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.
Die Hard for Palmer
Back in their seats again under the banging urge of the gavel, the delegates awaited the 39th roll call. The effect of Mr. Palmer’s release to his friends was noticeable at once. By twos and threes and larger groups, delegates previously voting unchangingly for him went to other candidates, each change that brought gain to McAdoo or Cox let loose a new roar. The faithful Pennsylvanians insisted on casting one more vote for Palmer as a final tribute to him. The delegation chairman’s statement went unheeded for the most part and the great block of votes went down for Palmer amid a surprised hush. The announcement of the whole ballot, however, started another tumult, led by Cox adherents. It showed he had outstripped McAdoo in the race for Palmer delegates and again reached the lead.
The Cox forces scented victory right there. The Cox band trooped into the gallery and hurled the strains of the Cox battle song, “Ohio, Ohio,” down into the din below. Again time was required to get quiet enough to start a new roll-call. When Pennsylvania was reached the delegation asked for a poll. One by one a big McAdoo majority in the Pennsylvania ranks was disclosed and the Cox supporters looked a little disturbed. The drift to the Ohio standard was on, however, and even the more than two-score Palmer men who joined from the Pennsylvania forces would not push McAdoo back into the lead. A fight to adjourn for the night was started by McAdoo supporters, against shouts of “No, no,” all over the floor. The motion went down on a vote that left no doubt of the convention’s determination to fight it out then and there. The 41st ballot was started.
Spectators Desert
Both McAdoo and Cox gained ground and McAdoo supporters dug themselves in, grimly determined on a last ditch fight. The 42nd roll call was started. It showed new drifts to Cox as the votes were shouted back to the platform from the unsuppressible murmur among the delegates, now regardless of the fatigue of the prolonged fight, altho the great galleries above them were by then almost vacant. Great blocks of empty seats showed where worn-out spectators had given it up by midnight and gone home expecting another day.
When Georgia was reached the delegation chairman leaped to his chair and shouted that his state, formerly in McAdoo ranks, would join hands with Ohio “To name the next President.” He cast the solid Georgia vote for Cox, and the shout that followed seemed to rock the building. McAdoo followers were still holding grimly. Again the Texas block of 40 votes went in for him. The western states, which led the way in his drives, stuck hard, and even the fact that Cox had swept beyond the first majority vote recorded for any candidate did not shake them loose.
The 43rd roll call began in a riot of noise that made the poll audible only as the surges of sound paused to let the figures reach the clerks. Little by little the drift to the Cox column continued gaining momentum as it ran. “Get into the wagon!” roared a man in the galleries, and the Cox rooters took it up. Votes for other candidates than Cox or McAdoo brought yells of “Come out of it!” and “Wake up!” In the New York delegations a challenge for a poll sent a dozen men scurrying to argue with the challenger. He was the center of a fire of argument and objurgation he could not resist. Finally, after a new move by McAdoo supporters to adjourn in a last desperate effort to stave off defeat had been roared down, the last ballot—the 44th—began.