The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-10-02

dency became, instead of a stepping
stone to the presidency, a graveyard
for presidential hopes, tempered and
lightened, as Roscoe Conkling put it,
by the hope of death. Or when it was
not so considered, it was used as a
mollifier to fractional anger.
President Tyler was the first vice
president to succeed to the presidency
by the death of the president under
the new order, and his administration
was a complete alienation and in the
end antagonism to the party which
elected him. Willard Fillmore succeed
! ing to the presidency in the same way,
retired from office completely out Of
harmony with his party
Andrew Johnson who succeeded Pre-
sident Lincoln, had the most tumultu-
GUS administration in the history of
America. His was not mere case Of
want of harmony with his party, but
of absolute antagonism an antagonism
that felt all the bitternesses Of the
period following a great civil war. The
breach between him and his party in
congress threatened and disturbed, as
they have never been threatened or dis
turbed before or since, the traditional
relation of the powers of the legislative
and executive.
Chester a. Arthur, nominated to the
vice presidency on the ticket with Gar
field, was avowedly and in full acknow-
ledgment, given the nomination as a
salve to the stalwart element of his
party. And with Garfield's death, oc-
curing at almost precisely the same
stage in the four years administration
that Mc<inley's death has, threw the
administration into the hands of that
faction of the party which had been
defeated in the convention for it's choice
of the presidential nomination. Arthur
entered upon his administration with
| the up to then dominant element in
the party, hostile to him from fear of
what it was supposed would be the
round and use him.
AS no quarrel equals in bitterness
family quarrel, so no political quar-
rel equals in animosity a fractional
party quarrel, and it was in the midst
of such a quarrel, augmented if pos
sible by the frenzy of defeated hopes,
aspirations and ambitions, that Arthur
began his administration. 1t was the
proof of Arthurs fitness for the office
that he disproved alike the fears of his
opponents and the selfish ambitions of
his friends. He closed his administra-
ton with as near an approach to the
healing of party faction as it was pos
sible to have come in the given time
and with the confidence of the nation
at large. So widespread was this con-
fidence that he was a formidable can
didate for denomination, and was only
defeated for it by the unbrookable de-
termination of the Blaine cohorts that
their idol should have the nomination
they felt had at least twice been I'M
fairly wrested from him. The nominal
ton of Blaine led to Democratic sue
cess and the election of Cleveland.
Roosevelt's nomination to the vice
presidency was in some respects not
dissimilar in its conditions to those of
Arthurs. He was not the choice of the
party Warwicks. His nomination was
forced on them by conditions which
they could not control His character
and party and public service did not
commend him to them. They bowed to
the inevitable, but not with full ac-
ceptance.
The plans, the hopes, the ambitions
of the party Warwicks who opposed
Roosevelt must of necessity in SEEM
ing, at least be thwarted, or at least
changed and modified by Roosevelts |
accession to the presidency. These men |
cannot see in his rugged, impetuous, |
character any hope of con-
formity with their ambitions other
than that may come from his own will
without coercion. Roosevelt is not in
harmony with the machinery Of his
party as Mckinley was.
Roosevelt, all DISCUSSES aside, comes
o the presidency much as Arthur did.
he has this advantage over Arthur of
| wider public service giving him the
confidence of the people, and far less
If antagonism and fractional bitterness
n his party. 1t may therefore be con-
identity expected and his career and
give confidence to the
that his administration
will more than equal Arthurs in heal
ng party differences and strengthen
ng party supremacy, and will not
make way for a Democratic successor.
Faith in the somewhat shaken theory
If equinoctial storms ought to be some-