DEMOCRATS ASSEMBLED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 390, 26 June 1928, Page 9

DEMOCRATS ASSEMBLED

“Gibbering With Excitement” STAGE SET FOR CONVENTION Hot Houston Hotter Still HOT HOUSTON, in Texas, is the venue of the United States Democratic Convention, which begins to-day. Fervency and vehemence will mark the proceedings of this great national meeting. “It is,” says the message printed below, “a puppet show pulled by hidden strings. Tammany will swell the decisions taken here. One can therefore expect shrewdness and longpractised political gunning.” (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian P.A.—United Service)

Received 9.5 a.m. HOUSTON (Texas), Monday. The religious fervour and even ebullience, with which the Democratic Party endows its deliberations, is definitely marked and vivid 24 hours before the Conventiou meets. Houston, the half-grown, torrid little city in which the party is living for the time being, is made nearly unbearable by hot winds sweeping in from the Gulf of Mexico. It is swarming and overcrowded and frightfully uncomfortable; but it is trembling with excitement. The Democrats alone take the prearranged theatricality of > American politicals methods seriously. To-day they are fairly gibbering with excitement. One circulates among the 1,100 delegates and the equal number of alternates who are crowded in the hotels within the one city square, and the talk is loud and pugnacious, centreing chiefly upon prohibition. Everyone has views on the question, but it is impossible to hear them expressed concisely. It seems as if the Democrats came here to squabble over the sumptuary law. Other things seem to be forgotten . SMITH'S DOMINATION The actual situation has not changed. One Tammanyite arriving here summed it up graphically: “You ask what is our platform? Hell! Smith is a platform in himself." Governor Smith dominates, and inevitably he will dictate. Senator James A. Reed has issued a statement saying that he would endorse the Eight eenth Amendment, although he never favoured its adoption. This very statement rules him out from serious consideration, either as a candidate or as the leader of the Smith opposition. The latter now depends upon a callow, inexperienced politician, Dan Moody, Governor of Texas, and a small and fervent group of prohibitionists, who have been holding prayers for two days in the local churches, for the in-

elusion of a drastic enforcement plank in the platform, and a dry candidate. In a modified sense, the graphic leadership of the Convention rests in the hands of these prohibitionists, most of whom are women. Actually only 7 per cent, of the delegate are women, this showing a marked decrease since the Democratic Convention of 1924; but their absolute honesty and intense sincerity mark them as a ponderable political force. OLD LEADERS GONE There are, of course, none of the old-time leaders. These have disappeared through death; but their absence is marked. That gargantum, but very real figure, William J. Bryan, is absent from the Democratic Convention for the first time in a generation. There is no one to take his place. His voice, his powers to propound a quarrel, can be supplied by no one else. There will be drama here during the next few days, but it will lack those bold, tragi-comic lines that one has come to expect from the Democrats. If one remembers that this Southern section of America is traditionally Democratic, it can be seen under what peculiar circumstances this Convention will be conducted. It will be a family affair, in which the populace will half confound the proceedings with its own fervency and vehemence. The Convention of 1924, swallowed up in large New York, soon became a laughing-stock, because of its political barbarity; but here there can be little complaisant humour. It is a vastly serious business, although basically it is like all party political manoeuvres in American life —a puppet show pulled by hidden strings. Tammany will sway the decisions taken here. One can therefore expect shrewdness and long-practised political gunning. Already this convention promises to be an unusual spectacle. One need have no fear of disappointment. It is expected that to-morrow the Convention will be organising and adopting a platform; on Wednesday or Thursday the presidential nomination will probably take place; on Thursday or Friday the vice-presidential nomination; with an immediate adjournment after that.