In 1904 for the first time the Socialist candidates received some votes in every state. In 1908 they were voted for in every State except Vermont.

The count of the electoral votes took place on February 10, 1909. The proceedings were identical in form with those that were observed in 1905. The concurrent resolution prescribing the form was passed by both houses of Congress without a suggestion of amendment, without debate, and without opposition. The only incident of the count- and it is hardly worthy of mention is that the electors for the State of Wisconsin were found to have certified that their votes for President were given to William H. Taft, of New York. The tellers were permitted to treat the error as an accident, and the votes were counted as for Mr. Taft, of Ohio.

The inauguration, which took place on March 4, 1909, possessed some features worthy of notice. Arrangements were made for unusual display and ceremony. The installation of a President in office has gradually become an occasion for spectacular effects and for immense gatherings of politicians and of supporters of the new President. It was estimated that on the great day in 1909 Washington contained more than a hundred thousand visitors who had been drawn to the capital city to witness the advent of a new administration.

The Weather Bureau predicted a fine day for the ceremony, but the weather is capricious in early March, and Washington awoke on that morning to find a severe storm raging — wind, and snow, and sleet, and rain. Most elaborate bunting decorations adorned the buildings along Pennsylvania Avenue. They were drenched and drooping long before the President and the President-elect entered the motor-car at the White House to proceed to the Capitol. When the distinguished company was assembled in the Senate Chamber both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, and the Diplomatic Corps the oath was administered to Mr. Sherman, the Vice-President-elect, who delivered a brief inaugural address, the Senate adjourned, the Senate as it was to be constituted for the ensuing two years was called to order, and the oath was administered to the new senators.

At this point it is customary for a procession to be formed to proceed to the east front of the Capitol, where the oath of office is taken by the new President in the presence of assembled tens of thousands of people. But owing to the extremely in

clement weather and the age of many of those in official position who would take part in the procession, the inauguration took place in the Senate Chamber. The oath was administered to Mr. Taft by Chief Justice Fuller, the sixth, and last, time that he inducted a President into office. The ambition of Mr. Taft, of which he made no secret, to occupy a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court, led to an interesting variation of the ceremony. It has been the custom of Presidents to take the oath on a Bible, usually presented to them for the purpose, and to retain the book. But Mr. Taft wished to make use of the Bible on which, for well-nigh a century, justices of the Supreme Court have placed a hand when taking the oath.

After the delivery of the inaugural address, Mr. Roosevelt, now a private citizen, retired from the Senate Chamber, hotly applauded as he withdrew, and under the escort of a large body of New Yorkers, went directly to the railway station, where he was soon joined by Mrs. Roosevelt, and took the train for his home at Oyster Bay.

That also was a departure from custom, for it has been usual for the retiring President to accompany his successor not only in going to the Capitol, but on the return to the White House. On this occasion both Mr. Taft and Mr. Sherman were accompanied by their wives on the return journey. The parade which had been planned was carried out in spite of slush in the street and sleet in the air, and the newly installed President and Vice-President reviewed it from a stand in front of the White House.

IV

THE REPUBLICAN SCHISM

On the morning after the inauguration, in 1909, many of the daily newspapers of the country "featured" a photograph of the outgoing and incoming Presidents standing side by side, which was taken the moment before they left together the White House for the Capitol, where Mr. Taft was to take the oath of office. The two men, then so friendly, were nevertheless to be, willingly or unwillingly, the central figures in the most furiously waged contest that ever wrecked an American political party.

The breach, the division, seen after the event to have been inevitable, had many contributing causes, but the underlying cause was the strong personality of Theodore Roosevelt, which had won for him a countless host of followers, unalterably determined to accept none but him as a leader.

The Republican party was organized originally for a radical purpose, to stem the progress of slavery. Gradually, so soon as its chief objects - emancipation, restoration of the Union, reconstruction, and a protective tariff-had been achieved, it became essentially the conservative party of the country; and the Democrats, allying themselves successively with Greenbackers, Populists, and Free Silver men, fell completely under the control of a radical element. The Democratic party, nevertheless, still retained in its membership a considerable contingent of conservatives, many of whom manifested their independence by their support of Palmer and Buckner in 1896; others, in order to preserve their party standing and regularity, and in the hope of a revulsion sooner or later against radicalism, voted the straight ticket in that election, with great reluctance. Eight years later, after two party defeats, they were nominally allowed to assume control in order to test their strength in the country. The result was a third defeat and a resumption of leadership by the radicals.

