Academic

Out, in a guarded way, came Oswald Garrison Villard and the embattled Nation (liberal weekly) for Nominee Smith. Let the latter continue his "frank clarity of utterance," said Editor Villard, and "he will win the support of most of the 5,000,000 voters who supported La Follette in 1924."

In 1924, La Follette carried only Wisconsin, with 15 electoral votes. But, had the La Follette and Davis votes been pooled, President Coolidge would have lost 13 of the States which he won and 86 of his electoral votes. He would still have been President Coolidge, 296 electoral votes to 235. But the thought is not without interest this year, with Nominee Smith combining many of the qualities and appeals of both Davis and La Follette.

The 13 States were the following:

Electoral Votes

Arizona 3

Idaho 4

Kentucky 13

Maryland 8

Missouri 18

Montana 4

Nebraska 8

Nevada 3

New Mexico 3

North Dakota 5

South Dakota 5

Utah 4

West Virginia 8

86

In four other States the Coolidge majority was slender. In Minnesota, where some 815,000 votes were cast, Coolidge led the Davis-La Follette total by only 26,000. In Oregon, with some 278,000 votes cast, the Coolidge majority was 6,000. In Washington it was 27,000, with about 413,000 votes cast; in Wyoming it was 3,800 with 79,800 voting. These four States contain 27 electoral votes. President Coolidge could have lost them all and still won.

Disregarding the fact that four-year-old figures, issues, situations are next to useless in making political forecasts, a neat academic proposition for domestic debate might be: Resolved, That Hoover, another Coolidge, can (or can not) get more electoral votes than Smith, another Davis-plus-La Follette.