With its leading candidates and its platform practically dictated, the Convention of 1900 might have been expected to be too harmonious for anything but words. The only task which circumstances had left to the discretion of the delegates was the nomination for Vice-President; and American parties and partisan conventions have usually refused to get interested in the candidate for that contingently important office. After the question of the Presidential candidate is settled, the delegates are so anxious to go home that they allow a Vice-Presidential candidate to be imposed upon them by the head of the ticket. The more conspicuous and able party leaders do not want the office, which has a way of ending the political career of the man who wins it. The successful candidate is usually some subordinate leader who is supposed to be able to carry an important state, remote from the residence of the Presidential candidate.

In 1900, however, this ordinarily neglected task was the only aspect of the Convention's work in which the delegates had a chance to get interested. They seized it with avidity, and soon became almost as much excited over their choice for the minor as they usually were for the major office. The influence of the administration was not being exerted in favor of any candidate. Both Mr. McKinley and Mr. Hanna had their preferences, but their favorite candidates spurned the office. Mr. McKinley's choice, Senator Allison, was satisfied with his seat and his position in the Senate. Mr. Hanna's choice, Mr. Cornelius N. Bliss, to which the President would have cordially assented, refused to permit the use of his name. Mr. Bliss had been for about a year and a half Secretary of Interior in Mr. McKinley's Cabinet. During the period of their joint official service in Washington, the warm friendship between him and Mr. Hanna, which had started during the campaign of '96, became still more affectionately intimate. They lived together for a while during the summer of '98, and both used subsequently to refer to these months as peculiarly pleasant-in spite of the trying nature of their official duties. It was natural, consequently, that after Mr. Hobart's death, Mr. Hanna should have wished to put Mr. Bliss in his place.

If Mr. Bliss had consented to allow the use of his name, Mr. Hanna would have planned his nomination months in advance,

and might well have succeeded. The latter never had any doubt about his ability to bring about the nomination of any really available candidate. But Mr. Bliss refused. Even after the Convention had assembled, Mr. Hanna continued to urge Mr. Bliss, who was a delegate from New York, to consent. For a moment there was some hesitation. Mr. Bliss was so far persuaded that he even yielded-provided Mr. Hanna would disarm the opposition of Mrs. Bliss. But Mr. Hanna threw up his hands at the proviso. He had already incurred Mrs. Bliss's disfavor by persuading her husband to accept a Cabinet office, and he declined to travel any farther along that road.

With Senator Allison and Mr. Bliss eliminated there was no candidate whom either the President or Mr. Hanna very much preferred. The other men frequently mentioned for the place were Governor Roosevelt, Jonathan Dolliver, then a Congressman from Iowa, ex-Secretary of the Navy, John D. Long, Charles M. Fairbanks of Indiana and Timothy Woodruff, a New York politician. Mr. Roosevelt, who was much the most prominent of these candidates, was being proposed for the office very much against his own will, while at the other end of the scale was Mr. Woodruff, who was enthusiastically in favor of his own selection.

Mr. Roosevelt's candidacy was being assiduously promoted by Senator Thomas C. Platt, the "Boss" of New York. The Governor during his term of office had exhibited a good deal of undesirable independence in respect both to the legislation which he favored and to his appointments. He had come into sharp collision with Senator Platt and the New York Republican machine over several matters, particularly the question of the handling of the insurance department and the Franchise Tax Bill. He achieved his object in having the bill passed in proper shape, but only at the cost of serious trouble with the organization. After its passage Mr. Roosevelt soon found that the regular leaders were more or less covertly hostile to him and were anxious to prevent his renomination. They feared he might succeed, in spite of their opposition, and they hit upon the plan of getting rid of him by bringing about his nomination for Vice-President. Before the Convention assembled, Mr. Roosevelt had no idea that the Vice-Presidential candidacy was any

thing but a device contrived by Senator Platt and the machine to end his career as Governor, and announced that he would not accept the nomination. He went to the Convention primarily for the purpose of preventing it.

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Both Mr. McKinley and Mr. Hanna were as much opposed to Mr. Roosevelt's candidacy as was the candidate himself. When the latter arrived in Philadelphia, he had no definite plans, except to nominate Mr. Bliss (if possible), and to prevent the nomination of Mr. Roosevelt. The Colonel of Rough Riders, after his return from Cuba, had been free in his private criticism of the conduct of the war, and his whole attitude towards the war had been different from that of the administration. Although he had always behaved as a loyal Republican, he was regarded as erratic and "unsafe," as, indeed, he undoubtedly was from the point of view of an administration of the affairs of the country chiefly in the interest of business. The VicePresidency might have seemed to be one of the safest offices in the government in which to confine an unsafe political leader; but Mr. Hanna had gone to Philadelphia with the intention of engineering the nomination of a Vice-Presidential candidate who would make from his point of view a thoroughly good President. It was characteristic of him to provide, if possible, in advance against the inconvenient contingency of having his Harrison succeeded by a Tyler.

