National Affairs: In Evanston

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It had rained all day, but toward evening it cleared, and General Dawes walked out on his front lawn in Evanston. Its semi-privacy was completely annihilated. Great spotlights glared from the trees, moths and mosquitos buzzed around, red torchlights glowed fiercely, and 40,000 people trampled the soft greensward of his neighbors' lawns.

General Dawes advanced into the glare, carrying on his arm an ancient gentleman, smoking a stogie, whom the light disclosed as Joseph G. Cannon. After a prayer had been rendered, Uncle Joe said a few mellifluous words. Former Representative Albert Jefferis, of Nebraska, then came forward to tell General Dawes that last June the Republican National Convention had nominated him for Vice President. Mr. Dawes gave his answer in his first sentence:

"I accept the nomination of the Republican Party for the office of Vice President, of which you now formally notify me. . . .

"I will cover, however shortly, in this, speech of acceptance, only three issues: one which I deem of the utmost importance and two others— the League of Nations and the World Court. . . .

"A formidable attack has been launched on the fundamental principles of our Constitution, and elemental things like this must be fought out.

"Our party—the Republican Party, the party of progressive conservatism— under the leadership of President Coolidge, has taken its stand firmly upon the Constitution of the United States, and all know where it stands. Opposed to it, and in reality its chief opponent, though the result of the effort may be to deadlock the contest for the Presidency and make Bryanism succeed the Coolidge policy, is a movement of untried and dangerous radicalism.

"With a platform drawn by one man, designed to soften as much as possible the apprehensions as to what the movement really means, an attempt is made to induce those who are patriotic at heart but disconcerted with existing conditions to join with the Socialists and other diverse elements opposing the existing order of things, in a mobilization of extreme radicalism. A man is known by the company he keeps. . . .

"Lying between these two armies of progressive conservatism and of radicalism, which are properly aligned upon this issue in the minds and consciences of the American people, is interposed the Democratic Party, with one conservative and one radical candidate on its ticket, hoping to get votes by avoiding the issue. ...

"In Congress during the last few years the American citizen has heard more demagogic utterances than have ever before characterized it. He has seen men running for Congress and the Senate, advocating in the same State at the same time and irrespective of their inconsistency, increased wages for railroad labor and decreased railroad rates, and higher prices for beef on the hoof and lower prices for beef on the table.

"It is not too much to say that from the average candidate for office in either party, he must accept either evasion or a doctrine designed to please him and appeal to his prejudices, irrespective of whether or not it tends to plunge the whole country into disaster. ...