A 1900 McKinley-Roosevelt campaign button
June 21, 1900: The Republican National Convention concludes at the Exposition Auditorium, which later became part of the Philadelphia Civic Center. Surprising no one, the Republican Party nominates the incumbent President, William McKinley, for a 2nd term.
But Vice President Garret Hobart had died the year before, leaving the office vacant. So McKinley needed a new running mate.
One of McKinley's nominating speeches was given by Theodore Roosevelt. The son of a wealthy New York glass importer and Republican fundraiser (also named Theodore Roosevelt), he had served as the Minority Leader of the State Assembly, , the President of the New York City Board of Police Commissioners, and the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, before resigning that post and enlisting in the U.S. Army for the Spanish-American War. His heroics at the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba in 1898 got him elected Governor of New York 4 months later.
As Governor, he insisted upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the poor. The people of the Empire State loved this.
One person in the State who did not love it was former U.S. Senator Thomas Platt, considered the Republican Party's "boss" in the State. The kind of person who would be easily recognized as a Republican today, he wanted corporations to be able to do as they pleased. He wanted Roosevelt out as Governor, but he would have been easily re-elected in 1900. (The term of the Governor of New York was increased from 2 to 4 years in 1937, in time for the 1938 election.) Platt knew that backing anyone for a Primary campaign against Roosevelt would be futile.
So he began a newspaper campaign in favor of Roosevelt's nomination for the vacant Vice Presidency. Matthew Quay, the Republican boss of Pennsylvania, who had claimed to have stolen the 1888 Presidential election for Benjamin Harrison, and had, like Platt, been an early supporter of McKinley for the 1896 nomination, agreed to support Roosevelt for the nomination. McKinley himself raised no objection.
Who did? Two very important men: Roosevelt himself, who didn't really want the job; and McKinley's campaign manager, the Republican boss of Ohio, Senator Mark Hanna. The idea was that, as Vice President, Roosevelt couldn't do any of his reform stuff. But Hanna knew that the Vice President could become President, and Hanna didn't want Roosevelt to do for the country what he'd been doing for the State of New York.
Hanna told anyone who would listen, "Don't any of you realize that there's only one life between that madman and the Presidency? Platt and Quay are no better than idiots! What harm can he do as Governor of New York compared to the damage he will do as President if McKinley should die?"
But Quay rounded up enough Delegates that Roosevelt was easily nominated. One of the most energetic and self-assured politicians America has ever known was maneuvered out of a job he liked, and placed in the role of a political pawn. Nevertheless, he campaigned hard for McKinley's re-election. After leaving the Convention, Hanna wrote to McKinley, "Your duty to the country is to live for four years from next March."
On November 6, 1900, the McKinley-Roosevelt ticket was elected over the Democratic ticket of William Jennings Bryan, whom McKinley had also defeated in 1896, and Adlai Stevenson, grandson of a man who would twice be the Democratic nominee for President, but lose badly both times.
On March 4, 1901, William McKinley was sworn in for a 2nd term as President, and Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as Vice President. On September 6, 1901, Mark Hanna's worst fear was realized, as McKinley was shot. On September 14, McKinley died, and Roosevelt was sworn in as the 26th President of the United States. Hanna said, “Now we’ve got that damned cowboy as President!”
Sure enough, TR began enacting progressive policies. That said, he and Hanna got along fairly well. McKinley loyalists hoped that Hanna would oppose Roosevelt for the Republican nomination for a full term as President. But, as it turned out, Hanna didn't live through the full 2nd McKinley term, either: His health began to fail in 1903, and he died of typhoid fever on February 15, 1904, at the age of 66.
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June 21, 1900 was a Thursday. There were 2 baseball games, both in what was then the only available major league, the National League. The Boston Beaneaters, forerunners of the Braves, beat the New York Giants, 5-1 at the Polo Grounds. And the Brooklyn Superbas, forerunners of the Dodgers, beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-6 at National League Park (later renamed Baker Bowl) in Philadelphia.
