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National
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1904
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COMPILED AND EDITED BY HENRY KANEGSBERG
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(Eanal
1904
Copyright, 1904, by
Isaac H. Blanchard Co.
New York.
PREFACE
This handsome volume, which has been care-
fully compiled and revised, presents to the pub-
lic a true exposition of the principles and pol-
icies of the Republican party, as well as an
insight into the life, character and public serv-
ices of its candidates, Theodore Roosevelt, of
New York, and Charles Warren Fairbanks, of
Indiana.
These addresses are replete with many
rhetorical gems of historical fact and political
wisdom, which entitle them to rank with the
best efforts of our famous statesmen and
orators of bygone days.
The volume will prove an invaluable text-
book in schools and colleges, and should be
placed on file in every library, reading-room
and political organization throughout the land.
HENRY KANEGSBERG.
ivi564389
C
CONTENTS
PAGE
NATIONAL COMMITTEE 7-8
PLATFORM, CAMPAIGN OF 1904 ... 9-18
PRAYERS
REV. TIMOTHY P. FROST .... 25-28
REV. THOMAS E. Cox 29-30
REV. THADDEUS A. SNIVELY . . . 31-36
ADDRESSES
ELIHU ROOT 39-84
JOSEPH G. CANNON 85-104
FRANK S. BLACK 105-116
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 117-126
GEORGE A. KNIGHT 127-132
HARRY STILWELL EDWARDS . . . 133-142
WILLIAM O. BRADLEY 143-150
CO&TENtS
JOSEPH B. COTTON ...... 151-156
HARRY S. CUMMINGS ..... 157-162
JONATHAN P. DOLLIVER .... 163-170
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW ..... 171-180
JOSEPH B. FORAKER ...... 181-184
SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER . . . 185-186
THOMAS H. CARTER ...... 187-188
CAREERS
THEODORE ROOSEVELT ... . . 191-194
CHARLES WARREN FAIRBANKS . . 195-199
GEORGE B. CORTELYOU ... . . 200-201
NOTIFICATION BY SPEAKER CANNON . 202-210
ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 211-224
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL
COMMITTEE
GEORGE B. CORTELYOU, Chairman.
ELMER DOVER, Secretary.
CORNELIUS N. BLISS, Treasurer.
WILLIAM F. STONE, Sergeant-at-Arms.
Alabama Charles H. Scott.
Arkansas Powell Clayton.
California George A. Knight.
Colorado A. M. Stevenson.
Connecticut Charles F. Brooker.
Delaware J. Edward Addicks.
Florida J. N. Coombs.
Georgia Judson W. Lyons.
Idaho Welden B. Heyburn.
Illinois Frank O. Lowden.
Indiana Harry S. New.
Iowa Ernest E. Hart.
Kansas David W. Mulvane.
Kentucky John W. Yerkes.
Louisiana Vacant.
Maine John F. Hill.
Maryland Louis E. McComas.
Massachusetts W. Murray Crane.
Michigan John W. Blodgett.
Minnesota Frank B. Kellogg.
Mississippi L. B. Moseley.
Missouri Thomas J. Aikens.
Montana John B. Waite.
Nebraska Charles H. Morrill.
Nevada P. L. Flanigan.
New Hampshire Frank T. Streeter.
NATIONAL COMMITTEE
New Jersey Franklin Murphy.
New York William L. Ward.
North Carolina E. C. Duncan.
North Dakota Alexander McKenzie.
Ohio Myron T. Herrick.
Oregon Charles H. Carey.
Pennsylvania Boies Penrose.
Rhode Island Chas. R. Bray ton.
South Carolina John G. Capers.
South Dakota J. M. Greene.
Tennessee W. P. Brownlow.
Texas Cecil A. Lyon.
Utah C. E. Loose.
Vermont James Brock.
Virginia George E. Bowden.
Washington Levi Ankeny.
West Virginia N. B. Scott.
Wisconsin Henry C. Payne.
Wyoming George E. Pexton.
Alaska John G. Heid.
Arizona W. S. Sturgis.
District of Columbia Robert Reyburn.
Indian Territory P. L. Soper.
New Mexico Solomon Luna.
Oklahoma C. M. Cade.
Philippines Henry B. McCoy.
Porto Rico Robert H. Todd.
Hawaii Alexander G. M, Robertson.
THE PLATFORM.
Fifty years ago the Republican Party came
into existence dedicated, among other purposes,
to the great task of arresting the extension of
human slavery. In 1860 it elected its first
President.
During twenty-four of the forty-four years
which have elapsed since the election of Lin-
coln the Republican Party has held complete
control of the government. For eighteen more
of the forty- four years it has held partial con-
trol through the possession of one or two
branches of the government, while the Demo-
cratic Party during the same period has had
complete control for only two years.
This long tenure of power by the Republican
Party is not due to chance. It is a demonstra-
tion that the Republican Party has commanded
the confidence of the American people for
nearly two generations to a degree never
equaled in our history, and has displayed a high
capacity for rule and government, which has
been made even more conspicuous by the inca-
pacity and infirmity of purpose shown by its
opponents.
PLATFORM., CAMPAIGN OF 1904
The Republican Party entered upon its pres-
ent period of complete supremacy in 1897. We
have every right to congratulate ourselves upon
the work since then accomplished, for it has
added lustre even to the traditions of the party
which carried the Government through the
storms of civil war.
We then found the country, after four years
of Democratic rule, in evil plight, oppressed
with misfortune and doubtful of the future.
Public credit had been lowered, the revenues
were declining, the debt was growing, the ad-
ministration's attitude toward Spain was feeble
and mortifying, the standard of values was
threatened and uncertain, labor was unem-
ployed, business was sunk in the depression
which had succeeded the panic of 1893, hope
was faint, and confidence was gone.
We met these unhappy conditions vigor-
ously, effectively, and at once.
We replaced a Democratic tariff law based
on free trade principles and garnished with
sectional protection by a consistent protective
tariff, and industry, freed from oppression and
stimulated by the encouragement of wise laws,
has expanded to a degree never before known,
has conquered new markets, and has created a
volume of exports, which has surpassed im-
10
PLATFORM, CAMPAIGN OF 1904
agination. Under the Dingley tariff labor has
been fully employed, wages have risen, and all
industries have revived and prospered.
GOLD STANDARD ESTABLISHED.
We firmly established the gold standard,
which was then menaced with destruction. Con-
fidence returned to business, and with confi-
dence an unexampled prosperity.
For deficient revenues supplemented by im-
provident issues of bonds we gave the country
an income which produced a large surplus and
which enabled us only four years after the
Spanish war had closed to remove over $100,-
000,000 of annual war taxes, reduce the public
debt, and lower the interest charges of the
Government.
The public credit, which had been so low-
ered that in time of peace a Democratic admin-
istration made large loans at extravagant rates
of interest in order to pay current expenditures,
rose under Republican administration to its
highest point, and enabled us to borrow at 2 per
cent, even in time of war.
We refused to palter longer with the miseries
of Cuba. We fought a quick and victorious
war with Spain. We set Cuba free, governed
11
PLATFORM, CAMPAIGN OF 1904
the island for three years, and then gave it to
the Cuban people with order restored, with
ample revenues, with education and public
health established, free from debt and con-
nected with the United States by wise pro-
visions for our mutual interests.
We have organized the government of
Porto Rico, and its people now enjoy peace,
freedom, order, and prosperity.
In the Philippines we have suppressed insur-
rection, established order, and given to life and
property a security never known there before.
We have organized civil government, made it
effective and strong in administration, and
have conferred upon the people of those islands
the largest civil liberty they have ever enjoyed.
By our possession of the Philippines we were
enabled to take prompt and effective action in
the relief of the legations at Peking and a de-
cisive part in preventing the partition and pre-
serving the integrity of China.
CANAL WORK AT LAST BEGUN.
The possession of a route for an Isthmian
canal, so long the dream of American states-
manship, is now an accomplished fact. The
great work of connecting the Pacific and Atlan-
12
PLATFORM, CAMPAIGN OF 1904
tic by a canal is at last begun, and & is due to
the Republican Party.
We have passed laws which will bring the
arid lands of the United States within the area
of cultivation.
We have reorganized the army and put it in
the highest state of efficiency.
We have passed laws for the improvement
and support of the militia.
We have pushed forward the building of the
navy, the defense and protection of our honor
and our interests.
Our administration of the great departments
of the Government has been honest and effi-
cient, and wherever wrongdoing has been dis-
covered the Republican administration has not
hesitated to probe the evil and bring offenders
to justice without regard to party or political
ties.
Laws enacted by the Republican Party,
which the Democratic Party failed to enforce,
and which were intended for the protection of
the public against the unjust discrimination
or the illegal encroachment of vast aggrega-
tions of capital, have been fearlessly enforced
by a Republican President, and new laws in-
suring reasonable publicity as to the operations
of great corporations and providing additional
13
PLATFORM, CAMPAIGN OF 1904
remedies for the prevention of discrimination in
freight rates have been passed by a Republican
Congress.
TARIFF MUST BE LEFT TO ITS FRIENDS.
In this record of achievement during the past
eight years may be read the pledges which the
Republican Party has fulfilled. We promise
to continue these policies, and we declare our
constant adherence to the following principles :
Protection, which guards and develops our
industries, is a cardinal policy of the Republi-
can Party. The measure of protection should
always at least equal the difference in the cost
of production at home and abroad.
We insist upon the maintenance of the prin-
ciples of protection, and therefore rates of duty
should be readjusted only when conditions have
so changed that the public interest demands
their alteration, but this work cannot safely be
committed to any other hands than those of the
Republican Party.
To intrust it to the Democratic Party is to
invite disaster. Whether, as in 1892, the Dem-
ocratic Party declares the protective tariff un-
constitutional, or whether it demands tariff re-
form, or tariff revision, its real object is always
the destruction of the protective system.
14
PLATFORM, CAMPAIGN OF 1904
However specious the name, the purpose is
ever the same. A Democratic tariff has always
been followed by business adversity ; a Repub-
lican tariff by business prosperity.
To a Republican Congress and a Republican
President this great question can be safely in-
trusted. When the only free-trade country
among the great nations agitates a return to
protection the chief protective country should
not falter in maintaining it.
We have extended widely our foreign mar-
kets, and we believe in the adoption of all prac-
ticable methods for their further extension, in-
cluding commercial reciprocity wherever recip-
rocal arrangements can be effected consistent
with the principles of protection and without
injury to American agriculture, American
labor, or any American industry.
SHIP SUBSIDY PLANK.
We believe it to be the duty of the Republi-
can Party to uphold the gold standard and the
integrity and value of our national currency.
The maintenance of the gold standard, estab-
lished by the Republican Party, cannot safely
be committed to the Democratic Party, who
resisted its adoption and has never given any
15
PLATFORM, CAMPAIGN OF 1904
proof since that time of belief in it or fidelity
to it.
While every other industry has prospered
under the fostering aid of Republican legisla-
tion, American shipping, engaged in foreign
trade in competition with the low cost of con-
struction, low wages, and heavy subsidies of
foreign governments, has not for many years
received from the Government of the United
States adequate encouragement of any kind.
We therefore favor legislation which will en-
courage and build up the American merchant
marine, and we cordially approve the legisla-
tion of the last Congress, which created the
Merchant Marine Commission to investigate
and report upon this subject.
A navy powerful enough to defend the
United States against any attack, to uphold
the Monroe doctrine, and watch over our com-
merce is essential to the safety and the welfare
of the American people. To maintain such a
navy is the fixed policy of the Republican
Party.
We cordially approve the attitude of Presi-
dent Roosevelt and Congress in regard to the
exclusion of Chinese labor and promise a con-
tinuance of the Republican policy in that direc-
tion.
16
PLATFORM, CAMPAIGN OF 1904
The civil service law was placed on the
statute books by the Republican Party, which
has always sustained it, and we renew our for-
mer declarations that it shall be thoroughly and
honestly enforced.
We are always mindful of the country's debt
to the soldiers and sailors of the United States
and we believe in making ample provision for
them and in the liberal administration of the
pension laws.
We favor the peaceful settlement of inter-
national differences by arbitration.
FOR FREEDOM OF TRAVEL ABROAD.
We commend the vigorous efforts made by
the administration to protect American citizens
in foreign lands and pledge ourselves to insist
upon the just and equal protection of all our
citizens abroad. It is the unquestioned duty of
the Government to procure for all our citizens,
without distinction, the rights of travel and
sojourn in friendly countries, and we declare
ourselves in favor of all proper efforts tending
to that end.
Our great interests and our growing com-
merce in the Orient render the condition of
China of high importance to the United States.
17
PLATFORM, CAMPAIGN OF 1904
We cordially commend the policy pursued in
that direction by the administrations of Pres-
ident McKinley and President Roosevelt.
We favor such Congressional action as shall
determine whether by special discriminations
the elective franchise in any State has been un-
constitutionally limited, and, if such is the case,
we demand that representation in Congress and
in the Electoral Colleges shall be proportion-
ally reduced as directed by the Constitution of
the United States.
Combinations of capital and of labor are the
results of the economic movement of the age,
but neither must be permitted to infringe upon
the rights and interests of the people. Such
combinations when lawfully formed for lawful
purposes are alike entitled to the protection of
the laws, but both are subject to the laws, and
neither can be permitted to break them.
The great statesman and patriotic Ameri-
can, William McKinley, who was re-elected by
the Republican Party to the Presidency four
years ago, was assassinated just at the threshold
of his second term. The entire nation mourned
his untimely death and did that justice to his
great qualities of mind and character which
history will confirm and repeat.
The American people were fortunate in his
18
PLATFORM, CAMPAIGN OF 1904)
successor, to whom they turned with a trust and
confidence which have been fully justified.
President Roosevelt brought to the great re-
sponsibilities thus sadly forced upon him a clear
head, a brave heart, an earnest patriotism, and
high ideals of public duty and public service.
True to the principles of the Republican
Party and to the policies which that party had
declared, he has also shown himself ready for
every emergency and has met new and vital
questions with ability and with success.
EULOGY OF THE PRESIDENT.
The confidence of the people in his justice,
inspired by his public career, enabled him to
render personally an inestimable service to the
country by bringing about a settlement of the
coal strike, which threatened such disastrous
results at the opening of winter in 1902.
Our foreign policy under his administration
has not only been able, vigorous and dignified,
but in the highest degree successful. The com-
plicated questions which arose in Venezuela
were settled in such a way by President Roose-
velt that the Monroe Doctrine was signally vin-
dicated, and the cause of peace and arbitration
greatly advanced.
19
PLATFORM, CAMPAIGN OF 1904
His prompt and vigorous action in Panama,
which we commend in the highest terms, not
only secured to us the canal route, but avoided
all foreign complications, which might have
been of a very serious character.
He has continued the policy of President
McKinley in the Orient, and our position in
China, signalized by our recent commercial
treaty with that empire, has never been so high.
He secured the tribunal by which the vexed
and perilous question of the Alaskan boundary
was finally settled.
Whenever crimes against humanity have
been perpetrated which have shocked our peo-
ple, his protest has been made, and our good
offices have been tendered, but always with due
regard to international obligations.
Under his guidance we find ourselves at
peace with all the world, and never were we
more respected or our wishes more regarded by
foreign nations.
Pre-eminently successful in regard to our
foreign relations, he has been equally fortunate
in dealing with domestic questions. The coun-
try has known that the public credit and the
national currency were absolutely safe in the
hands of his administration. In the enforce-
ment of the laws he has shown not only cour-
20
PLATFORM, CAMPAIGN OF 1904
age, but the wisdom which understands that to
permit laws to be violated or disregarded opens
the door to anarchy, while the just enforcement
of the law is the soundest conservatism. He
has held firmly to the fundamental American
doctrine that all men must obey the law, that
there must be no distinction between rich and
poor, between strong and weak, but that justice
and equal protection under the law must be se-
cured to every citizen without regard to race,
creed, or condition.
His administration has been throughout vig-
orous and honorable, high-minded and patriotic.
We commend it without reservation to the
considerate judgment of the American people.
PRAYERS
Prayer by Rev. Timothy P. Frost, pastor of
the First Methodist Episcopal Church of
EvanstoU; III.
Almighty God, our help in ages past, our
hope for years to come, we thank Thee for Thy
goodness to the people of this land! Our sins
have been many, but Thy mercies have been
great. Thou has poured out Thy gifts with-
out measure. The opening years of a new cen-
tury have been freighted with wealth for hand
and mind and heart. Best of all, Thou art
giving Thyself in a perpetual offering of Thy
life for the life of man. We do not forget
that in the hour of deep sorrow, when the heart
of the nation was darkened by the murder of
the nation's chief, there was no break in the
march of Thy purpose, the orderly administra-
tion of our government or the faith of the peo-
ple in their God. Under the guidance of Thy
Holy Spirit we have been brought by our na-
tional woes nearer to Thee.
Surely Thou wilt never forsake this people.
May no dominance of greed, no riot of passion,
no weakening of religious conviction or en-
thronement of matter over spirit cause the peo-
25
REV. TIMOTHY P. FROST
pie to forsake Thee. May the heritage of
honor coming to us from the fathers in mem-
ories of noble sacrifices and valiant deeds be at
once our glad possession and our sacred trust.
While we are grateful for the past, may we
remember that to-day is better than yesterday,
and so act that the morrow shall be greater than
to-day. Wherever our country's flag floats as
the symbol of government, even unto the isles
of the sea, may we cleave unto the righteous-
ness that exalteth a nation and cast out the sin
that is a reproach to any people.
Save our nation, we beseech Thee, from all
the evil things which defile the home, impair
civil liberty, corrupt politics or undermine the
integrity of commercial life. Bring to naught
the schemes of men who would debauch or
oppress human life for the gratification of lust
or for personal enrichment or power. May
exaltation come only to men who despise the
gain of oppressions and shake the hands from
holding of bribes. May all sections and races,
all creeds and sentiments, all occupations and
interests, become united through the Spirit of
the Highest into a citizenship with a passion
for righteousness, wherein each individual shall
look up to God as the Father of all and on
every man as a brother. We pray Thee to
26
REV. TIMOTHY P. FROST
overrule the deliberations, conclusions and is-
sues of this convention for the good of the
American people and the welfare of mankind.
Bless Thy servant, the Chief Magistrate of our
nation. May he and all others clothed with
authority by the sovereign people be protected
by the powers of Thy kingdom, and contribute
to its ultimate triumph and consummation in
all the earth.
All nations are Thy children. Guide and
keep them by Thy gracious providence, and
hasten the coming of the day when love shall
have conquered hate and war shall have ceased
and all peoples shall dwell together in unity.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and
the glory forever. Amen.
27
Invocation delivered by the Rev. Thomas E.
Cox, of the Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago.
Our Father, who art in Heaven, we thank
Thee for the opportunities of this day. In all
humility we adore Thy sovereign majesty. To
Thee we look for grace and guidance. In Thy
hands are the destinies of nations, Thy provi-
dence enters into the careers of man. There is
no just power but from Thee. Thy will is the
sole source of law and good government.
Bless the deliberations of this convention.
Give us wisdom and understanding. Let us
not forget those who have bequeathed to us a
glorious history. Drive far from us all self-
seeking. Fill us with love of country, of peace,
of forbearance and of justice. For "justice
exalteth a nation, but when the wicked bear
rule, peoples perish." "Thy Kingdom come."
Hasten the day when it shall be said: "The
Kingdom of this world is become our Lord's
and His Christ's, and He shall reign forever
and ever." Amen.
Prayer by Rev. Thaddeus A. Snively, rector
of St. Chrysostomfs Church.
Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, In-
finite, Eternal: All- Wise and Ever Merciful,
Creator and Preserver of all mankind, with
profound reverence we acknowledge Thee as
the Source of Life and Strength, the Great
Invisible One Who speaks to us through this
wonderful universe, of which man, so marvel-
lous, is but one of Thy numberless works of
wonder and power. We confess Thee as the
Giver of life and light, and every good and
perfect gift.
Gathered here as children of this great and
wonderful country, where man has drawn near
to Thee, we beseech Thee to be with us in loving
benediction and guide us in our thoughts and
words and deeds. As citizens of this land of
privilege and freedom to all, we pray for our
country the dear land for which our fathers
fought in the long strife for freedom for all.
By Thy gracious help it is the land of the free
and the home of the brave. We pray that
Thou wilt guide us ever by Thy power and
wisdom in such ways that our liberty may never
31
REV. THADDEUS A. SNIVELY
degenerate into license, and that our people
may be brave, not simply with brute courage
that is ready to face force and violence, but
with the higher moral power which makes us
strong to battle for the truth and honor and
noble principle.
We beseech Thee to give to our whole nation
the strong desire and purpose to uphold law
and order and to seek noble character and true
integrity as the most sublime achievements of
the race, far greater and more precious than
riches or mighty conquests. Grant, we pray
Thee, that the benumbing touch of material
possessions and the lust of power may never
blind us to the true greatness and glory of
moral advancement. Help us ever to remem-
ber that the fathers of this land and government
were patriots of never-dying fame, because
they believed that poverty and defeat with un-
sullied honor are far better than vast wealth
and world-wide influence purchased at the cost
of shame and dishonor. We beseech Thee, O
Thou God of Love and Peace, to keep from
us all those who would overthrow the old stand-
ards of peace and harmony and brotherhood,
and grant that the sense of true brotherly love
and mutual respect may prevail among all
classes and conditions of our people and that
32
REV. THADDEUS A. SNIVELY
peace and justice may be our aim and ambition,
both within and beyond our borders. May that
feeling of love and oneness with all mankind
grow stronger year by year.
Help us to keep down selfishness and bitter-
ness, and by Thy tender grace make stronger
the sense of dependence upon Thee and of duty
to all mankind.
In this seedtime of the year, we pray Thee to
bless the harvest. Send Thy blessing upon the
multitudes who work upon the rich lands. May
abundant crops be the reward of the husband-
men whose labors make possible the feeding of
the vast multitudes of Thy children, abundant
increase of grain and fruits to keep in busy
movement the mighty engines of commerce,
and the looms and machines of human industry ;
that thus hunger and idleness and want may be
kept far away from our people and prosperity
dwell within our country.
Our Heavenly Father, Whose kingdom is
everlasting and power infinite, we pray Thee
to send Thy blessing upon all our country and
all our people, and especially upon all those on
whom authority and the execution of the laws
rest, upon the President of the United States ;
upon the Governors of all the commonwealths
which make this a land of many States; upon
33
REV. THADDEUS A. gNIVELY
the Congress of the nation, and upon the legis-
latures of the different States, and upon all
who occupy places of trust and responsibility,
that they, knowing whose ministers they are,
may above all things seek thy honor and glory.
Wilt Thou grant them Thy grace that they
may always incline to Thy will and walk in
Thy way.
And may all the people, duly considering
that it is Thy authority that they bear, faith-
fully and obediently honor them and aid them
in guarding the highest standards of upright-
ness and integrity and unselfish patriotism.
Upon this great multitude here gathered, we
ask Thy blessing. Keep before us, we pray
Thee, high motive and lofty aim, and grant, in
Thy infinite goodness, that this convention may
have its part in holding aloft the highest ideals
and most glorious standards of true citizenship.
Wilt Thou so direct their deliberations that
only high influences may have sway, and that
the best results for our dear country may be
advanced by their work; that thus they may do
their part in helping to the ordering and set-
tling of all things upon the best and surest
foundations that peace and happiness, truth
and justice, religion and piety, may be estab-
lished among us for all generations.
84
REV. THADDEUS A. gNIVELY
Finally, we pray for all the people of this
land, that Thou wouldst direct us, O Lord, in
all our doings with Thy most gracious favor,
and further us with Thy continual help, that
in all our works begun, continued and ended in
Thee, we may glorify Thy holy name, and,
finally, by Thy mercy, obtain everlasting life
through Him Who has taught us to say :
"Our Father Who art in Heaven, Hallowed
be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will
be done on earth, as it is in Heaven. Give
us this day our daily bread. And forgive us
our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass
against us. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil : for Thine is the king-
dom and the power and the glory, forever and
ever." Amen.
ADDRESSES
Address by Temporary Chairman Elihu Root,
of New York.
