The Democratic National Convention
By Randolph C. Lewis

Source:  Munsey’s Magazine.  Vol.XXIII. September, 1900.

WindingRiver.com Note:  Kansas City Spirit described the growth and industry of the growing town in the late 19th century.  On April 4th, 1900, just a little over a year from its completion and dedication, Kansas City's new Convention Hall was burned to the ground.  As terrible as the loss of the new structure, was the fact that Kansas City was hosting the Democratic National Convention in just 90 days and was counting on that exposure to build its reputation as the center of commerce in the midwest.  The Kansas City Spirit was proven that day.  While firefighters put out the blaze, the leading citizens in the city began raising money to rebuild the Convention Hall in time for the convention.  Most Kansas City history books tell the great story of this accomplishment.  WindingRiver.com is glad to reprint the story of what happened during the convention.

The enthusiasm of the great gathering, the youth of the delegates, and the extraordinary number of new men in the body-the fight between ex Senator Hill and Richard Croker, of New York, the most striking feature of the convention, the former snatching victory out of defeat.

The democratic national convention at Kansas City was a thrilling and spectacular event. There were changing color schemes that bewildered the eye, and magnificent outbursts that stirred the most unemotional spectator. The auditorium was full to overflowing at all times. In the highest gallery the spectators were closely packed; men were perched on the trusses that spanned the hall, reckless of danger when a gust of cheering swept across the human field below them. The delegates were seated amid a forest of standards, which were soon to be uprooted, as though by a cyclone, and swept in confusion all over the place.

The gathering was a reverent one. The silence of twenty thousand odd persons during the opening prayer was well nigh perfect. The delegates were an earnest looking set of men, as a rule, strenuous and aggressive. Many of them were tanned by the sun from constant outdoor life. There were plenty of faces new to national Democratic gatherings, men who had come prominently to the front during the last four years.

As one looked at the assemblage from the platform, the first impression was the average youth of the delegates. There were few gray hairs. The first person of royal blood to sit in the enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of a delegate was there- Prince David of Hawaii, and it was his vote at the meeting of the committee on resolutions that put the free silver plank into the platform. No one knew his views as he sat in that meeting, which lasted all night because of the opposition to incorporating the ratio plank in the platform. By the time the vote reached him, it stood twenty five to twenty four for silver. Had he joined the minority, the vote would have been tied and the proposition lost. The youngest Territory of the Union has thus, at the outset, played a conspicuous part in the history of a great party and of the nation. This is most remarkable in view of the attitude of the Democratic Party on the admission of Hawaii. President Cleveland for a time prevented the annexation of the islands, and most of the Democratic Members of Congress opposed it. By a strange turn of events, the first representative from the Pacific islands to enjoy the full rights of a delegate in a national political convention may change the history of the party and the nation. Had it not been for him, the sixteen to one plank would not have been made a part of the platform, and the election may turn on that.

The prince is a fine looking young man, with bright, smiling eyes, even, white teeth, and a well trained mustache. He has the address of a man of the world, and is an interesting talker. Where he sat was a silken banner inscribed on one side with strange words.

The auditorium was splashed all over with bright hues. The movement of fans was incessant. They gave to the scene a vibration like that of a kinetoscope picture.

While action filled the eye and tumult stunned the ear, there was in progress a fierce struggle of men and measures. Richard Croker, the head of Tammany Hall, and ex Senator David Bennett Hill, the Democratic leader of New York State, were fighting desperately. All the craft and strength, all the fertility of resource, that both of these political giants possess, were in full play. The action was rapid, breathless, full of surprises, sudden attacks, and masterful parries.

Here was a contest of giants besides which all else was mere framework, a struggle far more absorbing than any ever staged by the most skilful playwright. For here were two men in flesh and blood, each with ambition to gratify, a motive stronger even than love. The hazard of the day often hung on the smallest trifle.

The story of Hill’s repudiation in the caucus of the New York’s delegation as a member of the committee on resolutions has so recently been told that it is familiar to all readers of current events. It was the culmination of the hostile feeling that has existed between the Tammany leader and the State leader for more than a dozen years; but it was the first time that they had stood squarely face to face in the open, with all pretense put aside, and given blow for blow, sting for sting, mingling with the passage at arms all their pent up bitterness, and it was strange that this stand up fight should be in a national arena.

Hill was overborne. He could have no hand in shaping the declaration of his party’s principles. One of the strongest ambitions of his political life was to keep the ratio plank out of the platform. A man less brilliantly equipped would have been crushed. But in the convention hall Hill snatched honors from the depths of defeat.

William Jennings Bryan, of Nebraska, nominated for President of the United States for the second time by the Democratic National Convention at Kansas City
 

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Adlai E. Stevenson, of Illinois, former Vice President of the United States, who was again nominated for that office by the Democratic national Convention at Kansas City

David Bennett Hill and Richard Croker are two large figures in the public eye. Croker is massive, direct, unyielding, blunt of speech, positive. Hill is agile, indirect in method, elastic, resourceful, and possessed of a genius for intrigue. Croker would rout his foe by strenuous frontal attack. Hill by a brilliant combination of maneuvers, would suddenly beset the enemy at the most unexpected point and capture his position. Croker believes in force, like a fighter with thews of steel, who is confident in his own strength. Hill rests his every issue on his skill and dexterity. He is ever a mental machine, undisturbed by sentiment. He has reduced life in general, and politics, which is all of his life, to a geometrical proposition. He works at high pressure all the time. Croker is more deliberate, but no less sure. He does not believe in throwing away energy, and every ounce of it he expends goes to some definite purpose.

