"The administration has had no candidate for Vice-President. It has not been for or against any candidate. It has desired that the Convention should make the candidate and that has been my position throughout. It has been a free field for all. Under these circumstances several eminent Republicans have been proposed, all of them distinguished men with many friends. I may now say on behalf of all of these candidates, and I except no one, I have within the last twelve hours been asked to give my advice. After consulting with as many delegates as possible in the time at my disposal I have concluded to accept the responsibility involved in this request. In the present situation, with the strong and earnest sentiment of the delegates from all parts of the country for Governor Roosevelt, and since President McKinley is to be nominated without a dissenting voice, it is my judgment that Governor Roosevelt should be nominated with the same unanimity." This proclamation, which was very ingenious, but not wholly candid, did of course settle the matter. Mr. Hanna's "advice" was accepted. No other name was presented to the Convention for Vice-Presidential candidate; but curiously enough it was not presented by the candidate's own state. The effective demand for Mr. Roosevelt's nomination had come from the West, and to Iowa, as the only Western state which had favored a serious local candidate, was accorded the honor of placing Mr. Roosevelt's name before the Convention. Colonel Lafayette Young made the speech accompanying the nomination, and Mr. Roosevelt received 925 votes out of 926-one delegate from New York, presumably the candidate himself, having failed to vote.

The dislike which President McKinley and Mr. Hanna felt towards Mr. Roosevelt as Vice-Presidential nominee was natural, but the immediate effect of the nomination was as fortunate for them as its ultimate effects were for Mr. Roosevelt. The Republican ticket was decidedly strengthened by the presence on it of one who at that time was, more than any other single man, the hero of the Cuban war. The facts that both the President and Mr. Hanna had been opposed to the war, that they had been reluctant to accept its consequences, and that in their political system the most important object of political policy was the encouragement of business, all these facts made

them underestimate the effect of the war on public opinion. It was the popularity of the war in the West which had saved them in the Congressional election of the fall of 1898; and it was the same element in public opinion which at the Philadelphia Convention had demanded the nomination of the Colonel of Rough Riders. Thus Mr. Roosevelt added a kind of strength Vto the ticket which it could not have obtained from the success of any alternative candidate.

That the promised revival of business had taken place during Mr. McKinley's administration constituted unquestionably the President's best claim for reëlection. If the country had not become relatively prosperous, the Republicans would surely have been defeated. But just in proportion as prosperity returned, it lost some of its value as a political issue. A hungry man can think of nothing but food, but when the hunger is satisfied he needs other interests. The war had aroused national feeling and had made the people more alive to their joint national interest. It had given to the American people a new sense of the meaning of American nationality and of the scope of American national purposes. All these vague emotions and ideas demanded some medium of expression. If the Republican ticket had not provided them with a candidate who appealed, as Mr. Roosevelt did, to their patriotic imagination and aspirations, it would have failed wholly to satisfy a widespread and vital element in public opinion. Against their own will Mr. McKinley and Mr. Hanna had called to their support the one man who could most effectively supplement their own strength with the American people—the one man who could make the ticket represent the nationalism of the future as well as that of the past and of the present.

CHAPTER XXI

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1900

In spite of the threatened conflict over the nomination for Vice-President, the Convention of 1900 was, from the point of view of party harmony and efficiency, one of the most successful ever held by the Republicans. It named a ticket which was as capable of vigorous aggression as it was impregnable on the defence. The whole party was confident of success and eager to contribute to it. Never had the Republicans been more efficiently organized and more competently led. The leaders had the confidence of the army. The army was not divided against itself. They felt that they represented the better part of the nation and that in their persons the nation was marching on to new industrial conquests and towards new political horizons.

Mr. McKinley was apparently as much pleased with the final result and the means whereby it had been reached as was the average Republican. As soon as the Convention was over, he wrote from Washington to Mr. Hanna, who had gone to Cleveland, the following letter:

"DEAR SENATOR:

"I am greatly pleased with the work of the Convention. You have added another claim to leadership and public confidence. All comers from the Convention commend you and all accord you the courage and sagacity of true leadership.

