The president himself would not attend the convention; he was too busy with war business, he said, though it was rumored that the real reason was because he was a severely ill man. An oft-spoken pre-convention slogan was “You are not nominating a Vice President of the United States, but a President.” The convention would take place at the Chicago Stadium, an indoor arena where the city’s hockey team played. Stadium officials had stocked up with 30,000 hot dogs, 125,000 soft drinks, 96,000 bottles of beer, and rivers of bourbon and rye.