Meantime, on the death of President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt had succeeded to office. Although, during the remainder of the McKinley term, so far as his natural

disposition permitted he kept his promise to continue the policies they were conservative policies of his predecessor, he soon gave unmistakable indications that the bent of his mind was not merely mildly but strongly radical. Yet he had obtained an extraordinary hold upon the people of the country, and his nomination for a full term and his election were inevitable. The really conservative opinion within his party made little secret of its opposition to him, but there was no open opposition after he was nominated. There is no reason to think that any considerable number of Republicans, certainly no recognized leader, voted for Parker and Davis as representing a more conservative tendency. On the other hand, there is evidence, easily deducible from the election returns, that a great many radical Democrats, angry at the temporary self-effacement of their own wing of the party, deserted their candidates and supported Roosevelt as the candidate most nearly reflecting their own political principles and aspirations. Inasmuch as Mr. Roosevelt was enthusiastically supported by a great body of admirers in his own party, who were neither conservative nor radical by strong conviction, but ready to be carried in either direction by a powerful leader; also by the conservative rank and file because they could not do otherwise, however seriously they might distrust their candidate; and by a host of temporary recruits from the other party; his success at the polls was imposing a popular majority of more than two and a half mil lion votes and an electoral majority of much more than two to one, including the votes of every northern State and of two of those usually classed as southern.

It has already been carefully emphasized, in the preceding chapter, that the result of the election of 1904 was in effect, if not a mandate to the President then chosen to lead his party and the country to the enforcement of a radical programme, at least a certificate of permission to do so. He accepted the permission and acted upon it during his full term of four years. No criticism of him for so acting is just. Two consequences, which were not then foreseen, but which are now seen to have been inevitable, were the rending of the Republican party into two factions, and the organization of the mighty host of Roosevelt's followers, most of them previously indifferent as between radicalism and conservatism, into a body of eager and enthusiastic advocates of any extreme policy Mr. Roosevelt might urge, and looking to him as the one and only agent earnest enough

and strong enough to make the proposed reform effective and complete.

It was the loyalty, little short of idolatry, to Mr. Roosevelt that furnished a sufficient explanation of the prolonged attempt in the convention of 1908 to stampede it in his favor. There is in existence it has never been published-absolutely convincing evidence of Mr. Roosevelt's sincerity in the wish that Mr. Taft should be nominated. Indeed, if there is any criticism to be made upon him in that contest it is that he transcended the bounds of propriety by his activity in Taft's behalf and by sanctioning tactics to accomplish his object which he condemned in no measured terms four years later, when the same tactics were employed against himself. The attempt to stampede the convention, whether carefully prepared in advance or spontaneous, was not prepared by him, but it was a proof of the fact that the throng of his admiring followers felt impatient and intolerant of being under any other leader, even under one chosen by the leader himself. In that respect Mr. Taft was less fortunate than the only other man in our political history who was placed in a similar situation. Van Buren also was chosen as his successor by the President, who was, like Roosevelt, a strong and domineering personality and the object of extraordinary political veneration. He too went down to defeat for a second election; but neither did Jackson turn against him, nor did Jackson's followers fail in their loyalty. Yet the two cases are so far parallel that it may be said that in neither case could any man of the same party as the retiring President have made a successful administration.

Let us consider the situation. In spite of the great popular and electoral majorities he had received, Mr. Taft was not in the ordinary sense a popular man, and did not enjoy the public confidence to a large degree. Not only were the thick-and-thin adherents of Roosevelt suspicious of his earnestness in carrying on the policies bequeathed to him, but the conservatives, in view of the fact that he was the choice of one whom they distrusted, had a more than vague apprehension that he would continue the warfare for changes which they did not approve and would prolong the period of business unrest. In short, the party which elected Taft was already divided when he took office, and there was laid upon him the hopeless task of satisfying both wings of it. At all events, that was the task he undertook and, hopeless though it was, one for which he had