"I am delighted that you have accepted the Chairmanship of the National Committee. It is a great task and will be to you a great sacrifice. Before you arrange for the Director of the Speaking Bureau, I will be glad to talk with you.

"Hoping you will get some much needed rest and find your family well, believe me,

"Your true friend,

"WILLIAM MCKINLEY."

It had already been announced that Mr. Hanna would again head the National Committee. Everybody had assumed, as a matter of course, that he would do so. His selection for the place was only a proper recognition of his service to the administration and the party and his proved ability as a campaign manager. Yet there was a period of some weeks previous to the meeting of the Convention, during which Mr. Hanna himself began to suspect and fear that he would not be selected. The naming of the Chairman was the practical prerogative of the head of the ticket; and Mr. McKinley's behavior was at least suspicious.

Early in the spring of 1900 Mr. Hanna began complaining to certain of his intimate associates that Mr. McKinley had said nothing to him about managing the coming campaign. Time passed and still nothing was said. Mr. Hanna became very much worried. The moment arrived when preparations ought to be made and when it was natural that the matter should be settled. The worry seems to have had a damaging effect on his health. Late in April he had an attack of heart failure, while writing a note in his office, and fainted away. He recovered almost immediately and even went that same night to the theatre; but his intimates, who knew his physical habits and realized how distressed he was, attributed the attack to the anxiety caused by the President's persistent silence. If at that particular juncture Mr. Hanna had been superseded as Chairman of the National Committee, one of the most essential supports of his personal prestige and power would have been removed. It would have meant that he no longer retained the friendship and confidence of the President. Fortunately, however, his suspense was not further prolonged. A little later Mr. Hanna appeared at his office one morning with every trace of anxiety vanished from his face and in the highest spirits. Mr. McKinley had the night before asked him to accept the office and its work, and had insisted upon his immediate and unqualified

consent.

Considering the relations between the two men, one's natural suspicion would be that Mr. Hanna's anxiety was due to over-sensitiveness, and that Mr. McKinley had never even considered the selection of another Chairman. But from remarks

which Mr. McKinley made to other people, it is probable that the President really was hesitating. How serious the hesitation was, and upon precisely what grounds it was based, remains obscure; but unquestionably at this period a certain alteration was taking place in the relationship between the two men. The President's delay in asking Mr. Hanna to serve as Chairman, and Mr. Hanna's consequent anxiety, was only the first of a series of incidents which indicated such a change. The incidents will all be told frankly, because they are part of the true story of Mr. Hanna's life. They indicate not any estrangement, but simply the stress under which an old and fast friendship was adapting itself to new conditions. The new condition was Mr. Hanna's increasing personal power as a Congressional and as a popular leader. This power was assuming such formidable dimensions that the President might well begin to wonder how | his own prestige was beginning to look by comparison. But in spite of the strain, the testimony is unanimous that at the end of the campaign the friendship of the two men remained substantially unimpaired.

Whatever the grounds of the President's hesitation, he really did not have a practicable alternative. No other man had a tithe of the qualifications possessed by Mr. Hanna for the office of Chairman. He could have claimed it, merely because of his ability as a campaign manager, even though as a political leader he was less popular than was actually the case. Mr. Hanna alone had in his mind a complete and accurate map of the political landscape. He knew just what the situation was in the different parts of the country, and just what states needed and would repay the most arduous efforts for their retention or conquest. During the four years that had elapsed since the previous campaign he had been studying the conditions and opportunities which would be presented in 1900. Responsibility for the work could not have been shifted without confusion, cross purposes and loss of efficiency.

Mr. Hanna's personal relation to the work in 1900 was very much the same as it had been four years earlier. He was the real supervisor and director of the whole campaign. Its management was absolutely his. Of course, he constantly consulted the President and other leaders; but, as in the case of any other

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