Evening Post. FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 1928. STRANGER THAN FICTION

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 150, 29 June 1928, Page 8

Evening Post. FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 1928. STRANGER THAN FICTION

On the eve of the meeting of the Republican National > Convention which resulted a fortnight ago in the selection of Mr.'Hoover as the party's candidate for the Presidency we referred to the astonishing manner in which the hopes of the wise men who drew up the ■American Constitution had been falsified by the perversion of , their ingenious machinery for the election of a President. On other points there provoked such stormy controversy that union often seemed impossible, but on the need for leaving the choice of the President to the calm and reasoned judgment of the nation and on the efficacy of -the means adopted to the end there was no serious trouble at all. Alexander Hamilton, the wisest of the; Constitution-makers, noted these provisions as "almost the: only part of the system of any consequence which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents," The essence of the provisions was the interposition / of an "Electoral College," as it is now called, between the President and the popular choice. The people of each State were to choose their wisest man, and these, men collectively but without, meeting, except in their respective States, were to choose the President. The most important function of the nation was thus to be protected from the "tumult and disorder" of popular strife, and'even from the "heats and ferments" of cabal. The philosophic calm which, has thus been, imparted to the first stage of 'President-making has been revealed during the last few months by the machine-guns and the bombs of the Chicago primaries, by the brass bands and the stage-managed critics of the Republican Convention at Kansas City, and by the far more boisterous and entertaining saturnalia of their rivals now assembled at Houston. The admirable, reports of, the democratic Convention which are being supplied by the Press Association's correspondent—reports which combine the detachment of an outsider, the intimate knowledge of a native, and the skill of an accomplished journalist—illustrate the saying that truth is. stranger than fiction. One of the earliest and best of the dialogues which made "Mr. x,Dooley" famous was a description of the Populist Convention at St. Louis in 1896. It was in that campaign that Mr. W. J. Bryan, who was given a special eulogy at' Houston on Wednesday, ' but would assuredly have had his head broken by the "Smithwets" if he. had been there to make himself a nuisance with his "dry" views, won for the first time • his party's nomination for the Presi-. dency. He had stampeded the Demo-1 cratic National Convention at. Chicago by his advocacy of the free' coinage of silver in an eloquent speech which included the celebrated | passage — VYou shall not. press down upon the brow of labour this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. x From its double basis of free silver and labour the-same speech brought to Mr. Bryan the nomination of the People's Party or Populists—the. most radical of the parties in the field—i-whose Convention was fortunately ■'.* attended by Mr. Dooley's friend Cassidy. . According to this witness the "Pops" struck trouble at the very outset. The one part of these proceedings which can usually pass in perfect harmony is,the music. When extended to three hours in the sub-, tropical heat of Houston, and with the brass bands;sometimes three'deep, as it was on Wednesday, the harmony may. well indeed have been that of coma., but at St. Louis in 1896 Mr. Cassidy represents the Convention as coming to blows because a delegate from New Mexico objected to an Oklahoma delegate's being called on for the first song. If the song proceeded the New Mexico delegation would leave the hall. Ye. shall not, ho says,' press down upon our bleedin' brows, ho says, this cross ov thorns, ho says. Ye shall not crucify th' diligatcs' fr'm th' imperyal Territ'ry iv New Mexico on this cross if a Mississippi nigger an' Crow Injun fr'm Okalahoma, ho says. Thereupon, says me frind Cassidy, th' New Mexico diligation left th' hall, pursued be th' diligation from Okalahoma. In the absence of the combatants the chairman tactfully averted further trouble by calling on each delegation to send one singer to the platform. Meantime, says he, pathrites who have differences iv opinyon on army questions can. pro-euro ox-helves bo applyin' to th' sergeant-at-arms, he says. Whin th' singin' had con-eluded, so mo, frind Cassidy says, th' chair announced that speakin' would bo ordher, an' th' convintiori rose as wan man. Afther ordher had !been enforced be th' sorgeant-at-arms movin' round an' lammin' diligatea with a hoe, a tall man was seen standin' on a chair. The tail man had risen to a point of order. He had spied "a goold-bug in our mist" and demanded his ejection, but when the stranger, who was suspected because he had a coat on, explained that he wore it because he had no shirt, the chairman ruled in his favour. ■ This hero person, who bears th' appearance iv a plutocrat, is all right underneath, he says'. He's a diligato to th' silver convintion, ho says. Go in peace, ho says. , And the business proceeded. Though when Mr. Dooley is asked what he thinks about it his reply is,

"I think that Cassidy lied," we are surely entitled to say that in all the essentials of disorder his fancy sketch has been exceeded by the actual happenings 'at Houston during the last two or three days. It was not on the floor of the Convention but at a meeting of tho Platform Committee in the seclusion of the local library that two of the delegates nearly came to blows. . j Senator Tydings, . representing tho "Wots," leaped upon Senator Glasa, of tho "Drys," and the men wcro separated with difficulty. The committee adjourned with nothing done, and if the threat of a third senator to take the issue to the floor of the Convention is carried out there may be a thousand combatants instead of two. But with the liquor question not yet articulately raised the Convention has already given us a taste of its quality^vvh.ich puts, the "Pops" of "Mr. Dooley's" imagination into the shade. The Chairman's appeal for unity was, says our report, "an opportunity for the delegates to show that they were for Smith," but it was also a chance for some brave spirits to show that they were riot. 4. They snake-danced, we are told, with State standards in their hands, a typicil Domooratie demonstration. Considerable scuffling occurred, and some really well-aimod blows to the jaw wore given and received when Georgia and Tennessee delegations quarellcd among' themselves whether they should join the Smith demonstration; \ "Mr. Dooley's" veracious informant made the New Mexico and Oklahoma delegations leave the hall in order' to settle their differences outside, b^t it is surely a much more improved procedure which enabled the delegations of Georgia and Tennessee to stay inside and give the 30,000 spectators who had been flattened out by the music and the stifling atmosphere something really exhilarating by way of a change. But another of the Southern States —the States which, being at once Democratic and dry, are most exercised by the candidature of a wet. Democrat—-left Tennessee and Georgia far behind. - A fight in the Alabama delegation caused the summoning of oight policemen to protect tho standard, and one bobby brought his baton down upon tho head of one obstreperous Alabaman. The blow rang clear like a bell above the fearful tumult. • • .' ■'•■...■' They are a hard-headed lot, those Americans, and evidently not least of all in Alabama. But how tame is "Mr. Dooley's" serjeant-at-arms enforcing order on a whole Convention by "mpvin'" round an' lammin' diligates with a hoe" in comparison with those eight policemen required to restrain the quarrels of a single delegation! Yet even this is apparently a trifle to what these Democrats can do when they are really roused. ' It was, we arc assured, all horse-play in comparison with what has happened at previous Democratic conventions. History, as'Jt is being made in Houston, is indeed stranger than fiction, and far more picturesque than the tame and tranquil procedure which the "Founding Fathers" foresaw. .