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Show By W RIGHT A. PATTERSON. j. ICopyright. Western Newspaper Unlonl For President: James M. Cox, of Ohio. ;t;c, For Vice-President: Franklin D. Roosevelt, of New York. if , Convention Hall, San Francisco. '; After seven days of the most stren- i nous conventiouing any political party 1 has known for many years the Demo-S Demo-S cratic gathering at 1 -AO o'clock, Tuesday Tues-day morning, July C, named James M. V!i Cos, governor of Ohio, for president. The' nomination for president was made on the 44th ballot. Franklin D. Roosevelt, of New York, was nominated for vice president by acclamation at the Tuesday afternoon session.. It was a real convention, and more ': especially a real Democratic conven-?:; conven-?:; tion that adjourned on Tuesday. It was a convention that was run by the to 109-1 delegates and an equal number of alternates. It was leaderless, and " In fact If It may be said to have had ,!i a fault at all it was this lack of lead-.K lead-.K ership that for many weary hours .J made it seem impossible for the neces-? neces-? sary two-thirds to reach an agreement V on the choice of a candidate. During y.' these hours and days there were a number of men who were quite will-ing will-ing to assume leadership, but no one V: of them, or no group of them, could find a sufficient number of followers , .. to make their leadership effective, i .' The delegates insisted that they, and 's not any self-appointed group of lead-j, lead-j, 1 ers, represented the rank and file of the Democratic party, and each delegate dele-gate insisted on voting the way he believed his people at home wished him to vote, and regardless of any plea for a compromise. The opening of the great gathering :; was as featureless as all such open-lngs open-lngs are. There was an air of expectancy ex-pectancy in the vast audience for n the vast majority of whom this was ('; their first experience in a political convention of such magnitude. The r audience had looked for a fight starting start-ing with the fall of Vice-Chairman Kramer's gavel, but they were re-- re-- warded with nothing more exciting than the masterful keynote address of Homer Cummings in which he outlined out-lined the issues on which the Democratic Demo-cratic party would ask the people for support. This address was devoted al-:- most exclusively to the League of JAMES M. COX. Nations, and its point was a demand for ratification without nullifying reservations. res-ervations. He laid special emphasis on the point that the President was not opposed to reservations so long 3 as they did not seriously change the J Intent of the document. I A roll call followed for the ap- I .point men t of the usual convention 1 committees, and the first session was over. For the next day the real ac-? ac-? tivitles of the great gathering was transferred to the meeting rooms of the committees. The committee on '" credentials confirmed the action of " the national committee in seating the '! Palmer delegation from Georgia, and ' In unseating Senator Reed, of Mis-iS Mis-iS sourl. It had been anticipated that tooth of these contests would be taken i! to the floor of the convention, but with the exception of entering a pro-'"' pro-'"' test on the action on Senator Reed, '' the contests provided no entertainment entertain-ment for the audience. In an effort to make time the rules committee had recommended that nominating speeches be in order pre-'' pre-'' ceding the report of the committee on platform, and this became the first : order of business for Wednesday. That V was a day of oratory of the good, old- fashioned, Democratic kind. During the all-day session of Wednesday, and :. through the first session of Thurs- day the oratorical lights of the party extolled the virtues of the fourteen candidates named in either nominating nominat-ing or seconding speeches. With but one exception the nominating speeches were made by men. The one exception excep-tion was Miss Bessie Dwyer. tan al-',: al-',: termite from the Philippines, who pre sented the name of Francis Burton Harrison. Every candidate, whose nomination was seconded at all, had provided for one or more women as seconders. The event of the nominating sessions ses-sions was the presentation of the name of Mr. ilcAdoo. It was known that Mr. McAdoo had insisted that his name not be presented to the convention, con-vention, and had repeated' this wish by telegraph on Tuesday to Kev. Bur-ris Bur-ris Jenkins, of Kansas City. McAdoo delegates were insistent that the name of their favorite be presented regardless of his instructions, but Frank It. Wilson, a former Iowa newspaper news-paper man, and the leader of the McAdoo Mc-Adoo forces, was equally insistent that the wishes of Mr. McAdoo be complied with. In the end WiLson consented con-sented to an informal presentation, in which it should be stated that it was without the consent of the former for-mer secretary, and without any elaboration elab-oration of his qualifications for the office. Rev. Jenkins said that while Ati- AtArlrw, n-flo mt ceel.