As red-robed Roman Catholic Bishop Lamb finished his prayer, James Aloysius Farley stepped forward to the rostrum and said: "I will ask that the Convention stand for one minute in solemn tribute to a great American—Will Rogers." Had National Democratic Chairman Farley paused a moment longer before naming his late "Great American," 3,000 delegates and alternates would doubtless have burst into improper cheers, so brimming were they with enthusiasm. For nearly an hour longer they restrained themselves, until Boss Farley came down upon the words: "that calm, capable and courageous Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt!" Then, at the first mention of that magic name, the conventioneers raised their standards, their voices, their feet, proceeded to go crazy and stay crazy for the better part of five days and nights.
Future historians will probably not linger long over the Democratic Convention of 1936. They will record the automatic renomination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Nance Garner, refer briefly to a platform hand-made at the White House (see p. 14), remark on the high spirits of the delegates and pass on to matters of larger moment. But many a young Democrat will long remember his Party's Philadelphia party last week as one of the wildest political jamborees ever staged. Whatever the donkey's doings may have lacked in heavy brain work, it more than made up for with its mighty brays.
Gay Place. Philadelphia paid $200,000 to get the Convention and a chance to make good as a place of gaiety. Its 2 a. m. curfew law was suspended. In direct violation of State liquor laws, downtown restaurants and hotel bars sold liquor on Sunday. An obliging magistrate stayed open all night within three blocks of Convention Hall to release visitors who forced themselves into the hands of police. True to Democratic tradition, the delegates were a far more boisterous, fiery, tempestuous crowd than Republicans ever were. Two out of every three of them were political officeholders or Party workers and they went to Philadelphia looking sleeker, better fed and better dressed than when they went to Chicago four years ago. Not a few of them had money to spend in Philadelphia nightclubs.
But there was a bigger difference in their gathering than in themselves. For the first time in 20 years, a Democratic convention city was not overrun with rival candidates for the nomination. In Philadelphia there was only one headquarters, in the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. A tight little headquarters it was, with Chairman Farley behind one closed door, Pressagent Charles Michelson behind another, Thomas Corcoran and Benjamin Cohen, New Deal ideologists, behind a third.
The rest of the hotel was bedlam, and wide open for the multitude of delegates to shake hands, slap backs, bend elbows, rub shoulder^ with half-a-dozen Cabinet members, governors by the dozen, Senators by the score. In such a crowd Ambassadors, mayors, Representatives and children of the President were small potatoes indeed.