Show AV JV RM Z of MN q 1 4 s 29 af J by ELMO SCOTT WATSON f FALK ALK about the 1932 presidential campaign Is already in the air and it wont be long now until the two major parties will be deciding where they will hold their conventions to select the standard bearers in next years year s race ram so it Is appropriate at this time to recall that the first presidential convention was held years ago and the story of that historic gathering is one of the interesting incidents in our na lional history which Is but little known to most americans lost most americans no doubt believe that we have had presidential nominating conventions ever since american political par ales came into existence and that such a meth od of selecting candidates was originated by one of the two major parties which have al ways dominated governmental affairs but the fact Is that neither belief Is correct the republic had been in existence more than four decades and had already chosen six presidents when this procedure which was regarded as a I 1 startling innovation intimation at the time came into ex istance more afore than that it was not the anven tion of one of the then leading parties but it was brought into being by an obscure tion which played a minor role in one dentral campaign and then quickly passed out of existence not even the fact that the two leading par ties of that period immediately adopted the na lional convention idea as have all later par ties until now it Is an essential part of the american political scheme has been sufficient to keep alive the memory of the anti masonic party a religious political phenomenon which in september 1831 held in baltimore md ald the first authentic national presidential nominate ing convention and to round out the paradox of this historic incident which Is filled with paradoxes it should be recorded that the nomi nee of the anti masonic party was himself a mason I 1 it Is probable that a national nominating convention would have come about eventually in the process of american political evolution a even it if there had never been an anti masonic party but it so happened that this organization came on the scene at a time when the growth of the democratic spirit in the american people was rising to a high tide and the tion with the previous method of choosing prest candidates had reached its peak so whether by design or by chance this party responded to a popular demand with a new and acceptable method and thus gets the credit for inaugurating a custom which is a milestone in american political history during the first two decades of our history as a nation it became the practice for each party to hold a congressional caucus and nomi nate date candidates for president and vice dent but gradually the caucus grew into disfavor the dictum of the party members of congress was not always accepted by everybody in 1808 two powerful competitors for the succession te to jefferson appeared madison and mon f roe and both were v ere put forward by state legs dative caucuses in virginia the congressional caucus decided la in favor of madison several members of congress who did not favor madi madl son appealed to the country not only against the regularity of the procedure but against the caucus system itself but the caucus won out in that instance and madison was elected prest dent though the congressional caucus continued to make presidential nominations until 1824 king caucus as it was now called continued to be regarded with more and more disfavor in 1824 william H crawford of georgia was the caucus nominee of the Pe republican publican party but the rank and file of the party refused to ac capt him and he came out third in the list of candidates in the election so king caucus was dethroned and democratic america was ready for a new and more representative meth od of choosing its candidates for president this was furnished by the anti masonic party which was aas brought into being by the following events in 1824 a certain william morgan settled in batavia N Y he ile had been a mason but bt be coming dissatisfied with mith the fraternity he published a book which purported to reveal the secrets of the tile order in 1826 morgan disappeared and the rumor was started that he had been abducted and murdered by the masons there was no proof that they had anything to do with his disappearance but the incident was capital teed upon by enemies of the order and through new york new england and pennsylvania spread the suspicion that the order whose mem barship was mainly from the wealthier classes was a secret political society as well as a fra order whose influence swayed juries and legislatures so america had a first class men ace to get excited over and the politicians were et N p 4 V 71 ft s heto quick to seize upon it to promote their own ambitions the result was the formation of the anti masonic party at a national convention held in philadelphia in september 1830 at tended by 98 96 delegates from 10 states there it was decided to hold a national nominating con the next year of this party prof william 0 lynch in his book fifty years of party warfare 1780 1789 1837 published recently by the bobbs merrill corn com pany writes the antt masonic lc strength was greatest in the east the movement made lit tie tle headway in the west save ohio and was weak in the south in the new england states new york and pennsylvania the number of anti Antl masons ivas was great the strongest leaders appeared in these commonwealths among the political leaders who had some prominence in the anti masonic party were william 11 sew ard thurlow weed millard fillmore albert H tracy francis granger john crary and fred erick whittlesey of new york thaddeus stev ens and richard rush of pennsylvania edward everett and john quincy adams of massachi Mass achu other leaders who looked with favor on the party were william wirt john marshall john 0 calhoun john mclean and daniel webster andrew jackson who was then president was a mason and seemed certain of re election reelection unless some strong combination could be formed against him so an effort was mas made to induce henry clay to lead the new party or at least to unite the anti masons with the wing of the national republican party of which he was the leader under his banner the only trou brou ble with this effort was that clay himself was a mason and although he was not an entrust astle member of the order the efforts to get him to renounce it failed in september 1931 clay wrote a letter in reply to a committee