November 21, 1899: The Death of Garret Hobart

November 21, 1899: Garret Hobart dies of heart disease in Paterson, Passaic County, New Jersey. He was only 55 years old.

He was also the Vice President of the United States -- the only one, so far, from New Jersey. A statue of him stands outside Paterson's City Hall.

The native of Long Branch, Monmouth County, on the Jersey Shore – where President James Garfield died 2 months after being shot in 1881 – had led both houses of the State legislature, as Speaker of the Assembly and as President of the Senate. He was Chairman of the State's Republican Party from 1880 to 1891. He was chosen to run for Vice President on the Republican ticket with William McKinley in 1896.

Hobart's death left the Vice Presidency vacant until Inauguration Day 1901: Until the 25th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1967, there was no legal mechanism for replacing the Vice President until the next Presidential election. Had he lived, Hobart would have been re-elected with McKinley in 1900, and then, upon McKinley's death by assassination on September 14, 1901, Hobart would have become the 26th President of the United States.

Instead, Theodore Roosevelt was elected Vice President in 1900, and became one of the most influential Presidents in the country's history, while Hobart has been forgotten. Had he become President, most of TR's progressive reforms probably wouldn't have happened, and there might have been a more fractious America in the early 20th Century.

Under the Presidential Succession Act of 1886, from Hobart's death on November 21, 1899 until McKinley's 2nd term on March 4, 1901, the man next in line for the Presidency was the Secretary of State, John Hay.

John Hay

Hay, who had been involved in Republican Administrations since Abraham Lincoln's, never had to worry about that. He continued to serve as Secretary of State under Roosevelt, until his own death on July 1, 1905.

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November 21, 1899 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. Basketball barely existed, and hockey only did so on an amateur level. So there were no scores on this historic day. 

November 18, 1903: America Gains the Rights to the Panama Canal

Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla

November 18, 1903: The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C., giving America the right to build the Panama Canal.

President Theodore Roosevelt knew a canal would be of great benefit to American military might, and also to American business. And the rest of the world would benefit, too, and America could make money off of that.

In 1903, an agreement was reached between American and Colombian diplomats for America to take over the building of the canal. But the Senate of Colombia rejected the treaty. So Roosevelt provided aid to the Panamanian rebels, and they gained their independence from Colombia. A new agreement was reached, and TR was soon telling people, "I took Panama."

Article I of the treaty was America's recognition of the independence of the Republic of Panama. Articles II through XXVI (2 through 26) gave America what became known as the Panama Canal Zone, and explained America's rights within that Zone, including the right to build the Canal.

Signing for America was the Secretary of State, John Hay. As a young man, he was an aide to President Abraham Lincoln, providing a direct link between Honest Abe and TR. He died 2 years later.

John Hay

Signing for Panama was Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, the country's French diplomatic representative, an indispensable provider for the Panamanian rebels, and previously the chief engineer of France's since-abandoned effort at building a Panama Canal.

Construction began on May 4, 1904. On November 14, 1906, TR visited the construction zone, becoming the 1st incumbent President of the United States to visit another country. He became identified with the canal to the point where a palindrome -- a word or saying that reads the same forward and backward -- was coined: "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!"

Unlike Hay, Bunau-Varilla lived long enough to attend the Canal's opening. But he could not do so: By the time it opened on August 15, 1914, World War I had broken out. Though already 55 years old, he returned to France to aid in its war effort. He was supervising engineering works at the Battle of Verdun in 1916, when an exploding shell cost him a leg.

He survived that war, but died on May 18, 1940, mere days before the Nazis rolled into Paris. Nevertheless, the Panama Canal enabled American ships to get from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean much quicker than before, which would have required going all the way around South America. The Canal proved vital in the Allied victories in both World Wars.

In 1977, a new treaty was signed, giving control over the Canal Zone back to Panama, effective in 1999.

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November 18, 1903 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. Basketball barely existed, and hockey had only begun to be professional. So there were no games on this historic day.

September 14, 1901: William McKinley Dies, Theodore Roosevelt Becomes President

Artist's depiction of the Inauguration.

No photographs were allowed.

September 14, 1901: President William McKinley dies in Buffalo, New York, 8 days after having been shot at the Pan-American Exposition in the city. He was 58 years old.

Vice President Theodore Roosevelt had been vacationing with his family in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State when he received word that McKinley was shot. He rushed by train to Buffalo, visited McKinley, and was told by the doctors that the President would recover. He took them at their word, got on a train, and went back to his family.

