Evening star., 1948-06-25
By Newbold koyes, Jr.
Stor Sioff Correspondent


moment this convention ends-to-
day, I fervently trust-will not be
moment too soon. No one who
hasn't been through it can possibly
imagine the terrible weariness with
which conyentioneers must contend
in winding up their affairs. They are
like men too tired to muster the
energy to take of their shoes and
60 to bed.
With aching heads and feet, they
wander around in hazy condition
where it is almost impossible to sort
out this from that, or here from
there. Time has lost it's meaning.
Things which happened this morn
ing seem like memories of weeks
ago. That the delegates ever reach
decisions in such an atmosphere is
one of the major miracles of our
civilization.
Yesterday, for instance-the great
day of the choice. I think I can
remember it-pieces Of it. But the
pieces won't fit back together. The
cement which should have joined
them has melted away in the heat
and turmoil of the week.
A girl in a red and white striped
dress climbed up on the railing Of
the press section while we were
waiting for Tom Dewey to come to
the hall and accept the nomination.
Il want to get good look at this
guy" she said. I'D hate to get
beaten with him again. But I guess
its the smartest thing they could
do, making it unanimous like that
1t would have been kind of foolish
for all these people to fight over
35 votes"
Il take it you're Taft man your
self" I said, looking at the out
sized badge she wore.
Il ought to be-" said the girl. I'm
Pauline Reissig, his political secre-
tary."
Mr.. Dewey looked so crisp. clean
and collected when he finally ap-
peared that it was hard to think
of him as belonging to the same
species as the coatless, steaming
mob which nominated him. He
didn't seem even a little surprised
by what had happened. He had his
speech all written out, but he had
also learned it by heart and hardly
had to look at his text at all.
Harold Stassen got almost as big
cheer as Mr.. Dewey did when he
stepped up to the speakers rostrum
to advise his followers that they, too,
ought to switch over the the winning
side. He was good loser-his grin
was almost as wide as Mr.. DeWey'S.
Earlier. after taking bow on the
platform before the balloting started,
he retired to the back of the stage
and sat there, earnestly marking the
votes on a tally sheet, even as
you and I.
One of the briefest and most to-
the-point remarks of the day was
that of Mrs. Dudley Hay, the con-
vention secretary, at the end OF
the roll call which showed the con-
venton unanimously back of Mr..
Dewey.
Her remark, carefully enunciated
into the microphone, was-and I
quote-"Hallelujahi"
X y
There were two particularly nice
things about yesterdays sessions.
The first was at the start of the
evening when the organ struck up
with the National Anthem and for
once the crowd didn't f1dget through
it. Somebody started singing in
about the middle of the verse, and
by the end the whole place was
shouting the music at the top Of its
collective lungs.
The second nice thing was that
former Senator Jim Watson of In
diana finally showed up here yester-
day. He went to his first Republi-
can convention in 1876, and has
been to every one of them in the
last so years. This time at 83, he
was bedridden with arthritis when
the convention opened, and his
friends were afraid the string was
broken. They should have known
better. He hobbled into the hall
yesterday afternoon, got buf1eted
around in the crowd along with the