The responsibility of government rests upon
the Republican party. The complicated ma-
chinery through which the 80,000,000 people of
the United States govern themselves answers
to no single will. The composite government
devised by the f ramers of the Constitution to
meet the conditions of national life more than
a century ago requires the willing co-operation
of many minds, the combination of many inde-
pendent factors, in every forward step for the
general welfare.
The President at Washington with his Cabi-
net, the ninety Senators representing forty-five
sovereign States, the 386 Representatives in
Congress are required to reach concurrent ac-
tion upon a multitude of questions involving
varied and conflicting interests and requiring
investigation, information, discussion and rec-
onciliation of views. From all our vast terri-
tory, with its varieties of climate and industry,
from all our great population active in produc-
tion and commerce and social progress and in-
tellectual and moral life to a degree never be-
39
ELIHU ROOT
fore attained by any people difficult problems
press upon the national government.
Within the past five years more than sixty-
six thousand bills have been introduced in Con-
gress. Some method of selection must be fol-
lowed. There must be some preliminary proc-
ess to ascertain the general tenor of public
judgment upon the principles to be applied in
government, and some organization and recog-
nition of leadership which shall bring a legisla-
tive majority and the Executive into accord in
the practical application of those principles,
or effective government becomes impossible.
The practical governing instinct of our peo-
ple has adapted the machinery devised in the
eighteenth to the conditions of the twentieth
century by the organization of national political
parties. In them men join for the promotion
of a few cardinal principles upon which they
agree. For the sake of those principles they
lay aside their differences upon less important
questions. To represent those principles and
to carry on the government in accordance with
them, they present to the people candidates
whose competency and loyalty they approve.
The people by their choice of candidates indi-
cate the principles and methods which they
wish followed in the conduct of their govern-
40
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ment. They do not merely choose between
men ; they choose between parties between the
principles they profess, the methods they fol-
low, the trustworthiness of their professions,
the inferences to be drawn from the records
of their past, the general weight of character
of the body of men who will be brought into
participation in government by their ascend-
ancy.
When the course of the next administration
is but half done the Republican party will have
completed the first half -century of its national
life. Of the eleven administrations since the
first election of Abraham Lincoln, nine cov-
ering a period of thirty-six years have been
under Republican presidents. For the greater
part of that time the majority in each House
of Congress has been Republican. History af-
fords no parallel in any age or country for the
growth in national greatness and power and
honor, the wide diffusion of the comforts of
life, the uplifting of the great mass of the peo-
ple above the hard conditions of poverty, the
common opportunity for education and indi-
vidual advancement, the universal possession
of civil and religious liberty, the protection of
property and security for the rewards of in-
dustry and enterprise, the cultivation of na-
41
ELIHU ROOT
tional morality, respect for religion, sympathy
with humanity and love of liberty and justice,
which have marked the life of the American
people during this long period of Republican
control.
With the platform and the candidates of this
convention, we are about to ask a renewed ex-
pression of popular confidence in the Republi-
can party.
We shall ask it because the principles to
which we declare our adherence are right, and
the best interests of our country require that
they should be followed in its government.
We shall ask it because the unbroken record
of the Republican party in the past is an as-
surance of the sincerity of our declarations and
the fidelity with which we shall give them ef-
fect. Because we have been constant in prin-
ciple, loyal to our beliefs and faithful to our
promises, we are entitled to be believed and
trusted now.
We shall ask it because the character of the
party gives assurance of good government. A
great political organization, competent to gov-
ern, is not a chance collection of individuals
brought together for the moment as the shift-
ing sands are piled up by wind and sea, to be
swept away, to be formed and reformed again.
42
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It is a growth. Traditions and sentiments
reaching down through struggles of years
gone, and the stress and heat of old conflicts
and the influence of leaders passed away, and
the ingrained habit of applying fixed rules of
interpretation and of thought all give to a
political party known and inalienable qualities
from which must follow in its deliberate judg-
ment and ultimate action like results for good
or bad government. We do not deny that
other parties have in their membership men of
morality and patriotism; but we assert with
confidence that, above all others, by the influ-
ences which gave it birth and have maintained
its life, by the causes for which it has striven,
the ideals which it has followed, the Republican
party as a party has acquired a character which
makes its ascendancy the best guarantee of a
government loyal to principle and effective in
execution. Through it more than any other
political organization the moral sentiment of
America finds expression. It cannot depart
from the direction of its tendencies. From
what it has been may be known certainly what
it must be. Not all of us rise to its standard ;
not all of us are worthy of its glorious history ;
but, as a whole, this great political organiza-
tion the party of Lincoln and McKinley
43
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cannot fail to work in the spirit of its past and
in loyalty to great ideals.
We shall ask the continued confidence of the
people because the candidates whom we present
are of proved competency and patriotism, fitted
to fill the offices for which they are nominated,
to the credit and honor of our country.
We shall ask it because the present policies
of our government are beneficial, and ought not
to be set aside; and the people's business is
being well done, and ought not to be interfered
with.
Have not the American people reason for
satisfaction and pride in the conduct of their
government since the election of 1900, when
they rendered their judgment of approval
upon the first administration of President Mc-
Kinley? Have we not had an honest govern-
ment? Have not the men selected for office
been men of good reputation who by their past
lives had given evidence that they were honest
and competent? Can any private business be
pointed out in which lapses from honesty have
been so few and so trifling, proportionately, as
in the public service of the United States? And
when they have occurred, have not the offend-
ers been relentlessly prosecuted and sternly
44
ELIHU BOOT
punished, without regard to political or per-
sonal relations?
Have we not had an effective government?
Have not the laws been enforced? Has not
the slow process of legislative discussion upon
many serious questions been brought to prac-
tical conclusions embodied in beneficial stat-
utes? and has not the Executive proceeded
without vacillation or weakness to give these
effect. Are not the laws of the United States
obeyed at home? and does not our government
command respect and honor throughout the
world?
Have we not had a safe and conservative
government? Has not property been pro-
tected? Are not the fruits of enterprise and
industry secure? What safeguard of the Con-
stitution for vested right or individual freedom
has not been scrupulously observed? When has
any American administration ever dealt more
considerately and wisely with questions which
might have been the cause of conflict with for-
eign powers? When have more just settle-
ments been reached by peaceful means? When
has any administration wielded a more power-
ful influence for peace? and when have we
rested more secure in friendship with all man-
kind?
45
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Four years ago the business of the country
was loaded with burdensome internal taxes, im-
posed during the war with Spain. By the acts
of March 2, 1901, and April 12, 1902, the
country has been wholly relieved of that annual
burden of over $100,000,000, and the further
accumulation of a surplus which was constantly
withdrawing the money of the country from
circulation has been prevented by the reduction
of taxation.
Between the 30th of June, 1900, and the 1st
of June, 1904, our Treasury Department col-
lected in revenues the enormous sum of $2,203,-
000,000 and expended $2,028,000,000, leaving
us with a surplus of over $170,000,000 after
paying the $50,000,000 for the Panama Canal
and loaning $4,600,000 to the St. Louis Exposi-
tion. Excluding those two extraordinary pay-
ments, which are investments from past sur-
plus and not expenditures of current income,
the surplus for this year will be the reasonable
amount of about $12,000,000.
The vast and complicated transactions of the
Treasuiy, which for the last fiscal year show
actual cash receipts of $4,250,290,262 and dis-
bursements of $4,113,199,414, have been con-
ducted with perfect accuracy and fidelity and
without the loss of a dollar. Under wise man-
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agement the financial act of March 14, 1900,
which embodied the sound financial principles
of the Republican party and provided for the
maintenance of our currency on the stable basis
of the gold standard, has wrought out benefi-
cent results. On the 1st of November, 1899,
the interest bearing debt of the United States
was $1,046,049,020. On the 1st of May last
the amount of that debt was $895,157,440, a
reduction of $150,891,580. By refunding, the
annual interest has been still more rapidly re-
duced from $40,347,884 on the 1st of Novem-
ber, 1899, to $24,176,745 on the 1st of June,
1904, an annual saving of over $16,000,000.
When the financial act was passed the thinly
settled portions of our country were suffering
for lack of banking facilities because the banks
were in the large towns, and none could be orga-
nized with a capital of less than $50,000. Under
the provisions of that act there were organized
down to the 1st of May last 1,296 small banks
of $25,000 capital, furnishing, under all the
safeguards of the national banking system, fa-
cilities to the small communities of the West
and South. The facilities made possible by
that act have increased the circulation of na-
tional banks from $254,402,730 on the 14th of
March, 1900, to $445,988,565 on the 1st of
47
ELIHU EOOT
June, 1904. The money of the country in cir-
culation has not only increased in amount with
our growth in business, but it has steadily
gained in the stability of the basis on which it
rests. On the 1st of March, 1897, when the
first administration of McKinley began, we
had in the country, including bullion in the
Treasury, $1,806,272,076. This was $23.14
per capita for our population, and of this
38.893 per cent, was gold. On the 1st of
March, 1901, when the second administration
of McKinley began, the money in the country
was $2,467,295,228. This was $28.34 per cap-
ita, and of this 45.273 per cent, was gold. On
the 1st of May last the money in the country
was $2,814,985,446, which was $31.02 per cap-
ita, and of it 48.028 per cent, was gold. This
great increase of currency has been arranged
in such a way that the large government notes
in circulation are gold certificates, while the
silver certificates and greenbacks are of small
denominations. As the large gold certificates
represent gold actually on deposit, their presen-
tation at the Treasury in exchange for gold
can never infringe upon the gold reserve. As
the small silver certificates and greenbacks are
always in active circulatipn, no large amount
of them can be accumulated for the purpose of
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drawing on the gold reserve; and thus, while
every man can get a gold dollar for every dollar
of the government's currency, the endless chain
which we were once taught to fear so much has
been effectively put out of business. The Sec-
retary of the Treasury has shown himself mind-
ful of the needs of business, and has so man-
aged our finances as himself to expand and
contract our currency as occasion has required.
When in the fall of 1902 the demand for funds
to move the crops caused extraordinary money
stringency, the Secretary exercised his lawful
right to accept State and municipal bonds as
security for public deposits, thus liberating
United States bonds, which were used for ad-
ditional circulation. When the crops were
moved and the stringency was over he called for
a withdrawal of the State and municipal se-
curities, and thus contracted the currency.
Again, in 1903, under similar conditions he
produced similar results. The payment of the
$50,000,000 for the Panama Canal, made last
month without causing the slightest disturb-
ance in finance, showed good judgment and a
careful consideration of the interests of busi-
ness upon which our people may confidently
rely.
Four years ago the regulation by law of the
49
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great corporate combinations called "trusts"
stood substantially where it was when the Sher-
man Anti-Trust act of 1890 was passed. Pres-
ident Cleveland in his last message of Decem-
ber, 1896, had said:
"Though Congress has attempted to deal
with this matter by legislation, the laws passed
for that purpose thus far have proved ineffec-
tive, not because of any lack of disposition or
attempt to enforce them, but simply because
the laws themselves as interpreted by the courts
do not reach the difficulty. If the insufficien-
cies of existing laws can be remedied by fur-
ther legislation, it should be done. The fact
must be recognized, however, that all federal
legislation on this subject may fall short of its
purpose because of inherent obstacles, and also
because of the complex character of our gov-
ernmental system, which, while making federal
authority supreme within its sphere, has care-
fully limited that sphere by metes and bounds
that cannot be transgressed."
At every election the regulation of trusts
had been the football of campaign oratory and
the subject of many insincere declarations.
Our Republican administration has taken up
the subject in a practical, sensible way as a
business rather than a political question, saying
50
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what it really meant, and doing what lay at its
hands to be done to accomplish effective regu-
lation. The principles upon which the govern-
ment proceeded were stated by the President
in his message of December, 1902. He said:
"A fundamental base of civilization is the
inviolability of property; but this is in no wise
inconsistent with the right of society to regulate
the exercise of the artificial powers which it
confers upon the owners of property, under
the name of corporate franchises, in such a way
as to prevent the misuse of these powers. . . .
"We can do nothing of good in the way of
regulating and supervising these corporations
until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not
attacking the corporations, but endeavoring
to do away with any evil in them. We are not
hostile to them ; we are merely determined that
they shall be so handled as to subserve the pub-
lic good. We draw the line against miscon-
duct, not against wealth. . .. .
"In curbing and regulating the combinations
of capital which are or may become injurious
to the public we must be careful not to stop the
great enterprises which have legitimately re-
duced the cost of production, not to abandon
the place which our country has won in the
leadership of the international industrial
51
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world, not to strike down wealth, with the
result of closing factories and mines, of turn-
ing the wage-worker idle in the streets and
leaving the farmer without a market for what
he grows. . . .
"I believe that monopolies, unjust discrim-
inations, which prevent or cripple competition,
fraudulent over-capitalization and other evils
in trust organizations and practices which in-
juriously affect interstate trade can be pre-
vented under the power of the Congress to
'regulate commerce with foreign nations and
among the several states' through regulations
and requirements operating directly upon such
commerce, the instrumentalities thereof, and
those engaged therein."
After long consideration Congress passed
three practical statutes. On the llth of Feb-
ruary, 1903, an act to expedite hearings in suits
in enforcement of the Anti-Trust act; on the
14th of February, 1903, the act creating a new
Department of Commerce and Labor, with a
Bureau of Corporations, having authority to
secure systematic information regarding the
organization and operation of corporations en-
gaged in interstate commerce, and on the 19th
of February, 1903, an act enlarging the powers
of the Interstate Commerce Commission and of
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the courts, to deal with secret rebates in trans-
portation charges, which are the chief means
by which the trusts crush out their smaller com-
petitors.
The Attorney-General has gone on in the
same practical way, not to talk about the trusts,
but to proceed against the trusts by law for
their regulation. In separate suits fourteen of
the great railroads of the country have been re-
strained by injunction from giving illegal re-
bates to the favored shippers, who by means of
them were driving out the smaller shippers and
monopolizing the grain and meat business of
the country. The beef trust was put under in-
junction. The officers of the railroads en-
gaged in the cotton-carrying pool, affecting all
that great industry of the South, were indicted
and have abandoned their combination. The
Northern Securities Company, which under-
took by combining in one ownership the capital
stocks of the Northern Pacific and the Great
Northern Railroads to end traffic competition
in the Northwest, has been destroyed by a vig-
orous prosecution expedited and brought to a
speedy and effective conclusion in the Supreme
Court under the act of February 11, 1903.
The Attorney-General says:
"Here, then, are four phases of the attack
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on the combinations in restraint of trade and
commerce the railroad injunction suits, the
cotton pool cases, the beef trust cases, and the
Northern Securities case. The first relates to
the monopoly produced by secret and preferen-
tial rates for railroad transportation; the sec-
ond to railroad traffic pooling; the third to a
combination of independent corporations to fix
and maintain extortionate prices for meats, and
the fourth to a corporation organized to merge
into itself the control of parallel and competing
lines of railroad and to eliminate competition in
their rates of transportation."
The right of the Interstate Commerce Com-
mission to compel the production of books and
papers has been established by the judgment of
the Supreme Court in a suit against the coal
carrying roads. Other suits have been brought
and other indictments have been found and
other trusts have been driven back within legal
bounds. No investment in lawful business has
been jeopardized, no fair and honest enterprise
has been injured; but it is certain that wherever
the constitutional power of the national govern-
ment reaches, trusts are being practically regu-
lated and curbed within lawful bounds as they
never have been before, and the men of small
capital are finding in the efficiency and skill of
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the national Department of Justice a protec-
tion they never had before against the crush-
ing effect of unlawful combinations.
We have at last reached a point where the
public wealth of farm land, which has seemed
so inexhaustible, is nearly gone, and the prob-
lem of utilizing the remainder for the building
of new homes has become of vital importance.
The present administration has dealt with
this problem vigorously and effectively. Great
areas had been unlawfully fenced in by men of
large means, and the home builder had been
excluded. Many of these unlawful aggressors
have been compelled to relinquish their booty,
and more than 2,000,000 acres of land have
been restored to the public. Extensive frauds
in procuring grants of land, not for home-
steads, but for speculation, have been investi-
gated and stopped, and the perpetrators have
been indicted and are being actively prosecuted.
A competent commission has been constituted
to examine into the defective working of the
existing laws and to suggest practical legisla-
tion to prevent further abuse. That commis-
sion has reported, and bills adequate to accom-
plish the purpose have been framed and are
before Congress. The further denudation of
forest areas, producing alternate floods and
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dryness in our river valleys, has been checked
by the extension of forest reserves, which have
been brought to aggregate more than 63,000,-
000 acres of land. The reclamation by irriga-
tion of the vast arid regions forming the chief
part of our remaining public domain, has been
provided for by the national Reclamation law
of June 17, 1903. The execution of this law,
without taxation and by the application of the
proceeds of public land sales alone, through
the construction of storage reservoirs for water,
will make many millions of acres of fertile
lands available for settlement. Over $20,000,-
000 from these sources has been already re-
ceived to the credit of the reclamation fund.
Over 33,000,000 acres of public lands in four-
teen states and territories have been embraced
in the sixty-seven projects which have been
devised and are under examination, and on
eight of these the work of actual construction
has begun.
The postal service has been extended and
improved. Its revenues have increased from
$76,000,000 in 1895 to $95,000,000 in 1899 and
$144,000,000 in 1904. In dealing with these
vast sums, a few cases of peculation, trifling in
amount and by subordinate officers, have oc-
curred there as they occur in every business.
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Neither fear nor favor, nor political or personal
influence, has availed to protect the wrong-
doers. Their acts have been detected, inves-
tigated, laid bare; they have been dismissed
from their places, prosecuted criminally, in-
dicted, many of them tried, and many of them
convicted. The abuses in the carriage of sec-
ond-class mail matter have been remedied. The
rural free delivery has been widely extended.
It is wholly the creation of Republican admin-
istration. The last Democratic Postmaster-
General declared it impracticable. The first
administration of McKinley proved the con-
trary. At the beginning of the fiscal year
1899 there were about 200 routes in operation.
There are now more than 25,000 routes, bring-
ing a daily mail service to more than 12,000,000
of our people in rural communities, enlarging
the circulation of the newspaper and the maga-
zine, increasing communication, and relieving
the isolation of life on the farm.
The Department of Agriculture has been
brought to a point of efficiency and practical
benefit never before known. The Oleomargar-
ine act of May 9, 1902, now sustained in the
Supreme Court, and the act of July 1, 1902, to
prevent the false branding of food and dairy
products, protect farmers against fraudulent
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imitations. The act of February 2, 1903, en-
ables the Secretary of Agriculture to prevent
the spread of contagious and infectious dis-
eases of live-stock. Rigid inspection has pro-
tected our cattle against infection from abroad,
and has established the highest credit for our
meat products in the markets of the world.
The earth has been searched for weapons with
which to fight the enemies that destroy the
growing crops. An insect brought from near
the Great Wall of China has checked the San
Jose scale, which was destroying our orchards ;
a parasitic fly brought from South Africa is
exterminating the black scale in the lemon and
orange groves of California; and an ant from
Guatemala is about offering battle to the boll
weevil. Broad science has been brought to the
aid of limited experience. Study of the rela-
tions between plant life and climate and soil
has been followed by the introduction of special
crops suited to our varied conditions. The in-
troduction of just the right kind of seed has
enabled the Gulf States to increase our rice
crop from 115,000,000 pounds in 1898 to 400,-
000,000 in 1903, and to supply the entire Amer-
ican demand, with a surplus for export. The
right kind of sugar beet has increased our an-
nual production of beet sugar by over 200,000
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tons. Seed brought from countries of little
rainfall is producing millions of bushels of
grain on lands which a few years ago were
deemed a hopeless part of the arid belt.
The systematic collection and publication of
information regarding the magnitude and con-
ditions of our crops is mitigating the injury
done by speculation to the farmer's market.
To increase the profit of the farmer's toil, to
protect the farmer's product and extend his
market and to improve the conditions of the
farmer's life ; to advance the time when Amer-
ica shall raise within her own limits every prod-
uct of the soil consumed by her people, as she
makes within her own limits every necessary
product of manufacture these have been car-
dinal objects of Republican administration;
and we show a record of practical things done
toward the accomplishment of these objects
never before approached.
Four years ago we held the island of Cuba by
military occupation. The opposition charged,
and the people of Cuba believed, that we did
not intend to keep the pledge of April 20, 1898,
that when the pacification of Cuba was accom-
plished we should leave the government and
control of the island to its people. The new
policy toward Cuba which should follow the
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fulfilment of that pledge was unformed. Dur-
ing the four years it has been worked out in
detail and has received effect. It was commu-
nicated by executive order to the Military Gov-
ernor. It was embodied in the act of Congress
known as the Platt amendment. It was ac-
cepted by the Cuban Constitutional Conven-
tion on the 12th of October, 1901. It secured
to Cuba her liberty and her independence, but
it required her to maintain them. It forbade
her ever to use the freedom we had earned for
her by so great a sacrifice of blood and treasure
to give the island to any other power; it re-
quired her to maintain a government adequate
for the protection of life and property and
liberty, and, should she fail, it gave us the right
to intervene for the maintenance of such a gov-
ernment ; and it gave us the right to naval sta-
tions on her coast, for the protection and de-
fence alike of Cuba and the United States.
On May 20, 1902, under a constitution which
embodied these stipulations, the government
and control of Cuba were surrendered to the
President and Congress elected by her people,
and the American army sailed away. The
new republic began its existence with an ad-
ministration of Cubans completely organized
in all its branches and trained to effective ser-
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vice by American officers. The administration
of President Palma has been wise and efficient.
Peace and order have prevailed. The people of
Cuba are prosperous and happy. Her finances
have been honestly administered and her credit
is high. The naval stations have been located
and bounded at Guantanamo and Bahia Honda
and are in the possession of our navy. The
Platt amendment is the sheet-anchor of Cuban
independence and of Cuban credit. No such
revolutions as have afflicted Central and South
America are possible there, because it is known
to all men that an attempt to overturn the foun-
dations of that government will be confronted
by the overwhelming power of the United
States. The treaty of reciprocity and the act
of Congress of December 6, 1903, which con-
firmed it, completed the expression of our pol-
icy toward Cuba, which, with a far view to the
future, aims to bind to us by ties of benefit and
protection, of mutual interest and genuine
friendship, that island which guards the Carib-
bean and the highway to the isthmus, and must
always be, if hostile, an outpost of attack, and,
if friendly, an outpost of defence for the
United States. Rich as we are, the American
people have no more valuable possession than
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the sentiment expressed in the dispatch which
I will now read :
"HAVANA, May 20, 1902.
"THEODORE ROOSEVELT, President,
"Washington.
"The government of the island having been
just transferred, I, as Chief Magistrate of the
Republic, faithfully interpreting the sentiment
of the whole people of Cuba, have the honor to
send you and the American people testimony
of our profound gratitude and the assurance of
an enduring friendship, with wishes and pray-
ers to the Almighty for the welfare and pros-
perity of the United States.
"T. ESTRADA PALMA."
When the last national convention met the
Philippines also were under military rule. The
insurrectos from the mountains spread terror
among the peaceful people by midnight foray
and secret assassination. Aguinaldo bided his
time in a secret retreat. Over seventy thou-
sand American soldiers from more than five
hundred stations held a still vigorous enemy in
check. The Philippine Commission had not
yet begun its work.
The last vestige of insurrection has been
swept away. With their work accomplished,
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over 55,000 American troops have been brought
back across the Pacific. Civil government has
been established throughout the archipelago.
