The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn Conventions: Turn For the Better I am not against our nominating method because I am dissatisfied with the results of the Democratic convention. If Kennedy and...
...In the first place, the claptrap parades up and down the spacious aisles were not as numerous, prolonged or important as in other years...
...Now I must report that my bright dream has been only partially realized...
...But time and time again in the course of our history this convention system has given the voters the choice between two third- or fourth-raters...
...Before institutions are abolished, they are usually reformed—and the improvement of the convention system was conspicuous in what we saw at Los Angeles...
...The slogans, the noise, the vote-buying —it all went with a period when the frontier was the controlling sector of our life...
...I may be naive, but I have a good deal of faith in the sincerity of the men who wrote the Democratic platform and nominated those candidates...
...One measure after another has been introduced into Congress proposing a single national primary with expenses defrayed by national grant, which, theoretically at least, would give all candidates an even chance...
...I hopefully opined that we might expect improvement in political oratory...
...The national conventions are considerably less idiotic than they used to be...
...Nominating by hoopla goes back to the time of Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison...
...but this time we are playing for keeps...
...Four years ago I wrote a piece in which I suggested that television would force political leaders to plan their conventions measurably in accord with modern thinking and technology...
...They are ridiculous and wonderful, low-down and democratic, machine-ridden and magnificent...
...I hope that someone is making records of this sort of vocal performance, for it is certain that future conventions will be bereft of it...
...As we have come to the time when we are no longer frontiersmen, into the period when we play an important part in the control of the world, we still retain the old brass-band-and-torchlight-parade method of choosing our President...
...Back in 1956 I wrote: "These political conventions are the most American things about America...
...I can think of two reasons why the oratory of politicians has improved: First, this was a young men's convention, and young men on the average speak better than older ones...
...If Kennedy and Johnson are not absolutely the Democrats' best men, they are near the top...
...and second, the Southerners took up less time...
...Young Jack Kennedy, straightforward, full of energy and enthusiasm, seems to them just the man to lead the country in such an adventure...
...Their gaudy show went on and on, but everyone knew that the twice-defeated candidate would not be renominated...
...We call upon you for the necessary sacrifices...
...All the good and bad qualities of the great show were fairly presented, and I was right in saying eight years ago that television would have an ameliorative effect on the conventions...
...Years ago we used to think that the men from below the Mason-Dixon line were the prime orators, but that all belongs to the past...
...One of them even brought in his wife, his father and grandfather, and so on back to the War Between the States and the Conferedate flag...
...a group of school teachers watching television in my living room murmured: "Thank God that the great Democratic party at last bows to the authority of the rules of grammar...
...When Permanent Chairman Le-roy Collins pleaded, "Will every delegate please return to his own seat...
...There is evidence that voters are tired of the old nonsense and, in fact, there has already been a good deal of improvement...
...Our total list of Presidents is nothing to be proud of...
...The devoted supporters of Adlai Stevenson succeeded only in proving that demonstrations of this sort have no real importance, that nomination by parade is a thing of the past...
...Today I come to my typewriter fresh from viewing the TV broadcast of the 1960 Democratic convention...
...I feel sure that some such nominating machinery will be adopted in the near future...
...But most of the old Southerners on the podium tore the welkin with their roaring...
...To be sure, Governor Collins, with his melodious voice and his beautiful choice of words, came up to the highest standards...
...What they propose is another chapter in the Cleveland-Wilson-Roosevelt epic...
...All that we say about human rights, war and peace, education, living standards in town and country—all of this we cannot do at once, but we shall do our very best to realize it as soon as possible...
...And as I listened to Chester Bowles reading the platform and heard the convention discussion of it, I had an overwhelming feeling that these men were saying to all of us: "In old times platforms were just rat traps to catch votes...
Vol. 43 • August 1960 • No. 31
