Jolt for a Bandwagon

Outside, the California rain & wind snarled and snapped at a baby elephant which paced the sidewalk bearing a sign: "I like Ike." Inside, high & dry on the 15th floor of San Francisco's Mark Hopkins Hotel, visiting Republicans flocked through the enormous Taft-for-President suite. Genial Dave Ingalls, Bob Taft's cousin and chief strategist (TIME, Jan. 21), clucked over the guests and shooed them toward cocktails, Wisconsin cheese and steaming sausages. Influential G.O.P. men were ushered into an inner sanctum, urged to jump on the bandwagon while there was still time, and assured that Taft was a cinch to win the Republican nomination on the first ballot.

Technically, the Republicans were in town for a routine session of the National Committee. But, as one glance around the Taft suite confirmed, the meeting was an occasion for the first real show of strength for the 1952 Republican Convention. Across the street in the Fairmont Hotel, Massachusetts' Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. set up Eisenhower headquarters on a smaller scale. California's Governor Earl Warren got little traffic either in his public suite at the Fairmont or his downtown hideout at the St. Francis. Candidate Harold Stassen arrived late, and few people bothered to seek him out. Taft himself stayed away, but reckoning by pamphlets, badges ("No Me-Too in 1952") and hotel rooms, he was unbeatable--until the speeches began.

Frozen Smile. As host, Earl Warren spoke first. Three weeks earlier he had called Ingalls' pre-election tactics "arrogant" and "insulting." Now, goaded again on his home ground, Warren detoured pointedly from his earnest good-of-the-party theme. "We have our problems," he said, "because we have extremists of the right--those who would freeze our nation into the status quo with whatever inequalities go with it." Then he read off, one by one, the liberal planks of the 1948 G.O.P. platform. "If this platform has been vetoed," he said, "I would like to know by whose authority."

That night Dave Ingalls, undaunted, lowered his head and lunged to the attack. "There is one thing for sure," said he. "I have a candidate. And the second thing for sure is that Robert Taft is a Republican . . . There is not an ounce of metooism in Bob Taft.

"There is no need for the party to buy a pig in a poke. The New Dealers and the me-tooers say that Bob Taft lacks color and glamour. To this I say he has the color of ability, the color of experience, the color of courage . . . Hero worship is no substitute for faith based on known performance. Neither is glamour or sex appeal. If we as a party, at this late date, propose to risk our political future on such slender attributes, then I say the party is dead and we are met here today merely to select a good-looking mortician to preside over the final rites."

Ingalls finished and looked up. Taftmen leaped to their feet to applaud, but the ovation was noticeably lighter than it had been at the beginning. Two seats away, Earl Warren, his face frozen in a faint quarter-smile, applauded perfunctorily. Cabot Lodge gave two handclaps, got up from the speakers' table and strode angrily from the platform.

Night Revision. Lodge worked through the night revising his own speech, scheduled for luncheon the next day. The Fairmont's Gold Room filled early, and the galleries were jammed as never before during the meeting. "I shall speak for my candidate," Lodge began, "and I shall never attack any other candidate." Then he confronted the Republicans with one of the facts of life about the next election, and one of the strongest arguments for Eisenhower.

"There just are not enough Republicans in the U.S. to elect a President without additional support. If every Republican voted for the Republican candidate, according to a recent vote analysis, he would only get 31% of the vote. Therefore we must have a candidate who not only will carry our banner but will also appeal to the great strength of the independent voters and also to the Democrats who are sick & tired of the present national Administration ... If Dwight Eisenhower's extraordinary hold on the American people were solely due to the fact that he has a warm personality and a magnetic bearing, we might have justifiable reservations . . . But his hold on American opinion cannot, I think, be attributed to these personal traits--to what was described last night as glamour . . .

"Eisenhower has a knowledge of the practical factors that make for war & peace which is not "excelled--nor even matched--by anyone. Where most of us talk about the issues of war & peace from the standpoint of theory, he can deal with them from the standpoint of action and experience."

Lodge sat down to applause, whistles and cheers. ("He came to San Francisco a boy and departed a man," cracked a reporter.) Earl Warren pumped his hand. Dave Ingalls stepped up for a quick congratulation, then slipped out through the crowd.

By the time the last gavel was rapped, the San Francisco weather had changed and so had the political climate. Ike's campaign was airborne, and Taft's flying bandwagon had taken the stiffest jolt to date. Hardy G.O.P. professionals were not likely to be swayed by either a breach of manners or a fervent speech. But they were just the ones to notice the little shifts, such as the new cordiality between the Ikemen and Earl Warren (who controls 70 California delegates) and the fact that the galleries liked Ike.

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