....© 2000, Kimit A. Muston
I suppose that you and I are in a minority. The fact that you are reading this journal marks you as above average. And, of course, you are reading this column so that makes you even smarter, at least in my opinion. So you know that the Democrats are coming to town in August. But do you care?
There is so little excitement around this convention and the Republican gathering in Baltimore in July that the television networks may not cover either one during prime time. The conventions have become dull and predictable, little more than hours long tv advertisements for the political parties holding them, which is just what the party leaders want them to be.
But conventions were once wide open and unpredictable, organized anarchy, the way the NFL used to be before Astroturf and...television. In fact the whole idea of party conventions was invented by a bunch of loose cannons and conspiracy freaks, brought together for the first time by a murder. Well, maybe a murder.
The victim was supposed to be William Morgan, who was last seen when he was released from jail in the tiny western New York town of Canadaigua on September 21st., 1826. Mr. Morgan claimed to have been a Freemason and he said that upon his release he was going to publish a book detailing the secret ceremonies of that brotherhood. He never wrote the book. After leaving jail nobody ever saw him alive again, or so the legend goes.
The odds are that William Morgan had merely joined the mob of people heading west, one more pioneer looking for a fresh start, changing his name to avoid debts and disappearing from all public records. Lots of people disappeared that way in 1826. But in spite of that and the complete lack of evidence that William Morgan was even dead, his murder became the foundation of a political party: the Anti-Masons.
Today you can go into almost any public library and read all of the super secret oaths and promises Freemason make to each other. Printed on the page some of them look a little silly, most of them are admirable. And yet there are still people who insist that Freemasons are a secret satanic cult. So maybe 1826 wasn't that long ago, after all.
The Anti-Masons were suspicious of everybody, so in 1831 they gathered in Baltimore, Maryland where they could keep an eye on each other and wrote the first party platform, which blamed most of the world's evils on alcohol and guess who.
But there just weren't enough Mason-haters to stand on their own, so in 1835 the Anti-Mason party helped to form the Whig party, which was opposed to not only Freemasons but also Catholics, Jews, foreigners and a long list of other people. That list got William Henry Harrison elected president in 1840, but he died only six months after taking office. By 1860 the Whig party was dead too.
The convention was the only good idea the Anti-Mason party had, and very quickly every political party was holding one. Conventions were a chance for local leaders to meet face-to-face in smoke filed rooms, make deals and pick candidates. And have a good time. But with today's endless primary season there is no longer a need for convention deal making. Smoke filled rooms are considered bio-hazards. And "having a good time" is political suicide. Party conventions seem to be dinosaurs on their way to extinction. And Democracy is less entertaining because of it.
Kimit A.Muston is a writer living in North Hollywood. His work may also be read in the Las Angeles Daily News and the Los Angeles Times.