200 POLITICAL LIFE-X 



fertive part, arid 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 hern called to it by 

 thinking Democrats as well as by Iiepublicans, 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 iu 

 which "the boy orator of the Platte" 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 "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 



