THE DEATHS FROM OLD AGE AMONG THE DELEGATES IS ABOUT OFFSET BY THE BIRTHRATE.
If they don’t hurry up they will be the only Party in the World that ever nominated a Candidate and got him defeated on the same day.
In number of Population the Convention is holding its own. The deaths from old age among the Delegates is about offset by the Birthrate. Personally I think that the Candidates who will finally be nominated will be born in this Convention.
I have been writing a daily account for the Papers for this seven years’ Hitch. I took it for so much for the job. If I had signed by the word I would be able now to walk by and hiss Rockefeller.
In 1860, the Almanac says, a Democratic Convention was moved from Charleston to Baltimore. There is nobody here in this Convention to verify it, so I doubt if it ever happened. But, anyway, they talked for two Days about moving this one, on account of it being held here in New York where one of the Candidates lives. Well, they got to figuring and there was no Town they could take it to that didn’t have a Candidate who lived there.
Of course their thoughts naturally turned to Claremore, Oklahoma, the best Town between Foyil and Catoosa in Oklahoma. Then when Arizona showed such splendid judgment in putting me in nomination, why of course we couldn’t go there on account of the Galleries there being biased in favor of my nomination. Then they figured they might just as well stay here. Everybody had got used to the place, and if they moved them they would just have to get used to sleeping in strange chairs again, and maybe by a different seating arrangement they might be sleeping next to some one they didn’t even know. It meant really a lot of trouble, anyway, opening up new credit accounts and getting used to a different Climate.
I want the Democrats to just pass this election by without getting beat and then center all their forces on 1928. Cal. will be ineligible then, unless they may pass a Constitutional amendment to elect a President for life—and he is so lucky they are just liable to do it. But if he is out, the Republicans will have to get a new man too. Then it will be an even break.
But go ahead with this Convention and pick him now. In fact I would pick out three or four to run in rotation in 1928, ’32, ’36, and so on, because you will never get Democratic Delegates to give up the best part of their lives by attending another one of these things. If they are wise today down there they will pick Jackie Coogan, for President and Baby Peggy for Vice President.