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Show Mihjngfdrh MEiWOlltlD Washington, D. C. ELECTORAL COLLEGE SQUABBLE Those who have carefully dug into the history of the electoral college admit privately that Jim Farley's legal counsellors, who hatched the idea of electors disregarding the popular vote, did some smart thinking, think-ing, not from the viewpoint of a fair election but in regard to historic precedent. Most famous case in which the electors flouted the majority of voters was in the election of 1876 between Hayes and Tilden. But there have been other interesting and more recent cases, though they didn't upset a national election or attract much attention. For instance: in-stance: In the Teddy Roosevelt-Alton B. Parker election of 1904, Maryland cast seven electoral votes for Parker Park-er and only one for Roosevelt, though Roosevelt had the majority of the popular vote by the very slight margin of 109,497 to 109,446. ... In the " Taft-Bryan contest of 1908, Maryland electors again ignored ig-nored the will of the people by voting 6 to 2 for Bryan, though Taft got a slight edge of the popular vote by 116,513 to 115,908. . . . California electors split their vote In the 1912 Wilson-Taft-Roosevelt fight by a 2 to 11 vote in the electoral college for no particular reason. Wilson ran second in the popular vote, with Roosevelt first, but two electors disregarded dis-regarded this and voted for Wilson anyway. History is dotted with isolated cases where a few electors bolted the wishes of the people of their state and voted as they pleased. This, it must be admitted, was what ihe Constitution specified, though general custom has ruled otherwise. In the McKinley-Bryan contest of 1896, one California elector plumped for Bryan, though the people of the state voted for McKinley. One Ken-tuckian Ken-tuckian did the same thing in the same election. . . . Michigan in 1892 saw only 9 of its electors vote for Benjamin Harrison and 5 for Grover Cleveland, though Harrison got the popular vote. . . . Ohio cast one electoral vote for Cleveland in the same election, though Harrison carried car-ried the state by a slender margin. All of this background indicates indi-cates why FDR's politicoes, though not admitting it publicly, are scrutinizing credentials carefully -and are not at all happy about the electoral college col-lege threat in the Sonth. s RED 'TIRE-TAPE Strange as it seems, American notorists soon will have a chance to buy German and Japanese tires. Behind this is a story of inexcusable government red tape and procrastination. procras-tination. Inside fact is that, immediately after Pearl Harbor, U. S. officials began buying up all sorts of tires in South America, accumulating tires imported to Latin America from every part of the world, some of them five to twenty years old. Several hundred old Japanese and German tires were found among Brazilian stocks. When these tires were originally Imported into the United States, they were allocated largely for military mili-tary use, some for lend-lease, some for government agencies. Last November, however, synthetic syn-thetic tire manufacture was increasing increas-ing and it was decided to sell a large number of these imported tires to civilians. Here came the first red-tape hitch. The tires had been purchased by the Rubber Development De-velopment corporation,' an FEA agency. But Rubber Development did not want to sell the tires to Defense De-fense Supplies corporation, a Jesse Jones agency, except at the price which it had originally paid in Brazil. Bra-zil. This price, in order to get the tires away from Brazilians, had been high. But Jesse Jones and his Defense Supplies corporation, being shrewd bargainers, didn't want to buy at that high price. More Red Tape. Finally, Rubber Director Col. Bradley Dewey stepped in to help cut the red tape. Rubber Development's Develop-ment's high price was met. But then, more delays developed. Finally, on February 28, 1944, Colonel Dewey signed a strongly worded directive demanding once again that the tires be turned over to civilian use. However, it was not until June, four months later, that the transfer to Defense Supplies corporation was finally completed. Thus, seven whole months were wasted while the tires gathered dust. POLITICAL CHAFF fl. It wasn't what the governdt of North Carolina said to the governor gov-ernor of South Carolina, but rather what several governors of North Carolina said to each other en route to Chicago. On the North Carolina Special were favorite son Governor Broughton, ex-Gov. O. Max Gardner, Gard-ner, and ex-Gov. John Ehringhaus. ... All came to the convention together, to-gether, in addition to North Carolina's Caro-lina's Lieut. Gov. R. L. Harris, ex-Speaker ex-Speaker Will Smith, and ex-Con gressman Frank Hancock. |