The Daily Ardmoreite

COMBINE TO
BEAT HUGHES
AND ROOSEVELT
G. O. P.
ALLIANCE
FOR
ROOT
FIRST, STAMPEDE TO HUGHES
THE ONLY FEAR. BURTON, FAIR.
BANKS OR SHERMAN SECOND.

Chicago, May 31.-A combination is said to have been formed carrying into it between 525 and 540 republican national delegates-that precludes the nomination of either Theodore Roosevelt or Justice Hughes.

This report is receiving circumstantial corroboration with the arrival of each state leader and delegate.

It is a combination that can be shattered only by a stampede to Justice Hughes, that must be of sufficient proportions to nominate him on the second ballot.

Only Chance for T. R.
Colonel Roosevelt's own nomination is now held to be improbable by the engineers of the combination and only possible at the end of a protracted deadlock forced by the failure of the alleged combination to agree within its own ranks if it shall have succeeded in the avowed policy of eliminating Hughes not later than the second ballot.

Elihu Root is the first choice of the active leaders who have perfected this combination through a year of careful maneuvers. Their second choice is Theodore E. Burton. Charles W. Fairbanks, or Lawrence Y. Sherman, not necessarily in this order.

John W. Weeks figures strongly, but the thoroughly posted men do not believe that he can command sufficient strength to land him within striking distance of the nomination. Philander C. Knox will have certain consideration as a dark horse.

Sweep to Hughes Perils.
The immediate policy is to stop a sweep to Hughes that will give to him the nomination at the outset of the balloting. The secondary policy is to nominate one of the first four men named.

It is probably true that the managers of this combination look for substantial aid from Colonel Roosevelt in sideswiping the Hughes boom. If the movement toward the justice gets to anything like landslide proportions, the hope is deeply founded that the colonel will say something that will put the justice out of commission as a winner.

South Uninstructed.
For the first time in many republican national conventions, the delegations from the south come in without instructions. Nearly all are in the combination. Former Postmaster General Hitchcock has picked out delegates here and there, who will be for Hughes, if all surface indications are borne out. Roosevelt has the entire state of Georgia if his delegates are seated, with scattering delegates in other southern states.

All that the leader of each southern state wants is to land with the nominee. All that he has at stake is the federal patronage with a republican administration in power at Washington.