Call Down The Hawk: The Bryan Factor

In June of 1912 delegates to the Democratic national convention arrived in Baltimore to find an oppressive humidity and the best opportunity in sixteen long years to unseat the Republicans from the presidency. Two weeks before, the Republican convention in Chicago had come apart with the walk out of Teddy Roosevelt and his Bull Moose faction. It essentially would have two candidates, Roosevelt and President Taft. Major hopefuls for the Democratic nomination, were Champ Clark of Missouri, Judson Harmon, Ohio, Oscar Underwood, Mississippi and Woodrow Wilson, New Jersey. There were also, in the event of a deadlock, and no way to be described as a dark horse, the three times party nominee, William Jennings Bryan.
Seth Cane, a small town Oklahoma lawyer and son of the late wealthy and powerful Texas rancher, Warren Cane, arrived in Baltimore as a member of the Oklahoma delegation. He was tired and irritable being a few days late because of his wife having just left him with hints of making it permanent. He found himself immediately involved with Bryan's strategy to throw the gauntlet in the face of Tammany Boss, Charles Murphy and his plans to spike Bryan's guns. The battle, for which Bryan told the press he was sending home for his fighting clothes to stop the "reactionary" Judge Alton B. Parker from being the temporary chairman and key note speaker, was the first shot that would escalate into fist fighting in the aisles, intemperate threats against Bryan's life, hints of a possible Bull Moose type of walk out and devastation in the view of all candidates of a deadlock allowing Bryan to again stampede the convention into his fourth nomination.