The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1912-06-24

tanned against personalism. We shall
4 all be safer, and our liberties and
4 rights more secure under constitu-
tional government.
The Southern Issue.
The. southern delegates were the
most discussed issue. To many it
seemed unjust that the southern dele
] gates should out-balance the north
ern delegates. The big majorities in
some of the northern states were
counteracted by the meager major
lities, or no rnajoTities at all, in the
southern states. Some of the speak
ers. and Colonel Roosevelt himself,
used this to arouse pretudices. But
that fault inheres in the system of ma
tional conventions. Representation in
the conventions is not according to
Republican or Democratic majorities,
! but according to representation in
congress. In the conventions each
state has twice as many delegates as
such state has members in congress.
I Iowa has eleven congressman and two
senators, making thirteen and 1t has
twenty-six members in the conven-
tons. The state of Georgia has exact
lily the same. But Iowa may cast 500,-
900 Republican votes and Georgia may
i not cast 10000 all told. The $4,000 in
the south have as much influence as
the 100000 in the north. That appears
/ unjust and on that basis many appeals
were made and preiudices aroused
But that is the system of representa-
ton. The cure for that is not denun-
citation of Georgia in the convention,
but change in the representation.
But neither party, and neither side in
either convention, has had the courage
/ to change what they complain of so
| bitterly.
1t is argued that states should have
1 representation according to votes cast
in either party. The reason the Re
publican party has not dared. or cared
| to make the change, is because by
such actionthe Republican party would
become merely sectional party. 1t
would be northern party again, as
| it was before the war If representa-
4 ton was by votes cast, Georgia
4 would have only one delegate in a
Republican convention, which would
1 be tantamount to no representation.
The Republican voters in Georgia are
largely black They are disfranchised
in the elections, and the Republican
party has hesitated to disfranchise
them in its conventions. But while
the party has not had the courage to
disfranchise them, one side or the
other has always denounced such rep
resentation The side that they are
against has always done the denounc-
ing Four years ago Roosevelt as
Taft's manager used the southern
votes, exactly as they We're used this
year and at that time the friends of
Hughes and Fairbanks complained as
bitterly of the steam roller as the
friends OF Roosevelt did this year, and
with about as much right and reason.
When Mark Hanna managed McKin-
iley's campaign the same complaints
were made This year little more
acrimony was injected because. there
was man like Roosevelt to do the
/ talking and his speech naturally and
easily ran to words like thief and
! "robber" and liar" Roosevelt does
not stand on the niceties and the pro-
perties, nor upon parliamentary mat
! tiers even. And these phrases gov
erned the views and actions of many
men and delegates, who really did not
know the merits of the cases. Not
one man had anything more than a
vague idea of the facts in each case
passed upon. He just took it for grant
| ed that thefts were being committed
II Roosevelt had had those southern
votes the Taft men, no doubt. would
have made the same outcries. That is
| part Of the game.
| When Roosevelt came to Chicago.
an attempt was made to persuade the
southern delegates to go over to him
/ This persuasion took various forms
Some charged attempted bribery on
the part of men like Finn, but prob
ably the main argument was a picture
of the band wagon, which is always
alluring to the southern men for they
want to be on the winning side, nat
iurally But all these arguments failed
The southern men stood by their in
structions. Then the cry was resumed
that they were there through fraud
and not entitled to their seats Sup
pose now that those delegates had
gone over, that is, if they had agreed
to vote with Roosevelt and not with
Taft Wouldn't their credentials have
been sufficient? II the Texas dele
gates had agreed to vote for Roose-
velt there would have been no fur
Their contest on them. The contests
hinged on how they lined up. That
is the truth as it was known to all on
the inside in Chicago.
The crax of the bitterness was the
fact that Georgia was as strong in the
convention as Iowa, and Texas as