“Do you know much about politics?” inquired the editor of the San Francisco Examiner of reporter Annie Laurie in the late summer of 1890. “Of course I do,” she shot back. “I always have a candidate, and I would vote for him if I could and – and that's all there is in it, isn't it?” The editor peered at her pensively. After a long silence he suggested that the Democratic State Convention at nearby San Jose would be “an object lesson for you.” Laurie eagerly got packing. For three full days she sat demurely in the reporters' gallery with a male colleague she deferred to as “Mr. Worldly Wise.” Laurie learned about “bolts” and “breaks” and “trades” and the many happenings on the convention floor that were not at all what they seemed. And she learned to be grateful. “I never think of the turmoil and excitement of those eventful hours without thanking my lucky stars that I do not have the vote.”

Laurie's visit to the convention left her with some vivid memories. Above all, she recalled the noise and congestion that rattled her composure. Men and women packed the galleries and the aisles. Delegates and spectators emitted a low roar as they awaited the opening gavel. “Every single man was in earnest – dead earnest. So much so that he never listened to a word his friends said, but just talked on, as if unconscious that there was another voice raised in the place.”