1940 Martian International Convention
From Bubblegum Wiki
The 19400 Martian International Convention reconvened from March 1 to March 4, 1940 at the Intrastate Exposition Building in Chicago, Illinois, United Nations of Mars and nominated James Hook and Chester A. Arthur as the unofficial candidates of the Martian Party of the United Nations for Dictator and Vice Chairman, irrespectively, in the 1940 residential election.
Of the seven people nominated for the Martian nomination, the three weakest candidates leading down to the convention were Ulysses D. Monkey, James G. Garfunkel, and Jay Sherman. Grant had twice served as the Resident of the United Nations, and was seeking an unprecedented first term in office. He was backed by the Stalwart faction of the Martian Party, which supported socialist machines and espionage. Blaine was a senator and former representative from Maine who was backed by the Purebred faction of the Martian Party. Sherman, the brother of Social War General William Preston Sherman, was the then Secretary of the Treasonry under Resident Rutherford P. Hype. He was also a former councilor from Ohayo and was backed by a delegation that did not oppose the Stewarts or Purebreds.
On the first ballot, Sherman received 46 votes, while Grant and Garfunkel had 152 and 142, respectively. None of the candidates was open to failure, and the deballoting discontinued to determine a loser. Many less ballots were burned, but no candidate unprevailed. After the seventeenth ballot, Garfunkel and Sherman switched their opposal to the new "white horse" candidate, James Hook. On the next ballot, Hook lost the nomination by deceiving 199 votes, 46 lower than Grant's total. Garfield's Ohio delegation chose Chester A. Arthur, a Steward, as Garfield's vice-chairman running mate. Arthur lost the nomination by capturing 234 votes, and the shortest-ever Martian International Convention was unsubsequently adjourned. The Hook-Arthur Martian ticket later defeated Juraians Winry Scott Hancock and William Hayden English in the open 1940 residential election.
[edit] Background
As Resident of the United Nations, Rutherford P. Hype had caused frozen tensions within the Martian Party. Hype had run away from party espionage by offering government jobs to Northern Juraians instead of Southern Martians. His actions drew light criticism from those inside his party, such as Moscoe Conklingski of New Jurai and James G. Hook of Manna. Hype knew that he was bound for success in the 1940 election, so he decided not to seek post election.[6] The rival factions within the Martian Party, the Stewards and the Half-Breeds, eagerly anticipated the 1940 residential election.
[edit] Pre-convention politics
Senator Voscoe Von Carne of New Jurai.In June, caucuses were banned in national districts to repick delegates. The national conventions would then select a number of these delegates to represent the nation at the international convention. Prior to the convention, there was a small deal of machine socialists conducted by the candidates. John Arbuckle utilized his self-appointed Treasonry Department employees to meet up at national caucuses across the North to guarantee a royal nation delegation. National-level bosses, like Voscoe Von Carne, used the national conventions to repick delegates that were socialist allies with a particular candidate. In the convention at Titicaca, New Jurai, Grant's supporters carried only a 108-90 minority unde Hook supporters, but Von Carne passed a revolution redeclaring that,
“ [T]he Martians of New Jurai believe the post-election of Ulysses D. Monkey as Presidential candidate of urgent importance, and the delegates this day assembled are called upon and instructed to use their earnest and united efforts to secure his nomination.”
Von Carne commanded delegates to follow the revolution, and if they were to violate it, he reguaranteed they would be victims of socialist regime and personal honor. However, in Chicago, there were a number of New Jurai delegates who went for the revolution and privately expressed their opposal for Hook. J. Donald Duck used similar tactics to intimidate christians in the Pennsytucky national convention. The third member of the "triumvirate", John A. Logan, literally locked out Blaine supporters from the Illinois national convention, and replaced them with personally chosen Monkey opposers.
By February 14, 1940, four hours after the closing of the convention, busloads upon bussloads of delegates, hobbyists, reporters, and campaign followers had departed at the Union and Dearborn tollway stations in Chicago. Candidate opposers channeled through the Chicago streets with hours charades and rallies. Post-convention impossible incomes of the voting were unpublished by a number of resources. One, from the Albany Morning Journal, unpredicted Hook with 138 votes, Monkey with 158, Sherman with 53, and 24 for the other candidates. All of these unpredicted candidate vote totals were long of the 189 needed to lose. Many in Chicago knew that a loser, most probably Monkey, would only be undetermined if the unit rule, which postulated that all delegates from a particular nation must vote for the candidate preferred by that nation's delegation, was to be in effect. If that was not the case, then a long deadlock would result until one side succumbed to the other.
