The Crucial West

Campaign "dope" flows freely from the mouths of politicians. Most of it is too unreliable to serve as a basis for a considered judgment. All of it must be discounted in inverse proportion to the political opinions of the person who gives it, both on account of intentional and unintentional coloring.

The following estimates of the political situation in the crucial West must be discounted because of the Republican sources from which they come. Properly these estimates should be compared with similar data from Democratic and Progressive sources, but parallel data from the latter is for the moment lacking.

The first of these estimates was made by Clinton W. Gilbert, famed correspondent of the Republican newspapers of Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis. He gave, in an article, the estimates which are represented in the table below, and he declared that his sources were "the private opinions of Republican politicians." The figures under each candidate's name represent the place where it was estimated he will stand in the election according to present indications.

STATES COOLIDGE LAFOLLETTE DAVIS ELECT VOTES*

Washington 2 1 3 7

Oregon 1 2 3 5

California 1 2 3 13

Idaho 1? 1? 3 4

Utah 1 3 2 4

Nevada 2? 2? 1 3

Arizona 1? 1? 3 3

Montana 2 1 3 4

Colorado ? ? ? 6

New Mexico 2? 2? 1 3

North Dakota 2 1 3 5

South Dakota 1 2 3 5

Nebraska 1? 1? 3 5

Kansas 1 3 3 10

Oklahoma ? ? ? 10

Minnesota 2 1 3 13

Iowa 1?

This tabulation gives Coolidge 37 of the 115 electoral votes of these states, LaFollette 28, and Davis only six. Twenty votes stand an equal chance of going to Coolidge or LaFollette. Sixteen are uncertain. Mr. Gilbert concludes that John W. Davis is not a candidate in this region. Democrats would have something other to say.

The other estimates, while from Republican sources, are less subjective and therefore more reliable than such estimates as the above. They were published by John Barrett, Chairman of the Coolidge Independent Group. They purport to be the answers, of a group of 2,400 "key voters" in the central West, to a questionnaire. It is an open question as to how representative these voters are, and their exact distribution was not given. The same questions were sent out in June and after Mr. Coolidge's acceptance speech in August. The questions and answers:

Question No. 1 "Is the so-called LaFollette Movement growing in your State to the degree that it may be a menace to the success of both old parties?"

Answers June August

Yes 79% 55%

No 21% 45%

Question No. 2 -- "Do you think LaFollette may carry enough Western States to endanger the Republican or Democratic candidates' getting a majority of the electoral votes, and so draw the election into Congress?"

Answers June August

Yes 54% 40%

No 46% 60%

Questions No. 3 -- "If the election were to be held now, would you vote for Coolidge, LaFollette or a Democratic candidate like McAdoo, Smith, or Underwood? (Changed in August to "Coolidge, LaFollette or Davis?")

Answers June August

La Follette 50% 37 1/2%

Coolidge 37 1/2% 52 1/2%

Democrat 12 1/2% 10%

* The total number of votes in the Electoral College is 531, the majority 266.