Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 June 1920 — FUNERAL SESSIONS AT CHICAGO [ARTICLE]

FUNERAL SESSIONS AT CHICAGO

The Republican national convention in Chicago this week is said to remind one more of a funeral than the convention of a great political party, with the enthusiasm that once marked its sessions to nominate men to head its ticket in a presidential campaign. Perhaps this is but a forerunner of what is in store for the Republicans next November, and that the leaders feel that this is the last great gathering of their clan, and when the ides of November fall their party will be so completely buried by the wrath of the people that it can never be successfully resurrected. Even the Republican papers admit that the convention is sadly lacking in “pep,” and one correspondent wrote its> paper in the following vein of the proceedings of opening session: I’ve been to a lot of Sunday school and school ma’ams conventions in my day, and to be honest, a few might be described as dry. But I never was to a Sunday school con'vention that was as bone dry as the opening of the national republican convention today. Even the

initial presence of the women voters who for the first time spoke fiom the national convention floor, didn’t give the great gathering one speck of pep. The national republican convention of IJ2O has been heralaei as most momentous in the history of the lane. But if there was any thing of moment, it escaped the notice cf 14.000 present. The preacher who delivered the invocation jrad a three-page L<anuscript in his call for the Lord Almighty’s help. Little VZIII Hays, who star.-’i the doings with a little gavel, received some applause when he Sall tha’ there would be no one to bo't this convention as in the Teddy davs back yonder. What killed the opening session was Henry Cabot Lodge’s speech. It lasted an hour and a quarter and Mr. Lodge read every word of it. It was highbrow and quoted from Euripides and such, but that didn’t keep folks from leaving. There was a place or two where the official stenographer, who stood right back of him, marked “applause,” but that was only when he attacked Wilson and the war program. And those who did cheer, clapped their hands as if they were handling their feet.' These delegates here don’t seem to be doing as much thinking as the! men who will enter the sacred pre-1 cincts of the private voting booth back home. The audience was restless and folks got up and left. The convention was confronted with much that caused this graveyard atmosphere. The record of the party in the recent congress, the revelations that had been made of the millions of dollars spent by the candidates to buy up the nomination and the rule or ruin stand oi Hi Johnson, the fire-eater from the Pacific slope, all tended to depress rather than inspire the leaders who saw that their party was between the devil and the deep sea, with the assured fact that the days of miracles are past and nothing but defeat stared them in the face on every side. No wonder that the atmosphere is strongly tinged with that of the morgue and black vehicle denoting the end of the tragedy of life. What else could be expected? To attempt to arouse enthusiasm in that solemn assemblage would be life proffering medicine to the dead.