When Mr. Hill was in the Senate, it was his custom to have his meals served in his own apartments. So jealous was he of the minutes that he considered the time wasted during which he would have to wait for his meals in the dining room. In his room he often continued work while eating, and it is told that the visitors have found him busy with knife and fork dictating to his stenographer. He did the same in Kansas City.

 Mr. Croker never has the appearance of being busy or deeply engrossed in any matter. Even when the convention was in delirium over Hill, the Tammany leader’s impassive face never changed expression. And, for that matter, his eyes were unseeing. He might have been deaf and blind for all the impression apparently made on him. The demonstration almost equaled that which followed Bryan’s nomination in 1896. It was started by a man with a clear, trumpet-like voice who shouted, “Hill! Hill! Hill!” The effect was electric. Delegates all over the hall were on their feet, yelling the name. The cheering swelled in volume until it sounded like the sea breaking upon the shore. Hats were thrown in the air, canes, fans, umbrellas. Hill’s loyal twenty six of the New York seventy two stood up in a wall back of him, yelling frantically, while the men from New York City sat sullen and unmoved. The din was deafening, and the heavy strokes of Temporary Chairman Thomas’ big gavel sounded like the faint boom of cannon. The delegates were Hill mad. The convention was swept off its feet and was absolutely beyond control for the time being.

“This is my answer to Mr. Croker,” grimly said Mr. Hill to a friend, as he rose from his seat and bowed. Delegates from other States ran to him, and, wringing his hands, tried to force him towards the stage, but he resisted and sat down.

The same scenes, only more intensified, were enacted when Senator Tillman, of South Carolina, read the platform, and when William D. Oldham, of Nebraska, the boyhood friend of Bryan, put him in nomination. Tillman, picturesque in looks, gesture, and delivery, was a personality that held the attention. He was vehement and aggressive in his delivery, and his words came as though they sprang spontaneously from his own convictions. His single eye glowed like a live coal, and to emphasize the most telling points, he struck the table before him time and time again with his sinewy right fist. When he mentioned “the paramount issue” there was an outburst of cheering. From the center of the space occupied by the delegations there unfolded like the petals of a great flower a hundred small flags. A shaft of sunlight made their colors show vividly. They quickly spread until the whole expanse was aflutter.

Oldham is a short, sharp featured man, clean shaven, nervous, and as full of energy as a dynamo. His delivery is impetuous, and his address glowed with striking similes. He is poet as well as politician. The sincere ring of his nominating speech showed him to be a man of deep sympathies and a friend to grapple to “with hooks of steel.” There had been an outburst when Permanent Chairman James D. Richardson, of Tennessee, mentioned Bryan’s name, but it was infantine compared with the demonstration when Oldham fairly shouted the name of Bryan.

Even the impassive Mr. Croker stood up to cheer and wave a flag. Hill was on his feet, too. The entire New York delegation were up, some standing on chairs, yelling like Indians.

The north side of the auditorium had resembled a steep hillside, carpeted with white, pink, yellow, blue, and purple flowers. It had never been quiet, but now it took on the nature of a cataract. Hats, umbrellas, fans, handkerchiefs, and flags danced above seething expanse. The sudden up throw of scores of white shirted arms resembled jets of foam. Down in the great circular basin where this mad torrent seemed to flow was a maelstrom, circling in frantic lines, the center and sides a mad chaos of movement and color.

Only for a few moments, however, was the fight between Croker and Hill overshadowed by the enthusiasm for Bryan. The latter was the big man of the convention, which had in it comparatively few men of national fame as leaders in the party. The old war horses, those whose names have long been familiar, were not there or kept in the background. Senator Daniels, of Virginia, and Congressman Richardson, of Tennessee, were two of the exceptions, and Hill, of course, was a third.

Governor Thomas, of Colorado, is widely known, but not as a national Democratic leader. This is true also of the picturesque ex Governor Stone, of Missouri, one of the most earnest and forceful of the silverites. Carter Harrison, mayor of Chicago, is one of the younger group. He looks too handsome and too correctly dressed to be a successful politician. It was he who held the Illinois delegation in line, and this did more than anything else to check the stampede for Hill. Even John P. Altgeld ceased to stand out in strong relief when Harrison took leadership of the Illinois men.

The situation was something like that in Philadelphia. There was a popular demand for a certain man to be the candidate for Vice President. Roosevelt did not want the nomination for personal reasons. Hill likewise was determined, but for political reasons, that he should not be nominated. Roosevelt was nominated, Hill was not, and the fight he made is one of the most remarkable of convention incidents. It showed this cold, calculating man, to whom politics has been everthing-wife, children, business, recreation, pleasure-to be one of the great leaders, who had no equal as a strategist in the convention. For the nomination of Adlai E. Stevenson for Vice Presidency was a victory for Hill, perhaps the greatest of his militant life.

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