"A national campaign is better than the best circus."

By H.L. MENCKEN

Monarchies spill over with ceremonies.

Democracies use so few, and ours tend to look like Abbott and Costello movies, a cross between bacchanals and pajama parties. Where is the dignity in a presidential election campaign? Where are the issues of substance? Let us consider the matter with deep seriousness as the red, white and blue balloons shower down on our funny hats and a tuba ooms in our ears. More noise, please. (Is this your baby, madam? Extraordinary. Of course, I'll kiss him... her.)

Yet there must be something to these inelegant pep rallies, some reason millions of normal citizens jump up and down in town halls and public squares, and shout themselves hoarse for candidates they can barely hear, saying things they all have heard before. Go get 'im, Fritz! Four more years! Maybe they're cheering the system. Maybe they're cheering themselves. Odd to think that at the center of the orgy lies the center of the country, the nation's history and reason for being resuscitated and kept alive in the tooting of a horn. On the following pages observe several revelers and their leaders in the midst of a process of continuity at once so corny and sublime we can hardly explain it to ourselves. But here we are.