Peace and order and justice prevail. The Phil-
lippine Commission, guided at first by execu-
tive order and then by the wise legislation of
Congress in the Philippine Government act of
July 1, 1902, have established and conducted a
government which has been a credit to their
country and a blessing to the people of the
islands. The body of laws which they have en-
acted upon careful and intelligent study of the
needs of the country challenges comparison
with the statutes of any country. The personnel
of civil government has been brought together
under an advanced and comprehensive civil ser-
vice law, which has been rigidly enforced. A
complete census has been taken, designed to be
there, as it was in Cuba, the basis for repre-
sentative government; and the people of the
islands will soon proceed, under provisions al-
ready made by Congress, to the election of a
representative assembly, in which for the first
time in their history they may have a voice in
the making of their own laws. In the mean-
time, the local and provincial governments are
in the hands of officers elected by the Filipinos;
and in the great central offices, in the commis-
01
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sion, on the bench, in the executive depart-
ments, the most distinguished men of the Fili-
pino race are taking their part in the govern-
ment of their people. A free school system
has been established, and hundreds of thou-
sands of children are learning lessons which
will help fit them for self-government. The
seeds of religious strife existing in the bitter
controversy between the people and the re-
ligious orders have been deprived of potency
for harm by the purchase of the friars' lands
and their practical withdrawal. By the act of
Congress of March 2, 1903, a gold standard
has been established to take the place of the
fluctuating silver currency. The unit of value
is made exactly one-half the value of the Amer-
ican gold dollar, so that American money is
practically part of their currency system. To
enable the Philippine government to issue this
new currency, $6,000,000 was borrowed by it
in 1903 in the city of New York, and it was
borrowed at a net interest charge of If per
cent, per annum. The trade of the islands has
increased notwithstanding adverse conditions.
During the last five years of peace under Span-
ish rule, the average total trade of the islands
was less than $36,000,000. During the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1903, the trade of the
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islands was over $66,000,000. There is but
one point of disturbance, and that is in the
country of the Mahometan Moros, where there
is an occasional fitful savage outbreak against
the enforcement of the law recently made to
provide for adequate supervision and control
to put an end to the practice of human slavery.
When Governor Taft sailed from Manila in
December last to fill the higher office where
he will still guard the destinies of the people
for whom he has done such great and noble
service he was followed to the shore by a mighty
throng, not of repressed and sullen subjects,
but of free and peaceful people, whose tears
and prayers of affectionate farewell showed
that they had already begun to learn that "our
flag has not lost its gift of benediction in its
world-wide journey to their shores."
None can foretell the future; but there
seems no reasonable cause to doubt that, under
the policy already effectively inaugurated, the
institutions already implanted, and the pro-
cesses already begun, in the Philippine Islands,
if these be not repressed and interrupted, the
Philippine people will follow in the footsteps
of the people of Cuba; that more slowly, in-
deed, because they are not as advanced, yet as
surely, they will grow in capacity for self-gov-
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ernment, and receiving power as they grow in
capacity, will come to bear substantially such
relations to the people of the United States
as do now the people of Cuba, differing in de-
tails as conditions and needs differ, but the
same in principle and the same in beneficent
results.
In 1900 the project of an isthmian canal
stood where it was left by the Clayton-Bulwer
Treaty of 1850. For half a century it had
halted, with Great Britain resting upon a joint
right of control, and the great undertaking of
de Lesseps struggling against the doom of fail-
ure imposed by extravagance and corruption.
On the 18th of November, 1901, the Hay-
Pauncef ote Treaty with Great Britain relieved
the enterprise of the right of British control,
and left that right exclusively in the United
States. Then followed swiftly the negotia-
tions and protocols with Nicaragua; the Isth-
mian Canal act of June 28, 1902; the just
agreement with the French Canal Company to
pay them the value of the work they had done;
the negotiation and ratification of the treaty
with Colombia; the rejection of that treaty by
Colombia, in violation of our rights and the
world's right to the passage of the isthmus;
the seizure by Panama of the opportunity to
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renew her oft-repeated effort to throw off the
hateful and oppressive yoke of Colombia and
resume the independence which once had been
hers, and of which she had been deprived by
fraud and force ; the success of the revolution ;
our recognition of the new republic, followed
by recognition from substantially all the civ-
ilized powers of the world; the treaty with
Panama recognizing and confirming our right
to construct the canal; the ratification of the
treaty by the Senate; confirmatory legislation
by Congress; the payment of the $50,000,-
000 to the French company and to Panama;
the appointment of the Canal Commission in
accordance with law, and its organization to
begin the work.
The action of the United States at every step
has been in accordance with the law of nations,
consistent with the principles of justice and
honor, in discharge of the trust to build the
canal we long since assumed, by denying the
right of every other power to build it, dictated
by a high and unselfish purpose, for the com-
mon benefit of all mankind. That action was
wise, considerate, prompt, vigorous and effec-
tive; and now the greatest of constructive na-
tions stands ready and competent to begin and
to accomplish the great enterprise which shall
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realize the dreams of past ages, bind together
our Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and open a new
highway for that commerce of the Orient whose
course has controlled the rise and fall of civ-
ilizations. Success in that enterprise greatly
concerns the credit and honor of the American
people, and it is for them to say whether the
building of the canal shall be in charge of the
men who made its building possible, or of the
weaklings whose incredulous objections would
have postponed it for another generation.
Throughout the world the diplomacy of the
present administration has made for peace and
justice among nations. Clear-sighted to per-
ceive and prompt to maintain American inter-
ests, it has been sagacious and simple and direct
in its methods, and considerate of the rights
and of the feelings of others.
Within the month after the last national
convention met Secretary Hay's circular note
of July 3, 1900, to the great powers of Europe
had declared the policy of the United States :
"To seek a solution which may bring about
permanent safety and peace to China, preserve
China's territorial and administrative entity,
protect all rights guaranteed to friendly pow-
ers by treaty and international law, and safe-
guard for the world the principle of equal and
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impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese
Empire."
The express adherence of the powers of Eu-
rope to this declaration was secured. The open
recognition of the rule of right conduct im-
posed its limitations upon the conduct of the
powers in the Orient. It was made the test
of defensible action. Carefully guarded by
the wise statesmen who had secured its accept-
ance, it brought a moral force of recognized
value to protect peaceful and helpless China
from dismemberment and spoliation, and to
preserve the open door in the Orient for the
commerce of the world. Under the influence
of this effective friendship, a new commercial
treaty with China, proclaimed on the 8th of
October last, has enlarged our opportunities
for trade, opened new ports to our commerce,
and abolished internal duties on goods in transit
within the empire. There were indeed other
nations which agreed with this policy of Amer-
ican diplomacy, but no other nation was free
from suspicion of selfish aims. None other had
won confidence in the sincerity of its purpose,
and none other but America could render the
service which we have rendered to humanity in
China during the past four years. High evi-
dence of that enviable position of our country
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ELIHU
is furnished by the fact that when all Europe
was in apprehension lest the field of war be-
tween Russia and Japan should so spread
as to involve China's ruin and a universal con-
flict, it was to the American government that
the able and far-sighted German Emperor ap-
pealed, to take the lead again in bringing about
an agreement for the limitation of the field of
action, and the preservation of the adminis-
trative entity of China outside of Manchuria;
and that was accomplished.
Upon our own continent a dispute with Can-
ada over the boundary of Alaska had been
growing more acute for thirty years. A multi-
tude of miners swift to defend their own rights
by force were locating mining claims under
the laws of both countries in the disputed terri-
tory. At any moment a fatal affray between
Canadian and American miners was liable to
begin a conflict in which all British Columbia
would be arrayed on one side and all our
Northwest upon the other. Agreement was
impossible. But the Alaskan Boundary Treaty
of January 24, 1903, provided a tribunal for
the decision of the controversy; and upon legal
proofs and reasoned argument, an appeal has
been had from prejudice and passion to judi-
cial judgment; and under the lead of a great
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Chief Justice of England, who held the sacred
obligations of his judicial office above all other
considerations, the dispute has been settled for-
ever and substantially in accordance with the
American contention.
In 1900 the first administration of McKinley
had played a great part in establishing the
Hague Tribunal for International Arbitration.
The prevailing opinion of Europe was incredu-
lous as to the practical utility of the provision,
and anticipated a paper tribunal unsought by
litigants. It was the example of the United
States which set at naught this opinion. The
first international case taken to the Hague
Tribunal was under our protocol with Mexico
of May 22, 1902, submitting our contention for
the rights of the Roman Catholic Church in
California to a share of the church moneys held
by the Mexican government before the cession,
and known as the Pious Fund; and the first
decision of the Tribunal was an award in our
favor upon that question.
When in 1903 the failure of Venezuela to
pay her just debts led England, Germany and
Italy to warlike measures for the collection of
their claims, an appeal by Venezuela to our
government resulted in agreements upon arbi-
tration in place of the war, and in a request
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that our president should act as arbitrator.
Again he promoted the authority and prestige
of the Hague Tribunal, and was able to lead all
the powers to submit the crucial questions in
controversy to the determination of that court.
It is due greatly to support by the American
government that this agency for peace has dis-
appointed the expectations of its detractors,
and by demonstrations of practical usefulness
has begun a career fraught with possibilities of
incalculable benefit to mankind.
On April 11, 1903, was proclaimed another
convention between all the great powers agree-
ing upon more humane rules for the conduct of
war, and these in substance incorporated and
gave the sanction of the civilized world to the
rules drafted by Francis Lieber and approved
by Abraham Lincoln for the conduct of the
armies of the United States in the field.
All Americans who desire safe and conserva-
tive administration which shall avoid cause of
quarrel, all who abhor war, all who long for the
perfect sway of the principles of that religion
which we all profess, should rejoice that under
this Republican administration their country
has attained a potent leadership among the
nations in the cause of peace and international
justice.
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The respect and moral power thus gained
have been exercised in the interests of human-
ity, where the rules of diplomatic intercourse
have made formal intervention impossible.
When the Roumanian outrages and when the
appalling massacre at Kishineff shocked civ-
ilization and filled thousands of our own people
with mourning, the protest of America was
heard through the voice of its government, with
full observance of diplomatic rules, but with
moral power and effect.
We have advanced the authority of the Mon-
roe Doctrine. Our adherence to the convention
which established the Hague Tribunal was ac-
cepted by the other powers, with a formal dec-
laration that nothing therein contained should
be construed to imply the relinquishment by
the United States of its traditional attitude to-
ward purely American questions. The armed
demonstration by the European powers against
Venezuela was made the occasion for disclaim-
ers to the United States of any intention to
seize the territory of Venezuela, recognizing
in the most unmistakable way the rights of the
United States expressed in the declaration of
that traditional policy.
In the meantime, mindful that moral powers
unsupported by physical strength do not al-
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ways avail against selfishness and aggression,
we have been augmenting the forces which
command respect.
We have brought our navy to a high state of
efficiency and have exercised both army and
navy in the methods of seacoast defence. The
joint army and navy board has been bringing
the two services together in good understanding
and the common study of the strategy, the
preparation and the co-operation which will
make them effective in time of need. Our
ships have been exercised in fleet and squadron
movements, have been improved in marksman-
ship and mobility, and have been constantly
tested by use. Since the last national conven-
tion met we have completed and added to our
navy five battleships, four cruisers, four mon-
itors, thirty-four torpedo destroyers and tor-
pedo boats, while we have put under construc-
tion thirteen battleships and thirteen cruisers.
Four years ago our army numbered over
100,000 men regulars and volunteers 75 per
cent, of them in the Philippines and China.
Under the operation of statutes limiting the
period of service, it was about to lapse back
into its old and insufficient number of 27,000,
and its old and insufficient organization under
the practical control of permanent staff depart-
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ments at Washington, with the same divisions
of counsel and lack of co-ordinating and direct-
ing power at the head that led to confusion and
scandal in the war with Spain. During the
past four years the lessons taught by that war
have received practical effect. The teachings
of Sherman and of Upton have been recalled
and respected. Congress has fixed a maximum
of the army at 100,000 and a minimum at 60,-
000, so that maintaining only the minimum in
peace, as we now do, when war threatens the
President may begin preparations by filling the
ranks to the maximum, without waiting until
after war has begun, as he had to wait in 1898.
Permanent staff appointments have been
changed to details from the line, with compul-
sory returns at fixed intervals to service with
troops, so that the requirements of the field
and the camp rather than the requirements of
the office desk shall control the departments of
administration and supply. A corps organi-
zation has been provided for our artillery, with
a chief of artillery at the head, so that there
may be intelligent use of our costly seacoast
defences. Under the act of February 14, 1903,
a General Staff has been established, organized
to suit American conditions and requirements
and adequate for the performance of the long
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neglected but all important duties of directing
military education and training, and applying
the most advanced principles of military science
to that necessary preparation for war which is
the surest safeguard of peace. The command
of the army now rests where it is placed by the
Constitution in the President. His power is
exercised through a military chief of staff,
pledged by the conditions and tenure of his
office to confidence and loyalty to his com-
mander. Thus civilian control of the military
arm, upon which we must always insist, is rec-
onciled with that military efficiency which can
be obtained only under the direction of the
trained military expert.
Four years ago we were living under an
obsolete militia law more than a century old,
which Washington and Jefferson and Madison,
and almost every President since their time,
had declared to be worthless. We presented
the curious spectacle of a people depending
upon a citizen soldiery for protection against
aggression, and making practically no provision
whatever for training its citizens in the use of
warlike weapons or in the elementary duties of
the soldier. The mandate of the Constitution
which required Congress to provide for orga-
nizing, arming and disciplining the militia, had
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been left unexecuted. In default of national
provisions, bodies of State troops, created for
local purposes and supported at local expense,
had grown up throughout the Union. Their
feelings toward the regular army were rather
of distrust and dislike than of comradeship.
Their arms, equipment, discipline, organiza-
tion and methods of obtaining and accounting
for supplies were varied and inconsistent.
They w r ere unsuited to become a part of any
homogeneous force, and their relations to the
army of the United States were undefined and
conjectural. By the Militia act of January
20, 1903, Congress performed its duty under
the Constitution. Leaving these bodies still
to perform their duties to the States, it made
them the organized militia of the United States.
It provided for their conformity in armament,
organization and discipline to the army of the
United States; it provided the ways in which,
either strictly as militia or as volunteers, they
should become an active part of the army when
called upon; it provided for their training, in-
struction and exercise conjointly with the reg-
ular army; it imposed upon the regular army
the duty of promoting their efficiency in many
ways. In recognition of the service to the
nation which these citizen soldiers would be
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competent to render, the nation assumed its
share of the burden of their armament, their
supply and their training. The workings of
this system have already demonstrated not only
that we can have citizens outside of the regular
army trained for duty in war, but that we can
have a body of volunteer officers ready for serv-
ice, between whom and the officers of the reg-
ular army have been created by intimate asso-
ciation and mutual helpfulness those relations
of confidence and esteem without which no
army can be effective.
The first administration of McKinley fought
and won the war with Spain, put down the in-
surrection in the Philippines, annexed Hawaii,
rescued the legations in Peking, brought Porto
Rico into our commercial system, enacted a pro-
tective tariff, and established our national cur-
rency on the firm foundations of the gold stand-
ard by the financial legislation of the LVIth
Congress.
The present administration has reduced tax-
ation, reduced the public debt, reduced the an-
nual interest charge, made effective progress
in the regulation of trusts, fostered business,
promoted agriculture, built up the navy, re-
organized the army, resurrected the militia sys-
tem, inaugurated a new policy for the preser-
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ration and reclamation of public lands, giren
civil government to the Philippines, established
the republic of Cuba, bound it to us by ties of
gratitude, of commercial interest and common
defence, swung open the closed gateway of the
isthmus, strengthened the Monroe Doctrine,
ended the Alaskan boundary dispute, protected
the integrity of China, opened wider its doors
of trade, advanced the principle of arbitration,
and promoted peace among the nations.
We challenge judgment upon this record of
effective performance in legislation, in execu-
tion and in administration.
The work is not fully done; policies are not
completely wrought out; domestic questions
still press continually for solution; other trusts
must be regulated; the tariff may presently
receive revision, and, if so, should receive it at
the hands of the friends and not the enemies
of the protective system; the new Philippine
government has only begun to develop its plans
for the benefit of that long neglected country ;
our flag floats on the isthmus, but the canal is
yet to be built; peace does not yet reign on
earth, and considerate firmness backed by
strength is still needful in diplomacy.
The American people have now to say
whether policies shall be reversed, or committed
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ELIHU ROOT
to unfriendly guardians ; whether performance,
which now proves itself for the benefit and
honor of our country, shall be transferred to
unknown and perchance to feeble hands.
No dividing line can be drawn athwart the
course of this successful administration. The
fatal 14th of September, 1901, marked no
change of policy, no lower level of achieve-
ment. The bullet of the assassin robbed us of
the friend we loved ; it took away from the peo-
ple the President of their choice; it deprived
civilization of a potent force making always
for righteousness and for humanity. But the
fabric of free institutions remained unshaken.
The government of the people went on. The
great party that William McKinley led
wrought still in the spirit of his example. His
true and loyal successor has been equal to the
burden cast upon him. Widely different in
temperament and methods, he has approved
himself of the same elemental virtues the
same fundamental beliefs. With faithful and
revering memory he has executed the purposes
and continued unbroken the policy of President
McKinley for the peace, prosperity and honor
of our beloved country. And he has met all
new occasions with strength and resolution and
far-sighted wisdom.
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As we gather in this convention our hearts
go back to the friend, the never to be forgotten
friend whom, when last we met, we acclaimed
with one accord as our universal choice to bear
a second time the highest honor in the nation's
gift ; and back still memory goes through many
a year of leadership and loyalty.
How wise and how skilful he was! How
modest and self-effacing! How deep his in-
sight into the human heart! How swift the
intuitions of his sympathy! How compelling
the charm of his gracious presence! He was
so unselfish, so thoughtful of the happiness
of others, so genuine a lover of his country and
his kind. And he was the kindest and tender-
est friend who ever grasped another's hand.
Alas! that his virtues did plead in vain against
cruel fate !
Yet we may rejoice that while he lived he
was crowned with honor; that the rancor of
party strife had ceased ; that success in his great
tasks, the restoration of peace, the approval of
his countrymen, the affection of his friends,
gave the last quiet months in his home at Can-
ton repose and contentment.
And with McKinley we remember Hanna
with affection and sorrow his great lieuten-
ant. They are together again.
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But we turn, as they would have us turn, to
the duties of the hour, the hopes of the future ;
we turn, as they would have us turn, to prepare
ourselves for struggle under the same standard
borne in other hands by right of true inherit-
ance. Honor, truth, courage, purity of life,
domestic virtue, love of country, loyalty to high
ideals all these, combined with active intelli-
gence, with learning, with experience in affairs,
with the conclusive proof of competency af-
forded by wise and conservative administra-
tion, by great things already done and great
results already achieved all these we bring to
the people with another candidate. Shall not
these have honor in our land? Truth, sincerity,
courage! These underlie the fabric of our in-
stitutions. Upon hypocrisy and sham, upon
cunning and false pretence, upon weakness and
cowardice, upon the arts of the demagogue and
the devices of the mere politician, no govern-
ment can stand. No system of popular gov-
ernment can endure in which the people do not
believe and trust. Our President has taken the
whole people into his confidence. Incapable of
deception, he has put aside concealment.
Frankly and without reserve, he has told them
what their government was doing, and the rea-
sons. It is no campaign of appearances upon
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which we enter, for the people know the good
and the bad, the success and failure, to be cred-
ited and charged to our account. It is no cam-
paign of sounding words and specious pre-
tences, for our President has told the people
with frankness what he believed and what he
intended. He has meant every word he said,
and the people have believed every word he
said, and with him this convention agrees, be-
cause every word has been sound Republican
doctrine. No people can maintain free gov-
ernment who do not in their hearts value the
qualities which have made the present President
of the United States conspicuous among the
men of his time as a type of noble manhood.
Come what may here, come what may in No-
vember, God grant that those qualities of brave,
true manhood shall have honor throughout
America, shall be held for an example in every
home, and that the youth of generations to
come may grow up to feel that it is better than
wealth, or office, or power to have the honesty,
the purity and the courage of Theodore
Roosevelt.
83
Address by Joseph G. Cannon, of Illinois,
Chairman of the Convention.
Gentlemen of the Convention : For the first
time in my life I have in black and white
enough sentences to contain twenty-five hun-
dred words to say to you. I have tried to mem-
orize it (laughter) , but I cannot. I have given
it out through the usual channels to the great
audience, and now I must either beg to be ex-
cused entirely or I must do like we do in the
House pf Representatives under the five-min-
ute rule, and make a few feeble remarks. But
that no man shall say I have not made a great
speech, I will set that matter at rest by saying
that from beginning to end I heartily endorse
every statement of fact and every sentiment
that was given you yesterday from the tem-
porary presiding officer in the greatest speech
ever delivered at a convention. (Applause.)
Now let me go on and ramble. ( Laughter. )
And, first, they say that there is no enthusiasm
in this convention. Gentlemen, the great river
that has its thirty feet of water, rising in the
mountains and growing in depth and breadth
down to the ocean, bears upon its bosom the
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JOSEPH G. CANNON
t.
commerce of that section of land that it drains,
and bears it out to the world. It is a silent
river, and yet the brawling river that is like to
the River Platte out in Nebraska. (That is
fourteen miles wide and four inches deep,
makes more noise than the bigger rivers.)
(Applause.) When we were young folks,
twenty years ago (laughter), we went to see
our best girls. We were awfully enthusiastic
if she would give us a nod of the head or the
trip away, catch-me-if-you-can (laughter), to
enter upon the chase ; that was awfully strenu-
ous and awfully enthusiastic. (Laughter.)
But, when she said "Yes," the good relations
were established, and we went on evenly
throughout the balance of our lives. (Laugh-
ter and applause. )
It is a contest that makes enthusiasm. In
1904, as in 1900, everybody has known for
twelve months past who is to be our standard-
bearer in this campaign. (Loud applause and
cheering.) We are here for business. (Laugh-
ter. ) I wonder if our friends the enemy would
not be glad of a little of our kind of enthusiasm.
(Prolonged laughter and applause.)
I might illustrate further; I don't know that
it is necessary. I see some of my former
86
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JOSEPH G. CANNON
friends before me my friend, Colonel Low-
den, and various others. (Applause.)
Now, there is not one of you that raises
chickens, as I do, but understands that
when the hen comes off the nest with one
chicken she does more scratching and makes
more noise than the motherly hen that is for-
tunate with twenty -three. (Laughter.) Our
friends, the enemy, will have the enthusiasm;
we will take the votes in November. (Ap-
plause.)
To be serious for a moment. The Republi-
can party is a government through party and
through organization oh, you find people
once in a while who do not want any parties.
As long as you have eighty millions of people
competent for self-government they will orga-
nize and will call the organization a party. The
Republican party, born of the declaration that
slavery is sectional and freedom national (ap-
plause), achieved its first success in 1860, with
Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.)
Secession, the war for the Union you older
men recollect it well. We have one of the sur-
vivors here. I was glad to see the convention
give him the courtesies of the convention. He
helped to make it possible that we could hold
this convention. (Applause.) Forty- f our years
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JOSEPH G. CANNON
ago just about now 1904, what a contrast! A
divided country, a bankrupt Treasury, no
credit. The Republican party got power, and
under its great leadership wrote revenue legis-
lation upon the statute books and went back to
the principles of Washington and Hamilton,
and legislation that would produce revenue,
while duties upon imports were so adjusted as
to encourage every American citizen to take
part in diversifying the industries and develop-
ing the resources of the country.
Will you bear with me for five minutes while
I make the comparison of then, upon the one
hand, with the conditions to-day?
In 1860 we had been substantially dom-
inated for many years by the free trade party,
insignificant in manufactures, great in agricul-
ture. Under our policy, which has been fol-
lowed, with the exception of four years, from
that time to this, the United States remains
first in agriculture, but, by leaps and bounds,
has diversified her industries, until to-day we
are the greatest manufacturing country on
God's footstool. One-third of all the world's
products that come from the factory are made
in the United States, by the operation and co-
operation of American capital and American
labor and skill.
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JOSEPH G. CANNON
Let me make one other statement.
Our product every year is greater than the
entire combined manufactured product of
Great Britain, of Germany and of France.
Where do we get the market for it? Ninety-
seven per cent, of this great product one-third
of the world's product finds a market among
ourselves in the United States. And yet, of
this product, last year we sold to foreign coun-
tries I am speaking now of the manufactured
product over $400,000,00029 per cent, of
our total exports, and our total exports made
and make us the greatest exporting nation on
earth. (Applause.)
Made? Made by labor? Yes, made by labor
that works less hours than any labor on earth.
