November 4, 1908
STAYED UP NEARLY ALL
NIGHT TO READ RETURNS
Great Crowds in Front of Newspaper
Offices -- Returns at the
Clubs.
Republicans and Democrats alike, not to mention members of the lesser parties, stood cheek by jowl for hours last night -- not in beatific political harmony -- but in a common desire to rubber over the other fellow's shoulder and catch the flashes of election news that were thrown on canvass screens by the stereopticon in many parts of the city. Everybody jostled and laughed and gently roasted each other, and when the returns suited them yelled approval, but never was an ugly bit of temper put on unpleasant display.
Kansas City stayed up late enough to learn the approximate fate of its favorite candidate, and then went to bed with a fair assurance that it would awaken in the land of the free whether Taft, Bryan, or somebody else were elected. For once in the year at least, Papa Casey had a healthy excuse to present to Mamma Casey for staying out so late, but for the fact that in many cases that she was out with him and all the little Caseys.
HOW IT WAS DONE.
Most of the crowd didn't see the men behind the stereopticon, seated at tables and busily transcribing telegrams to the little glass slides in black drawing ink. They had to write minutely so as to get all of a telegram on one of the three by four panes of glass, but the phonographs and cartoons kept the people standing until another fresh slide was ready to put in.
The adding machine was in much demand and whole batteries of them did nocturnal duty in the various newspaper offices, with experts from the banks who knew how to punch the keys properly. Though serpentine in name, the adders produced some straight figures that won't miss the official returns very far, for the benefit of the multitude.
AT THE CLUBS.
In the lodge room of the Elk's Club the furniture was swathed in roughing-it covering and the members held forth for the night, as was true at the Commercial Club, where the attaches of the club and transportation bureau were enlisted in the work of handling the returns.
At the Y. M. C. A. a wire was cut in and between telegrams the waiters were entertained by a stereopticon lecture on California by Aldred Foster of New Zealand.
Members of the Railroad Club heard the returns at the club rooms in Walnut street and after the theaters closed Thespians came up to join them.
Federal officers and employes for the most part heard the returns in the federal court room on the third floor of the postoffice building, and in Convention hall and at the corners of Eighth and McGee, Tenth and McGee and Eleventh and Grand great crowds stood far into the night to get the returns as they came in.
Labels: California, Convention Hall, Eighth street, Eleventh street, Grand avenue, McGee street, organizations, politics, post office, stereopticons, telegram, Tenth street, Walnut Street, YMCA
