Millions for Presidential Nominations
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A SESSION OF TUB REPUBLICAN NATION AC CONVENTION AT PHILADELPHIA IN 1900.
OAFW fhla country . la rottlntr
k I ready to spend rather more than
I tl.000.Ono In nomlnatlnir a candi
date for the presidency a little
more than a month from now at
Chlcugo In the three or four days be
ginning June 21, when the national re
publican convention is to be held.
In the three or four days beginning July
at least as much will be xpent for a
like purpose by the national democratic
convention, to be held In 8t. Louis. As
the democratic convention seems likely to
be the more strenuous of the two and
may last longer, more money will prob
ably be spent in St. Louis than In Chi
cago. It will certainly cost $J,000.000 to
place the two leading presidential can
didates before the people, and this big
urn will be considerably larger if either
nomination should be hotly contested.
These figures may seem excessive, but
here are a few facts to bear them out:
In tho first place It will take between
4,000 and 6,000 men and women to run
the convention and report Its . proceed
ing. This small army will le divided Into five
general clauses, of whicH the delrgates
will be most Important, numerically us
well as otherwise. They will number
about 2,000, half being actual delegates
and half alternates. To be exact, so far
as the republican convention Is concerned,
there will be 872 delegates from tho states
and an average of four each from th3
Ix teritorlos of Aliuska, Arizona, H:iwuli,
New Mexico, Oklahoma and Porto Rico,
or twenty-four in all, making a total of
f.'S, or a grand total of delegates and
alternates of 1,982.
The next class Includes the "convention
at a ft" of the convention sergeant-at-arnis,
Which la sometimes more and sometimes
less than 1,000. The sergoant-at-urms is
practically the business manager of the
convention for jtolitlcal reuson, and be
cause the members of his staff serve
mostly without pay, he Is allowed to ap
point as many as ho chnoxes and the vari
ous committeemen, delegates and other
political personages may demand. Ills
"convention staff" Includes deputy ser-geants-at-arms,
ushers, messengers, pages
and doorkeepers. Bused on the average
Of past conventions, there will be 200
deputies, 200 ushers, 200 messengers, 300
pages and 100 doorkeepers !M0 ull told
and there may be more.
Next come the newspaper men and
wor ' "poludlng shorthund reporters, cor
fesph j. Its, photographers, ul tima, telt g
ruphers and messengers. There will prob
ably be about 1,000 ol them In ull; between
400 and C00 press scuts are ul ready reserved
In the convention hull, with the assump
tion that ut least half of the newspaper
representatives in tho convention will do
their work elsewhere than in tho hull Itself
at the hotels. In committee rooms, etc.
Possibly the number of actual working
newspaper folk at the national convention
may not be more than 400 or 500, but at least
1,000 press credentials aro undoubtedly
given out always, a very respectable pro
portion going to representatives of country
weeklies and various obscure periodicals.
Last conies the miscellaneous class, and
It Is very miscellaneous Indeed. It includes
the national committeemen (forty-five In
number, one from each state), their private
secretaries, stenographers and clerks, the
working office force of the sergeant-at-arms
(aa dlstlnrulshed from his "convention
staff"), the employes at the vfcrtous candi
dates' headquarters auU "ail not otherwise
Uwatted." Tbei UUiar would swell the
mlsccllaneons class to 500 at least at a con
vention before which several candidates
were to be placed In nomination, as may
be the case at St. Louis this year.
In tabular form, those who will devote
the major part of their time and energy to
the convention, as a business, during ita
continuance, may be represented as fol
lows: .
Delegates and alternates .....2.000
Deputy sergeants-at-urms ., 09
Ushers 200
Messengers 200
I 'ages 200
Doorkeepers 100
NewspaiH-r men and women (corres
pondents, stenographers, artists, pho
tographers, amateurs, etc.)..'..; ...1,000
Miscellaneous (including national com
mitteemen, boomers and all inter
mediate classes) B00
Total 4,400
For many years the direct expenses of
the national conventions have been paid
by the cities In which the conventions
have been held. Newspaper rraders gen
erally are familiar with tbe quadrennial
bids put In for the conventions by New
York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis and
other places; the bids of lute years have
ranged from $60,000 to 175,000, and have gen
erally been large enough to pay all. the
expenses of the convention proper, with
sometimes a small surplus.
The heaviest single Item of expense to
be met by the convention city Is the fur
nishing of the convention hall. This year
both conventions will be held In buildings
that have been used for similar purposes
before, but sometimes the hall has to be
built from tho ground up. In 1900 Kansas
City had to do this for the democratlo
convention. When the structure was nearly
completed It took lire and was burned,
and the local citizens' committee had a
hard time getting the second hall ready
In time.
Even when there is a good convention
hall in existence It almost always has to
be refitted, and sometimes this means
practically the entire rebuilding of tho
Interior. The seating arrangements have
to be remodeled and the lighting has to be
modified. Special committee rooms, head
quarters for telegraphers writing rooms
for correspondents and a restaurant have
to be installed, and a hundred other things
liavo to be done which would not occur
to the ordinary mind, but which men who
are convention wise kuow to be positively
essentlul.
These things are all looked after by the
convention sergeant-at-anns. He leads
a strenuous life for weeks in advance of
the gathering itself, and sometimes has
hundreds of carpenters, plumbers and other
artisans working for him many days.
Like his convention staff, the serjeant-at-arms
serves without pay, though his
expenses aro met by the local fund and
the puy of his office force comes from tho
sumo pnurce, as also do the official ex
penses of the national committee.. When,
as somelmea happens, the contributions of
tho convention city do not equal the con
vention expenses proper, the bulance Is
made up from the regular camj algn funds
of tho party,
Most of tho convention fund Is subscribed
by the railroads and hotels, which are, of
course, the chief beneflciurlcs, though often
various business men and public-spirited
citizens swell the sum with substantial con
tributions. Tbe railroads, hotels and other
refreshment places get the bulk of the
money spent by those who attend the con
vention. The average "vlsttlng attendance" at na
tional conventions has been variously esti
mated by experts, and probably over-estimated
by most of them. Queues of 90,000,
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THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND TnOMAfl C. PLATT RIDING TO THE CONVEN
TlON UA.LL, PHILADELPHIA, IN 1900.
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LEWIS NIXON OP NEW YORK AT TUTS
DEMOCRAT 11? NATIONAL CONVEN
TION OK 1900.
50,000 and even 100,000 sometimes seem Jus
tified to the novice by the crowds which
flock to the convention, but the majority of
the convention crowds Is always made up
of local people. Hearing this In mind and
taking Into consideration the views of tho
railroad men, who ought to know, It is safo
to put down the visiting attendance at ten
for each delegate and alternate say, 20,000,
or thereabouts. With this as a basis, soiii
SNAPSHOT AT DAVID R. HILL AT TITO
KANSAS CITY DEMOCRATIC CONVEN
TION, 1900.
Idea may be obtained as to the probable
amount of money spent on the convention.
It Is safe to assume that the average
round trip railroad fare paid by the 4,400
persons who run and report the convention
will be 115 each, or $66,000 some of them
will pay a good deal more, for they corns
from all parts of the country and that tho
"visiting attendants" pay $5 In round-trig
Continued on Page Nine.)