Made by labor that, conservatively stated, re-
ceives $1.75 as against the average of the com-
petitive labor in the world of $1. (Applause.)
Oh, gentlemen, it is not a few rich men that
make markets; nay, nay. It is the multiplied
millions on the farm, in the mine, and in fac-
tory, that work to-day and consume to-morrow,
and, with steady employment and good wages,
give us, with eighty millions of people, a mar-
ket equal to the two hundred millions of con-
suming people anywhere else on earth. The
farmer buys the artisan's product. The artisan,
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JOSEPH G. CANNON
being employed, buys the farmer's product.
The wheels go round. You cannot strike one
great branch of labor in the Republic without
the blow reacting on all producers.
Well, are you satisfied with the comparison
from the manufacturing standpoint? If not,
let me give you another illustration that will
perhaps go home to the minds of men more
quickly than the illustration I have given.
Take the Post-office Department, that
reaches all of the people, and no man is com-
pelled to pay one penny. It is voluntary tax-
ation. For the fiscal year 1860-61, twelve
months, the total revenue of the Post-office
Department in all the United States was
eight and a half million dollars. Keep that in
your minds eight and a half million dollars.
How much do you suppose it cost to run the
department? Nineteen millions. It took all
the revenue and as much more and one-quarter
as much more from the Treasury to pay for
that postal service. Why, gentlemen, the city
post-office of Chicago last year collected more
revenues by almost one million of dollars than
was collected by the whole department in the
United States in 1860. (Applause.)
How is it now? We have reduced postage
over one-half since 1860, on the average. Last
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JOSEPH G. CANNON
year the postal revenues were $134,000,000, as
against $8,500,000 in 1860. Keep that in your
mind $134,000,000. And the whole service
cost only $138,000,000. We had a deficit of
$4,000,000 3 per cent. and we would not
have had that deficit had it not been that, under
the lead of the Republican party, looking out
for the welfare of all the people and conduct-
ing the government from a business stand-
point, under the lead of McKinley, followed by
Roosevelt, there was established rural free de-
livery that cost $10,000,000. (Applause. )
Great heavens ! The Republican party from
1860 until this moment moves on does what
good common sense dictates, and the country
grows to it. Well, now I will drop that de-
partment.
The Republican party is a national party,
and believes in diversification of our industries
and the protection of American capital and
American labor as against the cheaper labor
elsewhere on earth. ( Applause. )
What do the other people believe in? For
sixty years from our antagonists went out the
cry of free trade throughout the world, free
ships upon the seas. On other questions a tariff
for revenue Only. The free trade party has
always denounced the Republican policy of
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JOSEPH G. CANNON
protection as robbery, and, whenever clothed
with power, whatever its pretences, it has thrust
a dagger into the very heart of protection.
Oh, well, aren't they going to change? Let
us see. Just before the close of the last Con-
gress, New York's eloquent son, Bourke Cock-
ran, a member of the House of Representa-
tives, got the floor, and he preached an old-
fashioned Democratic sermon, free trade and
all that kind of thing, and he did it well, and
there came from the minority side of that
House, without exception, such cheering and
crying and hurrahing and applauding as I
never witnessed before in that House of Repre-
sentatives, because at last they had the pure
Democratic faith delivered to them.
They are trying to do what? Trying to
convince the people that they ought to come
into power under the lead of Gorman, of the
Senate, and Williams, of the House. They
have been trying to give the country Dovers
powders. (Laughter.)
"Oh," said the distinguished leader of the
minority in the House, Mr. Williams, follow-
ing the astute Senator Gorman, "if we come
into power, while protection is robbery, we will
say to you that we will journey in the direction
of free trade, but we will not destroy your in-
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JOSEPH G. CANNON
dustries overnight." Great God! Think of
it! They won't kill you outright, but they will
starve you to death day by day. (Laughter
and applause.) They want to be put on guard
to protect the people who are dwelling in peace
and prosperity under a Republican policy.
It reminds me of the fable of ^Esop. You
know he records in one of his fables that the
wolves said to the sheep, "Discharge the dogs"
who were their natural protectors "and em-
ploy us, and we will take care of you." (Laugh-
ter and applause.) Does the capital of this
country and the labor of this country want to
go under the care of wolf Gorman and wolf
Williams and their fellows ? I think not.
What a country this is ! And, Republicans,
we have got to outline the policy and lead the
people in caring for it. Why, we are like the
women we not only have to take care of our-
selves, but, more, as one of our women said,
we have to take care of the men. (Laughter
and applause.) The Republican party not
only has to care for itself, but has to care for
the minority by a wise policy. How it has been
doing it! We preserved the LTnion under the
policy and leadership of this party. Do yon
recollect that the opposition party, on a demand
for an armistice and negotiation and compro-
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JOSEPH G. CANNON
mise, nominated McClellan in 1864 and moved
heaven and earth to defeat Lincoln? Do you
recollect when the constitutional amendments
were submitted they said nay, nay, and when,
after they were adopted, the Democrats came
into power temporarily in Indiana and Ohio,
they passed acts taking back the assent of the
States. When the first battle was fought
against greenback or fiat money, back in the
70 's, out in the Middle West, whatever they
were on the Atlantic Coast, they were fiatists
in the West. From step to step through all
these forty- four years, where, if you measure
time by advance, we have lived two centuries
as compared with any other period of the
world's history, they have pulled back, pulled
back, and when we accomplish and it is neces-
sary to march forward and try to accomplish
again they move into our old quarters and
squat down there and make faces and say,
"You are going to send the country to hell."
(Loud cheering and applause.)
But we do not mind it. We move on ( Ap-
plause. ) Why, gentlemen, why multiply words
about ancient or recent conditions? Take the
country under the administration of Grover
Cleveland, and compare it with the country
under the administration of Wdlliam McKinley
94
JOSEPH G. CANNON
and under Theodore Roosevelt. (Applause.) If
a man will dwell on comparison for a moment,
and make a fair comparison, if he would not in-
dorse the policies of the Republican party he
would not believe one though he were raised
from the dead. (Laughter.) McKinley!
Roosevelt! The Dingley act, that restored us
economic prosperity! The gold standard act,
that settled for all time the matter of sound
currency! The short, triumphant war with
Spain ! The Philippines and Porto Rico com-
ing under our flag, and freedom to Cuba, is a
record that will stand in the future second only
to the record made by George Washington and
Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.)
Imported anarchy struck down our great
President when partisan strife had almost
ceased. The world paused in wonder and in
indignation, not in fear, because, as life went
from our great leader and our great President,
there was a young, active, honest, courageous
man standing by the bedside, who, under the
Constitution, was his successor, and he there
said: "I am to be President, to carry out the
policies of the Republican party, and I will
journey in the footsteps of William McKinley
and of Abraham Lincoln." (Applause.)
To your coming President great things have
95
JOSEPH G. CANNON
happened in the last three years. In the Old
World a single great policy in a generation is
the exception. We have more than that in our
progressive country. I have given you the
great achievements under McKinley. Under
his worthy great successor we have had the con-
summation of freedom to Cuba wrought out by
superior statesmanship. Imperialism, talked
about under McKinley, has disappeared with
growing civil government and peace in the
Philippines. Aye, it has disappeared from the
face of the earth. Did I say from the face of
the earth? I will stick to it, because the doc-
trinaire here and the doctrinaire there, whether
in New York or in Boston, draws his toga
about him, saying: "I am wiser than thou,"
and still, after this great question is settled by
the conscience and the intelligence of all the
people, cries "Wolf! wolf!" Well, under the
Constitution of the United States he has a
right to. ( Laughter. )
Let them ask what is going to become of the
Philippines ! At last we have peace, at last we
have growing civil government there, and, as
our eighty millions in this twentieth century
shall increase to two hundred and fifty millions,
as we shall go on with production and com-
merce, in the fulness of time, that territory will
96
JOSEPH G. CANNON
be useful to the United States, whereas, in the
meantime, we will be like a benediction to them.
(Applause.)
The United States is great in production and
wealth. How great in wealth? In 1850 $300
in round numbers was the per capita wealth.
In 1900, $1,235 was the per capita wealth. In
1860 the wealth was measured by $16,000,000,-
000; in 1900, $94,000,000,000; now $100,000,-
000,000. Great Britain has an aggregate
wealth of only $60,000,000,000, and she has
been living and gathering it for the last five
hundred years; yet in a generation we sprang
from $16,000,000,000 to $100,000,000,000.
The world's wealth is $400,000,000,000. The
United States has one-fourth of it.
But our friends the enemy, some of them
little politicians, vex the air, crying, "Trusts,
trusts, trusts I" Oh, they come out strong with
good lungs as trust busters. Since 1890 have
they ever done any busting ? ( Laughter. ) Oh,
no. There is no Jericho now, and, if there was,
it would never happen again that people would
march about the walls blowing rams' horns
seven times until the walls fell down. That is
what the Democrats are trying to do.
"Trusts?" Yes. Great combinations of
capital against public policy? Yes. But the
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JOSEPH G. CANNON
Republican party, always true to the people
and its traditions, made haste to provide under
the Constitution legislation that would prohibit
these combinations.
The "do something" party. It slept under
Cleveland. McKinley had the war with Spain
and the restoration of prosperity, but that
young, enthusiastic, true man took an oath to
see to it that the laws were executed, and has
executed them, and in his opinion trusts are un-
lawful and should be dissolved. That is the
difference between the Democrats and Roose-
velt. One bursts by wind, the other bursts by
law. (Laughter and applause.)
There is no country on earth that has so
much wealth as ours. Why, interest rates are
cheapening and cheapening until to-day the
credit of the United States commands money at
a premium at 2 per cent., which is 1 per cent,
lower than any nation on earth can command it.
Combinations? Yes. But all the while our
own people desiring favorable investments
month by month and year by year found
additional industries. Take the census of
1900. The figures are correctly tabulated
and made according to the facts, and the
census of 1900 shows that from the establish-
ments of the so-called trusts in the United States
98
JOSEPH G. CANNON
only 14 per cent, of the factory product came,
whereas 86 per cent, of the factory product
came from their competitors, individuals and
small ownerships.
And it is bound to be that way, if you will
stop and think. There are eighty millions of
our people. If some man conceives the idea
that when he dies wisdom will have departed,
and that he can corner the air and the water and
the sunlight, he will find eighty millions of peo-
ple who make our civilization that will not only
make a law and put it into force, but, by com-
petition and enterprise, will swear that the ad-
mitted declaration of the enemy is a false-
hood. Can you prove it? Yes. Just a min-
ute. In the last two years the wind and the
water that came from overcapitalization in
forming the so-called trusts have been squeezed
out, and there are people who make "mouth
bets" about the price of watered companies and
companies that have gas on top of the water,
made by the printing press certificates. Oh,
they stand around and say:
"Why, there is the most extraordinary
shrinkage in values that was ever known."
"How much?"
"Oh, a good many hundreds of millions.
'The Wall Street Journal* says over a billion
99
JOSEPH G. CANNON
six hundred million." (Laughter and ap-
plause. )
And yet every dollar of property, every par-
ticle of property that was represented by this
overcapitalization two years ago is yet with us.
(Laughter and applause.) Now, all the fools
that bet it to go down and the fools that bet it
to go up can fight it out. It don't make one
particle of difference to the eighty millions of
people who live in the sweat of their faces and
do a legitimate business. (Applause.)
Oh, gentlemen, the law, public opinion, pub-
lic sentiment, the desire for good investments,
dollar for dollar in the factory, where a dollar
costs one hundred cents, goes into competition
against the factory that cost one hundred cents
and is burdened with another hundred cents
water and another hundred cents gas and an-
other hundred cents moonshine. Work it out.
It is all right. ( Laughter and applause. )
Oh, but, says our enemy, "My goodness, look
at the strikes you are having in this country."
That is their strong suit, strikes, strikes.
(Laughter and applause.)
Now, what is a strike ? The strike is an effort
by the employer and the employee to agree how
the profit should be divided. If the employee
doesn't get as much as he thinks he ought to
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JOSEPH G. CANNON
get, after arbitration has been tried, he strikes.
A quarrel about something the division of
something. Well, then, it is absolutely neces-
sary to have a strike that there should be a
profit. Great God! How many strikes were
there under Cleveland and when the Democrats
had the running of things? (Laughter and
applause.) When money became scarce the
profits were scarce. There is the whole story.
Oh, but outrageous things are done by the
employer when he oppresses the laborer, and
outrageous things are done by some laborers
when they go on a strike. Yes, outrageous
things are done in some of our best governed
churches and among those who do not belong
to any church. Once in a while a citizen com-
mits larceny. Once in a while a man commits
arson. Once in a while a man is guilty of homi-
cide. Why, the law is made to protect society
against the man who will not obey the law and
who makes war on his neighbors. Yes, there is
lawbreaking and disorder. Lawbreaking in
the formation of trusts; lawbreaking at times
in the organization of labor when it goes on
strike. But the great body of the American
people that own the wealth are not the trusts,
and the great body of labor, honest men who
live by the sweat of their faces, are not for
101
I
JOSEPH G. CANNON
lawbreaking in the strikes. (Applause.) The
law, the sheet-anchor of civilization, is strong
enough to pull down the strongest, strong
enough to curb the wicked and the vicious;
strong enough, like the grace of God, to throw
its arms about the weak and the poorest and
bring him under its protection. (Applause. )
All must obey under Theodore Roosevelt as
the national representative of the law. (Ap-
plause. ) He is and will continue to be without
favor or affection the representative of law,
supreme and universal in our borders.
A few words more and I will conclude. Our
government is of the people. It is divided into
co-ordinate branches the judges of the United
States courts, who hold office for life or during
good behavior; the Executive; the Congress,
which consists of two co-ordinate branches, the
House and the Senate great legislative bodies
-they could not be otherwise, born as they are
of 80,000,000 of people who are competent for
self-government. (Applause.) In the Senate
the tenure is for six years. The great popular
body, near to the people, that reflects the senti-
ment of the people, is chosen every two years.
Now, then, you know under our form of gov-
ernment the party in power is held responsible.
The function of the minority is to put it on
102
JOSEPH G. CANNON
good behavior by being ever ready to appeal to
the people. Let me tell you something. If
our government has a fault, it is when, after
an election, one party is placed in power on only
one leg. It may have the Senate. It may
have the Presidency. It may have the House.
It goes along on crutches. Yet you want to
hold it responsible. If I had the power I
would so change our Constitution that at every
quadriennial election the party that received
the popular approval should go fully into
power, and let the public have a government ac-
cording to the sentiment expressed at the ballot
box. (Applause.) But we have not got it ar-
ranged quite that way.
What is the next best thing ? You like Theo-
dore Roosevelt? Yes. Stronger than his
party, he will be triumphantly elected.
Do you like the Senate of the United States?
Yes. Its condition cannot be changed in No-
vember. It could be changed at the end of
four years, electing a third every two years.
You like the House of Representatives, 386
strong, coming with warrants of attorney from
the people to cast their votes for them in legis-
lation. You are shortsighted if you refuse a
working majority in the House of Represen-
103
JOSEPH G. CANNON
tatives, in harmony with the policy of the Re-
publican party.
I am done; I have already detained you
longer than I expected. In conclusion, let me
again say that we are proud of the present, we
are courageous and hopeful of the future. The
twentieth century is to bring more of good or
evil to the human race than the nineteenth cen-
tury brought. Under what party banner will
you enlist? Under that of the reactionist?
Under that of the people who sit still or tear
down? Or will you take service with the party
of Lincoln and Grant and Garfield and Harri-
son and McKinley and Roosevelt (cheers and
applause) and help us march on to victory?
Speaking to the living in the presence of the
dead, we have tears for them and admiration
for the great things that they accomplished,
but the glory of our race, of our civilization, is
that each generation works out its own salva-
tion and marches forward to success and the
betterment of the condition of mankind, and,
as they drop into the grave, their successors
move on to the stage of action, holding fast all
that the past has given and going in turn
a generation's march further on for the benefit
of the race and of civilization. (Prolonged
applause.)
104
Address by Ex-Governor Frank S. Black, of
New York,, placing Theodore Roosevelt in
nomination.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Con-
vention : We are here to inaugurate a campaign
which seems already to be nearly closed. So
wisly have the people sowed and watched and
tended, there seems little now to do but to mea-
sure up the grain. They are ranging them-
selves not for battle, but for harvest. In one
column reaching from the Maine woods to the
Puget Sound are those people and those States
which have stood so long together that when
great emergencies arise the nation turns in-
stinctively to them. In this column, vast and
solid, is a majority so overwhelming that the
scattered squads in opposition can hardly raise
another army. The enemy has neither guns
nor ammunition, and if they had they would use
them on each other. Destitute of the weapons
of effective warfare, the only evidence of ap-
proaching battle is in the tone and number of
their bulletins. There is discord among the
generals; discord among the soldiers. Each
would fight in his own way, but before assault-
105
FRANK S. BLACK
ing his Republican adversaries he would first
destroy his own comrades in the adjoining tents.
Each believes the weapons chosen by the other
are not only wicked, but dangerous to the
holder. That is true. This is the only war of
modern times where the boomerang has been
substituted for the gun. Whatever fatalities
may occur, however, among the discordant hosts
now moving on St. Louis, no harm will come
this fall to the American people. There will be
no opposition sufficient to raise a conflict.
There will be hardly enough for practice.
There are no Democratic plans for the conduct
of the fall campaign. Their zeal is chiefly cen-
tered in discussion as to what Thomas Jeffer-
son would do if he were living. He is not liv-
ing, and but few of his descendants are among
the Democratic remnants of to-day. What-
ever of patriotism or wisdom emanated from
that distinguished man is now represented in
this convention.
It is a sad day for any party when its only
means of solving living issues is by guessing at
the possible attitude of a statesman who is dead.
This condition leaves that party always a be-
ginner and makes every question new. The
Democratic party has seldom tried a problem
on its own account, and when it has its blunders
106
FRANK S. BLACK
have been its only monuments; its courage is
remembered in regret. As long as these
things are recalled that party may serve as bal-
last, but it will never steer the ship.
When all the people have forgotten will
dawn a golden era for this new Democracy.
But the country is not ready yet to place a
party in the lead whose most expressive motto
is the cheerless word "forget." That motto may
express contrition, but it does not inspire hope.
Neither confidence nor enthusiasm will ever be
aroused by any party which enters each cam-
paign uttering the language of the mourner.
There is one fundamental plank, however, on
which the two great parties are in full agree-
ment. Both believe in the equality of men. The
difference is that the Democratic party would
make every man as low as the poorest, while
the Republican party would make every man as
high as the best. But the Democratic course
will provoke no outside interference now, for
the Republican motto is that of the great com-
mander, "never interrupt the enemy while he is
making a mistake."
In politics as in other fields, the most im-
pressive arguments spring from contrast.
Never has there been a more striking example
of unity than is now afforded by this assem-
107
FRANK S. BLACK
blage. You are gathered here not as factions
torn by discordant views, but moved by one de-
sire and intent; you have come as the chosen
representatives of the most enlightened party
in the world. You meet not as strangers, for
no men are strangers who hold the same beliefs
and espouse the same cause. You may separ-
ate two bodies of water for a thousand years,
but when once the barrier is removed they
mingle instantly and are one. The same tra-
ditions inspire and the same purposes actuate
us all. Never in our lives did these purposes
stand with deeper root than now. At least two
generations have passed away since the origin
of that great movement from which sprang the
spirit which has been the leading impulse in
American politics for half a century. In that
movement, which was both a creation and an
example, were those great characters which en-
dowed the Republican party at its birth with
the attributes of justice, equality and progress,
which have held it to this hour in line with the
highest sentiments of mankind. From these
men we have inherited the desire, and to their
memory we owe the resolution, that those great
schemes of government and humanity, inspired
by their patriotism, and established by their
blood, shall remain as the fixed and permanent
108
FRANK s. BLACK
emblem of their labors, and the abiding signal
of the liberty and progress of the race.
There are many new names in these days,
but the Republican party needs no new title. It
stands now where it stood at the beginning.
Memory alone is needed to tell the source from
which the inspirations of the country flow. A
drowsy memory would be as guilty now as a
sleeping watchman when the enemy is astir.
The name of the Republican party stands over
every door where a righteous cause was born.
Its members have gathered around every move-
ment, no matter how weak, if inspired by high
resolve. Its flag for more than fifty years has
been the sign of hope on every spot where lib-
erty was the word. That party needs no new
name or platform to designate its purposes. It
is now as it has been, equipped, militant and in
motion. The problems of every age that age
must solve. Great causes impose great de-
mands, but never in any enterprise have the
American people failed, and never in any crisis
has the Republican party failed to express the
conscience and intelligence of that people.
The public mind is awake both to its oppor-
tunities and its dangers. Nowhere in the world,
in any era, did citizenship mean more than it
means to-day in America. Men of courage and
109
FRANK S. BLACK
sturdy character are ranging themselves to-
gether with a unanimity seldom seen. There is
no excuse for groping in the dark, for the light
is plain to him who will but raise his eyes. The
American people believe in a man or a party
that has convictions and knows why. They be-
lieve that what experience has proved it is idle
to resist. A wise man is any fool about to die.
But there is a wisdom which, with good fortune,
may guide the living and the strong. That wis-
dom springs from reason, observation and ex-
perience. Guided by these this thing is plain,
and young men may rely upon it, that the his-
tory and purposes I have described, rising even
to the essence and aspirations of patriotism,
find their best concrete example in the career
and doctrines of the Republican party.
But not alone upon the principles of that
party are its members in accord. With the same
devotion which has marked their adherence to
those principles, magnificent and enduring as
they are, they have already singled out the man
to bear their standard and to lead the way. No
higher badge was ever yet conferred. But,
great as the honor is, the circumstances which
surround it make that honor even more pro-
found. You have come from every State and
Territory in this vast domain. The country
110
FRANK S. BLACK
and the town have vied with each other in send-
ing here their contributions to this splendid
throng. Every highway in the land is leading
here and crowded with the members of that
great party which sees in this splendid city the
symbol of its rise and power. Within this un-
exampled multitude is every rank and condition
of free men, every creed and occupation. But
to-day a common purpose and desire have en-
gaged us all, and from every nook and corner
of the country rises but a single choice to fill the
most exalted office in the world.
He is no stranger waiting in the shade, to be
called suddenly into public light. The Ameri-
can people have seen him for many years, and
always where the fight was thickest and the
greatest need was felt. He has been alike con-
spicuous in the pursuits of peace and in the
arduous stress of war. No man now living will
forget the spring of '98, when the American
mind was so inflamed and American patriotism
so aroused; when among all the eager citizens
surging to the front as soldiers, the man whom
this convention has already in its heart was
among the first to hear the call and answer to
his name. Preferring peace, but not afraid of
war; faithful to every private obligation, yet
first to volunteer at the sign of national peril ; a
in
FRANK S. BLACK
leader in civil life, and yet so quick to compre-
hend the arts of war that he grew almost in a
day to meet the high exactions of command.
There is nothing which so tests a man as great
and unexpected danger. He may pass his life
amid ordinary scenes, and what he is or does
but few will ever know. But when the crash
comes or the flames break out, a moment's time
will single out the hero in the crowd. A flash
of lightning in the night will reveal what years
of daylight have not discovered to the eye.
And so the flash of the Spanish War revealed
that lofty courage and devotion which the
American heart so loves, and which you have
met again to decorate and recognize. His
qualities do not need to be retold, for no man
in that exalted place since Lincoln has been
better known in every household in the land.
He is not conservative, if conservatism means
waiting till it is too late. He is not wise, if
wisdom is to count a thing a hundred times
when once will do. There is no regret so keen
in man or country as that which follows an
opportunity unembraced. Fortune soars with
high and rapid wing, and whoever brings it
down must shoot with accuracy and speed.
Only the man with steady eye and nerve, and
the courage to pull the trigger, brings the larg-
112
FRANK S. BLACK
est opportunities to the ground. He does not
always listen while all the sages speak, but
every day at nightfall beholds some record
which, if not complete, has been at least pur-
sued with conscience and intrepid resolution.
He is no slender flower swaying in the wind,
but that heroic fibre which is best nurtured by
the mountains and the snow. He spends little
time in review, for that, he knows, can be done
by the schools. A statesman grappling with
the living problems of the hour, he gropes but
little in the past. He believes in going ahead.
