The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-09-20
Presidential Campaigns
XXI The Parker Race of 1904

By Frederic ,. Haskin.

Five times in the history or the United States has the vice-president been called upon to assume the ohce of president. Each time the presiuene by accident" has endeavored to oo.sin election to the highest ofnce Tn ms own right. John Tyier, slec.ed s,.,, hs. president as a whig. broke with ms party and attempted to get the Demo cratic nomination. Willard Fillmore fought hard for the whig nomination fin 1852. Andrew Johnson. elected Mi..i Lincoln on the Union ticket Tn iso4' was an avowed candidate for the re gular Democratic nomination in ises. Chester A. Arthur used all the force of the administration to bring about his nomination in 1884. but was de- feated by Blaine's great popularity.
 These were the precedents which men called to mind when Theodore Roosevelt became president or the United States upon the death Of William Mckinley. If there is any thing in the world which theodore Roosevelt does not respect 1t IS a pre- oedent. From the beginning it was his purpose to break the bonds of the wios-presidential hoodoo. No less captain than Senator Hanna began to plof for the defeat of Roosevelt in the Republican convention of 1904. The old line Republican leaders reared Roosevelt and they hoped to stop his
 
 anti Roosevelt politicians could find no leader willing to be sacrificed. ~Teddy' was popular all over the country, the nation was more pros perous than ever before in its history and everybody was saying "Let we'll enough alone"
 So 1t came about that the Republi- can convention which met in Chicago was the most harmonious national convention ever held by that party The nomination of MT. Roosevelt was assured. and everybody had agreed on MT Fairbanks for second place before the convention was well organized. It was the only Republican national con vention in which not one single ques- ton was contested on the floor. The national committee had promised to give Chicago q three-days convention. and 1t was only to fulfil promise that the convention lasted more than two days
 Such harmony was not the protion Of the poor Democrats. While MT. Bryan still held a great personal fol- lowing among the voters of his party. the politicians looked upon him as sure loser. He was not a candidate for the nomination. nor would he espouse the cause of any other candi- date. He did, however. insist that the nominee should not be taken from that faction of the party which had been
  Democrats since the Cleveland days.
 Alton B. Parker had been elected chief judge of the Court of Appeals of New York state by a great majority in the very year after Mckinley had swept the state. A man of ability. with good record on the bench and l in politics. the politicians looked to him as a Democratic Moses. Senti- Sentiment did not CIrystalize on Parker. however, until the southern and western leaders saw that 1t was necessary to agree upon some one candidate to head off the stampede for William Randolph Hearst. MT. Hearst was making an earnest campaign for the nomination. and was spending money and spilling printers ink with out stint. A ooterte of New York Democrats of great wealth, headed by August Belmont backed the Parker Boom with plenty of money.
 When the convention met at St. L&uis it was practically certain that Parker would be nominated. but it was alsA certain that there would be a great fight on the platform. Tn the ComApittees on Resolutions the radi-