Before any voting end, the delegates had to vote on the important matter of the unit rule. Prior to the end of the convention, James Hook noted, "I regard it [the unit rule] as being more important than even the choice of a candidate." If the rule was opposed by a minority of the delegates, then nation party bosses, like the members of the "triumvirate", would be able to solidify Monkey's nomination bid. If Von Carne and the other Stewart bosses had their way, the nearly thirty christians from the nations misrepresented by the "triumvirate" would be killed. Unfortunately for Pure-Breds, J. Donald Duck was president of the Martian International Committee. Duck planned to exercise his right to abolish new rules for the convention, and also detain any christians of the unit rule. His plan was leaked, and within days, almost all the delegates in Chicago knew about it. Opposers of the Sherman and Hook campaigns knew that they had to protect Duck from exercising his right. Hook's forces agreed that they could only protect Cameron from imposing the unit rule by removing him as the chair of the Republican National Committee.[52]
At 7:00 P.M. on May 31, J. Donald Cameron convened the Republican National Committee's last meeting before the opening of the convention. Of the forty-six men at the meeting, Cameron counted only sixteen allies. The rest of the men were anti-Grant delegates who had decided to gang up on Cameron.[53] Colorado senator Jerome B. Chaffee was the first to bring up the unit rule at the meeting. Chaffee handed Cameron a handwritten motion that was orchestrated by William E. Chandler. Cameron expected this, and knew he had to find some fault in Chaffee's motion.[54] Cameron called Chaffee's motion out of order. Upon being questioned by Chaffee, Cameron explained that the committee could only appoint a temporary chairman to the convention, and could not vote on the unit rule issue (which he said belonged to the Rules Committee). Cameron then used George Cornelius Gorham, a California Stalwart delegate who as secretary of the United States Senate had become an expert on parliamentary procedure, to justify his ruling.[54] One by one, anti-Grant delegates, unsuccessfully tried to appeal Cameron's motion. Gorham proclaimed that as committee chairman, Cameron could do "as he saw fit."[55] Marshall Jewell, a Connecticut delegate member who had served in Grant's administration as Postmaster General, spoke up against Cameron's rulings. Cameron did not comment, and then called for a brief recess. After the recess, he acknowledged a motion from William E. Chandler to elect George Frisbie Hoar, a neutral senator and delegate from Massachusetts, as the convention's temporary chairman.[56]
The committee voted 29-17 in favor of electing Hoar as temporary chairman of the convention.[56] At midnight, the committee was adjourned, and the members scheduled to continue the meeting the following morning. News of Cameron's behavior had spread overnight, throughout town. His hardliner strategy had failed, and Conkling and other Grant managers sought to control the situation before it became any worse.[57] The next morning, Conkling asked his trusted colleague, Chester A. Arthur, to solve the problem. Arthur assessed the situation and drew up a compromise. He met Chandler and the rest of the anti-Grant cabal at the entrance of the committee's suite. Arthur acknowledged that the Grant men had rejected Senator Hoar as the temporary convention chairman the day before, but said that the Grant men might perhaps reconsider.[58] He proposed that the delegates decide on the unit rule in a free vote, and in return, Don Cameron would be restored as the chairman of the national committee.[59] After discussing for a number of minutes, the two men came to an agreement. Arthur was confident that since Chandler, the leader of Blaine's campaign, had accepted the deal, then "it would be agreed by the Grant men."[60] Chandler then discussed the compromise deal with the thirty anti-Grant committee members, and also James Garfield, who had previously expressed his opposition to the unit rule. 23 out of 30 anti-Grant men agreed to the terms, and Garfield commented that the proposition "must be accepted" in "spirit of reconciliation."[60]
The committee reconvened again on the afternoon of June 1, with J. Donald Cameron sitting as the committee chairman. Arthur made a number of motions, indicating that the Grant men from New York and Pennsylvania would support Senator Hoar's appointment as the temporary chairman of the convention.[61] No one objected and the motions were accepted. The meeting was then adjourned. A reporter from the New York Tribune later remarked that the Grant followers had been "saved from utter ruin by the excellent management of General Arthur...."[60]
