Up-state Farmers Deserting Taft.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 18, 1912:
In Northern Counties Reciprocity Has Caused an Undercurrent Against the President.
SOCIALISTS FOR ROOSEVELT
Congressman Mott a Candidate for Re-election — Thomas F. Conway Campaigning for the Governorship.
Special to The New York Times.
    ALBANY, Aug. 17.— A close observer of politics, whose duties require him to spend considerable time in the western part of the State, said he was told by the foreman of one of the largest factories in Rochester that the feeling in his shop among the men was fairly well divided between the Bull Moose and the Socialist parties; that in a straw vote recently Roosevelt and the Socialist Party received over a hundred votes more than the combined Wilson and Taft vote. In the northern counties he found a deep undercurrent against Taft, and the only reason given was "reciprocity." In Auburn, where are located several large manufacturing establishments, the Socialist vote is expected to be large, although it is said that many of that party have tender feelings for Roosevelt, believing that if he were elected it would be a short cut to many of the objects they hope to attain through Socialism.

    Washington County, the home of Isaac V. Baker and Assemblyman James S. Parker, one of the strongholds of the Republican party in this State, is in an unsettled condition this year. Parker, who had a close call for election to the Assembly last Fall, will doubtless be the candidate of his party for Congress, the Twenty-ninth District being part of Rensselair, Washington, Saratoga, and Warren Counties, but such an independent spirit has developed among the Republican voters that the Democrats are beginning to hope they may elect a Representative to Congress this Fall, although such a thing has not happened since before the war. There are lively times promised by the Republican enemies of Senator James A. Emerson in Warren, and by those of the Edgar Truman Brackett machine in Saratoga, and these voting for the Bull Moose candidate, may make possible the election of a Democrat.

    Patrick W. Cullinan, the Republican leader of Oswego County, and Chairman of the Thirty-second District Congressional Committee, called a meeting of the committee for Oswego on the 20th. It was feared by Congressman Luther R. Mott, who represents the old Twenty-eighth District, that the committee might be called to meet in Jefferson, Lewis or Madison, which with Oswego compose the district, and that his chances of being designated would suffer thereby. When the call, therefore, went out for the meeting to be held in the city of Oswego Mr. Mott immediately announced himself as a candidate for renomination.

    George F. Ketchum, Chairman of the Orange County democratic Committee, says that while he appreciates the cordial indorsement by Democratic newspapers of the plan to nominate him for State Senator in the Orange and Sullivan district, that under no circumstances will he accept. He favors John C. R. Taylor of Middletown. Mr. Ketchum is a Deputy State Superintendent of Elections. John Bailey Rose now represents the district. The Republican Senatorial Committee will meet in Goshen on Tuesday next.

    Efforts are being made by the Bull Moose Party in the Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario and Yates Congressional District to defeat Sereno E. Payne, who now represents the old Thirty-first District, because Representative Payne was one of the principal assistants to Senators Root and Crane in accomplishing the downfall of Col. Roosevelt at Chicago. Mr. Payne has been in public life continuously since 1864. He has sat in every Congress from the forty-eighth to the sixty-second, with the exception of the fiftieth.

    Lieut. Gov. Thomas F. Conway has been swinging through the northern counties this last week looking after his fences in his ambition to obtain the Democratic nomination for Governor. In Ogdensburg he was entertained at dinner by Thomas Spratt. Among those present were M. J. Callanan of Keeseville. George L. Starks of Saranac Lake, J. K. Kelly, Democratic County Chairman of St, Lawrence, Andrew Irving, and Charles A. Murphy of Potsdam. This visit was two days ahead of the visit of Gov. Dix at Ogdensburg.

    Chairman George M. Palmer of the Democratic State Committee, made the statement in Syracuse on Wednesday that Alfred E. Smith of the Second New York District, and minority leader on the floor of the Assembly, is a candidate for Speaker of the Assembly. There was some talk of running Mr. Smith for the Senate, but Mr. Palmer thinks that Mr. Smith would servo the Democratic Party better as Speaker of the Assembly.

    Onondaga County Democrats were conspicuous by their absence from the gathering of Democrats at Rochester to bring about the elimination of Charles F. Murphy from up-State Democratic politics.

    The Progressive Party held caucuses in Herkimer County, the home of Theodore Douglas Robinson, nephew of the third term candidate, on Thursday, and everything was harmonious. Under the election law there is no such thing as party caucuses, but that made no difference to the Progressives, and the caucuses were held, but all nominations will have to be made by petition, no matter what action caucuses or conventions of the party take, and the petition for State officers must contain 6,000 signatures.

    Auburn's newly formed Seward Republican Club has started a boom for Thomas H. O'Neill, Mayor of Auburn, for the nomination of Lieutenant Governor, and named a committee to proceed to Saratoga and obtain headquarters for that purpose. Congressman Sereno E. Payne must contain 6,000 signatures.