The Sun THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1928. CHOOSING A PRESIDENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 380, 14 June 1928, Page 8

The Sun THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1928. CHOOSING A PRESIDENT

IT might well be said without impiety that the manner of * selecting candidates to represent political parties in the election for the Presidency of the United States of America affords further proof that God is very merciful. No other country has anything like the same jmlaver and none yearns in envy for it. There are three stages in the long process of selection, rejection and election. The first is merely an exploratory skirmish in which likely candidates are tagged or spotted, and delegates appointed to attend the nominating convention of each rival camp. This stage is known as the primary elections. These this year passed quietly, no heads broken, no beans spilt. The second stage is the nomination of presidential candidates by the party conventions —an occasion always for the delirious excitement which represents the pursuit of happiness that, in the Declaration of Independence, is held to be one of the unalienable rights of American citizens. The last stage is the actual election of President in November by a college of electors representing all tlie States. One thousand and eighty-nine Republican delegates hold credentials at Kansas City for the selection of their party candidates in the election on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November for the Presidency of the largest republic on earth. Twelve thousand supporters are in attendance at the convention, while, it is estimated, forty million folks will listen-in to radio stories of the tremendous event. The Democratic nominating convention will repeat the orgy of political happiness a little later at Houston, Texas. Out of the welter of argument and noise two interesting items of sober information have emerged. These are, first, that Mr. Hoover is riding on the top of the Republican wave and, second, that Mr. Coolidge, true to his cryptic declaration that he did not choose to run is eliminated. Since the President has been the Moses of America, leading his people into the promised land of prosperity, stocks and shares on Wall Street ran downhill like the Gadarene swine. But it is one thing to he temporarily on top in the whirlwind of American presidential nominating conventions, and another thing to secure a four-years’ lease of the White House. Party conventions have a trick of being unkind to big favourites. A two-thirds majority must be secured, and it is easy for one-third of the delegates to hold up any candidate. Ballot may succeed ballot to such a point of excitement and desperation as to force a compromise, followed by the selection of a dark horse or a horse without distinctive colour or mettle. Thus it was when the late Dr. Woodrow Wilson was jockeyed into tlie ring against Roosevelt, and so it was when the late Mr. Harding got first to the post. One of the innumerable singularities of America’s complicated system of electing its President is that for months the campaign is a maelstrom of prediction, none knowing who may disappear in the vortex. Herbert Hoover is not a politician, lacks personality, and cannot speak for doughnuts. But he is the sort of man who gets things done without making a slogan of his determination. And he is an honest man, unsmirched by oil scandals and political corruption. Wall Street loathes him. It will he a great fight if the final test should be confined to Mr. Hoover and Governor “Al” Smith, the professional politician and uncouth platform idol of the mob. But no one, knowing anything about American politics ever predicts. A gunman might confound the greatest prophet.