Madison County Democrat

PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS BID FOR DELEGATES

COLUMBUS, O. (AP)—Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, an entrant in three primaries this week, may be making one of his most important bids for the democratic presidential nomination in tomorrow's Ohio balloting.

On the success of Kefauver's efforts to win 31 of Ohio's 54 convention votes—he already has one by default—may hinge control of this state's powerful delegation to the Chicago convention.

He hasn't entered a full delegate slate against the party organization, which seeks to elect a 53-vote group pledged for holding purposes to former Sen. Robert Bulkley.

If he could put Ohio in his vest pocket, the crime-busting Tennessean could shrug off a possible loss to Sen. Richard B. Russell of Georgia in the Florida popularity primary the same day.

Florida's 24 delegates will be chosen later in the month and Kefauver may share in them anyway.

At stake in Florida is a test of the Tennesseean's popularity in the south.

In the third primary in which he is involved—Maryland's vote today—Kefauver is the lone entry in the popularity contest. Whether he gets all or part of that state's 18-vote delegation will be determined.

Ohio's balloting is expected to attract about 900,000 Republicans and 500,000 Democrats to the polls.

Sen. Robert A. Taft appears assured of most of the state's 56 republican nominating votes in a strictly delegate-selecting affair where there is no popularity contest and where write-ins are barred.

Former Gov. Harold E. Stassen of Minnesota, ineffectual in most other primaries, is contesting for 47 delegate places. He might get support from some backers of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower but figures to elect few delegates.

Two candidates who have said unofficially they will back Eisenhower are running in district races where 46 delegates will be chosen. Ten will be named at-large in a statewide race.

Taft, winding up his campaign in Cleveland, said last night the United States should consider withdrawing its envoys from Moscow.

He said in a radio broadcast 11 Russians hold them "virtual prisoners" and "hardly let them out of the embassy."

But Taft said he would not press for withdrawal of U. S. recognition of Soviet Russia and her satellites until he had more definite information on the consequences involved.

Kefauver's largely-absentee battle for democratic delegates may involve control of the party machinery in Ohio with a possibility that a substantial majority of the state's vote might go to him at the Chicago party convention.

Any such block would make it more difficult for some national party leaders who are working against him to stop the coonskin cap Tennesseean's drive for the nomination.

Election of a substantial number of delegates apparently would put Kefauver in a position to deal either with Gov. Frank J. Lausche or Ray T. Miller, Cleveland democratic leader, to set up a new party alignment favorable to the senator's presidential candidacy.

Miller, who doesn't get along too well politically with the governor, is credited with an active effort in putting the Bulkley slate into the field, partly to forestall any "favorite son" movement toward Lausche.

Lausche, who said he is running only for governor, turned down a bid to put the Bulkley group behind him after President Truman, the original object of his affections, said he wouldn't run or be drafted.

The Bulkley at-large slate has some well-known Ohio democrats running on it, including Secretary of Commerce Sawyer, Mayor Thomas A. Burke of Cleveland, former U. S. Sen. James W. Huffman, CIO's Jacob Kroll, AFL's Philip P. Hannah and Lt. Gov. George D. Nye.