He believes that in shaping the destinies of
this great Republic hope is a higher impulse
than regret. He believes that preparation for
future triumphs is a more important duty than
an inventory of past mistakes. A profound
student of history, he is to-day the greatest his-
tory-maker in the world. With the instincts of
the scholar, he is yet forced from the scholar's
pursuits by those superb qualities which fit him
to the last degree for those great world cur-
rents now rushing past with larger volume
and more portentous aspect than for many
years before. The fate of nations is still de-
cided by their wars. You may talk of orderly
tribunals and learned referees ; you may sing in
your schools the gentle praises of the quiet life;
us
FRANK S. BLACK
you may strike from your books the last note
of every martial anthem, and yet out in the
smoke and thunder will always be the tramp
of horses and the silent, rigid, upturned face.
Men may prophesy and women pray, but peace
will come here to abide forever on this earth
only when the dreams of childhood are the
accepted charts to guide the destinies of men.
Events are numberless and mighty, and no man
can tell which wire runs around the world. The
nation basking to-day in the quiet of content-
ment and repose may still be on the deadly cir-
cuit and to-morrow writhing in the toils of war.
This is the time when great figures must be
kept in front. If the pressure is great, the
material to resist it must be granite and iron.
Whether we wish it or not, America is abroad
in this world. Her interests are in every street,
her name is on every tongue. Those interests,
so sacred and stupendous, should be trusted
only to the care of those whose power, skill and
courage have been tested and approved. And
in the man whom you will choose the highest
sense of every nation in the world beholds a
man who typifies as no other living American
does, the spirit and the purposes of the twen-
tieth century. He does not claim to be the
Solomon of his time. There are many things
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FRANK S. BLACK
he may not know, but this is sure, that above
all things else he stands for progress, courage
and fair play, which are the synonyms of the
American name.
There are times when great fitness is hardly
less than destiny, when the elements so come
together that they select the agent they will
use. Events sometimes select the strongest
man, as lightning goes down the highest rod.
And so it is with those events which for many
months with unerring sight have led you to a
single name which I am chosen only to pro-
nounce : Gentlemen, I nominate for President
of the United States the highest living type of
the youth, the vigor and the promise of a great
country and a great age, Theodore Roosevelt,
of New York.
Address by Senator Albert J. Beveridge, of
Indiana, seconding the nomination of Presi-
dent Roosevelt.
Gentlemen of the Convention: One differ-
ence between the opposition and ourselves is
this: They select their candidate for the peo-
ple, and the people select our candidate for us.
(Applause.) This was true four years ago,
when we accepted the people's judgment and
named William McKinley (cheers), whose
perfect mingling of mind and heart, of wis-
dom and of tenderness, won the trust and love
of the nation then and makes almost holy
his memory now. (Applause.) His power
was in the people's favor, his shrine is in the
people's hearts. It is true to-day when we
again accept the people's judgment and name
Theodore Roosevelt (great cheering), whose
sympathies are as wide as the Republic, whose
courage, honesty and vision meet all emergen-
cies, and the sum of whose qualities make him
the type of twentieth century Americanism.
(Cheers.) And the twentieth century Ameri-
can is nothing more than the man of '76 facing
a new day with the old faith. (Great applause.)
117
ALBERT ,T. BEVERIDGE
Theodore Roosevelt, like William McKin-
ley, is the nominee of the American fireside.
(Applause.) So were Washington and Jef-
ferson in the early time ; so was Andrew Jack-
son when he said, "The Union: It must be
preserved"; so was Abraham Lincoln (cheers)
when, the Republic saved, he bade us "bind up
the nation's wounds"; and Grant when, from
victory's very summit, his lofty words, "Let
us have peace," voiced the spirit of the
hour and the people's prayer. (Applause.)
When nominated by parties, each of these
great Presidents was, at the periods named, al-
ready chosen by the public judgment. And
so to-day, the Republican party, whose strength
is in obedience to the will of the American peo-
ple, merely executes again the decree which
comes to it from the American home in naming
Theodore Roosevelt as our candidate. (Cheer-
ing.)
The people's thought is his thought; Ameri-
can ideals, his ideals. This is his only chart of
statesmanship and no other is safe. ( Cheers. )
For the truest guide an American President
can have is the collective intelligence and
massed morality of the American people. And
this ancient rule of the fathers is the rule of
our leaders now. (Applause.)
118
ALBERT J. BEVEEIDGE
Theodore Roosevelt is a leader who leads
(cheers), because he carries out the settled
purposes of the people. (Applause.) Our
President's plans, when achieved, are always
found to be merely the nation's will accom-
plished. (Applause.) And that is why the
people will elect him. They will elect him
because they know that if he is President we
will get to work and keep at work on the canal.
(Great applause.) After decades of delay
when the people want a thing done they want
it done. (Applause.) They know that while
he is President the flag will "stay put" (cheer-
ing), and no American advantage in the Pa-
cific or the world be surrendered. (Cheers.)
Americans never retreat. (Continued cheer-
ing.)
While he is President no wrongdoer in the
service of the government will go unwhipped
of justice. (Applause.) Americans demand
honesty and honor, vigilant and fearless. (Ap-
plause.) While he is President readjustment
of tariff schedules will be made only in har-
mony with the principles of protection. (Ap-
plause.) Americans have memories. While
he is President peace with every nation will be
preserved at any cost, excepting only the sac-
rifice of American rights, and the vigor with
119
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
which he maintained these will be itself a
guarantee of peace. (Applause.) The Amer-
ican people will elect him because, in a word,
they know that he does things the people
want done; does things, not merely discusses
them does things only after discussing them
but does things, and does only those things
the people would have him do. (Applause.)
This is characteristically American, for wher-
ever he is the American is he who achieves.
(Applause.)
On every question all men know where he
stands. Americans, frank themselves, demand
frankness in their servants. No mystery was
ever elected President of the United States, or
ever will be. ( Great cheering, renewed. ) Un-
certainty is the death of business. The people
can always get along if they know where they
are and whither they are going. ( Cheers. )
His past is his proof. Every great measure
of his administration was so wise that, enthusi-
astically sustained by his own party, it won
votes even from the opposition. (Applause.)
Do you name Cuban reciprocity? The opposi-
tion resisted, and then opposition votes helped
to ratify it. (Applause.) Do you name cor-
porate legislation? The opposition resisted,
and then opposition votes helped to enact
120
ALBERT J. BEVEBJDGE
it. (Applause.) Do you name the canal
that largest work of centuries, the eternal wed-
ding of oceans, shrinking the circumference of
the globe, making distant peoples neighbors,
advancing forever civilization all around the
world? This historic undertaking in the in-
terest of all the race, planned by American
statesmanship, to be wrought by American
hands (applause), to stand through the ages
protected by the American flag; this vast
achievement which will endure when our day
shall have become ancient, and which alone is
enough to make the name of Theodore Roose-
velt illustrious through all time (great ap-
plause) this fulfillment of the Republic's
dream accomplished by Republican effort,
finally received votes even from an opposition
that tried to thwart it. ( Cheers. )
Of what measure of Theodore Roosevelt's
administration does the opposition dare even
to propose the repeal? And when has the rec-
ord of any President won greater approval?
And so the people trust him as a statesman.
Better than that, they love him as a man.
(Contined applause.) He wins admiration in
vain who wins not affection also. (Applause.)
In the American home that temple of
happiness and virtue, where dwell the wives and
121
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
mothers of the Republic, cherishing the beauti-
ful in life and guarding the morality of the
nation in the American home the name of
Theodore Roosevelt is not only honored, but
beloved. (Cheers.) And that is a greater tri-
umph than the victory of battlefields, greater
credit than successful statesmanship, greater
honor than the Presidency itself would be with-
out it. (Applause.) Life holds no reward so
noble as the confidence and love of the Ameri-
can people. (Applause.)
The American people! The mightiest force
for good the ages have evolved! (Applause.)
They began as children of liberty. They be-
lieved in God and His providence. They took
truth and justice and tolerance as their eternal
ideals and marched fearlessly forward. Wilder-
nesses stretched before them they subdued
them. Mountains rose they crossed them.
Deserts obstructed they passed them. Their
faith failed them not, and a continent was
theirs. From ocean to ocean cities rose, fields
blossomed, railroads ran; but everywhere
church and school were permanent proof that
the principles of their origin were the life of
their maturity. (Applause.)
American methods changed, but American
character remained the same. They outlived
122
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
the stage-coach but not the Bible. (Ap-
plause. ) They advanced, but forgot not their
fathers. They delved in earth, but remem-
bered the higher things. They made highways
of the oceans, but distance and climate altered
not their Americanism. (Applause.) They
began as children of liberty, and children of
liberty they remain. They began as servants
of the Father of Light, and His servants they
remain. And so into their hands is daily given
more of power and opportunity that they may
work even larger righteousness in the world
and scatter over ever-widening fields the
blessed seeds of human happiness. (Ap-
plause.)
Wonderful beyond prophecy's forecast their
progress ; noble beyond the vision of desire their
future. In 1801, Jefferson said: "The United
States (then) had room enough for our de-
scendants to the thousandth and thousandth
generation." Three generations behold the
oceans our boundaries. (Applause.) Wash-
ington never, never dreamed of railways. To-
day electricity and steam make Maine and
California household neighbors. (Applause.)
This advance, which no seer could have fore-
told, we made because we are Americans (ap-
plause) because a free people with unfet-
123
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
tered minds and unquestioning belief joy-
fully faced the universe of human possibilities.
These possibilities are not exhausted. We have
hardly passed their boundaries. The American
people are not exhausted; we have only tested
our strength. (Continued applause.) God's
work for us in the world is not finished; His
future missions for the American people will
be grander than any He has given us, nobler
than we now can comprehend. ( Cheers. ) And
these tasks as they come we will accept and ac-
complish as our fathers accomplished theirs.
(Applause.) And when our generation shall
have passed and our children shall catch from
our aging hands the standard we have borne, it
will still be the old flag of Yorktown and Appo-
matox and Manila Bay (great cheering) ; the
music to which they in their turn will then
move onward will still be the strains that
cheered the dying Warren on Bunker Hill and
inspired the men who answered Lincoln's call
(continued cheering) ; and the ideals that will
be in them triumphant as they are in us will still
be the old ideals that have made the American
people great and honored among the nations
of the earth. (Cheers.)
This is the Republican idea of the American
people ; this the thought we have when we nom-
124
ALBERT J. BEVEBIDGE
inate to-day our candidate for the nation's
chief; this the quality of Americanism a Re-
publican standard-bearer must have. ( Cheers. )
And this is just the Americanism of Theodore
Roosevelt. (Great applause and cries of
"Roosevelt.") Full of the old-time faith in
the Republic and its destiny; charged with the
energy of the Republic's full manhood; cher-
ishing the ordinances of the Republic's fathers
and having in his heart the fear of God; in-
spired by the sure knowledge that the Repub-
lic's splendid day is only in its dawn, Theodore
Roosevelt will lead the American people in
paths of safety to still greater welfare for
themselves, still broader betterment of the race
and to the added honor of the American name.
Therefore, Indiana seconds the nomination of
Theodore Roosevelt. (Demonstration.)
125
Address of George A. Knight, of California,
seconding the nomination of President
Roosevelt.
Gentlemen of the Convention: Geography
has hut little to do with the sentiment and en-
thusiasm that is to-day apparent in favor of the
one who is to be given all the honors and duties
of an elected President of the United States of
America. However, the Pacific Slope and the
islands (those ocean buoys of commerce moored
in the drowsy tropical sea) send to this conven-
tion words of confident greeting, with discreet
assurance that your judgment will be indorsed
by the American voter and our country con-
tinue its wonderful progress under Republican
rule.
The time is ripe for brightening up Ameri-
canism, to teach with renewed vigor the prin-
ciples of individual liberty for which the Min-
ute Men of the Revolution fought the Lin-
coln liberty, an individual liberty for the man,
not a black alone, any men, all men. The right
to labor in the air of freedom unmolested, and
be paid for his individual toil and with it build
his cottage home. From the press, the pulpit,
127
GEORGE A. KNIGHT
the schoolhouse, the platform and the street let
the true history of our country be known, that
the young men and women of America, and
many old ones, may know wiiat a price has been
paid for the liberty, peace and union they enjoy
through the devoted patriotism of our silent he-
roes of the past. Deprivation and sacrifice were
endured for many years before the old bell in
the State House was given the voice to speak
the glorious sentiment of the age and proclaim
Liberty throughout all the land, and they were
made the instruments by which the principles
productive of our national grandeur were set as
jewels in our Republic's coronet. What we
prayed for, fought for, bled for and died for
we want cared for. Telegraph the world that
the Republican party was the first organization
that beckoned the laboring man to his feet and
made him know the quality and equality of his
true self. It showed him the possibilities of
honest poverty, and has withheld nothing from
his worthy ambition. It took a rail-splitter from
the ground floor of a log cabin and set him with
the stars.
Protection to American labor and our nat-
ural resources, climate, soil, agricultural and
mineral wealth, navigable rivers and safe har-
bors, wise laws and clean public men, have made
128
GEORGE A. KNIGHT
us the greatest nation on earth to-day. In ter-
ritory we have outgrown the continent; we are
peopling the isles of the sea.
Thus said the Lord, a great eagle with great
wings, long winged and full of feathers, which
had divers color, came unto Lebanon and took
the highest branch of the cedar. He cropped
off the top of its young twigs and carried it into
a land of traffic ; he set it in a city of merchants ;
he took also of the seed of the land and planted
it in a fruitful field; he placed it across great
waters and set it as a willow tree.
How like unto our emblem of freedom! He
has cropped off the young twigs of OUR "Cedar
of Liberty" and carried them across the ocean
to the land of traffic and set them in the city of
merchants. The seed of our land is there
among fruitful fields beside great waters and
set as a willow tree.
Our country is big and broad and grand ; we
want a President typical of the country, one
who will preserve her history, enforce her law,
teach Americanism and fight the wrong. Theo-
dore Roosevelt, thou art the man. Well may
he be proud ; he is young, the pride of life is his
and time is on his side; he loves the whole coun-
try and knows no favorite section; he has per-
formed his sacred promise; he has kept the faith
129
GEORGE A. KNIGHT
with McKinley's memory, and now faces re-
sponsibilities his own. He hypnotizes obstacles,
looks them in the eye and overpowers with self-
conscious honesty of purpose.
Dishonesty, cowardice and duplicity are
never impulsive; Roosevelt is impulsive, so be it
he is different. From a Democratic point of
view, he is a weird magician of politics. They
charged him with disrupting a government on
the isthmus, creating a republic and unlawfully
conniving at a canal. They awoke one fine
morning to find the Republic of Panama an
entity, its existence recognized by foreign na-
tions and Congress paying out millions of dol-
lars to ratify his strategic promptness. He
wanted to give Uncle Sam a job, and he did it,
and Uncle Sam wanted the job and he took it.
He belongs to the Union. We see him stand-
ing to-day with his foot upon the spade, his
garments are made of his flag, his inventive
Yankee whiskers are bushed, there is an Ameri-
can smile on his face and his heart is gladdened
as he looks at the golden sunrise of his commer-
cial future. Barnacle bottomed ships of the
great salt sea will greet the great Father of
Waters and make every town on his banks a
maritime city. The owner of the farm, factory
and mine will become familiar with names they
130
GEORGE A. KNIGHT
never knew and write strange addresses on the
exports they send across the unharvested ocean.
Australia, New Zealand, Yokohama, Hong
Kong, Manila, Honolulu and Corea will be
some of the new names the new South will be
glad to know, and their children will bless the
President that gave them their wonderful op-
portunities of trade. The blessings of this great
work cannot be told in words, and figures will
get wabbly and unsteady with their load when
you chalk them on the blackboard of time.
We want this younger Lincoln The keeper
of our great eagle we want him with his hands
on the halyards of our flag ; we want him the de-
fender of our Constitution and the executive of
our law, and when we have used him and the
best years of his young manhood for the good
of the nation, he will still be holding our banner
of liberty, with stars added to its azure field, its
history sacred, its stripes untarnished, and by
command of the majority hand it to the Ameri-
can patriot standing next in line.
131
Address by Harry Stilwell Edwards, Post-
master, of Macon, Ga., seconding President
Roosevelt's nomination in behalf of the
South:
It is eminently fit and proper that a Geor-
gian should on this occasion second the eloquent
speaker from New York, that the voice of the
motherland should blend with the voice of the
fatherland to declare that the destinies of
America shall for four years more be intrusted
to the great son born of the union of the two
Empire States.
I do not belittle the influence of a father
when I say that if the iron in a son's nature be
derived from him the gold is coined from the
heart of the mother whose lap has cradled him.
And because I believe this, because the lesson
at the mother's knee is the seed that sends a
stalk toward heaven and opens far up its axil-
lary blossom in the morning light, because the
lofty ideals of manhood are rooted deeper than
youth, because that which a man instinctively
would be has been dreamed for him in advance
by a mother, I claim for Georgia the larger
share in the man you have chosen your leader.
133
HARRY STILWELL EDWARDS
The Childhood of the good woman who bore
him was cast near where the Atlantic flows in
over the marsh and the sand. There she first
built her a home in the greatness of God.
Womanhood found her within the uplifting
view of the mountains in a land over which the
Almighty inverts a sapphire cup by day and
sets His brightest stars on guard by night. And
there, fellow countrymen, the soul of your
President was born. Those of us who know
and love him catch in the easy flow of his utter-
ance and feel in its largeness of thought and
contempt of littleness the rhythm of the ocean
on the Georgian sands and the spirit of the
deep. In his lofty ideals and hopefulness, in
his fixedness of purpose and unchanging, rock-
ribbed honesty we hear the mountains calling.
In his daring, his impulsive courage, his uncon-
querable manhood, we see his great brother, the
Georgia volunteer, in the hand-to-hand fights
of the Wilderness, the impetuous rush up the
heights of Gettysburg and the defiance of over-
whelming odds from Chattanooga to Atlanta.
We look on him as a Georgian abroad; and if,
in the providence of God, it may be so we shall
welcome him home some day not as a prodigal
son who has wasted his manhood, but as one
134
HARRY STILWELL EDWARDS
who on every field of endeavor has honored his
mother and worn the victor's wreath.
Coming into the position of the martyred
McKinley, the youngest Chief Magistrate that
has ever filled the Presidential chair, without
the privilege and advantage of preliminary dis-
cussion and consultation, he gave the country a
pledge that he would carry out the policies of
his predecessor. It was a master stroke of ge-
nius, applauded alike North and South. His
conception of the duties of his high office, as
enunciated by him at Harvard, was "to serve
all alike, well; to act in a spirit of fairness and
justice to all men, and to give each man his
rights." He has kept this pledge; he has lived
up to this fine conception of his duty. This
pledge involved a completion of the work be-
gun in Cuba and an honorable discharge of the
promises made to our struggling neighbor. The
flag of an independent republic floats over Ha-
vana to-day, and all men know that we have
kept faith with the Cuban people. Leaving the
details to engineers, he has cut as by a single
stroke the Panama Canal through mountains of
prejudice and centuries of ignorance. In the
far Philippines our flag floats, a guarantee of
redemption, pacification and development. His
conception of duty has led him into difficult
135
HAERY STILWELL EDWARDS
places in dealing with the internal affairs of
our own country ; he has met every issue bravely
and ably and demonstrated not only that
prompt and decided action is often the highest
expression of conservatism, but that it is safe to
trust the impulse of a man who is essentially
and instinctively honest.
Fellow countrymen, after nearly four years
of Theodore Roosevelt, we find the army and
navy on a better footing, our trade expanded,
the country at peace and prosperous and our
flag respected in every quarter of the globe.
The American people will not withhold from
him the applause of manly hearts. I am proud
that my State, the Empire State of the South,
shares in the glory of his achievements, as it will
share in their benefits.
It is not pretended that the section from
which I come to you is, as a section, in sympathy
with your political party. But I am as sure as
that I stand here that the great majority of in-
telligent business men in the South are in sym-
pathy with the controlling principles of your
platform and opposed to those of your oppo-
nents as last declared. And I am equally sure
that they recognize and respect the fearless
honesty of your leader. Headlines are not his-
tory, nor does the passionate partisan write the
136
HARRY STILWELL EDWARDS
final verdict of a great people. History, de-
spite the venom of the small politician, will do
him the justice to record that he has gone
further than any man who has occupied the
White House since the Civil War to further
the vital interests of the South. The standard
of appointments has been the same for Georgia
as for New York. He has insisted on efficiency
and integrity as the chief tests, North and
South alike. Of the thousand or more original
post-office appointments in Georgia under his
administration, not one has within my knowl-
edge been criticized by even the unfriendly and
partisan press of the State. A Southern man,
General Wright, by his appointment holds the
honor of this country in trust in the far Philip-
pines and on him your President relies for the
advancement and development of the 7,000,000
people who are there working out their desti-
nies. Two judges of first instance, one a Dem-
ocrat and one a Republican, and both from
Georgia, are there by his appointment to ad-
minister the laws. In the army there and here,
in the navy and in all the divisions of the civil
government Southern men have felt the friend-
ly touch of his hand. The character of these
appointments and the whole policy give the lie
to those designing knaves who charge him with
137
HARRY STILWELL EDWARDS
stirring up strife between races and arraying
section against section. "I am proud of your
great deeds ; for you are my people." This was
his greeting to a Southern audience, and no
honest man doubts that he meant it.
The South shares in the magnificent pros-
perity which our great country has achieved
under the Republican party. Especially has
she felt the beneficial effect of your policies
during the last eight years ; and the hardest fact
your opponents have to contend with is the fact
that your financial policy has been tested and
found to be sound and efficient. They have
sufficed for eight years at least, and the Demo-
cratic partisan who has twice in that time been
led captive behind the silver car of Bryan must
be optimistic beyond expression if he believes
that the country will suffer alarm over the pros-
pect of four years more of prosperity. The
South deals in cotton goods, cottonseed prod-
ucts, coal, iron, oil and lumber, and business
enterprises in connection with these and other
industries have increased and multiplied. Trav-
eling from Washington to Macon, one is never
off a first-class railroad nor long out of sight
of the smoke of a mill. The people who con-
duct these and kindred enterprises, who are
raising cotton at from 10 to 16 cents a pound,
138
HARRY STILWELL EDWARDS
wheat at from 75 cents to $1 a bushel, whose
coal, iron and lumber are in demand through-
out the world, whose home market is assured,
and whose lands are rapidly increasing in value,
are not alarmed over the prospect of another
Republican victory under Roosevelt. They are
not alarmed over the digging of a canal at Pan-
ama that will give them direct communication
with five or six hundred millions of people who
need the products of their fields and factories.
Nor are they alarmed that increased railway
and river transportation will be required to
move these products to Southern ports, or that
from these ports, under a Republican adminis-
tration, yellow fever, the South's dread enemy,
has been banished, millions saved annually to
the taxpayer and the business year raised from
nine months to twelve.
The prosperity of the South is wrapped up
in the policies of the Republican party, and the
Southern people are beginning to realize it.
Southern business sentiment indicates an in-
creasing distrust of the policies of the Demo-
cratic party. In 1896 Georgia, accustomed to
enormous Democratic majorities, gave 94,000
votes for Bryan and 60,000 for McKinley.
North Carolina cast 174,000 votes for Bryan
and 155,000 for McKinley. Virginia gave
139
HARRY STILWELL EDWARDS
154,000 votes for Bryan and 135,000 for Mc-
Kinley. And this was according to Demo-
cratic counts. Maryland and West Virginia
cast Republican majorities in both 1896 and
1900. In Virginia, Georgia and North Caro-
lina in 1900 12 to 15 per cent, of the people
who had voted in 1896 stayed away from the
polls and sacrificed their last opportunity to
worship the "popular idol." An analysis of
election returns shows that the distrust of Dem-
ocracy was most pronounced and conspicuous
in centres of trade, manufactures and com-
merce.
