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Show H HOW THE CONVENTION WAS STOLEN. H We are asked to explain how the Taft people gained control of H the Chicago convention. There is no better example of how the H theft was accomplished than this statement of Collier's Weeklj' giv- H ing a review of one of the contests decided against Roosevelt by the H National committee: Hj If King county in the state of Washington, which includes the H city of Seattle, had sent its 121 Roosevelt delegates to the state con- H vention, then the state convention would have been a Roosevelt con- H vention, and would have sent a Roosevelt delegation to the conven- H tion in Chicago. The 121 Roosevelt delegates from King county were H chosen at a primary election in which the vote of the rank and file H of the party had been almost eight to one against the Taft forces. H After the Roosevelt delegates had been so chosen, 12 men of the H 300 which made up the King county committee, including in their H number such noted personalities as Richard Achilles Ballinger, sat H down and picked out a delegation of Taft men from King county. H These carefully chosen men were sented by" the state committee, H the delegates chosen by the people at the primaries were unseated, H the state convention went Taft's way, therefore a Taft delegation H went to Chicago, and, in spite of the Roosevelt contest, were seat- H ed by the National committee majority, who read newspapers while H I the evidence was being presented. This was the cat, which caught H the rat, which ate the grain, etc. There is the sample! Popular H government! The wonder that men brought up among respectable H iolks have the stomach for it! The wonder that any man wants a H nomination on this procedure! H Well, it was done. It had precedent. It had been done a hun- Hj dred times before. It was the old way of making majorities. As H always, when the contest is close, the Regulars obtained their ma- H jority. Only on this occasion the limelight w.is on them; this time H a moral question had come to Chicago. The majority was on paper H I the moment that the national committee finished the work of pro- Hl curing it. H I Everyone knew that when forty-eight hours had elapsed and H Tuesday, the first convention da', had come, this majority of dele- H gates, who had issued forth from the Federal-patronage system in H the South, from the old system of regular committees and packed H i conventions in the east and west, and from the decisions of a na- Hj tionai committee where W. Murray Crane of Massachusetts and M Victor Rosewater of Nebraska had worked cheek by jowl, had con- m trol of the convention. By the very nature of this majority there H was little chance of independent action. |