Cross of Gold. Bull Moose. Smoke- filled Room. A New Deal. The Voice from the Sewers. The Whole World Is Watching.

All of these enduring slogans from American political history emerged from presidential nominating conventions held in Chicago.

With 25 major-party conventions — 27 if you count the "Bull Moose" branch of the Republican Party — Chicago has hosted more of the gatherings than any other city. As befits Chicago's reputation, many of its conventions featured bite-scratch-and-kick politics along with windy oratory.

Chicago's past conventions exemplified the era when they actually mattered, when delegates had important things to do, such as choosing presidential nominees and debating national policy. Now delegates have little to do except serve as props in tightly scripted TV shows.

Before television dominated politics, some of the prominent traditions of American political conventions were invented in Chicago.

Nominees' acceptance speeches? They were unheard of until Franklin D. Roosevelt flew from Albany, N.Y., to Chicago to accept in person the 1932 Democratic nomination. The first Republican acceptance speech was given in Chicago by Thomas E. Dewey in 1944.

Previously, nominees had played the role of "reluctant dragon" by staying out of town — although on-the-make politicians, such as Abraham Lincoln in 1860, took care to monitor the proceedings from afar.

Minority representation? The 1868 Republican convention seated delegations from the old Confederacy, including black delegates. The 1920 Republican convention, while hardly a flowering of liberal ideals, put the first significant numbers of women delegates on the convention floor.

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Chicago can boast a colorful lineup of nominees from conventions held in that city since I860. "Honest Abe" Lincoln of Illinois was nominated at the Republican convention that year. Fiery "Cross of Gold" candidate William Jennings Bryan was nominated in Chicago by the Democrats in 1896. The "Rough Rider," Teddy Roosevelt, was nominated three times: in 1904 as a Republican and in 1912 and 1916 as the "Bull Moose" Progressive Party nominee. Warren G. Harding —far too dull for a nickname — was nominated at the 1920 Republican convention.

Credentials fights? Republican leaders in 1884 issued the first convention call that specified how and when delegates should be chosen — not that such a precaution prevented rancorous credentials challenges at that or later conventions of both parties.

Televised proceedings? They started in 1952, when Democrats and Republicans alike convened in Chicago.

Floor demonstrations? You know, whenever a candidate's name is placed in nomination and the supporters cheer, wave banners, dance in the aisles, toss hats and generally act like adolescents. This behavior, while not original to Chicago, was elevated to new heights there.

In 1860, Republican forces for Lincoln staged street parades with marching bands and packed the "Wigwam" convention hall as well. In 1940, Democratic delegates put on a genuine demonstration to draft Franklin Roosevelt for a third term, even if it was triggered by a "voice from the sewers" delivered by the Chicago Machine.

In the 136-year history of Chicago conventions, six stand out as turning points along the nation's pathway of partisan democracy. Each of the six has become identified in political lore with a single phrase.

Cross of Gold. The issue that split the nation in 1896 was "hard money," favored by the East, versus "soft money," desired by the South and West. Hard money, meaning the gold standard, was the lodestar of bankers and industrialists — that is, creditors. Soft money, meaning the unlimited coinage of silver, was sought by farmers and laborers — that is, debtors.

Hard money, knowing it lacked power in the Democratic Party, did not bother to promote a candidate. However, soft money had no champion either. Among the 14 Democratic candidates, Richard P. "Silver Dick" Bland of Missouri and William Jen-

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'I am as strong as a bull moose and you can use me up to the limit.' — Theodore Roosevelt

'You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns! You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!' — William Jennings Bryan

nings Bryan of Nebraska got the most votes on the first ballot.

Bryan was just 36 years old, a scarcely known former congressman. But he had managed the platform debate for the silver wing and shrewdly scheduled himself as the final speaker. That is when he delivered the oration still quoted in history books: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns! You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!"

The speech caused such a sensation that it swept Bryan to the presidential nomination on the fifth ballot. He would be nominated again in 1900 and 1908, the Democrats' only three-time loser.

Bull Moose. In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt was unhappy with his hand-picked successor. President William H. Taft, and wanted the White House back for himself. (Taft's son, Robert, battled Dwight D. Eisenhower for the nomination at the 1952 GOP convention in Chicago.)

Theodore Roosevelt had stomped Taft in the Republican primaries, but this was back in the days when primaries were few and they scarcely counted with the party bosses. Roosevelt dramatically went to Chicago to direct his forces in a foretaste of his cousin Franklin's personal appearance at the 1932 Democratic convention.

After losing a credentials fight, TR told his delegates to abstain from voting as a silent protest to the Taft "steamroller." The Roosevelt claque in the galleries rubbed sandpaper together and blew horns to imitate the sounds of a steamroller.

