Today -100: June 22, 1912: Toot toot

The NYT says all the fight has gone out of the Republican convention. (William Jennings Bryan, in his syndicated coverage, concurs: “The machine has worked beautifully all day; it has not slipped a cog. When it was running at full speed ‘Toot,’ Toot,’ would occasionally come from the audience. Sometimes sounds arose that resembled escaping steam, but I am satisfied that no steam escaped; it was all being used, and at high pressure, too.”) The convention is voting on disputed delegates state by state, ignoring a motion by the Theodores to seat all the Roosevelt delegates as a bloc (that would have required all 78 disputed Tafties to sit out the vote; instead, piecemeal voting let the Texas Tafties vote on the credentials of the Alabama ones and vice versa).

Favorite line of the coverage: “The Governor [Hiram Johnson of California] stood there shrieking and gesticulating with his embattled forefinger”.

I’ve been meaning to mention that two of the California delegates were women, the first women at a national convention.

William Jennings Bryan is starting a fight with the Democratic National Committee over its plans to make Alton Parker, the party’s conservative 1904 presidential candidate, temporary chairman of the convention, asking the leading presidential candidates to support some Progressive for the position.