-inr rhp nomination he proposed that Democracy Democ-racy draft him for the good of the nation. The platform committee had a long, stubborn fight on its hands in an effort ef-fort to satisfy many opposing elements. ele-ments. Senator Glass as chairman of the resolutions committee, represented represent-ed the administration viewpoint on the League of Nations especially and proposed to put through the Virginia plank. This was acceptable to prac-' tieally all delegates except Mr. Bryan and some of his followers who could not see the possibility of ratification without radical reservations. Other planks that caused hours of discussion discus-sion referred to the liquor question, to Ireland, and to labor. In the end the committee had to take several questions ques-tions to the floor of the convention, much to the gratification of the audience, audi-ence, and which resulted in another oratorical display throughout all of the long Friday session. Senator Glass presented the majority ma-jority report of the platform committee. com-mittee. Mr. Bryan presented a minority min-ority report containing a strong dry plank with a declaration for a strict enforcement of the Volstead act; a plank calling for an amendment to the constitution giving the senate majority ma-jority power to ratify a treaty, and endorsing a ratification of the League covenant with whatever reservations might be necessary to secure its ap-. ap-. proval ; a plank on profiteering providing pro-viding that the cost and sale price be shown on all articles of merchandise, and a plank providing for the establishment estab-lishment of a national bulletin for the dissemination of information on all important questions of the day, open to all political parties, and through which all candidates for office of-fice on a national ticket would be privileged to announce his candidacy and his qualifications. Mr. Bryan, by request, offered another minority report re-port on the liquor subject prepared by Richmond Pearson Ilobson. Burke Cochran, of New York, presented pre-sented a minority report for the wets providing for the enactment of more liberal enforcement legislation for the eighteenth amendment, and leaving it to each locality to determine the desired de-sired percentage of alcohol. It was characteristic of a Democratic Demo-cratic convention that all sides was given a hearing before the delegations, and what a hearing it was. Mr. Bryan was given an hour and a half to present his side of the story, and he went to bat with all his old-time vigor. While he yielded a small part 01 ins lime lo uunn v. the most of every moment that he retained. re-tained. His powerful presentation of his subject reminded one of the days of IS'.Hi when he carried the Democracy Democ-racy of America off its feet at Chicago Chi-cago and captured the nomination by his "Cross of Gold" speech. Or again in 1012 at Baltimore when lie led the Wilson hosts to victory after a terrific ter-rific political battle. Time after time he aroused the vast audience of delegates dele-gates and spectators to frenzied heights of enthusiasm, but it was enthusiasm en-thusiasm for the man. an appreciation apprecia-tion of the individual and not an endorsement of his ideas. He received receiv-ed the cheers but not the votes, and his dry plank went down to defeat with only 155 votes in favor of it, and his other planks were beaten without with-out a roll call. The Cochran wet plank fared but little better. The gifted orator from New York used all of his great ability abil-ity in presenting his side of the question, ques-tion, but without effect. When the roll was called the delegates from I the large cities, and from one or two ' of the distinctly wet states, were i with him to the extent of 3.".