"We want, and we will succeed in getting the Army of the Unemployed mustered out.
"With us rests the duty of selecting a mustering officer; a man to carry out the wishes of the people; a man who is temperate in his judgment, unswerving in his purpose and unimpeachable in his integrity; a man in whom the people may place full confidence. With such a man as a candidate on the platform we shall adopt, the will of the people cannot be thwarted.
"We can frame the platform. Where is the man?"
"Trueman! Trueman!" comes the cry.
From mouth to mouth the name passes; now it is shrieked by an entire state delegation; now by the entire assemblage. Louder and louder becomes the cry. It is chanted, sung, shouted, shrieked. Men who have shouted themselves hoarse utter it inarticulately.
In the centre of the floor there is a movement; the guidon of New York is moving. It is being borne toward the Pennsylvania delegation.
Another and another state guidon follows in its wake. The convention is in an uproar.
Ten, twenty of the delegations are now swarming about the standard of
Pennsylvania. The galleries keep up the incessant shout of "Trueman!
Trueman!"
A hundred men are clustered about the speaker as he stands, awed by the outburst of enthusiasm. He is picked up and placed on the shoulders of his friends.
The delegations who have rallied to his support now number forty; they are moving toward the platform. The men carrying Trueman go to meet them.