Washington Journal., 1916-06-23
The St. Louis Convention.
BY JAN VAN VELTHus.
Especial G rrespondence)

1t was really an amusing comedy that
was performed at St. Louis last week.
Ostensibly, the national convention of
the great Democratic party was to be
held. and delegates as well as spec
tators solennly went through the mo-
tons appropriate to the business of
nominating a presidential candidate and
adopting a platform. Yet, even before
the first delegate had bought his ticket
for the convention city, everybody un-
derstood that the candidate had long
ago been determined, although it is safe
to say that more thar half the Demo-
cratic voters of the country would have
preferred any other leader to Woodrow
Wilson. A few half-hearted efforts
were made, before the convention met,
to bring out a rival to the best-hated
man in the party. Champ Clark and
some Southern Democrats were i'm
plored to save the Democracy from self
qualification. They declined; and so
Woodrow Wilson was re-nominated,
with but one dissenting vote, that Of
Edward Burke, a lifelong Democrat, an
American patriot, a lover of the Irish
race from which he sprang, the husband
of a German wife, an orator Of power.
and, best of all, an honest man.
1t is clear enough why it was impos-
sible for the convention to nominate
any man but Wilson. 1t was not on
account of the wonderful success of his
administration, as the delegate that put
him in nomination managed to make
himself say. 1t was because he had so
completely destroyed all hope Of Demo-
cratic victory in the coming election that
no other party leader cared to offer him
self as a willing sacrifice.
The utter absence Of power to do
anything of their own free will and
accord was impressed upon the dele
gates when it came to the nomination of
a yice-president. Here some of them
thought they might exercise their own
discretion. They had no special objec-
ton to Mr.. Marshall, but it would have
given all their actions the appearance of
spontaneous choice if some other run
hing mate could have been elected. They
knew little of the psychology of the
man who made himself impossible, as
head of Princeton University, by his
arrogant self-will and lust Of autocratic
power. The word came from the White
House that Mr.. Marshall must be re-
nominated, and the opposition meekly
subsidized.
They reused themselves to an actual
struggle when it came to the anti-Ger-
man plank in the platform. Most of the
delegates were good Americans and OPP
posed to the stirring up of race hatred
and bitter antagonisms between the va
rious elements of II composite people.
Moreover, they did not care to handicap
their party still more in the Congress
sional and State elections than it was
already handicapped by the incapable
and un-American candidate for the
Presidency. Wilson, however, insisted
that his British masters, that the Eliots,
the Putnams and the rest of the know
nothing crew must be satisfied, and so
the anti-German plank, drawn by his
own hand as is stated without contra
diction, went into the platform on which
honest and patriotic American citizens
are asked to stand!
It is characteristic of the man that
even here. where he wished to give ex-
preston TO his views on the most i'm
portant of all issues, he could not re-
frain from weasel words" In the light
of recent events, every child knows, of
course, that he means the three millions
of German-American voters, represent
ing at least twenty per cent of the Ameri-
can people, when he speaks of those
who ~"conspire together for the purpose
of improperly influencing or coercing
our public representatives in dealing or
negotiating with any foreign power"
and charges that such conspiracies ex-
list and have been instigated for the
purpose of advancing the interests Of
foreign countries to the prejudice and
detriment of u own country" Every
body knows whom lie means, and yet
he dares not mention them by name
II he did, he would o have an oppor-
tunity for more weasel words, and more
lodging and twisting and turning in
explaining that he never meant it. when
the wrath of just indignation rise to
overwhelm him, the INDICATION not of
US only who cherish our German tradi-
tons, but Of all patriotic Americans.