National Affairs: Candidates' Row

(2 of 3)

The Willis letter, continuing, revealed that he, a candidate for the Presidency, had stooped to discuss patronage: "... I have played the game square. ... I can only say this, in perfect good nature, that if in this contest the organization feels that what I have done is of so little importance as not to merit consideration, I shall, of course, feel in the remaining time I am in the Senate, that I will be fully justified in following a different course.

But the card game which Mr. Maschke was playing at his club was upstate whist,* requiring brains, not downstate poker, game of bluff. "I am not interested in anything Mr. Willis says. Anything he does is all right with me. . . . I'm through writing letters. But I'm going to make a speech one of these days and when I do I'll say a few things . . . ," said Mr. Maschke.

The Willis boom finally became a hollow frogskin when three other names—Lowden, Curtis, Watson—were given out as unofficial "second choice" men for whom Willis delegates might eventually vote. This made Ohio a microcosm of Republicanism all over the country—Hoover v. the Field. Candidate Dawes had the self-respect to forbid the Willis people to include his name on their auxiliary roster, saying he was still for his friend, Candidate Lowden.

Mr. Hoover. While the crucial preliminary to his larger affairs was progressing in Ohio, Candidate Hoover got off a train at Key West, Fla. "I will make no active personal campaign," he said, "but will devote myself to my duties as head of the Department of Commerce." Then he had a hook baited, paid out his line and before sunset had caught five fat dolphin, "one of which," remarked an alert news-gatherer, "looked remarkably like Candidate Willis." As a flashing, gamey kingfish was being drawn in on the Hoover line, up swirled a shark and tore the prize away. Some thought, though none would say it, that the shark resembled Candidate Dawes. After three days, Candidate Hoover abruptly stopped fishing, returned to Washington. Candidate Willis was grimly glad, having arranged for Candidate Hoover to appear before the Senate Commerce Committee to be quizzed, by Candidate Willis in person, on flood control. Enroute to Washington, Candidate Hoover nailed as false a report that he would enter no primary against a Favorite Son, except in Ohio. The fact was that his handlers had just arranged a nationwide radio "hookup" for a speech he was going to make at an engineering dinner in Manhattan.

Mr. Smith. The second Col. Theodore Roosevelt lately toured the Midwest, minus his dinnercoat, frothing with expletives, trying to discredit Candidate Smith and Tammany Hall as vicious, grafting plug-uglies. Mayor James J. Walker of New York City,* with 36 pairs of spats and a plenitude of evening shirts, morning shirts, afternoon shirts and silk pajamas instead of nightshirts, all most exquisitely cared for by Robert Abel, English valet, last week set out for the Mardi Gras at New Orleans. The theory: the Midwest may think what it has a mind to about Tammany Hall, but what the South thinks of Tammany is important. At Baltimore, Tammany's dandy lived up to his word that he had "nothing to sell" by not once mentioning Candidate Smith's name.