While the roll is being called let’s glance around the theater again.  Most of the men in uniform are enlisted men.  It is difficult to tell at a glance just what rank or rating the majority of those present held in the army or navy because in civilian clothing the officer and the man are indistinguishable.  I mean to say that our army was different from most other military establishments.  Being primarily a citizen affair it was really representative.  It was the desire of the temporary committee that sixty per cent. of the delegates should be enlisted men and when the call for the caucus was issued that was set forth most plainly.  No one seems to have taken the trouble to check the thing up at the caucus.  Anyone desiring to do so can find the information in this volume.  I was interested at the opening of the caucus to know just what the percentage was, but after it got into swing it didn’t make any difference.  No one cared.  There was talk (among officers) of making an enlisted man permanent chairman.  The only persons that I heard objecting to such a procedure were the enlisted men themselves.

“We’ve forgotten all that stuff about rank.  If the officers insist on an enlisted man they’ll make a mistake.  We want the best man and because we’re in the majority in the organization we don’t want to discriminate against the officer.  Taken as a whole, he was a mighty fine sort.”

This from Sergeant Laverne Collier of the Idaho delegation when I asked him what he thought of the enlisted man idea.  While we were talking about it the vote was being cast on Lindsley and Sullivan.  As if to reecho Collier’s sentiments, Sullivan got up and demanded that Lindsley’s election should be made unanimous, and so it was.

Colonel Roosevelt promptly put Sullivan’s name in nomination for vice-chairman.  Mr. Abbott of Ohio seconded it and further moved that the sergeant’s election be made unanimous.  Sergeant Jack Sullivan was elected by acclamation.  Then Colonel Wood was chosen secretary, the rules of the House of Representatives were decided upon to govern the procedure, and debate was limited to five minutes.

Insistence on that point was unnecessary.  Our new American back from the wars has been too accustomed to action to like words that aren’t concise and aimed right at the heart of the point.  There was a good deal of noise and talk at this particular juncture and someone moved the appointment of a sergeant at arms.  Captain A.L.  Boyce of Boyce’s Tigers (those young men who drilled so persistently in Central Park in New York preparing for the war) was picked.  While this guardian of the peace was being appointed at least five gentlemen from as many delegations started to speak at once, perhaps against the five-minute debate rule, and in the confusion a delegate, whom Checkers might have described as carrying a load he should have made three trips with, took the platform and began something that sounded about as intelligible as Cicero’s oration against Catiline in the original.