Theodore Roosevelt [120]
Convention as now composed has no claim to represent the voters of the Republican Party. It represents nothing but successful fraud in overriding the will of the rank and file of the party. Any man nominated by the Convention as now constituted would be merely the beneficiary of this successful fraud; it would be deeply discreditable to any man to accept the Convention's nomination under these circumstances; and any man thus accepting it would have no claim to the support of any Republican on party grounds, and would have forfeited the right to ask the support of any honest man of any party on moral grounds.'
Mr. Allen concluded with these words of his own:
'We do not bolt. We merely insist that you, not we, are making the record. And we refuse to be bound by it. We have pleaded with you ten days. We have fought with you five days for a square deal. We fight no more, we plead no longer. We shall sit in protest and the people who sent us here shall judge us.
'Gentlemen, you accuse us of being radical. Let me tell you that no radical in the ranks of radicalism ever did so radical a thing as to come to a National Convention of the great Republican Party and secure through fraud the nomination of a man whom they knew could not be elected.'*
* Fifteenth Republican National Convention (New York, 1912), 333, 335.
Every night during that momentous week the Roosevelt delegates met in the Congress Hotel, talked over the day's proceedings, gave vent to their indignation, confirmed each other's resolution, and took a decision as to their future action. The powerful Hiram Johnson, Governor of California, led them, and through his eloquence he persuaded all but 107 of them to stand by Roosevelt whether he were nominated by the Convention or not.
And this they did. For when the vote for the nomination was taken at the Convention only 107 of the Roosevelt men cast their ballots. They favored Roosevelt, but they were not prepared to quit the Republican Party. During the roll-call the Roosevelt delegates from Massachusetts refused to vote. Thereupon, Mr. Root, the Chairman, ruled that they must vote, to which Frederick Fosdick replied, when his name was read again, "Present, and not voting. I defy the Convention to make me vote for any man"; and seventeen other Roosevelt delegates refrained. Mr. Root then called up the alternates of these abstainers and three of them recorded their votes for Taft, but there was such a demonstration against this ruling that Mr. Root thought better of it and proceeded in it no farther. Many of his Republican associates at the time thought this action high-handed and unjustified, and many more agree in this opinion today.
Except for this grave error, Mr. Root's rulings were strictly according to the precedents and directions of the Republican National Committee, and we may believe that even he saw the sardonic humor of his unvarying application of them at the expense of the Rooseveltians. Before the first day's session was over, the process was popularly called the "steam roller." Late in the week, a delegate rose to a point of order, and on being recognized by the Chairman, he shouted that he wished to call the attention of the Chairman to the fact that the steam roller was exceeding its speed limit, at which Mr. Root replied, "The Chairman rules that the gentleman's point of order is well taken." And everybody laughed. There was one dramatic moment which, as Dean Lewis remarks, has had no counterpart in a National Convention. When the Machine had succeeded, in spite of protests and evidence, in stealing the two delegates from California, the friends of Mr. Taft gave triumphant cheers. Then the Roosevelt men rose up as one man and sent forth a mighty cheer which astonished their opponents. It was a cheer in which were mingled indignation and scorn, and, above all, relief. Strictly interpreted, it meant that those men who had sat for four days and seen their wishes thwarted, by what they regarded as fraud, and had held on in the belief that this fraud could not continue to the end, that
Mr. Allen concluded with these words of his own:
'We do not bolt. We merely insist that you, not we, are making the record. And we refuse to be bound by it. We have pleaded with you ten days. We have fought with you five days for a square deal. We fight no more, we plead no longer. We shall sit in protest and the people who sent us here shall judge us.
'Gentlemen, you accuse us of being radical. Let me tell you that no radical in the ranks of radicalism ever did so radical a thing as to come to a National Convention of the great Republican Party and secure through fraud the nomination of a man whom they knew could not be elected.'*
* Fifteenth Republican National Convention (New York, 1912), 333, 335.
Every night during that momentous week the Roosevelt delegates met in the Congress Hotel, talked over the day's proceedings, gave vent to their indignation, confirmed each other's resolution, and took a decision as to their future action. The powerful Hiram Johnson, Governor of California, led them, and through his eloquence he persuaded all but 107 of them to stand by Roosevelt whether he were nominated by the Convention or not.
And this they did. For when the vote for the nomination was taken at the Convention only 107 of the Roosevelt men cast their ballots. They favored Roosevelt, but they were not prepared to quit the Republican Party. During the roll-call the Roosevelt delegates from Massachusetts refused to vote. Thereupon, Mr. Root, the Chairman, ruled that they must vote, to which Frederick Fosdick replied, when his name was read again, "Present, and not voting. I defy the Convention to make me vote for any man"; and seventeen other Roosevelt delegates refrained. Mr. Root then called up the alternates of these abstainers and three of them recorded their votes for Taft, but there was such a demonstration against this ruling that Mr. Root thought better of it and proceeded in it no farther. Many of his Republican associates at the time thought this action high-handed and unjustified, and many more agree in this opinion today.
Except for this grave error, Mr. Root's rulings were strictly according to the precedents and directions of the Republican National Committee, and we may believe that even he saw the sardonic humor of his unvarying application of them at the expense of the Rooseveltians. Before the first day's session was over, the process was popularly called the "steam roller." Late in the week, a delegate rose to a point of order, and on being recognized by the Chairman, he shouted that he wished to call the attention of the Chairman to the fact that the steam roller was exceeding its speed limit, at which Mr. Root replied, "The Chairman rules that the gentleman's point of order is well taken." And everybody laughed. There was one dramatic moment which, as Dean Lewis remarks, has had no counterpart in a National Convention. When the Machine had succeeded, in spite of protests and evidence, in stealing the two delegates from California, the friends of Mr. Taft gave triumphant cheers. Then the Roosevelt men rose up as one man and sent forth a mighty cheer which astonished their opponents. It was a cheer in which were mingled indignation and scorn, and, above all, relief. Strictly interpreted, it meant that those men who had sat for four days and seen their wishes thwarted, by what they regarded as fraud, and had held on in the belief that this fraud could not continue to the end, that