of anti masons in indiana who bad had asked him for his sentiments on mason ry which may possibly have vitally affected his political fortunes and kept him from real izing bat fondest ambition of going to the white house in this letter clay said that should he give his views on masonry it would imply that individual settlements on the subject formed a proper consideration in regard to voting for persons to fill federal offices he ile declared that americans should vote for president without regard to religious social brne benevolent or liter ary associations further than that he made a statement which was a criticism of anti Antl mason ry when he said if indeed you gentlemen will point to a provision in the federal conati aution which can legitimately be made to op erate upon the subject in question I 1 would not hesitate to comply with your request this was a definite turndown turn down for the anti masons and years later thurlow weed aneed declared that if clay had not written this letter the anti masons would have joined the national republicans and would have defeated jackson such a combination he declared would have given clay new york pennsylvania vermont georgia north carolina and louisiana in ad to the states that he did carry enough to have insured him a safe majority in the electoral votes turning to their next best bet the anti masons picked upon william wirt of maryland as their choice wirt had been one of the at torness who bad had prosecuted aaron burr for treason had served as attorney general in the cabinets of both madison and monroe and was widely regarded as an able and outstanding man so when the first national nominating convention ever held in the united states as in the old athenaeum in baltimore in september 1831 it selected wirt as its choice for candidate for president and named amos hill Li maker of pennsylvania as his running mate tor for vice president and this despite the fact that wirt was a mason of many years standing and had never renounced bis his allegiance to that order I 1 his letter of acceptance has often been cited as a practical renunciation of masonry but it was far from that in it he said in sub stance that both in conversation and in letters to friends he had spoken of the contentions over masonry as a subject more fit for farce than tragedy and had been grieved at seeing some of my friends involved in what appeared to me such a wild and unjust persecution against so harmless an institution as free masonry the candidate of the anti masons then ad fitted his ideas upon the subject had under gone some modification however and that he did find some cause tor for alarm in the actions of overzealous members of the order con berning the new party he was asked to lead wirt wrote after describing his own affiliation with masonry extending on oer er a period of SO 30 years I 1 had bad supposed that the very principles of your union was a war of indiscriminate pro against all persons throughout the united states who had ever borne the name of mason that you would put in nomination no persons who had ever been a mason and who would not moreover pledge himself to become a party to such a war of indiscriminate ex tion and wield the appointing power of the office under your dictation who would not in short become the president of your party instead of be ing the president of the united states I 1 am happy to find that this Is an error this attitude of their candidate was far from satisfactory to the more earnest of the anti masons and they became even more d when the campaign got under way for wirt made no attempt to carry on on active cam laign how plainly he felt that an unpleasant job had been wished off on him and that there was no hope of his being elected Is shown by a letter which he wrote to judge carr an anti inti mate friend in it he said I 1 had thought I 1 had no right to object to the anti masons proposing me to the consideration of the people for the office of president every other chance of uniting the opposition to jackson had vanished this alone remained and faint as it was I 1 considered it my duty to permit the offer to be made it has been made the national republicans have declared against the union which alone I 1 had in view I 1 can perceive neither d gelty nor decency in con tinning the nomination it Is true that when I 1 accepted the nomina tion I 1 knew that this state of things might arise but it Is not true that I 1 knew if it should arise the anti masons would still persist in the nom it never entered into my imagination that they could wic wi C to do so vain and foolish a thing what end can it answer to themselves it will only expose their weakness they cannot carry a single state except perhaps vermont in such circumstances what a figure will they and their candidate make in a presidential President fal contest it will annihilate them and me too by the mere force of ridicule he was a true prophet not only did clay fall to beat jackson as wirt had hoped but as he had also predicted vermont with its seven electoral votes was the only state carried by the atIlla anti masons sons even john job floyd of georgia who ran as an independent did better than that he got 11 electoral votes after the election of 1832 this party disappeared from the national scene most of its members were absorbed by the whigs although in pennsylvania it con tinned its identity for several years and elected a governor in 1835 but even though it played such a small part on the american political stage the anti masonic party and its standard bearer william wirt are deser de Ning of kemem brance as the party which gave to the country the national convention system ac by western newspaper union ich ch is without parellee par ellel eliel in the h hemisphere was the mining camps of the ler er lode that inspired brat drat hart mark twain with their won ul gift for word painting to e tales that have become clait poverty flat her ker flat and red dog wore names and not the product ol 01 t hart harts s imagination history made these interesting intel esting spots ving this in mind we were look louk forward with great interest to ng the places where so much 0 if y california history was made 4 1 mother lode extends from co a on the north to Mp mariposa on south we began our trip thru gold country as stated above at mouth and passed through the ms and places as follows dry rn the oldest town in amador anty started in 1848 fremont asprer and bunker hill mines to ador city which was a lively ki 17 1 1 4 9 the keystone |