Theodore Roosevelt [51]
for Vice-President, I will add this extract from Hay's note to the successful candidate himself, dated June 21st:
As it is all over but the shouting, I take a moment of this cool morning of the longest day in the year to offer you my cordial congratulations .... You have received the greatest compliment the country could pay you, and although it was not precisely what you and your friends desire, I have no doubt it is all for the best. Nothing can keep you from doing good work wherever you are--nor from getting lots of fun out of it.*
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 343.
The Presidential campaign which followed, shook the country only a little less than that of 1896 had done. For William J. Bryan was again the Democratic candidate, honest money--the gold against the silver standard--was again the issue--although the Spanish War had injected Imperialism into the Republican platform--and the conservative elements were still anxious. The persistence of the Free Silver heresy and of Bryan's hold on the popular imagination alarmed them; for it seemed to contradict the hope implied in Lincoln's saying that you can't fool all the people all the time. Here was a demagogue, who had been exposed and beaten four years before, who raised his head--or should I say his voice?--with increased effrontery and to an equally large and enthusiastic audience.
Roosevelt took his full share in campaigning for the Republican ticket. He spoke in the East and in the West, and for the first time the people of many of the States heard him speak and saw his actual presence. His attitude as a speaker, his gestures, the way in which his pent-up thoughts seemed almost to strangle him before he could utter them, his smile showing the white rows of teeth, his fist clenched as if to strike an invisible adversary, the sudden dropping of his voice, and leveling of his forefinger as he became almost conversational in tone, and seemed to address special individuals in the crowd before him, the strokes of sarcasm, stern and cutting, and the swift flashes of humor which set the great multitude in a roar, became in that summer and autumn familiar to millions of his countrymen; and the cartoonists made his features and gestures familiar to many other millions. On his Western trip, Roosevelt for a companion and understudy had Curtis Guild, and more than once when Roosevelt lost his voice completely, Guild had to speak for him. Up to election day in November, the Republicans did not feel confident, but when the votes were counted, McKinley had a plurality of over 830,000, and beat Bryan by more than a million.
By an absurd and bungling practice, which obtains in our political life, the Administration elected in November does not take office until the following March, an interval which permits the old Administration, often beaten and discredited, to continue in office for four months after the people have turned it out. As we have lately seen, such an Administration does not experience a death-bed repentance, but employs the moratorium to rivet upon the country the evil policies which the people have repudiated. This interval Roosevelt spent in finishing his work as Governor of New York State, and in removing to Washington. Then he had a foretaste of the life of inactivity to which the Vice-Presidency doomed him.
After being sworn in on March 4, 1901, his only stated duty was to preside over the Senate, but as the Senate did not usually sit during the hot weather, he had still more leisure thrust upon him. Of course, he could write, and there never was a time, even at his busiest, when he had not a book, or addresses, or articles on the stocks. But writing alone was not now sufficient to exercise his very vigorous faculties. Perhaps, for the first time in his life, he may have had a foreboding of what ennui meant. He consulted Justice White, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, whether it would be proper for him to enroll himself as a student in the Washington Law School. Justice White feared that this might be regarded as a slight to the dignity
As it is all over but the shouting, I take a moment of this cool morning of the longest day in the year to offer you my cordial congratulations .... You have received the greatest compliment the country could pay you, and although it was not precisely what you and your friends desire, I have no doubt it is all for the best. Nothing can keep you from doing good work wherever you are--nor from getting lots of fun out of it.*
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 343.
The Presidential campaign which followed, shook the country only a little less than that of 1896 had done. For William J. Bryan was again the Democratic candidate, honest money--the gold against the silver standard--was again the issue--although the Spanish War had injected Imperialism into the Republican platform--and the conservative elements were still anxious. The persistence of the Free Silver heresy and of Bryan's hold on the popular imagination alarmed them; for it seemed to contradict the hope implied in Lincoln's saying that you can't fool all the people all the time. Here was a demagogue, who had been exposed and beaten four years before, who raised his head--or should I say his voice?--with increased effrontery and to an equally large and enthusiastic audience.
Roosevelt took his full share in campaigning for the Republican ticket. He spoke in the East and in the West, and for the first time the people of many of the States heard him speak and saw his actual presence. His attitude as a speaker, his gestures, the way in which his pent-up thoughts seemed almost to strangle him before he could utter them, his smile showing the white rows of teeth, his fist clenched as if to strike an invisible adversary, the sudden dropping of his voice, and leveling of his forefinger as he became almost conversational in tone, and seemed to address special individuals in the crowd before him, the strokes of sarcasm, stern and cutting, and the swift flashes of humor which set the great multitude in a roar, became in that summer and autumn familiar to millions of his countrymen; and the cartoonists made his features and gestures familiar to many other millions. On his Western trip, Roosevelt for a companion and understudy had Curtis Guild, and more than once when Roosevelt lost his voice completely, Guild had to speak for him. Up to election day in November, the Republicans did not feel confident, but when the votes were counted, McKinley had a plurality of over 830,000, and beat Bryan by more than a million.
By an absurd and bungling practice, which obtains in our political life, the Administration elected in November does not take office until the following March, an interval which permits the old Administration, often beaten and discredited, to continue in office for four months after the people have turned it out. As we have lately seen, such an Administration does not experience a death-bed repentance, but employs the moratorium to rivet upon the country the evil policies which the people have repudiated. This interval Roosevelt spent in finishing his work as Governor of New York State, and in removing to Washington. Then he had a foretaste of the life of inactivity to which the Vice-Presidency doomed him.
After being sworn in on March 4, 1901, his only stated duty was to preside over the Senate, but as the Senate did not usually sit during the hot weather, he had still more leisure thrust upon him. Of course, he could write, and there never was a time, even at his busiest, when he had not a book, or addresses, or articles on the stocks. But writing alone was not now sufficient to exercise his very vigorous faculties. Perhaps, for the first time in his life, he may have had a foreboding of what ennui meant. He consulted Justice White, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, whether it would be proper for him to enroll himself as a student in the Washington Law School. Justice White feared that this might be regarded as a slight to the dignity