| Show AWU 0 tales and traditions froin fan american political history FRANK t HAOEN w no EIMO SCOTT WATSON on HISTORIC MURDER 0 ONE NE hundred and ten years ago a man was murdered and as a direct result of that crime we now have every four years national conventions of delegates from every state and territory in the union to nominate candidates for president and vicer vice president heres how it came about t in 1826 Wil william billiani liani 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 ii accused of having dimand nd drowned him in the niagara river but EISO of blocking a proper investigation of his disappearance from western new york opposition to ao the masons E ons spread to other states and had gd J 1 young oung vee politicians t among T th 1 ul weed and william H 1 i seward of new york and thaddeus stevens of pennsylvania seized upon the movement t to promote their own ambitions T the organization of the anti masonic party part yand 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 ton ten states it was decided to hold another convention the next year to nominate candidates for president and vice pres ident and this meeting wis was to be composed of as many delegates from each state as the there q were representatives in both houses of congress accordingly in september 1831 the convention was ms beld in baltimore and it nominated for president william wirt of 0 maryland who had been attorney general beneral in monroes monroen cabinet and for vice pies president ident amos ellmaker of new r york in the delicti dri ol of 1832 these candidates won only the electoral yote of vermont arater L ater thi this party nas iwas absorbed by the whigs and lost its identity except in pennsylvania where it elected in 1835 and continued as a separate party for d a I 1 few years but during the anti masonic par tys short rt existence it had pointed the way for others to follow in the method of choosing candidates it give gave them the national nominating convention and while conven convention tion 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 PHE HE state of kansas is ig in m the limelight this year because for the first time in history amor ninee of 01 one of wd the major parties comes from the sunflower state more over it has two candidates for the p residency presidency gov alf AH M landon heading the republican ticket and earl browder of wichita the leader of the communist party this is 19 hot the first tune totne haw however gier that a kansan has been a nominee back in 1884 there was another other also alsa a governor his name was john pierce st john a native of indana an adventurer in california in the gold rush days a lawyer in illinois and a soldier in the civil war rising to th bank of lieutenant colonel of an illinois Illino ig volunteer regiment after thi I 1 danlie wan lie af 6 missouri where he practiced law for a time aime and became noted as a political orator orator in 1869 he moved to kansas where he was to win his grba greatest test renown heser he served edan in the skate sate senate in jiff bu declined reelection election re and in 1878 was elected governor by the republican party reelected re rd elected in 1880 he won the republican nomination for a third eim in 1882 but was defeated ln in the election Alwa ysa pronounced enemy of the fa liquor traffic zt st john was nominated for president on the prohibition ticket in 1884 and polled it a votes this was more than the vote for butler the ie cand candidate idale ul the green backers so that he was the run ner up in the race between cleveland and blaine during his canvass tor for the de t john traveled 1 extensively aver ane united states making speeches in behalf of the dry cause in fact during his 14 years of 0 f public life I 1 he is said to have hung up a record of travel exceeded by few candidates for 0 office he traveled more than miles by rail during which time he never had an accident sick i a day and made a total of speeches missing but four engagements gage ments in all that time i 0 petern newspaper union |
