The Daily Alaska Empire

RAW STEAK MAKES HIT AT CONVENTION
Lady, Wearing Diamonds, Making Speech, Gets Demos in Good Humor
(By RELMAN MORIN)
PHILADELPHIA, July 13.—(P)
This is about a raw steak, held aloft in the dainty hands of a lady wearing diamonds.
The Democrats are feeling a little stronger today because of this steak, plus some salty oratory and 28 minutes of strenuous exercise in the steam room.
Of course, they still lack a Presidential candidate who will be acceptable to all sections of the party. But they may have found the nominee for Vice-President, of whom more will be said later.
First of all, the steak.
It was a real one, a medium-sized sirloin, raw, red, limp and damp. It was introduced in evidence, so to speak, by Mrs. India Edwards, chairman of the Women's Division of the National Committee.
She was proving a point with it.
Has It In Bag
Mrs. Edwards, handsome and fashionable in after-dinner black, brought a market bag with her last night, when she made her speech, blaming the Republicans for the high cost of food. The bag contained a quart of milk, a pound of margarine—and the red meat.
The price of each was stated by the speaker. And if her object was to startle her hearers with the steak, she achieved it in full measure. They gasped, gulped, then laughed and cheered.
It hung in her hand, oozing limply down between her fingers, and partly obscuring the diamond rings that glittered and twinkled in the bright klieg lights.
It looked, somehow, like a red jellyfish stuck on a trident encrusted with jewels.
Tells Price Paid
Mrs. Edwards told her audience how much she had paid for it.
Then she put it down on the rostrum beside her. Because of the slant in the rostrum, the steak began to creep downhill until it was dripping partly over the edge.
She retrieved it, to the delight of the photographers, who asked her to hold it up again "for just one more." Mrs. Edwards complied.
Mrs. Edwards' steak and the rolling periods of Senator Alben W. Barkley's keynote speech, delivered just before, put the Democrats in a mood they have not known since the convention began.
The Senator is a square-set, barrel-bodied man with white hair and a flinty, fighting face. He delivered a fighting speech, and it was just what the strife-torn Democrats wanted to hear.