CONTESTS: Going Ahead

While the impatient crowd waited for Chairman Guy Gabrielson to call the convention to order, the sweaty kingmakers of the Republican Party argued furiously in a boiling-hot little room behind the speaker's stand.

A few hours before, Taft managers had reluctantly admitted to themselves that they would not be able to persuade the convention to maintain the ruling laid down by Elihu Root in 1912: that contested delegations seated by the national committee may participate in a full convention vote on any contest save their own. In last-moment desperation, Taft Leaders Tom Coleman and Dave Ingalls offered to give...