Pre-Convention

Republican. The figures representing the mounting numbers of Coolidge delegates to the Republican National Convention continued tediously. Following the Massachusetts and Ohio primaries and the Missouri .State Convention, the Coolidge total was 860--305 more than necessary. On the first ballot the Coolidge total may well be over 1,000 of the 1,109 votes.

Better than these figures, as indication of Coolidge's invincibility in the Convention, was the President's announcement that he wanted William M. Butler to be Chairman of the Republican National Committee--to manage the President's election campaign as he has managed the primary campaign. This is a post which for many years has been filled according to the choice of the nominee. It is yet six weeks before Coolidge can be the nominee. But what need was there to wait for the whistle to blow when the score stood:

Coolidge: 860

La Follette 28

Johnson 15

The naming of Butler was variously accounted for. A week before, the choice of Representative Burton to give the keynote speech at Cleveland was hailed as a victory for the President's secretary, Mr. Slemp. Butler and Frank W. Stearns, the President's intimate advisors, had not heard of Burton's choice in advance. Coolidge let it be known that Burton was his personal choice, but it was suspected that Slemp might have inspired it-- and if so that Slemp might inspire himself as choice for the National Committee Chairmanship.

It was possibly because Butler and Stearns felt that they were being left in the cold that the announcement of Butler's choice was hastened. It was possibly because of the disclosure that officers of the present National Committee had made an attempt to discredit Senator Wheeler, that the President let Butler's selection be known--to show that the Coolidge organization would be a different group. It was possibly because the President had long been on close terms with Butler, relied on him, wanted his type of man.

For William M. Butler, like Mr. Coolidge, was in days gone by a protege of the late Senator Winthrop Murray Crane. Both have quiet unostentatious ways of doing things, both can spare words, both have a certain primitive honesty. Butler, now gray, portly, 63, wearer of double glasses, comes of an old New Bedford family. At 16 he was at work in a New Bedford shoe factory. Later he went away from New Bed- ford to go into law and politics. Now he runs, on the side, a few cotton mills in New Bedford.

When the President had announced that Mr. Butler would get the National Committee chieftainship, now held by John T. Adams, Mr. Butler promptly renounced his ambition for the Republican Senatorial nomination in Massachusetts and suggested that Governor Cox of that state should get it. Either Governor Cox or Louis Coolidge (no relation of Calvin) will probably be nominated.

Democratic. The ascendant star among Democratic Presidential aspirants, seemed, for the time at least, to be Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. The death of Charles F. Murphy (TIME, May 5), Tammany leader, seemed rather to have improved his chances.

After Mr. Murphy's funeral, while political leaders were still assembled in Manhattan, a conference took place behind locked doors in the Hotel Biltmore. Governor Smith himself, George E. Brennan, Democratic boss of Illinois (since the death of Mr. Murphy unquestionably the most in- fluential Democratic boss in the country), Norman E. Mack, Democratic National Committeeman from New York, Surrogate James A. Foley, son-in-law of the late Tammany leader and claimant to the Tammany throne, were present.

Two days later it was announced that Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1920 Democratic nominee for Vice President, had agreed to head Governor Smith's campaign. The choice of Roosevelt was undoubtedly calculated to strengthen Smith with the public, for his name lends a color of respectability which no purely Tammany candidate could expect.

There is no mistaking the growth of Smith's strength. Within a few weeks he has developed from one of many favorite sons, to a position in which he is generally acknowledged to be the chief opponent of McAdoo. To be sure, the chances of Smith's nomination are nil if McAdoo can hold his following together in the Convention, but Smith has shown unexpected strength.

In the Massachusetts primaries, two avowed Smith men drove out some of the regular "uninstructed" candidates for delegates at large. Smith is making no active primary campaign outside of New York, but not a few uninstructed delegates are known to be favorable to him.

Meanwhile McAdoo's fortunes did not prosper well. By a 5 to 3 vote ex-Governor James M. Cox, Democratic nominee in 1920, secured the Ohio delegation from McAdoo.

It is entirely possible, if not probable, that the Democratic nomination will go neither to McAdoo nor Smith nor even to Underwood, but to some favorite son or dark horse. Such quiet candidates as Senator Carter Glass, David F. Houston, ex-Secretary of Agriculture, or possibly the oft-suggested compromise, Ralston, may make away with the prize in a warring Convention.