Three National Conventions met on May 15, 1888. The Union Labor Convention at Cincnnati nominated Alson J. Streeter, of Illinois, for President, and Samuel Evans, of Texas, for Vice-President; the United Labor Convention, at the same place, nominated Robert H. Cowdrey, of Illinois, and W. H. T. Wakefield, of Kansas; and the Equal Rights Convention, at Des Moines, Iowa, nominated Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, of the District of Columbia, for President, and Alfred H. Love, of Pennsylvania, for Vice-President. The popular vote for these tickets in the various States was small and did not influence the result. The Prohibition Convention met at Indianapolis May 20, 1888, and nominated Clinton B. Fisk, of New Jersey, and John A. Brooks, of Missouri; the total Prohibition vote was 249,506, a gain of 100,000 over the total vote of 1884. In this year, for the first time since 1860, the Democratic National Convention was held before the Republican National Convention. The Democrats assembled at St. Louis, Missouri, on June 5, 1888, and nominated Grover Cleveland without any opposition, something which had not occurred in a Democratic Convention for forty-eight years; Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio, was nominated for Vice-President on the first ballot. The Democratic platform of 1888 reaffirmed that of 1884, and endorsed the "views expressed by President Cleveland in his last earnest message to Congress as a correct interpretation of that platform upon the question of tariff reduction;" it welcomed a scrutiny of its four years of executive power; advocated homesteads for the people, and civil service and tariff reform. When the Republicans met at Chicago it appeared that John Sherman, of Ohio, was the strongest candidate, and that he might receive the nomination on the third or fourth ballot, but there was a large number of "favorite sons," and no one could exactly determine what might happen before the balloting was concluded. Mr. Blaine, in the closing months of 1887, was unquestionably the unanimous choice of the party, and he would probably have been nominated by acclamation had he not in a letter from Florence, Italy, dated January 25, 1888, declined absolutely to be a candidate. So earnest, however, was the desire for his nomination, that many of his friends refused to be silenced by his emphatic declaration, and it became necessary for him to write a second letter from Paris on May 17th, in which he reiterated his former declaration, and refused to allow his name to be considered, but he predicted that the tariff question would be the issue, and that an overwhelming success for the Republican Party would be the result of the campaign. The confusion caused by his withdrawal led to the large number of candidates, but gradually the sentiment of the party began to look for a man who would not only be able to carry the States won by the Republicans in 1884, but who would also make the best showing in the