206 POLITICAL LIFE-X 



f ective part, and that they seek mainly the applause of the 

 galleries. The country at large is for the moment for 

 gotten. 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 gal 

 lery 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, im 

 posed upon the Democratic National Convention as a 

 candidate for the Presidency. Those who recall the way in 

 which &quot;the boy orator of the Platte&quot; became the Demo 

 cratic 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 wit 

 ness 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 per 

 sisted 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, pre 

 viously governor of Ohio, and since that time senator 

 from that State. 



In spite of sundry &quot;defects of his qualities,&quot; 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 



