SCIENTIFIC PLAYING

Proctor, the professional gambler and scientific poker player, made it a rule never to "come in" on less than "three of a kind", except very occasionally on a deliberate bluff. This "great American pastime" has been compared to politics, but incidents in which an opponent has been scared off are very rare indeed, and, needless to say, have never occurred in a presidential election. As matters now stand, political gamesters of both parties are admitting that the Republicans have a disadvantage, because they are not in a position to win on a bluff. And in a "show-down", too, the results are dubious at best.

At present, the Republican ring-leaders appear to have every intention of renominating President Harding. Mr. Coolidge, nothing daunted by the President's rebuke of Mr. Daugherty, has come out with an assured statement that the party will be satisfied with its present leader. There is little else, in fact, that it can do. If Barkis himself is willing, it would scarcely be politic for the party to repudiate him. And of his willingness, the statements of Messrs. Daugherty and Coolidge are the best witness.

But the conjecture market is still as lively as ever. Why were these gratuitous prophecies made so early and so positively? There is at least one plausible answer. Perhaps their object is to put a damper on insurgents within the Republican ranks. These rebels, attracted by the vigor of a Borah or the vote-swinging power of a Johnson, have been spreading sly stories about the President's discouragement over his work. They have bored from within, intending to scuttle the ship quietly when the time was ripe. They have imagined that they could persuade him of his unfitness for office or simply shoulder him aside. President Harding is unconvinced, he refuses to be shouldered. Dissentient Republicans have had the issue shoved squarely in their faces: Will they or won't they support their leader?

This is well enough, but such early rattling of campaign machinery is dangerous. Just as Democratic lemon-squeezing is premature, so is a Republican jamboree untimely. Before this, early campaigns have burst into bloom and have been nipped by a frost. If "the boys" climb aboard the Elephant and start lumbering down the race-track now, they may reach the finish before the judges have entered the stand. Then all the brave pageant will be turned to ridicule.