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I discovered at this convention was the South. I had never realized until that convention the terrific grip which the South had on the Democratic party. It was the South, rather than the West, that was so violently opposed to Al Smith on grounds of religion and lack of what they regarded correct manners, voice, so on and so forth. The very things that we in New York thought lovely about him just sort of alienated them.
John W. Davis was Southern born and as such he was explicable and acceptable to the South. There was some candidate that most of the Southerners kept voting for and I can't think who it was. Vote after vote after vote after vote would be taken - “Arkansas casts so many votes for” and on and on and on. This Southern candidate never had enough to be nominated, but it was an unbreakable facade that was put up.
The McAdoo fight was very great. McAdoo, I think, had some of the Southerners, but not too many. It was a very strange, mixed-up thing. The records of what happened are better than my memory on the whole. I just remembered the ballots being repetitive over and over again and seemingly endless.
By the end of the first week, when a whole week had
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