Taft's first-ballot renomination sparked Roosevelt's crew to bolt the convention. They returned to Chicago two months later as a separate Progressive Party convention. "I am as strong as a bull moose and you can use me up to the limit," Roosevelt said, thereby stamping Progressives as the Bull Moose Party. Jane Addams of Chicago's Hull House gave a seconding speech for Roosevelt, who was nominated by acclamation. The split in the Republican Party guaranteed the election that fall of Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson.

Smoke-filled Room. With President Wilson incapacitated by a stroke, Republicans sensed victory in 1920 as they convened in Chicago for the fifth straight time. Among the 11 candidates was Illinois Gov. Frank O. Lowden, the runner-up on an inconclusive first ballot.

After four ballots, the delegates were in a mood to keep trying, but convention chairman Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts declared the meeting adjourned. (Lodge's son and namesake was nominated for vice president at the 1960 GOP convention in Chicago.) The adjournment gave party bosses a chance to powwow.

They left the Chicago Coliseum convention hall and went about nine blocks up Michigan Avenue to the Blackstone Hotel, gathering in an upstairs suite. In the wee hours, a call was placed to Sen. Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who was running fifth in the balloting.

Harding was asked whether he wanted to be president. "I don't know," he legendarily replied, "I'll have to ask my wife."

At 5 a.m. on June 12, an Associated Press reporter filed his story: "Harding of Ohio was chosen by a group of men in a smoke-filled room early today as Republican candidate for president."

Cutting deals in smoke-filled rooms was nothing new, but the selection of Harding made the tag instantly famous. As with many catchphrases, its provenance is disputed.

Back on February 21 of that year, The New York Times had quoted a Harding supporter from Ohio as saying, "The convention will be deadlocked. .. [and] some 12 or 15 men, worn-out and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, will sit down about two o'clock in the morning around a table in some smoke-filled room in some hotel and decide the nomination."

But that supporter, Harry Daugherty, later denied he had said it. Perhaps the phrase was planted in the interview by a reporter. Anyway, it took five more convention ballots, but Harding's nomination was assured after Lowden's delegates switched to him.

Democrats, meeting in San Francisco, nominated James M. Cox, an Ohio newspaper publisher, demonstrating again the futility of placing a newspaperman in any position of public responsibility. Harding won in a landslide.

A New Deal. Harding was one of the weakest presidents, but when the conventions returned to Chicago in 1932, one of the strongest presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was first nominated. The Democratic fight that July was mainly between Roosevelt and his predecessor as governor of New York, Alfred E. Smith.

FDR had a majority of the delegates and won two critical credentials challenges, but the rules then required a two-thirds majority for the nomination. Roosevelt's managers considered trying to overturn the two-thirds rule, but held off after deciding the struggle would anger some of their own supporters.

With so many "housekeeping" disputes, the convention did not start balloting for president until 4:30 a.m. Three ballots and five hours later, the delegates adjourned.

The next evening, California switched from House Speaker John Nance Garner to Roosevelt, who was thereupon nominated on the fourth ballot. Roosevelt then made Garner

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"New Deal" Franklin Delano Roosevelt was nominated by the Democrats at conventions in Chicago three of his four times: 1932, 1940 and 1944. "I say Adlai" Stevenson, who had served as governor of Illinois, was nominated by Democrats in 1952 and 1956, but couldn't match Dwight "I like Ike" Eisenhower — in elections or in catchphrases. "Stick with Dick" Nixon received his first presidential nomination in 1960, though he worked the delegates at the 1952 and 1956 conventions in an effort to remain on the GOP ticket as Eienhower's vice president.

vice president. Perhaps more than a coincidence was involved.

Roosevelt's personal appearance in the Chicago Stadium, where he shuffled bravely on crutches to the podium to hide his paralysis from polio, was a moment of drama equal to the Bulls' later NBA championships won in that same arena. In his speech, Roosevelt pledged "a New Deal for the American people."

Incidentally, Roosevelt's Democratic platform of 1932 promised to balance the budget and cut federal spending by one-fourth, demonstrating again the futility of paying any serious attention to convention platforms.

Republicans, meeting at the stadium the previous month, had glumly renominated President Herbert H. Hoover, who was widely blamed for the Depression.

The Voice from the Sewers. Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak had not backed Roosevelt in 1932, leaning instead to Smith. Frozen out of federal patronage as a result, Cermak travelled to Miami to meet with the new president and make amends. Cermak was assassinated there by a gunman who was aiming for Roosevelt.

