The position taken by the Ohio Senator on many. issues during the debates was a strong conservative one.
opposed giving the President. wider discretionary neutrality powers and condemned his position as "much too warlike." "He denounced the inequalities of the Wagner Labour Act {rom the employer's standpoint, but opposed modifying the fundamental principle of collective bargaining guarantees, He advocated return of relief ministration to the States. He opposed the New Deal crop control policies. fud "advocated a "reasonable sub-in the form of benefits for sell conservation to compensate for higher costs of tariff-protected industrial foods, Ohio Republican leaders Were inelinsd not to regard Sen, Tait seriously when he decided to fun for the Senate in 1938, A quiet intellectual man, he was considered shy In the technique of campaigning. He is. no. back-slapper. Sen. Taft hhimsolt admits that his wife is a litle better campaigner than T am."
But he won. the nomination over Judge Arthur H, Day of the Ohio Supreme Court, even though the Tatter had the certain, if quiet, back Ing of the State Republican Chairman, Mr, EdD. Schorr, and his machine. "One of his more ardent backers in this race was Alice Roosevelt Longworth, whose father, Speak-Nicholas Longworth, broke with Sen, Taft's father in one of the early poliileal battles of this. century.
Sen, Taft entered Ohio politics by serving three consecutive terms in the State house of representatives. Ho served as speaker for one term and afterward served one term in the State Senate, He was. chairman of the Hamilton County Republican organization for several years and in 1936" was Ohio's "favourite son" for the Republican presidential nomina~ tion, His name never formally came before the convention because of the band-wagon rush to Alf London to whom the Ohio, delegation actually had been pledged, He proclaimed that huge spending by the government tends to deter rather than inspire recovery as claimed by the administration. He favoured repeal of payroll. taxes under the Social Security Act and substitution of a sales or " general transactions levy. He said President Roosevelt's Supreme Court enlargement bill was the measure which first "shook the people's confidence" land led to the Democratic party defeats in the 1938 elections.
Sen, Taft is the only one of the contenders for the nomination who has made formal announcement of his candidsey. In 50° doing, declared that' no sensible person would want to take over the responsibility of running the nation's business in 1940, but that he is willing to undertake it. While no national organization is operating on a large scale yet, Taft-for-President €lubs are in force in more than 17 states and their number is growing.
Sen, Taft was born in Cincinnati, where he lives today, on September 8, 1889, He attended private schools before entering Yale and was in college during most of the term which his, father, the late President William Howard Taft, spent in, the White House. In 1914, Sen, Taft married Martha W. Bowers, daughter of former Solicitor General Lloyd Bowers, and she stumped the State for her husband in his 1998 cam-Paign. They have four sons.
Tu carrying Ohio in his frst try, Sen. Taft became a potential candidate for higher Republican honors. His ability to go into the conve with the votes of the Ohio delegation in his pocket, however, was threatened fora time by the availability of Gov. John W. Bricker for the nomina-than, Tt looked early in the spring as though the two would battle it out for the delegates, with the Ohio Republican headquarters reportedly favoring the governor. But on July. 25, this threat disappeared when Bricker said at a press conference that "any assumption that T've been a candidate for president or working for it simply is not true.
It Sen, Taft wins the nomination, he probably will encounter opposition from some forces within organized Inbor. Ohio delegates to the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen's quadrennial convention asked the Brotherhood on May 18 to bring about Sen. Taft's defeat if he is nominated. They submitted "data showing that Taft voted against labour measures Ju a majority of eases and described his labour record as. "obnoxious."—
United Press.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.