Those fifty-five minutes cost Clark the nomination. McCombs, Palmer, McAdoo, and the rest of us had a hurried consultation on the platform, not ten feet away from Ollie James, the impartial chairman, who did nothing to discourage the wild demonstration. We agreed on a plan of campaign, and, as lieutenants, all scurried about the hall, consulting with the leaders of the other delegates. We got the Underwood forces to agree to stand fast for their candidate on the next few ballots, and made the same arrangement with the Marshall and Foss delegates, pledging ourselves, in turn, to hold our people fast for Wilson. In three quarters of an hour we had corralled our delegates safely out of the path of the Clark stampede. They sat immovable in the face of the frenzy of the crowd. When the Clark demonstration had subsided, and the next ballot was taken, the Clark managers had a rude awakening: the result was practically unchanged. Then, with a stroke of political genius, Mitchell Palmer arose, and claimed recognition from the Chair. Tall, massive, and extremely handsome, Palmer was at the height of youthful grace and vigour. The Chairman recognized him, and Palmer moved an immediate adjournment to the following morning. Before the Clark delegates grasped the meaning of this manœuvre the motion had been put and carried. This respite gave Clark’s enemies a full day in which to make fresh alliances against him, and every one of the succeeding thirty-five ballots cut down his vote in the Convention. The tide had turned. Wilson’s strength grew steadily, because as soon as a delegate realized that his own candidate’s cause was hopeless, his thoughts turned from his personal preference to the welfare of the party, and, in almost every case, he realized that Wilson was the one man to lead it on to victory. They realized, too, that a solemn duty rested on them. The Roosevelt defection from the Republican Party had ruined its chances, so that these Democratic delegates knew they were not merely nominating a candidate--they were actually electing a President.