Marching Through Georgia

Almost everyone had been relaxed about the delegate contest in Georgia. The recognized Republican state committee had sent a delegation divided 13 for Ike, two for Taft, one for Warren and one uncommitted; a contending faction had a solid 17 for Taft. One of the leaders of the official organization, and a member of its delegation, is Harry Sommers, himself a Taftman. He was sitting right there in Chicago as a member of the national committee. No one--at least no one outside the steamroller crew--expected the committee to throw out Sommers' own delegation. National Chairman Guy G. Gabrielson himself had publicly labeled the state committee delegation as "recognizee."

As the Georgia evidence unfolded before the committee, the case stretched back to 1944. That year the Republican state convention split, sent separate delegations to the 1944 national convention. There, the national committee seated the delegation headed by Harry Sommers and a north Georgia landowner named W. Roscoe Tucker. The defeated faction was led by Roy G. Foster of Wadley.

Kicked Out Again. In 1948, the Sommers-Tucker organization and the Foster faction again named contesting delegations to the national convention. Again the national committee seated the Sommers-Tucker delegates, kicked out the Foster faction.

This year the Sommers-Tucker group had all the marks of being the official Republican organization in Georgia; Sommers was national committeeman, Tucker was state chairman, and on their record were eight years of recognition by the national committee.

Last January the Sommers-Tucker organization received the official call from the national committee to send a delegation to the national convention. It called county and district conventions, gave public notice of the meetings, opened them to all Republican voters. Neither at the time, nor later, was any charge made that the meetings were "packed with Democrats," or that there was any other impropriety in the way they were conducted. At its state convention, this group named the pro-Ike delegation, although Sommers remained a Taftman.

Early this year, Foster's group, which hadn't been heard from since 1948, suddenly emerged from the shadows and named an all-Taft delegation. Before that, Foster had indicated that he was not a down-the-line Republican. Said he: "I don't know whether I would support [Ike] against Dick Russell."

Democrat to the Rescue. Last month, when the national committee sent district delegate contests back to states for decision, it sent the 13 disputes in Georgia back to the recognized Sommers-Tucker committee. The Foster faction appeared before Democratic Judge Chester A. Byars in Spalding County superior court with a suit challenging the Sommers-Tucker delegate from that district, and all others. Democrat Byars promptly granted a temporary injunction preventing the Sommers-Tucker state committee from ruling on the district contests. But Republican national committees have often failed to follow the rulings of Southern judges in contests over delegates. With 159 counties in Georgia, it is not much of a trick to find a Democratic judge willing to encourage a Republican split.

Last week, after presiding over a hearing in a short-sleeved, open-collared sport shirt, cigar-gnawing Judge Byars handed down his decision: the Foster group really represented the official Republican organization in Georgia. His reasoning: the Foster group was the "parent organization"; it existed first.

"Small Clique." When the Foster faction made much of the court ruling before the national committee, Atlanta Lawyer Elbert Tuttle had a sharp retort: "This lawsuit is another evidence of the conniving done by this group when it doesn't seek relief at the proper place ... If a judge in some little county of the committeemen's own state--say Clarence Brown's Ohio--should issue such a ruling, would they pay any attention to it?" Said Tucker, in his brief to the committee: "This small clique . . . simply purported to set up a series of meetings of their own . . . which they are pleased to call . . . conventions."

After most of the argument was completed, Monte Appel, No. i contest man for the Taft forces, struck the unexpected blow. If the Foster group were seated, he said evenly, Harry Sommers would be re-elected as national committeeman. Or, in plain words, if Sommers would scratch the back of the Foster faction by repudiating his official delegation, Foster & Co. would scratch his by supporting him for another term.

Ikeman Tuttle leaped to his feet and asked if Sommers was not going to denounce this offer of a deal. Sommers replied firmly: "In view of all the controversy, I will not make any comment."

The Walkout. A gasp of surprise ran through the committee room. Taftman Sommers was walking out on his own organization's delegation. Later, Sommers said that Tucker had been doublecrossing him by gunning for his job as committeeman, and had not let him have as many Taft delegates as he thought he should have. Ikeman Tuttle called Sommers' action: "The worst doublecross that I have ever experienced."

The committee's vote: 62-39 to seat Foster's solid 17 for Taft.

No charge was made that any rules had been broken in the election of delegates favoring Eisenhower. Nobody said that Taftman had been excluded from the Georgia meetings or that the votes were incorrectly counted. The national committee's ruling was based solely on the argument that the Foster group was the "official" Republican Party, and therefore had the sole right to call meetings and conventions. Yet the same national committee had officially told the Georgia Republicans, that the meetings of the Sommers-Tucker group were the ones they should attend. When the Georgia Republicans did so, the national committee turned around and disfranchised the Republicans of Georgia by announcing that the Foster group was official--and had been all along.

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