This from Sergeant Laverne Collier of the Idaho delegation when I asked him what he thought of the enlisted man idea. While we were talking about it the vote was being cast on Lindsley and Sullivan. As if to reecho Collier's sentiments, Sullivan got up and demanded that Lindsley's election should be made unanimous, and so it was.
Colonel Roosevelt promptly put Sullivan's name in nomination for vice-chairman. Mr. Abbott of Ohio seconded it and further moved that the sergeant's election be made unanimous. Sergeant Jack Sullivan was elected by acclamation. Then Colonel Wood was chosen secretary, the rules of the House of Representatives were decided upon to govern the procedure, and debate was limited to five minutes.
Insistence on that point was unnecessary. Our new American back from the wars has been too accustomed to action to like words that aren't concise and aimed right at the heart of the point. There was a good deal of noise and talk at this particular juncture and someone moved the appointment of a sergeant at arms. Captain A.L. Boyce of Boyce's Tigers (those young men who drilled so persistently in Central Park in New York preparing for the war) was picked. While this guardian of the peace was being appointed at least five gentlemen from as many delegations started to speak at once, perhaps against the five-minute debate rule, and in the confusion a delegate, whom Checkers might have described as carrying a load he should have made three trips with, took the platform and began something that sounded about as intelligible as Cicero's oration against Catiline in the original.
"Do I understand, Mr. Chairman, that a sergeant at arms has been appointed?" shouted Mr. J.L. Walsh of the Pennsylvania delegation.
"That's right," answered the chairman.
"Then let's have him get busy," rejoined Mr. Walsh. "We didn't come down here for a vaudeville show or to be entertained by some boob, because we've got boobs back home."
After this remark, the minutes read "Laughter and applause" but that doesn't half describe it.
Captain Boyce "got busy" and if the minutes could record the result of his actions they would probably read "Order restored—almost. Quieter, for a time."
Colonel Lindsley made a splendid presiding officer. None could have done better, but as the stenographer who took the minutes remarked (and she was convention-worn because she had attended so many): "This is the funnest meeting I ever wrote up." Right. It was the funniest meeting—funny being used in the sense of unusual as the stenographer meant it—that anyone ever saw. In fact it was unique; absolutely the only one of its kind. Because the delegates were unique. There never was anything like them in all the history of the country. They had gone into training camps like Bill, very tired, anæmic, with a shop and office pallor; and they came out of the war like Bill,—new, virile, interested, placing a value on themselves which would have been unthinkable prior to April 6, 1917.
But they placed a greater value on this organization which was so near the heart of all of them. No better proof of it can be shown than the incident which has just been described, viz., the refusal of Theodore Roosevelt to be the permanent chairman. Although I do not pretend to be able to explain the processes of thought and reasoning which led Colonel Roosevelt to take the action he did, still I do know this much! There are very few young men who would have been so deaf to the plaudits of the multitude, to the advice of old friends and to the still small voice of personal ambition as he was in refusing. I maintain that this refusal was by no means altogether prompted by anything of an hereditary nature but, rather, by the experiences and environment which had been Colonel Roosevelt's during the war. It took more than an under-slung jaw and a rugged Rooseveltian determination to refuse this great honor. It took discipline, and Colonel Roosevelt knew how to inflict that upon himself just as he did upon his troops whenever it was wise and necessary.