Fellow countrymen, we of the South believe
in Roosevelt and in his ability to meet every is-
sue at home and abroad triumphantly. We
believe that he is animated by a spirit of pa-
triotism as broad and as bright as has ever
streamed from the White House over our be-
loved country; and we believe that when he has
fulfilled his mission, he, the son of the North
and South, will carry with him the conscious-
ness that Fatherland and Motherland, once di-
vorced in sadness, through him and because of
him, have been drawn together again in the
bonds of the old affection. And we believe that
when he goes, at length, into the retirement of
private life he will go beloved of all patriotic
140
HARRY STILWELL EDWARDS
Americans, from Canada to the Gulf, and from
ocean to ocean. Mr. Chairman, in behalf of
the Motherland, I second the nomination of
Theodore Roosevelt.
141
Address by Ex-Gov. William O. Bradley, of
Kentucky, in seconding President Roose-
velt's nomination:
The Republican party has made no mistakes,
therefore it has no apologies to offer. It has
broken no promises, therefore it enters no plea
of confession and avoidance. It offers no guar-
antee for the future save the record of its past.
It points to an enormously increased com-
merce, at home and abroad. To free homes
given to free people. To a protective tariff
which has multiplied manufactories, furnished
employment for millions of freemen and given
us an unequalled market at home and abroad.
To the best system of finance known to man.
To a war waged to drive the tyrant from Cuba,
and a promise, faithfully kept, to give to the
people of the island a stable form of govern-
ment. To an improved army and navy whose
deeds of valor have added imperishable glory
to American arms. To the erection of churches
and schoolhouses and the inauguration of civil
government in the Philippines. To the uni-
versal prosperity now prevailing throughout
the Republic. To a generous system of pen-
sions, provided for those who fought, and the
143
WILLIAM O. BRADLEY
families of those who died, that the Union
might be preserved. To the most gigantic re-
bellion of all time courageously met and com-
pletely subdued. To the shackles of bondmen
melted in the red flames of war, and to stars
preserved, and yet others fixed, in the firma-
ment of freedom.
We cannot stand at the base of Bunker Hill
Monument, as prophesied by Toombs, and call
the roll of our slaves, but we can stand on any
spot of the earth and call the long roll of Re-
publican statesmen aand soldiers, the most dis-
tinguished and illustrious that the nation has
produced, who rendered impossible the fulfill-
ment of that prediction.
For nearly half a century the record of the
Republican party has been so interwoven with
the country's history that each is a part of the
other, and neither can be written without in-
cluding the other. Indeed, during that time
the Republican party has been the country. In
diplomacy, in progress, in the arts and sciences,
in prosperity and adversity, in peace and war,
at home and abroad, on land arid sea, the Re-
publican party has been true to every trust,
equal to every emergency, has continually ele-
vated and advanced the standard of American
honor and glory, and now proclaims to the
144-
WILLIAM O. BRADLEY
world that in the lexicon of patriotic endeavor
and achievement there is no such word as "fail."
And during all these eventful years the
Democratic party has resisted every step of ad-
vancement and progress. It has been a stupid
objector, a miserable malcontent and a common
scold. For two Presidential terms it adminis-
tered public affairs, and during each crippled
commerce, unsettled and decreased values, par-
alyzed industries, closed manufactories and
made it necessary for public charity to provide
food for the starving unemployed. It has ex-
changed its time-honored principles for dan-
gerous heresies, and betrayed its leaders until
it is without a leader and in anxious search of a
platform. It has abandoned its Moses, and is
unable to discover a Joshua. It does not cer-
tainly know what it wants, and if it did, would
not know where to find it. It does not know
what it is for, and if it did, would not know
how to express it. It does not know what to
do, and if it did, would not know how to do it.
Men of the North, we come from the battle-
field consecrated to freedom with the blood of
your brave sons. We are the custodians of your
patriot dead, and each year commemorate their
deeds and decorate their graves with flowers.
In their names, and by their memories, the dis-
145
WILLIAM O. BRADLEY
franchisee! South appeals to you for justice.
Shall it be said that your sons marched and
fought and died in vain? Shall it be said that
a nation can exist part slave and part free? Are
people free who are forced to bear the burden,
and yet denied the highest privilege of citizen-
ship? If it be true that warrant may not be
found in the Constitution to prevent disfran-
chisement, then we beg that you no longer per-
mit the disfranchised and oppressed to be esti-
mated for the purpose of increasing the elec-
toral strength of their oppressors. Though the
grape is crushed, and the grain is ground, they
produce neither wine nor bread for the perse-
cuted men of the South.
Surrounded by difficulties, striving in vain to
be free, they instinctively turn to the brave,
true man who has said that he would not close
the door of hope on a struggling race. The
Southern Republicans are devoted to him, and
will follow him with all the affection and en-
thusiasm with which the "Old Guard" followed
Napoleon. They have unshaken faith in his
superb courage, even-handed justice and un-
sullied honor.
We have not forgotten how, when the war
clouds hung dark in the nation's horizon, he
sacrificed office, and left a happy home and a
146
WILLIAM O. BRADLEY
beloved wife and children, to bare his bosom in
the storm of battle. The same patriotism and
courage that inspired him then have animated
him throughout his administration. When
others stood appalled in the presence of the
great strike, he cheerfully, and with alacrity,
assumed a responsibility not officially incum-
bent upon him, and, bravely springing into the
breach, succeeded in procuring a settlement
that brought tranquility to the representatives
of capital and smiles and sunshine into the faces
and homes of the humble laborers. He unhesi-
tatingly measured swords with the giant cor-
poration which threatened the people with
wrong and oppression, and brought it into sub-
jection. He knows how and when to plan, and,
better still, how and when to execute. Alert of
mind, he has quickly seized every opportunity.
In the procurement of concessions for the Pan-
ama Canal he accomplished more in a few hours
than his predecessors accomplished in more
than a hundred years. He did not attempt to
unloose, he cut the Gordian knot.
His enemies say that he cannot be trusted;
but the people know that one who always does
the right thing at the right time and in the right
way is entitled to their implicit confidence. His
enemies say that he is unsafe. His record proves
147
WILLIAM O. BRADLEY
that he is unsafe only to the lawless, the trick-
ster, the "grafter" and those who deny equal
protection of the law to any class of American
citizens. But in the discharge of the great trusts
devolved upon him he has proved a harbor of
safety. His enemies predicted that he would
involve the nation in war; but all his victories
have been those of diplomacy and peace, and
to-day he enjoys the respect and friendship of
every foreign power.
He has not been the pliable instrument of
any man of set of men. He is the creator, not
the creature, of public sentiment. He is not
controlled by popular clamor, but hews to the
line, let the chips fall where they may. He is
not a laggard, a time server or an idle dreamer.
He loses no opportunity r on account of timid
doubt or annoying hesitation. He is not a fol-
lower, but every inch a leader. He is not an
imitator, but thoroughly original, guided alone
by a clear conception of right and the genius of
common sense. He boldly and fearlessly ad-
vances; he never sounds the retreat. Imbued
with never-failing courage, combined with
sound and conservative judgment; brilliant as
a meteor, yet steady and certain as the sun in its
course ; gifted with broad and intelligent states-
manship ; fixed in lof ty purpose, he is the ein-
148
WILLIAM O. BRADLEY
bodiment of American ideas, American vigor
and the most exalted type of American man-
hood. He was born to fulfil a mission. That
mission, in part accomplished, will be completed
in coming years, and his name shall go ringing
down the centuries with those of the immortal
few "who were not born to die."
In Kentucky we have "contended against
principalities and powers and the rulers of dark-
ness." We have, in truth, fought with all man-
ner of beasts, not at Ephesus but at Frank-
fort. We are nerving ourselves for the coming
conflict, and in November next hope to break
the chains which partisan legislation has thrown
around us, and restore freedom to the State
which gave birth to Abraham Lincoln and holds
within its bosom the ashes of Henry Clay.
149
Address by Joseph B. Cotton, of Minnesota,
in seconding President Roosevelt's nomina-
tion:
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con-
vention : Responsive to the swelling chorus of
millions of voices from all over the Republic,
we are here to name as our standard bearer the
gifted son of the Empire State, who has in his
makeup all the resolute spirit and vigor of the
imperial West and in whose veins courses the
rich, warm blood of the dauntless Southland.
Nominating and seconding speeches here are of
no moment, for his nomination has already been
made by the American people themselves. We
have only to select his running mate, proclaim
the doctrines of our faith, and go forth and
overwhelm once more the cohorts of a dis-
tracted, distempered and dismembered Democ-
racy.
Our Democratic friends in this year of grace
are destined to be mere idle dreamers and only
seers of visions. Dissentious, they lack faith
and have no issue. Why, just now they are
trying to let go of the "Orator of the Platte"
and his fustian "cross of gold." They now say
151
JOSEPH B. COTTON
that "free silver" is dead because the Almighty
put too much gold in the lap of old Mother
Earth. Concealing their real purpose, they no
longer openly champion free trade. They
clamor only for a Republican revision of the
Dingley tariff. Has it come to this that, with
Chamberlain of England, they are at last
openly become Protectionists? Overwhelmed
by the rebuke of the people, they now profess
to be really anxious to keep the American flag
where it is, regardless and unmindful of
whether the Constitution follows the flag or the
flag follows the Constitution. Truly, can any
good thing come out of this Democratic chaos
and reluctant acquiescence in the triumph of
Republican policies ? In fifty history -making,
creative years what policies, domestic or for-
eign, fiscal or industrial, expansive or construc-
tive, has the Democratic party embodied into
the national thought or woven into the fabric
of the Republic? An obstructionist always, it
has been a participant, in spite of itself, in a
national glory and a greatness to which it has
long since ceased to contribute. Our virile
young nation presses on with undying energy.
Its footprints are everywhere. It impresses its
character upon every land. It is unthinkable
that at the very threshold of our world-work the
152
JOSEPH B. COTTON
American citizen will again experiment and im-
peril our all by turning over the reins of gov-
ernment to an inconstant, incapable and inert
Democracy. To fulfil the Republic's mighty
destiny, the guiding, shaping, controlling spirit
must and will be the Republican party.
The Republican party has had, and ever will
have, a glorious mission. It has always been a
party of action. Its promises have always been
crystallized into exact performance. For fifty
years it has labored to advance the substantial
progress of all the American people. It is mak-
ing of America the dominant world power. It
has written into law the promises of fifty years
in respect of an isthmian canal. It has built
up and firmly established, by protective poli-
cies, a nation which must eventually secure, for
the surplus products and industry of her peo-
ple, the markets of all the earth. Its thought
is along constructive lines and for the expan-
sion requisite to meet the nation's industrial
needs rather than for Democratic isolation. It
has built up American industries, protected
American labor and safeguarded the American
home. It has permanently secured the nation
upon the gold standard, the standard of stabil-
ity and enlightened civilization. In the olden
day the Crusader, armor-clad, rode valiantly
153
JOSEPH B. COTTON
away to rescue the Holy Land from ruthless
devastation. So, in this our day, the Repub-
lican party is carrying forward the Stars and
Stripes for the uplifting of mankind and the
supremacy of a civilization which finds its high-
est type in our glorious American Republic.
Mr. Chairman: The great Northwest,
whence I hail, teems with hundreds of thou-
sands of enthusiastic Republicans. You know
their worth and their fealty. On their behalf I
am commissioned to second the nomination of
their choice for President of these United
States. We need and demand to-day a wise
and dauntless mariner to take our soundings
and shape our course. In this history-making
hour, at the dawn of a century big with the po-
tentialities of individual and national life, when
the Republic advances full speed upon a future
we cannot know, in all the excitement of the in-
dividual struggle for wealth and self-aggran-
dizement, in the midst of tendencies toward mu-
nicipal and governmental corruption, and when
keenest minds seem largely bent upon profit
without recompense, all born of an inherent
weakness which cannot be ignored but must
be met, we have only to name our choice
for President for all the world to know
that his name is a synonym for courage, for
154
JOSEPH B. COTTON
untiring energy, for loyalty to principle, for
uprightness, for rugged honesty. No words of
any man are needed to tell you that he is pre-
eminently qualified to be our inspiring leader.
We are proud of his distinguished career and
of his great service to the nation. We indorse
his unswerving devotion to the highest ideals of
government and his stalwart Americanism. We
support him for his lofty character, for his
manifest genius, for his splendid personality, and
for his superb moral courage. Four years ago
the Republican party placed him beside the im-
mortal McKinley, and with such standard bear-
ers, with such a cause, we marched to a glorious
victory. When the assassin's ignoble work was
accomplished, and, amidst the nation's tears,
showered with the nation's love, the gentle Mc-
Kinley passed to the ages and was crowned
with the wreath of immortal fame, the intrepid
and aggressive Roosevelt faced and was equal
to the grave responsibilities of the Presidency.
He has kept the faith. By force of his charac-
ter and his works he has extended, at home and
abroad, the influence and greatness of the Re-
public. His name has come to be a symbol
everywhere of American manhood, American
valor, American honesty and American su-
premacy.
155
JOSEPH B. COTTON
Obeying a mandate both pleasing and su-
preme, on behalf of the great State of Minne-
sota and the mighty empire of the Northwest,
whose growth and prosperity will ever keep full
pace with the giant tread of the nation itself, I
desire to second the nomination of that intrepid
leader, that potent statesman, that master work-
man upon the greater Republic, that tried,
trusted and incomparable public servant the
President now, the President again to be
Theodore Roosevelt.
156
Address by Harry S. Cummings (colored), of
Maryland, in seconding President Roose-
velt's nomination:
Mr. Chairman, Fellow Delegates of the Re-
publican National Convention, Ladies and
Gentlemen: For the distinguished honor of
seconding the nomination of that grand type of
the American citizen, Theodore Roosevelt, I
am profoundly grateful.
Fortunate indeed is it for this government
that it has had, during the eight years just
passed, a political organization such as ours, to
meet face to face with undaunted courage and
determination the many perplexing questions
which have arisen during that period.
Equally fortunate has been our party to have
had within its ranks during this crucial period
such men as our able, wise and patriotic Mc-
Kinley, of beloved memory, and our capable,
courageous and aggressive Roosevelt, upon
whose youthful though ample shoulders the
mantle of the great McKinley fell.
Whether the questions affected our internal
or external relations, they have been boldly met
and wisely solved. We have earned to the Fili-
157
HARRY S. CUMMINGS
pino, the Porto Rican and the Cuban the torch
of light and intelligence, relieved them from
the burdens and oppression of despotic rule,
established civil government among them, and
are teaching them the blessings of liberty and
independence. The Panama Canal, "The Key
to the Universe," the construction of which has
for centuries been the dream and fancy of
more than one government, has, under the
prompt and decisive action of this administra-
tion, been taken from the realm of cloudland
and dreamland, and its completion in the near
future has become a certain and fixed fact.
The wise leadership of our party has kept so
well adjusted our tariff and currency legisla-
tion that prosperity abounds in the land, labor
is plentiful, the laborer is well paid and con-
tented, capital multiplies and seeks additional
outlets for new investments and enterprises. In
a word, we have given a full and complete re-
port of the stewardship committed to our care
during the last four years. It becomes the duty
of this convention to name a general who we
hope and believe will lead the great Republican
host to victory in the coming election, a man
who will in every way measure up to the respon-
sibility of the high office of President of this
country. Such a one in the person of our Chief
158
HARRY S. CUMMINGS
Executive has been ably and eloquently placed
before you, and heartily do we all indorse what
has been said.
"By their fruits ye shall know them." Theo-
dore Roosevelt brings to his party and the na-
tion at the close of his administration the prec-
ious fruits of three years' able and faithful
service. The solemn promise made by him when
gloom and distress overshadowed the nation,
when stout hearts grew faint, when fears and
misgivings were abroad in the land, when the
nation bowed in tears for her fallen hero that
promise, made at a most trying time in our
country's life, has been kept to the letter, and
he brings as an evidence of such the plans and
purposes of his martyred predecessor fully de-
veloped and completed. He is above all things
a true, honest, earnest, patriotic American citi-
zen. He is a leader of unflinching courage a
man of wisdom a man of action. He is open
and frank, free from intrigue or concealment.
In his life and walk and conduct he stands un-
approached and unapproachable. He is a
broad man, broad in intellect, broad in sympa-
thies, broad in soul; he lends a listening ear to
the cry of the downtrodden and oppressed, and
with strong and ready arm encircling the weak
and helpless he bids them rise and hope and live.
159
HARRY S. CUMMINGS
He is a just man, and believes that a man
should be judged by merit, and merit alone,
and that the just rewards of faithful and pa-
triotic service should be withheld from no one,
for any cause whatever. With a vision un-
clouded by bias or prejudice he sees through the
outer clay, clad in different hues, the man with-
in, and there beholds the image of the divine
Master indicating the Fatherhood of Good and
the Brotherhood of Man.
Criticism bitter, severe, unreasonable has
only served to make him the more devoted to
his country's welfare. He believes that cor-
ruption and dishonesty in private life and in
public office should be unearthed, exposed and
punished, no matter who the guilty party may
be or how high in official life he may stand. He
believes that respect for and obedience to law
are the foundation upon which this government
must rest, and that the violation of the oath of
office is little less than treason. He believes
that the Constitution of the United States and
every amendment thereof should be rigidly en-
forced, and that its violation by whatever sub-
terfuges or evasiveness of expression should be
condemned and remedied. He is, for these
good and sufficient reasons, the man whom the
160
HARRY S. CUMMINGS
people of every section and in every walk of
life want for this high office.
First of all, the powerful Christian and
moral sentiment of the nation demands his
nomination, and every Christian and moral
agency will be exercised for his election. The
laboring interest demands him. The farmer,
as with happy heart he gathers in his bounteous
harvest, stands ready to do battle for his re-
turn. The miner, who in contentment digs
away in the bowels of the earth, sees in him his
salvation from oppression and encroachment.
The business man the capitalist to whom
this administration has brought abundant suc-
cess eagerly await his nomination. So surely
as he is nominated by this convention to-day
so surely will he be elected by the people in
November.
With his nomination and election, what an
inspiring prospect opens up before the party
and the nation! With it will come new efforts
to promote a greater prosperity and a larger
measure of happiness to all who dwell within
our borders. With it will come that calm and
peaceful assurance that, while prosperous,
happy and contented at home, a wise, safe and
skillful diplomacy guards and protects our
every interest throughout the civilized world.
161
HARRY S. CUMMINGS
And, finally, with it will come an advanced step
toward the fulfilment of the great mission of
the Republican party. And that mission will
not be performed until every section of our
Constitution and every amendment thereof
shall be respected and made effective, and un-
til every citizen of every section, of every race
and of every religion shall proclaim in one
grand chorus of that Constitution, "Thou art
my shield and buckler."
God grant that in our party's struggle to
reach that time it may ever have a man to place
before the American people for their suffrage
who has the ability, courage, honesty and ag-
gressiveness of Theodore Roosevelt.
162
Address by Senator Jonathan P. Dolliver, of
Iowa, in nominating Charles Warren Fair-
banks for Vice-President.
Gentlemen of the Convention : The Repub-
lican National Convention, now nearly ready to
adjourn, has presented to the world a moral
spectacle of extraordinary interest and signifi-
cance. It is a fine thing to see thousands of
men, representing millions of people, fighting
in the political arena for their favorite candi-
dates, and contending valiantly for the success
of contradictory principles and conflicting doc-
trines. Out of such a contest, with its noise and
declamations, its flying banners, its thunder of
the captains and the shouting, the truth often
secures a vindication, and the right man comes
out victorious. Sometimes, however, wisdom is
lost in the confusion, and more than once we
have seen the claims of leadership swallowed up
in contention and strife.
We have the honor to belong to a convention
whose constituency in every State and Terri-
tory and in the islands of the sea has done its
thinking by quiet firesides, undisturbed by
clamor of any sort, and has simplified our re-
163
JONATHAN P. DOLLIVEH
sponsibilities by the unmistakable terms of the
credentials which we hold at their hands.
At intervals of four years I followed the
banner of James G. Elaine through the streets
of our convention cities, from Cincinnati to
Minneapolis, and did my full share to see that
nobody got any more applause than the great
popular leader who had captured my enthusi-
asm long before I was old enough to vote. Not
even his defeat served to diminish the hold
which our champion had upon the hearts of
those who followed him, and it has required a
good deal of experience to enable them to un-
derstand the lesson of his defeat. Other con-
ventions have met to settle the fate of rival
chieftains; we meet to record the judgment of
the Republican millions of the United States.
They have based their opinion upon the facts
of the case. They have not concluded that we
have the greatest President of the United
States since Washington. They know how to
measure the height and depth of things better
even than Professor Bryce, when he deals with
superlatives which find their way into all well-
regulated banquets after midnight. They have
not forgotten the grave of Lincoln, which has
become a shrine for the pilgrimage of the hu-
man race. They remember still the day when
164
JONATHAN P. DOLLIVEK
the Canon of Westminster opened the doors of
that venerable monument to admit the name of
the silent American soldier into the household
of English-spoken fame.
They have passed no vainglorious judgment*
upon the career of Theodore Roosevelt. They
have studied it with sympathetic interest from
his boyhood, as he has risen from one station of
public usefulness to another, until at length,
before the age of forty-five, he stands upon the
highest civic eminence known among men.
Their tears fell with his as he stood in the
shadow of poor McKinley's death, and as a
part of his oath of office asked the trusted coun-
sellors who stood by the side of the fallen Presi-
dent to help him carry forward the work which
he had left unfinished, and, while his adminis-
tration deserves the tribute which it received in
this convention from the eloquent lips of our
temporary chairman, it is because he has exe-
cuted in a manly way the purpose of the Re-
publican party and interpreted aright the as-
pirations of the American people. Nor can
there be a doubt that if, in the years to come,
he shall walk steadfastly in the same path, he
will be numbered among the great leaders of
the people who have given dignity and influ-
ence to their highest office.
165
JONATHAN P. DOLLIVER
But the judgment of the Republican party
is not only united upon its candidate it is
unanimous also upon the fundamental princi-
ples for which it stands. I think the conven-
tion has been fortunate in harmonizing the
minor differences which unavoidably arise in a
country like ours, where speech is free and
where printing is free. We stand together on
the proposition that the industrial system of the
United States must not be undermined by a
hostile partisan agitation, and that whatever
changes are necessary in our laws ought to be
made by the friends, or at least the acquaint-
ances, of the protective tariff system. The
things upon which we are agreed are so great
and the things about which we differ are so
small that we are able, without sacrificing sin-
cere Republican convictions anywhere, to unite
as one man in defence of our common faith.
The rollcall of this convention is a reminder
not without its melancholy suggestion that the
veterans of Republican leadership are trans-
ferring the responsibilities which they have
borne to the generation born since 1850. The
children of the men who laid the foundations
of the Republican party are here to begin the
celebration of its fiftieth anniversary. A heavy
hand has been laid since we met at Philadel-
166
JONATHAN P. DOLLIVER
phia upon the men who guided the counsels of
the party. Nelson Dingley, whose name is as-
sociated in immortal reputation with the indus-
trial and commercial miracles which opened the
new century, is gone, and within the borders of
the same State lies all that is mortal of Thomas
B. Reed, who put an end to anarchy in the
American House of Representatives. Dear old
"Uncle Mark" Hanna, whose face has looked
down with the benediction of an old friend
upon our deliberations, we shall see no more.
Within the last few days we buried Matthew
Stanley Quay in the bosom of the common-
wealth which he loved, and which, in spite of
the malice and calumny which pursued him
while he lived, never failed in its affectionate
confidence in him, while over the whole four
years has hung the shadow of the national af-
fliction which left the American people in sack-
cloth and ashes.
We stand at the beginning of the new era,
and, while the Republican party leans upon the
counsel of its old leaders, it has not hesitated to
summon to the responsibilities of public life the
young men who have been trained under their
guidance to take up the burdens which they are
ready to lay down and finish the work which
comes to them as an inheritance of patriotism
167
JONATHAN P. DOLLIVER
and duty. That is the significance of the nomi-
nation of Theodore Roosevelt, and that is the
explanation of the call which has been made by
the Republican party without a dissenting voice
upon Charles W. Fairbanks, to stand by the
side of the President in the guidance and lead-
ership of the Republican party.
