National Affairs: Booms

It is time to commence counting in months the period before the presidential nominations of 1924. Already politicians are cutting out their paper dolls, striving for a fashion that will hit the public's favor. Prominent in this week's news as presidential possibilities were:

Borah. At present he is not booming himself. But a California supporter started a chain postal card boom: "Link by link and vote by vote it will carry him to the White House!" And Mr. Borah commented: "Fruitless endeavor!" Meanwhile he is at work in Washington, apparently considering the possibilities of a visit to Russia, or a return home to fight for the direct primary in Idaho. Johnson. Where Mr. Harding is for the World Court, and Senator Borah takes the middle ground, Hiram Johnson leads the extreme opposition— " high priest of all the irreconcilables." Since Borah left the reactionaries to advocate a world court of his own, Johnson has been the undisputed leader of the isolationists. Behind him is the group which preferred poison to the League of Nations on any terms. Meanwhile Senator Johnson has sailed for Europe—to get a first-hand knowledge of the entanglements he wants to avoid. It is his first trip across the Atlantic. Those who will be opposed to Harding in 1924 because of the World Court are calling after the gentleman from California: " Bon voyage! "

Ralston. A Democrat whose boom has not yet begun is the new "high-grass " Senator from Indiana. As The New York Evening Post sapiently remarks: "A Democrat who can recapture Indiana two years after the greatest Republican landslide in the annals of American politics is under no necessity of putting up a Presidential lightning rod."

McAdoo. The McAdoo boom, which is already under way, is founded on his popularity with the railroad workers, whom he made prosperous during the war, and on his liberal policies, which are expected to attract the farmers. His followers are widespread and vociferous. Several years ago he was immortalized in the following lines: " The Who, pre-eminently Who, Is William Gibbs, the McAdoo, A man of high Intrinsic Worth, The Greatest Son-in-Law on Earth. With all the burdens thence accruing,

He's always up and McAdooing; From Sun to Star and Star to Sun His work is never McAdone.". .