Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 189, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1919 — “LET THE SOUTH ALONE,” IS CRY OF HAYS. [ARTICLE]

“LET THE SOUTH ALONE,” IS CRY OF HAYS.

“Hands off the presidency.” Suieh is the “inside” and semi-of-ficial word that has gone directly to republican national committeemen in the solid south from National Chairman Will H. Hays. “Let the south alone,” The latter is the friendly advice of Chairman Hays -to republicans who are recognized as spokesmen for potential presidential candidates. This policy within the national committee is understood to be the first definite step toward aja assurance of peace and harmony in next year’s republican national convention. _ The evident intention, as viewed •by interested politicians, is to stop before it ever starts, the quadrennial excursion of lieutenants and skirmishers for northern republican presidential candidates into the states of the south; the recurrent series of rival state and district conventions, and the usual long docket of contests that have to be settled by (the national committee and then by the credentials committee of the national convention. As a usual thing, at this relative stage of the game preceding a presidential campaign, the men recognized as in responsible control of republican party machinery in the south, beginning with the national committeemen, have been parked in one or another camp of presidential possibilities. • It happened that way in 1908, when the Roosevelt organization was determined to nominate Mr. Taft, and it happened that way in 1912, when the Roosevelt organization was determined to nominate some one else, and the rows that were Started in the south produced eventually the smashup in the Chicago convention. Chairman Halys, well informed leaders agree, is living up to the stand he announced at Indianapolis immediately after 'his election to the chairmanship—that it isjthe business of the national committee to elect a president and not to nominate said, upon the promise, which 'has vital appeal to the republicans below the Mason and Dixon Mne, that there will be no federal jobs to hand out in 1921 unless a republican president is elected in November, 1920. To place a block of southern delegates on the political market in the good old way is to threaten party disaster, according to Chairman Hays, as the story goes. This situation was thoroughly discussed at a meeting of the finance committee last week in New York City, it is said, and an immediate result is that a few of the early birds have been called back to this side of the Ohio rivet. The determination of Chairman Hays and the national organization to go to the limit in the effort to make the national' convention next June a deliberative body, where a presidential candidate wtoo can be elected will 'be nominated, is reported to have appealed distinctly to the old progressive group as well as men representing candidates.