While he has not sought to constrain the
judgment of the convention, directly or indi-
rectly, he has kept himself free from the affec-
tation which undervalues the dignity of the
second office in the gift of the American peo-
ple, and I do not doubt that his heart has been
touched by the voluntary expression of univer-
sal good will which has already chosen him as
one of the standard bearers of the Republican
party of the United States. The office has
sought the man, and he will bring to the office
the commanding personality of a statesman
equal to any of the great responsibilities which
belong to our public affairs. A leader of the
Senate, the champion of all the great policies
which constitute the invincible record of the
Republican party during the last ten years, his
name will become a tower of strength to our
cause, not only in his own State, but every-
where throughout the country. A man of af-
fairs, the whole business community shares the
168
JONATHAN P. DOLLIVER
confidence which his political associates have re-
posed in him from the beginning of his public
life. The quiet, undemonstrative, popular
opinion, which has given the Republican party
a platform upon which all Republicans can
stand, with no dissenting voice, here or any-
where, has long since anticipated the action of
this convention in adding to the national Re-
publican ticket the name of Senator Fairbanks,
of Indiana. I take pleasure in presenting this
name, honored everywhere throughout the
United States, as our candidate for Vice-
President.
169
Address by Senator Chauncey M. Depew, of
New York, seconding Senator Fairbanks
for Vice-President:
My friend wants to know if I have had my
dinner, but what I am about to say is in be-
half of dinners for the American people.
(Laughter and cries of "Good!")
I cannot help thinking, in listening to the
eloquence with which we have been entertained
this morning, what will be the difference when
our Democratic friends meet on July 6 to go
through with their duty of nominating candi-
dates and adopting a platform. We here have
been unanimous upon our candidates, all
agreed upon our principles, all recognizing and
applauding our great statesmen, living and
dead, and agreeing with them, while, on the
other hand, in 'that convention, there will be the
only two living exponents of Democratic prin-
ciples.
On the one side will be their only President
rising and saying, "Be sane," while on the other
side, in opposition, will come their last candi-
date for President, saying, "Be Democrats!"
171
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
The two are incompatible. ( Laughter and ap-
plause. )
I present two thoughts which it seems to me
in the flood of oratory have been passed by.
There has been criticism of this convention
that it was without enthusiasm and per-
functory, and would occupy little place in his-
tory. But this convention is an epoch-making
convention, because it marks the close of fifty
years of the life of the Republican party.
That fifty years, if we should divide recorded
time into periods of half a century, the fifty
years from 1854 to 1904 would concentrate
more that has been done in this world for the
uplifting of humanity than all the half cen-
turies which have preceded.
While this half century has done so much in
electricity, so much in steam, so much in in-
ventions, so much in medicine, so much in sur-
gery and in science, its one distinguishing char-
acteristic will be that it was the half century of
emancipation emancipation all over the world,
led mainly by the American thought and the
success of the American experiment.
But when for our purpose we look back over
the accomplishment of this half century we find
that the best part of it, that which has made
most for the welfare of the country, most for
172
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
emancipation, has been done by the Republican
party.
Just one word to throw the picture on the
wall. In 1854 the Missouri Compromise was
repealed, and the territory whose purchase is
now being celebrated at St. Louis was dedi-
cated to slavery, and in 1863 Abraham Lincoln
freed the slaves. ( Applause. )
In 1854 James Buchanan, at Ostend, issued
the manifesto to buy or conquer Cuba for slav-
ery, and in 1900 William McKinley set up
Cuba as an independent republic. (Applause.)
In 1854 the first cable flashed under the At-
lantic Ocean, and the use of this tremendous
discovery came from a Republican President,
who was the only President since the formation
of the country who had presided over the des-
tinies of a free people, with freedom in the
Constitution, and the Declaration of Indepen-
dence no longer a living lie.
So it is also in diplomacy. Fifty years ago
those of our people who were located among the
semi-civilized nations of Asia and Africa placed
themselves under the protection of the consuls
of Great Britain or the European government
most influential in that territory. To-day an
American fleet appears in the harbor of Tan-
gier, and the Secretary of State sends the thrill-
173
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
ing message, "We want Perdicaris alive or Rai-
suli dead." ( Cheers. )
Now, it was only sixty years ago, ten years
preceding the birth of the Republican party,
when that great wit and great writer, Sydney
Smith, asked, In the four quarters of the globe
who reads an American book or goes to an
American play or looks at an American picture
or statue? What does the world yet owe to
American physicians and surgeons? What
new substances have their chemists discovered
or what old ones have they analyzed? What
new constellations have been discovered by the
telescopes of Americans? What have they
done in mathematics? Who drinks out of
American glasses or eats from American plates
or wears American coats or gowns or sleeps in
American blankets?
The answer is that from the figures coming
yesterday from the Department of Commerce
and Labor we discovered that this year $450,-
000,000 of manufactured articles from Ameri-
can looms and factories go into European mar-
kets to compete with the highly-organized in-
dustrial nations of the world in their own mar-
ket places. (Applause.)
An American can start and go around the
world and not leave his country. He can cross
174
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
the Pacific to Yokohama in a Northern Pa-
cific steamer. He rides through Japan and
China on American electrical appliances.
He goes six thousand miles across the Siberian
Railway in American cars, drawn by American
locomotives. In Spain, alongside of their or-
ange groves, he finds California and Florida
oranges. In France he drinks wine, labelled
French, which has come from San Francisco.
( Laughter and applause. ) He crosses the Nile
upon a bridge made in Pittsburg. (Applause. )
In an English hotel he goes to his room near the
roof in an elevator manufactured in New York.
His feet are on carpets made in Yonkers. On
the banks of the Ganges he reads his cables by
an electric light run by an American and made
in America. He goes under old London in tun-
nels dug and run by American machinery and
American genius, and then he goes to New-
castle and finds that the impossible has been
profitably accomplished, and coals American
coals are carried to Newcastle. (Laughter
and applause.)
Now, my friends, while we present the posi-
tive, the convention, which meets on the 6th of
July represents that element unknown hereto-
fore in American politics, the opportunist. It
is waiting for bankruptcy, waiting for panic,
i
175
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
waiting for industrial depression, waiting for
financial distress.
There was an old farmer upon the Maine
coast who owned a farm with a rocky ledge
running out into the ocean and called Hurricane
Point. On it ships were wrecked, and he gath-
ered his harvest from the wreckage, and in his
will he wrote : "I divide my farm equally among
my children, but Hurricane Point shall be kept
for all of you forever, for while the winds blow
and the waves roll the Lord will provide."
(Great laughter.) But we have put a light-
house on Hurricane Point, a lighthouse of pro-
tection, with a revolving light, shedding golden
beams over the ocean, and American commerce
in going and coming is absolutely safe. (Ap-
plause. )
Time eliminates reputations. One or two
men represent a period. There are very few
statesmen who are remembered by succeeding
generations. The heroes of the civil war on
both sides are reduced in popular recollection
to two names. Issues and events, which make
history, bring out qualities of greatness in those
specially gifted for statesmanship and gov-
ernment. The constructive genius of the coun-
try was first in the Federal, then in the Demo-
cratic, then in the Whig and for the past half-
176
CHAUXCEY M. DEPEW
century in the Republican Party. This is the
result: In our first era the leaders were Wash-
ington, Hamilton and Adams, Federalists; in
the second era, Jefferson and Jackson, Demo-
crats; in the third era, Webster and Clay,
Whigs; in the fourth and most productive era
of all that makes life worth living and citizen-
ship valuable, Lincoln, Grant and McKinley,
all Republicans. (Applause.)
We love Roosevelt because of his "indiscre-
tions." When everybody else thought it fool-
ish his foresight provided powder and ball for
Dewey. When the financial world said it was
folly to enforce the laws the Supreme Court of
the United States justified the wisdom of the
President. Who calls him rash, impetuous and
tumultuous? It is the statesmen who enacted
the Wilson bill, with its attendant distress,
bankruptcy and ruin ; the statesmen who would
have given us silver at 16 to 1, with the inevi-
table collapse of our home industries and our
foreign markets ; it is the statesmen who would
give up the Philippines and would have lost the
opportunity to build the isthmian canal while
discussing questions of international law and
constitutional prerogatives. ( Applause. )
To Roosevelt's "impulsiveness," "rashness"
and "indiscretions" we owe the settlement of
177
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
tlie coal strike, which, if continued, would have
produced among a freezing people in the great
cities and among millions thrown out of em-
ployment, because of manufactories shut down,
suffering, riot and revolution. We owe to
Roosevelt's "indiscretions," "rashness" and
"impetuosity" the removal of the fear and the
perils of gigantic trusts by proving that they
are the creatures of and within the power of the
law. We owe to Roosevelt's "indiscretions,"
"rashness" and "impetuosity" the solution of
the problem of 400 years, the realization of the
hope of the statesmen of this country for more
than a half of a century, the fruition of the
dream of Columbus and the welding of the
East and the West and gaining of the Pacific
Ocean and the Orient for our commerce, in the
concession of the right and the beginning of the
work of the construction of the isthmian canal.
If, as our opponents say, the campaign is
Roosevelt, we follow the fortunes of our young
leader, confident of victory. (Applause.)
And now, gentlemen, it seems to me we have
not attached enough importance to the office
of Vice-President of the United States. (Ap-
plause.) It was not so among the fathers.
Then of the two highest potential presidential
possibilities, one took the Presidency, the other
178
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
the Vice-Presidency. But in the last forty
years ridicule and caricature have placed the
office almost in contempt. Let us remember
that Thomas Jefferson; let us remember that
old John Adams; let us remember that John C.
Calhoun, and George Clinton, and Martin Van
Buren were Vice-Presidents of the United
States.
Eighty millions of people want for Vice-
President a presidential figure of full size. He
presides over the Senate, but he does more than
that. He is the confidant of the Senators. He
is the silent member of every committee. He
is influential in that legislation which originates
and which is shaped in the Senate, and now that
we have become a world power, now that
treaties make for either our prosperity, our
open door or closed harbors, he is necessarily
an important factor in the machinery of the
government. By the tragic death of McKin-
ley the Vice-President was elevated to the Pres-*
idency, and to-day for the first time we have
renominated the Vice-President who thus came
to be the President. (Applause.)
All that has been said here about Theodore
Roosevelt is true ; but the highest tribute to him
is that the American people for the first time
unanimously demand that a Vice-President
179
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
shall be the elect of their choice for the Presi-
dency of the United States.
Now, gentlemen, it is my privilege in looking
for Vice-Presidential possibilities to announce
what you all know, that we have found a Vice-
Presidential candidate of full Presidential size.
(Applause.) Everybody knows that if the
towering figure of Theodore Roosevelt had
been out of this canvass one of the promising
candidates before this convention for President
of the United States would have been Charles
W. Fairbanks. (Applause.) And New York,
appreciating his great ability as a lawyer, ap-
preciating the national name he has made for
himself as a Senator, appreciating his dignity,
his character and his genius for public affairs,
seconds the nomination of Charles W. Fair-
banks for Vice-President of the United States*
(Prolonged applause and cheering.)
180
Address by Senator Joseph B. Foraker, of
Ohio, seconding the nomination of Senator
Fairbanks.
Gentlemen of the Convention: We have
come here to do three things make a platform,
name the next President of the United States,
and also name the next Vice-President of the
United States. We have done two of these
things, and are about to do the third. And we
have done both of the things we have done well.
The platform we adopted yesterday has already
met the favorable judgment of the American
people. It is accounted one of the best the
Republican party has ever adopted, and if you
would know how high is that tribute recall the
fact now of which every Republican may justly
feel proud that, of all the many platforms
we have made in the fifty years of our party
life, we would not to-day strike one of them
from our record if we could. Further than
that, there is not a plank, or a declaration, or a
thought, or an idea, in one of them that we
would erase if we had the power.
From the platform of 1856 down to that one
adopted yesterday all are as sound as a gold
181
JOSEPH B. FORAKER
dollar. If you would know what a tribute is
here to Republican patriotism, wisdom and
statesmanship, recall the great questions with
which the Republican party has dealt in making
these platforms. They are all imperishable
contributions to the political literature of our
day. If you would have another measure of
our success, read also of the lamentable failure
our Democratic friends have met with in mak-
ing their platforms. While we are to-day proud
of the success of ours, our Democratic friends
cannot find one platform they have made in all
this period that does not have some features at
least of which they are now ashamed. Not all of
them, perhaps, because there are some Demo-
crats who cannot apparently be ashamed of
anything.
On the platform made yesterday we have
placed our candidate who is to head the ticket.
It was not as easy in some of the conven-
tions that have gone before to name a Re-
publican candidate for the Presidency as it was
for us to name our candidate here to-day. In
former years, when we have been called upon
to choose between such great leaders as Conk-
ling and Morton and Elaine, and Garfield, and
Sherman and Harrison, and McKinley, they
have weighed so evenly, their claims for merit
182
JOSEPH B. FORAKER
were so equal, that it was a harder task. But
this time one man stood head and shoulders
above all others of our Republican leaders, that
he was already nominated, as has been well
said from this platform, before we took our
seats in this convention.
On the ticket with him, as his associate, for
the Vice-Presidency, we want to place a man
who represents in his personality, in his beliefs,
in his public service, in his high character, all
the splendid record the Republican party has
made; all the great declarations of the former
platforms, and a man who will typify, as the
leader of our ticket will, the highest ambition
and the noblest purposes of the Republican
party of the United States. (Applause.)
I will not detain you with a eulogy of Sen-
ator Fairbanks, beyond simply saying that, to
all who know him personally as those of us do
who have been closely associated with him in the
public service, he meets all the requirements so
eloquently stated by Senator Depew. He is of
Presidential calibre. He has all of the qualifi-
cations for the high office for which he has been
named, and, by all of these potent considera-
tions, in the name of the forty-six delegates of
Ohio, I second the nomination of Senator Fair-
banks. (Cheers.)
183
Address by Gov. Samuel W. Penny packer, of
Pennsylvania, in seconding Senator Fair-
banks for V ice-President.
The Republican party held its first conven-
tion in that city of western Pennsylvania which,
in energy, enterprise and wealth, rivals the
great mart upon the inland lakes wherein, after
the lapse of nearly half a century, we meet
to-day. Pennsylvania may well claim to be
the leader among Republican States. The
principles which are embodied in the platform
of the party as we have adopted it are the result
of the teachings of her scholars and statesmen.
Her majorities for the nominees of that party
are greater and more certain than those of any
other State. She alone, of all the States since
the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, has
never given an electoral vote against a candi-
date of the Republican party for the Presi-
dency. She is unselfish in her devotion. Dur-
ing the period of half a century that has gone
no son of hers has been either President or Vice-
President. She has been satisfied, like the Earl
of Warwick, to be the maker of kings. She has
been content that you should have regard to
185
SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER
the success of the party and the welfare of the
country rather than to the personal interests of
her citizens.
The waters of the Ohio, rising in the moun-
tains of Pennsylvania, roll westward, bearing
fertility and men to the prairie lands of In-
diana. The thought of Pennsylvania turns with
kindred feeling toward the State which has
produced Oliver P. Morton, Benjamin Harri-
son and the brave Hoosiers who fought along-
side of Reynolds on the Oak Ridge at Gettys-
burg. She well remembers that when her own
Senator, he who did so much for the Republican
party, and whose wise counsels, alas! are miss-
ing to-day, bore a commission to Washington,
he had no more sincere supporter than the able
and distinguished statesman who then, as he
does now, represented Indiana in the United
States Senate.
Pennsylvania, with the approval of her judg-
ment and with glad anticipation of victory in
her heart, following a leader, who, like the Che-
valier of France, is without fear and without
reproach, seconds the nomination for the Vice-
Presidency of Charles W. Fairbanks, of
Indiana.
186
Address by ex-Senator Thomas H. Carter, of
Montana, in seconding Senator Fairbanks
for Vice-President.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con-
vention: It will at once be consoling and re-
assuring to you for me to announce that I do
not rise to make a speech, but to make a pleas-
ing announcement. (Applause.) You will all
remember how, eight years ago, the intermoun-
tain country, theretofore solidly Republican,
became tempest-tossed and disconcerted. It
will be remembered with regret that since 1892
Republican electoral votes in the Rocky Moun-
tain region have been few and far between. I
am here to-day to say to you that from the
Canadian line to the south line of the Colorado,
and from the Missouri River to the Pacific
Ocean, each and every vote will be cost for
Theodore Roosevelt in the electoral college next
November. The manner in which this happy
result has been brought about is well worthy of
momentary consideration. Under the kind,
considerate and wise management of William
McKinley as President, aided and assisted by
the venerated Mark Hanna, of Ohio, our wan-
187
THOMAS H. CARTER
dering brothers were invited to return without
humiliating conditions. (Loud applause.) Of
all those who have been sympathetic, through
good and evil report, while standing inflexibly
by the cardinal principles of the party, one of
the strongest and most comforting has been
Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indiana, whose
nomination I cheerfully second. With Roose-
velt and Fairbanks the States west of the Mis-
souri will, without exception, return to their
Republican allegiance. I thank you. (Loud
applause. )
188
CAREERS
PUBLIC CAREER OF PRESIDENT
ROOSEVELT.
The public career of Theodore Roosevelt
began before he was twenty-four years of age.
He is now forty-five. In the intervening
period he has been almost continually before
the public. He was nominated in 1881 for
Member of Assembly in the Twenty-first New
York District. Tammany, Irving Hall, and
the County Democracy united on W. Strew to
run against Roosevelt, but the latter beat him
by a vote of 3,490 to 1,989.
It was the next year that Grover Cleveland
administered the most tremendous defeat to the
Republicans known in New York State politics
up to that time. Mr. Roosevelt was again put
up in the Twenty-first New York, and, despite
the Republican slump, defeated T. F. Neville,
nominated by all three Democratic organiza-
tions, by a vote of 4,357 to 2,026. Roosevelt
was re-elected in 1883 and served his last term
in the House in 1884.
During his career as Member of Assembly
Mr. Roosevelt headed an investigating com-
mittee which came to New York and probed the
191
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
City Government. With the capital accruing
from that investigation, the Republicans were
induced to think of him as a likely candidate
for Mayor, and in 1886 they nominated him.
Abram S. Hewitt was picked up by Tammany
Hall, and made a winning fight. Mr. Roose-
velt ran third.
He next came before the public as a mem-
ber of President Harrison's Civil Service Com-
mission. This office he held into Cleveland's
second administration.
He first entered national politics in 1884,
when, with George William Curtis and two
colleagues, he went to the Republican National
Convention as a delegate at large, enthusiastic
for the nomination of George F. Edmunds, of
Vermont. The time between his unsuccessful
candidacy for Mayor and his acceptance of
Harrison's appointment was passed in the
West on a ranch.
Mr. Roosevelt apparently could have re-
mained in the Cleveland Civil Service Board
as long as he wished, but Mayor Strong's offer
to him to become President of the New York
Police Commission was pleasing, and he ac-
cepted it. His record as head of the Police
Board, with Frank Moss, A. D. Parker, and
A. D. Andrews, is well known. "The Roose-
192 -
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
veil Board" is still a phrase in the records of the
Police Department.
Before Strong's term expired President Mc-
Kinley offered Roosevelt the position of
Assistant Secretary of the Navy under John
D. Long. Roosevelt accepted, and was holding
that office when the Spanish- American war
broke out in 1898.
He was commissioned a Lieutenant-Colonel
in the First Volunteer Cavalry (the Rough
Riders), became Colonel of the regiment, and
was in command when the Republicans of New
York State were casting about for a candidate
for Governor in 1898. Mr. Roosevelt was
nominated, and after a whirlwind campaign
throughout the State was elected over Augus-
tus C. Van Wyck by a plurality of 17,786.
On June 21, in Philadelphia, four years ago,
Mr. Roosevelt was nominated for Vice-Presi-
dent . Mr. Roosevelt served out the year 1900
as Governor, and then went to Washington to
prepare for the new duties of Vice-President.
In September, 1901, he went on a trip to
Vermont, where he was when President Mc-
Kinley was shot in Buffalo on September 6.
President McKinley died at 2 :25 a.m., Sep-
tember 14, 1901, and Vice-President Roosevelt
was sworn in as his successor in Buffalo at
193
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
the residnce of Ansley Wilcox, a personal
friend.
Mr. Roosevelt is the first President who,
coming into his office through having been Vice-
President at the time of the death of the Ex-
ecutive, has succeeded in getting his party to
nominate him for the full term to succeed him-
self. He also is the first native New Yorker
to be nominated for President by the Republi-
can party, and is the third native New Yorker
to hold the office of President. The others
were Van Buren and Fillmore. Mr. Roose-
velt came to the Presidency younger than any
who ever held the office.
194
CAREER OF SENATOR FAIRBANKS.
A son of Ohio, of Puritan ancestry, Charles
Warren Fairbanks early attained prominence
as a lawyer in Indianapolis, and has been a
United States Senator since 1897. He secured
his education by his own exertions, and had
decided on the law as a profession before he
entered college. Senator Fairbanks was born
near Unionville Centre, Union County, Ohio,
May 11, 1852. He is descended in the eighth
generation from Jonathan Fayerbanks, who
settled in Dedham, Mass., in 1636. From the
old Bay State the ancestors of Senator Fair-
banks went to Vermont, and it was from that
State that his father went to Ohio in 1836 and
settled on a farm and also worked at wagon-
making. As he advanced in boyhood he was
taught that what his hand found to do he must
do with his might. His parents were earnest
Methodists, and encouraged his ambition to
secure an education. He diligently attended the
district school, and in the summer he worked on
the farm. At the age of fifteen he left his
home and, with $41, which he had saved from
what his father had paid him, in the pockets
195
CHARLES WARREN FAIRBANKS
of his only suit of clothes, he went to Dela-
ware, Ohio, and entered the Ohio Wesleyan
University. There he and his roommate
boarded themselves, and young Fairbanks
found employment with a carpenter on Sat-
urdays by reason of his familiarity with the use
of tools. In the summer vacations he worked in
the harvest field at his home. In his senior
year he was one of the editors of the college
newspaper, "The Western Collegian." He
was graduated with the degree of A.B. in 1872,
and went to Pittsburg, where he began the
study of law, at the same time supporting him-
self by doing newspaper work for the Asso-
ciated Press. A year later he entered a law
school in Cleveland, and did similar work. It
was in 1874 that he was admitted to the bar at
Columbus, Ohio.
While in college he had met Miss Cornelia
Cole, who was a co-editor with him on the col-
lege paper. In the same year that he was ad-
mitted to the bar they were married, and went
to Indianapolis to make their permanent home.
The young lawyer was aided in securing a prac-
tice by his uncle, William Henry Smith, who
was interested in railroads, and he soon became
one of the most successful railroad lawyers in
the State. With increased income he became a
196
CHARLES WARREN FAIRBANKS
resident of the most fashionable part of the
city, North Meridian Street.
Senator Fairbanks always has been an earn-
est Republican. In 1888 he was the manager
of the candidacy of Walter Q. Gresham
for the nomination for President at the Chi-
cago convention, but when the nomination
of Harrison became evident the support of
Gresham, with his consent, was transferred
to Harrison. Mr. Fairbanks made speeches
for Harrison and Morton throughout Indiana.
He was chairman of the Indiana State Conven-
tion in 1892, and again in 1898. In 1893 he
was chosen by the Republican caucus in the
State Legislature as candidate for United
States Senator, but the Democrats had a ma-
jority on joint ballot and elected Senator Tur-
pie. In 1896 he was delegate-at-large from
Indiana to the St. Louis Republican Conven-
tion, and served as temporary chairman. In
1897 he was the candidate for United States
Senator, to succeed Daniel W. Voorhees
(Dem.), the "Tall Sycamore of the Wabash,"
and was elected by a majority of 21. In 1898
he was appointed a member of the United
States and British Joint High Commission to
settle the differences with Canada, and he was
chairman of the United States commissioners.
197
CHARLES WARREN FAIRBANKS
As a Senator he has always been strict in his at-
tendance on the duties of his office, and has
made a most thorough study of all public ques-
tions. He is a forcible and practical speaker,
and has been persistent in securing legislation
in which he is interested. He was re-elected a
Senator last year for the term ending March 3,
1909.
