What were my own feelings as I saw the candidate quietly walk to the speakers' stand? I was now to see almost face to face for the first time the man I had openly and bitterly denounced only a few hours before. What reaction of regret or pleasure did I experience as I beheld the vigorous, clean-cut, plainly garbed man, who now stood before me, cool and smiling? My first reaction of regret came when he uttered these words:
I feel the responsibility of the occasion. Responsibility is proportionate to opportunity. It is a great opportunity to serve the State and Nation. I did not seek this nomination, I have made no pledge and have given no promises. If elected, I am left absolutely free to serve you with all singleness of purpose. It is a new era when these things can be said, and in connection with this I feel that the dominant idea of the moment is the responsibility of deserving. I will have to serve the state very well in order to deserve the honour of being at its head…. Did you ever experience the elation of a great hope, that you desire to do right because it is right and without thought of doing it for your own interest? At that period your hopes are unselfish. This in particular is a day of unselfish purpose for Democracy. The country has been universally misled and the people have begun to believe that there is something radically wrong. And now we should make this era of hope one of realization through the Democratic party.
I had another reaction of regret when he said:
"Government is not a warfare of interests. We shall not gain our ends by heat and bitterness." How simple the man, how modest, how cultured! Attempting none of the cheap "plays" of the old campaign orator, he impressively proceeded with his thrilling speech, carrying his audience with him under the spell of his eloquent words. How tense the moment! His words, spoken in tones so soft, so fine, in voice so well modulated, so heart-stirring. Only a few sentences are uttered and our souls are stirred to their very depths. It was not only what he said, but the simple heart- stirring way in which he said it. The great climax came when he uttered these moving words: "The future is not for parties 'playing politics' but for measures conceived in the largest spirit, pushed by parties whose leaders are statesmen, not demagogues, who love not their offices but their duty and their opportunity for service. We are witnessing a renaissance of public spirit, a reawakening of sober public opinion, a revival of the power of the people, the beginning of an age of thoughtful reconstruction that makes our thoughts hark back to the age in which democracy was set up in America. With the new age we shall show a new spirit. We shall serve justice and candour and all things that make, for the right. Is not our own party disciplined and made ready for this great task? Shall we not forget ourselves in making it the instrument of righteousness for the state and for the nation?"
After this climax there was a short pause. "Go on, go on," eagerly cried the crowd. The personal magnetism of the man, his winning smile, so frank and so sincere, the light of his gray eyes, the fine poise of his well- shaped head, the beautiful rhythm of his vigorous sentences, held the men in the Convention breathless under their mystic spell. Men all about me cried in a frenzy: "Thank God, at last, a leader has come!"
Then, the great ending. Turning to the flag that hung over the speakers' stand, he said, in words so impressive as to bring almost a sob from his hearers:
When I think of the flag which our ships carry, the only touch of colour about them, the only thing that moves as if it had a settled spirit in it—in their solid structure, it seems to me I see alternate strips of parchment upon which are written the rights of liberty and justice and strips of blood spilled to vindicate those rights and then—in the corner—a prediction of the blue serene into which every nation may swim which stands for these great things.
The speech is over. Around me there is a swirling mass of men whose hearts had been touched by the great speech which is just at an end. Men stood about me with tears streaming from their eyes. Realizing that they had just stood in the presence of greatness, it seemed as if they had been lifted out of the selfish miasma of politics, and, in the spirit of the Crusaders, were ready to dedicate themselves to the cause of liberating their state from the bondage of special interests.
As I turned to leave the convention hall there stood at my side old John Crandall, of Atlantic City, like myself a bitter, implacable foe of Woodrow Wilson, in the Convention. I watched him intently to see what effect the speech had had upon him. For a minute he was silent, as if in a dream, and then, drawing himself up to his full height, with a cynical smile on his face, waving his hat and cane in the air, and at the same time shaking his head in a self-accusing way, yelled at the top of his voice, "I am sixty-five years old, and still a damn fool!"