Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1896-08-06
RUNNING 4 CAMPAIGN.
MUCH HARD WORK. AS WELL AS
MONEY REeTIREp.
What the Managers Of Political Party
Have TO Do In Year in Which the Presi-
dent 10 Elected.

dent 10 Elected.
No two Presidential campaigns are
conducted alike, but all are directed by
national executive committees, and the
headquarters of an executive commit.
tee is always the very vortex Of polit'
zeal activity during the continuance OF
the fight. Down to the present both
the great parties have always had cam
paign headquarters In New York,
though more than once determined
moves have been made to locate them
elsewhere.
Campaign headquarters are always
In charge Of campaign or executive
committee, the members Of which,
with the exception of the chairman,
are chosen from among themselves by
the members of the National Commit
tee. The chairman is selected by the
Presidential candidate himself, and Of
course, is always a man in whom the
candidate places implicit confidence,
both as to his loyalty and political
wisdom. The place is one Of honor
from the politicians standpoint, but 1t
is also one the duties of which are
complicated enough utterly to disjoint
and upset the intellect Of most men. A
man of only ordinary executive ability
would go crazy in single day over the
intricacies of the job.
The executive chairman is by all
odds the hardest worked Of all those
who occupy headquarters during the
campaign. He feels that the burden Of
the contest Is on his shoulders. He is
In a constant state Of terror lest some
acts have been committed either by
himself or some of his subordinates
that will "Burchardize" the campaign.
The number of letters he is obliged to
answer daily is greater, probably, than
those which come to any other mortal
in existence, no matter of how exalted
station. His callers are numbered lit
orally by the thousands. 1t is physic-
ally impossible for him to see them all,
and it is equally impossible always to
decide wisely as to who shall be re-
fused an audience. His every action
is watched by critics and fault-inders,
and he knows it; and the wonder is, not
that the reputation of the executive
chairman for political sagacity some
times suffers during the campaign, but
rather at it's close he has any reputa-
ton at all, no matter which way the
contest ends. '-----.
- No two campaign committees organ
lie exactly alike, but there Is general
similarity, as matter Of course. Nee
essarily the work is divided. There
are always treasurer and a secretary,
n speakers committee, a finance COM
mittee, a printing committee and a
committee on election methods. Nat
urally the treasurer is at the head Of
the finance committee. In some re-
spects he Is badgered even worse than
the executive chairman, since not only
has to strain every faculty to secure
sufficient contributions to meet the
truly enormous expenses Of the cam
paign, but also to so manage the funds
after he has them in hand as to prevent
a deficit, or at least too great one at
the end. If the treasurer is a method
ical business man, as he should be, he
comes to be known as hard man to
get along with by the committees SUBJ
ordinates, and even by some of the
committeeman, quite early in the cam
paign.
The printing committee generally has
charge of the editorial work as well as
the printing. The most important piece
of this branch Of campaigning is the
production of the text book In the
eyes Of the committee this volume is
always the greatest piece of literature
of the current year. Sometimes it is
the work of n large number Of party
wisemen; sometimes of only few.
The text book issued by one of the par
ties in 1892 was produced by young
attache of the headquarters, who put
it to press without so much as showing
the larger part of it to all the members
of the committee OF course, there was
row over that book, as l suppose
there Is over most text books. no mat
ter how accurate they may be as to
their facts or how sound in their party
doctrine.
In addition to looking after the edi-
torial work of the text book the print
ing committee has to get out the doc
uments'-that is, the pamphlets and
tracts setting out that unless it's candi-
date wins the country will go to the
dogs, whereas IL he is elected the entire
population will be able to wear dia-
monds all the time-that are distrib-
uted over the country at a great ex-
pense, and, as some say, with little eff
feet, from the beginning to the end Of
every campaign. With regard to doc
uments as with regard to stump speak
ers, committees differ. Some commit
tees believe in documents as the only
salvation of the party, and one commit
tee of which the writer has some
knowledge printed and tried to put out
about hundred millions of documents,
including text books, or one and a third
to every man, woman and child In the
United States. The man who had the
contract for getting out the enormous
mass of printing this represented was
almost driven into private bedlam
by the complications with which he
found himself surrounded.
Of course the getting out of such an
enormous number of documents rem
ders necessary the organization of a
tremendous shipping department. In
the case just mentioned this depart
ment, together with the binding de-
partment Of the printer, occupied two
or three floors of a huge building, a
whole block long, and several hundred