All in a Life-time

by Henry Morgenthau; French Strother

“Well,” he said, “the Governor has sent me to ask you to investigate the row between McCombs and Byron Newton. He wants you to settle the matter without his intervention.”

I sent for Newton first, to get his version of the trouble; and when he called, he was so unbridled in his language and so sweeping and illogical in his accusations against McCombs—he gave me an ultimatum that either he or McCombs must be instantly displaced—that I did not wait to hear the other side of the story, but promptly decided in McCombs’s favour. I concluded at once that Governor Wilson could not afford, at that critical moment, to expose himself to the charge of being ungrateful toward McCombs, who, notwithstanding his shortcomings, had rendered him invaluable services.

At last came the great days of the Convention. We went to Baltimore with less than half enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination. Our hopes lay in the splendid impression that Wilson had made upon the country, and in the generalship we should exercise upon the floor of the Convention. The odds were all in favour of Champ Clark. He had better than a hundred more pledged delegates than Wilson, and the ground swell of the politicians in his favour. Still, we were not daunted.

There were elements in our favour. The Baltimore Sun, chiefly through the enthusiasm of Charles H. Grasty, created an atmosphere of Wilson optimism in the city that had an undoubted effect upon the delegates. And a determining influence with many delegates and the public at large was a wonderful editorial, written by Frank I. Cobb and published in the New York World at the psychological moment.

The supreme opportunity for all of us to use our best talents in behalf of Wilson came at the dramatic climax of the Convention when, on the third day and with the tenth ballot, Champ Clark received a majority vote of the delegates. Though two thirds were necessary to get the nomination, Clark’s adherents thought that the achievement of a majority marked the turn of the tide and the assurance of victory. They had sound historical warrant for this faith: for only once before had a Democratic candidate who received a majority of the votes failed to get the nomination.

If Clark’s managers had been able to capitalize that critical moment, their candidate might have gone to the White House eight months later.

When this tenth ballot was announced, the Convention greeted the Clark majority with wild enthusiasm. What his managers should have done was to have pressed this advantage to an immediate conclusion. A few more quick ballots taken under the emotion of that moment would doubtless have carried him over the line to victory. Instead, they wasted the opportunity, and the Missouri delegation organized a snake dance around the hall, and spent the next fifty-five minutes frittering away the precious enthusiasm of the Convention by cheering themselves hoarse in celebration of an assumed victory. They stimulated the joy of Clark’s adherents by bringing in his young daughter, wrapped in an American flag, and placing her beside the chairman. This pretty picture provoked a fresh outburst of triumphant cheering.

Those fifty-five minutes cost Clark the nomination. McCombs, Palmer, McAdoo, and the rest of us had a hurried consultation on the platform, not ten feet away from Ollie James, the impartial chairman, who did nothing to discourage the wild demonstration. We agreed on a plan of campaign, and, as lieutenants, all scurried about the hall, consulting with the leaders of the other delegates. We got the Underwood forces to agree to stand fast for their candidate on the next few ballots, and made the same arrangement with the Marshall and Foss delegates, pledging ourselves, in turn, to hold our people fast for Wilson.

In three quarters of an hour we had corralled our delegates safely out of the path of the Clark stampede. They sat immovable in the face of the frenzy of the crowd. When the Clark demonstration had subsided, and the next ballot was taken, the Clark managers had a rude awakening: the result was practically unchanged. Then, with a stroke of political genius, Mitchell Palmer arose, and claimed recognition from the Chair. Tall, massive, and extremely handsome, Palmer was at the height of youthful grace and vigour. The Chairman recognized him, and Palmer moved an immediate adjournment to the following morning. Before the Clark delegates grasped the meaning of this manœuvre the motion had been put and carried. This respite gave Clark’s enemies a full day in which to make fresh alliances against him, and every one of the succeeding thirty-five ballots cut down his vote in the Convention.

The tide had turned. Wilson’s strength grew steadily, because as soon as a delegate realized that his own candidate’s cause was hopeless, his thoughts turned from his personal preference to the welfare of the party, and, in almost every case, he realized that Wilson was the one man to lead it on to victory. They realized, too, that a solemn duty rested on them. The Roosevelt defection from the Republican Party had ruined its chances, so that these Democratic delegates knew they were not merely nominating a candidate—they were actually electing a President.