The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1912-06-24
SCENE SHIFTS
+. To BAL T|M0RE
That City Will Be Center Of AT
traction During Pres
emf Week. /,
THE DEMOCRATS GATHER
City Is Full Of Delegates Ready for
the Opening OF the National
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
Of Bryan.

Baltimore June 24.-All Balti-
more is astir in preparation for
the democratic national convention.
The cohorts of the contesting can
didates swarm in every hotel and
make veritable bee-hives of the
Belvedere, where the members of
the National Committee are stop
ping, and the Emerson. where most
of the candidates headquarters are
housed
The waves of preference for
| president run in such conflicting
channels as to be all but immeas-
ureable. Talk centers around the
leading candidates who will go be-
| fore the convention with more or
Hess strong instructions from fav
oring states. but there is a strong
undercurrent of speculation in
which the names of various minor
candidates figure.
Above all the prediction talk
and proceedings hoycrs the shadow
of Bryan. No group OF keen spec
ulators gets very far along in their
surmises without coming to the
Indefinite but sure influence of the
| Nebraskan, and of those who CON
tinue to swear by him, upon the
final action of the convention.
1t is situation in which men
find themselves either hopeful or
apprehensive, according to their at
titude toward Bryan.
The democratic national conyen-
ton of 1912 returns to the city
where the first national convention
/ I'of that party assembled eight,
: years ago. Up to and includins
1924 presidential nominations wer'
: made by committees of congress
In that year the system was at
/, tackled, and between that and 1925
various conventions were held in
different parts of tie country, but
no democratic national convention,
properly speaking, was assembled
till 1882. That year one gathered
at Baltimore and nominated Pres
ident Andrew Jackson for second
term.
The convention which named
Martin Van Buren, as Jackson's
successor also met in Baltimore,
but was a year ahead of time,
being held in 1885. The four sue
ceeding national conventions of the
I party were likewise held in the
| Maryland etropolis-that of 1870
re-nominating Van Buren,, that of
1884 naming James X. Polk, that
that of 1S4S selecting Lewis Cass
and that of 1852 choosing Frank
lin Pierce. Thus far Baltimore as
a democratic convention city was
lucky, four of the five candidates
named here having been elected.
With 1852, however, the scepter
and the luck departed from Bal
/ timore. Four years later Buchan-
an was nominated at Cincinnati
In 1860 the democratic convention
first met at Charleston and split
1 into fragments, two of these after
wards reassembling in Baltimore
and naming two tickets, one head
ed by Stephen A. Douglas and the
other by John c. Breckenridge. A
third fragment reconyened at Rich
mond and Endorsed Breckenridge
This splitting of the once proud
and triumphant democracy made
possible the election of Abraham
Lincoln, and the party of Jeffer-
son and Jackson did not seat an
other president until 1888.
Lincoln Renominated at Baltimore.
In those days Baltimore was as
much the national convention city
as Chicago is now Not only the
democrats. but the wings, assem-
bled there. Henry Clay and Gener-
al Winfield Scott being among the
candidates of that party selected
in the Maryland city. The republic
cans followed suit only once, Apra-
ham Lincoln being renominated in
baltimore in 1864 His democratic
oppopent in that campaign was
General George B. Mcclellan, nom
mated at Chicago.
Only once has democratic con
vention gone to New York city
That was in 1868. Horatio Sey-
kmour was its permanent chair
man, was sprung as dark horse
candidate and nominated against
his protest
The last Baltimore convention OF
any party was that of the demo-
Gratis. which named Horace Greedy
in 1872, Greedy had already been
made a candidate by the Liberal
republicans. and there was moth
ling left for the Democrats but TO
ratify him, which some OF them
did with wry faces. in its out
come that ticket was as i'll starred