The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1912-08-28

at was all expected, yet none of the
usual contests could we'll have made
the scene more entertaining and extra
ordinary-this spectacle of man COM
ing before a national convention which
had not yet nominated its candidate,
and telling them what he had they
were to do if he was elected
| Chairman Beveridge continued this
with the announcement, presently, that
the guest of the convention had ar
rived And then. when the stage was
set and the crowd taut with excitement,
the moose calls mooing through it like
storm of wind through the pines,
then up popped the Colonel through
some subterraneau trapdoor like a
jack-in-the-box The hour has ar
rived roared Beveridge, and the
man.
1T was a great sight. Never had
the Colonel appeared to better adyan-
tage--more fit more master of the
audience, the situation, himself-more
completely in his element. He would
put up his hands as If to stop the APP
plause. then recognize an individual
in far-off delegation and wave him
clenched-fist greeting that only
started the gale going again.
"A Grand Army fife and drum corps
was lined up behind him and began to
play Dixie The drum was the only
thing that could be heard, but the Col
onel, turning enthusiastically from the
old fellows in campaign hats TO the
delegates, kept time to the tune with
jerky flourishes of his clenched hand
above his head, and such staccato snap
pings of the famous teeth that you
could seem to hear each click
People poured up from the floor to
have him wiring their hands and the
Colonel would whirl about from waving
a bandana at the gallery directly be-
hind him and pounce upon whoever
suddenly in this crisis in his life, of
meeting with the one person who
could solve it. And so convincing and
articulate were these pantomimes that
the delighted audience felt that they
knew practically every word that was
Women delegates came up with the
rest and the Colonels greeting to each
had all the dramatic value of set
speech in favor of suffrage. Two ne
groes appeared, and whatever the expe-
diency of the exclusion of the southern
colored delegation the night before,
it's effect so far as the Colonel's per-
sonal popularity was concerned, sem
ed promptly neutralized when he
grabbed these two colored brothers
as if they both just came back from
a new pole. The more he |
talked the more excited they got, until |
the one whose hand the colonel was
shaking could restrain himself no lon
ger and swung his free arm down on |
the Colonel's shoulder in an ecstatic
clap. The progressive candidate for
governor of Illinois was among those
who climbed up and he. showed that
ne was something of a dramatist him
self by waiting until he stood on the
platform directly in front of the Col
mel and hurting his hat out over the
,rowd, quite literally into the ring"
There is more of it; more of the
ame describing that spontaneous"
,utburst which was all that Mr.. Davis
aid 1t was not now that the pro-
Roosevelt crowd itself has given the
oke away, and which was evidently
uite as spontaneous as the howlirgs
# the home-drilled mob when Monta- .
,ue Romaine in the "ten-twent-thirt,"
yay back in Oskaloosa staged that /,
ouching melodrama, why Mother
lever Changed Her Maiden Name"