| Show c rep republican alican national convention pins hopes on willkie and mcnary ticket by WRIGHT A PATTERSON WENDELL L WILLKIE for president CHARLES L L mcnary for vice president with that ticket the republicans tell us they named the best qualified men in america to direct the destinies of the nation through the time of stress and trials they think lie ahead they were picked from a wide field A dozen or more men each with followers who believed their favorite was the best who insisted they would stick to their candidate forever if necessary who could see no possible virtue in any other candidate the delegates were divided between dewey taft willkie james bridges bricker martin hoover macnider gannott and others speeches were made about all of them resulting in long hours of frenzied oratory all were pictured as the one me outstanding great american leader eminently best fitted for the great job and especially so for these times but in the end they dropped out one by one and until on the sixth roll cau call of the states wendell willkie was named to head the ticket after numerous consultations some arguments and another flow of oratory charles L mcnary was named for second place and the big meeting was over when at 10 on monday morning june 24 john hamilton as chairman of the republican national committee pounded the table and called the republican national convention to order anyone could gift get a bet for or against as he wished on anyone of 10 to 12 candidates di it was not only the folks back home who did not know who the candidate would be the delegates at philadelphia were equally ignorant on that subject on sunday evening congressman joe martin was asked how many massachusetts delegates would vote for him on the first ballot as the favorite son of that state he replied he did not know definitely that any one delegate would vote for him that aside from the delegations that were definitely instructed ted it was impossible to tell who would vote for whom party in new hands and the reason for it all is that the party was in new hands the hands of a thousand delegates each one a law into himself gone from the places of power were the older statesmen of former years the party leaders who could crack the whip and make the delegates dance it was a new element younger in political experience each one of whom believed he was there to do a job as he thought it should be done or until someone had actually convinced him of a better way than his own it all resulted in a confusion that was unknown to former republican conventions but out of that confusion the republicans say has come definite party unity both as to policies and as to leaders the delegates claim they did what they believed best and not what anyone told them to do it was a picturesque gathering there was with it all ballyhoo of a street carnival each group had its own pet form of express expressing in g approval of either a candidate or a policy the dewey the taft and the willkie willki voters put on the best and noisiest nois iest show in so far as he could influence his followers senator prevented the introduction of burlesque into his campaign dark horses martin and hoover were in the dark horse class and were not much talked about until after the opening of the convention others were among the also ran entries with not a sufficiently large following to produce much noise one noticeable difference between this and the republican conventions of some years ago was the scarcity of negro delegates there were some from the southern states not so many because of the limited delegate representation from the south but practically none from the northern cities new party leaders insisted the dif difference ferenc e was due to a transfer of political allegiance on th the e part of the northern negroes from the republican to the democratic party whatever the reason may X WEND ELL L WILLKIE have been the negroes were not in evidence as they have been at previous republican gatherings another difference was the discussion in committees of every plank in in the platform and every incident concerned with party policy this year each delegate who had an opinion on any subject insisted on the right and privilege of expressing and fighting for that opinion before the committee the whole show was more like a big town meeting than an old time republican convention it had no bosses who made the rules and defined the policies aside from the balloting for candidates the long roll call of the states and the reading of the plank in the platform defining republican policy as regards americas attitude toward the war in europe the two outstanding events were the keynote address of gov harold E stassen of minnesota and the address of former president herbert hoover governor stassen was emphatic and fiery in his denunciation of the present national administration and of all things connected with the new deal he aroused tremendous enthusiasm thusia sm as a keynoter is expected to do and gave the delegates the ammunitions they wanted for use during the campaign he was compensated pen sated for his efforts b by y thunderous applause and demonstrations hoover stirs delegates former president hoover with his analysis of what he termed new deal fallacies fala cies carried the convention lay by storm as he did at cleveland four years ago and received an ovation that was unusual in any republican gathering he might have been the choice of the convention as its presidential candidate had he not withdrawn his name he could CHARLES L have named the candidate by indicating a choice but refused to do so each one of the 1000 delegates took a hand in the platform building and especially the plank covering war and preparedness the battle between the fight hitler now forces and the extreme henry ford type of isolationist was fast furious and seemingly never ending in the end the fight did not get to the floor of the convention compromise was effected and the plank as finally adopted can be interpreted to mean anything each voter may want it to mean compact platform other platform planks followed very closely the findings of the glenn frank committee but expressed in about words instead of the dr frank and his associates socia tes needed on one subject there was no disagreement there shall be no third term all in all the republican convention of 1940 was a colorful and interesting te show and very very different the old leadership was gone the game was being played by a new team and umpires had not been named the result for a time was confusion with eacer delegate his own boss taking orders from no one and fully convinced that he had the solution of all the nations problems out of it all in the end came harmony everybody satisfied including the defeated candidates for the nomination all of the noisily contending forces climbed onto the willkie bandwagon and returned home with the usual assurance of victory in november how well that assurance may be justified will not be known until the votes are counted in november |