Senator Fairbanks was an Indiana delegate-
at-large to the Republican convention at Phila-
delphia in 1900, and as chairman of the com-
mittee on resolutions reported the platform.
He was strongly talked of as candidate for
Vice-President before the choice of Theodore
Roosevelt was decided on. He was a close
friend of President McKinley, and it was
thought he might be his successor.
Senator Fairbanks is an active Methodist,
and is a leading member and trustee of the
Meridian Street Church, in Indianapolis.
Since 1885 he has been a trustee of the Ohio
Wesley an University, whose president, Dr.
Bashford, has just been elected a bishop of the
Methodist Episcopal Church. In personal
appearance the Senator is over six feet in
height and extremely dignified in manner. He
is most highly thought of by his friends, and by
198
CHARLES WARREN FAIRBANKS
his opponents is regarded as a man who fights
fair.
Mrs. Fairbanks is the president-general of
the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Their home in Massachusetts Avenue, Wash-
ington, is the center of generous hospitality.
Senator and Mrs. Fairbanks have five children,
one daughter, married to Ensign John W.
Timmons, of the battleship Kearsarge, and
four sons, one in business and three completing
their education, one being an undergraduate
at Yale.
199
POLITICAL RECORD OF
HON. GEORGE B. CORTELYOU.
Secretary Cortelyou's father and grand-
father were Republicans of the stanchest kind.
His grandfather, Peter Crolius Cortelyou, Sr.,
was the intimate friend and associate of Horace
Greeley, Thurlow Weed and other great lead-
ers of the party's early history. Both his
brothers are Republicans, and the members of
his family have been known as Republicans
since the foundation of the party. All the
teachings of his early years were in that politi-
cal faith, and when he took up the study of
public questions on his own account he became
a firm believer in Republican doctrines. His
first vote was cast for a Republican candidate,
and from that day to this he has voted the
Republican ticket.
Mr. Cortelyou was one of the founders of
the Young Men's Republican Club, of Hemp-
stead, N. Y. He was an active member of the
Plumed Knights, and did hard and effective
service in the Blaine campaign. He was the
secretary of the Harrison managers at the Min-
neapolis convention. Upon the advent of the
200
GEORGE B. CORTELYOU
Democratic administration in 1885 he tendered
his resignation and left the federal service.
Again, in 1893, upon the advent of Mr. Cleve-
land's second administration, he tendered his
resignation and remained only at the earnest
request of his new superior. He has gone reg-
ularly each year to his home and voted for Re-
publican candidates, and while he loyally served
a Democratic President, he accepted the posi-
tion then tendered him only after a frank state-
ment of his political beliefs. He has been sec-
retary to two Republican Presidents and has
been a Cabinet officer in a Republican admin-
istration. That is his record. It speaks for
itself.
201
Notification Speech of Hon. Joseph G.
Cannon.
Mr. President: The people of the United
States, by blood, heredity, education and prac-
tice, are a self-governing people. We have
sometimes been subject to prejudice and em-
barrassment from harmful conditions, but we
have outgrown prejudice and overcome con-
ditions as rapidly as possible, having due regard
to law and the rights of individuals. We
have sometimes made mistakes from a false
sense of security or from a desire to change
policies instead of letting well enough alone,
merely to see what would happen; but we have
always paid the penalty of unwise action at
the ballot box and endured the suffering until
under the law, through the ballot box, we have
returned to correct policies. Tested by experi-
ence, no nation has so successfully solved all
problems and chosen proper policies as our na-
tion. Under the lead of the Republican party
for over forty years, the United States, from
being a third-class power among the nations,
has become in every respect first. The people
rule. The people ruling, it is necessary that
202
NOTIFICATION BY SPEAKER CANNON
they should be competent to rule. Competency
requires not only patriotism, but material well-
being, education and statecraft.
The people, under the lead of the Republican
party, write upon the statute books revenue
laws, levying taxes upon the products of for-
eign countries seeking our markets, which re-
plenished our Treasury, but were so adjusted
as to encourage our people in developing, diver-
sifying and maintaining our industries, at the
same time protecting our citizens laboring in
production against the competition of foreign
labor. Under this policy, our manufactured
product to-day is one-third of the product of
the civilized world, and our people receive al-
most double the pay for their labor that sim-
ilar labor receives elsewhere in the world,
thereby enabling us to bear the burdens of cit-
izenship.
Liberal compensation for labor makes lib-
eral customers for our products. Under this
policy of protection, our home market affords
all our people a better market than has any
other people on earth, and this, too, even if we
did not sell any of our products abroad. In
addition to this, we have come to be the great-
est exporting nation in the world. For the
year ending June 30, 1904, our exports to for-
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NOTIFICATION BY SPEAKER CANNON
eign countries were valued at $1,460,000,000,
of which $450,000,000 were products of the
factory. The world fell in our debt last year
$470,000,000, an increase of $75,000,000 over
the preceding year.
This policy of protection has always been op-
posed by the opponents of the Republican
party, and is opposed by them to-day. In
their last national platform, adopted at St.
Louis, they denounce protection as robbery.
They never have been given power but they
proceeded by word and act to destroy the policy
of protection.
Their platform is as silent as the grave touch-
ing the gold standard and our currency system.
Their chosen leader, after his nomination hav-
ing been as silent as the Sphinx to that time
sent his telegram saying, in substance, that the
gold standard is established, and that he will
govern himself accordingly if he should be
elected.
I congratulate him. It is better to be right
late than never. It is better to be right in one
thing than wrong in all things. I wonder if it
ever occurred to him that if his vote and sup-
port for his party's candidate in 1896 and 1900
had been decisive we would now have the silver
standard? I wonder what made him send that
204*
NOTIFICATION BY SPEAKER CANNON
telegram after he was nominated, and why he
did not send it before? When did he have a
change of heart and judgment? And does he
at heart believe in the gold standard and our
currency system, or does he try now to reap
where he has not sown? If, perchance, he
should be elected by forcing together discord-
ant elements, I submit that, with a Democratic
House of Representatives or House and Sen-
ate, there would be no harmonious action in
legislation or administration that would benefit
the people, but that doubt and discontent would
everywhere distress production and labor. Con-
sumption would be curtailed. In short, we
would have an experience similar to that from
1893 to 1897. If this chosen leader and his
friends are converts to Republican policies,
should not they "bring forth fruits meet for re-
pentance" before they ask to be placed in the
highest positions to affect the well-being of all?
or, if they profess all things to all men, then
they are not worthy the confidence of any man.
If clothed with power, will they follow in the
paths of legislation according to their loves and
votes as manifested by their action always here-
tofore, or will they stand by, protect and de-
fend the gold standard and our currency sys-
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NOTIFICATION BY SPEAKER CANNON
tern that have been created under the lead of
the Republican party?
Correct revenue laws, protection or free
trade, the gold standard and our currency sys-
tem, all depend upon the sentiment of the ma-
jority of our people as voiced at the ballot box.
A majority may change our revenue laws; a
majority may change our currency laws; a
majority may destroy the gold standard and
establish the silver standard, or, in lieu of either
or both, make the Treasury note, non-interest
bearing and irredeemable, the sole standard of
value.
Sir, let us turn from the region of doubt and
double dealing, the debatable land, to the re-
gion of assured certainty. The Republican
party stands for Protection. It stands for the
gold standard and our currency system. All
these dwell in legislation enacted under the lead
of the Republican party and against the most
determined opposition of the Democratic party,
including its leader and candidate. These be-
ing our policies, and having been most useful
to the country, we have confidence in and love
them. If it be necessary from time to time that
they should be strengthened here and con-
trolled there, the Republican party stands ready
with loving, competent hands, to apply the
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NOTIFICATION BY SPEAKER CANNON
proper remedy. I say "remedy." Being our
policies, we will not willingly subject them to
their enemies for slow starvation on the one
hand or to sudden destruction on the other.
Since the Republican party was restored to
power in 1897, under the lead of McKinley,
our country has prospered in production and
in commerce as it has never prospered before.
In wealth we stand first among all the nations.
Under the lead of William McKinley the war
with Spain was speedily brought to a success-
ful conclusion. Under the treaty of peace and
our action Cuba is free, and under guarantees
written in her constitution and our legislation
it is assured that she will ever remain free.
We also acquired Porto Rico, Guam and the
Philippines by a treaty the ratification of which
was only possible by the votes of Democratic
Senators. Civil government has been estab-
lished in Porto Rico, and we are journeying
toward civil government in the Philippines as
rapidly as the people of the archipelago are
able to receive it; and this, too, notwithstanding
the false cry of "imperialism" raised by the
Democratic party and still insisted upon, which
led to insurrection in the Philippines and tends
to lead to further insurrection there. The rec-
ord of the Republican party under the lead of
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NOTIFICATION BY SPEAKER CANNON
William McKinley has passed into history.
Who dares assail it?
In the history of the Republic in time of
peace no Executive has had greater questions
to deal with than yourself, and none have
brought greater courage, wisdom and patriot-
ism to their solution. You have enforced the
law against the mighty and the lowly without
fear, favor or partiality. Under the Constitu-
tion you have recommended legislation to Con-
gress from time to time, as it was your duty to
do, and when it was passed by Congress have
approved it. You have, under the Constitu-
tion, led in making a treaty which was ratified
by the Senate and is approved by the people,
which not only assures, but, under the law
and appropriations made by Congress, pro-
ceeds with, the construction of the Panama
Canal.
The Republican party, under your leadership,
keeps its record from the beginning under Lin-
coln of doing things, the right thing at the
right time and in the right way, notwithstand-
ing the opposition of those who oppose the
right policies from the selfish or partisan stand-
point. They dare not tell the truth about your
official action or the record of the party, and
then condemn it. They can, for selfish or parti-
208
NOTIFICATION BY SPEAKER CANNON
san reasons, abuse you personally and misrepre-
sent the party which you lead. It is true,
however, that so far their abuse of your action
and their alleged fear of your personality is
insignificant as compared with the personal and
partisan carpings against Lincoln, Grant and
McKinley when they were clothed with power
by the people. Those whose only grievance is
that you have enforced the law and those who
carp for mere partisan capital will not, in my
judgment, reap the harvest of success. The
Republican party for you and under your lead-
ership appeals to the great body of the people
who live in the sweat of their faces, make the
civilization, control the Republic, fight its bat-
tles and determine its policies, for approval and
continuance in power.
The office of President of the United States
is the greatest on earth, and many competent
men in the Republican party are ambitious to
hold it, yet the Republican Convention met at
Chicago in June last and unanimously, with
one accord, nominated you as the candidate of
the party for President. I am sure all Repub-
licans and a multitude of good citizens who do
not call themselves Republicans said "Amen."
In pursuance of the usual custom, the con-
vention appointed a committee, of >vfrich it
209
NOTIFICATION BY SPEAKER CANNON
honored me with the chairmanship, to wait upon
you and inform you of its action, which duty,
speaking for the committee, I now cheerfully
perform, with the hope and the confident expec-
tation that a majority of the people of the
Republic will in November next approve the
action of the convention by choosing electors
who will assure your election to the Presidency
as your own successor.
210
Acceptance Speech of Hon. Theodore
Roosevelt.
Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Notifica-
tion Committee: I am deeply sensible of the
high honor conferred upon me by the repre-
sentatives of the Republican party assembled in
convention, and I accept the nomination for
the Presidency with solemn realization of the
obligations I assume. I heartily approve the
declaration of principles which the Republican
National Convention has adopted, and at some
future day I shall communicate to you, Mr.
Chairman, more at length and in detail a for-
mal written acceptance of the nomination.
Three years ago I became President because
of the death of my lamented predecessor. I
then stated that it was my purpose to carry out
his principles and policies for the honor and
the interest of the country. To the best of my
ability I have kept the promise thus made. If
next November my countrymen confirm at the
polls the action of the convention you represent,
I shall, under Providence, continue to work
with an eye single to the welfare of all our
people.
A party is of worth only in so far as it
211
ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
promotes the national interest, and every offi-
cial, high or low, can serve his party best by
rendering to the people the best service of
which he is capable. Effective government
comes only as the result of the loyal co-opera-
tion of many different persons. The members
of a legislative majority, the officers in the
various departments of the Administra-
tion, and the legislative and executive
branches as toward each other, must work
together with subordination of self to the com-
mon end of successful government. We who
have been intrusted with power as public serv-
ants during the last seven years of administra-
tion and legislation now come before the people
content to be judged by our record of achieve-
ment. In the years that have gone by we have
made the deed square with the word ; and if we
are continued in power we shall unswervingly
follow out the great lines of public policy which
the Republican party has already laid down; a
public policy to which we are giving, and shall
give, a united, and therefore an efficient, sup-
port.
In all of this we are more fortunate than our
opponents, who now appeal for confidence on
the ground, which some express and some seek
to have confidentially understood, that if tri-
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ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
umphant they may be trusted to prove false to
every principle which in the last eight years
they have laid down as vital, and to leave un-
disturbed those very acts of the Administration
because of which they ask that the Administra-
tion itself be driven from power. Seemingly
their present attitude as to their past record is
that some of them were mistaken and others in-
sincere. We make our appeal in a wholly dif-
ferent spirit. We are not constrained to keep
silent on any vital question; we are divided
on no vital question; our policy is con-
tinuous, and is the same for all sections and
localities. There is nothing experimental
about the government we ask the people to
continue in power, for our performance in the
past, our proved governmental efficiency, is a
guarantee as to our promises for the future.
Our opponents, either openly or secretly, ac-
cording to their several temperaments, now ask
the people to trust their present promises in
consideration of the fact that they intend to
treat their past promises as null and void. We
know our own minds, and we have kept of the
same mind for a sufficient length of time to
give to our policy coherence and sanity. In
such a fundamental matter as the enforcement
of the law we do not have to depend upon
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ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
promises, but merely to ask that our record be
taken as an earnest of what we shall continue
to do. In dealing with the great organizations
known as trusts we do not have to explain why
the laws were not enforced, but to point out
that they actually have been enforced and that
legislation has been enacted to increase the ef-
fectiveness of their enforcement.
We do not have to propose to "turn the ras-
cals out," for we have shown in very deed that
whenever by diligent investigation a public
official can be found who has betrayed his trust
he will be punished to the full extent of the
law, without regard to whether he was ap-
pointed under a Republican or a Democratic
Adiministration. This is the efficient way to turn
the rascals out and to keep them out, and it has
the merit of sincerity. Moreover, the betrayals
of trust in the last seven years have been in-
significant in number when compared with the
extent of the public service. Never has the ad-
ministration of the government been on a
cleaner and higher level; never has the public
work of the nation been done more honestly
and efficiently.
Assuredly, it is unwise to change the policies
which have worked so well and which are now
working so well. Prosperity has come at home.
ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
The national honor and interest have been up-
held abroad. We have placed the finances of
the nation upon a sound gold basis. We have
done this with the aid of many who were for-
merly our opponents, but who would neither
openly support nor silently acquiesce in the
heresy of unsound finance ; and we have done it
against the convinced and violent opposition of
the mass of our present opponents, who still
refuse to recant the unsound opinions which
for the moment they think it inexpedient to as-
sert. We know what we mean when we speak
of an honest and stable currency. We mean
the same thing from year to year. We do not
have to avoid a definite and conclusive com-
mittal on the most important issue which has
recently been before the people, and which
may at any time in the near future be before
them again. Upon the principles which under-
lie the issue the convictions of half of our num-
ber do not clash with those of the other half.
So long as the Republican party is in power
the gold standard is settled, not as a matter of
temporary political expediency, not because of
shifting conditions in the production of gold in
certain mining centers, but in accordance with
what we regard as the fundamental principles
of national morality and wisdom.
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ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
Under the financial legislation which we
have enacted there is now ample circulation for
every business need; and every dollar of this
circulation is worth a dollar in gold. We have
reduced the interest-bearing debt, and in still
larger measure the interest on that debt. All
of the war taxes imposed during the Spanish
war have been removed with a view to relieve
the people and to prevent the accumulation of
an unnecessary surplus. The result is that
hardly ever before have the expenditures and
income of the government so closely corre-
sponded. In the fiscal year that has just closed
the excess of income over the ordinary ex-
penditures was $9,000,000. This does not take
account of the $50,000,000 expended out of the
accumulated surplus for the purchase of the
Isthmian Canal. It is an extraordinary proof
of the sound financial condition of the nation
that instead of following the usual course in
such matters and throwing the burden upon
posterity by an issue of bonds, we are able to
make the payment outright, and yet after it to
have in the Treasury a surplus of $161,000,000.
Moreover, we were able to pay this $50,000,000
out of hand without causing the slightest dis-
turbance to business conditions.
We have enacted a tariff law under which,
216
ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
during the last few years, the country has at-
tained a height of material well-being never be-
fore reached. Wages are higher than ever be-
fore. That whenever the need arises there
should be a readjustment of the tariff schedules
is undoubted ; but such changes can with safety
be made only by those whose devotion to the
principle of a protective tariff is beyond ques-
tion; for otherwise the changes would amount
not to readjustment but to repeal. The read-
justment when made must maintain and not de-
stroy the protective principle. To the farmer,
the merchant, the manufacturer, this is vital;
but perhaps no other man is so much interested
as the wage worker in the maintenance of our
present economic system, both as regards the
finances and the tariff. The standard of living
of our wage workers is higher than that of any
other country, and it cannot so remain unless
we have a protective tariff which shall always
keep as a minimum a rate of duty sufficient to
cover the difference between the labor cost here
and abroad. Those who, like our opponents,
"denounce protection as a robbery" thereby ex-
plicitly commit themselves to the proposition
that if they were to revise the tariff no heed
would be paid to the necessity of meeting this
difference between the standards of living for
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ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
wage workers here and in other countries ; and
therefore on this point their antagonism to our
position is fundamental. Here again we ask that
their promises and ours be judged by what has
been done in the immediate past. We ask that
sober and sensible men compare the workings
of the present tariff law, and the conditions
which obtain under it, with the workings of the
preceding tariff law of 1894 and the conditions
which that tariff of 1894 helped to bring about.
We believe in reciprocity with foreign na-
tions on the terms outlined in President Mc-
Kinley's last speech, which urged the extension
of our foreign markets by reciprocal agree-
ments whenever they could be made without in-
jury to American industry and labor. It is a
singular fact that the only great reciprocity
treaty recently adopted that with Cuba was
finally opposed almost alone by the representa-
tives of the very party which now states that it
favors reciprocity. And here, again, we ask
that the worth of our words be judged by com-
paring their deeds with ours. On this Cuban
reciprocity treaty there were at the outset grave
differences of opinion among ourselves ; and the
notable thing in the negotiation and ratification
of the treaty, and in the legislation which car-
ried it into effect, was the highly practical man-
218
ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
ner in which, without sacrifice of principle,
these differences of opinion were reconciled.
There was no rupture of a great party, but an
excellent practical outcome, the result of the
harmonious co-operation of two successive
Presidents and two successive Congresses. This
is an illustration of the governing capacity
which entitles us to the confidence of the people
not only in our purposes but in our practical
ability to achieve those purposes. Judging by
the history of the last twelve years, down to this
very month, is there justification for believing
that under similar circumstances and with sim-
ilar initial differences of opinion our opponents
would have achieved any practical result?
We have already shown in actual fact that
our policy is to do fair and equal justice to all
men, paying no heed to whether a man is rich
or poor; paying no heed to his race, his creed or
his birthplace.
We recognize the organization of capital and
the organization of labor as natural outcomes
of our industrial system. Each kind of organi-
zation is to be favored so long as it acts in a
spirit of justice and of regard for the rights of
others. Each is to be granted the full protection
of the law, and each in turn is to be held to a
strict obedience to the law ; for no man is above
219
ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
it and no man below it. The humblest indi-
vidual is to have his rights safeguarded as scru-
pulously as those of the strongest organization,
for each is to receive justice, no more and no
less. The problems with which we have to deal
in our modern industrial and social life are
manifold ; but the spirit in which it is necessary
to approach their solution is simply the spirit of
honesty, of courage and of common sense.
In inaugurating the great work of irrigation
in the West the administration has been enabled
by Congress to take one of the longest strides
ever taken under our government towards util-
izing our vast national domain for the settler,
the actual home maker.
Ever since this continent was discovered the
need of an isthmian canal to connect the Pacific
and the Atlantic has been recognized ; and ever
since the birth of our nation such a canal has
been planned. At last the dream has become a
reality. The isthmian canal is now being built
by the government of the United States. We
conducted the negotiation for its construction
with the nicest and most scrupulous honor, and
in a spirit of the largest generosity toward those
through whose territory it was to run. Every
sinister effort Which could be devised by the
spirit of faction or the spirit of self-interest was
220
ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
made in order to defeat the treaty with Panama
and thereby prevent the consummation of this
work. The construction of the canal is now an
assured fact, but most certainly it is unwise to
intrust the carrying out of so momentous a
policy to those who have endeavored to defeat
the whole undertaking.
Our foreign policy has been so conducted
that, while not one of our just claims has been
sacrificed, our relations with all foreign nations
are now of the most peaceful kind ; there is not
a cloud on the horizon. The last cause of irrita-
tion between us and any other nation was re-
moved by the settlement of the Alaskan bound-
ary.
In the Caribbean Sea we have made good our
promises of independence to Cuba, and have
proved our assertion that our mission in the
island was one of justice and not of self-ag-
grandizement, and thereby no less than by our
action in Venezuela and Panama we have shown
that the Monroe Doctrine is a living reality,
designed for the hurt of no nation, but for the
protection of civilization on the Western con-
tinent and for the peace of the world. Our
steady growth in power has gone hand in hand
with a strengthening disposition to use this
power with strict regard for the rights of
221
ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
others and for the cause of international justice
and good-will.
We earnestly desire friendship with all the
nations of the New and Old Worlds; and we
endeavor to place our relations with them upon
a basis of reciprocal advantage instead of hos-
tility. We hold that the prosperity of each
nation is an aid and not a hindrance to the pros-
perity of other nations. We seek international
amity for the same reasons that make us be-
lieve in peace within our own borders; and we
seek this peace not because we are afraid or
unready, but because we think that peace is
right as well as advantageous.
American interests in the Pacific have rap-
idly grown. American enterprise has laid a
cable across this, the greatest of oceans. We
have proved in effective fashion that we wish
the Chinese Empire well and desire its integ-
rity and independence.
Our foothold in the Philippines greatly
strengthens our position in the competition for
the trade of the East; but we are governing the
Philippines in the interest of the Philippine
people themselves. We have already given
them a large share in their government, and
our purpose is to increase this share as rapidly
as they give evidence of increasing fitness for
222
ACCEPTAXCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
the task. The great majority of the officials
of the islands, whether elective or appointive,
are already native Filipinos. We are now pro-
viding for a legislative assembly. This is the
first step to be taken in the future ; and it would
be eminently unwise to declare what our next
step will be until this first step has been taken
and the results are manifest. To have gone
faster than we have already gone in giving the
islanders a constantly increasing measure of
self-government would have been disastrous.
At the present moment to give political inde-
pendence to the islands would result in the im-
mediate loss of civil rights, personal liberty
and public order, as regards the mass of the
Filipinos, for the majority of the islanders
have been given these great boons by us, and
only keep them because we vigilantly safeguard
and guarantee them. To withdraw our gov-
ernment from the islands at this time would
mean to the average native the loss of his barely
won civil freedom. We have established in the
islands a government by Americans, assisted
by Filipinos. We are steadily striving to
transform this into self-government by the
Filipinos assisted by Americans.
The principles which we uphold should ap-
peal to all our countrymen, in all portions of
223
ACCEPTANCE BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
our country. Above all, they should give us
strength with the men and women who are the
spiritual heirs of those who upheld the hands
of Abraham Lincoln, for we are striving to do
our work in the spirit with which Lincoln ap-
proached his. During the seven years that
have just passed there is no duty, domestic or
foreign, which we have shirked; no necessary
task which we have feared to undertake, or
which we have not performed with reasonable
efficiency. We have never pleaded impotence.
We have never sought refuge in criticism and
complaint instead of action. We face the
future with our past and our present as guar-
antors of our promises, and we are content to
stand or to fall by the record which we have
made and are making.
224
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