The End of the Roosevelt Episode [excerpt]

     As it was, Theodore Roosevelt was only an accident in the presidency. No one thought of nominating him for president in the Republican convention in Philadelphia in 1900.
     That convention was a typical capitalistic convention—dominated by the late Mark A. Hanna—and it re-nominated William McKinley unanimously. The delegates did not have much to say anyway in that conven- [194][195] tion. And the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt for vice-president was made for the double purpose of adding a popular “war-hero” to the ticket and of finally disposing of Theodore Roosevelt. For it is an unwritten law that the nomination for vice-president means the political death of the nominee—unless the unexpected happens.

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     But the unexpected did happen. McKinley was assassinated and Theodore Roosevelt—the man Thomas C. Platt of New York wanted to dispose of by making him vice-president—became the president of the United States.
     The rest is well known. The outcome could not have been different. It was easy to foretell it, for anybody acquainted with the history of the Republican party.