Bourbonism in California, is conceded the Democratic nomination over Thomas F. Griffin of Modesto. Francis J. Heney is making a whirlwind campaign against Chester H. Rowell, editor of the Fresno Republican, for the Progressive nomination. The Bull Moose phalanx no longer presents the solid front of 1912. Factions and feuds have developed since the plum tree was shaken. Only the irreconcilables, the radical, uncompromising Armageddonites registered under the party name; the mildly Progressive element largely returned to the Republican fold, a circumstance favoring the nomination chances of Heney, the radical Progressive who has so far consumed less live coals in full view of the audience than might be expected. Whichever set of aspirants lands the nominations, however, the main battle will be fought out strictly along National issues. Standpat Republicans preaching a return to business sanity will clash sharply with the avowed Wilson policies, and both of the old-party candidates will be raked by the verbal shells from the Bull Moose camp. Politicians agree that the Senatorial race will be worth the price of admission.
With the Democrats hopeful of increasing their Congressional representation from three to five or six, with fifty referred or initiated measures to be submitted to the voters, with a state-wide prohibition campaign adding to the joy, the conscientious Californian voter of either sex will have to suspend business for the next two months in order to do justice unto the men and measures asking for support.
The Political Muddle in Oregon
IN California the three leading parties carefully and unostentatiously described a wide detour around the wet-and-dry issue. They suspected a bear trap with sharp, large-sized, cruel jaws. But in Oregon, the proving ground of political innovations, prohibition became the dominant issue. With personal. progressive preferences, prohibition is the pole around which the political whirligig gyrates in the state that, with the exception of 1912, voted for Republican presidents and varied the monotony by electing three Democratic governors in succession.
In the present contest for the governorship the fight openly is between the Republicans and the Democrats—but it may be that the Prohibitionists, as the third leg in the party race, will have a word to say in the finals. The third-party standard bearer is W. S. U'Ren, father of the Oregon initiative and referendum and of other now popular and widely copied measures. U'Ren started as an independent candidate, advocating the fifteen-hundred-dollar taxation exemption law, the abolition of the state senate and other innovations, annexed the Prohibition party nomination and had to surrender it again. If U'Ren could deliver his own independent strength, and the state-wide prohibition votes he would easily win, but—
The present Democratic governor, Oswald West, who is to be taken care of by the Administration with a good Federal job, lately has heated the atmosphere with his martial-law forays against liquor interests. And West's groomed successor is Dr. C. J. Smith, Democrat, who placarded his primary campaign with the slogan: "I stand for Law Enforcement." The third man is Dr. James Withycombe, Republican, former director of the Oregon Agricultural College Experiment Station, whom
