The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-10-11
in the house and gallery shouted aye.
then he would say. ..fhnse onnos.

I SA1to l1AS24 ne WOQ&A says S4AOSC oPP0ee
ed no." and the same people shouted
no. And the noes were as loud as the
ayes. And then everybody laughed.
and when the laugh had subsidized the
chairman would say, 1.-The ayes seem
to have it. The ayes have it," and
then they would "toot. toot" and start
in with a new case.
Finally a man in the rear Of the
room rose and addressed the chair
man and said. Mr.. Chairman. I rise
to a point Of order" The chairman
his point of order" The delegate said
"Mr. Chairman. my Point Of order is
this; the steam roller is exceeding the
speed limit"
Everybody laughed. and when they
were through. the chair solemnly an
nounced that the point Of order was
sustained. And so it went. I never
saw a more hilarious group than that
convention was toward the close. I
never heard OF anything like it except
a picture. I heard this story years
ago and I recalled it when I saw that
convention. 1t was Of aman who was
Children Of Israel crossing the Red
sea. but nobody was allowed to see the
picture until it was finished. 1t was
on the wall Of a church, and when it
was finished they had a great unveil-
. ing.
An immense audience assembled and
when the curtain was drawn aside
tney looked upon a calm and Tranquil!
sea ano not a person in sight. The
, chairman Of the committee went to
the artist and said. But We employed
you to paint "a picture Of the Children
Of Israel crossing the Red sea. The
artist said, there is the picture. But,
sa;d the chairman. where are the Chill
dren of Israel? Why. he said, they
nave passed over. And where are
Pharaoh and his horses and his char
its? They nave gone under" And
So it was at Chicago. The stand-pat.
tiers had passed over and the progress
siVes a gone under. and all was
tranquil again. But it was a very in
structive convention.
Old Committee on the Job.
want to tell you what was done at
chicago. for you want to understand
these conventions in order to UNDER
stand the situation at this time. Now
the nrst difficulty at Chicago was that
an Old committee organized a new
con7entlon-a committee four years
OLD organized e convention fresh from
the people. 1t has been customary in
al! the parties for the committee that
conducts a presidential Campaign to
mold over and open the convention
succeeding. and the committee doesn't
cease to serve until the temporary or,
ganization is completed. Now that has
been customary. And let me show
you now 1t worked at Chicago. They
a about 500 Roosevelt men and
ABOUT ooo TAFT men whose seats were
not speaking accurately now. I an
Just speaking roughly. But a man has
to speak roughly when he describes
that Chicago convention-and gpeak-
ing roughly there were about b00
roosevelt 1nen and about 500 TAFT
men. n then between these two
groups there were about as whose
seats We're contested. And it doesn't
require an advanced course in mathe-
mates to make n understand thst
with these two groups about equal in
number, everything depended upon
the seating of these IS delegates. If
the Iaft delegates were seated 1t made
1t a Taft convention. If the Roosc-
welt men We're seated it made it q Roo
seVelt convention. and the only power
that could determine which group
should be seated was this old commit
/! tee.
Taft Committee on the Job.
And it was a Taft committee. n II
seated the Taft delegates, ana then
that gave Taft the temporary orsani-
cation. and those In the Temporary
organization We're the only ones who
could vote on the contests. and they
voted to seat themselves, ana thai
gave them the permanent oriental.
ton. and that gave Taft the nomina
ton.
Would Have Been the Same.
Now, that is what happened at Chi,
cago. It all depended upon the com.
mittee, and that being q Taft commit.
tee, everything else was Taft. II
Roosevelt had had that COMMITTEES he
might have seated the rs Roosevelt
Een and that would have given him
the convention, and then they could
have seated themselves in the perma-
nent convention and he would have
retained the convention and been
nominated. I say that 10 what might
have been. But would the Rooseveit
men have seated the Roosevelt dele.
delegates? Would they? Well,
wouldn't They? I think they would.
n my reason for thinking 90 IL. first,
that the Roosevelt men insisted that
the Taft committee should seat them.
And IT the Roosevelt men thought the
Taft committee ought to. seat them,
they probably would have persuaded
the Roosevelt committee to seat them.