Debacle

The Press, ever watchful for the dramatic, for the pathetic, for the emotional, failed signally to capture the main dramatic theme of the Democratic Convention. It was a nominating Convention, and blindly the Press sought drama in the nomination, a hero in the nominee. Shakespeare, a greater dramatist, knew well that, in the tragedy of Caesar, Brutus was the moving character.

Who knows the exact date, the exact hour, the exact place where the three Scotch witches first ensnared their victim: "Treasury thou art, Railroads shalt be; More hereafter!". . .

William G. McAdoo listened and was snared. That event was not recent. It was several years ago. He married the daughter of a President, and in his heart he said: "Someday I, too, shall hold this post." It was the greatest goal that he could strive for, and he set his heart upon it.

The public does not know --and will not --all the plans he made, all the preparations he laid, some long ago, some recently. It is not known what endless effort he invested, what sums of money --his own and other people's. The Doheny retainers which cost him so much politically --who knows but they were all sunk in the great debacle? Certain it is that almost half the strength of the Democratic Party was not assembled under one banner with out herculean effort, without a well-furnished purse.

All this was done by one man, single in purpose. As time went on, he felt himself to be within reach of the nomination. He felt the Democratic Party to be within reach of the Presidency. He staked his all on the great throw. He considered nothing, but the ways and means of success. He dedicated himself at the altar of his hope.

Somehow he built a National organization, somehow supplied it with funds and courage. A great part of the country never appreciated his spirit. The North-East, especially, looked upon him as another ambitious man, one with displeasing associations, one whose ingenious scheming had made him something to be reckoned with. The hell-bent determination which carried his organization through the crisis when it was disclosed that he was a Doheny lawyer, highly-paid--the spirit which succeeded in weathering that storm--was indeed something to be reckoned with.

Many of the McAdoo delegates understood that spirit. It was something near insanity or genius. It was only such a spirit that could hold 400 or 500 delegates bound firmly to a lost cause through eight sweltering days, through 100 torturing ballots. The wiseacre bosses of the North-well used to politics, with no illusions about the cynical, practical kind of a Game it is--after the second day of balloting shook their heads and said: "Well, it's a stubborn crowd. We won't nominate until shortly after the 50th ballot."

To McAdoo, literally, it did not occur that he might quit. These years of work, these endless efforts, promises, pledges, payments, worries, what not-all had been endured. It was ridiculous to suppose that he would quit. He had only to hang on. Across the whole country he had cut a wide swath of victory. In time, he would mow the rest.

It took eight feverish, endless worrying days, days of nervous tension and physical exhaustion, to work his disillusionment, to dislodge from within him the frenzied intention of success. At last it happened. He gave up.

In the smoke-filled atmosphere of his campaign room, they told him that it must be; and he, weary, weary, assented. He struggled over the composition of the letter, releasing his delegates but not withdrawing his name. After all these days, did he not still hope that his followers would stay with him even when released? Vain hope, of course, but after living on his hope, his great hope, for years it was not easy to let it go, quite, without some little hope to take its place. Why else did he spend two hours drafting the letter? Refining its expressions?

At last, when it was finished, he gave it away to be read on the floor of the Convention. He knew in his heart, then, that no matter how subtly the letter was drafted his great dream was unattained, his great bubble had burst. At the moment, he was almost insensible with fatigue. What part of pain was despair and what was exhaustion? As he rode the six short blocks up Madison Avenue to his rooms in the Vanderbilt Hotel, he probably did not know.

What happened that night and the days next following, behind the closed doors of the McAdoo suite, the public does not know--and will not. When Davis was nominated, Governor Smith, disappointed perhaps, but not unexpectedly so, went, before the Convention. With a good-natured, vainglorious gesture, he patted Davis on the back. But McAdoo? He remained silently immured. The only word that came from his quarters was that he was about to sail for Europe; nothing about Davis. Was McAdoo angry? Was he intent on splitting the party? Was he morose?

No. He had plainly not recovered. As a woman who gives herself, completely, trustingly, to one man, who is warned that she cannot hold him, who knows that he is fickle or false, who yet in hope of keeping him stakes her all in complete trust, complete surrender-- as such a woman finds herself uprooted, finds the world crumbling, when the expected yet incredible blow has fallen --so McAdoo was stricken.

For two days, the only word that came from his quarters was that he would sail for Europe. Had he decided even that ? Rather, had not a kind wife taken the initiative to get the stricken man away?

The day before sailing, coming from his retreat for the first time, Mr. McAdoo paid a hasty and subdued call on Mr. Davis. Next day the McAdoos sailed. Before the ship departed, he gave out a statement declaring his support for the Democratic ticket.

When the tragedy is over, the protagonist must learn to play another part.