THE FIRST VICTORY 



district, who had been chosen by a legislative 

 district convention consisting of delegates 

 elected at precinct meetings of League mem- 

 bers. Much complaint was made of this sys- 

 tem by persons outside of the League on 

 the ground that a slate had been prepared in 

 advance by the insiders, and the convention 

 was nothing but a rubber stamp. This was 

 called boss rule and likened to the practices 

 of Tammany Hall and other horrible monsters 

 of our political dreams. I could never find 

 a member of the League that seemed to feel 

 his inalienable rights had been thus denied 

 him, and certainly the voting along the line 

 for district and state delegates would seem to 

 give an adequate chance to anybody that 

 wished to smash the slate. 



In the main the work of the state conven- 

 tion was well done, and justified the slate sys- 

 tem, if that is what was responsible. It 

 picked as the candidate for governor a re- 

 markable man that certainly would have re- 

 mained in obscurity to the end of his days 

 if a pure democracy had reigned in the League 

 method. Almost unknown was this reserved, 

 scholarly, university graduate living upon 

 a farm about nine miles from any given 

 point, a sturdy, level-headed person whose 

 previous ambition had been to be a good 

 citizen and cultivate the soil with scientific 

 skill. The executive committee heard of him 



209 



