldier-Governor asked Mayor Thompson to stop it. Mayor Thompson said he had no such authority. Governor Lowden sent militia. There was no meeting.

The power that Mayor Thompson now holds over Mr. Lowden is proportionate to the power of the Mississippi Flood over the farmlands of its basin, plus the power of many a steamboat. Mayor Thompson literally took the Mississippi Flood at its crest. He was cruising downstream with brass bands to popularize the Lakes-to-Gulf waterway when the rains descended. He changed his commercial cruise into an "errand of mercy," swung Chicago and himself into leadership of the flood-control movement, by no means neglecting to keep the Lakes-to-Gulf project stoked up and steaming along behind.

Mr. Lowden fully recognized the Thompson power. Last fortnight, he was reported to have approached the mighty Mayor through their mutual half-friend, Governor Len Small. These three had no trouble agreeing that the G. O. P. must nominate a Midwestern man in 1928, but on Mr. Lowden's candidacy Mayor Thompson turned down two large, eloquent thumbs. A day or two later, in Washington, Mayor Thompson said: "What sort of a guy is Senator Curtis?* I want to get a line on him. He looks pretty good to me."

Undaunted by Mayor Thompson's unfriendliness, the Lowden boom continued. While Mr. Lowden spent another quiet week at Sinnissippi, rounded off by a trip to Evanston to see the Northwestern University drub Iowa 12 to 0,* his name was formally entered for the Indiana primaries and his manager, State Senator Clarence F. Buck, reached Washington, D.C., full of confidence after a tour of the Midwest. Mr. Buck denied that Mayor Thompson would be actively unfriendly. Mr. Buck said that the industrial East was "lining up" behind Mr. Lowden. Literature to accelerate this "lining up" was issued, setting forth Mr. Lowden's record for economy and efficiency, also his faithful pro-tariff stand, also his businessman's reasons for backing the McNary-Haugen experiment.

* Not for 16 months after the Declaration of Independence did the Continental Congress enact "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union" styling the 13 states the United States of America. These Articles, passed on Nov. 15, 1777, were ratified by only eight of the 13 states when they were promulgated on July 9, 1778.

/- Minneapolis also bid, but only tentatively. Her auditorium was pretty well booked up for June. She was still seeing what could be done about that.

** $125,000 was understood to be the minimum the convention city would have to meet in expenses. San Francisco was said to have offered $200,000 "or more."

* The chief lobbyist for the McNary-Haugen bill was found to be ensconced in the Vice President's offices at Washington while Congress was McNary-Hauging. For this Mr. Dawes was roundly scored by Chicago business friends. The explanation was that Mr. Dawes, smart politician, traded his support of the McNary-Haugen bill--which he felt sure President Coolidge would veto--for reciprocal Senate support of the McFadden Branch-Banking bill, which became law.

/- Silas Wright of New York did likewise when named to run with James Knox Polk in 1888.

* He was Lieutenant Colonel of the Illinois "Dandy First," which he later sent--with his son in it--to the World War as head of the Illinois National Guard.

/- He accomplished budget and minimum wage reforms. He extended Illinois highways, including the first shovelful of a Lakes-to-Gulf highway.

* Charles Curtis, part Indian, regular-Republican senior Senator from Kansas, announced his presidential willingness in a forthright statement four weeks ago (TIME, Nov. 7).

* Beside Mr. Lowden at the game, with fur-lined overcoat and grey fedora to match Mr. Lowden's, sat his guest and good friend, Vice President Dawes. Gossip has said that Vice President Dawes, who has been encouraging the Lowden boom, would inherit the Lowden delegates when the Lowden boom collapses. Gossip has even said that the friends have an understanding to this effect. But Vice President Dawes has roundly denied that eh would utilize his friend as a stalking horse.