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that Chicago would be chosen as the convention city that the National Committee booked headquarters at the Chicago hotels before the vote was taken.

Chicago's proposals for entertaining the convention were presented to the National Committee by Samuel B. Raymond. He stated that Chicago would guarantee the expenses of the convention, supply a convention hall with a seating capacity of 12,000, with eleven entrances. Chicago's hotel accommodations he guaranteed to be of the best.

St. Louis and Pittsburg delegations were on hand with proposals. National Committeeman Richard C. Kerens introduced ex-Mayor Walbridge of St. Louis who offered on behalf of St. Louis a bonus of $40,000 in cash and to defray all the expenses of the convention. Ex-Mayor Walbridge resented the fact that Missouri had been referred to as hopelessly Democratic. There were, he said, 360,000 Republicans who wanted the label "hopeless" removed and "available" substituted.

Senator Boise Penrose of Pennsylvania, presented the claims of Pittsburg. He said that a committee of Pittsburg Republicans were outside with the cash to pay for the convention. "If $100,000 is not enough," he said, "we will give $500,000, and that would be but a small matter. I understand the Pittsburg delegation has the cash with them, but they have not taken me into their confidence to show it to me. They came by the way of Harrisburg, and I hope the fund is intact."

Only one ballot was necessary. Chicago received 43 votes, Pittsburg 7, and St. Louis I.

The Chicago committee returned home and the Hamilton Club at once organized itself into a committee of the whole to perfect the plans for the convention.

Few difficulties presented themselves to the men who had guaranteed to meet all the requirements of the National Committee.

In the first place no effort was necessary to make any ostentatious canvass for funds. The members of the Hamilton Club knew where the money to make their pledges to the National Committee good was coming from. The funds were forthcoming. In the second place the convention hall, a massive structure of steel, brick and stone was standing ready. No building had to be transformed or evolved. The fact that the Chicago Coliseum was ready for the great National Convention simplified the problem.

Only two committees were appointed by the President of the Hamilton Club. The Political Action Committee was made up as follows:

MARQUIS EATON, Chairman.
KEENE H. ADDINGTON.

A. W. BUCKLEY.
FRANK G. GARDENER.

CLARK S. REED.

The Entertainment Committee consisted of the following members of the Club:

E. C. WETTEN, Chairman.
J. HOWARD HOLBROOK.

GEORGE A. MASON.
GEORGE E. SHIPMAN.

J. M. MCCONAHEY.

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Larger committees were not necessary for in reality the Hamilton Club, with its hundreds of members, many of them prominent in national life, and constituting as a whole one of the most influential Republican organizations in the country, constituted itself one great committee to see that the necessary funds were forthcoming, that the convention hall was ready, that every convention facility was supplied. Then too, the entire membership of the Hamilton Club constituted itself a reception and entertainment committee to welcome the party leaders and delegates and to see that their every want was supplied.

The work of preparing the convention hall for the sessions of the convention was begun early in May. Contracts were let for seats, railings, desks, decorations, and lights.

The plans for the convention hall included comfortable opera chairs with hat, cane and umbrella racks for delegates, alternates and spectators. The delegates were to occupy the space immediately in front of the speakers' stand. Back of them and separated by a polished rail, were the seats for the alternates, which in turn were separated from the spectators by another rail. The press was cared for by seats and desks for 400 men, all on the speakers' rostrum. Immediately back of the press seats, in a large enclosed room was the telegraph room with facilities for 200 operators and from which the Western Union and Postal Telegraph Companies were radiated to every city and town in the United States.

Other features of the convention hall plans were hospital rooms in charge of physicians and trained nurses, police and fire headquarters, a telephone exchange with dozen booths for long distance service.

Every seat in the building was to be numbered. The aisles were broad and the stairways leading to the galleries not only numerous but easy of ascent.

There was no delay in placing the convention hall in readiness. In fact, the great auditorium was practically ready for the decorators two weeks before the date fixed for the convention's opening.

The finishing touches on the convention hall were made on June 19th. On that date the building was ready and the convention could have been called to order on that day if it had been necessary.

The interior decorations of the great hall excited the admiration of every visitor.

Everywhere there was a harmony of color and design. The heroic likeness of Marcus Alonzo Hanna, draped in the national colors, hung above the speakers' platform. There was bunting, but this was not overdone. There were flags, a dozen groups on each side of the hall, and two larger groups on each end, just enough of bright color to give life to the yellow of the vaulted roof and the grey of the iron girders.

Looking down from the balcony, the effect was again pleasing. The crimson carpet of the speakers' platform stood out like a damask rose in a bunch of lilies, for all around it were groups, the desks and chairs of the

representatives of the press, and these were painted a light yellow. The contrast was startling and effective. Add to this the light green chairs of delegates and alternates, separated from each other and from the darker mahogany of the spectators' seats by yellow railings, and it was seen that the color effect was pleasing.

Up above the balconies were rows of live oak branches, which were also used effectively against the windows at the sides, and at each end of the hall. From the girders were suspended scores of hanging baskets containing huge sword plants, while the main floor was banked with palms. Not even in its greatest gala did Madison Square Garden ever present as beautiful a picture as did Chicago's Coliseum on the morning as it awaited the gathering hosts.

Members of the National Committee, Senators, Congressmen and many delegates paid the convention hall a visit on June 18th. They all united in pronouncing it the best arranged audience-room they had ever seen and unstinted in their praises of the Chicago Committee and S. B. Raymond, its Chairman, and of the work of Sergeant-at-Arms Stone.

Senator N. B. Scott of West Virginia, Chairman of the sub-committee on arrangements, who arrived in the city late the night before saw the big convention hall for the first time. He left the Auditorium Annex for the Coliseum shortly after two o'clock and was soon joined there by R. B. Schneider, National Committeeman from Nebraska, and Postmaster General Payne.

At the Coliseum the three men were met by the members of the local committee which had for weeks been working to make the convention hall the nearest perfect in arrangements of any in which a national convention was ever held.

As the members of the party left the Sergeant-at-Arms' room and entered the Republican National Committee room they expressed many favorable comments upon the delicate lemon-colored tinting of the room, upon its good light and cheerfulness. Hundreds of flags were placed in groups at the ends of the hall and among the beams by the decorators, who were completing the work the local committee had in hand.

"The hall is admirably arranged," declared Senator Scott. "Everything is ready for the convention. It could be held tomorrow. Sergeant-at-Arms Stone is the right man in the right place. The local committee has done its work most satisfactorily."

Secretary Dover said the convention hall was the best he had ever seen for the purpose.

"I don't believe a national convention was ever in a better arranged hall. The only criticism I have ever heard was that it is not large enough. The work has never been so far advanced, I am told, as it is in this hall. The convention might be held tomorrow, so far as the hall is concerned."

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