Well, I guess you heard about my Presidential Boom. You know every calamity in the World befell the Democrats while they were here in session the last couple of years. First they started in nominating. The entire first week was taken up with that. They nominated so many Democrats that if it had kept up another day they would have had to go over into the Republican Column. They talked their Delegates and audience to death the first week. No wonder they couldn’t agree there was no two Delegates that could remember the same Candidate.
Well, it ran along week after week and the longer it ran the more confused the Delegates got. They began to get this Convention mixed up with the San Francisco one, because it had been so long since they left home, why, both Conventions seemed about the same distance off. One Delegation got to voting for Cox thinking it was ’Frisco. The Chairman had no more than got that straightened out and explained to them that this was an entirely different year when what does my Native State of Oklahoma do! They woke up the Chairman of their Delegation right quick one day to answer Roll Call and he blurts out, “Oklahoma votes 20 for Robert L. Owen.” Well, the chairman had to explain to them that this was not 1920, and that Mr. Owen was not a Candidate, he was only a Delegate. The Missouri Delegation, when they could not get any two to agree, voted for two days for Champ Clark, until Telegrams commenced to pour in telling them of his demise.
Nebraska voted for Bryan, and got sore when the rest of the Convention thought it was W. J. They said it was a Son or a Brother or something of his. Mississippi and Louisiana started voting for my old friend Pat Harrison and Pat’s Bottle run out, and they found an old Hoffman House Hotel Register, and from that on they just voted for the names on it.
Alabama was the only State that you could absolutely depend on. It seems that years ago Alabama sent a Delegation to some Convention instructed for a Candidate and that when they got there they sold out and voted for another. So they have passed a Law that any time they send a troup away again that they were going to vote for the man they told them to until the Candidate’s body had been duly pronounced dead by the Home Coroner. Well, that knocked any chance of profit out of this trip as far as Alabama was concerned.
La Follette, out in Cleveland, wrote a Platform, held a Convention, nominated himself, and went home. All this happened during the time they were polling the Illinois Delegation here at this Convention.
Women Delegates started in with Bobbed Hair and wound up by being able to sit on it. One Woman sent back home for her washing machine. The Arkansas Delegation started in whittling up the Board floor and whittled their way from the Back of the Hall up to the Speaker’s Platform. There was so many shavings under their Chairs that if a fire had ever broken out in the building, between these shavings and the long Whiskers, why, there would never in the World have been a way to stop it. There was one old long bearded Man from Utah, that when the voting on the Klan got close shook 4 Delegates with half a vote each out from under his Whiskers and decided the issue right there.
All the members of the National Committees had Gold Badges to start in with. The thing had only gone along a few weeks when they commenced to turn green and finally you couldn’t tell whether it was a Badge or a Shamrock.
It’s too bad because all the Delegates here will lose their votes when they go home this Fall. The law plainly states that you must have been a resident of the State for the last 6 months. If they were not thoughtful to register when they come to New York, they will lose their votes entirely.
Lots of the Delegates also had Wives who were Delegates, and this has been the longest time they ever spent together in their lives. I bet you will never see another Man go on a Delegation to a Democratic Convention when his Wife is on one. South Carolina has no Divorces, so of course this Convention gave all their members a chance to get out of the State, claim a residence of 6 months, and be divorced before they get home.
Now, mind you, as I pen these lines this thing is still going on. It’s Monday morning of the third week. I don’t know now who they will nominate. In fact people have lost interest. If they ever do nominate somebody some of the Papers may carry it and you may know it by the time you read this, but I doubt if he will even be nominated by then. If he is, it will be too late to get his name on the Ballot by November, as the racing Forms have already gone to press for the November Classic. I am certainly glad that La Follette entered. That will give Coolidge somebody to run against, anyway.