AMERICAN NOTES: Portent?

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The turnout was greater than expected for the first convention of the Republican Party on July 6, 1854. So on that langorous summer day, hundreds of people wandered to the edge of the village of Jackson, Mich., to assemble in the shade of a grove of majestic oaks. Ever since, Republicans have been returning to the spot in search, as it were, of their roots. Although most of the trees have disappeared over the years, there were enough limbs left to furnish the gavel for the 1972 G.O.P. National Convention. But Richard Nixon may be the last President to receive a chip off the old block. On a recent stormy evening, the mightiest remaining oak was struck by lightning. All that is left of its splendor is a jagged 15-ft.-high stump.

As a portent, the fallen oak may not be in the same league as the events that the Historian Livy claimed presaged disaster in ancient Rome: swamps turned the color of blood, chalk rained from the skies, a spear on a statue moved of its own accord, an ox talked and a child in the womb cried "Hurrah!" Still, several Michigan newspapers carried a photo of the splintered tree with the caption "Warning from Above?"