National Affairs: In 1924

Who will be the Democratic Presidential nominee in 1924?

Before Senator Oscar Underwood sailed for Egypt last week he wrote the following sentence in a letter to a fellow Alabaman: ” When I return I shall give very careful and thorough consideration to the friendly suggestions that are being made in reference to the advisability of my entering the fight for the Presidential nomination of our party.”

Mr. Underwood’s candidacy is being advanced by the more conservative element among the Democrats.

Mr. Ford and Mr. McAdoo, both of whom may fairly be classed as progressives, have received most of the boom advertising thus far.

Democrats who do not take kindly to either Mr. Ford or Mr. McAdoo extol Oscar W. Underwood as a ” second Grover Cleveland.” And Mark Sullivan, dean of Washington critics, adds: ” Underwood’s relation to his party and public life generally is not unlike the relation of the new British Premier, Bonar Law, to British public life. Underwood, indeed, might claim not unreasonably that he is probably, on the whole, a somewhat abler man than Bonar Law. Certainly he has a greater experience in public life and in party leadership.”