The Irish standard., 1908-01-11
The Council Table of Theodore Roosevelt
Has Outclassed All Others in Seek
ing This High Honor.
Always Found More or Less Easy to Make
the Cabinet Favorite Recruiting
Ground for the Presidency.

ously and prominently in the presiden-
tial contest Of 1924. While Monroe
openly expressed 10 particular pref
erence as to his successor, he was
quoted as being III favor of Crawford,
who was secretary of the treasury un-
der him, although personally he dis
liked Crawford i'll the latter part of
their service together. Another aspir-
ant was the secretary of state, John
Quincy Adams. Early in Monroe's Sec
ond term, when the question of the Sc
lection of his successor came up, Call
houn, as secretary of war, was NEIL
toned as one of the candidates, thus
giving the cabinet three places among
the presidency seekers for the CAM
paign of 1924. Calhoun withdrew from
the list Of aspirants for the higher Of
flee, however, before the voting took
place, and let it be known that he
sought the vice presidency instead.
Friendship Retained.
In this way he retained the friend
cabinet, and all of the aspirants for the
higher Office supported him for the
second place. That was before the
days of national delegate conventions,
and it was just after the time that con-
gressional caucuses were looked to for
guidance in the selection of candidates.
Secretary Adams was elected in 1924,
as against Secretary Crawford and two
candidates who We're outside of the
Standardization and Clay.
When Adams made Clay his secre-
tary of state the country accepted that
choice as an evidence that he preferred
Clay to any other person as his sue
cessor But this time the transition
from cabinet to presidency was broken.
Adams was not chosen by the electoral
college. In the contest between four
persons no one of them received a
majority, and the House of Represent
eltASSo Woo SctAASO upOI4 " uldhC d CllOlCt1
between the three highest. AS Clay
was at the bottom Of the list he was
out of the race when the choice went
to the house. He then threw his sup
port to Adams and elected him. When
Adams made Clay his secretary OF
state the charge of corrupt bargain
between the two was started by Jack
sons friends, the post Of head of the
cabinet being assigned as the price of
Clays support for Adams in the con-
test in the House. Both Adams and
Clay denied tho accusation, and nobody
nowadays believes it, but many persons
at that time imagined there was some
truth in it. The charge injured both
Adams and Clay, and helped, in some
slight degree, to elect jackson in 1928
as Adams successor. AS Jackson, the
victor over the British Of New Orleans,
had a far greater personal popularity
than Adams, he would have easily de-
feated Adams in any case in 1928, when
the contest narrowed down to q fight
between these two. Clay was Jack
sons rival for the presidency in 1892,
when Jackson sought a second term,
but Clay was beaten far worse than
Adams had been four years earlier.
Post Rssains Prestige.
Under jackson the post of secretary
Of state regained some Of it's potency
as a stepping stone to the higher office
Jackson gave Van Buren the portfolio
of state, but in the tempestuous social
and political feuds Of the time the
cabinet was dissolved early, and Van
Buren, resigned in order to allow Jack
son a chance to get rid of some cabinet
| members who had lost his friendship
Jackson made Van Buren minister to
England, but when the Senate got over
to the point Of acting on the nomina-
tion it rejected the appointment, and
Van Buren,, who was already at his
post, was compelled to return to the
United States. 1t was humiliation
for both the president and his appoint