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Show PRE-CONVENTION DAYS. As the factions assemble in Chicago salient features of the conventu n battle bat-tle begin to disclose themselves among the maneuvering f jrce?. b'ome of the features are striking, some amusing, some repellant. A moug tho amusing features is the almost complete eclipse of the minor candidates. A few weeks ago several of those candidates considered themselves them-selves and were considered by others as veritable Von Hindenburgs and Joffres of the political battlefields. They were making prodigious drives toward Chicago, Chica-go, creating a horrendous din. It appeared ap-peared as if all of them would loom large upon the battlements of the convention con-vention hall, but now they find themselves them-selves lost in the crowd with nothing to do but take revenge upon their predatory preda-tory publicity managers. The most striking feature of the pre-convention pre-convention days is tho narrowing of the battle down to Justice Hughes and ex-Prosident ex-Prosident Roosevelt. Their booms out-boom out-boom all other booms so thunderously that they alone are attracting the attention at-tention of the crowds. Tho contrast between the methods of the Boose veltians and the supporters of Hughes is conspicuous. The supporters support-ers of Hughes are relying solely upon the merits of their candidate. They feel that his great prestige is sufficient to carry him to success. On the other hand, the practiced political agents of the Roopevelt camp are resorting to all the familiar devices, paltry or respectable, respec-table, of machine politics. They, too, appreciate the prestige of Hughes and seek to offset it by craft. One strategist strate-gist calls up Washington on the long distance jrone for the purpose of taking tak-ing tho candidate by surprise aud heckling him in an unguarded moment. He is baffled when the justice's private pri-vate secretary declines to disturb the candidate, despite the would-be heckler's importuuities. One plot has been frustrated, but there are many more. Mr. Von L. Meyer, former secretary of the navy, insists that Justice Hughes be "smoked out" on various issues, hoping that if the justice consents to be questioned he will say something that the colonel, lying ly-ing in ambush, can pounce upon and tear to pieces with great show of lofty indignation. And if the justice refuses to be questioned it will be quite as satisfactory, satis-factory, for then he can be denounced with even more fury because he fails to take the people into bis confidence, because he has revealed himself as a "weakling" or a "mollycoddle" or even a "Byzantine logothete. " No quarter will be shown Mr. Hughes because be-cause his hands are tied by the fact that he is on the supreme bench. He will be. prodded with the sword or the bayonet or beaten with a, big stick until un-til he cries aloud. And if he cries aloud he will be savagely attacked by the whole Roosevelt rout at once. There is just enough time left for the colonel to win a triumph by these methods meth-ods or to discredit himself utterly. The chances are that, instead of trampling hiB great foe into the earth until he looks like "a nature fake," the colonel will whirl himself into the mad dervish class, run amuck and vanish from the political ken of the convention. |