Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate BiographyThayer, William Roscoe
History
Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography
Thayer, William Roscoe
Presidents -- United States -- Biography; Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
'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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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