Cañon City record., 1906-09-13
THE STORY OF THE CONVENTION

Some who are little acquainted in
political matters have doubted the in
fiuence of the pen" or of Mr.. Jameson
in the late convention.
Here is the story of that convention:
On Monday night previous to the
meeting of the convention little Sc
cret caucus was held in the commits
sioners' room at the court house.
There were only few invited to
this caucus, and it was dominated by
the deputy warden, the night captain,
the prison clerk and the prison physi-
clan.
gates for the county convention at a
so-called mass meeting Thursday
night. And the prison officials agreed
that the chairman of the mass meeting
should be the prison physician. and
that he should appoint the deputy
warden to make up the list of dele
gates.
The mass meeting Thursday night
turned out exactly as planned. There
was, of course. no opposition to the
prison physician being chairman, for
he is good fellow. There was, in
fact. no OPPOSITION to anything on the
part of anybody. but for fear there
might be, some fifty guards and prison
employees were scattered about the
house to help put down any revolt
that might be sprung.
So the deputy warden made up list
of delegates to be sent to the county
convention and 1t was accepted with
out contest.
Things were coming so easy now
that the deputy warden demanded that
he be made chairman of the county
might tumble his orders and get things
mixed. So caucus was called of the
Canon delegates Friday night for the
sole purpose of agreeing to the deputy
warden's demand.
And when the county convention met
Saturday morning it took short work
to put the pen" slate through.
The deputy warden was selected
chairman of the convention. A motion
was made by the prison clerk that FIVE
committees of three each be appointed
to select the five lists Of delegates to
the five conventions.
Th deputy warden trusted nobody
with his lists of delegates but the pris-
on physician and the prison clerk.
4 1t was desired to control the dele
gates to three conventons-so the
prison physician was appointed to con-
troll the most important, and the pris-
on clerk the other two. The two COM
mittees for the conventions Of least i'm
portance were thrown open and no
slate furnished.
| The prison physician and the prison
clerk had their lists of delegates for
the three conventions made up. They
were made up the day before by the
deputy warden, SO it took these COM
mittees only short time to get their
reports in. and adopted.
Most similar conventions permit the
several larger precinct delegations to
name their own delegates to the state
and district conventions, but In this
case it was not done. When the
names submitted did not meet the ia
vor of the deputy warden they we're
thrown out and the original list ad-
hered to.
Ssme things were amusing. One Of
the largest precincts in the county
asked SO strongly for the selection of
certain man on the state delegation
that the deputy warden sent around
to ask how the gentleman would vote
In the state convention. He sent word
back that he would vote as he damn
pleased" as he was representing his
precinct and not the deputy warden.
1t is needless to say that his name was
left of the list.
| When some outside delegates remon-
strated with the deputy warden on ac-
count of the coarseness of his work,
and Insisted that the outside precincts
have right to name their own dele
gates to state and district conventions,
he went into rage and proclaimed
that he had right to dictate. and
would dictate, on account Of the in
fuence Of his prison bunch In county
affairs.
i SO the various delegates to the state
4 and district conventions were made