第70章

No more undemocratic system was ever devised. The tendency of this ``wigwam'' plan of holding great meetings or conventions is to station a vast mob of sensation-seeking men and women in the galleries between the delegates and the country at large. The inevitable consequence is that the ``fog-horns'' of a convention play the most ef-fective part, and that they seek mainly the applause of the galleries. The country at large is for the moment forgotten. The controlling influence is the mob, mainly from the city where the convention is held. The whole thing is a monstrous abuse. Attention has been called to it by thinking Democrats as well as by Republicans, who have seen in it a sign of deterioration which has produced many unfortunate consequences and will produce more. It is the old story of the French Convention overawed by a gallery mob and mistaking the mob whimsies of a city for the sober judgment of the country. One result of it the whole nation saw when, in more recent years, a youthful member of Congress, with no training to fit him for executive duties, was suddenly, by the applause of such a mob, imposed upon the Democratic National Convention as a candidate for the Presidency. Those who recall the way in which ``the boy orator of the Platte'' became the Democratic candidate for the Chief Magistracy over seventy millions of people, on account of a few half-mawkish, half-blasphemous phrases in a convention speech, can bear witness to the necessity of a reform in this particular--a reform which will forbid a sensation-seeking city mob to usurp the function of the whole people of our Republic.

In spite of these mob hysterics, the Independents persisted to the last in supporting Mr. Edmunds for the first place, but in voting for the second place they separated.

For the Vice-Presidency I cast the only vote which was thrown for my old Cornell student, Mr. Foraker, previously governor of Ohio, and since that time senator from that State.

In spite of sundry ``defects of his qualities,'' which I freely recognized, I regarded him as a fearless, upright, downright, straightforward man of the sort who must always play a great part in American politics.

It was at this convention that I saw for the first time Mr. McKinley of Ohio, and his quiet self-possession in the midst of the various whirls and eddies and storms caused me to admire him greatly. Calm, substantial, quick to see a good point, strong to maintain it, he was evidently a born leader of men. His speeches were simple, clear, forcible, and aided at times in rescuing the self-respect of the body.

This Republican convention having adjourned, the National Democratic Convention met soon afterward in the same place and nominated Grover Cleveland of New York.

He was a man whom I greatly respected. As already stated, his career as sheriff of Erie County, as mayor of Buffalo, and as governor of the State of New York had led me to admire him. He had seemed utterly incapable of making any bid for mob support; there had appeared not the slightest germ of demagogism in him;he had refused to be a mere partizan tool and had steadily stood for the best ideals of government. As governor he showed the same qualities which had won admiration during his previous career as sheriff and mayor. He made as many appointments as he could without regard to political considerations, and it was remarked with wonder that when a number of leading Democratic ``workers''

and ``wheel-horses'' came to the executive chamber in Albany in order to dictate purely partizan appointments, he virtually turned them out of the room. Most amazing thing of all, he had vetoed a bill reducing the fare on the elevated railroads of New York, in the face of the earnest advice of partizans who assured him that by doing so he would surely array against him the working-classes of that city and virtually annihilate his political future.

To this his answer was that whatever his sympathies for the working-people might be, he could not, as an honest man, allow such a bill to pass, and, come what might, he would not. He had also dared, quietly but firmly, to resist the chief ``boss'' of his party in New York City, and he had consequently to brave the vials of Celtic wrath. The scenes at the convention which nominated him were stirring, and an eminent Western delegate struck a chord in the hearts of thousands of Republicans as well as Democrats when he said, ``We love him for the enemies he has made.'' Had it been a question simply between men, great numbers of us who voted for Mr. Blaine would have voted for Mr. Cleveland; but whatever temptation I might be subjected to in the matter was overcome by one fact: Mr.

Cleveland was too much like the Trojan horse, for he bore with him a number of men who, when once brought into power, were sure to labor hard to undo everything that he would endeavor to accomplish, and his predestined successor in the governorship of the State of New York was one of those whom I looked upon as especially dangerous.

Therefore it was, that, after looking over the ground, Iwrote an open letter to Mr. Theodore Roosevelt and other Independents, giving the reasons why those of us who had supported Mr. Edmunds should now support Mr. Blaine, and in this view Mr. Roosevelt, with a large number of our Independent friends, agreed.

I had, however, small hopes. It was clear to me that Mr.

Blaine had little chance of being elected; that, in fact, he was too heavily weighted with the transactions which Mr.

Pullman had revealed to me some months before the beginning of the convention.