The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1903-12-26
Mcclellan, Blaine and Bryan Were the
Only Unsuccessful Candidates Ever
Nominated There.
Something About Public Men Who Were
Leaders in the Many Great Contests
Which Took Place.

Chicago. prc-cmincntly "thc conven-
: tion city" has just obtained for the
sixth time the u,mlrcnnial gathering
of the national republican party, says
the Record Herald. a movement to
induce the democrats to nominate their
presidential ticket here again in 1901
has been started. Twenty years ago
both the great parties met in this po-
litical storm center to select their can
didates, and If history should repeat
itself next year eleven assemblies Of
the kind will have been held in Chi
cago. Tho annals of national convcn-
tions in this city carry the mind bach
to the time when the clouds of civil
war had Ovcrsprcad the lnnd-whrn
the republican party, four years after
its birth. came to Illinois for it's first
successful leader. and they end with
the nomination of w. ]. Bryan on the
democratic ticket In 1896. In 1900 lit
tie effort was made to obtain either OF
the conventions for Chicago, and for
the llrSt time in a score of years Il
national campaign was fought in
which tho nominees of neither party
ll'd hrrn chosen in an HSScmblngc
held hero. Some of tho grcntcst-pcr-
llhps minority of the American
people would say the grcntcst-prcsi-
dents nave been named in this city.
Lincoln, Grant. Garfield, Cleveland,
Harrison. Cleveland. is the list in
chronological order. The only success
fnl democratic nominations since the
war of the rebellion were made here,
and four out Of five OF the republican
conventions in Chicago named men
who were elected. Here were fought
some of the most m0mcntOus fractional
| battles that ever rent the great parties,
| and here more political history has
been made than in any city in the
country. 1t was here that the man
was nominated who held the presidcn.
tial office during the fateful DAYS
when, in the language of the eloquent
Ingalls,, "Destiny closed one page of
the nations annals and opened an.
other, and traced thereon with shad.
owy finger n million epitnphs, ending
with Appomattox." Here was named
four years later, MS standard bearer
for the democrats, General George B.
Mcclellan, whom his adherents said
had been lily treated by the president.
Here the republicans came again four
years afterward and chose MS the mar.
! tyrcd Iincoln's successor the hero of
Appomattox. Here were arraycd,
twelve years later, in two hostile
camps. the political followers of that
same hero, demanding for him third
term, and the bitterly Jealous partl.
sans Of James G. Blaine, "the plumed
knight" and here they fought out n
most spectacular contest, while the ma.
ton looked on. 1t was in this contest
that James A. Garfield made one of
the most brilliant speeches that no.
litica1 convention ever listened to, and
thereby won for himself the place he
had sought for another. Here again
after the lapse of quartet of years
came the Blaine men in invincible
phalanx and captured for him the long.
sought nomination that was this time
to end in the party's defeat at the
polls. Here, in that convention, Theo.
dore Roosevelt, who seems certain to
be named as leader next year, made
his initial entrance into national poll.
tics as a delegate from New York.
And 1t was in the same year and in
the same place that the democratic
party nominated, for the first time in
twenty-four years, candidate who
was to reach the White House, when
Grover Cleveland became the organiza-
tons Moses. Another four years
passed, and Benjamin Harrison was
selected by the Republicans in conyen-
tion here to restore them to national
power, which he did, and he in turn
was defeated by Cleveland, chosen
here by the Democratic convention in
the next campaign. Here once more
In 1896 the party Of Jefferson and
Jackson met in convention, and VIII