THE CONVENTION: The Voices of the Land

The hulking building with the pink neon sign—it might have been a sports arena, a warehouse or a hangar for tomorrow's giant rocket bomber—stood in the greyer part of grey Philadelphia. Along its long corridors and empty galleries, janitors toiled glumly amid drifts of paper cups, candy wrappers, newspapers and stale buns. As a band blurted out the first brassy music of the morning, the great main floor was only half filled.

But as the first speaker of the day—of any of the five convention days—advanced to the microphone, floor and galleries began filling up, and the convention came alive....

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