National Affairs: Booms

President Coolidge. The Republican National Committee waited on President Coolidge at the White House. Would he “choose” again?

The President read his guests a speech on Republican family matters. Then he read a postscript. The postscript said:

“This is naturally the time to be planning for the future. The party will soon place in nomination its candidate to succeed me.

“To give time for mature deliberation, I stated to the country on Aug. 2 that I do not choose to run for President in 1928. My statement stands. No one should be led to suppose that I have modified it. My decision will be respected.

“After I had been eliminated the party began, and should vigorously continue, the serious task of selecting another candidate from among the numbers of distinguished men available.”

What could be more final than that? Nothing in the world, thought the open-mouthed Committee. That is, nothing could be more final for the moment. The Coolidge intention was clear enough. In the four months since the President first shut his door it had been pried wide again. Now he had shut it again. He chose not to lock it. He chose not to anticipate contingencies or to answer his own question: “Who could beat Al Smith if I didn’t run?”

Mr. Hughes. In Manhattan, Charles Evans Hughes demonstrated how a noncandidate’s door is shut and locked. Last May Mr. Hughes said: “I do not wish my name to be used in any contingency. I am too old* to run for President, and I would neither seek nor accept the nomination.” Last week Mr. Hughes said: “I am not a candidate in any sense. I am keenly disappointed by President Coolidge’s decision. … I stand by the statement I made last May.”

Kansas City Chosen. After the Coolidge and Hughes statements, the Republican National Committee’s choice of a convention city narrowed swiftly. City-boosters filled the Willard Hotel in Washington with their placards and overtures. San Francisco, Kansas City and Detroit were likeliest to please when the field of candidates for the nomination seemed reduced to Messrs. Hoover, Lowden & Dawes and Senator Curtis of Kansas.

Detroit’s chances were destroyed by a characteristic chirrup from Senator Moses of New Hampshire. With an eye cocked at wet Ontario across the river from Detroit, Senator Moses said: “It would be the first time anyone was ever nominated for President on foreign soil.”

San Francisco’s chances seemed enhanced when Chairman William Morgan Butler of the National Committee declared himself for Kansas City, Mo. The Committee bridled and said it would not be led by the nose. Supporters of Committeeman William Henry Crocker of California obliged Chairman Butler to wait until the 20th ballot before they joined the draft-Coolidge delegates and the flatter-the-farmer delegates in obedience to Chairman Butler. The Republican National Convention will meet at “the heart of America,” 1,089 delegates strong, on June 12.

Mr. Willis. First to offer assistance to the Committee in its task of “selecting another,” was round-faced, black-haired Senator Frank B. Willis booming Dry. “If the Republicans of Ohio feel that I can creditably represent them … I shall feel it a great honor to do so,” he boomed. Portentious silence greeted this statement.

Mr. Curtis. The only Republican prior to Senator Willis who had announced his candidacy was short, swart, smiling Charles Curtis, the Indian-blooded Senator from Kansas (TIME, Nov. 7). Mr. Curtis last week stuck to his job as G. O Party leader in the Senate, letting circumstances alone change his boom from that of a remote compromise candidate to that of the second man in line for the support of the present Administration. The first boom buttons of the season appeared: “Curtis for President.”

Mr. Hoover. The G. O. P. has only one platform to offer the country: the Coolidge record. The G. O. P. must therefore offer the country a candidate identifiable with the Coolidge administration. There is only one outstanding man of that description. So reason the friends of Herbert Hoover.

Mr. Hoover maintained an industrious silence last week in his big, bare office at the Department of Commerce. His friends were discreetly jubilant. First to swing from the draft-Coolidge movement to Mr. Hoover’s support was Committeeman Rentfro Banton Creager, “Red Headed Rooster of the Rio Grande” (TIME, Dec. 12), representing 26 Texas delegates.

Mr Dawes. In the non-Administration section of the party, Charles Gates Dawes remained silent too, adding nothing to his awkward insistence that he is not a candidate, that he is for his friend, Mr. Lowden.

Mr. Lowden. “The next move will be Lowden’s withdrawal,” said observers,who already considered hopeless the undeclared ambitions of Frank Orren Lowden, famed Illinois economist, lawyer, farmer, businessman and onetime (1917-21) Governor. Mr. Lowden’s friends claimed last week that he was already assured of 425 of the 545 delegates necessary for his nomination.

Mr. Lowden, in Washington last week, held a press reception and said: 1) that his friends were responsible for his boom, not he; 2) that farm relief was his chief aim in political life; 3) “I stand squarely with President Coolidge” on Prohibion.

Mayor William Hale (“Big Bill”) Thompson of Chicago, the man without whose support Mr. Lowden cannot hope to enlist his own state delegation, continued hostile to Mr. Lowden. Mayor Thompson has enormous admiration for President Coolidge. Last week, Mr. Thompson’s comment on the Coolidge statement was a clownish mixture of shrewdness and absurdity: “Well, I’ll vote for him anyway.”

Odds. Wall Street began laying bets on the Republican nomination. Last week’s odds against: Hoover, 8 to 5; Lowden, 5 to 2; Dawes, 5 to 2; Butler, 7 to 1; Willis, 10 to 1; Longworth, 10 to 1. Against Democratic Governor Alfred Emanuel Smith’s election, odds were quoted 6 to 1.

* Mr. Hughes is 65. There is no Constitutional age limit for the Presidency above 35 years. Mr. Hughes expressed only his own opinion of himself.