vada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming-Total, 22.

DELEGATIONS EVENLY DIVIDED Maine, Nebraska, New Mexico, Rhode Island-Total, 4.

It is plain that with the states in the Republican column. divided between Roosevelt and Taft neither could obtain a majority. As for Wilson, he would be obliged to win over the votes of at least three states which are placed here in either the Republican or the Evenly Divided columns-it requiring the votes of twenty-five states to give a majority and that would seem to be practically an impossibility.

The almost certain result would be that there would be no election in the House.

But before it came time for the House to vote for President desperate politicians might develop a most alarming situation. The electors chosen in the several states do not officially cast their votes until the second Monday in January, 1913, and these ballots are not counted by Congress, in joint session until the second Wednesday in February. Under the law there is nothing to pre

vent any of the electors chosen by the several states from voting for whomever they please, though of course long custom has made it the rule that they shall vote for the presidential candidate under whose colors they have run. And equally of course the number of Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson electors actually chosen will be perfectly well known by the middle of November at the latest.

Between their election and the actual casting of their votes there is a lapse of more than two months. In the event that no one of the three candidates wins a majority of the electors on the first announcement, it is at least conceivable that attempts might be made on behalf of one or another of the candidates to cap

ture the allegiance of enough electors in pivotal states to change the final result of the election. In this not impossible contingency the excitement largely lacking in the presidential canvas might be transferred in an exaggerated form to the post-election struggle.

If the count of the electoral vote by Congress on the second Wednesday in February shows no majority for any candidate, the lower house must at once proceed to ballot for President, being re

stricted as to choice to the three leaders. There, as has been pointed out, it is apparently impossible that a legal election can be had.

Meanwhile, on the same date, in the Senate, the question of selecting a VicePresident is taken up. But by provision of the Constitution the choice of the Senate is limited to one of the two candidates for Vice-President who received the largest number of electoral votes. It is practically certain that Governor Marshall will stand either first or second, thus eliminating either Sherman or Johnson from the contest before the Senate, where each individual senator has a vote. To win the election one of the candidates must receive forty-nine senatorial votes. The present Senate is made up of fifty members who are classified as Republicans and forty-four as Democrats, with two vacancies which are to be filled by the legislatures of Illinois and Colorado, respectively. Apparently, therefore, either Sherman or Johnson whichever one happens to win the larger number of electoral votes-would seem to be certain of election. But, supposing

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Sherman to be the candidate against Marshall, it is difficult to believe that all of the nine or ten so-called Insurgent Senators would willingly cast their votes for him, and, on the other hand, it is even more incredible that all of the Stand-pat Senators would support Hiram Johnson

particularly in view of the fact that, in case the House fails to choose a President, the man named as Vice-President by the Senate would succeed to the office of the chief executive for the next four years."

All that would be necessary to prevent an election in the Senate would be for four Senators either Insurgents or Stand Patters, as the case may be-to absent themselves from Washington during the voting.

In that case the presidential election would be a complete failure and on March 4, 1913, when President Taft's term of office expires he would be succeeded, under the Constitution, by Philander C. Knox, Secretary of State, whose office is a continuing one and who would become, automatically, Acting President of the United States. Still following the dictates of the constitutional amendment it would be the first duty of the Acting President to call Congress in special ses

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sion, giving twenty days' notice to its members.

At this session of Congress, it is presumed, a call would at once be issued for a special presidential election which would probably be held in November, 1913 certainly not a prospect to be looked forward to with equanimity by the country.

The closest parallel to the present situation in the history of the country was in 1824. William H. Crawford was the regular Republican nominee-chosen, as was the custom at that time, by a congressional caucus. Old Andrew Jackson was named by the Democrats. Against these two John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay entered the lists. When the popular election was held Jackson obtained a plurality-but not a majorityof the electoral vote. The fight was transferred to the House, where, finally, John Quincy Adams was chosen President of the United States.

In many particulars that great struggle closely resembles the present onesave that it is now practically impossible to see how any one of the three candidates could legitimately win the votes of a majority of the states.

In the fight among Taft, Roosevelt and Wilson it is pointed out by acute political observers that the question of whether any one of the three can get a majority of the electoral vote is likely to be largely determined by the result of the election in New York and Illinois. A majority of the total electoral vote is 266. New York casts forty-five electoral votes and Illinois twenty-nine-a total of seventy-four, or considerably more than one-fourth of the total necessary. If Wilson carries both of these states his election seems sure. If he wins in New York it is highly probable. The result The result in Illinois is very uncertain, with three candidates for Governor aggressively in the field. But it takes an optimistic Democrat to predict that the electoral vote of the Prairie state will be cast for the Democratic candidate. In New York a Democratic victory is much more likely. In that state, however, Tammany Hall

is almost a controlling factor and Tammany, it is a matter of history, bitterly opposed the nomination of Governor Wilson. Furthermore Tammany being in politics for its own benefit and knowing that it can get fatter picking from a Democratic Governor than from a Democratic President-even of its own choosing has been before now accused of trading votes for the presidential candidate of the opposition party for Republican votes for its candidate for Governor. The ante-convention fight made on Governor Wilson by the Hearst papers, which has been since followed by exceedingly left-handed support of the nominee, may also be expected to have a considerable effect in cutting down the normal Democratic vote.

Altogether nothing could be more uncertain from the viewpoint of the unprejudiced observer than the result of the coming election. Will Roosevelt, with his shrewd policy in the handling of negro delegates, with his high tariff views and his eager wooing of the Southern vote, be able to break the Solid South and win support which is generally conceded to Wilson? Will the managers of the old machine in states which give huge Republican majorities be able to hold enough men in line to lose two-fifths of their usual vote to Roosevelt and still carry the election for Taft? How many votes will be lost to Wilson by the overconfidence of the Democratic managers? How will the vote of the great class of workingmen be cast in view of the promises made by the third-term candidate and the apparent lack of sympathy shown by both the others? Great questions of race and of religion are also involved-or, at least, studious efforts have been made to make it so appear. A dozen other difficult considerations complicate the problem.

The total number of electoral votes cast by the several states is 531. If two of the candidates run nearly equal, getting approximately 250 votes each, a third candidate, with only thirty votes to his credit will throw the election into the house.

WAKING UP A

F you are in quest of new sensations you should straightway buy a ticket for Necaxa. It can offer more thrills to the square yard than any place between the oceans. At least that is what ex-President Porfirio Diaz once remarked, and, in view of his own experience, he is the best judge of thrills I know. Nor, should your interests be confined to volts, amperes, kilowatts, triangulations, and hydrostatic heads, will you be disappointed, for Colonel

Goethals, the boss-in-chief of the Canal Zone, visiting Necaxa in search of suggestions for the big job on the Isthmus, pronounced it "the most sensational piece of engineering I have ever seen." Which in itself should be sufficient to enlist the interest of users of transit, level, and chain. Or, if it is romance which you seek, hearken to the story of a handful of Americans, who, jeering at the obstacles, racial, political, and natural, which they found before them, converted