Show HISTORIC MURDER 0 ONE NE hundred and ten years ago a man was murdered and as a dire direct et result ot of that crime we n now ow have every four years national conventions of delegates 0 from every state and territory in the union to nominate candidates for president and vice president heres liow how it came about in 1826 william morgan of batavia N Y published a book which purported to reveal the secrets of freemasonry soon afterwards he disappeared and the masons were not only accused of having him and drowned him in the niagara river but ilso of blocking a proper investigation of his disappearance from western new york opposition to the masons spread to other states and several demagogic domago gic young politicians among them thurlow weed and william H seward of new york and thaddeus stevens of pennsylvania seized upon the movement to promote their own ambitions the result was the organization of the anti masonic party and in september 1830 the first antima anti ma sonic convention the first national convention of any party was held in philadelphia attended by 96 delegates from ten states it was decided to hold another convention I 1 the next year to nominate candidates tor for president and vice pres ident and this meeting was to be compos d of as many delegates from each state as there here were representatives in both houses of congress I 1 accordingly in september 1831 1 the convention was held in baltimore and it nominated for president william wirt of maryland who had been attorney general in monroen monroes Mon roes cabinet and for vice president amos ellmaker of new york in the election of 1832 these candidates won only the electoral vote of vermont later this party was absorbed by the whigs and lost its identity except in pennsylvania where it elected a governor in 1835 and continued as a separate party for a few years but during the anti masonic par tys short existence it had pointed the way for others to follow in the method of choosing candidates it gave them the national nominating convention and while convention procedure has since been changed in many ways from that day to this the fundamental principle upon which it was based has remained unchanged democratic representation of the party constituency KANSAS campaigner T THE HE state of kansas is in the limelight this year because for the first time in history a nominee of one of the major parties comes from the sunflower state moreover it has two candidates for the presidency gov alt alf al landon heading the republican ticket and earl browder of wichita the leader of the communist party this is not the first time however that a kansan has been a nominee back in 1884 there was another also a governor his name was john pierce st john a native of ind ana an adventurer in california in the gold rush days a lawyer in illinois and a soldier in the civil war rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel of an illinois volunteer regiment after the war he moved to missouri where he practiced law tor for a time and became noted as political orator in he moved to kansas where he was to win his greatest renown ile he served in the state stale abate senate in 1873 4 but declined reelection election re and in 1378 was elected governor by the republican part reelected re elected in 1380 1000 he won the republican nomination for a third term in 1832 1882 but was defeated in the election always a pronounced enemy of I 1 the liquor traffic st john was nominated tor for president on the prohibition ticket in 1834 and polled a total of votes this was more mor than the vote for butler the candidate vf f the green backers da ackers so that he was the run ner up in the race between cleveland and blaine during his canvass for the presidency st john traveled extensively over the united states making speeches in behalf of the dry cause in fact during his 14 years of public life he is said to have hung up a record of travel exceeded by few candidates for office he traveled more than miles by rail during which time he never had an accident nor was sick a day and made a total of speeches missing but four engagements gag gage ments in all that time S C western newspaper union |