Roosevelt had been made Vice-President to get rid of him in New York. The single life that stood between him and the White House was removed by an assassin, and as a President by accident he desired to establish himself and secure a nomination on his own account in 1904. By the summer of 1902 he appreciated the growing interest in the problems of capital and labor. A speaking tour in 1902 gave him a chance to demand a "square deal" for all, and the control of the trusts. From some sections of the West came the suggestion that the way to approach the trusts was through the tariff. The Dingley Tariff was unpopular with the Republican farmers of the Northwest, and for some years they tolerated it in silence as a test of party loyalty. In 1902 a liberal faction, controlled by Governor Albert B. Cummins, captured the Iowa convention and demanded a revision of the more extreme schedules. The belief that the tariff was the "mother of trusts" was spreading, and the Iowa idea gained wide acceptance. In Congress, in the session of 1902, the Republican organization had shown the stubbornness with which any opening in the tariff wall would be opposed. Cuba was set free in the spring of 1902, her government having been formed under the guidance of the United States. The duty to aid the young Republic, and in particular to mitigate the severities of the Dingley Tariff impressed the President, who used all his influence to get such legislation from Congress. He failed signally, raising only a new issue by his attempt to coerce Congress. His speeches in the summer showed a willingness to revise the tariff, while his interference in the coal strike in the autumn showed his willingness to oppose the ends of capital. How far he would go in breaking with the leaders of his party was unknown, but their disposition to "stand pat" and do nothing with the tariff was marked before the end of 1902. In 1902 it became a habit of Republican state conventions to demand the renomination of Roosevelt in 1904. Whatever his effect upon the party leaders, the rank and file liked him and believed in him, while his personal popularity among Democrats led many to think his strength greater than it was. His candidacy was formal and authorized, but his opponents hoped that Hanna might be induced to try to defeat him. In 1903 the Ohio convention, with the consent of Hanna, approved the candidacy of Roosevelt, and early in 1904 the death of Hanna removed the last hope of Roosevelt's Republican opponents. The delegates went to a national convention in Chicago, for which the procedure had all been arranged at the White House, where it had been determined that Elihu Root should be temporary chairman, and that Joseph G. Cannon, the Speaker, should be permanent chairman. Through these the convention registered the renomination of Roosevelt and selected Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indiana, as Vice-President.