Palmer’s Withdrawal
With the thirty-seventh ballot, Palmer’s strength took a big drop. Amidst wild jubilation Chairman Robinson fought for order and let former Representative Carlin of Virginia, Palmer’s manager, up to the speaker’s stand. The crowd hushed. It recognized Carlin and knew that his appearance forecast only one thing, the release of the Palmer delegates and a break-up in the long deadlock. Men halted where they stood in the aisles to listen. Corridors poured back hundreds of loungers to the floor to pack the doorways and jam even the entrances to the galleries. An electric feeling of expectancy was in the air.
Carlin briefly stated that Attorney General Palmer was not willing longer to delay a nomination and authorized the complete and unconditional release of his delegates. A shout went up, only to be quickly stilled, while Chairman Robinson announced a 20-minute recess so that delegates might be polled for new alignments and the change in the situation be considered before another vote was taken.
While the recess was on the galleries sat tense, staring down into the great pit below, where delegates scrambled and tumbled thru the aisles conferring to appraise the situation before determining their course. McAdoo and Cox workers worked up to the maximum effort to take advantage of the break. The floor hummed like the stock exchange on a panicky day. Great clusters of Cox and McAdoo workers gathered about the Palmer groups, struggling for attention and to enlist under their own standard the army about to be disbanded.