The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1912-07-26

national convention purposes. 1t has
fairly good transportation facilities,
several spacious auditoriums and
quite a few hotels. With little pa
tience visitors would be able to find
restaurant and a barber shop here
and there. But New York is too near
Wall Street That's the popular song
when the advantages of the big city
are suggested to political managers.
The long distance telephone, tele-
graph wire and the presence Of doz-
en- or more trusted agents made it
impossible for Wall Street to get in
touch with Chicago or Baltimore. So
much for the stereotyped objection to
holding the convention in New York
City because of the supposedly blight
ing influence of Wall Street.
Just what members of the national
democratic committee Mere RESPONSE
BILE for approving Baltimore as the
convention city will never be known.
None of them have been going around
Boosting about it. They have been
shifting the blame on each other, All
that is positively known is that Bal
timore paid $4,000 for the universal
peace gathering, and proceeded to col
lect the whole amount the very first
day One minute after leaving the
railroad station delegates and visitors
were seriously thinking of erecting a
monument to the memory of Jesse
James.
After the first session with taxi
cab man all were inclined to agree
that Jesse was a philanthropist by
comparison For those who had real
business at the nvention-leaders,
delegates and eporters-taxicabs
were an absolute necessity The two
hotels which held the important lead
ers and the convention hall are in
widely separated parts of the city.
That's why the atmosphere was rent
night and day with the walls of those
who were forced to stand and deliver
at the muzzle of a self-raising taxime-
| ter
OF course there were street cars,
but unless one was going to spend
the summer there it didn't pay to
ride in them. A Baltimore street car
is twice as deliberate as the public
service commission. 1t proceeds with
the utmost caution and wanders leis-
urely all over the city, unhampered
by schedules and such conventional
| things The company would have
done a big business if it had placed
sleeping cars on the line during the
convention. Some of the visitors were
disappointed when they rode all day
and found they couldn't get berths.
Most of the thousands who made
the trip insisted on stopping at the
two leading hotels, and the manage
ment insisted on letting them. The
result was that every inch of space
from the furthest south cellar to the
furthest north attic was damned with
humanity Long lines of cots stretch
ed away in the ball rooms, corridors
and parlors, giving the interior of the
hotels above the ground floor the
cheerful appearance of hospitals.
Three and four persons in small
he tyIn Nan "
a man went to bed alone on the Sun
day night before the convention and
wake up to find himself the center of
an old home week gathering, with
two or three patriots sharing his
humble cot 1t was a case of all turn
together or break a leg. Before the
convention adjourned some of the
sleepers would have found a window
sill too rooOmy.
How did you sleep last night,
Bin?"
Great. Six of us had the bed all
to ourselves. Looks like a mass meet.
ing when we're all in the room to-
gether Man from Texas, one of
those long, rangy fellows. did deadly
execution this morning He was
wearing one of those old fashioned,
hard boiled shirts, the kind you pull
over your head. While he had it over
his head cropping for the sleeves he
knocked five of US into the hall, pulled
down the chandelier and tipped over
the dresser. We Clipped in and
bought him a coat shirt, and now ey-
erything is all right"
Stories of this kind were thick
about the lobby in the early morning.
Elevators in all the hotels made no
attempt to conceal the fact that they
were out of sympathy with the demo-
cratic party The hotels where most
of the business was transacted have