( votes, nearly 2lK) less than the needed majority. ma-jority. The minority report on Ireland provided pro-vided for a Democratic promise of recognition for the Irh Republic, as Ireland's supporters had not been satisfied sat-isfied with merely an expression of sympathy and the referring of their . demands to the League of Nations. The minority report was presented by ; Delegate Doheny. of California. It ' had the united support of the Irish delegates, but went down to defeat . bv a vote of 40'-! to 07i. , Another minority report providing for the appoint men t of a commission to Investigate cases of personal finan- clal loss on the part of soldiers in i the world war and placing the party on record as favoring financial assist- ance in such cases, was presented by j Thomas D. Lyons, of Oklahoma, was rejected by a viva voce vote, and then the majority report was adopted without with-out a roll. call. While the platform as adopted may be said to represent a victory for the administration forces as led by Senator Sen-ator Glass, it was not adopted without with-out giving all a chance to secure such changes as a majority of the delegates favored. On the liquor question Mr. Bryan pointed out after the session that the vote for-his dry plank and the Cochran wet plank combined did not represent a majority of the delegates, dele-gates, which was an evidence that the party was determined to ignore the subject. Much as the great audiences had appreciated the oratorical displays, and the keen competitions that had marked the efforts to secure party endorsement for opposing ideas, the one great feature of the national show for which all had waited was the balloting bal-loting on candidates for the presidential presiden-tial nomination, and when Chairman Robinson, of Arkansas, announced the next order of business as the call of the roll of states, immediately after the adoption of the platform, he was greeted with a mighty roar. All realized that the first ballot, taken on Friday night, would merely show a general line-up of the forces, and that no decisive result was possible pos-sible until such time as the contest could be narrowed down to the real leaders. The McAdoo, Cox and Palmer Pal-mer forces were all claiming a certain cer-tain victory, while the adherents of such candidates as Senator Owen, Ambassador Am-bassador Davis, Vice-President Marshall Mar-shall and National Chairman Cummings, Cum-mings, were certain that no one of the three leaders could be successful, and that their candidate would be their choice on a compromise. On the first ballot of Friday night the result was McAdoo 2G6, Palmer 256, Cox 134, Gov. Smith 109, Owens 38, Davis 32, Cummings 25, Marshall 37, Meredith 27, Hitchcock 18, Glass 26 1-2, Edwards 42, Girard 21, Harrison Har-rison 6, and a few scattering votes. By the time the fourteenth ballot was taken on Saturday the contest had narrowed down to the three leaders lead-ers with the exception of the Oklahoma, Okla-homa, the West Virginia, the Virginia, the Connecticut delegations still sticking to favorite sons in the hope of being in when the time of compromise compro-mise should come. The vote of the leaders on this ballot was: McAdoo 355 1-2, Cox 443 1-2, Palmer 182. After the sixteenth ballot a recess was taken in the hopes that some compromise might be effected that would permit i t FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. of a nomination before midnight, but it was without result. The leaders were willing to pick a dark horse, and the attempt was made to put over Ambassador Davis, but the delegates refused to follow the leaders, and continued to vote almost to a man as they had before the adjournment, and they continued to do so until midnight forced an adjournment to Monday. It was the caucuses of Sunday and Sunday night that made the final nomination possible. The space alloted to this story is not sufficient to warrant even an ef- j fort at painting a word picture of the Democratic convention of 1920. It was a convention that will be renumbered renum-bered as one of the most fiercely-fought fiercely-fought political battles, one of the most picturesque political gatherings in the nation's history. There were hundreds of exciting incidents that appealed strongly to the great audience audi-ence of every session, and in these incidents, in-cidents, and also in the important affairs af-fairs of the convention, women played a prominent and conspicuous part. The party doubled the membership of its national committee, giving to women an equal representation In each state, and women were named on all of the Important convention committees. San Francisco did its full part as host to the Democratic throng, and every arrangement for the entertainment entertain-ment and comfort of the city's guests was perfect. The great auditorium, seating some 14,000 people, was filled to capacity at each session, but there was never any discomfort, and never any undue crowding. Despite the distance dis-tance that many of the delegates traveled it is safe to say they will vote for San Francisco as a national political politi-cal convention city of the future. |
