According to the Boston Globe, Senator Kerry had the following reaction to Republican criticism of his plan to delay accepting his party’s nomination:
The senator chuckled at the criticism.
“Once again, the Republicans don’t know history, and they don’t know facts,” he said. “The truth is that it used to be that the convention, after nomination, traveled to the home or the state of the nominee to inform them they’ve been nominated. Woodrow Wilson was at his house in Princeton, N.J.; Harry Truman was in Independence,” Mo., he said.
In fact, it is Senator Kerry who apparently does not know the history and facts. On July 14, 1948, President Truman’s name was placed in nomination at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia by Missouri’s Governor, Phil M. Donnelly. Just as Governor Donnelly was nominating President Truman, President Truman and his family arrived in Philadelphia by train. The Democratic delegates voted for Truman’s nomination that night. The next night, July 15, 1948, President Truman came to Convention Hall in Philadelphia, and accepted his party’s nomination, delivering a blistering speech which set him on the course for victory in November.
As for Wilson, Kerry is closer to the truth. The 1912 Democratic Convention in Baltimore voted for the nomination to Woodrow Wilson on the 46th ballot on July 1. Wilson was formally notified of the offer on August 7, 1912, by a convention delegation which traveled to Wilson’s summer home in Sea Girt, New Jersey (not Princeton).