It was a wise newspaper that recently advised every American who could
do so to see a national nominating convention. It is a spectacle visible
in no other country, and the most exciting political spectacle in this.
It is the arena in which the prolonged and passionate strife of
countless ambitions, intrigues, interests, and conspiracies is decided;
and it is the more exciting because, with every effort to predetermine
the result, the result is still at the mercy of chance. The action of
the convention is a lottery. Suddenly, at the decisive moment, an
unexpected combination, an impulse, a whim, like an overwhelming tidal
wave, sweeps away all plans and calculations, and the result is as
complete as it is unanticipated.
Even the device of a two-thirds vote to make a nomination valid does
not avail to secure the real preference of the party which the
convention represents. The two-thirds rule, as it is called, was
designed to baffle the fundamental democratic principle, which is the
rule of the majority. When that is abandoned, the proportion selected is
purely arbitrary. It may as well be nine tenths as two thirds. But even
such a dam will not resist the swelling waters of feeling in a
convention. The French say that it is the unexpected that happens, but
in a national convention it is the unforeseen which is anticipated. The
palpitating multitude, which has been stimulating its own excitement,
confronts every doubtful moment with an air which says plainly, "Now
it's coming."
There is always a preliminary contest of various cities before the
national party committee to decide where the convention shall be held.
Local orators with honeyed persuasion dazzle the committee with
statistics of the superior convenience, accommodation, beauty,
healthfulness, resources, facilities, and whatever else their good
genius may suggest, of the city for which each one of them contends. The
convention is held in the largest hall, or in a building erected for the
purpose, like the Wigwam in Chicago in 1860. The convention itself is
composed of about nine hundred state delegates, their seats designated
by a flag with the name of the state placed by the seat of the chairman
of the delegation. The alternates are also seated.
Every convention is full of distinguished leaders and members of the
party, and as any of them appears, either entering or rising to speak,
they are greeted with great applause. If the temporary chairman be an
eminent party chief or an eloquent popular orator, his address touches
the springs of emotion and arouses hearty enthusiasm. But the friends of
the leading candidates deprecate the mention of names until the
candidates are presented by the chosen orator. The reason is that the
applause of the convention is one of the counters in the game. There are
hired _claques_ in the conventions which keep up a humming cry which is
a substitute for applause, and which is sometimes continued for a
quarter of an hour. The longer the hum, the more popular the candidate.
Forgetfulness or ignorance of the value of applause under such
circumstances reveals the comparative popularity of candidates in the
eager mass of delegates and spectators. In one convention the permanent
president in his address, but without any sinister purpose, or indeed
any other purpose than kindling the convention, mentioned successively,
and, of course, with impartial compliment, the name of every candidate
who was known to be on the list. Involuntarily he thus tested the
feeling of the convention. The galleries also swelled the acclaim, but
in the galleries the _claque_ is shrewdly distributed, and in critical
moments the approval or disapproval of the turbulent galleries
undoubtedly impresses the delegates, and recalls the galleries of the
French convention a hundred years ago.
There are occasional skirmishes of debate upon motions or resolutions,
but the first great interest of the regular proceedings is the report
of the platform committee. It is a tradition of conventions that the
platform should be accepted as reported, both to gain the prestige of
perfect unanimity and to escape "tinkering," which may lead to endless
discussion and discordant feeling. But when the motion is made to
proceed to the nomination of candidates, the excitement is intense. The
orators are usually carefully selected, not alone as eloquent speakers,
but as men of weight and influence, and of what at the moment is more
indispensable than everything else--tact. The speeches are made with the
fundamental understanding that, however glowing and elaborate the praise
of the candidate may be, there shall be an explicit assurance that
whatever the merits of any candidate, the candidate who shall be
nominated by the convention will receive the universal and enthusiastic
support of the party.
On one occasion, when this fundamental rule was forgotten by an ardent
orator, who, in the warmth of his devotion to his candidate, declared
that no other man was so certain to draw out the whole party vote in
the state for which he spoke, a hurricane of hisses from the convention
and the galleries silenced him, and the friends of his candidate were
instantly aware that a fatal injury had befallen him. In another
convention the orator who nominated one of the candidates was so
exasperated by what he felt to be the treachery to his candidate of a
conspicuous friend of another that his denunciation of the traitor was
held to be a covert assault upon the traitor's candidate, and again a
tempest of universal hissing overwhelmed the luckless orator and his
candidate.
The announcement by states of the first formal vote for candidates is
made in impressive silence, followed by immense applause. But the second
ballot is more significant; and whenever upon any ballot the
announcement of a vote is seen by the tally to decide the nomination,
the feeling culminates in an indescribable tumult of frenzied
acclamation, and the convention generally adjourns to consider the
Vice-Presidency. But the interest in its work is at an end, and it is
astounding to see the happy-go-lucky Providence which presides over the
selection of the officer who has thrice become the President of the
United States.
In the history of national conventions there is no more touching
incident than that of Mr. Seward awaiting at his home in Auburn the
result of the balloting at the convention of 1860, which nominated Mr.
Lincoln. By what is called the logic of the situation Mr. Seward's
nomination was assured, and no disappointment could have been greater
than the selection of another. How bitter it was was not suspected until
his life was recently published! But he encountered the shock with his
usual equanimity, and before the election he had made the most
extraordinary series of speeches for his party which the annals of any
campaign record.
The journal's advice was sound. See a national convention if you can.