Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-11-01
. PR ESIDENT


those millions. The ID AN
county holding H
Chicago has preserved EHE~H
to day the men, hXnAMzvvuXrXk f5G..G4
DRY of this young
President maker.
For months previous to that mdwinter afternoon
a national convention city the night before the
lection of presidential candidate. As in this in
stance victory meant the White House Immediately
and not mere chance to reach that desirable
sion, much the more hercely did the contest
rage round the members of the House of Repre-
sentatives, upon whom, after the failure of the
regular election the Constitution had cast the
choice of an executive.
On these members, however the interest of the
politicians fell in very unequal measure. When the
House of Representatives meets to elect Presi-
dent, the Congressman vote, not individuals, but
by States, and therefore the smaller the common
wealth the more potent the voice of it's legislators
Illinois still land where Indians roamed, and
its sole representative, carrying IN his single voice
electoral efficiency equal to the combined votes
of the forty members from New York, received day
and night the soicitous attentions of the three
statesmen to whom, by the mandate of the Con-
stitution, the House was confined in it's baloting.
1t was early realized that The Little Cook as he
was affectionately called along the banks of the
Wabash and the Sangamon, might alone decide
who should ride as conqueror up Pennsylvaniaave.,
whether Secretary Crawford head of the Treasury,
or Secretary Adams, premier in the Cabinet or
Senator Andrew Jackson of Tennessee and New Or
leans.
The latter hero glowered in the Senate chamber,
wishing grmly it only British armed battalions
that he had to scatter The New England brahmin
in charge of diplomatic relations actually
strained himself during these few months to be
civil to his fellow men. The poor Secretary of the
Treasury dumb and mmovable from paralytic
stroke suffered in the midst of the campaign listened
hepessy to his political lieutenants who were not
to be swerved from the determination to make their
chief President even when his craftsmanship was
reduced to rubber stamp signature held in his
daughter hand. Indeed auditors of the Treasury
and controllers of the currency allowed the finances
to fall into disorder they harangued society upon
the temporary nature of the superiors indsposition
and few days before the fateful voting the trem-
bling invalid borne to the Capitol, that the
custodians of the presidential suffrage might
how capable for the weight of a nations govern
ment were the weak shoulders of the paralyzed
minister.
Ensconced in an inner ROOM with the lights and
draperies carefully arranged and the accessories
of a faded bellies toilet table by means neglected
the old man appeared to the crowd of spectators
looking on from antechamber not wholly unlike
the vigorous politician who had ruled the Treasury
patronage with his eyes fixed on this very day But
all the arts of the attending courters could
ceal from those admitted into the immediate pres
of the candidate the irretrievable ravages of
disease and when Speaker Clay, after few words
with the pasied chieftan, returned to the chair of
the House mournfully shaking his head it recog-
nized that the Crawford ambitions, like their pro-
prietor, simply awaiting burial Henceforth
Washington changed its bets according to the bow
by which the Speaker sauted the Secretary of State
or the laugh that he gave to a backwoods anecdote
of the soldier from Tennessee.
But to the thick rows of Governors and envoys
who lined the Representatives hall the decision of
those Representatives still doubtful, when
the moment arrived at which the Senate, for once
OF less Importance than the lower chamber, soemny
votes and the brilliant Speaker reseating himself in
the chair vacated by the Vice President, and sub
DUNG with his gavel the excitement of the over
flowing galleries called upon the House fulfil its
constitutional function of electng chief magistrate
The Adams indeed proclaimed Clay to be their