THE H.B. TRIBUNE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1924. U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIV, Issue 278, 4 November 1924, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1924. U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

To-day there are proceeding in all the States of the Republic of the United States of America elections which in their cumulative result will probably decide who is to be President when the present holder of the office vacates the chair. The choice of the President is not, however, in the direct voice of the majority of the adult population of the Republic, To-day the voting will be by States, in each of which the majority will decide who are to form the Electoral College for the State. It is not until next January that the State electors thus chosen by the people meet, each body at the capital of its own State, and take a ballot among themselves for their selection of a President for the country. The vesults of the ballots thus taken are sent to Washington, where they are opened and counted, the president’s ehair going to the candidate who ecores the highest number of the whole electoral votes cast, subject in the present three-cornered contest to one of them getting an absolute majority of the whole. But us to-morrow’s State elections proceed, as is usual, upon purely “party-ticket” lines, as soon as the constitution of the various Electoral Colleges is announced it is, subject as already mentioned, practically known who is to be President. Each State, in effect, gives a block vote for a specified presidential candidate, and the relative numerical values of these State votes depends practically upon population, so that the more populous the State the greater the weight it throws into the scale. The choice as thus formally ascertained will be formally announced in Congress on the second Wednesday of February of next year, and the new President will then take office for the next four 'years. The position for to-morrow is, however, something quite unusual, inasmuch as there are three candidates for the office, so that there will be considerable splitting of the traditional party votes. Senator La Follette has surged in as an independent Progressive candidate yielding allegiance to neither of the recognised parties, the Republicans arid the Democrats. According to recently cabled forecasts it seems to be taken as almost a foregone conclusion that the Republican candidate, the sitting President, Mr. Calvin Coolidge, will have no difficulty in securing an absolute majority of the Electoral College votes. But should the unexpected happen and neither he nor either of his opponents secure such a majority, then the House of Representatives ballots for a President while the Senate chooses a VicePresident. But, as a correspondent explained in our columns two or three weeks back, should the House of Representatives fail to give one of the presidential candidates the requisite clear majority, then the presidential election virtually lapses, and the presidency falls to the VicePresident as chosen by the Senate. It is generally believed that in the House of as now constituted neither one of the candidates would secure an absolute ■majority unless by some scheme of manoeuvring not at present apparent. In any event, it does not seem to matter a very great deal to the rest of the world who may succeed in getting the seat. The country has lived so much to itself and for itself alone, and so fenced itself in with barriers of one kind and another, that its importance as an active factor in the cleaning up of the chaos of war is very much less than it should have been. In this respect, however, it would probably have been better all round had the Democratic candidate, Mr. Davis, had a better chance of election that seems to be accorded him. He has given

at least some slight indication of a disposition towards abandonment of the policy of selfish, isolation and taking some responsible hand in trying to readjust and regulate the world’s international relations and affairs. However, the prophets say that his prospects of having an opportunity to do this are of the slightest, and probably matters will for another four years go on much as they have been going so far as any effective effort on the part of the Big Republic to better them is concerned.