Winner Take Nothing

(TIME, April 27, 1936) -- In Illinois last week was fought the first 1936 Presidential primary in which one Republican candidate faced another Republican candidate faced another Republican candidate on the same ballot. The result:

In votes: 480,000 for Publisher William Franklin Knox; 410,000 for Senator William Edgar Borah.

In delegates to the Republican national Convention: at least 35 for Knox; perhaps 22 for Borah.

In public opinion: a substantial set-back for Knox; a fair- to-middling victory for Borah.

This discrepancy between the numerical and the moral outcome of the Illinois Republican primary was accounted for by the difference in what the two candidates invested in the campaign. Publisher Knox invested long and careful preparation as a Favorite Son candidate, the virtually unanimous support of every local Republican organization in the State, the influence of his own great Chicago Daily News, about $25,000 in cash and an elaborate speaking campaign over a period of weeks. Senator Borah invested five days, six speeches and one visit to his younger sister, Mrs. Mattie Rinard, and his birthplace at Fairfield, Ill. (Of the original four Borah boys and six Borah girls only three survive. Sadie Borah Mabry, a widow in St. Louis, is 72. Mattie Borah Rinard, 69, lost her stockman husband 18 years ago, lives on in Fairfield in her own seven-room house, with a small income and one boarder, Miss Trula Scott, deputy county clerk. A third sister, Alice Borah Heidinger died last month, aged 86.)

In return for his efforts, Frank Knox got a majority of 110,000 votes in Cook County. Senator Borah got a majority of nearly 40,000 in the rest of the State, carried ten out of 15 downstate Congressional districts, swept the county where he was born, 3,500-to-350. Whether Mr. Borah will get all the 22 delegates to which he is nominally entitled is another matter, for the primary is only advisory. Elected at the same time, nearly all the delegates to the convention are personally rated as Knox men. If they follow precedent, however, thy will vote for Borah at least on the first ballot before switching to Knox. The real Borah victory came from the fact that the septuagenarian Senator was able to boast: "Frank Knox carried Chicago, but I carried Illinois."

Biggest primary victory by far went to Franklin Roosevelt. While Republicans Knox and Borah together polled only 900,000, the President, opposed in the Democratic primary, rolled up 1,300,000 votes. In this he was partly aided by the fact that the red-hot attraction of Illinois' primary was the fight for the Democratic nomination for Governor, which drew an unusual number of Democratic voters to the polls.

Same day that Illinois voted her Presidential preferences Nebraska did like wise, and again, as far as the national ticket was concerned, the winner was loser. Senator Borah, lone Republican candidate on the ballot, swept to victory, but of the Republicans who went to Nebraska's polls only a few more than half bothered to mark a cross for Borah. And for every five who marked a cross for Borah, one other Republican laboriously wrote in the name of Governor Alfred Mossman Landon of Kansas, who had not even entered in Nebraska. Again, as in Illinois, the result of the Presidential primary was only advisory, and a slate of uninstructed delegates mostly favorable to Landon was elected. President Roosevelt polled two-thirds again as many votes as Borah and Landon combined.

Said Democratic Boss Farley with satisfaction: "The primaries indicated the apathetic attitude of Republican voters toward the candidates who aspire for the party's Presidential nomination."

May 25, 1936 REPUBLICANS "I Am Not a Candidate"

This week, passing through Chicago on his way home to Stanford University from a campaign trip in the East, Herbert Hoover paused to issue a statement, his first on the subject of his candidacy for 1936. Excerpt:

"It should be evident by this time that I am not a candidate. I have stated many times that I have no interest but to get these critical issues before the country. I have rigidly prevented my friends from setting up any organization and from presenting my name in any primary or to any state convention, and not a single delegate from California or any other state is pledged to me. That should end such discussion.

"And get one thing straight. I am not opposing any of the candidates. My concern is with principles."

All Even

Month ago the voters of Illinois smacked the face of Publisher William Franklin Knox by giving Senator William Edgar Borah a majority in the Presidential preference vote everywhere except in Cook County. Fortnight ago the voters of California rapped the knuckles of Kansas' Governor Alfred Mossman Larden by electing a slate of uninstructed delegates to the Republican National Convention. Last week the voters of Ohio made it all even between the three active Republican candidates by boxing the ears of Senator Borah.

There was a time when the Idaho Senator hoped to win 20 of Ohio's 52 convention delegates. His entrance into Ohio was made for the specific purpose of thwarting regular Republicans' plans to name a favorite son, and thus to deliver Ohio's bargaining power intact at the Cleveland convention. Old Guardsmen went right ahead and picked as their favorite son Robert Alphonso Taft of Cincinnati, elder son of the late Chief Justice. Candidate Borah stumped vigorously in the northern portion of the State, made a loud noise against false-front candidacies. Candidate Taft canvassed the State like a bona fide candidate, although Ohio freely figured that his delegates really stood for Governor Landon, Publisher Knox and Senator Vandenberg.

Last week Candidate Taft's eight delegates-at-large pulled nearly 2-to-1 ahead of Candidate Borah's in the Statewide vote. Senator Borah elected two district delegates in Akron, one each in Cleveland, Youngstown and Steubenville. Mr. Taft carried off the other 47 of Ohio's 52 votes. In fact the earnest, high-minded lawyer-son of the 27th President of the U.S. made such a surprisingly good showing that romantic journalists began to circulate rumors to the effect that Mr. Taft, instead of being just a hopeless Favorite Son, might make a satisfactory Dark- Horse at Cleveland.

One phenomenon of the Ohio primary was that Senator Borah's great & good friend Mrs. Alice Roosevelt Longworth actively opposed him. For the first time in her long political life the eldest child of Roosevelt I stood for election and Ohio gave her some 278,000 votes of approval. Mrs. Longworth has attended six Republican national Conventions, as an interested spectator. Next month at Cleveland she will attend her seventh, as an Ohio delegate-at-large favoring the nomination of Robert Alphonso Taft.

-- In West Virginia Senator Borah last week played hardly a happier role than he did in Ohio. In a Statewide Presidential primary poll he swept all before him, his only opponent being one Leo J. Chassee of Milwaukee, Wis. This was no great triumph, however, because: 1) Franklin D. Roosevelt polled nearly three votes to Borah's one; 2) the name of Alfred Mossman Landon was reported written in on many a Republican ballot, but since West Virginia law does not recognize write-ins, the Landon votes were not counted; 3) in the election of the State's 16 delegates to the Republican Convention, 15 were for Governor Landon and one was doubtful. The only sure Borah vote from West Virginia at Cleveland will be that of the Senator's national campaign manager, onetime Representative Carl Bachmann.

-- In Oregon's primary Senator Borah had his one triumph of the week. His slate of ten delegates was elected unopposed. In the Presidential preference primary he also won unopposed. Of more significance was the fact that in that harmless popularity contest he polled 5,000 more votes than Franklin Roosevelt polled in the Democratic Presidential preference primary.

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