The log cabin Democrat., 1912-06-24
ARKANSAS MAN s
CONVENTION STORY
TAFT And SHERMAN WIN
CLIO HARPER DESCRIBES HIS
TORIC ASSEMBLY OF REPUB-
LICANS IN CHICAGO.
BY CLIO HARPER.


night witnessed the consummation of
the wreck of the Republican party. 1t
has been irretrievably split between
the conservatives and the progress
slves. Now if the Democrats will on
ly learn wisdom from the disgraceful
scenes perpetrated last week at the
Coliseum, when they meet this week
at Baltimore, they should be able to
WIN the greatest victory in Their his
tory But they cannot do it with a
reactlonary or even a moderately con-
serVatlve nominee. They must have
radical. The people, irrespective
of party, are demanding radicalism,
and a proposed ticket that meets with
much favor here is Roosevelt and
Wilson.
The city of Chicago will have to
answer for many things. But it
should not be held accountable for the
national Republican convention. The
steam roller crowd-Root, Barnes.
! Penrose, Payne and Watson-with
their cohorts, were in absolute con-
troll from the first. With 1918 dele
gates in the convention, and $40 nee
essary to nominate, the Taft margin
was dangerously small. On the test
votes, the strength Of the two aspi-
rants varied from 499 to $40 for
Roosevelt, and from 542 to 562 for
Taft, the latter figure being what he
received on the nomination.
But Roosevelt charged, and the ev-
idence in most cases clearly proved
that at least 72 delegates were stolen
-"naEed theft" he called it, But
the Root crowd just had to have them
so they were taken from Texas and
/ Washington and a few other states.
The arbitrary method pursued by the
dominant faction was so apparent
that the crowd, not slow to appreciate
even the finesse Of political brigand-
age, greeted the proceedings through
""' WIN SoOu-He'Cuied contempt, al
though frequently breaking into
storms of Kisses, cat-calls and cries
of ''toot-toot," No statesman could
have attained too great prominence
to escape such treatment at the hands
of the people who are more than ever
demanding the square deal
For five days the battle ragged in
the big hall on Wabash avenue, and
all the fighting was done in the pre-
liminary organization. A permanent
organization was not effected until
late Saturday afternoon, and by that
time the Roosevelt adherents had
been whipped to a stand-still and
were ready to quit. The convention
was most tiresome affair, but there
were few things worth the price
of admission" The crowds were tre-
mendous and many thousands were
unable to gain admission. Tickets
were sold on the streets for as much
as $l00. There were 400 policemen,
about 100 firemen and 1900 assistant
sergeant-at alarms to maintain order.
Often the crowd would sit for hours
at q time waiting for something to
happen, only to be notified finally
that it had adjourned until the fol-
lowing day at II o'clock.
After defeating Governor McGov-
ern of Wisconsin for temporary
chairman by the election of Senator
Elihu Root, the Taft adherants be-
came pretty sure of their position
and knew they could control it. But
the Roosevelt crowd did not propose
to yield at any point until forced to
do so, and fought for every inch of
ground. They forced reference OF
The contests to credentials commit.
tee, but this did not vary in the least
from the findings of the national
committee. AS their reports were
laid before the convention-and this
was not completed until late Satur.
day evening-they were adopted by
the unvarying stand-pat majority
Only in the case of two delegates
from California, where there was nc
shadow of justice in the claims of the
Taftites, they got by with only 54z
votes, only two more than was need
ed
1t was a notable fact that the men
tion of Taft's name did not elicit
cheers during the convention, unit
Saturday night, when he was nomi-
mated, and demonstration lasting 21
minutes was forced. 1t lacked the