There is a story to the effect that when Mr. Timothy Woodruff was urging upon Mr. Hanna his personal advantages as a Vice-Presidential candidate, the latter asked him :

"Do you think that the Convention would nominate you for the Presidency?" Mr. Woodruff allowed that the Convention would not. "Then," said Mr. Hanna, "don't you know that there is only one life between the Presidency and the Vice-Presidency and that it would be foolhardy to nominate a man for Vice-President who would not be big enough to be President?" What Mr. Woodruff replied, the chronicle sayeth not; but he might have retorted that the nomination of politicians for the Vice-Presidency who were not fit to be President was one of the most ancient and best established of American political traditions, and that from any such point of view his qualifications were unimpeachable. He might have urged, also, that his own re

moval to Washington, unlike that of Mr. Roosevelt, would have been a benefit to the cause of good government in New York. Although Mr. Hanna was emphatically opposed to Mr. Roosevelt's nomination, neither he nor, of course, the President had given any public expression to his opposition. Nor had he taken any precautions to prevent it. He did not think such precautions necessary. Inasmuch as Mr. Roosevelt himself did not want it, and as the New York delegation was divided between Mr. Woodruff and the Governor, the prospects of such a nomination did not look serious. Mr. Roosevelt arrived in Philadelphia on Saturday, June 16, and in an interview shortly thereafter with Mr. Hanna, he repudiated so decisively the idea of becoming a candidate that Mr. Hanna gave out a statement in reference to the matter. He declared himself opposed to Mr. Roosevelt's nomination on the ground that the candidacy should not be forced on any man. He undoubtedly expected that this declaration would settle this matter. The Convention had shown no disposition to question his leadership, and preferences for Vice-Presidential candidates never had much vitality. With Mr. Roosevelt out of the way the nomination seemed to lie between Jonathan Dolliver and John D. Long, with the chances in the former's favor.

What followed can best be narrated in Mr. Roosevelt's own words:

"Immediately on reaching Philadelphia, I was made aware that there was a very strong movement outside of the State of New York in favor of my nomination, the motive of these men outside of New York being the exact reverse of the motives of the politicians from New York; for the men outside New York wished me nominated because they believed in me and wished me to continue in public life. However, it was some little time before I attached full weight to this outside movement, my attention being absorbed by the effort within the New York delegation to force me as a candidate. Senator Platt had come on, and personally and through his lieutenants was assuming control of the delegation, and they were insisting that I would have to be nominated, and that New York would insist upon presenting my name. I insisted that I would not be nominated, and that I would not permit New York to present my name.

Finally a caucus of the New York delegates was called, and it was while this caucus was being held that I had my interview with Senator Platt. As soon as the caucus came together it became evident that a concerted effort would be made to force me into the acceptance of the nomination, without regard to my wishes. I taxed the leaders of the movement with desiring merely to get me out of the Governorship-for my term as Governor would end the following January, and the Convention to nominate a Governor would be held some three months after the Presidential Convention which we were then attending. Some of those I thus taxed with wishing to eliminate me from the Governorship acknowledged the fact with a laugh; others denied it. I told them that I would not permit them to nominate me for Vice-President, that I would not only make the fight in the caucus, but also if necessary in the Convention, and explain fully what I believed their purpose was; and that most assuredly after such public explanation by me, it would be impossible for them to nominate me.

"This caused a good deal of commotion, and in a short while one of Mr. Platt's lieutenants came to me and stated that the Senator wished to see me in his room, to which he was confined because of an accident with which he had met. I accordingly went upstairs and saw him. He told me that it had been decided that I was to be nominated for Vice-President, and that they could not accept any refusal, and that I would have to yield. I answered that I was sorry to be disagreeable, but that I regarded the movement as one to get me out of the Governorship for reasons which were not of a personal but of a public character; that is, for reasons connected with the principles in which I so heartily believed, and that I would not and could not consent to go back on those principles, and so I would refuse to accept the nomination for Vice-President. Senator Platt again said that I would have to accept. I again told him that I would not. He then said to me that if I did not accept, I would be beaten for the nomination for Governor, and some one else nominated for Governor in my place. I answered in effect that this was a threat, which simply rendered it impossible for me to accept, that if there was to be war there would be war, and that that was all there was to it; and I bowed and left the room.