Edward J. Kelly replaced Cermak as mayor. Facing voters in the 1935 mayoral election, Kelly figured a big victory would persuade FDR that he would need the Chicago Machine to win re-election to the White House in 1936. Kelly beat his Republican opponent by 632,000 votes, an astounding margin. FDR got the point and put Kelly in charge of local federal patronage (a pattern repeated 30 years later with President Lyndon B. Johnson and Mayor Richard J. Daley).

The 1940 Democratic convention returned to Chicago (from Philadelphia in 1936), and Roosevelt cagily refused to declare for an unprecedented third term. At the stadium on July 15, delegates were read a presidential

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statement saying he did not seek re-election, and so they should vote for whomever they wished, but Roosevelt pointedly did not rule out a draft.

Delegates, frustrated and irritated for weeks by their chief's reluctance, did not know how to react. They sat in uncomprehending silence.

Then an unseen voice thundered from an unseen loudspeaker: "We want Roosevelt! We want Roosevelt!" In a flash, the crowd picked up the chant and erupted in an hour-long demonstration.

Mayor Kelly had planted his leather-lunged sewer commissioner, Thomas D. Garry, boss of the 27th Ward, in front of a microphone in the basement. The "voice from the sewers" ignited the draft-Roosevelt rocket. He was easily renominated.

By the way, Kelly emerged with a presidential promise of federal cash for the State Street subway.

Democrats came back to the stadium to renominate Roosevelt again in 1944, when, with typical guile, he managed to install Harry Truman as his running mate. Roosevelt died less than a year later, making Truman president.

The Whole World Is Watching. Televised images of Mayor Richard J. Daley's police clubbing Vietnam War protesters as they chanted "the whole world is watching" have become a fixture in the national memory — so much so that events inside the 1968 convention itself have been obscured. It was, after all, the last convention controlled by party bosses. Television and primary voters have controlled them ever since.

The maelstrom inside the International Amphitheater as President Johnson's forces beat down a peace plank had repercussions for the party still not fully understood. One small incident in particular had serious consequences for Chicago and Congress. It stemmed from, of all things, air conditioning.

Chairing the convention was U.S. House Majority Leader Carl Albert, a diminutive but proud man. The full blast of the AC system swooshed over the rostrum. Albert blamed it for giving him a cold, which developed into laryngitis and impaired his hearing. He lost control of the convention.

LBJ, watching the ruckus on TV, called Daley and ordered him to get the house back in order. Daley dispatched U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski to do the job. The tale is sometimes told that the burly Rostenkowski then wrested the gavel from the elfin Albert's hand.

Actually, Rostenkowski asked Albert to yield the gavel as a favor to give him some exposure in front of his hometown crowd. Albert later suspected Rostenkowski of spreading the story about how he'd physically seized the the gavel. In reprisal, Albert booted Rostenkowski from the House leadership in 1970.

Rostenkowski did not regain power until seven years later, when a new speaker named him chief deputy whip. In 1981 he became chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Still, but for incurring the enmity of Albert in Chicago in 1968, Rostenkowski may well have become speaker of the House.

James L. Merriner, a frequent contributor to Illinois Issues and a former political writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, will be the James Thurber Writer in Residence at Ohio State University this fall. He is writing a biography of Rostenkowski.

WE'RE RIGHT, THEY'RE WRONG: A SPIRITED HANDBOOK FOR PROGRESSIVES, by James Carville (Random House, New York, 1996). No more mister nice guy, says Carville, who was Bill Clinton's chief strategist in the 1992 presidential campaign. After all, Democrats have plenty to brag about. Their presidents include Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who "brought the country back from the edge of social and financial collapse in the Great Depression." And they include "give 'em hell" Harry Truman, who delivered the line that Carville uses in his title during the 1948 Democratic National Convention. Democrats, he says, championed civil rights and cut poverty. But in the Age of Newt they've become weenies. Carville could borrow a line from FDR to fire up the troops: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He envisions today's timid liberals surrounded by "right-winger" ideologues at a Republican barbecue and offers a few "facts to contradict all those myths." His assessment: "It's still the economy, stupid." Wages, he argues, have stagnated and wealth is becoming more concentrated. "The economy has rejected most welfare recipients — not the other way around." The answer, he maintains, is a higher minimum wage and more education. There is "no wiser investment than opportunity." Carville also offers "Ten Things You Can Do," including volunteer in a campaign and run for office. But there's no time to waste. "... people who have sucked from the government's sugar tit all their lives ... now want to make sure it runs dry for everyone else. It's them versus us. Ours is the morally superior position." Carville serves up practical advice with lots of passion. Some great barbecue recipes, too.

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