Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1924-07-02
NATURE Of PARTY
INVITES DEADLOCKS.
Democracy Has Three EIe.
ments-Aristocratic South,
Irish Northeast and West.
TWO-TH!RDS RULE WISE
Prevents One Faction From Dom.
mating Other Two in Choice
of Candidate.
WO-TH!RDS RULE WISE
BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.

NEW YORK, July I'm the eighth
day session of the national Demo-
| cratic convention came the deadlock,
! always to be expected in the life his
tory of these gatherings The two
| leading candidates, Smith and Nc
Adoo, have been grinding each others
Vftals in Il death grip. Four years
ago, in San Francisco. the same
hing was happening between Nc
Adoo and Mitchell Palmer as is hap
pening today. Eight years ago. in
st. Louis, Wilson was candidate for
denomination, but twelve years ago
Speaker Champ Clark was at grips
with Underwood and Harmon, while
Wilson was one of the minor candi-
dates. Bryan's entrance into the ma
tional Democratic convention of 1896
was less conspicuous than that of
either Glass or Newton Baker or
Franklin Roosevelt today. The two
thirds rule makes it almost impossi-
bic for any one to win in the Demo-
cratic convention who is not virtu-
ally the unanimous choice of his
party. When two leaders get in op-
position in a Democratic convention
each with third, the second choice
man must win. 1t is written in the
stars.
Only National Party,
The philosophy upon which the
two-thirds rule stands in Democratic
conventions has it's roots in the fact
that the Democratic party is ma
tional party-the only national party
in the country. The Republicans poll
no notes in the south. but the
Democrats have strength in the
eastern Atlantic seaboard, in the
south and in the west
The Republican convention is
always made up of leading and
highly respectable citizens, always of
one kind and one mind, and chiefly
west, with few vassals and
hangers-on. more or less declasse at
the very best, coming out of the
south. OF its own motion the Re-
publican party has clipped the wings
of these southern outcasts. SO that
they are holding less and less power
in the Republican convention. But
in Democratic convention the three
estates. each from a different part
Of the country. east, south and west
make three separate kinds of people
in the convention. From the south
come the ruling classes. who CORE
spond to the Republicans. From the
west comes nondescript group,
agricultural. small-town or big town
Irish. mine owners, ranchmen-a bold.
gay crowd. unterrified and a bit
irresponsible. not at all like the
proud and diGuified southerners, and
very little like the delegates from the
east and north. These seaboard
states send their governing but not
their ruling classes-their politicians,
not their bankers and trust mag
mates. their city bosses and not their
industrial captains.
These seaboard delegates are under
Irish domination and generally con-
tain Irish majorities. They also are
unterrified and free. Incidentally
they are clannish. And now abide in
three esrates-the rulers from the
south, the governors from the north
eastern seaboard and the unclassi-
fed. unwashed and untamed west
erperS. 1t is almost impossible to
combine either two of these thirds
into d two-thirdS majority.
Could Get Mnjorities.
But it would be easily possible for
date, to make terms with minorities
of either or IN both of the other
thirds, and nominate under a mere
majority rule. a purely sectional cam
didate,. who would be unsatisfactory
to two-thirds of the convention, and
vast majority of the Democrats of
the country.
The convention today is expediting
the inevitable spectacle that must
come in certain Democratic conven
tons Two sectional leaders, Nc
Adoo and Smith the one from the
west. and the other from the east,
grinding each other to death in a
deadlock so that some second choice