I wish you could have been there and heard what great men we have in this Country. We started out with 16 men for President. Here is what each one of them was.—“The only Man who can carry the Democratic Party to a Glorious Victory in November. Whose every act has been an inspiration to his fellow men. Not only loved in his Home State but in every State.” Well, there was six continuous days of that.
Then the Ku Klux Klan argument come along, and really it was welcome even in New York. Just to get people’s mind off that continuous, “The Man I am about to name to you.”
One day and up to two thirty in the Night they fought and argued the Klan. It was the most exciting and Dramatic night I ever saw in my life.
After 11 hundred Delegates voted and recounted and voted the thing stood only about one vote apart, in fact a fraction of a vote, due to North Carolina, instead of having an election and naming 24 Delegates, just letting the whole State come as Delegates and giving each one the usual Volstead Ratio, Half of one percent of a Vote.
Alaska voted one Klu Klux away up there. Can you imagine a man in all that Snow and Cold with nothing on but a thin white Sheet and Pillow Slip?
My old Friend W. J. Bryan made one of his characteristic speeches. He said that if they split the Democratic Party with this Klan issue that another great Party would arise to take its place. Some guy up in the Gallery started Booing him. He just stopped and waited a minute until the heckler quit, then he said: “But no great leader of any Party has ever come from the Gallery.” After that they laid off him.
Ex-Secretary of War Baker made a Speech on the League of Nations and spoke of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, meaning I suppose, Borah, La Follette, Johnson and Brookhart.
I arrived late one morning, well only about 15 minutes late, and they had nominated five men for president already. I asked a Man in the Press stand who they were and he said, “You wasn’t here and you know them as well as I do.”
I had a friend who wanted to be nominated but all the nominating speakers were so given out that he had to let it go until next Election, that is in case they ever have another one.
If the one who is nominated can only swing the votes of the ones who were defeated he will give Mr. Coolidge a tight race.