The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-12-12
HITCHCOCK WILL
ENTER CABINET
Will Fare Better Than Most
Campaign Managers
Have Done.
BY Ernest G.. Walker.


pltahty of the PresIdent-elect at Ho
Springs, National Chairman Frank II
Hitchcock may be at the threshold O
four fat years, Astounding with evi
dences of White House gratitude. L
so, he will be almost the single excep
tion in long line of National chair
men, Republicans and Democrats, who
have headed the victorious campaign
organizations.
There was another notable exception
in the late Senator Mark Hanna, the
last of an oldtime dynasty that really
ran campaigns and managed candidates
and possessed paramount authority. lie
attained to the zenith of the glories
| that can attend successful National
chairman, for he was given the fullest
recognition by the President, whom he
elected, dispensed patronage galore and
was regarded as very big luminary
indeed in the political armament Of
that time. The anecdote is still told in
Washington of Mr.. Hanna s visit to
the White House to ask Mr.. Mckinley
to make some appointment. When he
heard the request and Hanna had begun
to give reasons, Mckinley put his arm
around the shoulders of his National
chairman and observed:
eyes, Mark. You know I am no
politician
Whereat Mr.. Hanna put his arm
around the shoulders of Mr.. Mckinley
and retorted:
"And, William, you know I am no
d fool. -
But the careers of national chairmen
for the last twentyeight years, which
covers the period when those officials
have been of any particular eminenee in
presidential struggles, have been embit-
tened by disapp6intments. There has
been a succession of charges of ingrati-
tude, which have occasionally develop
ed into hot personal quarrels. Harri-
sons quarrel with Quay is almost his
toric, having eliminated in a curt in
quiry and rejoinder, the like of which
never was before or since in the annals
of National committees.
"Mr. Harrison,' asked National
Chairman Quay, when request for
the promotion of his son, Curtin Quay,
from Captain to Major in the regular
army, had been refused, "who do you
think elected you?'
''God in His wisdom elected me-
retorted Mr. Harrison coolly
And ever after that, up to the day
of his death, the Delaware Indian blood
in the Pennsylvania Senator's veins
boiled with resentment. He kept this
sentence standing in his official biogra-
ply in the Congressional Directory:
"Selected a member of the Repub-
lican national committee and chosen
chairman thereof, and ex-officio chair
man of the executive committee when
the committee organized in July, 1888,
and conducted the successful presiden-
tial campaign of that year; delegate to
the Republican national convention of
1892 and voted aga Ist the renomina |
ton of Benjamin HARRISON
The dominant idea in the old days !
was of a national chairman as a poll 7
tician, not as a statesman. Along with |
that idea went the understanding that |
a national chairman must not aspire |
to a place in the cabinet of the Pres
ident whom he had elected. Mckinley |
thought of taking Hanna into his cabi-
net in 1897, but feared the prospects |
that such course would prove unpop- |
ular. In lieu of that, it was arranged |
to make John Sherman, then Senator, |
Secretary of State and to bestow Sher |
man S toga upon Hanna, which was |
done.
To be sure, Marshall Jewel, of Con |
necticut, who managed the Garfield |
was Postmaster General, but |
he served in the cabinet of the second |
Grant administration, four years before |
Garfield was nominated. The national |
committee named him as chairman
against Garfield s wishes When Gar
field had been elected, after very hard
fought campaign, his popular vote hay
ing been but a little in excess of that |
EAST for Hancock, Jewell was repudi-
ited. The Civil Service law was not |
hen mighty barrier against the spoils |
syctem and Garfield had large distri-
button of loaves and fishes. There are
still in existence a number of very
letters that Mr.. Jewell wrote,
his ideas of President Gar
field s ingratitude.
President Roosevelt ushered in the
IRA of national chairmen at the official
council table. He prefaced it by call:
ng the late Henry C. Payne, of Wis
,onsin, to Washington to be Postmaster
General. Mr. Payne was trained poll
.ician, of nation reputations easily
n the national chairman class. 1t was
Understood that one of Mr. Roosevelt s
.easons for bringing him to Washing
on was to secure aid in effecting his
,wn nomination in 1904 Had Mr.
Payne been in robust health, he might
ave been President Roosevelt s selec
ion for national chairman that year,
instead of Mr.. Cortelyou, who resigned
IS Secretary of Commerce and Labor,
md after the campaign, was made Post.
MASTER General. Now it is said that
oresident-elect Taft~will follow some
What similar course, by promoting Mr..
Hitchcock to a cabinet position after
March t next.
The wall of ingratitude against Gar
ield. uttered by National Chairman
Jewell, was repeated against Cleveland,
Turing his first term. by the late Sen
tor Arthur P. German, Of Maryland.
lie had managed the successful Demo