Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1884-07-01
A CoUNTRYMAN ABROAD.



hour it scarcely looks reasonable that
|, with fifteen thousand others, could
sit still in that crowded hall for seven
long hours and listen to any unin-
spired men speak. Yet il is fact.
The candidates were placed in nomi-
nation on call of the States. Con-
necticut coming first alphabetically,
placed before the convention Joseph
r. >flawley. Then the Secretary
would call on down until another
State was reached that had candi-
date. These little openings in the
great forest of oratory gave us
breathing spells-time to collect our
thoughts-to come down from the
heavens to which the impassioncd
utterances of these men had carried
uSard realize again that we were
numan beings in the presence only of
flesh and blood. That is the best
ventilated hall in the United States.
It was never uncomfortable in there.
It is right on Lake Michigan and the
splendid eXhiiaraiing, cooling brcezcs
from ii steal as gently around and
about you as the dews fall, and like
them unfclt and unseen only in the
richness and beauty they produce.
The balloting for President began
at eleven o'clock and ended at abolt
o'clock. Every man and woman
had tally shect-Cvcry one knew
long before the result was announced
how each ballot stood. have never
seen people so quiet and still as dur
ing balloting. | have stood where
the black reaper mOwcd-havc seen
the dark angel flap his funeral wings
have seen loved ones awcd into al
most holy silence, while he lowered
over their loved ones; but | have
never seen anything like the eternal
hush that came over that vast multi
tude US State after State responded
to the call of the Secretar!. And
when on the 4th ballot, Mr.. Blaine
was nominated, the din and noise
must have awakened the sleeping
saints above yea verify, must have
penetrated the regions of the damned
and awakened responsive shout
from the very iicnds in hell. So
much noise will never be made again
until the angel Gabriel stands with
one foot OF the land and the other on
the sea, and proclains that the crash
of worlds and the wreck of matter
has comc-ihat this is the be all and
end all of creative things-that time
is no more. On the outside cannon
rOared, doomed and Numbered, the
throttle valves on thousand engines
were thrown wide open and they
beloved like so many mad monsters
from the very bottom of the deep
and the very lake that had hitherto
been as gentle and calm as the even
ing breeZes that sang their lullabic'
around all Of us in the happy days o
, our childhood, now sccthed ant
foamcd and Numbered as if it wer
rocked in the cradle Of a storm god
When | was a good boy and at
tended Sunday school, | used to rca'
about the Tower of Babel, and tin
confusion out there on the plains o
Shimar, but tell YOU now. on TN
square, yea, on the three links, tina
the racket around that tower was II
more to be compared with the racke
q in Chicago, than the light Of a tallov
candle is to the splcndor of the noon
y day sun. When the convention me
@ again at night to nominate vice
o President, the hall was again full
i, Everybody knew that Gen. Loga
! would receive the nomination, whici
, he did unanimously, and then tn
, convention adjourned, and like
school fresh broke up, each of Il
went quietly to his or her home
s each man feeling that this, our coun
= try, was safc-that our banner wa
Y in the hands of men who wOul
n wave it, wherever men dared to fo
$ low, and that when November cam
# the great people Of this happy an
) prosperous country would arise Il
II and by their ballots ratify this nom
/. nation. But should they not do 5
c and the reins of government pass in
: to the hands of the opposite party
still in my opinion, we are and wi
be forever, in spite of discussions an
h broils-yea, in spite Of faith itself
y the best and frcest people on the fac
C Of Gods green carpeted earth.