But on the night of September 13 -- a Friday the 13th -- word reached TR that McKinley had taken a turn for the worse. He got on a stagecoach to the North Creek Station on the New York Central Railroad. Upon his arrival there, in the middle of the night on September 14, he was informed that McKinley had died at 2:15 AM.

North Creek Station

Upon arrival in Buffalo, he was put up at the home of Ansley Wilcox, a lawyer, a New York State political figure, and a friend of his. At 3:00 PM, several members of McKinley's Cabinet gathered there, including Secretary of War Elihu Root and Attorney General Philander Knox. Senator Chauncey Depew of New York was also on hand.

The Ansley Wilcox House

Roosevelt would not let the journalists on hand take any photographs, probably for safety reasons: The kind of flash photography used at the time would have been a fire hazard. John R. Hazel, a judge for the United States District Court for the Western District of New York, administered the Oath of Office. Roosevelt had to wear a borrowed formal suit, and there was no Bible on which to place his hand.

Judge John R. Hazel

Roosevelt made no speech, no "Inaugural Address," aside from his statement when Hazel asked him if he was ready to take the Oath: "I will take the oath. And in this hour of deep and terrible national bereavement, I wish to state that it shall be my aim to continue, absolutely without variance, the policy of President McKinley, for the peace and honor of our beloved country."

Under the Presidential Succession Act of 1886, from McKinley's death on September 14, 1901 until the next Presidential term began on March 4, 1905, the man next in line for the Presidency was the Secretary of State, John Hay.

John Hay

The great fear of McKinley loyalists is that TR wouldn't continue McKinley's policies. Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio, the political boss who did more than anyone else to turn McKinley from a failed Congressman into a popular Governor and then a beloved President, but had opposed Roosevelt's replacement of the late Garret Hobart as Vice President on the 1900 Republican ticket, said, "That damned cowboy is President now!"

TR managed to have it both ways: He continued McKinley's expansionist foreign policy, but was considerably more progressive in domestic policy, just as Hanna had feared. In many ways, he became the 1st modern President of the United States.

He hated the nickname "Teddy,"

although he didn't mind people using his initials, "TR."

Hanna despised Roosevelt, and may have put up a candidate to oppose him in the 1904 election, possibly himself. But he died early in the year, and TR rough-rode his way to a landslide win. On March 4, 1905, he got a real Inauguration, at the U.S. Capitol, and used the same Bible he used when he was sworn in as Governor of New York in 1899.

Ansley Wilcox died in 1930. His house, at 641 Delaware Avenue, has been preserved as Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site. Judge John Hazel lived until 1951.

In a 2016 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played Theodore Roosevelt, while British comedian Dan Bull played Winston Churchill. In reality, the two men met only once, at a dinner at the Governor's Mansion in Albany, New York on December 10, 1900, with TR about to leave the Governorship as Vice President-elect, and Churchill, then only 26 years old but already a hero of the Boer War and a member of Britain's House of Commons, on a lecture tour of America.

Although the two men would seem to have a lot in common, TR once wrote a letter about the then-young British politician and writer, saying, "I do not like Winston Churchill," accusing both him and his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, of "inordinate thirst for that cheap form of admiration which is given to notoriety, as to make them poor public servants." Winston's feelings about TR do not appear to have been recorded. TR's daughter Alice suggested it was because they were so much alike that they didn't get along. Churchill biographer Robert Pilpel wrote, "It was a case of likes repelling."

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September 14, 1901 was a Saturday. Although it was already known by gametime, via telegraph, that McKinley had died, the day's scheduled baseball games were played. They would, however, be postponed on September 19, the day of his funeral. These were the games:

* Boston Beaneaters 9, New York Giants 2 at the South End Grounds in Boston. Kid Nicholas went the distance for the win.

* Boston Americans 12, Washington Senators 1 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. Cy Young advanced to 30-9 on the season.

* Doubleheader at Columbia Park in Philadelphia. 1st game: Philadelphia Athletics 7, Baltimore Orioles 2. 2nd game: A's 3, O's 2. Eddie Plank started the 2nd game, but left after 2 innings. Over the 2 games, Nap Lajoie went 5-for-10 with 2 RBIs.

* Doubleheader at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. 1st game: Pittsburgh Pirates 5, Cincinnati Reds 3. 2nd game: Pirates 8, Reds 4. Over the 2 games, Honus Wagner went 0-for-4 with an RBI.

* Cleveland Blues 5, Detroit Tigers 3 at Bennett Park in Detroit. Sam Crawford did not play.

* No games for the Brooklyn Superbas, the Chicago White Sox, the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals.

The college football season began the next week. In English soccer, Woolwich Arsenal lost to Preston North End, 2-0 at Deepdale Stadium in Preston, Lancashire.